Wink Poppy Midnight (15 page)

I
ONLY COME
out at night now, I walk through the woods and plop down on the pine needles, starlight covering me like a gauzy blanket.

I sneak into Midnight's room and he's such a deep sleeper, he doesn't even wake up when I put my lips on his.

I do all kinds of things after dark, some things I used to do but some new things too. I see everything. I spy on the Yellows and they never know I'm there. They couldn't see me if they tried, I'm so good at hiding, as good as it's possible to be. I was obvious before, loud and obvious, wanting all eyes on mine, needing it, look at me, worship me. But now no one ever sees me, and I like it, I like it. There's only one place I don't go, I don't go back to the Roman Luck house, I hate that place, hate it, hate it, hate it.

B
EE
L
EE FELL
asleep leaning against my side while Wink read
The Thing in the Deep
in the hayloft after supper. Felix was with his new girlfriend in the garden, but Peach and the twins were listening quietly. It always surprised me how the three of them could be so wild and then settle down so quickly when Wink started a story.

I meant to tell Wink about Thomas, and the letter. But when I found her up in the hayloft with the Orphans, they were all looking so cuddly and happy, I couldn't do it.

Later.

Thief was at the Never-Ending Bridge over the River Slay. The old woman who guarded the bridge wouldn't let him pass until he played Five Lies, One Truth with her. In the end, all six were lies. Thief guessed right, and won, and the old woman screamed in rage and tore out her long, white hair.

“The Never-Ending Bridge led to The Hill Creeps, where Thief would face his greatest trial. If he could pass through the hills and not go mad, then he would finally reach The Thing in the Deep. He would fight her, and kill her with the sword his father left him, and avenge his true love, Trill . . .”

Wink's soft voice drifted up to the tall rafters of the hayloft and echoed back down again. It made me feel calm and peaceful and like everything was okay. Bee Lee had hay in her brown hair and I pulled it out, gently, so I wouldn't wake her. Her hand was in mine, but it went slack after she fell asleep.

Wink was using her Putting the Orphans to Sleep voice. I leaned against her side, as Bee leaned against mine. I reached up and moved a batch of red curls behind Wink's ear, and then started counting the freckles on her right arm, the one holding the book. I did it quietly, so I could still hear her voice. I pressed each freckle with the tip of my finger, and got to twenty-three before my eyes drifted shut.

Wink turned the page and my eyes drifted open again.

Shut.

Open.

And then I saw her.

There, at the top of the ladder.

Poppy.

She was silhouetted against the stars, pale blond hair, light flowing right through her like she was lit from within.

I closed my eyes.

Opened them.

And she was gone.

I'd imagined it.

Hadn't I?

Like the smell of jasmine in my bedroom, I'd imagined it.

Wink closed the book, put it in her pocket, and looked at me. “Midnight, you're shaking. Are you cold?”

I just nodded.

“We should all have some golden milk,” she said, louder. “Who wants some golden milk before bed?”

They all wanted it. Even Bee Lee woke up and whispered, “
I
want golden milk.”

We all went into the Bell kitchen and drank warm milk with brown sugar and cardamom and turmeric. Mim was out “gathering herbs in the forest by moonlight,” Wink told me, casually, like this was normal.

Felix came in, alone, after a while. He poured himself a mug of the steaming yellow milk, leaned against the counter in a contented way, and smiled at his sister. “I'm thinking of taking Charlotte to the Gold Apple Mine tomorrow, to see the horses. She told me she likes horses.”

Wink shook her head. “It's a bad time to go to the mine.”

Felix raised his eyebrows. “Why?”

Wink took a sip from her cup, and the steam made her face looked flushed. “This week is the anniversary of the accident that killed twenty-seven Gold Apple prospectors and shut down the mine. Their spirits will be active, Felix. You shouldn't go there. Charlotte won't like it. She won't understand it.”

