After I put my magic stuff away, Wink pulled The Thing in the Deep out of the pocket of her overalls and started reading. She sat on an old quilt spread over a pile of hay, barefoot, overalls, the Orphans around her, and me. The sun was streaming in the hayloft opening, low and hazy. Which was the only way I could tell how late it was. Time seemed to have stopped entirely. I hadn’t had a day go by so dreamily, so lazily, since I was a little kid. Since before I understood the concept of time.
The tips of Wink’s fingers were still stained from the strawberries, tiny, pink-red little flicks as she turned the pages. Her lips were stained too. I watched them as they moved with the words, mouth as red as blood.
Bee Lee cuddled up next to me, head against my side.
The Orphans consisted of three boys and two girls. All redheads, except for Bee, who had deep brown hair. Bee had just turned seven years old. I knew this, because it was one of the first things she told me. The twins were Hops and Moon, the oldest boy was Felix, and last of all was tiny Peach, the youngest. The ten-year-old twins were the wildest. They always seemed to be trying to outdo the other. Who could scream the loudest? Who could get the dogs howling? Who could put the most hay down the other’s shirt? After that came Peach, who was about five or six, but had the same loud, rascally fierceness of the twins. Felix was maybe fourteen and had the look of his older brother, Leaf, about him. He was quieter than the others, though his eyes were lively enough.
Bee Lee was already my favorite. She was cuddly and sweet like the Bichon Frisé I’d had when I was little. She was always trying to squeeze her hand into mine, or put her dimpled little arm around my waist.
Wink had a beautiful reading voice. Delicate and slow. She read about Thief, about the death of his father, and the prophecy. She read about his journey into the Cursed Woods, just him and the clothes on his back and the sword his father left him. She read about how he needed to steal food, apples from orchards and pies from windowsills, to keep himself from starving. She read about how he sat by his small fire at night and sang the old songs to keep his loneliness at bay.
We heard Mim call out dinner just as Wink read the last word of the fifth chapter. She slipped the book back in her pocket. The Orphans jumped up and took off for the house, Bee Lee giving me a shy smile over her shoulder before darting down the ladder.
I looked at Wink, and she was looking at me.
“Should we go to dinner?” I asked.
She shrugged.
I got to my knees. I put my fingers on the small of her back, and kissed her belly button, right through her cotton overalls. She put her hands on my head, her strawberry-stained fingertips in my hair. I turned my chin, and leaned my cheek against her.
“What the hell is this?”
I jerked. Wink’s hands dropped to her sides. I opened my eyes. Closed them. Opened them again, let go of Wink, and stood up.
Poppy.
Wink stepped backward, a quiet sidle into the corner shadows. Poppy ignored her. She was wearing another short, swoopy sort of dress, the kind that showed more than it hid. It was green, the same color as Wink’s eyes.
“You weren’t home and your dad wouldn’t tell me where you’d gone. He’s always hated me.” She paused, and ran her hand down her hair, smoothing it, drawing attention to it. “But I figured it out.”
“You’re trespassing,” I said. “This is Wink’s farm. You’re not welcome. She doesn’t want you here.”
Poppy laughed.
She grabbed me by the front of my shirt and yanked me toward her. Then she narrowed her eyes at the darkness behind me. “Is that true, Feral? You don’t want me here?”
Wink stayed in the shadows.
Poppy let go of my shirt and walked into the dark. She wrapped her fingers around the right strap of Wink’s overalls and pulled her, one step, two, back into the fading evening light at the center of the hayloft. Wink followed, meek as a lamb.
Poppy brushed a curly strand of Wink’s hair off her cheek. Wink didn’t stop her.
“Do you think Midnight is a prince come to rescue you from being a loser?” Poppy kept her fingers on Wink’s face. “Is that what you think? I bet you kissed him last night, after you showed everyone your unicorn underwear at the party. I bet you crawled all over him. You Bells—you’re nothing but animals. Dirty and sex-crazed like a bunch of smelly goats.”
“Stop it, Poppy.”
