Wink Poppy Midnight - April Genevieve Tucholke Page 0,9

woodstove in the corner. Everything smelled like gingerbread, and Wink’s mother offered me a square piece as I waited. She was a short woman with big curves and wary green eyes and long red hair, no gray. She wore her hair in thick braids that crisscrossed her head in a style that looked both ancient and also sort of artsy and modern. She had on a black blouse-y shirt thing and a long skirt, lots of colors, and black boots with complicated laces. She looked like what you’d expect a fortune-teller to look like . . . but she also just looked like a mom. A mom who liked to dress interesting and cool instead of wearing beige pants and pastel-colored cardigans.

My own mother was a cool dresser. She was a writer and wanted people to know it. She had big round tortoiseshell glasses and thick brown hair and swooping, draping clothes that she wore with plain brown cowboy boots. People used to stare at her when she went grocery shopping, and she liked it that way. So Wink’s mother made me feel right at home.

The cake was dark, almost black. It tasted like ginger and molasses. I ate it at the counter. Sticky little hands kept reaching up to the cake pan as I stood there, and it disappeared, piece by piece. The Orphans asked me questions as they took the gingerbread, fast, one after another, not waiting for my answers, like the questions were the only thing that mattered—

What’s your name?

Do you believe in ghosts?

Have you seen the ghost that lives in your house?

How fast can you run?

Have you ever played Follow the Screams?

Do you have any dogs?

Do you like sailboats?

I tried to count the kids. I did. But they all kept moving around, and they all had red hair and green eyes, except for one dark-haired, brown-eyed girl who smiled at me sweetly as she took her second piece of gingerbread. I decided there were five of them, give or take. They ran circles around Wink’s mother as she started making soup on the stove, and eventually ran out of the house, screen door slamming, followed by three smiling dogs, two big golden retrievers and one small white terrier.

And after my life so far, after all the quiet, especially now that Alabama and my mother were off in France . . . you’d think the pandemonium would have stressed me out. But no. I liked it.

I heard footsteps on the stairs, and Wink returned, wearing a green dress that seemed kind of old-fashioned. But what did I know about clothes. I usually just wore black pants and black button-downs, like Alabama. He liked to dress like Johnny Cash, or a gunslinger, minus the guns, and I figured if it was good enough for Alabama, it was good enough for me.

Wink’s red hair was still crazy and wild. It bounced out around her little heart-shaped face and made her look even smaller and younger. She smiled at me, and I smiled back.

“How was the gingerbread?” she asked.

“Great.”

“You met the Orphans.”

“Yes.”

“Can Mim read your cards?”

To my credit, I just nodded.

Wink’s mother spun around from the stove and ushered me into the closest chair at the long wooden kitchen table. She pulled a stack of worn tarot cards from some hidden pocket near her hipbone and held them out to me.

“Pick three.”

I did, and set them on the table. Wink and her mother leaned over me.

Wink pointed to the first card. “The Three of Swords.”

“The Three of Swords is the card of loss, and broken relationships,” Mrs. Bell said. Her voice wasn’t dreamy or mystical, it was practical and matter-of-fact, like she was talking about the weather. “Things that are missing will not be found again. The Two of Swords is the card of tough choices, but the Three of Swords . . . you’ve already come to terms, and made your decision. Your feet are set on a path. Whether the path will be the right one . . .” She shrugged.

Wink pointed to the next two cards.

A naked man and woman looking up at an angel.

A crowned king in a chariot, two horses in front.

“The Chariot and the Lovers.” Wink smiled.

“What do they mean?” I asked. But Wink just shrugged and kept smiling a mysterious Mona Lisa smile.

My mother had written a mystery a few years ago called Murder by Tarot. She visited several tarot readers in Seattle for research. She later told me and Alabama that some