The House in Poplar Wood

by K. E. Ormsbee

  “We can’t change a thing once Death is at work,” his father always told him. “All we can do is make the passing more bearable.”

  So Felix now handed a mug of hot spearmint tea to the miner, to do just that.

  “Kind of you,” said the man, once the coughs had subsided, “but whiskey would’ve been more welcome, eh?”

  The miner turned to Vince with a smile, but his doctor no longer smiled back. Death had moved to the foot of the table.

  Lee had told no one about the memories hidden beneath his bed. He couldn’t possibly admit to his mother what he had done. Felix and Lee still hadn’t spoken since Felix’s punishment. As for Gretchen, Lee wanted to be cautious. It was possible those remaining two jars contained nothing at all to do with Essie Hasting, and it was better not to get Gretchen’s hopes up. Anyway, if Lee told Gretchen, she’d butt in and pepper him with a million questions, and Lee didn’t want to deal with that.

  After breaking the first jar, Lee had felt off-kilter—often nauseated and always faint, as though his joints were not quite connected the way they ought to have been. But on Wednesday morning—the day Gretchen was referring to as “the Book of Rites Heist”—he woke with a clear mind and sturdy stomach. When he returned home from school, he locked himself in his bedroom, determined to open another memory jar.

  No patients had visited his mother that day, so Lee didn’t have any obligations between now and eight o’clock, when he’d promised to meet Gretchen. He knew this memory might make him sick again, but Lee hoped the worst of that was over. Maybe, he reasoned, absorbing someone else’s memories was a little like running: If you kept doing it, you built up endurance.

  Lee sat on the edge of his bed, clasping the second of the jars. His mother often warned him that memories were fragile, capricious things. When she extracted them from her patients, the work had to be done under Memory’s supervision. The process was calculated and invariable: Judith placed both hands on the patient’s forehead, eyes closed in concentration. Slowly, she siphoned out the memory from the patient’s mind. It emerged from the ear and flowed through midair, a ribbon of shimmering liquid. Then, in its suspended form, the memory circled and funneled itself into the waiting jar. When the process was complete, Judith quickly sealed shut the lid, lest the memory escape to her own mind or to oblivion.

  Though Lee had misshelved memories and written sloppy labels, very few memories had escaped under his watch. Now, he was letting loose memories on purpose.

  “But it isn’t wrong,” Lee whispered. “Not if it’s for a good cause. And if Gretchen holds up her end of the deal, I have to hold up mine. That’s how a deal works. Quid pro quo.”

  This time, he would pay close attention, make note of everything he saw while the memory was at its freshest. And this time, one way or another, he’d find out whose memories these were. It had to be a student at Boone Ridge High—that Lee knew. But not a friend, or at least, no one Essie readily spoke to in public.

  Lee studied the memory in his hands. He’d broken the first jar when its contents were still bubbling, and they had evaporated into his consciousness. He wondered if this next memory would behave the same way, now that it was cooled and gelatinous. Would he have to dash it to the ground like the first jar? Would he merely have to unscrew the lid and breathe deeply? Or would he have to—Lee shuddered at this thought—drink the thick, black liquid?

  “You’re not going to figure it out by staring,” he told himself. “You’ve just got to open it and see.”

  Lee’s hands shook as he turned the lid. Steel screeched against glass like a warning.

  “I don’t care,” said Lee. “I don’t.”

  He unscrewed the lid entirely and set it aside. Then he peered inside the jar. The smell was unexpected. It was not at all foul, but earthy, a mixture of leaves and turned soil and still water. And Lee was no longer inhaling the scent in his bedroom but in the shade of hickory trees. Across from him, sitting on the damp grass, was Essie Hasting.

  “I knew I could tell you,” she said, her voice soft and wet. She was crying, he realized. A fat tear fell to her sneaker and soaked its neon lace. “I know what your family thinks of people like me. But I couldn’t help it. I didn’t have a choice.”

  “I know,” he said.

