The House in Poplar Wood

by K. E. Ormsbee

  And then she realized—she knew where Asa was heading.

  Gretchen thought of the Christmas gala, the bustle and buzz in the house. Gram would ground her for all eternity, ship her to boarding school. But Gretchen had no choice: she had to chase down Asa. And so she set off, running as hard as she could, toward the house in Poplar Wood.

  The wind whipped against Gretchen’s skin, cold and biting. She should’ve thought to wear a coat, a scarf, a hat. But Gretchen wasn’t thinking of warmth; she was thinking of speed. How soon could she get to the wood and stop whatever Asa planned to do? Was he going to yell at the brothers? Vandalize their house, like Gretchen had before? Asa was going to ruin Gretchen’s perfect plan with Lee and Felix, all she had worked on for weeks. She had to stop him. But how could she ever run faster than a motorbike?

  You can, though, shouted an electric thought. You can if you take the shortest route and he goes the long way around.

  Yes. Gretchen remembered now, from her ride with Asa back from the Poplar Wood: He had taken the long way, avoiding Hickory Park.

  Because of Essie, Gretchen thought. Because of what happened that night. All the bad memories, all the bad feelings inside.

  Gretchen’s fingers curled around the purple flower in her hand, shielding it from the wind and cold. She ran toward Hickory Park and the wood beyond it. She didn’t stop once, crossing streets, ignoring the indignant honks of cars. Her throat burned while the world around her darkened from dusk to night.

  Run, she ordered her legs. Run, beat him there.

  Her sprained ankle cried out in protest, but Gretchen ignored the pain. Her vision clouded with something white, whipping about in powdery flurries. It was snowing again. Gretchen ran harder, through the wintry swell, her feet hitting concrete, then asphalt, and finally, earth. She’d reached the edge of Poplar Wood.

  Gretchen stopped for only a moment, to bend and catch some breath. That’s when she saw it, leaned against a nearby hickory tree—Asa’s bike, dismounted and abandoned.

  “No,” Gretchen heaved out. “No!”

  And she was running again, into the wood, into the dark, straining her eyes to see past snow and branches.

  “Lee!” she shouted. “Felix! ASA!”

  As always, the trees did not answer. Only the wind blew back.

  “Asa, please! Stop! Where are you? Asa, please, just wait!”

  Then she saw it, ahead—a black-blue silhouette against the light of house windows. Asa was only yards away from the house in Poplar Wood. He was standing still, his shoulders hunched, face turned toward something on the ground.

  “Asa!” Gretchen called, not sure why she was filled with such sudden dread.

  Asa did not respond. He knelt to the ground to pick up an object from the grass. Gretchen drew closer, breathing hard, trying to see. Something dark and thin was slithering up Asa’s arm, beneath the sleeve of his shirt, and toward his chest. Slithering . . . like a snake.

  “Asa!” Gretchen shouted again, coming up on him. “What are you—what is that?”

  At last, Asa looked up. There was a strange light in his eyes, and movement beneath his shirt—a slight bulge just above his heart. Gretchen thought she saw a flash of yellow. Then a pained look crossed Asa’s face, only for an instant. He slipped his hand into his shirt, in the space between buttons.

  “It’s fine now,” he said, his words tissue-thin. “It found me again. It’s given me what I wish.”

  Asa removed his hand from his shirt. It was covered in liquid, shimmering and red. Blood. And in the palm of his hand rested an object, small and dark like coal.

  It was the Wishing Stone.

  It might be nothing.

  Lee sat at the end of his bed, the unopened jar in his hands. This last memory might be about Essie. It could be the final answer Gretchen Whipple was after. An answer that, if Lee was honest, he was after now: Why, exactly, had Death killed Essie Hasting?

  Or it could be nothing, he reminded himself.

  Lee was going to find out. He had already snuck another jar from the canning room for the Trial Rite—this one a green-ribboned jar of a clear, happy memory labeled Remember. Lee had first planned to take a memory marked Forget. It would have been better, nobler of him, perhaps. But the thought of opening another memory best left forgotten was more than he could stomach.

