Ivy hurries out of the loft and jumps in the car slinging her folders in the back seat. She speeds checking the mirror occasionally and mumbles.

She takes a exit ramp and heads down a one lane out into the more rural part of Gotham. A sign up ahead says Trinity 5 miles. Ivy passes through their one red light of a downtown and takes another right and heads out onto a two lane road whose sign says Trillium Lane. She follows the cracked old black top until she sees an old rusty mailbox that has the faint letters Isley legible.

She turns into the long graveled drive and an old farmhouse emerges in the distance surrounded be a canopy of large trees. A tire swings sways under a tall and mighty oak as she passes. The huge two story house has a huge wrap around deck and large windows. The deck is lined with withered baskets of plants and a swing chair sits empty as Ivy eyes her child hood home. The paint has faded and a bird's nest now rests on one pillar .She pulls past the house and stops around back by a huge wooden barn and gets out.

Ivy turns back toward the house. The side window is for the kitchen. She looks to see her mother's face as usual washing dishes and baking there. All she sees is a dusty curtain. The sun is starting to fade. She hangs her head in sorrow and opens one large wood door. The barn is cool and smells of musty hay. A owl flutters from the top loft alarmed to have a visitor.

She walks to the far corner and flits her hand past a few cobwebs over a tarp. She pulls it off and eyes the old four-wheeler. She goes to the wall and grabs a set of keys and starts it up.
Ivy heads down an old deer trail behind the Isley's home. She splashes across a creek bed and revs it up the bank turning left toward a thicket of rhododendron. She bends down under their branches and parks the 4 x 4.

She heads out across a meadow side-stepping each tiny flower. Each flower blows in the wind and seems to turn their faces to watch as she glides softly over their heads. She walks to the bluff and stops. Straight ahead across the lea is a monster sized tree-house . It's roof is thatched and its sides adorned with tiny twisted willow branches. Ivy hugs the trees base and grabs the ropes to a square wooden platform held by pulleys. She climbs aboard and pulls while concrete blocks slide simultaneously down as she heads up. She crawls out holding her folders and steps on the wood beams from the barn that her father had not needed and opens the door to her sanctum.

She is surrounded by drawings on the wall of individual plants all detailed and dated when she was a child. Vines of yellow jessamine twine inside the tiny hand made shutters from wood reeds. They move in the wind as she walks toward a tiny desk lined with jars Aconitum, wolfsbane, Indian licorice, autumn crocus, bleeding heart,,black nightshade, doll's eyes, blacksnake root and Ivy berries.

Ivy sits down as her solar light begin to glow inside the tree house. She shuts the shutters and settles in to study her botany. A tiny firefly dances around her face like a fairy trying to distract her to no avail. In the distance an owl makes a haunting scream and Ivy's pout turns into a wicked and evil grin.

****To be continued in Community Archive Psycho Circus****