Wax (22 page)

Poppy gulped. Normally she loved being right. But now that she was reading such dire words in black and white, carved into stone, the thought of performing the I-told-you-so dance didn't seem so appealing.

THEY MADE ME SCULPT HOLLOWS THAT WERE DUPLICATES OF OTHER PEOPLE​—​SOME WERE WELL-KNOWN, OTHERS WERE NOT​—​ALL WHILE SECRETLY STUDYING THEIR MANNERISMS, THE WAY THEY TALKED. THEN THEY'D KIDNAP THEIR TARGETS, INHABIT THE WAX DOUBLES, SWOOP INTO THEIR LIVES, AND TAKE THEIR PLACE. I DO NOT KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO THEIR VICTIMS. ALL I KNOW IS THAT ONCE THE CHANDLERS HAD THEIR FUN PLAY-ACTING AS NEW PEOPLE, THEY SHED THEIR HOLLOWS, AND THE REAL FOLKS WERE NEVER HEARD FROM AGAIN. SOON THE CHANDLERS FIGURED OUT THAT THEY DID NOT HAVE TO BE BOUND BY ONE CLONE EACH​—​WITH THEIR ORIGINAL FLAMES, THEY COULD LIGHT AS MANY HOLLOWS AS THEY PLEASED.

“One fire, many flames,” said Poppy.

IT WASN'T LONG BEFORE I CAME TO REALIZE THE FULL HORROR OF WHAT I HAD DONE. ONE DAY I MANAGED TO ESCAPE AND COME TO THE STATES, BUT THE CHANDLERS TRACKED ME DOWN, IMPRISONED ME ONCE AGAIN, AND STARTED A CANDLE FACTORY IN THE MEANTIME​—​BECAUSE WHY NOT MAKE A PROFIT WHILE THEY WERE AT IT? AND NOW THEY HAVE GONE AND DONE SOMETHING TRULY REGRETTABLE. I DO NOT KNOW

Poppy's mouth had gone dry. Her hands desperately squeezed the white stone, the clamminess of her palms making it difficult for her to keep her grip.

Blake had said that his dad and his grandmother didn't seem like themselves. Because the Bursaws
were
no longer themselves. They were nothing but wax puppets with the Chandlers' antiquated souls inside, pulling the strings.

∗ ∗ ∗

“Poppy,” said Dud, gripping the car door handle with one hand and the stone candle with the other, “are we supposed to be going this fast?”

“Don't worry. Speed limits are more like suggestions.”

“And stopping at crosswalks is​—”

“Optional.”

“Are you sure?”

“Am I not the only one in this car who's taken driver's ed?”

“Who's driver's ed?”

Poppy punched the radio knob and let NPR take over. “No more talking.”

She couldn't keep up a conversation anyway. The puzzle pieces were finally clicking into place. Why did the Bursaws call off the fire investigation? Because the Bursaws were really the Chandlers, so they used their newfound authority to get rid of the investigators, lest anyone keep poking around the factory and discover what they were really up to.

Questions were still coming fast and furious​—​
If the Bursaws I just met are wax Hollows, then what happened to the real ones? And where is Blake?

Or rather,
What have they done to Blake?

But Dud wasn't letting up. “What does this button do?”

“Locks the doors.”

“What does this button do?”

“Opens the window. But don't​—”

Dud opened the window. A gust of wind punched through the car, lifting the blanket off Wax Dud II in the back seat and blowing out the flame of the message candle.

“Dammit, Dud! We need that candle lit!” she shouted, reaching back to cover the sculpture again.

He gave her a repentant look. “I'm sorry.”

She'd had misgivings about removing the candle from the safety of her home, but things were escalating, and she needed to read Madame Grosholtz's words as soon as they were exposed. But perhaps assigning Dud to candle watch had been a mistake. “Look around the floor. Maybe you can find some matches​—”

“Achoo!”

“Yeah, I'm aware that this car is an allergy factory. I'll get it cleaned as soon as we get this pesky wax-demon problem taken care of. But for now, please look for the matches​—”

“No need.”

Poppy looked at him. Then at his lap.

“Did you just . . . sneeze that candle lit?”

He grinned. “I did.”

Like he'd sneezed the television on fire. And why not? He had a flame in his body, after all.