  Lee had stored away that stolen memory for the Trial Rite. But now was the time to open another jar—the last of the dark memories. This was the part of the deal he dreaded most, the part that had given him bad dreams the night before and an ache that gnawed so fiercely at his stomach that not even his favorite sweet potato casserole sounded appetizing now.

  The memories were affecting him. They were bad for him—maybe even worse than he knew. But he’d made a deal with Gretchen and Felix, and this was his end of it. If he could do this one thing, maybe they would break the curse on this house.

  Lee unscrewed the lid. He ducked his head toward the open jar and breathed in. This time, he felt the memory flooding his senses, wrapping them in a hot, waxy substance that drew him into another place and time.

  He closed his eyes.

  He opened them.

  He was standing outside, drenched in a deluge of rain. His clothes were soaked, hands pruny. Thunder clapped, and a sizzle of lightning cracked through the sky, lighting the surrounding trees.

  He was in Hickory Park.

  “Asa!”

  A girl was running toward him, mascara bleeding down her face, into the corners of her mouth.

  “Asa!” Essie shouted again, catching his hand.

  He said, “I thought you’d changed your mind.”

  “What? It’s just a little bit of rain!” Essie shouted over a roar of thunder. He could see the kindness in her face, even through the storm. “We said we’d do it tonight, so we’re doing it tonight.”

  “We still don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said. “Maybe those other summoners gave you the wrong Rite.”

  “The Rite isn’t wrong, and you know it. We have to start somewhere, and if a Wishing Stone can give you anything, it will give us what we wish: for things to be right again.”

  He felt afraid, though he would never admit it. He felt excited, too. And there was another feeling that boiled in his gut. It was a terrible aching, and it had everything to do with Essie.

  “Blood first,” she said. “Like the book says.”

  He stooped to where his soggy backpack lay. From it, he removed a dagger. Its hilt was made of bronze, inlaid with opals that exploded in color each time another wave of lightning broke across the sky. Essie took the dagger from him, and before he could speak, she’d sliced it across her open palm. Then she handed the dagger back, and he cut his own hand. Pain pinched down his nerves as hot blood emerged.

  “Now,” said Essie, leading him across damp grass to a gaping gray expanse. They stood on the edge of the cliff in Hickory Park. Essie took his hand, and he squeezed hers. Their hot blood pooled together and dripped down, into the ravine below.

  Commingled blood, dropped from a great height. That is what the Rite had called for, and that is what they had provided. Now all that remained was the poem.

  “Say it loud,” said Essie, placing the notebook in his clean hand. The rain fell hard, but he could still make out the title of the page: Wishing Rite. He knew the poem he had to read. Only he, the summoner, could do this.

  “Oh Death!” he shouted into the storm. “We implore thee, Darkest Shade, to grant us what fate first forbade.”

  The summoner knew the words that followed, but his throat had closed; his mouth was sealed up.

  Then there was warmth on his wrist. Essie’s.

  “You can do it,” she whispered. “I know you can.”

  His throat opened. His mouth unstuck. He continued.

  “Bestow on us the Wishing Stone,

  that makes all hidden mysteries known.

  Reveal yourself to summoning eyes, and

  give to
us the sacred prize!”

  The storm ceased. In an instant, the rain was swallowed back into the sky. The thunder collapsed upon itself, folding into silence. All was still in Hickory Park, save for the drip-dripping of water from branches.

  Essie turned to him. “Did it work?” she whispered. “Where is he?”

  A voice said, “Here.”

  They turned together. Standing between two sturdy hickory trees was a man dressed in a fine black suit. He wore a white bow tie and a silk top hat, and he looked at them with a cool expression, no trace of a smile or frown on his handsome features.

  “Who has summoned me?” Death asked. “You, young Whipple?”

  “I—I request the Wishing Stone.”

  “Do you, indeed?” Death’s voice was rich, but it paused in strange places. “For what purpose do you desire such a precious gift?”

  A thought flashed in the summoner’s mind—only hotter and stronger than a mere thought. A desire. One word: freedom.