  He wanted to wrap his arms around Essie, offer her something solid and warm to hold on to. But he wasn’t in the practice of touching anybody, and he didn’t know where to begin. He reached out, then panicked, and dropped his hand, where it landed awkwardly on Essie’s ankle. A new tear fell and splashed onto his skin. And suddenly he didn’t feel awkward anymore. He felt needed. He felt right. His fingers curled around the delicate bone of Essie’s ankle.

  “It’s not so terrible most of the time,” she said. “I just do what Passion asks. It’s never anything bad—only a bunch of silly matchmaking tasks, delivering flowers where I’m told.”

  “And what? They work like Cupid’s arrows?”

  “Don’t look at me that way.”

  “I’m not,” he said, squeezing her ankle again. “I’m trying to understand.”

  Essie nodded limply. “Like Cupid’s arrows, sure, more or less. If you think of it that way, I guess that makes me . . . Cupid’s bow.”

  “Flowers,” he said. “So what, red roses or something?”

  Essie opened her backpack and reached inside, motioning for him to give her his hand. In it, Essie placed a bright purple flower.

  “If you hold it close and concentrate,” she said, “you’ll know who your love is.”

  He snorted. “What if I don’t believe in true love?”

  “It doesn’t matter what you believe. Anyway, I didn’t say true love. It just shows you who your love is at the moment.”

  “So more like your crush.”

  He ran his thumb along the flower’s petals, then offered it back to Essie, but she shook her head.

  “You can keep it.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Thanks.”

  He wondered if she knew. Could she tell, just by looking at someone, who they loved?

  Could she tell how much he loved her?

  “I didn’t mean to cry on you.” Essie patted at her eyes. “That isn’t what we came for.”

  “We don’t have to do this today, if you don’t want.”

  “Are you kidding? I’ve been looking forward to this all week. Whenever I try to bring up things like this with my mother, she won’t listen. She thinks there’s only one way to do things. The Hasting way.”

  “And you?”

  Essie looked hesitant. “When I was in Chattanooga, I looked up the summoners who lived there.”

  “Essie, you didn’t—”

  “And they don’t keep their Rites locked in glass boxes. They’re willing to share them, all you have to do is pay. So I told them what I could afford, and what I wanted to do, and they gave me these.”

  Essie removed something from her backpack. It was a notebook, small and thin.

  “We can do it, Asa,” she said, excitedly. “All we have to do is wish for it.”

  A sound, distant and staccato, crackled in his ear. He shook his head, trying to clear it away, but it only grew louder and louder and—

  Lee returned to his bedroom with a choking start, gripping the quilt on his bed.

  Asa.

  Essie had called him Asa. These were Asa Whipple’s violet-ribboned memories.

  Had Asa been friends with Essie Hasting? Had he even . . . loved her? It hardly seemed possible. Essie was a popular, cheery girl. And Asa was . . . Asa. A snarling, motorbike-riding, bad kid. He was a summoner, and Essie had been an apprentice. Although, Lee reflected, was that an impossibility? Wasn’t he himself hanging out with Gretchen Whipple?

  Gretchen.

  He had to tell her about the memories now.

  “Leander!”

  His mother’s voice was outside his bedroom door. Lee wiped at his eyes and stumbled to his feet.

  “Coming—er, hold on!”<
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  The memory jar, now drained of its contents, was still in his hand. Hurriedly, he shoved it beneath the bed.

  “Everything all right?”

  Lee crossed the room and opened the door, still blinking back fog from his eyes. Judith stood wiping flour-covered hands on her skirt. She looked worried, and Lee realized he must have appeared as out of sorts as he felt.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I was reading. Must’ve fallen asleep.”

  Judith’s face was still creased with concern. “The two of you are fighting, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “W-what? What makes you think that?”

  “Come out here. Memory is out for a walk, and I’d like to speak with you in private.”

  This was how Lee found himself wrapped in a knit shawl on the parlor couch, where most of Judith’s patients sat. He sipped cocoa from a pewter mug that warmed his hands almost to the point of pain. Though Lee was dizzy, the cocoa’s heat helped ground him. Judith sat across from Lee, like he was one of her patients.

