Wink Poppy Midnight (12 page)

She said it again.
“I love you, Midnight.”

I shook my head. And I did it with my chin held high and my knife in my hand. “No, Poppy. You never did. You never, ever did.”

And we left.

T
HE DARK.
It was thick as drying blood, so thick I could have held it in my hands, if they were free, palms filled with it. I could feel the blackness breathing, panting, panting, the dark, the dark, the dark.

Not much longer now, it wouldn't be much longer, my wrists were itching, burning, my arms were falling asleep, they felt dead, dead weights on the ends of my shoulders, but I wasn't going anywhere, not yet. The scratching sounds came and went with the breeze, the breeze cleared the air, leaves and dirt and dew covering up the dust and dank and death, and I drew it in, sucked it in, like it was meant for me, like it would save me.

I screamed again. Scream, scream, scream. I was losing my voice, but it blocked out the dark, and the scratching, and the whispering, when had the whispering started? Had it always been there? Whisper, whisper, words I didn't know, stupid words, lumpy words, swampy words, the unforgivables, Wink made them up, I knew she did, I'd known all along, but then
who was whispering?

My wrists hurt, my heart hurt, it was beating so fast, so fast, I couldn't keep up,
Leaf was whispering to me, we were
in the meadow, and I was beside him on the grass and he was whispering, whispering that I was ugly on the inside, but he was kissing my wrists anyway, kissing them hard, so hard they were burning from it, burning up, and my arms were wrapped around him, so tight they were going numb and this was why, this was why, whispers and heartbeats, whispers and heartbeats, all around me. I wanted to put my hands over my ears but I couldn't, th
e whispers drew in closer, so close they were touching me, inside me, through my skin, into my insides, into my inner deeps, I couldn't bear it, I couldn't bear one more second of it . . .

I screamed. And screamed.

I tried to keep counting, counting my own flashing heartbeats, just to make sure, one two three, one two three . . .

But then, just like that, like a door slamming in the wind . . .

Everything went quiet.

Everything, for once, was quiet.

I
COULD HEAR
her screaming. We were half a mile away from the Roman Luck house and I could still hear. Midnight could too, he tensed each time. I felt it.

Bad people still put out traps in the woods. Leaf and I found a coyote once, his back foot caught in the metal teeth. The coyote screamed and screamed. He tried to bite Leaf, and did, on his upper arm, a deep nip, but Leaf got him free all the same. The coyote ran off on his three good feet and didn't look back.

Leaf stayed out in the forest for two days straight, waiting for the trap man to return to his snare. When Leaf finally came home the front of his shirt was dripping blood. Mim didn't ask questions. She never asked Leaf questions.

I see the coyote sometimes, standing in the trees at the edge of the farm, looking at me with his big ears and bushy tail. I know it's him, because of the limp. He watches us for a while, and then retreats into the woods, back to doing his coyote things. He's looking for Leaf, but I don't know how to tell him that Leaf is gone.

I'd put out a trap in the woods.

I'd caught a wolf.

And now it was screaming.

If Poppy was the Wolf, and Midnight was the Hero . . .

Then who was I?

W
E WERE GOING
to leave her for an hour.

Just an hour.

Wink said that's how long it would take. At least an hour, to kill a monster. We went to the hayloft and she gave me a cup of Earl Grey and read the leaves after I'd sipped it all. She held the cup in her hands, elbows sticking out, and said my leaves spoke of witches and beasts and princes.

It started raining, soft at first, then harder and harder, thunder snapping across the sky.

I asked Wink about what she'd said, when she'd been tied up. About the hungry unforgivables and the lapping up the blood and the popping open Poppy's brain.

“Where did you come up with all that, Wink? I believed it. I was scared of you. I was.”

Wink smiled, and her ears popped out. “Sometimes I put on plays with the Orphans. Hops and Moon love madmen. They want all our plays to have madmen in them, so I usually play a character that's wandering a barren moor or locked up and screaming in a dungeon, or a tower, or an attic. I've gotten pretty good at it. Mim says we shouldn't
pretend to be mad people, she thinks it draws bad spirits . . .”

Wink shrugged, then pointed up at the ceiling. “I string up a curtain between the beams here in the hayloft to make a stage. Peach wants to play all the roles and Bee Lee doesn't want to play any and Hops and Moon laugh right through all their lines. It's fun.”

I sighed, my arms beneath my head, my body feeling heavy in the hay.

I tried not to think about her. Poppy. Out there in the house. Alone. Scared.

I was here with Wink in the hayloft. Exactly where I wanted to be.

As if she could read my mind, Wink came over and cuddled hard into my side. She started talking about Thief. About how he wasn't just another boy with a sword on a journey. She talked about how he walked through the Hill Creeps, and didn't go insane, and only the bravest could do such a thing. She talked about the first time he saw Trill, how she was running from the black Witch Wolves, long white veil streaming behind her, bare feet making small dents in the snow.

Wink put her hand up the back of my shirt, and ran it up my spine, up and down, up and down, up and down, softly, softly, slowly, slowly, and it was making me sleepy . . .

I stretched in the hay and sighed.

I kept an eye on the hayloft opening, on the night sky,
trying to tell time by the moon like you do with the sun . . .

