“Will you ever let me come with you?”
She didn’t understand her dad’s sudden burst of laughter, but a thrill ran through Poppy at the thought he might answer.
“What a question,” was all he said.
Her mouth went dry. She hadn’t meant to ask it. Some part of her knew, perhaps, that she might not like the answer. She trembled in the chill night air.
A gentle smile played over her mother’s face. “It’s a good question. You’re clever, and have noticed, I suppose, that we’re not suited to … well, a lot of things.” She threw out her hands, palms open, to take in the room of jars and herbs and papers, and the box of maledictions giving off the soft glow of stasis.
Her father crossed his arms, tipping back in his chair. “What your mother is trying to say is … we’re not really suited to be parents,” he chuckled.
Her mother joined him. “Not at all really.”
Poppy stood very still.
“Our job is to keep you safe. That’s the main thing. And to love you, of course,” her father said as his expression grew serious. “That too.”
A bitter taste worked up the back of Poppy’s throat.
“Yes,” her mother proclaimed. “You’re our little Pandora Sunshine, and we love you with all our hearts.”
“Just Poppy,” Poppy muttered.
Her father tipped farther back in his chair, light filling his eyes as he smiled at her mother. “Our brightest light on the darkest day.” Usually when her parents said this, it made her feel better. It was one small advantage of having an interesting birthday—born right at midnight on the winter solstice. This time the words just felt like words.
Her mother smiled back at him, then turned to Poppy with a sigh. “The Grimwood is not safe. Your father and I have spent years learning the wood … watching each other’s backs.” She paused, her face clouding. “And we’ve had our fair share of close calls, Poppy.”
Her father’s expression was apologetic. He held up his hands. “You understand, right, sweetie?”
Poppy couldn’t move. Her feet had turned to stone. Her whole body had turned to stone.
She didn’t remember if she’d answered. She didn’t even remember leaving the lab, or returning to her tower. All she could remember about the rest of that night was that she’d been cold. Cold from the inside, as though every thought and feeling had frozen solid in an instant. She’d lain awake until morning, not thinking at all.
Ever since then, she had made her own notebooks … though it hadn’t stopped her from stealing a copy of the key and sneaking into the lab to read theirs. That was how she’d learned blood wards could be broken.
She slapped her journal shut and shoved it back into her bag.
She turned back to Mack. He had a goofy look on his face as several of the kids in the valley executed an impressive tackle. Laughter rang out as one team declared victory. Their happy shouts made her chest ache, so she yanked a handful of tiny daisies to catapult at Mack’s face. Unfortunately, several clumps of dirt went with them.
“Ready to go?”
He shot her a look and threw a flower back at her, but didn’t say anything. When one of his eyebrows lifted, Poppy knew they were thinking the same thing. He and Poppy could kick all their butts at that game if they ever had the chance.
“Come on.” She frowned, pushing herself up before melancholy could take hold of them both. “I’m officially starving! Let’s go tell Jute we’re still alive.”
Mack rose slowly, trailing behind her as Poppy hurried to her front door and ducked inside. The low frame made the soaring ceilings, open front room, and wide curving banister all the more surprising.
Poppy almost walked into Jute’s stomach. The tall, thin hob had come to meet them at the door, and stood looking down his long nose at her with a question in his eyes. Poppy had always thought of them as quail-egg eyes, because even though Jute had dark brown pupils ringed in black, the whites of his eyes were freckled with little brown spots.
Jute, like all hobs, had hatched from a tree alone in the forest. And like all hobs, he had then gone in search of a home. Jute once told her that hobs were the heart of their tree, broken free, born to wander in search of a home to protect and a hearth to tend. Her parents had found him as a teenager, jammed into the back of a troll cave. He was miserable and shedding, his hair drifting off his head one red leaf at a time, leaving him with bald patches. They’d invited him home for breakfast, and he’d never left. In fact, he rarely left the house at all—and claimed that, barring emergency, he would never set foot in the forest again. He said hobs wandered to find the home of their heart, and he had found his. Her parents had Poppy a short time later, and he offered to look after her in their absence—tutor her when she got older—if only they would let him stay.
