The Hawkweed Prophecy Page 8

  “I don’t think I’m either of those things.”

  Sensing she had done some damage and not knowing how to remedy it, Ember searched for something positive to say. “She sounds like my mother.”

  The slope had suddenly turned steep, and out of nowhere and without a word, Poppy just started to run, faster and faster, all the way to the bottom where the earth was dark and muddy. Ember watched her from up high, thinking Poppy would take off with her coat flapping in the air and lifting around her like wings. She was shrieking like a banshee as she went, and her cries were caught by the gusts of wind and lost in the hills. When she reached the bottom, she turned and looked at Ember, her cheeks flushed.

  “Come on! What are you waiting for?” she yelled through gasping breaths.

  Ember ran, and soon it was like she couldn’t stop if she tried and her legs were moving without her saying so. Her hair whipped around her face and her organs jolted inside of her as she hurtled downward. She had almost reached Poppy when she slipped and careened into her. They both squelched into the mud. Ember gulped down air as Poppy laughed and laughed until it hurt, and then Poppy was crying and crying. Big sobs from deep inside took hold of her, and Ember pulled her up so she was sitting and put her muddy arms around her.

  “I’m . . . sorry,” Poppy bawled. She wiped her nose and eyes on her sleeve so that her face was streaked with mud. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I never cry. Never.”

  Ember felt the tears form in her own eyes and she blinked them back. “I cry all the time.”

  Poppy hiccupped a laugh and then sniffed and wiped her eyes again. “Can’t you find us a spell to turn us into swallows? Then we could fly away.”

  “To Africa.”

  “To Africa.”

  The mud dried, then cracked upon them as they made their way back to the dell. They lingered there for a while, waiting for the light to fade, neither girl wanting to return home. Ember collected chestnuts from the horse chestnut tree, holding up her skirt to make a pouch to store them in. Poppy watched as Ember made her selection, tossing aside the ones she didn’t favor. She was studious and rapt in her work. Then she straightened and held one out proudly, and Poppy realized the effort had all been for her.

  “For you,” she said. “It’s the best. The strongest one.”

  It was a simple gift, but Poppy felt lucky and grateful and happy all at once. It was only a chestnut, but it felt glossy in her fingers and it gleamed so richly in the last of the autumn light.

  The two girls sat on an old, damp sofa and Poppy put her headphones over Ember’s ears. Ember flinched at the sound but then raised her hands to press the music closer. Poppy could read the song on Ember’s face: intent on the verse, a blink at the refrain, a twitch of a smile at the chorus, a nod of the head at the bridge, then a softening of features at the end. Holding the headphones to her ears with painted nails, Ember looked like a regular girl, part of the modern world.

  An image suddenly came to Poppy of Ember dressed in jeans, face made up, hair cut and styled, hand in hand with her boyfriend outside a café. Poppy gasped; it seemed so clear and intense. She felt a deep sadness come over her. That girl wouldn’t run down hillsides or be interested in the migration of birds or marvel at songs. That girl wouldn’t have Poppy as a friend.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow?” Poppy asked, but Ember didn’t hear her through the music. Poppy pulled one of the headphones to the side and Ember looked up at her. “Tomorrow afternoon again?” Poppy said, and Ember beamed and nodded, putting Poppy’s fears to rest. That other Ember was just a thought, as thin as air, a product of her imagination.

  When she reached home, Ember scrubbed at her muddy clothes and wrung them until the dirty water ran clean and her hands were red and raw from the effort. As she worked, she sang the song Poppy had played for her. She had listened to it over and over. Poppy had said she had hundreds that she could play instead, but Ember had only wanted that first one. To listen to another would be to dilute it, to break the spell. Ember held every note and every word in her memory like it was the code to her survival.

  “What’s that you’re singing, Ember?” asked Charlock.

  Ember spun around. “It’s nothing. Just something I made up.” She hung her dress on the rack to dry, hiding her reddening cheeks from her mother’s gaze.

  “It sounds angry. That’s not like you.” Charlock handed her a mug of tea and clasped Ember’s hands around it. “Where were you today?”

