Welcome back! To anyone that is still reading: that’s so cool, thank you! I have little to say except I hope you enjoy Part II. (If you were wondering, there were some segments of the 2015 version that made it in here, too.)

PART TWO 

All the circumstances in her life made it so Ivy was not very good at making friends, she’d thought for many years. That wasn’t the truth, though. Every time she tried to draw a direct relationship between her constant moving and her prickliness, Otis ruined it. Her little brother was almost literally a human magnet. Miraculously, they were born perfect foils to one another, and it was apparent even in childhood. A new friend was brought home every day for dinner, and Ivy watched the ease with which Otis laughed and conversed. Her brother was always sad to see his friends leave, but with a bittersweet resignation wise beyond his years. Frankly, it was annoying.

Meanwhile, Ivy’s report cards usually mentioned some unusually intense attachment to her teachers. She’d always liked adults for how fully formed they seemed, even physically. She thought that if you stopped growing, you could stop changing, too. She prayed to have the chance one day.  

“Don’t you like getting to see different places?” Otis asked her on the day she turned sixteen.

This was when they lived in Hood River, Oregon. What Ivy remembered most about Hood River was how worn in her rainboots got and the smell of wet concrete and dirt. Ivy and Otis walked along one of the more beautiful, less vigorous trails closest to their home. Her parents suggested she go on a “birthday walk” with her brother. Happy residents of Hood River liked to enjoy the outdoors in all of its glorious splendor. Going on a birthday walk was precisely the kind of thing someone from Hood River would do. Ivy wasn’t from Hood River, though. She didn’t quite feel like she was from anywhere.

“I said,” Otis gestured around him with a walking stick he had picked up a few hundred feet ago, “don’t you like getting to see different places?”

Considering his question, she picked up a walking stick of her own. She liked what she could see from Hood River. Snow-capped Mount Hood framed the town. The view was prettiest when the full moon hung fat and milky above the mountain. It looked so beautiful to Ivy that it also looked fake. She imagined a crew wheeling out the moon on a flatbed and hanging it in the right spot like an ornament on a Christmas tree. She understood the point of Otis’ question. He was daring her to choose one good thing about their situation, which she would describe as an ever-changing sea of chaos. She saw the opportunity her brother was giving her to connect. His vision of the world was filled with grief like her, but wonder too—more than she knew how to handle. Tree branch shadows danced across his earnest face as he waited for her answer. Ivy wasn’t sure who she would be if she became a little more like Otis. That was the thing about foils; they had to move in opposition to be understood. She was too cowardly to bridge the gap. In her usual fashion, Ivy just gave him a shrug, disappointing both of them. 

A throbbing began behind Ivy’s eyes. Even though all four windows were down, the gasoline hung thick in the air. Otis’ question hummed in her head. Would she admit her love for a place they’d lived? Before she could decide, the center console began to emit a muffled ring, sending an ice-cold shiver down her spine. She kept her burner phone there, along with some mints and loose hair ties. It was easier for her to reach the phone if her console was empty but Ivy also couldn’t remember how to make clutter anymore. The burner phone was her tether to her employer, allowing them to talk when she was out on the field. After a few uses, she was supposed to get rid of it without telling him how. Making things disappear had become a talent of Ivy’s.

The phone didn’t often ring, only in situations when Ivy needed to know something to help her finish a job or start a new one. She usually felt neutral about these phone calls, so why had she been holding her breath since it rang? 

The thought of letting it ring itself out had never crossed her mind, but with every second that ticked by, she was allowing it to happen, now. Taking another gasoline inhale, she held her breath, not fumbling her right hand frantically into the console to answer like she should’ve done. Ivy indulged in self-sabotage every so often, and mostly by accident. It reminded her she had something to lose. How accidental this time was, Ivy wasn’t sure.

And then a memory of a town came to her, answering Otis’ question years too late. The echo of this place cracked the pit lodged in her stomach since ignoring the phone call. Sunflower, Mississippi. She’d lived there for two and a half years when she was eleven, and that was a lifetime then. At that age, what Ivy liked best was the way Sunflower, Mississippi, felt in her mouth. She loved how all the “s'” slid out fast and snake-like. It made her think about the sizzling hot summers spent there, hot enough to cook an egg on the sidewalk. Once, she and Otis had done that. Her brother made sure to sprinkle salt and pepper on it, so it tasted good to the ants. 

During Sunflower summers, Ivy and Otis were tasked with entertaining themselves. Sunflower was a tiny country town, and there weren’t many other kids who lived nearby. Leave it to her parents to find the most desolate areas to move to. Ivy and Otis stuck to each other like glue. In hindsight, Ivy guessed they had made a good pair. Otis’ bravery, coupled with Ivy’s smarts, kept their adventures exciting and mostly trouble-free. 

For fun, Ivy and Otis liked to do “bush investigations” where they’d inspect patches of shrubbery for bugs and other curiosities. It became their daily activity and they were happy to have a mission to complete. On one particularly lucky day of investigation, they’d found a spot of wild blueberries. She snorted to herself at how in awe they were of their finding.

