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.
“MIDNIGHT.”
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.
THE CARDS TOLD the whole story, laid out on the grass in swords, wands, cups, coins, queens, kings, knights, and fools. Midnight couldn’t read them, but I could, despite what I’d said.
Peach and the twins saw a girl in the woods, but Bee Lee saw something too.
She was down by the Blue Twist a few days ago. She wasn’t allowed to go to the river on her own, but she loved to watch the fish in the swirling white water and wouldn’t listen to me, not about this.
She came running back down the gravel road, cheeks pink and hair sweaty and sticking to her forehead.
“I saw a girl,” she said, “a girl with long yellow hair and a black dress, like a princess in a story. She jumped into the Blue Twist. And you can’t swim in the Blue Twist, it goes too fast and you drown. You swallow water and your lungs fill up and you drown.”
“Show me,” I said.
I followed her to the spot, a mile away, down the gravel road . . . but there was no trace of a girl in the water. It was just spinning white curls of river.
“I saw her,” Bee said. “I really did, Wink.”
I nodded, because I knew.
That was the first time I felt doubt. Just a twinge, just a little bite, nothing more than the Imps and Plum Babies pinching the Hix Sisters in the bluebell field in The Green Witch of Black Dog Hill.
That night, after Midnight left, and after I’d run my errand, I snuck in through the kitchen, carefully closing the screen door so it wouldn’t slam. I set the basket on the counter and tiptoed upstairs. Bee Lee was sleeping in my bed. She did that when she had nightmares. I crawled in next to her and brushed her hair off her cheek. Her eyes opened.
“Where you been, Wink?”
“Gathering wild strawberries in the forest,” I said. “Wild strawberries picked by the light of the moon have magical powers. I’ll give you some tomorrow, with sugar and cream. And then we’ll see what happens.”
“Will I turn into a frog?” she asked.
I nodded.
“Will I turn into a princess?”
I nodded.
She smiled, and closed her eyes again.
“THERE ARE TWO girls waiting on the front steps for you.”
Dad had just gotten back from his run. Three miles every morning, two every night. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck and his whole face was flushed. “Not the blonde and not the redhead. Two new girls.”
I pushed back the bowl of homemade granola and milk I was nibbling on. I wasn’t hungry anyway. I walked across the kitchen and opened the front screen door.
Stripes.
They turned their heads and looked at me over their shoulders.
“Did you know,” Buttercup said, eyes hooded, voice crisp, black hair dripping down, “that Poppy is missing?”
“Missing,” Zoe said, echo, echo. Her chin moved up and down and her short brown curls followed.
The morning air had a misty quality, haz
y and kind of marvelous. It must have rained again in the night. I looked over at the Bell farm. It was unusually quiet. There was a strange car in the driveway, so Mim was doing a reading. But I didn’t see Wink or the Orphans.
Buttercup and Zoe without Poppy and without the rest of the Yellows . . . they seemed less scary, somehow. Almost vulnerable. I sat down on the step next to Zoe and she moved the skirt of her black dress to make room.
I nodded at each of them in turn. “Buttercup. Zoe.” It felt strange to say their names for the very first time without the usual feeling of dread hitting my tongue. “Yeah, I know Poppy is missing. Why are you here?”
“I don’t know,” Buttercup said, and her black eyes reminded me of Wink’s, suddenly. Open and innocent. “I mean, yes I do.”
“Yes, we do,” said Zoe.
Buttercup slipped the skull-shaped backpack off her shoulder and rummaged around inside. She pulled out something thin and black, and held it between her fingertips, gingerly, like it was poison.
“Take it.”
I did. It was a small sheet of lined paper, folded in half. I just looked at it, sitting on my palm.
“Poppy likes to write on black paper with a silver pen,” Buttercup said. “I found it in my backpack this morning.”
I opened it. Silver letters on a charcoal background.
It was Poppy’s handwriting, just like Thomas’s letter. And Briggs’s. I knew the loop of her g. I recognized the plump belly of her b. It was as familiar to me as the blue veins in her lily-white arms.
Buttercup and Zoe,
It’s for the best, I swear it is, and I’m always right, I always am.
Do you remember that time we went apple picking last fall? We stole a bucket of them from that big old tree near the abandoned elementary school and I had you both write down apple poems as I made them up on the spot, and the poems were all about me, about how I was gray-eyed and apple-cheeked, about how I ruled with an iron fist and how I was the apple of everyone’s eye.
How could you stand me?
I can’t even stand myself, not anymore.
You should go talk to Midnight.
He has things to tell you.
“I have a bad feeling,” Buttercup said, and shuddered, quick and gentle like the shimmering leaves of the nearby aspen tree. She rubbed her long, thin fingers up and down over her striped-stocking legs. Her fingernails weren’t painted black, like usual. They were just a plain, natural pink. “I think Poppy did something to herself.”
Zoe just nodded.
That feeling came back, the one from the Roman Luck house, flu sick and too little sleep and clammy-skinned fear. “She wouldn’t. Poppy’s not that kind of girl.”
“Who knows what kind of girl Poppy is.” Zoe this time, all on her own.
“What things do you have to tell us?” Buttercup asked. “She said you had things to tell us, in the letter.”
Poppy wanted me to tell them about the Roman Luck house. About what me and Wink did to her there. I knew she did.
But instead I just shrugged, quick, like Wink. “Poppy wrote notes on black paper to Thomas and Briggs too . . . maybe this is what she wanted you to know. Thomas thinks they’re clues to finding out where she’s gone. I haven’t made up my mind, though. I’m still thinking.”
Buttercup gave me a small smile then, no red lipstick. “We’ve decided that we’re sorry we were mean to you in the past, Midnight.”
