Her father startled her that day, coming up behind her as she was kneading. He spoke softly. "Ivy," was all he said at first.
She gasped. "Papa, I didn't expect you!" Then she turned, smiling, and added, "I'm glad you have come. I have missed you. And Lucius has been asking for you, as well."
"Has he now," responded her father; but his voice was far away. She sensed hesitation in his tone, but knew better than to ask of him what he wanted.
"Yes, he wants to know something of the wedding, about the ceremony, I believe." She put her hand in his, knowing that he would not mind its being covered in flour and dough. "Papa, your hand is cold. Are you ill?"
"No," he replied, and she knew it was automatically spoken. "No, it is cold out. Ivy..." He heaved a breath. "I have not come simply to converse, though I love dearly to converse with you. I... " He hesitated again; Ivy was skilled enough at reading silent emotion--she had done so for nearly twenty years--but her father's colour worried her. It was darker, more disturbed than she had seen it since before leaving for the towns, and did not match his calm, soft voice. "I refused to tell you anything, after you returned from the towns. I knew you needed time with Lucius, and so denied your requests of information. But I think the time has come... for you to know this."
Ivy's stomach took a turn that she did not like; she had answered many questions, had told many of her stories to the boys and girls in the village, had spoken to Cristoph and Fenton, had forgiven them, had told Lucius the little she knew of the towns, had spoken at length to Alice Hunt, had even played games with her sister... She had yet to speak with Noah, but she felt that with time she could bring herself to go to him; she had already forgiven him, but had not yet gotten up the courage to tell him so. But none of her own questions had been answered. "What must I know, Papa?" She hoped he would explain to her of the creature--had they found it when they went to look? Were the stories real?
"Ivy," he answered, "You know already that I trust you above all others. Your sister knows nothing of Those We Don't Speak Of, and neither do any of the others in the village, save the elders. I must ask you once again to tell no one what I tell you today. It is for the survival and safety of this village that I ask it."
"Yes, Papa. I will tell no one."
He breathed a sigh of what might have been relief, had it not been tempered by sadness. "I want you to know that I considered lying to you, Ivy. You have suffered enough, and I want most of all for you to have a happy life with Lucius, here in the village. But one day you will ask me, and I will have to answer you. And I cannot lie to you. You would know, and would respect me the less for it, as I would anyone who lied to me."
Ivy's skin suddenly chilled, as his words sank in. "Papa... what could be so hurtful to me, that you would need to lie?"
He did not answer for a long, long moment. Finally, when he did answer, his words were warm, and momentarily confused her. "Why have you made no attempt to speak with Noah Percy since returning to the village?"
Startled, she paused before answering. "I... I must convince myself first that I have forgiven him fully, before telling him so." She stopped, feeling her face colour. "Every day I mean to, Papa, but every day I stop at the door, and remember... I think how Lucius must feel towards him. I remember, too, that day, and how I felt, and my actions. I am ashamed." She paused, then added, "Do you wish me to speak with him, Papa? Would it help matters in the village any? I... I have sensed the unease."
"No," he responded simply, and sighed once again. "Ivy, Noah is dead."
She had opened her mouth to reply when the words he had spoken became real, and grew meaning. "He-- what? Noah?" In disbelief, she felt no tears of any kind; it couldn't be true. "How? When?" Instantly, memories sprang to her mind, of others who had died in the village: wasting fever, infection, a fall, perhaps by his own hand...
"I wished not to tell you," he admitted, and gently guided her to a chair. "But I know that you would eventually have tried to speak to him, and that you would have found out much more cruelly that way. Oh, Ivy, when you asked of the creature you met in the woods, it broke my heart to hear it. I wish now only to tell you that the stories were true, that there were creatures in Covington Woods, that only good came of your defense."
Something in Ivy's mind clicked coldly; berries of the bad colour, the old drawing upon Resting Rock, Kitty's description of the skinned animals, the unused shed. "We had forgotten the last suit that we kept in the Quiet Room," her father continued, now almost in a whisper, and she could hear the tears in his voice. "It is much more to my blame than anyone else's, my daughter."
The clicking stopped, and rested upon another memory: the pit in Covington Woods. She had all but forgotten it, and now felt the mud beneath her shoes, the branch in her hand, the fear as she ran from the creature. "It was Noah," she whispered, the horror tearing at her heart. "I—I killed him." A white sheet of anguish overcame her, and she felt her body growing numb.