Part 2 (2/2)

Alice wasn't allowed there, so it was a generous offer.

”I don't really feel like it today,” Zach said. ”But thanks.” They were almost to his street, almost home. He picked up his pace.

”Did you finish the Questions?” Poppy asked him.

He hitched his backpack higher on his shoulder and shook his head. The note was folded and tucked away in the front zippered pocket, scribbled on and ill.u.s.trated, full of proof that he did care. He couldn't give it to her.

She held out her hand.

”I didn't answer them,” he said. ”What do you want?”

”Give me the paper back anyway. Maybe I'll make up my own answers.”

He frowned. ”I don't have them anymore. I lost them.”

”You lost them?” Poppy yelled. He wondered if she was afraid of someone finding out what she'd asked. He would have been.

”They're probably just in your bag, right?” Alice said. ”You could look.”

”Sorry,” Zach mumbled. ”Like I said, I don't know where they are.”

”What happened?” Poppy asked, grabbing his arm. ”What's so different all of a sudden? Why are you so different?”

He turned to look at her. He had to get away before he said something that he couldn't take back. ”I don't know. I don't want to play, that's all.”

”Fine,” Poppy said. ”Just bring your people over one last time. One final time. So that they can say good-bye to our people.”

”I can't,” he said. ”I just can't, Poppy.”

”I just want to say good-bye.” The hurt on Poppy's face was raw and so much like his own that it was hard to look at her. ”They would want that. They'll miss Rose and Lady Jaye and Aeryn and Lysander, even if you don't.”

”They're not real, you know.” He knew he was being a jerk, but it felt good to lash out, even if was at the wrong person. ”They're not real, and they can't want anything. Stop being such a loser. You can't play pretend forever.”

Alice sucked in her breath. The red blotches on Poppy's neck had moved to her cheeks. She looked like she was about to cry or hit him; Zach wasn't sure which.

When she spoke, though, her voice was flat and grim. ”The Queena”what if I take her out of the cabinet? I know where my mom keeps the key. I'll play her. She knows all the secrets, and she'll give you whatever you want. Everything. If you come tomorrow, you can have everything you want.”

Zach hesitated. The Great Queen, who ruled over the Silver Hills, the Gray Country, the Land of the Witches, and the whole Blackest Sea. She would have information about William the Blade's father. With her blessing, all his crimes might be forgiven, his curse lifted, and William would be allowed to dock the Neptune's Pearl anywhere he wanted. It was a big thing for Poppy to promisea”especially because her mother would be furious if Poppy actually took the doll out from the cabinet. The doll was very, very old, anda”according to Poppy's mothera”worth a lot of money. She'd be worth a lot less if they touched her papery cotton dress or pawed at her brittle straw-gold curls. And if the Queen was free from her cage, then who knew what that meant for the world.

For a moment, he'd forgotten that there was no more game. It was an unpleasant shock to remember. No matter how tempting it was, Zach couldn't play. There was no William the Blade anymore.

”Sorry,” he said, turning toward his house with a shrug.

Poppy made a strangled sound. Alice said something under her breath.

Zach bent his head, closed his eyes, and kept walking.

THAT NIGHT, AT the kitchen table, Zach poked at his baked chicken. He wasn't hungry.

”Your mother pointed out to me that if I want you to start acting like a grown-up, I can't keep treating you like a kid,” his father was saying, sounding overly sincere. ”She's right. I shouldn't have tossed out your stuff, because it's my job to guide you toward the right choices, not make all those choices for you.”

The tone in his father's voice made Zach think of last year, when he'd gotten into a fight at school. His mother had made him sit in the princ.i.p.al's office until he was ready to tell Harry Parillo that he was sorry for punching him, even though Zach hadn't been sorry at all. Zach's father's apology sounded as forced as his had been.

”I know that it's hard to adjust to us being back together,” Mom said. ”But we're going to keep working on it. Zachary, do you have anything you want to say?”

”Nope,” Zach said.

”That's okay,” said his dad, getting up from the table and clapping Zach on the shoulder. ”We understand each other, don't we?”

Awkward silence stretched between them.

Finally Zach nodded, because he did understand his father. He understood his wanting to make Mom happy. He understood not being sorry. It just didn't make Zach forgive him.

The next day, Zach went to practice and tried to blot out thoughts of Poppy and Alice and his father by playing ball so aggressively that he got lectured by his coach and benched for the rest of practice. He tried not to think about the story, which would go on without him, flowing around the empty s.p.a.ces where his characters used to be until they were swallowed up and forgotten.

He thought again about running away, but the more time pa.s.sed, the more he'd realized that he had nowhere to go.

Since his father was at the restaurant that night, his mother let him eat ravioli from a can on the couch in front of the television. They didn't talk much, although he caught her shooting him worried looks.

In the morning Zach asked her to drive him to school, and that afternoon he went home with Alex Rios. They played video games in Alex's finished bas.e.m.e.nt on a bigger television than Zach had seen outside of a store.

The day after that, Alice walked up to Zach while he was shooting baskets at recess and pressed a note into his hand. A couple of the other guys yelled ”Go ask Alice!” and ”Somebody's got a girlfriend!” as she walked off, which made her hunch her shoulders like she was braced against a hard wind.

”Shut up,” Zach said, shoving Peter Lewis, since he was standing closest.

”What?” Peter said. ”I didn't say anything.”

The note was folded up in a square this time, with his name carefully printed in blue ink. When he opened it, there were only three short sentences on the lined paper: Something happened with the Queen. Go to the hermit's place by the Silver Hills after school. It's important.

Important was underlined three times.

It's nothing, Zach told himself.

He thought of the Queen's fluttering lashes and the feeling of her closed eyes following him as he walked through the room.

The Queen wasn't real, though, so nothing important could have happened with her. This was just Poppy and Alice attempting to get him to show up so they could all have the same fight over again. They wanted him to play and he couldn't. There was nothing he could do except explain why it was over, and he couldn't bring himself to do that.

”What did the note say?” Alex asked. ”She tell you that she wants your skinny body?”

Zach tore it in half and then in half again. ”Nah. She just wants my math homework.”

There was no practice after school that day, but he stayed late anyway, pretending there was. He managed to talk the coach into letting him shoot hoops in the gym, which he did methodically, alone, letting himself drown in the thump of the ball, the squeak of his sneakers, and the familiar smell of fresh floor wax and old sweat.

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