“Hi, Uncle Jute! Where are Mom and Dad?”
The hob sneezed and brushed the dusty red leaves of his hair out of his eyes. “Where have you been?”
Something in his voice brought Poppy up short. His whole body was tense—angry. Before he could say another word, she wrapped her arms around him and held him tight. “I’m sorry. I know I haven’t finished my essay assignment, and … and I should have left a note that I might be home a bit late. I didn’t mean to make you worry.” The last thing she wanted was for him to get angry, or worse, clingy and worried.
After a moment, Jute patted her hair and sighed. “I’m not angry at you, Poppy. There’s cocoa for you and Mack. And mac and cheese.”
Relief washed through her. Jute wasn’t angry. And he made food. Conjuring ingredients was one of the hob’s special skills. Another benefit of having a hob for an uncle—they apparently had all sorts of unique talents that appeared as they matured, and when they were needed. He was a great cook too … but maybe that was just practice.
Mack’s face had brightened. “Those little hollow noodles with yellow sauce?”
“It’s ch—”
She hadn’t finished her sentence before Eta-Two-Brutus knocked her to the ground.
Dog, as Poppy affectionately called them when she was in a hurry, was a cerberus—a dog with three heads. They were rare, even in the Grimwood, according to her parents. They’d brought Dog out of the forest for Poppy as a gift for her tenth birthday three years ago, and she had insisted that each head get its own name.
Eta, the head on the left, had all Dog’s smarts, and was more refined in her greeting. Brutus, the head on the right, controlled Dog’s body, and now stood on her chest, smothering her with slobbery kisses. Two was the head in the middle, and had gotten everything left over, which wasn’t much. All three of them had short caramel-colored fur and keenly pointed ears, but Eta and Brutus both had brown eyes, while Two had one brown and one blue, that often shifted outward while keeping track of his siblings.
“Okay, okay. Go bug Mack,” Poppy laughed, shoving Brutus off and giving Eta and Two quick pats. They leaped into his arms without a second thought. Dog wasn’t small, but Mack caught them as if they were a bouquet of flowers. “Good boy, Brutus. Good girl, Eta. You too, Two. Yes, Two. You too. Good dog.”
Poppy wiped the slobber off her face and pushed herself up. Jute hadn’t moved a muscle, except that the long fingers of his left hand had begun to drum against his forearm, his burled knuckles rising and falling in a small brown wave. “Poppy—” he began as she struggled to her feet.
The quiet of the house settled over her in an instant. It was too quiet, and the thought sent a twinge of fear shuddering over her skin. Jute was upset, tense. Something was wrong. Her gaze flicked away from him to the pictures of her on the wall, her heart’s frantic thumps filling her chest. There was one picture for every year of her life, and in each one she stood straight and tall, by herself, looking out as if to challenge anyone who suggested it should be otherwise. She lifted her chin. “Where are they?”
Jute sneezed again, then placed one hand on her shoulder. “Poppy, I—”
“Where. Are. They?”
Jute sniffed the air like Dog on a hunt, and let out a violent sneeze. His eyes widened. “Did you—you didn’t bring home a Mogwen feather, did you?”
Poppy frowned and took the feather from her pack, holding it up for him to see. “Yeah, I did. I—I got it myself. From the forest. I want to show Mom and Dad. Where are they, Jute?”
Jute wiped at his eyes. “Put that thing out. Get rid of it!”
“But—why? What’s the matter?”
“I’m allergic to it, Poppy. I won’t be able to speak in a moment.” He sneezed again to punctuate his words. “Poppy.” Jute sneezed and took her hand in his long knobby fingers. “Your parents—I’m sorry. They—your father had a hunch he wanted to follow. They left. On an urgent—”
Poppy’s throat tightened. She sensed Mack at her side, but a thin veil had fallen over her vision. She blinked rapidly.