  “I know something is the matter,” she said. “You haven’t gone out to the conservatory for days straight.”

  Lee stared at his cocoa and did not reply.

  “Is this about that Whipple girl?”

  “What?” Lee looked up sharply. “No, of course not!”

  Lee felt bad for lying to his mother, but she simply couldn’t know he was hanging out with a Whipple on purpose, let alone making a deal with one.

  “Leander,” she said. “You can tell me—”

  “I’m fine,” Lee interrupted, cross at the use of his full name. “It’s Felix who isn’t okay.”

  Judith set down her mug and leaned in close. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He got into trouble.”

  “With Death?”

  Lee nodded. “I didn’t want to tell you, because I knew you’d worry. I’ve seen him around since, but he won’t talk to me about it. So I’ve left him alone.”

  Judith’s eyes were sad, and Lee could not look at them without feeling sad himself.

  “A troubled young man came to this house recently,” she said. “No one so young should possess a memory as terrible as his. It was full of loss and guilt. He’s better off with it extracted, of course, but even with the extraction, there will always be a residue within him. He’ll never be able to fully shake the feelings the memory created. And the worst of it is, the events of that memory were entirely his own doing.”

  Lee latched his fingers together, concentrated on staring at his thumbs.

  “Lee,” said his mother, “you will make mistakes. Unwittingly, you will make terrible decisions, and no matter how hard you try to protect yourself, you will fall into bad times. But I dearly hope no son of mine will ever choose to go down a path that creates a foul memory. That you would choose to not speak to your brother.”

  “But you don’t understand! If you knew Felix, you’d know how difficult he can be, when he doesn’t talk, when he won’t—” Lee stopped short, for he’d said precisely the wrong words. His mother would never know Felix. She’d never have the chance.

  Judith took Lee’s hands and held them in her own.

  “You love your brother,” she said, “and there is nothing so awful in this wide world as to be separated from someone you love. Now, why would you do that to yourself willingly?”

  “Mom,” Lee said. “Do you ever stop missing him?”

  “No. I will miss them both as long as I live.”

  “But how can you miss Felix when you don’t know him?”

  “I carried you both inside me, him just as much as you. And do not tell me you don’t miss your father just because you’ve never known him.”

  Lee grew quiet at the thought. Of course his mother was right: He missed his father with an inextinguishable love, even though he’d never seen his face.

  Lee knew she was right about him and Felix, too.

  “Still,” he said. “The silence is all Felix’s doing.”

  “That may be,” his mother said, “but it doesn’t mean making it right can’t be your doing.”

  Then she rose and took away his mug, even though it was still half-full.

  The clock on the mantle chimed the quarter hour. Lee had set out for the Whipple house before it chimed again.

  Because i bought it from Death.

  Asa’s voice still rang in Gretchen’s ears. Her brother had done a Rite. Asa had done a Rite with Death. Even now, she attempted to process these facts, but sheer excitement made it near impossible. She sat on the back terrace of Whipple House, bundled in a puffy coat and nestled into a lawn chair. According to her watch, it was 7:56. Four minutes till Lee was due.

  Gretchen knew it was a risk, inviting a Vickery to her house when the family was at home, but there was simply no other way. Her father kept his keys in his office, and he kept his office locked whenever he was away. So Gretchen couldn’t steal the key to the Book of Rites unless Mayor Whipple was home, and Mayor Whipple was only at home early in the morning and at night. Nighttime had seemed the better option. It would be risky, yes, but she had a plan. And now, holding a small stone in her cupped hands, Gretchen had a new plan. A better plan.

  Before, she was going to be the one to distract her father, calling him out into the hall while Lee snuck into the office and snatched the key ring. Gretchen had been nervous about this approach, because Lee had never been in the office nor seen the keys, as Gretchen had. It would take him longer, and there was the chance he’d be caught, and she didn’t want to imagine what her father would do if he found a Vickery snooping in his private office.

