Wink Poppy Midnight(21)

“Promise me it will stop, Poppy.”

Silence.

“Promise.”

“It will stop. After this one last prank.”

“And I don’t want any Yellows there either. They’ll make too much noise and she’ll suspect something.” I narrowed my eyes, back to imitating Alabama again. “Wink is smart. Smarter than you think. Just me and you on this, all right?”

“Wow. You’re being so alpha and demanding tonight. I’m impressed. And I’m never impressed, especially by you.”

She leaned in . . .

I put my hands on her shoulders and pushed her back.

She let out a cute, childish groan. “Okay. No Yellows and no more pranks.”

She smiled again.

And then she slipped her left leg over me and sat her hips down on mine. “I wouldn’t miss doing this with you for the world. Not for the world. Wink, Roman Luck, you and me, it’s going to be so much fun, so much fun.”

She bent forward until we were touching, chest to chest, skin to skin.

Lips. Down, down, down.

And I wanted to hate it.

I wanted it to turn my stomach, make me sick, fill me with horror. But it didn’t.





I HID IT well, but climbing into Midnight’s bed gave me a comforting feeling, a nostalgic feeling, like staying at my grandfather’s cabin when I was little, back before he shoveled snow on a cold day seven years ago, had a heart attack, and died. His name was Anton Harvey and my parents used to leave me with him when they went away for their doctor conferences. My grandpa never once called me a sweet little angel baby. He hadn’t given a damn about my blond halo hair or my big gray eyes or my cherub lips, and he never ever gave me pink presents with bows on them.

Anton Harvey was gruff and silent and he showed me how to gut fish after we caught them from the river, and he wasn’t upset that I liked it. I wore flannel shirts when I stayed at his cabin, and Wellingtons, and I wore my hair in braids, and sometimes we went whole hours at a time without talking, just fishing or following tracks in the snow or sitting on the plain, tiny porch, watching a storm come in.

And just about the time I started to think, Now here’s something, here’s someone I can actually look up to, he’s not dumb dumb dumb like the rest, here’s someone I can actually admire, someone I understand, someone I could probably even love, just give me half a chance, he had to up and die.





“POPPY IS PLANNING something, Wink.”

We were outside, cupped hands, drinking ice-cold water straight from the red water pump.

“I know.” Wink cutely slurped up the water from her palms. “She was here earlier this morning. She found me in the hayloft and said you wanted to meet me at the Roman Luck house at midnight.”

Poppy worked fast. Once she made up her mind about something she shot forward like a greyhound. She’d always been like this. The first time we’d slept together, she was already half-naked by the time she burst through my bedroom door.

“Poppy thinks I’m very, very stupid.” Wink’s eyes were extra green in the morning sunshine, and there were tiny drops of water on her lips.

The Orphans were all at the dentist. Wink said Mim didn’t trust dentists but she brought them anyway. I could hear Dad through the open attic windows, all the way across the road, talking on the phone to one of his clients. He used rare book words that were so foreign and frequent it was almost another language.

“She wants to tie you to that old piano and leave you in the house overnight.” I took my thumb and brushed the water droplets off her top lip, and she smiled at me when I did it. “Apparently Leaf told her you’re afraid of the place.”

Wink shook her head. “Leaf never told her that.”

“So you aren’t scared of the Roman Luck house?”

“Everyone should be scared of the Roman Luck house.” A goat wandered up and butted its head against her legs and she ran her hand down its furry back.

As I said, getting straight info out of Wink was harder than getting kindness out of Poppy.

Wink kept her hand on the goat, but put her eyes on mine. “You know how Thief has a vision about the path he must take through the Dark Woods? The path that leads him to the beautiful magician in the secret cottage with the melancholy blue eyes and silvery hair?”

I nodded.

“Remember how the magician tries to trick him but he tricks her instead?”

I nodded again. “And then he leaves her body in the woods, knowing the wolves will get it come nightfall.”

“Exactly.” And then Wink fluttered the ends of her fingers in that way I liked.

Poppy was planning to trick Wink, and Wink was planning to trick Poppy, and I was stuck right in the middle.

But the air was hot and there was a nice breeze, and I somehow felt kind of dreamy and peaceful, despite everything. Wink did that to me.

That afternoon we drank coffee from the blue cup, dirt from the garden between our toes. We sat under the apple trees in my orchard, wide sky, fat clouds, fingers tickling the cold water in the tiny curving creek, twelve inches wide at most. I asked Wink the name of the stream and she said it didn’t have one but that it came from the Blue Twist River and so she called it the Little Blue Twist.

“I’ve always wanted to have my very own creek,” I said. “I’m sorry it turns south before it gets to your farm—I feel like I’m hogging it.”