Poppy screaming. Poppy crying. Pulling at the rope, wrists bleeding, Roman Luck standing next to her, looking lost, Martin Lind collapsed on the floor, groaning about his children, rats running over his body, Wink opening the book,
The Thing in the Deep
, showing it to me, showing me how Thief had changed, how he looked different now, how he had shifty eyes, and slouched shoulders, and straggly hair . . .

I opened my eyes.

Closed them.

Open. Close. Open.

I'd fallen asleep.

I'd fallen
asleep.

“How long has it been, Wink? How long since we left her?”

Wink yawned. Her head was under my chin and her arms nestled into my chest. “I don't know. I fell asleep too.”

I looked outside.

It was still dark, but dawn was coming. I could see it on the horizon, clawing at the night.

W
INK PULLED AN
apple out of one of her deep pockets and we shared it on the way there. I didn't feel like eating, but I just kept taking bites, hoping the crisp, familiar taste would make me feel normal again.

The path was wet from the storm, and my shoes sunk into mud and old pine needles.

I wanted to run to Poppy, run like something was chasing me, like one of Wink's Witch Wolves had its teeth at my heels, heart thudding, sweating, panting, wind on my cheeks.

Why wasn't I running?

I wanted to cut her free, and tell her I was sorry, so, so sorry. I wanted it so much I could
feel
my fingers on the rope, the cold metal of my knife, her messy blond hair, her look of relief . . .

But my steps got slower and slower, the closer we got.

The apple was tart and juicy and this felt real.

This.

Walking with Wink, the apple, the fresh air.

Not before, in the house, with the scurrying sounds and Wink's unforgivables and Poppy, oh Poppy . . .

The Roman Luck mansard roof. There it was suddenly, peeking out between branches and leaves.

I stopped walking.

“Did I dream it?” I asked Wink. “Did I just dream it all up, what we did?”

She looked at me and shook her head. “No, Midnight.” She took the apple, one last bite, and then threw it into the trees.

I couldn't go in. I stood on the broken, splintered steps, and couldn't go in.

It was lighter already. The sky was gray, not black.

I wondered how long Poppy had screamed before finally giving up.

I'd never get the sound of her screams out of my head, or my heart.

Is this what it meant to be the hero? Is this what Wink thought it meant?

I wondered if Poppy tried to chew her way through the rope. I wondered if she pulled at it until her wrists bled, like in my nightmare.

I wondered what kind of person she would be now.

I wondered what kind of person I would be now.

Wink took my hand and pulled me through the Roman Luck door.

Down the hall.

Into the music room.

Poppy's arms were above her head, smooth and translucent in the murky dawn light. I could see the veins running down the inside of her elbows. Her right cheek rested against her shoulder. I couldn't see her eyes.

There was blood. Dried flakes of it on her chin, and down her neck.

“She must have cried so hard she bit her tongue,” Wink whispered. Her voice was soft and calm and normal . . . but her face looked worried.

“Poppy,” I called out, keeping my voice low, and strong, like a hero's. “Poppy, wake up. We're going to let you go. We're sorry we left you here all night, but you can leave now.”

She didn't move. I took out my pocket knife, flipped it open. I stepped forward. The floor creaked.

No eyelids fluttering. No moaning. No squirming. Nothing.

I looked back over my shoulder at Wink. And she was . . . she was . . . she looked . . .

Wrong.

Wrong.

Wink ran forward. Down to her knees, her cheek on Poppy's chest, ear to her heart.

“The knife,” she said. “Quick.”

I cut the rope, hacked at it, hacked and hacked,
why had I used my knife to cut up all the cardboard moving boxes? Alabama had told me that cardboard would dull the blade
—

The rope snapped in two.

Poppy's arms dropped, heavy, like lead. Stone. Her skirt was pushed up and her hands smacked against her bare legs before hitting the floor.

Wink wrapped Poppy in her arms. She leaned her head against her shoulder, gently, gently.

I stopped breathing.

The edges of the room blurred.

Wink was staring at me. Her eyes seemed huge, big as saucers, like the dog in the story she read in the hayloft, the one about the tinderbox and the soldier.

Poppy moved. Just a little, just her lips.

“Midnight.”

Her voice came quiet, like a thief in the night.

“Midnight.”

Her eyelids fluttered . . .

I couldn't stand it, I couldn't stand looking at her. I didn't want to see what her eyes would say, once they opened . . .

I turned away and stared at the fluttering red curtains instead.

“Midnight.”

The red curtains fluttered and fluttered. You could really see how dirty they were, in the dawn light. Sun-bleached, faded to pink in places and teeming with dust and grime. Flutter, flutter.

“You didn't come back,”
she said.
“You left me here, and you didn't come back.”

I didn't look at Poppy. I didn't look at Wink. I just stared and stared at the red flutter flutter.

Flutter. Flutter.

I ran.

Down the hall and out the door and down the steps and into the woods.

I ran away.

Heroes didn't run away.

I wasn't a hero.

I turned and looked over my shoulder, and there was Wink, coming right after me, acorn skirt and freckles and saucer-green eyes.

She was fast. She caught up. She grabbed me and held me.

Her skin melted into mine, blood to blood, bone to bone. We hugged and melted into each other as the sun burst into the sky and the birds started singing.

“I have to go,” Wink said. “I helped Poppy to the green sofa, but she's not well, Midnight. She didn't want me to leave her alone. You need to go back to her. Stay with her. I'm going to get Mim.”