Wax

  “I could do it,” Connor said. “I’m a real actor.”

  Louisa scoffed. “She never said you weren’t. She’s just trying to manipulate us.”

  Poppy held her gaze. “Is it working?”

  Louisa relented with a sigh.

  “Wait a second,” Banks said. “Does this mean they can, like, read each other’s minds? If they’re all offshoots from Anita and Preston, are Anita and Preston controlling all of them, all at once?”

  “That’s . . . a good question.” Poppy thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think so. When I was at the Bursaws’”​—​she winced at the name​—​“I’m pretty sure Big Bob had to call Anita to tell her that I was there. They’re more like clones. That’s how Madame Grosholtz described it in her message, anyway. They’re duplicates of Anita and Preston, but they don’t share the same consciousness, so there’s no automatic communication between them. I’m guessing Preston is in Big Bob and Anita is in Miss Bea, but I suppose it could also be the other way around​—”

  “Yeah,” said Banks dryly, “we wouldn’t want to impose gender stereotypes onto the monstrous wax people.”

  “What’s the big deal?” asked Jesus. “If they’re only taking the place of assholes anyway, aren’t we better off?”

  “No, Jesus, we’re not,” said Poppy, “because (a) immortal beings hell-bent on supreme power are not in fact preferable to the Bursaws, hard as that may be to believe, (b) they’re killing the people they’re replacing, and (c) you can do simple math, right?”

  From the look he gave her, Jesus could not do simple math.

  “There are only one thousand and fourteen citizens in Paraffin,” she said. “At the rate of two per day, they’ll have replaced us completely within a year and a half. And I’m betting that they’ll increase that rate as soon as they make enough Hollows to overpower us. I mean, since Saturday they’ve already made seven clones of themselves​—​most of whom hold strong positions of power or influence in the community, who will be able to keep up the charade and convince people that nothing out of the ordinary is going on. And before long, it’ll hit a tipping point. In no time at all, they’ll get you, me, your families. Everyone.”

  That seemed to do it. The members of the Giddy Committee went silent, going over the math in their heads.

  Then Jesus abruptly got to his feet.

  “Where are you going?” Poppy asked.

  “I just got an idea.”

  “Can you run it by me first?”

  “Nope! Gotta go!”

  “Jesus, wait​—”

  But he ran off before anyone could stop him.

  Connor scowled. “Truly, Madame Director, I implore you, a hooligan such as Jesus is not fit for the part of the son of God​—”

  “Connor. Bigger fish to fry here.”

  “Poppy, what’s your plan to deal with this?” asked Jill. “Do you have a plan?”

  “Of course I do. We’re going to look at people. Hard. If you think they’re acting suspicious, follow them. Study them. From now on, everyone in town is a suspect.”

  “That narrows it down,” Louisa muttered.

  “Louisa, I am this close to knocking your block off.” Pause. Deep breath. “But you’re right. Let’s be smart about this.”

  Poppy took out her notebook. Everyone groaned.

  “We need to be organized!” she insisted. “And the best place to start is by listing what we know. Or who we know for sure are Hollows.” She drew a crude calendar. “Now, Sunday was the first day the BiScentennial candles went on sale. That was Big Bob and Miss Bea. The next day, yesterday, was Blake and Smitty. Today was Principal Lincoln and . . . I don’t know who yet. The scent is Italian Leather.”

  “Palladino is an Italian name,” said Louisa.

  “Louisa, I am this close. This close.” She wrote down a big question mark. “Tomorrow will be my neighbor, Mrs. Goodwin, and​—​well, it was supposed to be me. And the next day it’ll be two more people, unless we figure out a way to stop all this by the end of the day. Which seems kind of impossible.”

  But Poppy felt a little better. Having a plan made her feel less helpless, and things were falling into place. She just had to figure out what that place was. “Here’s what’s going to happen: I’m going to go home, lock myself in my room, and not come out until I’ve figured out what to do about all this. Behold: The Plan.” She removed her new notebook and held it up as if it were the Holy Bible. “In the meantime, you guys try and figure out who Italian Leather could be. Ask around. Find out who’s acting slightly less than normal. Then call me if you learn anything important, if you think of anything new, or if you see or hear anything odd.”

