Wax (28 page)

“Pear-affin pie,” her dad added. “Get it?”

“I do. And​—​yes, that is very cute. It'll play great on the blog,” she told her mom, forcing a smile. “But​—”

“We've got the whole day, Pops!” her father crowed. “We could see a movie, we could take a drive, we can go for a bike ride and maybe take off the training wheels this time?” he said, nudging Owen. “The possibilities are endless! Vermont is our oyster!”

“I know Vermont is our oyster. But I stayed up late last night planning for the parade today, and honestly, all I want to do is crash.”

“Well, all right,” her dad said, not bothering to hide the disappointment in his voice. “Dud? How about you? Want to go on a bike ride?”

Dud stared at him. “What is a bike?”

∗ ∗ ∗

Poppy smushed her head into her mattress, savoring the quiet. The instant Dud had revealed that he'd never been on a bike, her parents swooped in with nonstop talk about heading over to Cycle Town and buying him his first ten-speed and oh won't it be
fun
for him and Owen to learn together and we'll be back later, Poppy, have a good rest!

She glanced at Madame Grosholtz's message candle, still burning. The wax had burned about two-thirds of the way down, but the words had definitely ended; there was at least two inches of blank space.

Madame Grosholtz had said all there was to say.

Poppy shivered. Now that she was all alone, she realized that solitude maybe wasn't the best thing for her right at the moment. The mere concept of Blake Being Dead had grown into a big black cloud choking every inch of her room. It was such an utterly impossible thing. Grownups were the ones who died, who got somber funerals and flower arrangements and the empty consolations that they'd lived full lives. Not someone who was as young and energetic as she was. Blake had used that energy in malicious ways, true, but she'd seen a different side of him over the past couple of days, one that cared about his family and was willing to do anything to save them.

He didn't deserve death. None of the townspeople did. The image of all those dead-eyed Hollows kept swirling through her head, pounding, moaning,
it's hopeless, it's hopeless, it's hopeless . . .

No. Pessimism had never gotten her anywhere, and it wasn't going to help her now. Blake was dead, and nothing could bring him back​—​but at least she could make sure it wouldn't happen to anyone else.

She uncapped her pen, cracked open The Plan, and started writing.

19

FROM THE MOMENT SHE GOT HOME UNTIL HER FAMILY RETURNED,
Poppy's pen never stopped moving. It scribbled and scratched, zigged and zagged, crossed things out, added things in, created flow charts, maps, graphs, timelines​—​and by the time she heard footsteps on the stairs, she'd filled nearly half the pages of her Pen Dragon 2.0.

Dud burst into her room. “I learned how to ride a bike!”

“That's nice,” she said, not looking up from her notes. “But I've got some murders to avenge.”

Either Dud didn't know the meaning of the word “murder” or such grisly enterprises did not interest him, because his reply was, “Okay! I'm gonna go eat some pie. Do you want any?”

“No. And Dud​—” She finally looked up, her eyes bloodshot and frantic. “Tell my parents I'm not to be disturbed. I'm working on something top-secret, and I need total concentration.”

“Okay!”

But once dinnertime came and went, her father paid a visit. “We've got a killer game of Paraffin-opoly going,” he said. “You sure you don't want to join us?”

“I'm sure.”

“What are you up to, Pops? You shouldn't be working so hard on a holiday​—”

“I'm writing my college essay!” she shouted, the first thing that came to mind. “So if you want me to get into college, I suggest you leave me alone!”

Cowed, he closed the door. “Okay, hon. Sorry. Let us know if you need any help.”

Poppy felt terrible. But she did not have the luxury of feeling feelings at the moment, so she channeled all that guilt down her arm, through her hand, and into her pen.

∗ ∗ ∗

Around nine o'clock another knock came at her door.

“I'm. Busy.”

Her mom opened the door anyway, sticking her grinning face through the crack. “I know, honey, but . . .” She let out a giddy puff of air and threw up her hands. “You
have
to come see this.”