I stared at her for a second. She seemed sincere. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay.” Zoe. The thick stubs of her brown curly hair rubbed against her cheekbones. She was looking down at her black boots, toes touching, ankles out. “Poppy was a bad influence on us. We can see that now.”
Buttercup nodded.
I thought of Poppy, in the Roman Luck house, her arms above her head, dried blood on her face, whispering you didn’t come back, you left me here and didn’t come back. . . .
If Poppy was a bad influence, then so was I.
Everything went hazy at the edges suddenly, blurry, blurrrrrr . . .
I blinked. And breathed in deep. Again, and again.
“I’ll walk you girls home,” I said.
WE FOUND BRIGGS and Thomas on our way back into town. They were half a mile from the Roman Luck place. Briggs was standing in the middle of three small mounds of dirt, a shovel nearby on the ground. He looked up at us and wiped his hand across his forehead. His fingernails were dirty, and black creases stretched across the skin of his palms.
Thomas stood next to him, close, like they’d just been talking.
“What are you two doing?” Buttercup had her arms crossed over her chest, and her elbows were moving up and down with her breath.
Briggs whispered something, cleared his throat, spoke louder. “I’m looking for a marble.” Pause. “It’s stupid, I know. I’ll never find it. Still . . . I had to try. You’re supposed to be helping me look, by the way.” Briggs glanced at me out the corner of his eyes.
I looked right back at him. “I saw your letter. Wink showed me.”
Thomas reached into the zippered pocket on his designer jeans and took out his own black piece of Poppy paper. “I was just telling Briggs that I think the letters are clues.”
“Clues to finding Poppy,” Buttercup added.
“Why the hell would she run off in the first place?” Briggs groaned, deep and kind of sad. He yanked off his sweaty T-shirt and threw it on the ground. “What happened to spark all this?”
I picked up the shovel and put it behind my back.
I had to tell them. I had to suck it up and be the hero and tell the Yellows what happened to their fearless leader.
“Wink and I tricked her. We tied her to the grand piano in the Roman Luck house and left her there all night.”
All four Yellows went still.
“You did what?” Briggs. His head cocked to the side.
My palms were sweaty on the wooden handle, sweaty and slick. “We tied her to the grand piano and left her in the music room until dawn. When we got back she was . . . she was dimmed, if that makes sense. I never thought . . . I never thought it would crush her, not like that. And I haven’t seen her since that morning.”
Which was a lie, because I had seen her, on the top of the hayloft, just for a split second.
And I’d smelled her perfume in my room every night too.
But the Yellows didn’t need to know this. I might have imagined it all anyway.
I focused on Briggs, since he was the one I was the most worried about. His face was flushed, down his cheekbones, across his neck.
This was it. The Yellows were going to beat the hell out of me. And I had it coming.
Briggs grabbed for the shovel and it slid right out of my sweaty palms. I didn’t even resist. He put his arm back and . . .
And threw it. Right past me. It hit one of the trees, hard, and fell to the ground, a quiet, gentle thud.
After that Briggs just stood there, staring at me.
He didn’t look angry anymore. He just looked tired.
“We don’t blame you, for tricking her.” Buttercup put her hand on my forearm and rubbed her fingers up and down, from my wrist to my elbow. “What Poppy did to Wink at the Roman Luck party was unforgivable.”
“We helped Poppy do it.” The wind picked up and blew Thomas’s shaggy blond hair all around his head, like it was trying to get his attention. “We helped her humiliate Wink.”
Briggs kept staring at me, one blue eye, one green. “I saw someone out here in the woods last night. A girl that looked just like Poppy. I only saw her for a second, right before she disappeared back into the dark. You want to know what I think?”
No one nodded, but he went on anyway.
“I think Poppy is fucking with us.”
Long pause.
“Or she’s dead, and she’s haunting us.” Thomas said it kind of defiantly, chin up, like he expected us to start laughing.
Which Briggs did. “So she’s writing letters from beyond the grave? That’s so stupid. Poppy is a fighter, like me. She’s not a quitter.”
“Poppy is a lot of things,” I said. And meant it. “Look, Wink and I started this. Whatever happened in the Roman Luck house, whatever Poppy went through, it led to her going missing. I’m to blame.”
Buttercup turned suddenly and gave me a hug. Her arms were long and warm.
My mom had always said that fear brought out the truth in people. She based entire books on it. I guess Buttercup’s truth was better than I’d thought.
“I’m worried about Poppy,” she whispered in my ear. “I’m scared for her.”
“Me too,” I said.
“I’m going home.” Thomas started walking away, talking to us over his shoulder. “I’m going to study my letter and then I’m going to search every damn nook and cranny until I find her.”
“We’ll help you,” Buttercup said. And Zoe nodded. And Briggs followed behind.
THE THING ABOUT Briggs, the secret thing, was that he’d never hurt a fly. He was a bully, and like most bullies, like all bullies but me, he was a baby underneath it all. At least Midnight was a baby straight up, there was something to respect in that, there was. I said before that Thomas was the sad one, the sensitive one, but Briggs . . . I’d once seen Briggs cry over a spotted owl in the park that had broken its wing and kept hopping around because he couldn’t fly. Briggs tried to hide his tears but I saw them, and heard the way he was sniffling too, on his knees in the grass, and his voice was thick and choked and he kept asking me over and over what he should do, as if I was some sort of spotted owl wing-healer.
And right before the bird, Briggs had been taunting a nerdy little kid about his thick glasses and the soccer ball he couldn’t kick worth a damn, and the whole time it never occurred to him, the contradiction.
I used to meet the Yellows in the morning, not too early, at Lone Tree Joe. In the summer it was filled with wealthy, weasel-faced hipsters on break from school and staying in their parents’ vacation homes until September, but I was Poppy and had to have the best even if it meant rubbing elbows with the non-local trust-fund brat packs.
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