Felix nodded at Wink, like this made perfect sense. “Maybe
we'll go in September. The leaves will be really pretty, when they turn.”

“I saw something in the woods last night,” Peach said, out of nowhere, like kids do. She had a saffron stain around her lips, and her expression was sparkly and impish.

“Was it the white deer? Is he back again?” Wink glanced at me. “There's an albino stag that lives in the forest. We see him sometimes. He's very shy, and very grand.”

Bee Lee took my hand and raised her brown eyes to mine. “Greta tells her brothers in
Lost Inside the Emerald Forest
that seeing a white deer is lucky, and that you can wish on one, like a falling star.”

Wink smiled at her little sister. “Bee's hoping to wish on our white deer—she wants a ship.”

“A big one,” Bee said, voice cute and breathless. “With a big wooden wheel and topsails and a captain's log and a telescope.”

Wink laughed. “There's no ocean for miles and miles, but Bee's not letting that stop her.”

“Good for you, Bee,” I said. “Wishes and reality don't mix anyway—”

“No.
No, no, no
.” Peach was shaking her head, her red hair bouncing. Her curls were even messier than Wink's, and longer. The red ringlets dripped down past her elbows. She wore a blue dress and her feet were bare, and very dirty. “It wasn't the white deer I saw. It was a girl.”

“We saw her too,” Hops said.

“She wore a dark dress,” Moon added. “And her hair was the color of stars.”

Wink blinked, and her face didn't give anything away, not anything. “When was this? When did you see this girl?”

“Last night, after dinner. We were in the trees, playing Follow the Screams.” Peach leaned toward Wink, and put her mouth near her ear, and whispered loud enough for all of us to hear. “She saw me. She didn't see Hops and Moon, because it was their turn to hide, but she saw me and told me she was a ghost and then asked me if I was scared. But I wasn't. Ghosts don't scare me.”

“That's true,” Wink said, echoing Peach's whisper-yell. “You're not scared of anything.”

Peach nodded. “And then I shut my eyes and counted to ten, like you're supposed to whenever you see a ghost or a fairy, and when I opened them she was gone.”

Hops yawned and rubbed his freckled nose with his palm. “It wasn't just any girl, in the woods.”

Moon yawned too, and stretched his skinny arms over his shaggy red head. “We recognized her. It was that kissing friend of Leaf's. She used to come to the hayloft sometimes.”

I stayed calm. I was so calm. I sat there at the kitchen table and just smiled and no way in hell would the kids have guessed that my heart had started screaming.

T
HREE OF
W
INK'S
Orphans were playing in the woods, running between the trees in the dark. The girl would scream, very soft and believable, and the boys would follow.

The girl caught me. She snuck up fast and quiet. I told her I was a ghost. But she only shrugged, and looked like her older sister. I told her she should be scared, that she should run away. I told her I'd come to a bad end. I told her I was wicked to the core, and there was no hope for me now . . . but she just shook her head and went back to her screams.

I watched them, I watched them all later in the hayloft, I climbed the ladder and didn't make a sound, not one sound. I watched Midnight count Wink's freckles. I listened to her go on and on about
The Thing in the Deep
, she never shut up about that book, good god, but Midnight just ate it up, right up, he pushed her big ruby hair behind her ear and looked at her like Leaf never looked at me.

I was doing a lot of thinking lately, there was something about the dark, and the silence, and the being alone, it calmed me down and made me smarter. I was already smart,
god knows I was smarter than all of them, but I was smart in a different way now, I took everything in and noticed it, really noticed it. When I stepped into the river I reveled in the cold, I savored the feel of the smooth rocks under my feet. I stopped thinking of myself. I barely thought of myself at all. I thought of myself so little that I began to worry that I'd been the only thing keeping myself in existence . . . and now that I wasn't the center of my attention I'd disappear, poof into thin air, and no one would ever know.

W
INK AND
I went to the Blue Twist River, after the Orphans were tucked into their beds.

