Wink Poppy Midnight (19 page)

I
WAS ME
again, and the blanket was on fire, and then the edge of Zoe's dress.

Midnight jumped to his feet and started stomping out the flames and Zoe rolled on the ground and Buttercup screamed.

The fire flew across the floor and up the curtains and over the piano. Thomas and Briggs tore off their shirts and whacked at the burning orange waves, but the smoke just grew and grew, like magic beanstalks up into the sky. I couldn't see, the smoke, tears running down my face. I stumbled, hit the piano stool, hands helped me up, I stumbled again, where was the window? I couldn't see, couldn't see, someone pulled on my arm, and then it was there, the bay window, right in front of me. I pushed through, coughing, coughing, and I fell down onto the dirt, right next to Buttercup. Zoe helped us up, my eyes burned and I blinked and blinked but still couldn't see. I grabbed Zoe's hand and Buttercup grabbed mine and we ran toward the forest.

I smelled pine and knew I'd reached the trees. I let go of the girls' fingers and started rubbing my eyes, streaks of blood across my cheeks, palms cut by the jagged
window glass. Buttercup and Zoe scattered in the dark. They didn't wait. They ran like thieves, like the twelve girls in
Between the Dragon and the Wrath,
not even glancing over their shoulders as they disappeared in the dark. Briggs and Thomas ran past me next, scared white faces and panting open mouths.

I looked back, back at the Roman Luck house, the smoke crawling up and up like it was trying to touch the moon, it didn't care about the rain, the storm couldn't touch the fire at all . . .

Crash.

The roof caved in.

Crash, crash, crash.

I looked around, I wanted to take his hand . . .

But he wasn't there.

Midnight
wasn't there.

T
HE SMOKE WAS
everywhere, I coughed and coughed, I counted the shapes, one, two, three, four, five, they were all through the window, they were safe, I grabbed the sill, careful of the broken glass . . .

And then I heard it. Thunder.

Except it wasn't thunder, it was the roof.

I saw the crack. The ceiling. I was conscious long enough to see it split in two . . . plaster loosening, falling . . . then dust . . . smoke . . . my lungs . . . dark.

I
WAS THERE
, watching. I hated hated hated the Roman Luck house, but I was there anyway. I moved with the shadows, and no one saw me. No one ever saw me anymore.

I watched it all, I laughed when Wink laughed and winced when Midnight winced.

Fire.

I was there when the roof caved in. I was there when everyone crawled out of the window, everyone but Midnight. I was there when he hit the floor. I grabbed him, I didn't even think about it, I just grabbed him and pulled him down the hall and out the back door, wooden beams plummeting all around us.

I
OPENED MY
eyes. Forest floor. Earth and pine needles.

The sun was rising, I could see the light . . .

I turned my head. It wasn't the sun. It was the fire. The Roman Luck fire. Fifty yards away, through the trees. I tried to sit up, but my bones felt so heavy, so damn heavy. My lungs burned. It hurt to breathe.

I smelled jasmine.

Smoke, and jasmine.

And then she was there, face in front of mine, blond hair tickling my throat.

“Midnight,”
she said.

Her voice sounded different. Hollow, and sad.

“Poppy.”

I reached up to touch her, fingertips stretching toward her cheek . . .

But my hand hit air.

She was already gone.

I
FOUND
W
INK
in the forest. She gave a little cry when she saw me. I put my arms around her. We both reeked of smoke, but it smelled good on her.

“I couldn't find you after we all crawled out the window,” Wink whispered into my neck. “What happened, Midnight?
Where did you go?
”

Sirens in the distance, sharp and shrill.

“I passed out from the smoke, just as the roof caved in.”

I felt her arms tighten around me, elbows locking in.

“Someone pulled me out the back door, Wink. Into the forest.”

“Who?” Soft breath on my neck.

But I didn't answer her.

“
D
O YOU REMEMBER
anything?” I asked, a half hour later in the hayloft. “Do you remember what you did? What happened, before the blanket caught on fire?”

Wink shook her head. “One second I was taking your hand, and the next I woke up to screaming, and flames.”

“You don't remember the unforgivables?”

She shook her head again.

Dawn was coming. I could feel it more than see it. The air was snappy and crystal cold, and it smelled good, after all the smoke.

“You were
her,
Wink. Her voice, her gestures, her expressions, everything.”

She didn't say anything for a while. We were leaning against a hay bale and her head was on my stomach. I ran my thumb down the inside of her skinny arm and stopped at her wrist, so I could feel her pulse. Tick, tick, tick. She'd cut her palms on the bay window glass, and there were jagged streaks of dried blood running across her hands. I kissed one of the cuts, and she flinched.

“Did you like me being her?” she asked, soft, soft.

“No,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

She turned and pulled my shirt up, and kissed my stomach, right above my belly button, her hands on my waist.

“Are you
sure
?”

Her lips on my ribs, across my chest . . .

“Yes, I'm sure.”

Her fingernails up my sides, gently, gently . . .

Her red curls, everywhere. . .

And then she sat up and kissed me on the mouth, lips full on mine, deep, deeper. It went on and on.

She slid her left leg over me, squeezed up her knees, right into my hips, one on each side . . .

She flipped her hair and arched her back, just the once, just in the exact right way.

And I knew.

I
knew
.

I pulled away, just as the first stroke of sun hit the hayloft. I pulled away and looked straight at her.

She didn't have to say it. I read it right there in her green sunrise gaze, read it like a page in a book.

“Poppy's not dead,” I whispered.

“Of course not,” Wink whispered back.

I
WENT H
OME.
I showered and crawled into bed. My pillow still smelled like jasmine.

I got up in a few hours. I made tea for my dad, and brought it to him in the attic.

“You hear the sirens last night?” he asked, nose buried in an ancient copy of
Don Quixote
.

“Yeah. The Roman Luck house burned.”

He didn't ask me how I knew. “Must have been the lightning.”

“Must have been.”

He nodded but didn't look up. He knew I was lying. He didn't say anything, though, didn't grill me or force a confession. And he never would. For better or worse, that was my dad.

I went down to the kitchen and grabbed a map out of the drawer.

The Bell farm was quiet as I walked on by, all the animals
asleep, and the humans too. The farm seemed different. It was still peaceful, and magical . . . but it had a small darkness to it now, like a black cloud on the horizon, like when Thief walks through the Forest of Sighs and hears the far-off howling of the Witch Wolves beneath the singing of the birds and the rustling of the green leaves and the murmuring of the River Red.

I turned and went down the neglected gravel road. Left, then right, then over the hill.

To the Gold Apple Mine.