Poppy sat down next to him. "You should have just told us."
"I know," he said. "Are you mad?"
Poppy nodded. "Of course I"m mad! But I guess I"m less mad than when I thought you didn"t care about any of it."
He looked over at Alice. She was staring at one of the stones, as if maybe she didn"t want to look at him. "What about you, Alicea"?"
"Get up," she said suddenly. "Get up! Get up! Look!"
Poppy jumped up and hauled Zach to his feet.
Alice was pointing to a stone he"d been lying in front of on the gra.s.s. "You found it! Zach, you actually found it."
The large marble headstone bore the word KERCHNER on it, and over that, a carving of a willow tree. They stared at it, incredulous smiles giving way to genuine grins and laughter.
It made him feel, for a moment, like maybe no stories were lies. Not Tinshoe Jones"s stories about aliens. Not Dad"s stories about things getting better or things getting worse. Clearly, not Poppy"s stories about the Queen. Maybe all stories were true ones.
Poppy knelt down, pushed aside some weeds, and traced smaller words at the base. "There are names herea"it"s a family plot. That"s why the stone is so big. There"s Lukas. And someone named Heddaa"that must be Eleanor"s mother. And looka"a blank spot. An empty place for Eleanor."
"We did it," Alice said, her voice soft as any prayer. "The quest is complete."
"We have to give her a good funeral," said Zach. "We came all this way. We have to do it right."
Alice and Poppy nodded.
And so they decided that Zach would dig the grave, which he did mostly with his hands, but also with the a.s.sistance of several sticks and a long, flat piece of slate that was sharp enough on one end to cut through roots. It took some time, but he was able to hollow out a s.p.a.ce big enough for the doll to rest comfortably.
Alice"s job was to find flowers. She didn"t want to take them from other graves, so she picked some toad lily and goldenrod and turtlehead that grew in the woods at the edge of the cemetery. She braided all the stems together to make a garland for the Queen and then made another little bouquet to leave behind once they were done.
Poppy"s job was to prepare the doll for burial. She rubbed the dirt off the porcelain with spit and the cleanest edge of her T-shirt. Then she took off her hoodie and wrapped Eleanor in it, like it was a shroud.
Finally they were ready.
Poppy placed the doll in the hole in the ground and smoothed the hairs around her face. One of the doll"s eyes was open, staring up at them, but the other was closed. Poppy cleared her throat.
"Eleanor," she said, "we think that you were about our age when you died and that no one really knows your true story, only that something terrible happened. We"re going to keep trying to discover the truth for you. We hope you can rest easy now. You"re home with your family."
"Eleanor," Zach said. The words came easily, the way they did when he was playing, but he felt entirely like himself. "You must be one determined ghost to get us to come all this way. I know we didn"t always do the best job, so thanks for not quitting on us. I"m glad you chose us to be your champions."
"Eleanor," Alice said softly, stepping forward. "I only ever knew you as our Queen, so that"s how I am going to talk to you. We, your loyal subjects, quested far to bring you to this place and have gathered here this day to bid you farewell on your journey. I"m glad you"re finally free from your tower."
She leaned down to place the garland around the doll"s neck. Pink petals fell on the Queen"s dress and hair.
"The Queen is dead," she said. "Long live the Queen."
They clasped hands, and then Poppy knelt down to begin covering Eleanor with dirt. The first handfuls covered her face, leaving her fingers, her cheeks, and her forehead bare. More earth fell until she was covered completely.
"Good-bye, Eleanor," Poppy whispered as Alice set the bouquet she"d made on top of the soft, new-turned earth. A few petals fell, dusting it gold.
Zach felt the wind rise, like the wind he"d heard singing through the trees the night he"d run home from basketball practice. He felt the same chill at his neck and he shivered, but this time he didn"t run. He let it pa.s.s over him, racing on and upward. And he thought he heard, very distantly, the sound of a girl laughing.
Smiling, Zach looked out at the lines of graves as they turned to walk back to the road.
Alice kept pace with him. "I keep thinking about what Poppy said, about us all changing. We are, aren"t we?"
Poppy shivered in her T-shirt. "You guys are."
Zach wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "You"re cold because you gave your jacket to a ghost, and you don"t think anything"s different about you?"
Poppy snorted, but she didn"t pull away. "That"s not what she means. I"m just different like weird. We had this adventure together, but now we"re going to go back. And I"ll be the same, but you guys will keep changing."