  “And if we encounter a Hollow?” asked Banks. “What do we do, bash their heads in?”

  “No. I mean, I don’t know yet. We’ll have to destroy them somehow, but that’s getting ahead of ourselves. Until then, just focus on ID’ing them. Keep your eyes peeled as you have never kept them peeled before!”

  The Giddy Committee agreed to the plan, then gathered their stuff and left the park. “How do you peel an eye?” Dud asked Poppy and Jill as they walked up the small hill toward the town square.

  “With an eye peeler,” Jill said.

  “What’s an eye peeler?”

  “It peels eyes.”

  They walked for a moment in an awkward silence.

  “So, are we okay?” Poppy asked Jill somewhat desperately. “Because I really need us to be okay.”

  “We are. I’m sorry about what I said to Crawford.”

  “And I’m sorry I’ve been such a lunatic.”

  “Yeah, but​—” Jill looked repentant. It looked strange on her. “If you’re right about all this stuff, then I’ve been a triple dick for not believing you. And if, heaven forbid, you were in danger or got hurt because I ignored you . . .”

  Poppy couldn’t help but smile. “It’s okay, Jill. Out of respect for you, I won’t even do the I-told-you-so dance.”

  “You are too kind.” Jill nodded at something behind Poppy. “Incoming.”

  “There you are!” Poppy’s mother emerged from the crowd. “You kids sounded great! It was so crowded, though, it was hard to see you — especially you, Poppy — ”

  “What have you got there?” Poppy interjected as her father and Owen came into view.

  “We won the raffle!” said her father. “A limited-edition copy of Paraffin-opoly. Isn’t that exciting?”

  “I suppose ‘exciting’ could conceivably be a word used to describe that, sure.”

  “And the Grosholtz Candle Factory was selling surplus wax at their booth,” her mother added. “So we bought a whole bunch for you to sculpt, Dud! It’s waiting in the car!”

  “Cool!” Dud spread out his hands excitedly. Poppy grabbed the one that did not have a thumb and, not knowing how else to explain that away, held it in a loosely romantic manner.

  “Aww,” her parents sighed simultaneously.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  When the Palladino family got home around one o’clock​—​and after Poppy made Dud surreptitiously resculpt his thumb from the surplus wax​—​she immediately brushed off her family’s pleas for merriment. “I know it’s family fun day, but seriously, I’m exhausted,” she announced, itching to get started on The Plan.

  “But it’s a holiday,” her mom said, and held up a plate. “I made pie.”

  “Pear-affin pie,” her dad added. “Get it?”

  “I do. And​—​yes, that is very cute. It’ll play great on the blog,” she told her mom, forcing a smile. “But​—”

  “We’ve got the whole day, Pops!” her father crowed. “We could see a movie, we could take a drive, we can go for a bike ride and maybe take off the training wheels this time?” he said, nudging Owen. “The possibilities are endless! Vermont is our oyster!”

  “I know Vermont is our oyster. But I stayed up late last night planning for the parade today, and honestly, all I want to do is crash
.”

  “Well, all right,” her dad said, not bothering to hide the disappointment in his voice. “Dud? How about you? Want to go on a bike ride?”

  Dud stared at him. “What is a bike?”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Poppy smushed her head into her mattress, savoring the quiet. The instant Dud had revealed that he’d never been on a bike, her parents swooped in with nonstop talk about heading over to Cycle Town and buying him his first ten-speed and oh won’t it be fun for him and Owen to learn together and we’ll be back later, Poppy, have a good rest!

  She glanced at Madame Grosholtz’s message candle, still burning. The wax had burned about two-thirds of the way down, but the words had definitely ended; there was at least two inches of blank space.

  Madame Grosholtz had said all there was to say.