“Again?” Poppy shouted. Her voice sounded too high, too tight. Even Dog startled. The veil in front of her eyes washed red. “They’re gone again?” The words were heavy and rotten in her mouth—as though she had pulled them up from a deep old well inside of her.
“Poppy—” Mack warned, no doubt sensing imminent destruction.
“I’m sorry, sweetling. I asked them to wait, but…” Jute trailed off.
“But they wouldn’t. It was too important.” Fury ripped through her veins. In a hot second, Poppy knew what she had to do. There would be no victory. Things didn’t go her way. Things would never go her way. Her parents were gone. Again. Fine! They’d left her with no choice. She would have to show them what she was made of—that they couldn’t just go off and leave her anymore.
With certainty born of rage, Poppy let out a growl and threw open the front door. Jute and Mack wore matching openmouthed expressions that would have given her the giggles in any other circumstance. Now, they just made her madder.
“Where should I put it?” she growled, holding the feather out away from her body.
Jute came out to stand by her side. “Just set it on the ground there, dear.”
Poppy spoke through gritted teeth. “Where? Show me.”
He patted her arm, and moved into the meadow to point at a patch of soil under the nearby lilac. “Here will be fine.”
Poppy dropped the feather on the porch, spun away, and slammed the door behind her, sliding the bolt. Jute was locked out.
“What are you doing? Why did you do that?” Mack asked.
The hob began to rap his knuckles on the door. “Poppy? Poppy, dear—I know you’re upset.”
Poppy didn’t wait to hear Jute coaxing her to open the door. If she was fast—and lucky—she wouldn’t need long. She dashed through the kitchen and locked the back door too.
“What are you doing?” Mack asked again as Dog hopped out of his arms, Eta moving to sniff at Jute behind the door.
She slid to a stop and looked Mack in the eyes. “I’m done waiting.”
Then she spun to race up the stairs.
CHAPTER THREE
Jute was knocking harder now, calling for her to let him in. “I’m sorry, Jute!” Poppy called over her shoulder. Brutus was barking at the hob now, and she fought off a surge of guilt that made her want to run back down and let him in. Instead, she continued her run up the curving stairwell.
She heard Mack’s footsteps behind her. They had reached the second-story landing when Jute called from outside. “Pandora Sunshine! Poppy! Whatever you’re up to, it’s not worth it! It’s a bad idea! It’s trouble!”
She pretended not to hear, and continued up the stairs, her heart pounding. She was going to figure out which malediction her mom and dad were going after. Jute wouldn’t have to be out long. She racked her brain. They didn’t keep their expedition plans in their journals anymore. She’d asked one too many questions.
The strongbox had to be in one of her parents’ usual hiding places. Jute had told her about it one night after a particularly bad nightmare. She’d been worried about them never coming back, and he had wanted to comfort her. “They have a plan,” he’d said. If there was ever an emergency, he was to check the strongbox, and take the contents to the Holly Oak. She’d found it several times, of course. It was just an old metal box with a padlock. Unfortunately, Jute had hidden the key well. Still, there were other ways to break a lock.
Jute’s voice drifted through a window. “Dog, hush! Stop barking!”
“We have to hurry,” Poppy said as Mack caught up.
“What are we doing? We should help Jute. You shouldn’t have locked him out.”
Poppy swallowed. Mack thought less of her for what she was doing to Jute—she did too. “I’ll let him back in in a few minutes. I promise.”
“What are we doing up here, Poppy? What are you planning?”
“We’re looking for Mom and Dad’s strongbox.”
Mack stopped. Poppy didn’t. “The sooner we find it,” she called over her shoulder, “the sooner we can open the doors.”
Mack nose-sighed. “Why are we looking for their strongbox?”
“You don’t want to know.” She paused. “In fact.” She met his eyes. “If you don’t want to help me, you can just go let Jute in. I understand. Just give me a five-minute head start.”
Mack bristled, blinking. Poppy turned her back on him.
His breath huffed behind her. “Let’s just hurry up. I’ll check their closet.”
