Caged by Damnation (10 page)

Ivy brushed the plants away from the entrance to provide a small space to walk through, and the doorway closed behind me.

"I don't have all day, you know. Quit gawking. I want to get this over with," Ivy sneered, sitting on her canopy bed.

The temptation to scream for help was consuming me, and finally did when I glanced down to see a snake twining itself around my ankles and climbing up my skirt. Everything went black after that.

Crystallized light pierced my eyes. Shards of uneven pain blared through the slumber I was tempted to wallow in. The migraine itself wasn't enough to convince my inner self that waking up was a good idea. Ivy's voice made her way through the maze of confusion to stand proudly at the center of my vision, finally convincing me to piece my memory into a cohesive pattern.

I remembered walking through a doorway of living plants, Ivy's irritation at my hesitance, and a snake curling around my limbs. Remembering the snake, I shot off the floor, nearly colliding with Ivy's face in the process.

"What's your deal?"

Spinning in a circle, I looked for the culprit that caused my faint. Why someone would allow a snake to writhe around their room was beyond me, but it made sense that of all the Hellhounds, Ivy was the one who was crazy enough to do it.

I found the monstrosity coiling around the bedpost, its brown and black markings blending in with the wood as the eyes glowed in my direction, mocking me.

"Don't tell me you're afraid of snakes?"

How exactly did she expect a normal, sane person to feel about a snake roaming free in her domain? If I'd known I would be walking into a vipers’ nest, I never would have gone there!

I let the reptile out of my vision for a moment while I stared Ivy down. "Are you serious? They bite, squeeze their prey to death, and can be venomous. What's to like?"

Ivy considered my question before calmly answering in a professor-like tone. "Snakes eat insects and mice. So you won't find any of those inhabiting
my
domain. I wouldn't be so sure about yours though." She smirked. "Most are not deadly to humans, though there are some exceptions. Their venom is often used in medicines, but can also be used to get rid of the people who tick me off. They are sly, quiet, and have a dark beauty that I happen to appreciate. The best part is that they don't ask asinine questions."

I certainly wasn't going to go out to buy myself a snake anytime soon, but most of my fear surrounding Ivy's
pet
had come from not expecting to find it curling around my ankles.

The Hellhounds happened to be a unique lot, but I’d found familiar footing with each of the others. Ivy was more difficult to relate to. Perhaps it was her candid temper or bizarre way of looking at the world, but we hadn't found anything to build a sisterly foundation on.

I looked down at the snake, and around at the rest of the room. In the center rested an old fashioned king-size bed, while the rest of the room seemed to support Ivy's acidic personality. Even the plants inside her room were the living kind, including Venus flytraps that were larger than I thought possible. Vines draped over her maroon curtains, and her floor was a collage of cement, marble, and dirt, as if it couldn't quite make up its mind about what it wanted to be.

Ivy's walls were hand-painted with elaborate pieces, one wall of a father raising his daughter in the air, swinging her in a circle; another, an exotic forest, complete with plants I had never seen, with eyes of animals peering through the trees. The wall to my left depicted a pair of weary eyes, tired from seeing too much. Behind me, I found that the wall in which her door resided contained an assortment of birds of prey, butterflies, and a night sky.

I pointed to the walls. "Did you paint these?"

Ivy had been shuffling nervously though papers on a nightstand near her bed, as if ignoring my presence would banish me. "Yeah, why?" She sounded defensive and a bit vulnerable.

"They're beautiful. You have an amazing talent."

Ivy eyes dared me to make fun of her hobby. When I didn't, she nodded and said, "I redo them every month or so. Well, everything other than the ceiling. It gets boring staring at the same thing every day."

I glanced up to find a living masterpiece, angels and demons fighting a war, blood streaming down their faces, and a blinding light in the distance. The faces were harsh with pain, evidence that they regretted the massacre, but still, the fight continued. The wings were in varying shades of white, black, gray, blue, and silver, all streaked with the blood of enemies and allies alike. They brandished swords of silver with an iridescent glow and wore clothing that reminded me of ancient Greece.