  “We want to be free,” said Essie, stepping beside him and slipping her hand into his. “Asa from his summoning, and me from my apprenticing. We’ve had enough. We’re sixteen, and we know our own minds. We don’t want to be trapped the way our parents were. We want freedom, and the Wishing Stone is going to give us that.”

  Death’s gaze shifted to Essie. His pale lips curled inward—so much so that he appeared to no longer have lips at all.

  “You,” said Death. “You serve another, one of my enemies.”

  Essie stood tall, unmoved. “That doesn’t matter. A Rite is a Rite. You have to do as we ask.”

  “Passion doesn’t know you’re here.” Though Death’s face remained expressionless, his voice was hungry, intent. “No, you two have done this all on your own. I can see it in your hearts. Yes, I see why you desire the Wishing Stone. I know what you desire, foolish children, and as you say, you summoned me, and you will have your prize.”

  Something cold and dry suddenly pressed into the summoner’s free hand. He looked down to discover he was holding a small dark stone.

  “Now.” Death turned a cold, apathetic gaze toward Essie. “I have business of my own.”

  “No,” said Essie, stepping back, uncertainty touching her face. “Our business here is done. You’ve given us the Wishing Stone, and now we part ways.”

  Death did not seem to hear. “Passion need never know,” he said, drawing nearer. “I could make it look like the most human of accidents. No one will say otherwise, least of all your coward father, young Whipple. He will not lift a finger to stop or accuse me.”

  The summoner stepped in front of Essie, his heart crashing. “Essie hasn’t done anything. You can’t touch her.”

  “Hasn’t done anything?” Something flashed in Death’s blue eyes. Something horrible. “Oh, I beg to differ. She’s done plenty. Such an industrious apprentice, I’m sure. Only now, it seems, she’s grown tired of the work. Like you, Whipple. You wish to be free—of your family name, your obligations. Well, dear ones, you don’t need a Wishing Stone for that. Why don’t I help you personally, dear Essie? I can grant you a permanent stop to all your obligations.”

  “I—” said Essie. “I don’t—”

  “It’s too perfect,” said Death, removing evening gloves from his long, bony hands. “I will finally bring as much calamity on Passion as Passion has brought on me.”

  A blast of icy cold shook through the summoner’s chest. He gasped for air but breathed in nothing. A dense, white void began to expand in his mind. As it grew, he became aware of the reason for his discomfort. Death had reached through his chest to where Essie stood behind him and curled his fingers around her neck.

  “Asa!” she cried, the word weak and constricted.

  “Let this be a lesson, young Whipple!” Death’s words were a birdlike shriek. “No matter what plans you make, no matter which Rites you choose, you will never outsmart a Shade!”

  “Asa!” Essie gasped, the blood draining from her once-rosy face.

  “LEE!”

  The cold rushed from Lee’s body, and breath returned to his lungs. He blinked against spotty vision and sat up.

  “Lee!” the voice shouted again. “Open up, please! Hurry!”

  He wasn’t Asa, the summoner, and it wasn’t Essie who was calling his name.

  “Gretchen?” he said groggily, crawling across his bed to unlatch the window she’d been knocking against. Gretchen’s hair was windblown, and there was terror in her eyes.

  “Leander!” Judith called from the parlor. “What on earth is going on back there?”

  “It’s nothing!” shouted Lee.

  His shoulders were shaking—but no, it was Gretchen’s hands, shaking his shoulders. In fact, all of Gretchen was shaking violently.

  “What is it?” Lee asked, alarmed. “Gretchen, what’s wrong?

  Gretchen made rasping sounds with her throat, but no words came out.

  Lee looked past her, to where his brother stood at the conservatory door.

  Felix said, “There’s been an accident.”

  The east end of Poplar House reeked of blood.

  Asa Whipple lay on the examination table, heaving out stuttering breaths. He was bleeding from his chest, a steady stream of thick blood. He needed Vince Vickery’s care, but the trouble was, Vince was not at home.

  “He’s making a house call,” Felix explained to Lee, through the open window of the examination room. He pushed up the hair from his sweaty brow, tapping his foot violently on the ground. “A follow-up with one of his patients in Arley Gap. Why did it have to be now?”