"Quests are supposed to change us," Zach said.
"How about real life?" asked Poppy.
Alice picked up a blade of gra.s.s and folded it in her fingers. "What"s that? Seriously. This was real. This was a story that we lived. Maybe we can live other stories too."
In the distance, Zach saw two cars pull into the graveyard. He recognized Alice"s aunt"s silver Toyota, with his mom"s beat-up green Nissan behind it. As they drew closer he saw the shadow of his father in the pa.s.senger seat.
"This was our last game," Poppy said. "This is the end of our last game."
"Oh, I don"t know," said Zach. "With the Queen gone, the kingdoms are going to be in turmoil. Lots of people want her throne, all of them willing to manipulate, scheme, and battle to get it. And with William and so many other heroes dead, it"s going to be a different world. A world in chaos. Maybe we can"t play it the way we used to, but we could still tell each other what happens next."
"Chaos, huh?" asked Alice, a slow grin spreading over her face. "Sounds like fun."
Poppy smiled a familiar scheming smile, her eyes alight with new hope. "You want to play?" she asked.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.
THIS BOOK HAS LIVED IN MY HEAD AND HEART FOR A long time. I hesitated writing it for years, hoping that when I did, I could do it justice. So I have a lot of people to thank for encouraging me along the way.
Thanks to Kevin Lewis, Rick Richter, and Mara Anastas, who told me their own stories of growing up and who kept asking after this project.
Thanks to everyone on Twitter, who answered many questions about middle school, pa.s.sing notes folded into the shape of footb.a.l.l.s, and many other things with aplomb.
Thanks to my workshoppers: Ellen Kusher, Delia Sherman, Josh Lewis, Gavin Grant, and Sarah Smith, for helping me see the story I was telling. And an extra thanks to Sarah Smith, who brought several excellently creepy dolls from her personal collection to stare at us while we talked.
Thanks to Kelly Link, Sarah Rees Brennan, Ca.s.sandra Clare, and Robin Wa.s.serman, who read this book through countless times.
Thanks to Kami Garcia for all the ghostly inspiration.
Thanks to Libba Bray for making me cry.
Thanks to Steve Berman, for going on an impromptu road trip to East Liverpool to see the pottery museum and library for ourselves.
Thank you also to the Museum of Ceramics in East Liverpool. I borrowed much of the story of "Orchid Ware" from the actual story of Lotus Ware as represented by the museum.
Thanks to Eliza Wheeler for her creepifyingly beautiful ill.u.s.trations.
Thanks to my agent, Barry Goldblatt, and Joe Monti for their enthusiasm for this project and also their determination that it be the best I could make it.
Thanks to my editor, Karen Wojtyla, for understanding exactly what the book was supposed to be and how to get it there. Also, thank you for cutting all the boring bits.
Thank you to everyone at Simon & Schuster and McElderry Books for being awesome.
Thanks to my husband, Theo Black, for a lot of inspiration and for patiently listening to me read the whole thing to you.
To East Liverpool, Ohio, and East Rochester, Pennsylvania, I apologize for the mangling of geography (and bus schedules) to suit my needs. I also extend an apology to the Ohio River, which has a dam I omitted from the proceedings, due to the fact that three kids on a tiny sailboat would not have been allowed through the lock.
Holly Black is the New York Times bestselling author of The Spiderwick Chronicles and Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles. She has also written the Modern Faerie Tales: t.i.the; Valiant, which was a recipient of the Andre Norton Award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America; and Ironside; as well as the Curse Workers trilogy: White Cat, Red Glove, and Black Heart. Holly has also written a collection of short stories, The Poison Eaters: And Other Stories. She lives in Amherst, Ma.s.sachusetts. Visit her at blackholly.com.
Margaret K. McElderry Books.
Simon & Schuster.
New York.
Meet the author, watch videos, and get extras at KIDS.SimonandSchuster.com.
Also by Holly Black.
The Spiderwick Chronicles.
The Field Guide The Seeing Stone.
Lucinda"s Secret The Ironwood Tree The Wrath of Mulgarath.
Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles.
The Nixie"s Song A Giant Problem.
The Wyrm King Modern Faerie Tales t.i.the.
Valiant Ironside The Curse Workers.
White Cat Red Glove.
Black Heart The Poison Eaters: And Other Stories.
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