  Poppy shivered. Now that she was all alone, she realized that solitude maybe wasn’t the best thing for her right at the moment. The mere concept of Blake Being Dead had grown into a big black cloud choking every inch of her room. It was such an utterly impossible thing. Grownups were the ones who died, who got somber funerals and flower arrangements and the empty consolations that they’d lived full lives. Not someone who was as young and energetic as she was. Blake had used that energy in malicious ways, true, but she’d seen a different side of him over the past couple of days, one that cared about his family and was willing to do anything to save them.

  He didn’t deserve death. None of the townspeople did. The image of all those dead-eyed Hollows kept swirling through her head, pounding, moaning, it’s hopeless, it’s hopeless, it’s hopeless . . .

  No. Pessimism had never gotten her anywhere, and it wasn’t going to help her now. Blake was dead, and nothing could bring him back​—​but at least she could make sure it wouldn’t happen to anyone else.

  She uncapped her pen, cracked open The Plan, and started writing.

  19

  Obsess

  FROM THE MOMENT SHE GOT HOME UNTIL HER FAMILY RETURNED, Poppy’s pen never stopped moving. It scribbled and scratched, zigged and zagged, crossed things out, added things in, created flow charts, maps, graphs, timelines​—​and by the time she heard footsteps on the stairs, she’d filled nearly half the pages of her Pen Dragon 2.0.

  Dud burst into her room. “I learned how to ride a bike!”

  “That’s nice,” she said, not looking up from her notes. “But I’ve got some murders to avenge.”

  Either Dud didn’t know the meaning of the word “murder” or such grisly enterprises did not interest him, because his reply was, “Okay! I’m gonna go eat some pie. Do you want any?”

  “No. And Dud​—” She finally looked up, her eyes bloodshot and frantic. “Tell my parents I’m not to be disturbed. I’m working on something top-secret, and I need total concentration.”

  “Okay!”

  But once dinnertime came and went, her father paid a visit. “We’ve got a killer game of Paraffin-opoly going,” he said. “You sure you don’t want to join us?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “What are you up to, Pops? You shouldn’t be working so hard on a holiday​—”

  “I’m writing my college essay!” she shouted, the first thing that came to mind. “So if you want me to get into college, I suggest you leave me alone!”

  Cowed, he closed the door. “Okay, hon. Sorry. Let us know if you need any help.”

  Poppy felt terrible. But she did not have the luxury of feeling feelings at the moment, so she channeled all that guilt down her arm, through her hand, and into her pen.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Around nine o’clock another knock came at her door.

  “I’m. Busy.”

  Her mom opened the door anyway, sticking her grinning face through the crack. “I know, honey, but . . .” She let out a giddy puff of air and threw up her hands. “You have to come see this.”

  “What?” Poppy stashed her notebook under the sheets of her bed and reluctantly stood up. “Did Dad crown himself king of Paraffin or something?”

  “Oh, no. Even better. Dud’s been doing some more sculpting with the wax I bought today.”

  Poppy’s feet felt like cinder blocks as she plodded down the staircase. Today had been upsetting and horrific enough. Was there anything on earth that could possibly top it, that could be worthy enough to be a grand finale?

  Oh, Poppy thought as she walked into the living room. Yep. This.

  “I made you,” Dud said, biting his lip to contain his grin. “Well, just your head so far. But I want to make the rest. What do you think?”

  Poppy thought that it was very odd, staring into her own eyes in her own disembodied wax head. “Unnerving” didn’t begin to describe it. “Ghastly” perhaps, or “heebie-jeebie factory.”

  “It’s . . . very accurate,” she said.

  And it was. He’d captured every detail. Her unnaturally large eyes, her tiny nose, her scattered freckles. Even the expression was dead-on: a mix of optimistic ambition, ambitious desperation, and desperate optimism.

  Dud had put the love in.

  “Do you like it?” he asked shyly.

  “Yes.” Poppy looked away from her mirrored glass eyes, back into his. A mix of pride and affection swelled within her. “It’s amazing, just like the others. You are so good at this.”

  “As good as Madame Grosholtz, you think?”

  “Definitely.”

  He let out a quiet, happy gasp of delight. “Good. Great. Then my plan might work!”

  Poppy’s smile cracked. “What plan?”