I didn’t scream it. I didn’t even raise my voice. But she took her hand from Wink’s cheek and turned around.
“You protecting your new little girlfriend, Midnight? Wow, that’s adorable.” She put her hand on her hip and twitched her torso until her dress swung against her upper thighs, swish, swish. “How can you stand it? How can you stand kissing such a pasty, freckled, dirty thing? Is it just hormones? Is this some kind of Testament to the Male Organ? Should I be taking notes? Putting together an academic study?”
“You’re so mean.” I said it quiet, really quiet, but she was listening. “Why are you always so mean? What’s wrong with you? Were you born like this? Sometimes I think there must be a hole in your heart . . . one that hurts and makes you roar like an animal with its leg in a trap. Is that it, Poppy? Is that why?”
Poppy just stared at me. An evening breeze blew in and stirred the hay and we all just stood there.
She turned.
Walked to the ladder.
Climbed down.
Left.
And then Wink was at my side, slipping her hand into mine. “Let’s go to dinner,” she said.
And without even looking, I knew she was smiling. I could hear it in her voice, sense it in her fingers, strawberry tips pressing into my palm.
“YOU STARE AT Leaf Bell. You stare at him a lot.”
“A lot,” Zoe echoed, her stupid brown pixie curls twitching as she nodded her head, her and Buttercup both looking at me. The two of them lived next door to each other, had always lived next door to each other. They showed up in kindergarten doing the creepy, creepy twin thing, same clothes and repeating each other’s sentences and talking in unison. They have different hair and different skin and different eyes, and one’s tall and one’s tiny, but for a long time I could barely tell them apart. Though to be honest I never really tried.
We were sitting in the bleachers, done running, wet hair from the showers making damp trails down our T-shirts. Buttercup and Zoe ran in black shorts and black shirts, and striped socks pulled up to their knees, it would have been less laughable if they didn’t take it so seriously.
The boys were on the track, Leaf in front, he was always in front. He was the best runner at our 1,300-kid school, we took state the last two years and he was why.
“Leaf is vile.” Buttercup.
“All the Bells are vile.” Zoe.
“Aren’t they?” They said that last bit together, twinsy style.
“Shut up, Buttercup. Shut up, Zoe.”
And then they swapped a secret, knowing smile. I felt like slapping it off their faces but instead I told them that if they ever mentioned Leaf’s name again I would spread a rumor that I’d caught the two of them kissing the hot new math teacher Mr. Dunn in the cemetery, back by the Redding mausoleum, long grass hiding them from view. Details make a lie, it’s all in the details, Buttercup and Zoe knew this by now. I’d taught them.
And they never said his name again, even on the day he left, even after I told them about Midnight, and what I’d done.
When I found Midnight in the hayloft with his cheek against Wink’s stomach and her hands in his hair . . . the expression on his face . . . and Feral looking down at him . . . There was something happening between them, something not in the plan.
Leaf gone.
And now Midnight.
Not again. Not again, not again, not again, not again.
THE HERO DOES magic tricks. Not real ones, like M
im and Leaf, but the sweet kind that don’t have any true magic in them at all. He showed them to me and the Orphans in the hayloft.
Bee Lee stared at him all through dinner. Bee’s got a soft heart, like the red-eyed Banshee in Piety Shee and the Moonlight Dancers. Piety wandered the earth looking for a lost love, her nighttime wails like willows sighing in the wind.
Bee Lee’s been missing Leaf since he left, and Felix doesn’t pay attention to her in the same way—they’re too close to the same age, Mim says. But Midnight . . . she looked at him all dazzly-eyed and he didn’t mind a bit.
The Wolf came to the hayloft again, but Midnight did what he was supposed to do. He defended me, like a Hero. He drove her away, back into the darkness.
Mim read my tea leaves again, later, after Midnight went home. But she wouldn’t tell me what they said.
THE YELLOWS WERE standing in a semi-circle, eating plump red cherry tomatoes out of a brown paper bag.
