“What are you taking pictures of?”
“The art,” she says. “Be right back.” She leaves Jane in the main corridor, where Jasper leans against her legs, sighing. Jane’s clothing has dried, mostly; at any rate, she no longer feels like a soggy, cold stray. She’s exposed out here, though; she imagines Mrs. Vanders peering at her disapprovingly around corners, and she also wishes she could see Ivy’s room. Do the servants have hot tubs and fireplaces too? Is Ivy always on the clock? Does she get to travel to New York like Kiran does? If she’s nineteen, will she go to college? How did she go to high school? For that matter, how did Kiran go to high school?
Ivy emerges.
“Do you have a hot tub in there?”
“I wish,” says Ivy, grinning. “Want to see?”
“Sure.”
Jane and Jasper follow Ivy into a long room with two distinct realms: the bed realm, near the door, and the computer realm, which takes up most of the rest of the space. Jane never knew one person could need so many computers. A jumble of ropes is propped beside one of her keyboards, along with two of the longest flashlights Jane’s ever seen. Large, precise drawings—blueprints, sort of—cover the walls. Jane realizes, looking closer, that they’re interior maps of a house that are so detailed that they show wallpaper, furniture, carpets, art.
“Did you make these?” asks Jane.
“I guess,” says Ivy. “They’re the house.”
“Wow.” Jane sees familiar things now: the Venetian courtyard, the checkered floor of the receiving hall, the polar bear rug.
Ivy seems embarrassed. “Patrick and I share a bathroom in the hall,” she says. “Mr. and Mrs. Vanders have their own suite, though, and it has a hot tub.”
“You could use my hot tub.”
“Thanks,” says Ivy, pulling the tie out of her messy bun, shaking her hair out, and winding it back up again. The air is touched with the scent of chlorine, and jasmine.
“Marzipan,” Ivy says randomly, giving her hair a final tug.
Jane is used to this by now. “Yeah?”
“Another great word to play in that same spot, because of the position of the z.”
“Are you always thinking up good eight-letter Scrabble words?”
“Nope. Only since you came along.”
“Maybe I’ll be good for your Scrabble game.”
“It’s looking that way. Brains are bizarre,” says Ivy, going back into the corridor and leading Jane and Jasper past more hallways and doors.
“If you grew up here,” says Jane, “how did you go to school?”
“We were all homeschooled,” says Ivy, “by Octavian, and Mr. Vanders, and the first Mrs. Thrash.”
“Was it strange? To be homeschooled, on an isolated island?”
“Probably,” says Ivy with a grin, “but it seemed normal when I was a kid.”
“Will you go to college?”
“I’ve been thinking about it lately,” Ivy says, “a lot. I’ve been saving up, and I took the SATs last time I was in the city. But I haven’t started applying.”
“What will you study?”
“No clue,” she says. “Is that bad? Should I have my whole life plotted out?”
“You’re asking a college dropout,” says Jane, then isn’t sure what affect to adopt when Ivy looks at her curiously. I’m okay? I’m not okay? I feel stupid? Back off, my aunt died?
“I didn’t mean to put you on the spot,” says Ivy. “There’s nothing wrong with being a college dropout.”
“It doesn’t feel very good, though,” says Jane.
“That doesn’t mean it’s wrong,” says Ivy thoughtfully.
That sounds like something Aunt Magnolia would say, though she’d say it in ringing tones of wisdom, whereas Ivy says it as if it’s a new possibility she’s considering for the first time. They’ve come to a door at the end of the corridor, made of unfinished planks, with a heavy iron latch instead of a knob. Ivy pulls it open to reveal a landing with elevator doors straight ahead and stairs leading up and down. She flicks a switch on the landing and the room above brightens. “West attics,” she says before Jane can ask. “The workshop is up there.”
“Mrs. Vanders said I wasn’t allowed in the west attics, either,” says Jane. “She said it’s dangerous.”
Ivy snorts, then starts up the steps. “Come see for yourself. If it looks dangerous, we won’t go in.”
“Okay,” says Jane, pretending to be the rule-breaker she isn’t, because she doesn’t want to lose Ivy’s respect. “Wow,” she adds as her climb brings an enormous room into view. It’s filled with neat rows of worktables, almost like a shop class. With tall windows and high, wooden rafters, it’s as big as the entire west wing, rich with the smells of oil and sawdust. Rain drums against the roof. Through the windows Jane can just barely make out the spire on the house’s east side, puncturing the storm clouds.
It’s a tidy, open, barn-like space, with no loose nails or shaky beams. Jane wanders, Ivy following. An unfinished chest draws her attention. It’s walnut—Jane knows her woods. It has a carved top depicting an undersea scene of sperm whales (Jane also knows her whales). Above the whales, a girl floats in a rowboat, oblivious to the creatures below.
“Who made this?” Jane asks.
“Oh,” says Ivy, looking embarrassed but pleased. “That’s mine.”
“Really? You make furniture too? It’s beautiful!”
“Thanks. I haven’t touched it in forever. I don’t get time for the big projects. Though my brother and I did finish a boat recently.”
“You and Patrick made a boat up here?”
“Yeah. A rowboat. We had to lower it to the ground on ropes through a window. There’s a freight elevator to the outside, and a dumbwaiter,” Ivy says, waving a hand back toward the stairs, “but it was a boat, after all.”
A DIY rowboat. Jane tries to make her umbrellas watertight, but it’s not like anyone’s going to drown if she screws something up. “Do you take the boat out?”
“Sure,” says Ivy. “It’s a great little boat.”
Who builds a boat, in her spare time, with her own hands, then slaps it onto the ocean and rows around in it successfully? Probably while announcing winning Scrabble words and being bold and daring.
“There’s a rotary saw in the back somewhere,” Ivy says, “and we have a few different lathes.”
“Thanks,” says Jane, feeling a bit desolate.
“You should help yourself to whatever you need.”
“Thanks,” Jane says again, hoping Ivy won’t ask her what she needs them for.
The house moans and grumbles, almost as if in sympathy with Jane’s feelings. As old houses do, Jane thinks to herself. She imagines this house curled up with its back to the sky, shivering around the center it must keep warm, holding its skin against the driving rain.
A tiny, self-contained glass room sits near the stairs. There’s a table inside, on which is propped a large painting of a white man with sloping shoulders, wearing a beret with a great, curling feather. Brushes, bottles, and light fixtures surround the painting.
“Is someone a painter?” Jane asks, pointing.
“Rembrandt’s a painter,” Ivy says, grinning. “That’s a Rembrandt self-portrait. It’s one of the house’s pictures. Mrs. Vanders is cleaning it. She has a degree in conservation, among other things. Maybe you can smell the acetone—sort of a sharp smell? She uses it sometimes.”
“Oh,” Jane says, feeling silly for not recognizing a Rembrandt. “Right.”
“That room is her conservation studio,” Ivy says. “It’s sealed, so the art is protected from sawdust, and the glass is a fancy kind that shields it from outside light.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah,” says Ivy, understanding. “This is a house of serious art lovers. And Octavian has more money than God.”
A door at the back end of the attic opens with a scraping sound, startling Jane. Spinning around, she sees a flash of yellow wallpaper in a bright room beyond. A man with a pert mouth steps from the room, notices Jane, and clicks the door shut quickly. He has dark hair and East Asian features and wears a navy blue suit and orange Chuck Taylors.