Wink Poppy Midnight(18)

Leaf gone.

And now Midnight.

Not again. Not again, not again, not again, not again.





THE HERO DOES magic tricks. Not real ones, like Mim 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 f*ck 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.