  But now, Gretchen thought in triumph, the Wishing Stone could provide the distraction while she stole the keys and Lee served as lookout. It was a faster plan, and safer too. Maybe Asa would be angry if he knew what she was up to, but Gretchen really did mean to get rid of the Wishing Stone when it was all over.

  She checked her watch again: 7:59. Gretchen strained her eyes in the dim terrace light, looking for movement. And there was movement, she found, though not the kind she’d been expecting. Little bits of movement that caught in the light—objects small and quick and everywhere at once.

  Snow.

  It was early in the season for it. Normally, Boone Ridge didn’t see so much as a flake until deep into January. Gretchen grinned. She was going to take this snow to be a good omen, a sign that her plan would work.

  “Gretchen!”

  On instinct, she closed one hand over the Wishing Stone, holding it tight. Then she waved at the boy running up—not as a welcome, but as a frantic sign to keep his voice down.

  “Shhh!” she said, as Lee came to a stop before her, slapping his hands on his knees. She wondered if he’d run here all the way from Poplar Wood.

  “My family’s all here,” she whispered. “We’ve got to be quiet.”

  Lee nodded, apologetic, gulping down breath. Gretchen was eager to tell her news about Asa and the Wishing Stone, but Lee looked like words were straining to burst from him like steam from a boiling kettle.

  “Well?” Gretchen pressed.

  Lee shook his head, and at last, he pushed out breathless speech, his eyes aglow.

  “Asa. Your brother. He and Essie Hasting . . . they were friends.”

  Death had sent Felix to gather herbs many times before, but never this late, and never on so cold a night as this.

  One glance at Death was all it took for Felix to know he was not forgiven yet, not even after two nights in the cellar. Death never looked angry, exactly. Not in the way one would expect a human face to look angry. At all times, his lips remained thin and pale, his shoulders straight. Those features never altered. What changed were the eyes. Felix had tried to explain it once to Lee, with little success.

  “It’s not a change of color,” he had said, “or the size of his pupils. It’s something else. Something changes there that does not change in real people, like you and me. I know it’s a something else, but there isn’t a word for it.”


  The explanation was as far beyond Felix as if Lee had asked him to explain what the color green felt like. But even though he could not explain them, he knew the meanings of those eye shifts. And so he’d seen Death’s eyes and known: Death had not forgiven him.

  Vince knew it, too. He stood on the back porch as Felix readied to leave for the wood in search of the red chrysanthemums Death had demanded.

  “I cannot stop him,” he said to his son. “Felix, you understand, don’t you? I don’t want you to go out there, but Death is my master as much as he is yours.”

  Felix said nothing.

  His father caught him by the elbow and knelt so that their eyes met. He placed something warm in Felix’s hand. It was bacon, wrapped in wax paper. Felix stashed the food in his satchel but made no show of gratitude; he only switched on his electric lantern.

  “Be careful,” Vince said, and Felix looked at his father then, anger boiling in his heart.

  “I wish you’d never met Mom,” he said. “I wish she’d never had me. I didn’t choose to be an apprentice, and you shouldn’t have either. You should’ve been okay to stay unhappy all on your own, without bringing me into it.”

  Vince’s face twisted up, and Felix couldn’t stand to look at it. He ran down the steps, into the dark wood.

  It had been wrong to say those things. Felix knew that even as they were passing from his lips. He was angry, so angry, but not with his father. Not really. It had been Death who had hurt them both and Death who was hurting them still.

  Felix walked into the night, and the snow started up shortly after. He searched an hour straight for the red chrysanthemums. It was a new moon tonight, so the wilds of the wood were black as they could be, and it was slow going with nothing but his lantern for light.

  As Felix trudged on, the snow picked up. The wind was strong, and flakes kept whipping into his face and melting down his cheeks. At last, two hours into the search, Felix settled his sore, cold limbs beneath a bare oak tree.

  “I’m not yours yet,” he said. “You can’t have me, Death. You can’t just claim people for yourself, like we belong to you, like property. You can’t just trick us into giving our lives away, and you’re not going to anymore. If the Agreement can be broken, then I’m going to break it.”