Wink Poppy Midnight

by April Genevieve Tucholke

  Silver letters, silver on black:

  I’m scared, Thomas, I’m scared of myself, I’m scared what I’ll do.

  When the time comes, I’ll jump, I know I will.

  Don’t tell the other Yellows, they won’t understand, tell Midnight, only Midnight.

  Remember when we hiked up to Three Death Jack at night and watched the skiers on Mount Jasper and the ski lift was lit up like Christmas? We felt like Greek gods, sitting on Mount Olympus. You said I was a natural, laughing at all the mortals and their maudlin, trivial lives . . .

  This life, my life . . .

  It’s not trivial.

  It’s . . .

  Mine.

  Mine, mine, mine.

  I held the paper up to my nose. It smelled like jasmine.

  “It’s a clue,” Thomas said. “She meant it as a clue. We can use it to find her.”

  And there was something about the way he said that, something in his voice, that made me doubt.

  I looked over my shoulder, all around Poppy’s perfect green yard.

  Nothing.

  No one.

  Was this another of Poppy’s tricks? Like when she hid in the forest and made the Yellows stop us and demand that stupid kissing contest? Was she going to step out from behind one of the lilac bushes, laughing her head off at me for being so gullible? Was this her revenge for what Wink and I did to her? An elaborate setup with letters and clues and Yellows?

  Or maybe that wasn’t it. Not at all.

  Maybe this wasn’t about revenge.

  Maybe it was something else entirely.

  Thomas took the letter back, put it away, and looked up at Poppy’s bedroom window, the one that faced the street. “I have this feeling that if we don’t find Poppy soon, we won’t find her at all. I’ve read and read the letter, twenty times, a hundred times. What does it mean? What’s the clue?”

  I FOUND THE boy, the tall, dark-haired one with different-colored eyes, blue and green, one sky and the other sea. I was walking through the trees in the rain, thinking maybe I’d spot the solemn Strangers dancing to melancholy tunes in a woodland patch of dappled sun, like they did in Wild Edric and the Londonderry Girl. And that’s when I saw him, rooting around in the wilderness behind the Roman Luck house.

  He didn’t seem surprised to find me standing beside him. He stared right through me almost, as if I wasn’t there at all. He was on his knees, brushing away dirt and dead pine needles with his hands, acting kind of hatter-mad. He kept looking over his shoulder, as if the trees were hiding things behind their fat trunks, which maybe they were.

  The dark-haired boy got to his feet and then picked something up from the ground where he’d just been kneeling. A shovel.

  There wasn’t a good reason to bring a shovel to the woods. There wasn’t a sane reason. The Folk brought shovels to the woods and dug things up and put a glamor on them. They made the dug-up things look like the babies they’d stolen and were raising as their own. And sometimes the Folk returned and buried those stolen babies right back in the dirt, if they screamed too much and were not liked. But the dark-haired boy wasn’t doing this. He wouldn’t even know about it.

  “Why are you digging?” I asked.

  The rain had stopped, and the sun was poking out, and the dark-haired boy with the different-colored eyes nodded at me, kind of nicely.

  “Poppy’s disappeared,” he said.

  “A lot of people disappear,” I said.

  “I was horrible to her,” he said. “Horrible, horrible. She thinks I hate her.”

  “No she doesn’t,” I said.

  “She left a note,” he said.

  “Let me see it,” I said.

  And he put his dirty hands in his pockets and pulled out a black piece of paper with silver letters.

  Briggs.

  Briggs, do you know how you gave me that marble once, the really big one with the gold streak in the middle that you said you won in a fight when you were a kid, and I made fun of you for being into marbles, but you just ignored me and said it matched my gold hair, and I should have it?

  We were in the woods drinking lemonade out of teacups and I got sentimental suddenly and told you to bury the marble under that big pine between the two little aspens so I’d always know where it was.

  You hate me, Briggs. You all hate me, and I deserve it. I deserve every ounce of it.

  I wish I’d kept that gold marble. I wish I had it now. Promise me you’ll find it, you have to promise, even if you’re angry, even though you hate me, promise you will.

  Ask Midnight to help you look. He’s good at finding things.

  “Can I keep this?” I said, holding the letter up in the air, but he was already gone. The boy with two different-colored eyes walked off into the woods, tiny flecks of sun filtering through the trees and sparking off his silver shovel. He went deep and deeper, until he disappeared.

  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.

  BEE LEE 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.

  THREE OF WINK’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.

  WINK 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 sta
red 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.