The morning air had a misty quality, hazy and kind of marvelous. It must have rained again in the night. I looked over at the Bell farm. It was unusually quiet. There was a strange car in the driveway, so Mim was doing a reading. But I didn’t see Wink or the Orphans.
Buttercup and Zoe without Poppy and without the rest of the Yellows . . . they seemed less scary, somehow. Almost vulnerable. I sat down on the step next to Zoe and she moved the skirt of her black dress to make room.
I nodded at each of them in turn. “Buttercup. Zoe.” It felt strange to say their names for the very first time without the usual feeling of dread hitting my tongue. “Yeah, I know Poppy is missing. Why are you here?”
“I don’t know,” Buttercup said, and her black eyes reminded me of Wink’s, suddenly. Open and innocent. “I mean, yes I do.”
“Yes, we do,” said Zoe.
Buttercup slipped the skull-shaped backpack off her shoulder and rummaged around inside. She pulled out something thin and black, and held it between her fingertips, gingerly, like it was poison.
“Take it.”
I did. It was a small sheet of lined paper, folded in half. I just looked at it, sitting on my palm.
“Poppy likes to write on black paper with a silver pen,” Buttercup said. “I found it in my backpack this morning.”
I opened it. Silver letters on a charcoal background.
It was Poppy’s handwriting, just like Thomas’s letter. And Briggs’s. I knew the loop of her g. I recognized the plump belly of her b. It was as familiar to me as the blue veins in her lily-white arms.
Buttercup and Zoe,
It’s for the best, I swear it is, and I’m always right, I always am.
Do you remember that time we went apple picking last fall? We stole a bucket of them from that big old tree near the abandoned elementary school and I had you both write down apple poems as I made them up on the spot, and the poems were all about me, about how I was gray-eyed and apple-cheeked, about how I ruled with an iron fist and how I was the apple of everyone’s eye.
How could you stand me?
I can’t even stand myself, not anymore.
You should go talk to Midnight.
He has things to tell you.
“I have a bad feeling,” Buttercup said, and shuddered, quick and gentle like the shimmering leaves of the nearby aspen tree. She rubbed her long, thin fingers up and down over her striped-stocking legs. Her fingernails weren’t painted black, like usual. They were just a plain, natural pink. “I think Poppy did something to herself.”
Zoe just nodded.
That feeling came back, the one from the Roman Luck house, flu sick and too little sleep and clammy-skinned fear. “She wouldn’t. Poppy’s not that kind of girl.”
“Who knows what kind of girl Poppy is.” Zoe this time, all on her own.
“What things do you have to tell us?” Buttercup asked. “She said you had things to tell us, in the letter.”
Poppy wanted me to tell them about the Roman Luck house. About what me and Wink did to her there. I knew she did.
But instead I just shrugged, quick, like Wink. “Poppy wrote notes on black paper to Thomas and Briggs too . . . maybe this is what she wanted you to know. Thomas thinks they’re clues to finding out where she’s gone. I haven’t made up my mind, though. I’m still thinking.”
Buttercup gave me a small smile then, no red lipstick. “We’ve decided that we’re sorry we were mean to you in the past, Midnight.”
I stared at her for a second. She seemed sincere. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay.” Zoe. The thick stubs of her brown curly hair rubbed against her cheekbones. She was looking down at her black boots, toes touching, ankles out. “Poppy was a bad influence on us. We can see that now.”
Buttercup nodded.
I thought of Poppy, in the Roman Luck house, her arms above her head, dried blood on her face, whispering you didn’t come back, you left me here and didn’t come back. . . .
If Poppy was a bad influence, then so was I.
Everything went hazy at the edges suddenly, blurry, blurrrrrr . . .
I blinked. And breathed in deep. Again, and again.
“I’ll walk you girls home,” I said.
WE FOUND BRIGGS and Thomas on our way back into town. They were half a mile from the Roman Luck place. Briggs was standing in the middle of three small mounds of dirt, a shovel nearby on the ground. He looked up at us and wiped his hand across his forehead. His fingernails were dirty, and black creases stretched across the skin of his palms.
Thomas stood next to him, close, like they’d just been talking.
“What are you two doing?” Buttercup had her arms crossed over her chest, and her elbows were moving up and down with her breath.
Briggs whispered something, cleared his throat, spoke louder. “I’m looking for a marble.” Pause. “It’s stupid, I know. I’ll never find it. Still . . . I had to try. You’re supposed to be helping me look, by the way.” Briggs glanced at me out the corner of his eyes.
I looked right back at him. “I saw your letter. Wink showed me.”
Thomas reached into the zippered pocket on his designer jeans and took out his own black piece of Poppy paper. “I was just telling Briggs that I think the letters are clues.”