In the far corner of the painting, women clustered near some pillars, holding their children to their bosoms, protecting them from the sight of death. Their faces bespoke the knowledge that though their young couldn't see the bloodshed, hearing it would forever alter their fates. A woman stood in the center of the chaos. Her knees were half bent, one hand outstretched towards a fallen soldier; tears were falling from her eyes. If it were possible to witness a soul breaking, Ivy had captured it in this woman. Her eyes screamed of loss, her body curved with the agony of hopelessness; her presence spoke of the need to stand up for those who cannot do so themselves.

Tearing my gaze from Ivy's art, I looked back at her. "Wow. Where did you learn to do that?"

"Practice, and a lot of time." Her smile was hesitant and short-lived. "Has anyone ever told you that you ask too many questions?"

"All the time, but I never listen."

"Well, you do." Pointing to her snake, Ivy said, "Brass won't hurt you, you know. You don't need to stand in the center of the room." Ivy gestured to the bed, where my feet would dangle dangerously close to her snake.

"What kind of name is that for a snake?" I giggled, but stopped short at Ivy's sneer. "Never mind, it's a great name. I'm sure he loves it."

It was a relief when she turned away from me to pick him up.

Now that Brass was away from the bed, I sat on it to face Ivy, waiting for her to give me my gift and her Hellhound name, the way the others had. Minutes ticked by, during which she stroked the snake’s length, allowing it to slick it's tongue against her forearm.

"Um, what type of snake is Brass?"

I didn't really care about Brass one bit, but needed to get the ball rolling. The sooner I was out of Ivy's domain, the better. Finally, Ivy glanced away from her pet, allowing him to curl around her wrist and writhe along her arm, until he settled with his head on her shoulder. I shivered, suddenly wanting to get this done with even more quickly.

Ivy must have had similar thoughts, because she ignored my question and plowed towards the real reason for my visit. "Let's skip the small talk. I don't want you here
any more than you want to be."

Speaking through gritted teeth, I said what I was really thinking rather than allowing my upbringing to temper my mood. "Great, sounds good. We can skip the pleasantries and get straight to doing what you do best, treating others with disdain without even an ounce of good reasoning behind it. Would it kill you to be kind for once?"

Ivy seemed taken off guard at my uncontrolled temper. Spinning in a circle, she pointed to the domain around her. "Would you feel up to being nice to everyone after living here for eternity? The only changes are my paintings! I didn't get to go to high school, or date guys, and I certainly never got Death's special treatment. You have the world on a silver platter. Should I feel bad that you got to live a real life before your imprisonment? Oh wait, that's right, this isn't a prison for
you
.
You
get to leave and do whatever you want while the rest of us are bound to him!"

Silence stretched on for what seemed like forever, while Ivy reeled from her temper. She straightened her dress, as if doing so could banish her outburst, then she looked to me. I had thought of Ivy as a sort of teacher’s pet where Death was concerned, but now I wondered if I had misjudged the situation.

"I never lived a real life either. Other than Savannah, no one wanted anything to do with me. I've never kissed a guy, let alone been with one for any reason, and maybe if you stood up for yourself, Death would treat you differently. He tried that ‘I'm the master’ bit on me and I made him choke on it."

Taking a deep breath, I looked in her eyes once more, "I don't know all of the details about your lives here, but it seems to me that you can lie down and take it or find a way to really
live
. You can't blame me for what didn't happen to me. I'm here now. And sure, I can cross the threshold to see my friends, but you can cross it too. I just happen to have one in my room."

Disgust ran rampant in Ivy's voice. "You've never even kissed a guy?"

Of course, of all the things I said to Ivy, she would fixate on the thing that mattered the least. I sighed, staring at the ceiling, willing the angels to help me with the impossible task of communicating with her. When I received no answer, I turned to her.