The moon was bright and blazing, and Wink showed me a shortcut. Down the gravel road between our houses, half a mile, then a quick turn to the left through the nearby cornfield. It was painted mountain corn, the only kind that would grow in our altitude.

The field belonged to a young, bearded organic farmer and Wink said he was always growing strange, new things like yellow beets and purple cauliflower and sweet chocolate peppers and watermelon radishes. The high-end
restaurants in Broken Bridge loved it. They bragged about it on chalk sidewalk boards outside their restaurants,
house-made capellini with organic farm leeks, chili flake and Parmesan
or
Colorado red quinoa with grilled white asparagus, pickled mushrooms, Romesco and parsley.
The movie stars came to the mountains to romp in the snow and get away from Hollywood, but that didn't mean they wanted to give up their expensive Los Angeles food.

I followed Wink, the cornstalks clutching at her hair and the hem of her acorn skirt with their grasping paws. The corn was only waist high, but it was already creepy as hell, rustling, rustling in the dark. I breathed a sigh of relief when we pushed through the last bunch of stalks and stepped out onto the bank near the river.

The Blue Twist was clean and cold and ran right down from the mountains, sparkling, churning, melted snow. We sat down on the grass by the edge, Wink across from me. I could no longer hear the rustling of the corn. It was drowned out by the sound of water rushing over stones, and I was glad for it.

“Don't show the Orphans this shortcut, okay, Midnight? Mim thinks they'll drown. I only go here when they're asleep.”

I nodded.

Wink slipped off her red sandals and put one foot in the river.

She had small feet. They practically fit in my palm.

She reached into her pocket and took out a candle. She set it on a nearby stone, took out a matchbook, lit the wick.

She reached in again and took out a pack of yellow tarot cards.

A coyote howled, high and eerie. It wasn't too close, but it wasn't that far away either.

Wink shuffled the cards. They were newer than her mother's. Less worn on the corners.

I stared at her as she shuffled.

We have to talk about it.

We have to talk about the letter that Thomas showed me. We have to talk about the fact that Poppy's missing.

We have to talk about the girl the Orphans saw in the woods.

“I'm not nearly as good as Mim or Leaf,” Wink said, and her words rushed fast, like they were racing against the river. “I'm much better with auras and ghosts. But Mim won't read cards for me anymore. She read Bee Lee's tarot once and the cards told her Bee would die young. Mim refused to read for us after that. She'll only do our tea leaves and our palms—and even then she only reads for small things.”

Wink, red hair falling over her shoulders, laid the cards down in a cross-shaped pattern on the grass.

“Wink?”

“Yes?”

“Poppy's missing.”

“I know. That's why I'm trying to read the cards.”

“That must have been who Peach saw, in the woods, right?”

Wink didn't look at me, didn't say anything.

“What was she doing in the woods?”

Wink shrugged.

“I saw Thomas today, at her house. He showed me a letter, and he said we need to find her . . . that it was a clue to finding her.”

Wink looked up. “What did the letter say?”

“She talked about climbing Three Death Jack with Thomas, and being a Greek god, and she said something about jumping, and how Thomas should trust me. What do you make of that, Wink?”

Wink shifted and reached into the pocket of her acorn skirt again. She pulled out a black piece of paper and handed it to me.

I held it next to the candle flame and read.

“It's another clue.” Wink's head was down, staring at the cards again, nothing but red curls. “I saw Briggs in the woods today, digging. He's looking for the gold marble, the one in the letter.” She paused. “Poppy mentioned you in both of the notes. That's interesting.”

It was.

I let a minute or two pass. Rushing river, coyote howling, heart beating.

“What are the cards telling you? Do you know where she is?”

Wink didn't answer.

The candle flickered.

I squinted in the dark and looked at the cards. I saw swords and a wheel. I saw a chalice and a hanged man. I saw a queen of hearts, upside down. I saw a tower.