Wink and I had gone into town to visit the Carnegie, and our backpacks were heavy with books. We ate olive oil ice cream from the little Salt & Straw stand on one corner, and got Parmesan and butter popcorn from Johnny’s popcorn Shack on the other. Dusk was coming on, and the shadows were growing long. The air smelled like wildflowers, and grass, and snow. In the mountains the air always smells like snow. Even in summer.
We walked down the click-clacking cobblestones of Dickenson Rose Lane, waved to my old house, ignored Poppy’s, petted a chill St. Bernard through a white fence, and then went through the Green William Cemetery, toward the woods.
The Yellows were blocking the Roman Luck path. The Roman Luck path was the shortcut that led to the Roman Luck house, and the Bell farm, and it was our only way home, unless we wanted to walk three extra miles out on the regular roads. And it was almost dark.
Buttercup and Zoe popped tomatoes into each other’s mouths, bright red lips closing around bright red tomatoes. Their black dresses and striped socks jarred with the lush trees behind them. They both had on matching skull-shaped backpacks, though school was long out. Buttercup’s black hair was in a tight, sleek braid and Zoe had slicked down her short curls and looked like a thirties movie star. They gave us the side-eye while they chewed, tomato seeds on their chins.
Thomas and Briggs were standing with arms crossed and heads leaning away from each other. Deliberately. They must be fighting over Poppy. Again.
Buttercup and Zoe both swallowed, and then spoke at the same time. “Hello, Midnight. Hello, Feral.”
They’d never talked directly to me before. I’d never mattered enough.
Where was Poppy? She put them up to this, no doubt, so where the hell was she?
“If you want to use the path you have to pass a test,” Buttercup said, and nodded her oval face, quick, quick, black braid swishing.
“You have to pass a test,” Zoe repeated.
Thomas and Briggs just stared at us, and ate more tomatoes. Thomas was tanned and blond and attractive in that wounded, sad way that girls always liked. And Briggs was lanky and witty and good at sports and rich as hell. They could have had any girl, but they were Poppy’s pawns, just like I used to be.
I sighed. “What are you talking about, Buttercup?”
“It’s a kissing test. You have to pass a kissing test.” Nod, nod.
“What’s a kissing test?” Wink asked, voice low, hands in deep pockets.
“You both have to kiss each other, and then you both have to kiss Poppy, and then we vote. If we like what we see, we let you enter the forest.” Zoe this time. She took Buttercup’s hand, fingers intertwining. They both turned to us, twin wicked smiles.
Briggs threw a tomato up in the air and caught it in his mouth, perfect and fluid, like he was posing for an All-American Boy poster. “I don’t know why we didn’t think of this before,” he said, still chewing. “It’s brilliant. Tomorrow I’m going to stand on Blue Twist Bridge and make people kiss before they can pass. And maybe charge them money too.”
“Like the Three Billy Goats Gruff,” Wink said. Softly.
“What do you mean?” Briggs’s eyes snapped on hers. “Are you calling me a billy goat?”
Wink just shrugged and looked tranquil.
“I’m not a goat, Feral Bell. You’re the goat. That’s right, Poppy told us about how you and Midnight were up in the hayloft, doing beastly things—”
“It’s a fairy tale.” Thomas stepped closer to Wink, almost protectively. And it kind of pissed me off, because wasn’t that my job? But I understood it too, because Wink had that effect on a guy.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Briggs cocked his head and flared his nostrils.
“The Three Billy Goats Gruff is a fairy tale about a troll that lives under a bridge and tries to eat anyone that passes. Everyone knows that story, Briggs.”
Buttercup and Zoe nodded, very wisely. “Everyone,” they said together. “Everyone knows it.”
“Who the hell reads fairy tales? Fairy tales are for babies—”
Poppy stepped out from behind a tree. Gray dress matching her gray eyes, black boots to her knees. She smiled the same Cheshire Cat grin as Buttercup and Zoe, but she had her hands up in a submissive gesture.
“Peace, everyone. Peace. The next thing we know, we’ll all be so distracted fighting that we won’t notice when these two sneak off right underneath our noses, like they’re the cunning, tricksy heroes and we’re the simpleminded villains in a children’s book.”
