"Ivy"s idea over the headphones, my execution," Sophia admitted. "Just in time, too."
"I wanted you two to have a little privacy," Ivy explained.
"Thank you," Olivia said at the same time as Jackson.
Ivy could see that her sister was absolutely beaming from the buzz of performing, or from finally getting that kiss with Jackson? Probably both.
Camilla burst into the green room, with an unreadable look on her face.
Uh oh, Ivy thought. Camilla had been so strict through all the rehearsals. What did she think of the chaos of her carefully constructed ending?
Camilla broke out in a huge smile. "That was better than I could have ever imagined. Why didn"t I think of putting Juliet with Mercutio?" She gave them both a hug. "We"re going to do the rest of the performances like that, as long as I can keep Garrick in check."
By then, other cast members" families were flooding backstage, presenting everything from neon flower bouquets to boxes of gold-painted chocolates.
"Olivia!" called Mrs Abbott, waving from the curtains. "Can we join you?"
"Of course." Camilla waved them over. "Your daughter is a genius!"
"We"re so proud of you, honey," Mrs Abbott said.
"And, ahem, Jackson you were, uh, very good, too." Mr Abbott was having a hard time saying it.
Ivy saw her sister blush. It must have been weird for Mr Abbott to almost-witness his daughter"s first kiss.
"Thanks so much for putting up with me," Ivy overheard Camilla saying to Olivia.
"It was a great show," Olivia replied. "You are really a fantastic writer and director."
"I agree," said a familiar voice behind Ivy. It was Amy Teller Ivy hadn"t noticed her in the audience. She must have been right at the back.
"You whipped a motley crew into shape in three weeks and put on a very entertaining show." Amy nodded her approval. "I"ll be keeping my eye on you, young lady. I"m always looking to make friends with talented people."
Camilla blushed and Olivia clapped for her.
Ivy spotted her dad through the crowd, followed by Aunt Rebecca.
Rebecca smiled and waved, but thoughts of Lucky came rushing back and, suddenly, Ivy didn"t feel like celebrating any more.
"I wasn"t expecting to like the sci-fi version," Mr Vega said to Camilla. "But it really worked."
Camilla grinned. "Thank you."
"And you, Olivia, were a wonderful Julietron," he continued.
"I couldn"t have said it better," Aunt Rebecca said.
Ivy shared a look with Olivia. That might be the first time those two had ever agreed on anything.
Maybe it could be the beginning of the two of them finally getting along?
Ivy dropped her fork and it clattered on to her half-eaten plate of food.
"Sorry," she murmured.
They were back at the ranch, silently hoping for any hint of news about Lucky. It had been a week since he"d escaped and there hadn"t been any sign of him. How was he getting through the cold nights and was he OK without his medicine? If only I"d never gone into that stable! Ivy felt like she would never stop berating herself.
"It"s been a hard week," Rebecca said, to fill the silence. "But I"m not giving up hope."
Ivy felt as grey as the sky. Outside, the wind was blowing like a storm was coming.
During this lunch, there had already been three choruses of, "It"s not your fault, Ivy." And it seemed there wasn"t much else to say.
Once they were done with their mushroom salad, Olivia and Rebecca were planning to go out riding again. Ivy had nibbled a Vita Vamp bar in the bathroom just before lunch, but it had tasted sour.
Hank and John were already out there, searching. Ivy and Mr Vega would only be able to sit and wait.
Ivy picked at her food. She wouldn"t want even a rare sirloin steak today. Her appet.i.te was lost somewhere out there in the woods with Lucky.
"Lovely meal," Mr Vega said, being polite. Of course, he"d much rather be sinking his teeth into a beef stir-fry or some Italian meatb.a.l.l.s.
At least he"s trying to get along with Rebecca, Ivy thought.
"Thank you," Rebecca replied, but the conversation couldn"t go any further. There just wasn"t much to talk about that wasn"t about Lucky.
The ringing phone cut through the silence and made Ivy jump.
Rebecca flew out of her chair to the phone on the wall, a hopeful look on her face. "Yes, h.e.l.lo?" Ivy wanted to hear what was being said, until she saw her aunt"s face fall. "Yes, yes, it"s OK. I understand." Rebecca started sniffling. "Thank you for trying."
When she hung up, Rebecca leaned against the kitchen counter.
"That was Jerry Green, the local sheriff. He"s suspending the search by his department. They did a last sweep this morning, but there"s nothing more they can do." Rebecca slid down the wall and buried her head in her hands. "I just have to accept that we"re not going to find him." Her voice was m.u.f.fled.
Ivy couldn"t take it any more. I did this, she thought. "Excuse me," she said.
Olivia made eye contact, asking if Ivy wanted company, but Ivy shook her head. She just wanted to be alone.
She rushed up the stairs and threw herself on the big quilt. The square she was lying on had a little blue embroidery the initials S.K. This square was her mom"s that meant probably the whole quilt was.
I"m so stupid. Why did I even try to bond with Lucky? I"m not my mom. I"m not good with horses.
Ivy wiped her eyes and her black eyeliner smeared across the back of her hand. She didn"t even care.
She reached for her phone and called Brendan, but there was no answer. She tried a second time and then gave up, turning off her phone.
Maybe if Mom was here, she thought, she would know what to do. Ivy sat bolt upright. But Mom is sort of here ...
She opened the desk drawer and took out the precious journal. What if she wrote something about Lucky? Where they liked to ride to, where he might be.