Wink was quiet for a long time. Finally, finally, she looked up, looked right at me, and frowned. “The cards contradict one another.”

A breeze blew up off the river and the candle went out. Darkness.

“Mim is much better at this. I don't have the gift, Midnight. I can't tell where she is.” Wink held her finger on one of the cards. “She seems to be in two places at once.”

“Why don't we go home and ask Mim to find Poppy? Maybe she'll know what the cards mean.”

Wink shook her head. “I already tried that. Mim read Poppy's cards and then wouldn't tell me what they said. She does that sometimes.”

Wink reached into her pocket, got a match, and lit the candle again. Her pale face floated back into view. She picked up the cards, put them away, and then wrapped her arms around my neck and pressed her small, cold feet into mine.

“Who did the Orphans see? Who do you think it was, Wink?”

She shrugged again, her shoulders moving against my chest. “Maybe it was Poppy. And maybe they're lying. You never can tell, with Peach and the twins.”

I put my arm around Wink's legs and kissed her skinny knees. Wink put her hands in my hair, her thumbs behind my ears. I kissed the skeleton key I found on a chain around her neck. I moved the key with my nose and kissed her collarbone.

“Midnight, what are you afraid of?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you afraid of anything, like how Poppy is afraid of the Roman Luck house?”

“I don't know. Falling, maybe.”

“Falling?”

“Falling. I have nightmares about it sometimes.”

“Lots of people have nightmares about falling.”

“They do?”

“Bee Lee wakes up screaming sometimes. She dreams that she's fallen asleep on a cloud, but then a storm comes up quick and the thunder shakes her off and she falls.”

I nodded. “I dream that I'm running through a forest, or a field, and I don't know why. I'm just running from something, and suddenly there's a cliff in front of me, and I don't see it,
and then I'm falling down a deep ravine, down past walls of rock and stone, and then my body is breaking, and I can hear the bones all snapping, right before I wake up.”

Wink sighed softly. “Mim thinks dreams can foretell the future. But I don't know. I think dreams are just dreams, mostly.”

“Well, I think my dream is trying to tell me to stop being a coward. Alabama isn't afraid of heights. He isn't afraid of anything. Not heights, not cliff-jumping, not dying.”

“Everyone is afraid of dying, Midnight.”

And she didn't say it, and I didn't say it, but we were both thinking of Poppy, tied up in the Roman Luck house, crying, screaming, scared out of her mind, knocking at death's door.

“
M
IDNIGHT.”

My dad, calling down from the attic. I went up the narrow stairs, slow.

He was sitting at his desk, surrounded by books, like always. He looked kind of sleepy.

“Is everything all right?”

“Yeah, Dad. Of course it is.”

He took off his thick glasses and rubbed his eyes. He moved his hands away and looked at me again. His light blue irises looked naked without the specs.

“You seem different, Midnight. I know the sound of your step like I know the feel of my own heartbeat. It's heavier this week. And I haven't seen you wear that expression since your . . . since last winter. What's wrong?”

I considered it. Telling him everything. But he wouldn't know what to do about Poppy. He wouldn't know what to do at all. I understood this, suddenly, loudly, like someone had shouted it from a rooftop.

It was something Alabama had always known about him, I think.

“It's all right,” I said. I forced a smile and made sure it hit my eyes. “Just girl trouble, Dad. No big deal.”

He nodded and put his glasses on. His shoulders relaxed a little. I wondered if he'd been worried I would ask about Mom. About how long she was staying in France.

My dad went back to his books. I went downstairs, to the old black rotary phone in the kitchen. The white tiles felt good under my feet. Cool. The number was on the fridge. I called and it rang and rang. No one picked up. What time was it in France? I didn't know.

I went back upstairs, unbuttoned my shirt, slid off my pants, and climbed into bed. I sunk my face into my pillow, right next to
Will and the Black Caravans
. I breathed in deep. I smelled books, and jasmine.