“What?” Poppy stashed her notebook under the sheets of her bed and reluctantly stood up. “Did Dad crown himself king of Paraffin or something?”

“Oh, no. Even better. Dud's been doing some more sculpting with the wax I bought today.”

Poppy's feet felt like cinder blocks as she plodded down the staircase. Today had been upsetting and horrific enough. Was there anything on earth that could possibly top it, that could be worthy enough to be a grand finale?

Oh,
Poppy thought as she walked into the living room.
Yep. This.

“I made
you,
” Dud said, biting his lip to contain his grin. “Well, just your head so far. But I want to make the rest. What do you think?”

Poppy thought that it was very odd, staring into her own eyes in her own disembodied wax head. “Unnerving” didn't begin to describe it. “Ghastly” perhaps, or “heebie-jeebie factory.”

“It's . . . very accurate,” she said.

And it was. He'd captured every detail. Her unnaturally large eyes, her tiny nose, her scattered freckles. Even the expression was dead-on: a mix of optimistic ambition, ambitious desperation, and desperate optimism.

Dud had put the love in.

“Do you like it?” he asked shyly.

“Yes.” Poppy looked away from her mirrored glass eyes, back into his. A mix of pride and affection swelled within her. “It's amazing, just like the others. You are so good at this.”

“As good as Madame Grosholtz, you think?”

“Definitely.”

He let out a quiet, happy gasp of delight. “Good.
Great.
Then my plan might work!”

Poppy's smile cracked. “What plan?”

“And Madame who?” her mother asked.

A jolt of energy seemed to spring up from the soles of Dud's feet. He grabbed Poppy's wrist and dragged her into the kitchen. “Be right back!” he shouted at the rest of the family as he shut himself and Poppy up in the pantry.

Poppy was miffed, mostly because she knew she'd never be able to come up with an explanation of why she was in the pantry with Dud that wouldn't evoke the words “seven,” “minutes,” or “heaven.” “What's going on, Dud?”

“I've been thinking. About what you said about dying. And then about what Madame Grosholtz said. And I thought​—​okay, maybe
these
Hollow people are bad, but it doesn't have to be that way!”

Poppy raised an eyebrow.

“So I thought,” Dud continued, “that maybe we could figure out how to put your flame into a Hollow, and then you can live forever, like me!”

Poppy suddenly felt a strong need to lie down. She settled for leaning a hand against the wall. “Oh, Dud. I don't think that's a good idea.”

Dud kept smiling; it was clear that he'd so deeply convinced himself that she was going to be excited that he hadn't processed her negative reaction yet. “What?”

“I don't want to be seventeen forever,” she said, her voice rising as she heard the words spoken aloud, realizing the exact magnitude of their horribleness. “This has been the worst year of my life! With the only comfort being that it will be
over
in a few months!”

Dud scratched his head. “But​—”

No. He was making this too hard. He was complicating things where things should not be complicated. There had been no
X
for a person like Dud in the formula that was her senior year, and adding one now would mess up the equation. And a not-human person, at that​—​it had to involve exponents. It was too complex.

“I don't want to live forever,” she continued, manic, panicking. Even with all the death smacking her in the face over the past few days, this was not something she wanted. “Even if we did know how Madame Grosholtz did it, which we don't.”

“But if I got my sculpting talent from her, maybe I could also figure out​—”

“Dud, no. Not like that. I mean, in theory, sure, immortality sounds nice, but if that's the kind of person I'd turn into​—​like the Chandlers, usurping innocent people's lives just to add more years to mine​—​then no, thank you. Besides, what's the point? I might live forever, but my family wouldn't, my friends wouldn't. I'd be all alone!”

Dud dug his sneaker into the floor. “You'd have me.”

She didn't know what to say to that, so she ignored it. “But I
want
to grow up,” she insisted. Blake had been robbed of that chance, and she had no intention of squandering her own. “I want to go to college, have a career, have kids, live a full life​—”

“So do I!”