Poppy knelt at the top of the stairs and bent to lift a loose board, crouching to see what was inside. She pulled out a curved knife, a fountain pen (a former malediction that her parents had undone), a feather duster, half of a rock-hard brownie, two bent nails, and a copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. She peered into the hole. No strongbox.
Quickly she put everything back and ran into her parents’ bedroom. “Find anything?” she called to Mack.
“Not yet,” he called from deep in the closet. “Why does your mom have so many boots?”
Poppy gave an un-Poppy-like giggle as she jumped up onto their brass bed. “Never underestimate practical footwear.” She took hold of the painting on the wall—a barn in the countryside, with a shaggy-haired cow that looked mildly affronted to be watched eating dinner. The picture swung open to reveal small shelves behind it.
Empty, except for an extra toothbrush and a pile of white pebbles.
Poppy moved to her mother’s elegant mirror, scrolled all around with gold curls and loops. It was enchanted, of course, as was almost every mirror from the wood. She pushed up her sleeve and jammed her hand through, gasping as the cold gripped back. The glass rippled like water. She felt around carefully, but only got hold of a small silk bookmark with mold stains, a half-burned candle, and a dead spider. She yanked her hand back out and shook it until the feeling came back. “Don’t worry, Mack! We’ll find it.”
Mack must have been at the very back of the closet. His voice sounded muffled and far off. “Not worried,” he called. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”
Poppy thought. She’d checked all the usual places. Maybe they’d put it somewhere so obvious they thought she wouldn’t bother looking. Her gaze fell on the bed. Before the thought had fully formed, she was on the floor, peering underneath. There was a rectangular shape tucked into the shadows. “Gotcha.”
She pushed herself into the dusty darkness under the bed to grasp the strongbox. When she had crept out again, she only had time to brush herself off before another round of knocks from below propelled her into action.
“Mack! I got it! Come on!” Poppy raced down the stairs with Mack on her heels. Brutus was still jumping up and down and barking like Jute was under attack by an unseen assailant, which was almost true. Eta looked back at Poppy as if she knew her girl was up to something, but there was nothing she could do. Brutus was keeping them at the door. He barked and barked.
“Mack.” Poppy gripped her friend’s arm. “Get the dog biscuits from on top of the cupboard. At least we can shut Dog up.” Mack nodded.
Poppy grimaced. She ha
ted locking Jute out, but she hated that her parents had left her again even more. She couldn’t allow it. She had to do something. Poppy took the small strongbox to the kitchen and set it on top of the already hot stove, lock down. The kitchen filled with the smell of hot metal. She was certain her parents’ latest expedition notes were inside.
The metal lock cracked open with a pop. Poppy shoved her hand into Jute’s oven mitt, pulled off the red-hot lock, and flipped open the box. A small scroll lay inside.
Mack appeared back in the kitchen. “I can’t stand it, Poppy. I’ve got to let him in.” His face froze when he saw the scroll in her hand. He looked at her once with resignation and turned toward the front hall. Poppy’s hand shook as she unrolled the scroll. Her father’s handwriting curled over the page in pale black ink.
Malediction: The Soul Jar
Severity: Order 1-malevolent intent, in malevolent hands
Case Notes: When this malediction was first observed at the thorn grove at N:47, W: 123, it was just beginning its rise—too early for collection. We believe someone else took it, early, from the grove. We have not been able to determine who, but have heard rumors from a reliable source about the existence of a malediction with an altered function. We believe the so-called Soul Jar may be that malediction. If so, this would be the first such (known) malediction, and the first (known) malediction with its own name.
Altered Function: Trapping souls for consumption (or other usage)?
Current Location: Unknown
Current Owner: Unknown
Task: Find the jar, return it to the lab, and place the malediction in stasis.
Poppy shoved the scroll into her pocket and threw the box into the cupboard under the kitchen sink.
Poppy’s thoughts bubbled like a boiling potion as she considered her father’s words, a plan forming in her mind. Mack swung the door open to let Jute back in. She tried to catch Jute’s eye as he walked past, just to tell him she was sorry … but he didn’t look at her.
The Edge of Strange Hollow Page 3