The boy was a human lighter.

“Well,” Poppy said, “that's convenient.”

Dud cupped his hand around the candle, now taking his keeper-of-the-flame role seriously. “Where are we going now?”

“Back to the factory. You don't have to come in; I just want to check something. In fact​—” Out of habit at this point, she dialed Blake's number again, rehearsing what she was going to say when his voice mail picked up. But this time​—​

“Hello?”

“Blake!” She pulled over into an illegal parking space. “You picked up!”

“Yeah. It's my phone.”

“Where have you been? I've called a million times, left a million messages, you weren't in school​—”

“I was sick. Didn't my dad tell you?”

“Well​—​yeah, but​—”

“But what?”

Poppy paused. He sounded different. Gone was the intensity from his voice, the reckless fury that had surfaced when it seemed that his family was in danger.

“I don't know,” she said. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I'm fine, Poppy. Talk to you later.”

Poppy stared at the phone as the call ended. “Not Hogwash?” she said. “Not Your Porkness? Nothing about my hooves?”

Blake had never once called her by her real name. Maybe he really was sick.

Or maybe he'd caught something much worse.

Poppy swung out of the parking spot, bouncing Clementine up onto the curb as she pulled a U-turn. A chorus of honking erupted. “They're sticking their fingers up,” said Dud, putting his hand through the window to do the same and pleasantly waving it at the enraged motorists. “Hi!”

∗ ∗ ∗

The Grosholtz Candle Factory wasn't as crowded on a Monday afternoon as it had been over the weekend, but Poppy still had to bob and weave past a group of retirees clustered around the main entrance in order to get to the BiScentennial display.

As promised, two new candles: Cup o' Joe and Forever Young.

Poppy picked up the brown Cup o' Joe, sniffed, and was bombarded with the distinctive roasted notes of coffee. “Excuse me,” she said, flagging down the nearest Waxpert. “When were these candles made?”

“Oh, the Chandlers manufacture them overnight,” the Waxpert said, “then prepare the display before we open every morning. They've spearheaded this BiScentennial campaign all by themselves!”

“I see,” Poppy said shakily as the Waxpert left. “Thanks.”

Unnerved, she stepped around to the other side and sampled the other candle​—​but abruptly clapped her hand over her nose at the mix of Orbit gum, cheap body spray, and all the alcohol and pot and sweaty smells of a raging Saturday-night party.

Blake. Without a doubt.

∗ ∗ ∗

“STOP EVERYTHING!”

Poppy stampeded down the aisle of Gaudy Auditorium like a spooked buffalo, waving her arms and bringing the “Do-Re-Mi” number onstage to a screeching halt.

“What now?” cried Jill. “We were getting something done for a change​—”

“Awesome! Then you won't mind if we pause for a moment to do something else.”

“I do mind. A great deal.”

“Too bad. I'm mutinying your mutiny.”

Powerless to stop her, the members of the Giddy Committee reluctantly obeyed as Poppy spent the next ten minutes placing them in various spots around the stage. “Jesus, move a few steps downstage. No,
down
stage. Walk
toward
me. How do you guys not know your stage directions by now?”

Jill tapped her on the shoulder. “Where's your, um, cousin?”

“Waiting in the car.”
Guarding that candle with his life, I hope.

“Hope you parked in the shade​—”

“Shh! I'm trying to concentrate!”

The world premiere of
Poppy Explains the Horrible Wax Situation Using Her Actors as Stand-Ins
was only minutes away, and preliminary reviews had already panned it, calling it “confusing,” “impossible,” and “I feel as though I have been miscast.”

This last comment was from Connor, of course, who was not happy with his role as Madame Grosholtz. “I can do so much more,” he insisted, swishing his cape. “I know stage combat.”

“Connor, I
literally
just need you to stand there while I narrate and explain to you guys what's going on. These aren't actual roles. This isn't an actual show. You get that, right?”

“But how come Jesus gets to be Big Bob Bursaw?”

“Born talent, bitches!” Jesus shouted.

“Okay, you know what?” Poppy said. “Forget it! Everyone off the stage. Just find a seat and listen to me.”

The members of the Giddy Committee sat in the audience in a clump, the old seats making heinous creaking noises, while Poppy sat on the edge of the stage and beheld her captive audience.

