Wink Poppy Midnight by April Genevieve Tucholke Page A

Nothing.”
    She looked so young, right there with her arms spread out between the two wood-paneled walls. She looked so brave and full of life amid the groaning floorboards and the dust and decay that I felt, just for a brief second, like she could make it all vanish, just with a wave of her hand, a blink of her eye, a flash of light. Poppy would twirl her arm above her head and the house would lift itself up and shake off its dirt and squeeze itself back together and be like new again. And then Roman Luck would come strolling back through the door, stroking a long beard because he’d tasted some Dutch ale and fallen asleep on the mountain for twenty years, and that’s all it was, that’s all that had happened, mystery solved.
    We both heard the noise, and jumped. Clawing, scratching, scrape, scrape, scrape.
    Poppy dropped her arms.
    It was just the branches rubbing up against the windows, but Poppy didn’t know that.
    I nodded down the hall. “Come on, let’s go to the music room. Lead the way.”
    She didn’t say anything, no snappy retort. She just went.
    Creak-creak
went the floorboards.
    Poppy stopped in the doorway. I gave her my flashlight, and she switched it on. She walked to the center of the room, and then spun around, the light going with her. It made a long, pale arc. Poppy shivered. Hard. Her limbs shook.
    This wasn’t the Poppy I knew. It wasn’t even the Poppy from the hallway, arms in the air, daring the supernatural to come and get her.
    She wasn’t being mean. She wasn’t hurting someone. She wasn’t ordering anyone around. She wasn’t getting naked and climbing on top of me.
    She was just scared. She was genuinely scared.
    I wanted to take her hand and lead her back outside. I wanted to walk her home, and tuck her into bed, and make her feel safe.
    But I couldn’t.
    I was the hero.
    â€œYou should put your hands on the keys,” I said. “It’s tradition. The first time you go in the Roman Luck house, you put your hands on the keys.”
    Poppy walked to the piano. She set down the flashlight, put her fingers on the chipped ivory, and pressed,
plunk, plunk, plunk.
She rested them there for one breath, two. Then snatched her arms away, turned back to me, and smiled a cocky half smile.
    â€œThere, I did it.”
    â€œYou know,” I said, lazy and cool, like Alabama, “I think you should call out to the ghosts again, here in the music room. Dare them to haunt you. See what happens.”
    â€œYou first,” she said, but the words didn’t come out bossy and vain. They came out as a whisper.
    Poppy hugged her arms across her chest and didn’t look me in the eye.
    â€œWell, you should at least go upstairs and lie down on the bed. That’s the way it’s done. Piano keys. Bed.” I reached out my hand. She hesitated. I wiggled my fingers. “I’ll go with you.”
    Out into the hall, up the stairs, first door on the right. The master bedroom. Seven black suits in the wardrobe. Two wooden nightstands. White radiator. A dusty tie on a dusty walnut dresser. And the bed, sheets still tucked in, covers still pulled up, even after all of us kids had been on it through the years. The striped black-and-gold quilt was spitting out stuffing from where the rats had gotten into it, but you could still tell it was silk. Still see the
Made in Paris, France,
tag when you flipped over the bottom right corner.
    â€œLie down on it.” I’d never ordered Poppy to do anything before. Not once. Not ever. But she obeyed.
    Her body slid across the silk, stretched out, hands and feet to the corners, blond hair spreading out beneath her head, like a girl about to be sacrificed, like the girl in one of Wink’s hayloftstories, like Norah in
Sea and Burn,
stripped and chained to the rock, blond hair blowing in the wind, feet bare in the cold, waiting for dawn, waiting for the scaly beast to come out of the