  “Up in the hills,” Ember answered, glad for the truth of it.

  Charlock cocked her head and surveyed her daughter’s face, the washed clothes, the filthy boots.

  “I slipped in the mud.”

  Charlock went to the chest, lifted the lid, and got out Ember’s spare skirt and sweater. She had knitted it three years ago when Ember had suddenly grown two inches one summer and could no longer wear her winter clothes. Handing the garments to Ember, she said, “Get changed quickly now. Clan supper tonight. Raven’s roasting one of her geese.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  When Poppy got back, Leo was waiting outside her house. It was already dark, and from the top of her street, she could only see the outline of his shape against the fence. But she knew it was him. She stopped and looked and he stepped out under the street light. He didn’t wave but just stood there waiting for her, and she went to him, forcing herself to walk slowly and steadily and not break into a run. When she reached him, he didn’t smile or say hello. He just looked at her, then said, “What took you so long?”

  And Poppy smiled and said, “It’s only been a day.”

  A moth came and fluttered around her hair. She brushed it gently away. Then another came and another until they formed a halo around her head. Go away, Poppy yelled inside her mind. Not now, not in front of him.

  “They seem to like you,” Leo commented.

  He wasn’t freaking out. But then Poppy saw the cats emerging from bushes, climbing down from trees, balancing along fences. Minx appeared from behind a car tire and hurried toward her, purring in anticipation.

  “Let’s go inside,” Poppy proposed quickly, trying to stop the panic reverberating in her voice.

  She saw Leo blink with momentary surprise. “Inside your house?” he checked.

  Poppy took Leo’s arm and pulled him toward her door. She tried to signal to Minx with her eyes, but the cat just looked confused. Poppy begged forgiveness in her head, and Minx seemed to understand as she sat on her haunches and started to lick her paws.

  “What about your parents?” asked Leo a little nervously.

  “Well, one’s in the loony bin and the other isn’t around much, so don’t worry—you won’t be meeting them.”

  Leo nodded. “O-kay . . . ” he said hesitantly. “You sure you don’t want to go out some place?”

  Poppy unlocked the door. “I’ve been out all day.”

  “How’s the knee?”

  “What?” Poppy could see the other cats coming up the path now.

  “Your knee? Remember yesterday?” Leo was sounding perplexed.

  “Oh . . . oh, it’s fine. Honestly, it’s all better.”

  Leo looked at her doubtfully.

  “Magic!” Poppy joked, then tugged him across the threshold and slammed the door before the first of the cats could slip through.

  They stood inside the hallway in the dark. Now that Poppy felt safe, she didn’t know what to do.

  “So we’re inside.”

  “How about some light?” Leo suggested in a bemused tone.

  “Light . . . right . . .”

  And Poppy flicked the switch. She looked up at Leo and stopped breathing. He reached out a hand and touched her cheek lightly. She had to tell her brain to tell her lungs to exhale.

  “You’ve got mud on your face,” he said softly.

  Inside the bathroom Poppy looked at herself in the mirror, her cheeks streaked with dirt, her eyebrows caked in mud, one green eye terrified and one blue eye excited, staring
back at her like they belonged to two different people. Oh God, she thought. This is hopeless. This is impossible.

  Leo heard the water running from the taps in the bathroom and imagined Poppy washing her face as he looked around the kitchen. It was smart but bare, like a show home that had never been used. There was a note on the table addressed to Poppy, telling her there was leftover pizza in the fridge and to please clean up afterward. It was signed “Dad,” and Leo’s heart went out to Poppy as he understood where her mother must be and he wished he could tell her he knew what that kind of hurt felt like. He opened the cabinets looking for coffee. Coffee in a proper mug—he hadn’t had one of those in such a long time.

