Wink Poppy Midnight (22 page)

L
EAF.

“So this is how you live now?” he asked.

I felt his eyes on me, on my back, cutting through my clothes, scorching my skin.

I looked at him over my shoulder. He was leaning against the doorframe of the old Gold Apple Mine, red hair and freckles and bony limbs, watching me start a fire. I smiled, a real Poppy smile, not any of those fake smiles I'd been using for so many years.

“Yes,” I said. “I figured it out. I figured myself out.”

Leaf laughed. He
laughed
, deep and bright, like he'd never done before, not with me anyway.

“Prove it,” he said.

And I did.

I
WAS READING
by the apple trees, bare feet in the green grass, when I heard the rumble. I looked up. Black clouds rolling in.

The hayloft was the place for thunderstorms. Wink and I liked to listen to the rain beat on the roof, watch lightning buzz across the sky.

I took my time, walking over to the barn, stopping to watch the clouds, letting the thunder boom straight into my heart.

I climbed up the ladder, stuck my head through the opening, and there she was, sitting on the hay, eating strawberries from a green bowl with one hand, and turning the pages of a book with the other. She was alone. The Orphans must have been off in the woods, playing one of their Orphan games.

I opened my mouth to call out to her—

And I saw the cover of the book.

A boy with a sword at his side. Standing on a hill. Facing a dark, stone castle. Grim-looking mountains in the background.

I closed my eyes.

Opened them.

I climbed back down the ladder, quiet.

I walked home.

I went straight up to the attic.

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

“I want to fly to France to see Mom and Alabama.”

He looked up. He didn't smile, but his eyes crinkled at the corners. “Okay,” he said.

“And I want you to come with.”

“Okay,” he said again, just like that.

F
RANCE.

I drank café au laits. I climbed castles. I walked in French moonlight along French riverbanks. I spent long afternoons with Mom and Alabama, sunshine and lavender-scented breezes and distant church bells and talking about Mom's book.

I hadn't said good-bye to Wink. Hadn't written her a letter. Hadn't called.

Silence.

I told Alabama. I told him everything. All of it. I wasn't looking for his advice. I just wanted to share, like brothers do.

We sat in the courtyard behind our ancient stone house
at the edge of Lourmarin. Mom was inside writing and Dad was at a book auction in Avignon. They went their separate ways during the day, but later . . . later we would all have a lazy al fresco dinner in the town square, and then a long walk together come twilight.

Alabama reached his brown arms up and tied his straight hair back, away from his face.

I thought about how little I looked like him. But I didn't mind this time.

I told Alabama about my summer, about the Roman Luck house, the unforgivables, the tarot cards,
The Thing in the Deep
, and Wink. Wink, Wink, Wink. He didn't say a word. Not until the very end.

His black eyes met mine. “You should have said good-bye.”

“I know.”

He didn't say anything else for a while. We listened to the birds singing in the four nearby lemon trees, and drank espresso from two small, fat brown cups.

Eventually my brother gave a long, low whistle and shook his head. “Right now? That red-haired girl needs her fairy tales. You just gotta let her be, Midnight.”

I let that sink in. “Like how you're just letting Talley Jasper be, you mean?”

Alabama grinned, slow and easy. “Exactly. We've got time, brother. We've got all the time in the world.”

I
SAW A
girl who looked like Wink that night. She was small, and her long hair was straight, but red. Red, red, red. She was reading a book while walking two little black dogs in the trees near the chateau, at the edge of Lourmarin. It was dusk.

I pictured Wink in the girl's black boots and saffron-yellow dress. I pictured Wink in the woods, blue shadows, gray fog, dark sky. The two dogs became the Witch Wolves, following at her heels, snarling and snapping at the air.

I closed my eyes . . .

And I was there suddenly, back in the Roman Luck woods.

Wink.

I wove my hands into her hair, and felt the thick curls tugging my fingers apart. The wolves growled, but I ignored them.

Wink kissed the inside of my wrists, right, then left.

I sighed.

She put her hand on my heart.

The wolves began to howl.

She looked up at me, green, green eyes.

“Good-bye, Midnight,”
she said.
“Good-bye for now.”

And then she and her wolves disappeared into the fog, going, going, gone.

I opened my eyes.

The French girl was watching me, watching as I just stood
there in the trees with my eyes shut, dreaming about a red-haired girl a million miles away.

She smiled at me.

I smiled back.

E
VERY STORY NEEDS
a Hero.

The Hero of this story sat in a hayloft, surrounded by books. She pointed her pointy chin at the rafters and shouted out into the night. Her freckles danced across her cheeks like the stars danced across the sky.

The Hero found the boy in the woods. He had dark hair and two different-colored eyes. One blue, one green.

The Hero thought the boy might be the Villain.

Every story needs a Villain.

But . . .

But the boy was sitting by a small fire, and there was a lost look in his blue and green eyes.

The boy reminded the Hero of Thief . . . Thief, who used to sit beside his small fire and sing the old songs to keep his loneliness at bay.

The Hero sat down beside the boy. He started talking about
his true love, the golden-haired girl he'd lost to a valiant warrior named the Red Knight.

The Hero had lost her true love too. He ran off in the night. He crossed an ocean and went to live in a place with trickster cats and enchanted princes and wives hung on walls by blue-bearded men.

The Hero talked to the boy all night long. They shared a crisp red apple and a mug of golden milk and a piece of gingerbread. And then, when dawn came, the boy packed up his tent, gave the Hero a smile—a solid, true one—and went home.

The Hero stood alone in the forest, red hair flowing down her back.

She held out her arms and felt the plump, sunrise breeze blow across her skin.

The Hero suddenly knew that this story wouldn't be like all the other stories. There wouldn't be swords, or monsters, or trials. There wouldn't be riddles, or revenge, or resurrections.

But there would be redemption.

And love.

And life.

And ever after.

Jessica Garrison. Editor, friend.

Everyone at Dial and Penguin, especially Bri Lockhart, Kristin Smith, and Colleen Conway.

My inimitable agent, Joanna Volpe. Thanks for the tarot in New Orleans, and for liking the gypsy romp.

Klindt's Booksellers.

Katharine Mary Briggs, queen of the fairy tales.

Mandy Buehrlen.

Kenny Brechner.

Nova Ren Suma.

Victoria Scott, for the circle of fire.

Megan Shepherd—what would I do without you?

Kendare Blake, for calling me the kitchen witch.

Alistair Cairns and Kelly Cannon-Miller, for skull-watching.

The Hicks kids.

Dad.

Nate.

APRIL GENEVIEVE TUCHOLKE is the critically acclaimed author of
Between the Devil and
the Deep Blue Sea
and
Between the Spark and the Burn
and curated the horror/thriller anthology
Slasher Girls & Monster Boys
. April has lived in many places around the world. She currently resides in Oregon with her
husband.

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