"Nope, never sucked face, never seen the one-eyed snake or anything. Guys have been completely off my radar and I have certainly been off theirs." I thought about high school, junior high, and pretty much my entire life. I had never really been into anyone. Maybe it was because I had grown up with the guys in Meadow Falls, but they all either seemed annoyingly immature, brotherly, or plain old disgusting.

"Off your radar, huh? Does that mean girls are? Cause it's cool, if – "

I threw a pillow from her bed at her face, which she unfortunately managed to catch. The edge of the plush headrest hit Brass in the midsection and he hissed.

"I am not into girls! I just haven't found anyone worth exploring things with, okay?" Reddening, I tried to sift through the embarrassment to find a topic that could wipe the evidence of my innocence off my cheeks, but came up empty-handed.

Ivy's eyes widened in a mocking version of innocence."Whatever you say, it's certainly none of my business." She placed Brass on the ground, dusted off her hands and took on a more serious tone. Her sudden changes in personality were beginning to make me think she might be bipolar, or have multiple personality disorder.

Since I had taken up her bed, Ivy pulled a chair over to stand across from me and straddled the back of it. She seemed reluctant to give me her gift or her name. While I waited for her to get around to business, I looked back to her paintings. How could someone so foul create such beauty?

"What did the others give you?"

Ivy's question caught me off guard. "Um, Scrye gave me this dress, Whisper gave me the diadem, and Echo gave me daggers. Why?"

Shifting uncomfortably in her chair, Ivy spoke slowly. "Our gifts are supposed to reflect us in some way."

Now I was unnerved. I glanced at Brass, praying that he wasn't supposed to be my gift. What would I do if he was? I would have to accept him, but where would I put him? Then I looked around at the plants, wondering if she planned to give me something equally as disturbing and just as likely to take a bite out of me.

Ivy slid from her chair to walk into an adjoining chamber. When she returned, she was carrying a ball of fur in her arms. A tiny mammal, barely large enough to wrap around her forearm, peeked through her hands to examine me. Its eyes were wide like a china doll’s, with a rounded head and a tiny snout that was similar in shape to a panda. Its body reminded me of a flying squirrel with a broadened form, two arms and two legs. The fur pattern on its face was a mixture of black, white, and gray, like that of a ferret.
It could easily have been a hybrid of a monkey, a koala, and a squirrel.

"What is it?" Though I had never seen an animal like it, I found it oddly adorable. Its eyes were the sort that inflicted the need to verbally sigh at its cuteness. In fact, everything about the animal screamed ‘lovable.’

Ivy lovingly stroked the fur on the top of its head. "It's called a Slow Loris. They are an endangered species. Her bite is venomous so you'll have to be careful, but they only bite when threatened or are protecting their young. I have anti-venom just in case. She's yours if you want her." Ivy held the Loris out and I gently placed one palm beneath her hind legs and the other against her back. Pulling her into my chest, she settled in, rubbing her cheek against my skin.

"She's the best gift ever." I didn't even care that she was poisonous. Ivy had given me something I needed, a family. In this little fur ball I would have a companion, a friend, someone who loved me unconditionally. I hadn't thought I would find anything like that in the Hellhounds’ lair. "Where did you get her?"

"She's young. I think her parents were killed by a predator. So I rescued her. Slow Lorises are nocturnal, live in trees, and eat things like fruit and insects. I figured your atrium would be a great place for her to live." Ivy came closer to rub the Loris’s head. "I wasn't sure what to give you and I didn't think you would want a plant or a reptile." She smirked, looking at Brass and back at me.

I laughed. "Yeah, she is much better. What should I name her?" I wanted the name to suit her, but still be unique.

"Hell if I know. I got her for you, don't ask me to name her, too. I'm terrible with names. Brass got his name because I was looking at a pair of brass candlesticks while trying to come up with it. That's how bad I am at it."