Ivy knew she had promised to look at it with her sister, but Olivia would understand. She tucked it under her arm, crept down the stairs, grabbed her black pea coat and went out into the muggy air. The spot where Lucky disappeared looked like a black hole in the tree line. Ivy knew that"s where she should start.
"Who says I can"t search on foot?" she said aloud.
She opened the journal and read as she walked, not really knowing where she was going.
Help me, Mom. Help Lucky.
She flicked through pages, catching words and phrases here and there, but there weren"t many mentions of horses in the first pages. Finally a sentence caught her attention.
I just don"t get why Rebecca is so obsessed with the horses, her mom had written.
Ivy stopped in her tracks. She couldn"t believe what she was reading. That can"t be right! Ivy thought. Her mom was horse-crazy. There were photos everywhere to prove it.
Ivy wracked her brain but realised that in all the journal entries she"d read so far, there hadn"t been any mention of her mom riding horses, just Rebecca.
She kept reading and walking, stepping over gnarled tree-roots as she went.
They are beautiful, but I"d never tell Rebecca this they are scary. And there are so many things to remember to do. I think I"ll never be a horsey person. Rebecca said that horses can sense your fear, and I think they can smell me a mile off. They always look like they want to run away from me.
Ivy was astounded. Her mom had the same problem that she had. Her mom wasn"t a vampire, which could mean only one thing. I inherited my fear of horses from her! Ivy couldn"t resist the spark of hope that lit up inside her. She had something in common with her mom, after all.
Olivia scrubbed at the plate, even though she could see that it was already clean.
She was helping Aunt Rebecca wash up after lunch. Hank and John had come back, with no news except that they thought a heavy rainstorm was coming. Rebecca didn"t think the trails would be safe, so she decided to wait until it pa.s.sed to set out again.
The idea of washing the dishes was to take her mind off Lucky, but not much could. It was an awful thing for such a magnificent creature to be lost and alone, especially one as vulnerable as Lucky.
"Thank you for lunch," Mr Vega said. "I"ll head back home now."
"You are welcome," Rebecca said, with none of the warmth she used when talking to the girls. She was courteous, as always, but that"s as far as it went between the two of them.
Olivia gave her bio-dad a hug, and then he went to the bottom of the stairs. "Ivy! Come and say goodbye; I"m heading home."
There was no answer.
"Maybe she has her headphones on," Olivia suggested. "I"ll just run up and check."
Olivia went upstairs to their shared bedroom, opened the door and saw ... an empty room.
"She"s gone!" she called down the stairs. "Ivy"s gone!"
Ivy was entranced by the journal, reading as quickly as she could, glancing up only briefly to avoid being hit in the face by branches.
It"s like everyone telling me to grow my hair and wear flowery dresses. Why do I have to look like everyone else?
Her mom talked about feeling less pretty than Rebecca, even though they looked almost exactly the same, and how sometimes she felt the extended family preferred Rebecca.
Ivy clutched the journal tightly.
There was a time when her mother felt like she didn"t belong, too. But she didn"t let it upset her, and she didn"t change who she was. Ivy knew she must have inherited that from her mom, too.
She flicked on a few pages and saw entries about the pregnant horse, Lavender.
I"ve decided I want to have tons of kids when I grow up like five.
Ivy"s heart skipped a beat.
Lavender looks so huge. John says the foal will come any day now and he"s said I can help, if I want to. I definitely do! I just hope it happens before we have to go back to school.
Ivy didn"t know what exactly she was looking for but kept scanning the pages. After the entry about Lucky"s difficult birth and choosing his name, there was a section about how Lucky liked being sung to.
I tried "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" but that didn"t work as well as "American Pie".
Ivy didn"t really know either of those songs, but if she ever managed to find Lucky, she could always try singing to him.
She looked back down at the journal and saw a fat raindrop splattered on the page. Then another.
Uh oh. Ivy realised it was about to rain and she had no idea where she was. She quickly closed the journal and tucked it into the large pocket inside her coat. She didn"t want it to get wet.
She saw a clearing ahead through the trees and hurried there, raindrops plopping on the leaves at her feet. Then, she heard a shuffling coming from ahead, something like a creature.
Ivy froze and listened.
Then she heard a whinny.
Lucky? Ivy sprinted into the clearing to see a rickety wooden shack on the other side of a high fence.
Surely Lucky can"t be in there, Ivy thought. The fence was almost as tall as Ivy was, and Lucky would have had to jump over it.
She could hear a stomping and a snort. It had to be a horse.
Then, Ivy remembered what Rebecca had said Lucky was a jumping champion. He could have jumped the fence!
Ivy hauled herself up the fence and had to swing her leg over, like she did to ride Topic. She jumped down carefully into the gra.s.sy field and hurried over to the shack.
Pulling open the door, Ivy wanted to weep with joy. It was Lucky!
"Lucky, I"m so sorry," she said. "But I"m going to get you home. Don"t you worry."
His lead had caught on a broken wooden board. Ivy noticed that there was a stack of old hay and a water b.u.t.t that collected rain water from the roof that he had been surviving on. No one had thought to look here before because of the fence.
As Ivy went to free the lead, Lucky panicked. He starting rearing up, and Ivy knew she had to calm him down.
She sang the first thing that came into her head, which was the song Brendan had played for her on his phone: "I Wear My Sungla.s.ses at Night".
It seemed to work. Lucky stopped pawing the air and his breathing slowed. Ivy kept singing and moved in to take his lead. She wasn"t going to let it go this time.
She unhooked it from the board and led him out of the shack, into the light rain. Ivy didn"t want to make Lucky jump the fence so she walked along it until she found a rusty gate. It creaked open and Lucky stepped through.