  Gretchen was hunched over Asa’s body, pressing a blood-dirtied towel against his stomach. Her hands were stained and her cheeks speckled bright red.

  “Felix,” she cried, “it won’t stop.”

  Felix had done all he could think of in the panic following Gretchen’s appearance. He’d helped her drag her brother’s body into the house. He’d emptied his father’s supply cabinet of gauze and towels and every herb he’d seen Vince use for wound stanching. But something was wrong. Though there was a never-ceasing flow of blood coming from just above Asa’s heart, there was no proper wound, no source. It was as though the blood was seeping from the very pores of Asa’s skin.

  “I don’t think I can stop it,” Felix said. “It’s not an ordinary wound. There’s something wrong here. Something very wrong.”

  Felix clenched his fists, angry with himself. He was Death’s apprentice-in-training, wasn’t he? What was the point of that—of thirteen years bound to Death—if he couldn’t save a life?

  A Wishing Stone, that’s what Gretchen had said. Asa had held a Wishing Stone, and Gretchen was afraid that, in that moment, his deepest desire had been to die. With each passing minute, Felix felt a horrible suspicion growing. Maybe this was something not even his father could fix. Maybe all anyone could do now was wait until Death appeared in the room. Wait until he approached the foot of the examination table, his metal pincers raised . . .

  No.

  Felix had to try something, anything else. He took a coral box from one of the medicine shelves and emptied its dried contents into his palm. Rose petals and rosemary. Felix had seen his father use the combination before to revive failing patients. He now pressed a handful to Asa’s chalky lips.

  Asa coughed, and his eyes flew open. They were bright red—pupil, iris, and all.

  From the window, Lee let out a shriek. Felix toppled back. Only Gretchen remained where she was. Her eyes were wide—from fear, Felix thought at first. But then she spoke.

  “The Rite,” she said, looking to Felix and Lee. “What are we thinking? We do the Rite now. I’ve got Passion’s flower here. If we banish Death, then he can’t take Asa away.”

  “I’ll get the memory,” said Lee. “And the book.” He disappeared from the window.

  “It’s all I can think of,” Gretchen said, turning, desperate, to Felix.

  But Felix was staring into the darkest corner of the room
. Through his unseeing eye, he saw a well-dressed gentleman standing there. Death checked his pocket watch and nodded at Felix cordially.

  “Felix?” said Gretchen. “Felix!”

  “It’s too late,” he whispered.

  He recognized the look in Death’s eyes.

  “Here!” shouted Lee, clambering back to the open window and holding out a green-ribboned jar.

  “Maybe it is too late,” Gretchen said to Felix, “but we’ve got to at least try.”

  Felix ran from the room. He skidded into his bedroom and retrieved the red wax candle from its hiding place.

  “Felix,” Lee shouted. “Felix, hurry! Death’s talking, and it doesn’t sound good!”

  No longer did Felix treat the candle with care. He raced it back to the examination room, its flame flickering wildly.

  Lee had placed the Book of Rites on the window ledge, and was holding out a green-ribboned jar. Above it, Gretchen held a purple flower. Felix watched Death, still in the corner, eyeing his pocket watch. He seemed distracted by his job, this impending death. Otherwise, surely, he would’ve said something about Asa and Gretchen’s unwanted presence here. Otherwise, surely, he would have seen what they were attempting to do. He looked as calm as ever. Was it because he was unaware of their plan, or was it simply because he knew it wouldn’t work?

  “We’ve got to do it fast,” said Gretchen. “Heat the memory with the candle—right, Lee?”

  Lee looked up from the open book. “Heat the memory with candle’s flames, then take off the lid and add Passion’s flower.”

  “Right,” said Gretchen, turning to Felix. “Let’s do this.”

  She felt the heat of the candle’s flame. Though Felix held it steady, its fire licked toward Gretchen’s knuckles, while also warming the memory in Lee’s hands. Then, without knowing how, Gretchen knew. It was time. She unscrewed the lid of the memory jar and dropped Passion’s flower inside.