Dud looked surprised at his own outburst, then recoiled a little, knitting his fingers together just as Madame Grosholtz had done.

He gave Poppy a heartbreaking glance. “I want all that too. I want to be human. But I can't be. So I thought​—​if I can't be human, then you could be wax. But I guess if you don't want to be like me, then . . .”

Poppy wanted to comfort him, wanted to say something that would make everything all better. But nothing came to her. So they both remained still and let silence fill in the rest.

∗ ∗ ∗

Poppy lay awake in bed, though she was exhausted. The horrors of the day​—​and night​—​had swelled beneath her consciousness like a rough sea, bouncing her tiny boat about, never letting it settle into calm. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Dud's, pleading, and hers snapped back open again.

So she tossed.

She turned.

Her stomach rumbled.

And then, just as she was starting to nod off, her phone rang.

“It's him! It's him! It's him!” Connor shouted at the other end before she could say hello.

“Who's ‘him'? What's going on?”

“One of the Hollows! On Channel Six!”

Poppy jumped out of bed to run downstairs, then remembered that their television set had gone to that great trash pile in the sky. Grunting, she plugged her earbuds into her phone and opened the Channel Six YouNews app instead.

Naturally, the top story was the bicentennial parade. She tapped on a live feed of Colt himself, standing in front of a spotlight at the center of the darkened town square. In the background, cleanup crews were still sweeping piles of confetti. “Hundreds of Paraffiners gathered here today for a once-in-a-lifetime celebration,” he said, stiffly gesturing to the space behind him. “Truly, Paraffin Day was a day to remember.”

Poppy brought the screen closer to her face. Putting aside for a moment his striking good looks and dazzling teeth, she immediately perceived that Colt looked
off.
To be fair, he had always seemed a little otherworldly, but now his eyes appeared glassed over and his nose seemed crooked​—​hardly noticeable at all if you weren't looking for it. She hadn't noticed it at the parade.

“Thank goodness for high definition,” she said, staring at the screen.

“And look,” said Connor. “Look at his shoes!”

The camera had panned to the confetti-blanketed ground, catching Colt's feet in the action. “So?” Poppy said. “What about his shoes?”

“
Leather.
Fancy leather!”

Poppy gasped. “Oh. My.
God​—”

“Who are you talking to?”

She looked up. Her father's head poked through her bedroom door.

Poppy ripped out her earbuds without saying goodbye to Connor. “Just watching the news,” she tried to tell her dad in a breezy voice. She showed him the phone. “There's . . . footage of the parade. I wanted to see if we were on it.”

“Oh, right!” Her father took a seat on her bed and gave her head a hug as he looked at the screen. “You know, I missed you, Pops. There were so many people there, of course, it was hard to see. I caught part of the Giddy Committee​—​and definitely heard them​—​but I couldn't find you.”

Poppy was beginning to see the flaw in her plan. She'd just invited her father to watch video evidence of her absence. “You know what?” she said, putting her phone away. “I changed my mind. I don't want to watch it.”

He frowned. “Why not?”

“Oh, you know . . .” She got that haunted look in her eye, the one that always accompanied
Triple Threat
flashbacks. “I don't think I'm ready to see myself on TV again.”

“Ah. Of course. Well, I'm sure you were great, sweetie.”

“She was!” Dud said from Owen's room. “She did a backflip!”

Evidently Dud had learned the subtle art of passive aggression.

Her father gaped at her. “I didn't know you could do a backflip.”

Poppy held his gaze. “I can. Apparently.”

“You'll have to show me!”

“Um​—”

“But for now, bed.”

“Yes!” She hurriedly got under the covers. “Bed. Bed is what I will go to.” She raised her voice.
“Dud and I will both go to bed.”

Her father gave her a wink. “But not together, right?”

“Dad.”

20

“
GOOD HEAVENS,
”
HER FATHER SAID FROM THE BREAKFAST TABLE,
“you look like a malnourished zombie.”

Poppy gave him a cranky look. “As opposed to a well-nourished zombie?”