She looked at me. Glared at me.
“And I’m not going to let that happen, because I want to see how your little unicorn underwear girlfriend kisses, Midnight. I want to make sure she’s good enough for you. The Yellows are going to watch us all and then help me decide if I can allow a past lover of mine to be with this freckled little barnyard girl.”
My mind started racing with all the fighting things Alabama had told me: Stay relaxed, bend your knees, kicking isn’t sissy, be prepared to run . . .
“Five against two, I don’t care. We’re not doing it, Poppy. I’d let your Yellows beat me bloody before I’d make Wink kiss you.”
But suddenly Wink’s hand was on my arm, and she was moving it back and forth in that gentle way she had. “It’s all right, Midnight. Let’s just do it and move on.” She got on her tiptoes, lips to my ear. “They want you to fight them. Don’t give them what they want. Let’s just play along and act like we don’t care.”
She put her heels back on the ground, turned, and walked up to Poppy. She placed her freckled hands on Poppy’s flawless cheeks, ran her thumbs over Poppy’s arched blond eyebrows, pulled her face down . . .
And kissed her.
No one had ever taken Poppy by surprise before. Not ever.
One second . . . two . . .
And then Poppy’s shoulders relaxed, her eyes closed . . .
Her lips started moving under Wink’s . . .
The kiss went on. And on. Soft and slow and lips and girl, girl, girl.
Thomas and Briggs stopped eating tomatoes and looking sulky and aggressive. They leaned forward, shoulders almost touching.
. . . the kiss . . .
Buttercup and Zoe held hands and stared. Zoe’s mouth was open a little bit.
. . . the kiss . . .
The light was now an eerie twilight blue, and the forest had gone dark, and we’d promised Mim we’d be home an hour ago.
. . . the kiss . . .
Wink pulled back. Just like that. Snap. She put her hands back in her pockets, spun around, and came back to me.
“Your turn,” Wink said, and gave me her ear-popping smile.
I didn’t do it.
I just took Wink’s hand and walked right past the stunned-looking Poppy and the stunned-looking Yellows, right into the dusky black woods, not another word.
No one tried to stop us. No one
said anything at all, except Poppy, who called out my name, just once. But I didn’t turn around.
THAT PERT PERT pert little redhead.
Things were starting to get a little out of control, but I knew I could handle it, I’m Poppy, for fuck’s sake. I never give up, ever, I don’t have it in me.
I told Briggs to meet me at midnight in my backyard between the lilac bushes and then I told Thomas to come to my bedroom at eleven and we were both mostly naked when Briggs found us, just as I’d planned, Thomas with his hands sliding up my bare back and me with my face in his blond hair and my knees gripping his hipbones, just as he liked.
Thomas’s younger sister died, she drowned in the Blue Twist River when she was eight years old, and Thomas was supposed to be watching her when it happened. Their father went crazy, he’s in an institution and is considered dangerous to himself and others, and Thomas, oh how sad he is, how he worries about me whenever I hang out at the river, worries I’ll slip in and disappear in an instant, just like his dead baby sister, and I like his sadness, I do, but it’s not enough, not enough to stop me.
Briggs swore revenge on Thomas, like a character in a book, and I laughed out loud and asked if they were going to duel at sunrise because I’d like to place bets on who would kill who . . . and then Briggs turned his anger on me, and my god I had them both wrapped around my damn finger, it was too easy. Briggs said I was going to get what was coming to me, that I’d led them both on, and turned their friendship to ash, very dramatic, especially for Briggs, and it was all so perfect, I wouldn’t have wished for more if I’d done it on a falling star.
Thomas started crying then, soft, quiet tears down his tanned cheeks, and I will say this, he was hot even when he cried, just like Midnight, and I felt a twinge in my heart then, just a twinge, just a flicker. Thomas didn’t swear or make threats like Briggs, but then, the quiet ones are the ones you have to watch out for.
Wink Poppy Midnight Page 6