Aside from that memory, I know nothing of the man.
Vincent. His name was Vincent. That’s all I’ve ever gotten out of Poppy.
I’ve not been able to glean a whole lot more out of my grandfather about my mother either. She was kind. Brave. We share the same dark red hair. There’s only one photo of her in the house, stuck in an old book Poppy likes to read about sea navigation. In it, she’s standing tall, strong, holding a weapon she used for hunting. An atlatl, Poppy explained when he caught me staring at it one afternoon. It’s a long wooden thrower with a hook that flings thick, sharp spears.
She also used it to protect her and Poppy against the Night.
I slide open the wood-planked basement door. We hurry down the ladder, Poppy pulling the carpet back over, locking the door behind us.
Within the cellar is one lantern, a jug of water, jarred food, and a couple of blankets.
The space is cramped, no larger than a broom closet, but it’s the safest place right now. Last year when several homes burned to the ground, the only saving grace was that the families hid in their cellars. They lived. If you don’t have a cellar, on this night, you know someone who does.
I stare across the short distance to Poppy. His eyes are heavy; he’s probably exhausted from the work of getting the house boarded up, worrying over me cutting things much too close, on top of laboring the day away selling worms at the bait stand.
I wish I could give him a barrel of candied lemon.
“You sit,” I say, pushing the one stool toward him. He doesn’t protest. I hand him a blanket and I sit on top of the other on the floor. “Will they ever stop?”
“Afraid not,” Poppy says through work-weathered hands as he rubs his eyes. “Not until they get what they want.”
“What more could they possibly want? I know they hate us, but to what end?”
“Power, my Veda. It’s all about power.”
“I don’t get it. Who the hell cares about all that?”
Poppy snorts in that way he does when he agrees with me and also eyes me for saying hell. “The Night. The Imperi. Those who already have it and fear losing it.”
I roll my eyes. “At least the Imperi protect us … Sort of.” But do they? Sure, they’d insist they do, but with each day that passes, each morning I have to sneak out for bait, it feels less true. More and more I can’t help but feel we’re just pawns to their king. We do all the work while they roam wherever they please, laughing and celebrating, bellies full of candied lemon. Yeah, they’ll recruit us to fight, to tend their gardens, to bake their bread, but never—never—to share their gold-linen-adorned table.
“Mmm…” Poppy nods. He takes my hands in his and is about to say something, go into one of his stories from my childhood, probably, when there’s a blast above. What I assume is the back door, those boards Poppy so hastily used to barricade it, left a mess of splinters on the floor.
The noise travels down into the cellar, rapping against my ribs. Poppy’s eyes are wide, his forefinger hovering at his mouth. I blow out the lamp.
The world is painted pitch black.
Booted footsteps knock against the planked floor over our heads.
The darkness is so dense, so all-encompassing, I can’t see even inches in front of me.
More footsteps. There must be at least six Night soldiers marching around our home as we wait like sitting ducks below.
Something falls over. A shelf? Our kitchen table?
I pull my knife from my boot.
Poppy squeezes my shoulder as if reminding me not to do anything reckless or hasty.
A window breaks.
Another.
More boot clatter.
Another item crashes to the floor.
Then … silence.
My heartbeat is all I can feel. All I can hear, the thump-thump-thump between my ears.
I’m about to dare a whisper to check on Poppy when something slick and cool drips through the slats of the ceiling onto the top of my head. Then again.
Poppy must feel it too because he strikes a single match for light. I glance to his face, gasp, and then look down at my hands where I’ve wiped the warm liquid off my head. It’s red.
Bloodred.
CHAPTER 6
Lucky souls who live through the Reckoning must tread timidly at first Sun’s beckoning. For when they wake from a long eve’s bed, thanks to the Night, the canal runs red.
I STIFLE THE scream in my throat and focus on cleaning the blood off my hands by smearing my sticky palms against my skirt.
Not a word and nary a sound exchanges between Poppy and me as, silently, we try to figure out how in Sun’s name blood was spilled on the floor upstairs and, more, who it belongs to.
I risk lighting another match.
Poppy leans in and, of all things, sniffs my hand, then nods knowingly.
Paint, he mouths.
I lift my hands to my nose and instantly recognize the sour, metallic scent. My panic, the buildup of the evening, definitely ran away with my imagination and had me thinking the worst. Poppy doesn’t dare relight the lantern.
Silence saturates the house, the world, until the neighbor’s rooster crows, alerting us that at least he made it through the night. Then the bells ring.
Poppy lights the lantern.
“I’ll go up first,” I say, jumping up off the floor.
But Poppy’s already climbing the ladder. “Wait here, Veda. Please.” He’s sure to make eye contact—he knows I’m less likely to go against him when he does this. Knife at the ready, I don’t dare even a breath.
He unlocks the door, slides it open with a bit of trouble like something’s blocking it, and then vanishes into our house.
I wait. And wait.
It’s too quiet. Too still. And as much as I want to heed Poppy’s warning, I can’t. I take the ladder, two rungs at a time.
I scramble up from the cellar to find a shocked Poppy, staring helplessly from one disaster to the next.
It’s as if our home’s been doused in blood, picked up, turned upside down, and dropped back again. My face flushes with anger, but it isn’t until I see remnants of the altar from my bedroom … a photo of me and Poppy, a scrap of map that belonged to my father, a chunk of rose quartz (my mother’s), a stone from the pond in Nico’s backyard, and the glass fish Dorian gave me only hours ago, that everything hits me.
Walking over, I bend down and pick up the items one by one, setting them in a neat pile to the side, sticking the glass fish in my pocket, so tiny and delicate compared to the others, I worry it’ll be lost for sure. My throat tightens as Poppy’s heavy steps grow closer. I don’t know what to say, but the warmth of his hand on my shoulder says it for both of us.
“Ah! It’s about time!” he says. “That altar needed a good dusting!”
I look back at him, my eyes burning from holding back angry tears.
He runs his finger along the frame of the cross-stitched Sun I made when I was nine, showing a layer of gray dust. “Heh?” Eyebrows raised, his forehead a sea of lines, he waves the frame in the air. “We should thank the Night.” He breathes in. “Thank you! You damn hellions are good for something after all,” Poppy says.
But, too quickly, his expression grows somber. Leaning closer, he stares into my eyes, his dark, always so stoic. “These are just things. Sure, they hold memories, but it could be so much worse. Yes?”