  “And Madame who?” her mother asked.

  A jolt of energy seemed to spring up from the soles of Dud’s feet. He grabbed Poppy’s wrist and dragged her into the kitchen. “Be right back!” he shouted at the rest of the family as he shut himself and Poppy up in the pantry.

  Poppy was miffed, mostly because she knew she’d never be able to come up with an explanation of why she was in the pantry with Dud that wouldn’t evoke the words “seven,” “minutes,” or “heaven.” “What’s going on, Dud?”

  “I’ve been thinking. About what you said about dying. And then about what Madame Grosholtz said. And I thought​—​okay, maybe these Hollow people are bad, but it doesn’t have to be that way!”

  Poppy raised an eyebrow.

  “So I thought,” Dud continued, “that maybe we could figure out how to put your flame into a Hollow, and then you can live forever, like me!”

  Poppy suddenly felt a strong need to lie down. She settled for leaning a hand against the wall. “Oh, Dud. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  Dud kept smiling; it was clear that he’d so deeply convinced himself that she was going to be excited that he hadn’t processed her negative reaction yet. “What?”

  “I don’t want to be seventeen forever,” she said, her voice rising as she heard the words spoken aloud, realizing the exact magnitude of their horribleness. “This has been the worst year of my life! With the only comfort being that it will be over in a few months!”

  Dud scratched his head. “But​—”

  No. He was making this too hard. He was complicating things where things should not be complicated. There had been no X for a person like Dud in the formula that was her senior year, and adding one now would mess up the equation. And a not-human person, at that​—​it had to involve exponents. It was too complex.

  “I don’t want to live forever,” she continued, manic, panicking. Even with all the death smacking her in the face over the past few days, this was not something she wanted. “Even if we did know how Madame Grosholtz did it, which we don’t.”

  “But if I got my sculpting talent from her, maybe I could also figure out​—”

  “Dud, no. Not like that. I mean, in theory, sure, immortality sounds nice, but if that’s the kind of person I’d turn into​—​like the Chandlers, usurping innocent people’s lives just to add more years to mine​—​then no, thank you. Besides, what’s the point? I might li
ve forever, but my family wouldn’t, my friends wouldn’t. I’d be all alone!”

  Dud dug his sneaker into the floor. “You’d have me.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that, so she ignored it. “But I want to grow up,” she insisted. Blake had been robbed of that chance, and she had no intention of squandering her own. “I want to go to college, have a career, have kids, live a full life​—”

  “So do I!”

  Dud looked surprised at his own outburst, then recoiled a little, knitting his fingers together just as Madame Grosholtz had done.

  He gave Poppy a heartbreaking glance. “I want all that too. I want to be human. But I can’t be. So I thought​—​if I can’t be human, then you could be wax. But I guess if you don’t want to be like me, then . . .”

  Poppy wanted to comfort him, wanted to say something that would make everything all better. But nothing came to her. So they both remained still and let silence fill in the rest.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Poppy lay awake in bed, though she was exhausted. The horrors of the day​—​and night​—​had swelled beneath her consciousness like a rough sea, bouncing her tiny boat about, never letting it settle into calm. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Dud’s, pleading, and hers snapped back open again.

  So she tossed.

  She turned.

  Her stomach rumbled.

  And then, just as she was starting to nod off, her phone rang.

  “It’s him! It’s him! It’s him!” Connor shouted at the other end before she could say hello.

  “Who’s ‘him’? What’s going on?”

  “One of the Hollows! On Channel Six!”

  Poppy jumped out of bed to run downstairs, then remembered that their television set had gone to that great trash pile in the sky. Grunting, she plugged her earbuds into her phone and opened the Channel Six YouNews app instead.

  Naturally, the top story was the bicentennial parade. She tapped on a live feed of Colt himself, standing in front of a spotlight at the center of the darkened town square. In the background, cleanup crews were still sweeping piles of confetti. “Hundreds of Paraffiners gathered here today for a once-in-a-lifetime celebration,” he said, stiffly gesturing to the space behind him. “Truly, Paraffin Day was a day to remember.”