“Once upon a time,” she said in her best Narrator voice​—​because a fake performance was still a performance​—​“there lived a woman named Madame Tussaud.”

∗ ∗ ∗

When Poppy finished her monologue, the members of the Giddy Committee shifted nervously in their seats, not knowing whether to believe her or challenge her or run screaming to the next available extracurricular activity.

“Prove it,” Louisa said.

Poppy locked onto Louisa's cynical, beady eyes. “I can't prove it,” she admitted. “It's all been conjecture up to this point, but honestly, there's no other explanation! Tell them, Jill!”

“There's no other explanation,” Jill said. “Except for, you know, the thousands of other explanations.”

“Seriously,” said Louisa. “Never thought I'd have to say this to someone over the age of ten, but the Hollow Ones legend isn't real, Poppy. People can't be made out of wax. Candles can't be made out of people. What drugs are you
on?
”

“Drugs are not rad,” said Connor.

“Wait, who's got the drugs?” Jesus asked, perking up.

“I am
not
on drugs, you guys!” Poppy shouted. “How else do you explain Dud?”

“Who's Dud?”

Poppy bit her lip. With all the insanity she'd heaped upon them, she didn't want to add Dud to the pile.

“Let me put it this way,” she said. “Think of the Chandlers as matches. Just like you'd use one matchstick to light the individual candles on a birthday cake, the Chandlers lit copies of themselves inside the individual wax sculptures of Miss Bea and Big Bob. Now Miss Bea and Big Bob are imposters, walking around as if they're the real thing, when in fact they are clones of the souls of Anita and Preston Chandler! Respectively!”

She was met with blank stares.

“You
guys.
I am telling you that the Chandlers kidnapped two prominent members of our community. Maybe they are being held hostage. Maybe they are dead. Maybe they have been turned into candles. Is none of this a cause for concern?”

She was met with silence.

“Well, how about this: if Blake​—”

“Oh, here we go,” Jill interjected. “Best buddy Blake again.”

Poppy eyed her​—​but maybe it was best to leave Blake out of this for now. “If,” she reworded, “the Chandlers were able to get to the Bursaws​—​arguably two of the most untouchable people in Paraffin​—​then aren't you worried that any one of us could be next?”

Jill shook her head and stood up. “We need to get back to rehearsing for the parade, Pops.”

“But it could happen again! We need to stop them! If they've already gotten to Blake​—”

“Blake again, huh?” Jill snorted. “You know what? How about you take five and join us once you've . . . regained your composure.”

For the sake of the Giddy Committee, Poppy obeyed. But as she watched them get back to their places onstage, she couldn't help but obsess harder.

She looked back down at her notebook, at the doodles she'd scribbled in biology.

One fire, many flames.

She stopped.

Frowning, she looked closer at the cells she had drawn in class.

“Viruses!” she shouted.

Jill, delivering a halfhearted pep talk to the Giddy Committee, put a hand over her brow to squint at Poppy in the audience. “I know you're a little rusty on this one, Pops, but infectious diseases don't figure into
The Sound of Music
as much as you'd think.”

Poppy summoned every ounce of righteousness and redemption she'd been storing up since
Triple Threat.
“The Chandlers are like a virus. They're replicating bad cells​—​copies of their souls​—​and passing them off as normal, healthy cells so that the body​—​Paraffin​—​won't catch on to what they're doing, won't notice that anything is wrong! Meanwhile, they're slowly taking control of our town, and if no one tries to stop them, it'll happen again. And again! And if we don't stop them soon from spreading, it'll be too late!”

She stood there before them, frenzied and panting and full of every hope she'd scrounged from the bottom up.

“Am I right, or am I right?”

∗ ∗ ∗

“I
am
right,” Poppy grumbled as she trudged through the school parking lot. Jill had asked her, once and for all, to leave the auditorium. And then Jill had locked the door.

Screw Jill,
she thought.
And screw the Giddy Committee. I don't need them. I've got a human lighter. Go Team Wax.

A positive attitude was key.

Her spirits lifted higher when her car came into view, Dud excitedly beckoning from within. “There are more words!” he said, handing her the magnifying glass as she sank into the driver's seat. “Important words, I think!”