Wink Poppy Midnight - April Genevieve Tucholke Page 0,27

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.”

“It’s okay. I want you to have the creek.” She grinned at me. Her fingers looked pale and eerie white underneath the water. “Do you know what water witching is, Midnight? My pa could do it. I watched him once.”

I looked at her, surprised. She’d dodged every question I’d asked about her father so far. Every single one. And now here she was, offering him up freely.

“Some people are born with the ability to find water underground.” Wink leaned forward, and the tips of her hair dipped into the stream. “I once watched Pa find a buried spring in the pasture near the Gold Apple Mine, where we keep the horses. He held a forked stick and it started twitching really quick and fast. And that’s how he knew. Someday I plan to gather all the Orphans and dig in that spot until the water bubbles up. And then we’ll have a swimming pond.”

“Why don’t we do it today, Wink? I’d like to dig up a spring. I’d like to free it from deep underground.”

Wink shrugged. “It’s too hot. Not today, Midnight. Soon, though.”

We went inside to get out of the sun. I showed Wink around my house, the airy kitchen with the white, tiled walls, the sleeping porch with all the screens, the basement full of Mom and Alabama boxes, the cellar with the dirt walls and empty jars.

I showed her my bedroom, and she looked at all the books in my bookcases, all of them. Then she went over and sat on my bed. I flinched, worried that the pillows smelled like jasmine. She curled her legs underneath her, picked up the copy of Will and the Black Caravans I’d left open, and just set it in her lap. Wink had loaned the book to me—she