Wink Poppy Midnight - April Genevieve Tucholke Page 0,55

through mine. I let out a little groan as it happened. I’d been so sure that if I just held on to her everything would be okay in the end.

She stood up. She flipped her red curly hair behind her shoulders, and put her hands on her tiny hips.

“God, you’re all such losers,” she said.

And it wasn’t Wink’s voice, small and whispery and soft. It was arrogant. Sultry.

Wink touched her hair, and looked at her arms, and her legs, smooth and graceful twists, eyebrows raised, lips pressed together in a pout.

“Can you believe this shit? Feral Bell. Beggars can’t be choosers, I guess.”

The chill started in my heart and shuddered through the rest of me. My scalp stung and my skin itched.

I still held Buttercup’s hand in my left. I’d forgotten all about it until she was suddenly squeezing my fingers so hard it took my breath away.

“Poppy . . . Poppy, where are you? Are you okay? What happened to you?” Thomas had tears coming down his face, fast, like the rain outside.

“I’m dead.” And she laughed. And it wasn’t Wink’s laugh, it didn’t remotely sound like Wink’s laugh, whispers and chinkling toy piano keys. It was cold and hard and sneering and Poppy, all Poppy.

“Dead. I’m dead and this house is my tomb and I want you to burn it down, I want you to burn the Roman Luck house to the ground.”

None of us moved, none.

“Where are you? Can we help you? We’re so sorry, we didn’t believe it, didn’t believe you’d really do it . . .” Buttercup’s voice fluttered, in and out, like the candle flames.

“Wink and Midnight tied me up and left me here, but the unforgivables did their part too. Freckle-faced Feral was right about them.” And she laughed again, hollow and mean and cold. “They’re here right now, breathing down your necks . . . except you can’t even see them, you fools. They won’t hurt me anymore, I’m beyond all that, they’ve got their evil focused on you now.”

“Who’s here? What are the unforgivables?” Briggs, voice strong and quivering at the same time.

Wink sighed . . .

I mean Poppy . . .

I mean Wink . . .

“This is so boring. I’m tired of answering questions. Just shut up, all of you, and let me do what I came here to do.”

She climbed on Thomas then, cuddled right up to him, knees on each side of his hips.

She kissed him.

He kissed back.

It was Wink’s red hair and Wink’s skinny spine, but it was Poppy’s lips and Poppy’s gestures and it was horrifying. Horrifying.

She put her mouth by Thomas’s ear and began to whisper and whisper. His eyes filled with tears again and his mouth parted and he looked so sad . . . and so filled with joy . . .

Then she was up and onto the next person.

Zoe.

Buttercup.

Whispers and stricken looks and horrifying, horrifying.

Briggs, she kissed him too, freckled hands on his cheeks. My heart broke watching it. Split in two. And I didn’t know if it was because Wink was kissing him, or Poppy, or both.

She sat in my lap last. She grabbed my hair in her fingers and her curls burrowed into my neck and her chest pressed into mine.

And the things she said, the things she said, Poppy’s voice coming out of Wink’s lips. She said she was sorry. She said it over and over.

But Poppy never said she was sorry, not ever.

Not ever.

I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand one more second of it.

I pushed her away from me.

The blanket moved, and her foot knocked over the candle, and then flames, flames and fire.

I WAS ME again, and the blanket was on fire, and then the edge of Zoe’s dress.

Midnight jumped to his feet and started stomping out the flames and Zoe rolled on the ground and Buttercup screamed.

The fire flew across the floor and up the curtains and over the piano. Thomas and Briggs tore off their shirts and whacked at the burning orange waves, but the smoke just grew and grew, like magic beanstalks up into the sky. I couldn’t see, the smoke, tears running down my face. I stumbled, hit the piano stool, hands helped me up, I stumbled again, where was the window? I couldn’t see, couldn’t see, someone pulled on my arm, and then it was there, the bay window, right in front of me. I pushed through, coughing, coughing, and I fell down onto the dirt, right next to Buttercup. Zoe