The two of them stared at the patch with wide eyes. Perhaps not coincidentally, their stomachs growled. They’d found all kinds of things over the summer, but these edible gems stood out as by far the most delicious. They hesitated in eating them; Ivy knew you couldn’t just devour good looking, wild fruit.

 “What if these are like a blueberry’s evil twin? Like it looks just like it, but they’re not? I don’t know, Otis…” Ivy trailed off with a furrow in her brow.

Before she could reach any conclusions, Otis plucked a berry from the bush and smashed it against a rock. Ivy looked on confusedly as he brought the stone to his nose and inhaled deeply, both nostrils flaring wide and circular. 

He reported his observations seriously, “It smells like what mom puts on our peanut butter and jelly.” And before Ivy could protest, he dipped his finger into the berry mush and put it to his tongue. “Tastes like it too.” 

Even to overly suspicious Ivy, Otis had made it seem okay. She cautiously picked a berry off a branch, wiping it on her shirt for no apparent reason. Ivy popped it in her mouth and let the orb burst on her tongue. They were definitely blueberries. That was pretty much the end for the berries on that bush; Ivy remembered they couldn’t stop eating them. She and her brother had their fill, tossing them into each other’s mouths and trying the unripe ones just to see how the taste changed over time. 

Otis and Ivy came home with their fingers stained deep indigo. Scrubbing their hands viciously in the bathroom when they got back, they promised not to tell their parents. Of course, they knew their parents wouldn’t care. Even so, having a secret gave them something to take care of together. A secret that beautiful and delicious couldn’t hurt. 

Happy secrets are so hard to come by now, Ivy mused.

Ivy and Otis stole away to their patch as much as possible, gorging themselves on blueberries and staining their tongues blue. On their umpteenth time picking berries, they heard a gravelly voice call to them, “So, y’all are the ones who keep emptying my patch.” 

They froze immediately, lifting their heads away from their berries, they saw an older woman standing a few feet away. She really was old as time; her wrinkled face was a deep, rich brown, and she had dark, deep-set eyes. Her hair was in a small, tightly coiled afro on her head. Trying to fill in the details of her face was difficult after all this time. She’d bet she’d know the Lady’s face if she saw it again. When grasping for more features, she couldn’t stop going back to the old Lady’s big floral green mumu. Ivy only remembered that detail because she’d learned that word from her mom and found it funny. 

The rest of the encounter played in her mind.

The Old Lady’s hands were on her wide hips, and she looked disapproving, but not angry. She wasn’t a mean lady. Ivy didn’t know how she knew this, but she knew. Unable to handle being caught, Otis began crying in big, blubbery sobs. He was so bad at being in trouble. Good thing Ivy was steelier; she had pulled him closer protectively, their two blueberry-covered hands clasped together.

“Nah, don’t cry. No need for tears, now. I’ve just been wondering who’s stopping me from making all my jams and pies. I know they taste good,” she offered, plucking one off the bush herself for eating. 

Silently nodding, Ivy’s hand involuntarily crept up to the bush to eat another too. The Old Lady said it was okay, hadn’t she? 

“Do y’all wanna see what I do wit’ em? I live just there,” she pointed to a couple of hundred yards east of the patch and not too far from their house. Ivy figured they were neighbors, actually. That seemed safe enough. Otis stopped crying as quickly as he started, tugging at Ivy’s hand. He sniffled and looked up toward Ivy, intrigued by the mention of sweets. She had contemplated Old Lady’s offer for less time than was probably appropriate for following a stranger home. Still, she enjoyed turning the decision over in her mind, liked the feeling of standing on the edge of a choice that was hers to make. 

“We’ll go with you.” Ivy declared pridefully.

 They trailed behind Old Lady hand in hand. As they stepped onto the porch, a big gust of hot Mississippi wind blew a windchime, and the sound reminded Ivy of a magic wand. To add to her excitement, they tasted sugar in the air before they even got to its source. Old Lady led them into the kitchen where Ivy and Otis saw dozens of jam jars sitting on her counter. Strewn about were materials for writing out labels, ribbons, the Old Lady’s red script on stickers. Lived-in was not a phrase they had at the time, but it’s how Ivy would describe Old Lady’s house now. There was a warm chaos to it that felt… right for Old Lady, even after just meeting her. 

As a peace offering, Old Lady served them peanut butter and blueberry jelly sandwiches, which were crustless for good measure. It tasted just like their mom made but much better. Otis kicked his feet absentmindedly while he ate, a sign that he was happy. 

“Good ain’t it?” Old Lady nodded toward Ivy’s hand clutching the sandwich. “The secret is a grate of ginger and a pinch of salt. You gotta have salt and spice. Makes the sweet taste better.” 

Ivy and Otis didn’t much care what she meant by that as long as they could come for more.

The sound of the call Ivy ignored crept back into her mind and her posture stiffened involuntarily.

“Shit,” she muttered out loud to no one in particular.