  When he turned, he saw her in the doorway. Her face was clean and fresh like a child’s. She was wearing an old kid’s T-shirt with her jeans, and he saw her shape and had to look away. He felt like he should leave, like he should never have come in here anyway. It was clean in the house and so normal—he didn’t fit. Then Poppy came over and reached up to a cabinet and pulled out two mugs. He could smell the soap on her and stepped back, wishing he could go and shower and wash the streets away. She put the mugs on the counter, put the ground coffee and water in the coffeemaker, turned it on, and they waited.

  “I didn’t think I’d see you again,” she said, and Leo felt puzzled.

  “Why not?”

  “I guess if I let myself think it, then I’d hope it, and then I’d just be disappointed . . .”

  Leo slowly smiled. “I’m happy to see you too.”

  There was a crackle and a spark from the coffeemaker and they jumped back. Then the water started to bubble furiously, rising out of the top.

  “Careful!” Leo called out as Poppy quickly unplugged the cord. He was the one to take the pot and pour the coffee into the mugs, adding the cream, and handing it to her, his fingers brushing hers as he did so.

  They sat at the table and talked, and he found himself asking her inane questions, like his brain had stopped functioning, like he didn’t know who he was anymore. If he just kept talking, maybe she’d overlook the fact that he was wearing the same clothes as last time, that his hair hadn’t been washed in weeks, that he didn’t have a house or a chair or a table or a coffeemaker. That he’d never be able to make her a cup of coffee. I should never have come inside, he thought again. Outside it was his world and he could be himself. Next time he wouldn’t come inside. Next time.

  Poppy was answering his questions in a small, quiet voice. Leo found out she had moved around a lot, that she’d only arrived in town a couple of months ago, that her dad had got a job at a local factory, that she hated school as much as he did—not the subjects or the work but the institution and the timetable and the bells ringing, telling her when to stop and when to start. When he asked about the other kids at school, she got to her feet and took the pizza out of the fridge and they ate it cold out of the box. They both went for the same piece and their skin touched accidentally, and he could swear he felt a charge of electricity and she felt it too as she sprang back.

  He took the pizza slice and gave it to her, then grabbed her wrist and held on. Her eyes fixed on his but she didn’t pull away. Slowly she put the pizza down so their hands could entwine. Leo reached for her other hand too, so they sat there, both fists locked, holding on, waiting, not sure what would happen next. The light bulb flickered above their heads. Leo tensed, tightening his grip on Poppy’s hands, and she squeezed back. Then all the lights went out. He could hear Poppy breathing, fast, in . . . out.

  “What’s happening?” he murmured, hardly daring to speak.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered.

  He bent his face toward hers through the blackness, and now he could feel her breath on his skin, in . . . out. If he moved just an inch, their mouths would meet. As if reading his mind, she tipped her head, just a tiny movement, and he felt her lips about to brush his.

  Suddenly the lights came on and the glare was blinding. Both of them sprang back. They let go and the gap was back between them, like it had never been closed.

  Poppy’s cheeks were burning. She grabbed the mugs and took them to the counter, turning her back on Leo and all that had happened. She couldn’t do this. It had already felt weird having Leo in her house, like the whole place changed when he was in it, his presence filling the room so that everything else felt small and dim, like only he was in focus. They had sat there having coffee as people do all the time, but it had felt like they were faking it, pretending to be two ordinary people making conversation when really there was something else going on between them that they couldn’t utter but made Poppy’s pulse race and her heart pound. Then the blackout. Poppy couldn’t bear to imagine what Leo must be thinking about that.

  “Hey,” she heard. His tone was soft, purposefully so. “You know I never even told you my name. Sparks are flying, and we never even got introduced.”

  Poppy couldn’t turn around. Not yet.

  “I’m Leo.”

  “Hi, Leo,” she said, her voice hoarse and cracked.

  “Thanks for the coffee, Poppy, and the pizza,” he replied. “And thanks for letting me in. Not many people would have done that.”

