Wink Poppy Midnight(36)

Wink shifted and reached into the pocket of her acorn skirt again. She pulled out a black piece of paper and handed it to me.

I held it next to the candle flame and read.

“It’s another clue.” Wink’s head was down, staring at the cards again, nothing but red curls. “I saw Briggs in the woods today, digging. He’s looking for the gold marble, the one in the letter.” She paused. “Poppy mentioned you in both of the notes. That’s interesting.”

It was.

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.