  Later Poppy remembered that last comment and felt confused, but right now she was just relieved to feel him walk away, to hear the door close behind him. When she was sure he had gone, she loosened her grip on the kitchen counter and made herself turn around. The room felt desolate without him. She gathered up the pizza box and threw it away. When she picked up his mug to wash it, it was still warm. She wrapped her hands around it, then brought it to her mouth and put her lips where his had been.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Leo ran back to the town center, the burn in his ribs and stitch in his side offering a welcome distraction from everything else he was feeling. He hadn’t even said good-bye. She probably wouldn’t want to see him again. He should have gone up to her and held her. He should have turned her around in his arms and kissed her and shown her that he wasn’t freaked out or scared like she was. He had no idea what had happened, but on some level, it didn’t surprise him. All that electricity just seemed to confirm the connection between them. He sensed it the same way he sensed Poppy wanted him gone, that she was struggling and couldn’t ask him to go but was praying he would. So he had left but now wished he hadn’t, not without reassuring her at least. Leo bent over his legs and waited until the pain eased and his breathing slowed.

  Early the next morning he went to the market and gathered some flowers that had been discarded. He picked the best of them, snapping off the broken stems, and took them to Kim at the gym who let him use the shower. She looked at him like “not you again” but then noticed the flowers and rolled her eyes before unlocking the door.

  “Be quick,” she said, and took the flowers before he had a chance to give them to her.

  She threw him a towel and Leo ran to the changing room. Turning up the water as hot as he could take it, he watched the glass steam up before stepping inside. He used almost half the container of soap, piling it on his head until his hair was white and slick with lather. When he finished, he saw Kim had left him a neat pile of clothes from the Lost and Found. Leo picked them up off the bench and held them out. They looked brand new. Leo marveled at how much people must own that they could leave these behind and never come to claim them. Once Kim had given him a pair of sneakers, and Leo still wondered how it was that someone could forget their shoes.

  He quickly got changed and then looked at himself in the mirror. His hair was soft to touch. His skin tingled clean. The tracksuit changed his whole hunted, hungry, feral demeanor. He held himself differently in it. Almost like an athlete, he thought, then felt like an idiot for thinking so.

  As Leo left the gym, he saw the flowers in a vase on the reception desk. Then a guy spoke to him, a gym member who was arriving as Leo was leaving.

  “Didn’t know they opened so early,” was all he said, but he addressed Leo like an equal, like he too
had a job and could afford to join a gym. Leo found himself too stunned to answer, but he carried those words with him all day.

  His new, clean image wasn’t to last long, though. Behind the bakery, one-eyed Mike tried to snatch his breakfast. Leo wouldn’t let him. No way. He’d learned the hard way that if he did, they’d all be on him every time. Easy pickings. Mike was in one of his crazes, though, and kept coming for him. In the end, Leo had to fight him just to keep him off. Mike was wild, throwing punches and biting with his cracked, yellow teeth until Leo went for his blind side, bringing him down. When he had him on the floor, Leo kicked him a few sharp ones for good measure. Teach him not to come back. Leo knew he should feel sorry, but he didn’t. He just wanted it finished.

  The manager of the bakery pulled Leo off Mike, hurling him to the ground.

  “Get lost, you scum. Beating up a cripple. That all you good for?”

  Leo didn’t bother trying to explain. It never got him anywhere. He was young and the young ones always got blamed. He got to his feet, picking the now-dirty bun from the gutter and stuffing it in his mouth before taking off. He wouldn’t be able to go to that bakery again—that was a real loss. And his arm was stinging where Mike’s teeth had broken the skin. But what hurt most was the rip in the new tracksuit and the feeling of the torn material flapping against his knee as he ran. Who am I trying to kid? he thought to himself.

  Later that morning he got his friend Ben to shave his hair off. All of it. Leo sat on one of the fat, rusting pipes that ran from the factories into the murky waters of the river. The sweet-smelling locks of hair fell softly onto the slick shore. They didn’t look like they ever could have belonged to him. Leo thought of that story of the man who cut his hair for a woman—Delilah, he remembered—and how that guy lost all his power. But as he looked at his reflection in the oily water—his head shaved, his face stark and unadorned—Leo felt stronger. This way he would never have to worry about keeping his hair clean. This way he could never even try to look like the boy he used to be before the streets, before the trouble, before he had to escape.