The Hawkweed Prophecy (2 page)

C
HAPTER
O
NE

T
he uniform felt like a straitjacket, secondhand and too small. Poppy's father had learned long ago never to invest in a brand-new one. When she was a child, Poppy had been nervous about starting at a school, daunted even. Now, as a teenager, she was numb to all that. It was just the uniforms she hated—the idea that by wearing the same clothes, you're on the same side, like a team, or an army, all with the same sense of purpose.
More like inmates
, Poppy thought to herself bleakly, as she regarded her reflection in the mirror. Maroon—the bright ones were the worst. It was like she was donning a disguise. But she knew she was different, always had been, and no uniform could hide that. For this was going to be Poppy's eleventh school.

Poppy finally found her shoes in the bottom of a box that hadn't been unpacked yet. Outside the window, litter and leaves were lifting in the air, leaping across the street, and she stopped and watched them for a while, wondering dispassionately how long she was going to last at this next place. A whole year was her record. Something always went wrong. Either intentionally
or by accident, Poppy would break too many rules, cause too much disruption, or lose her temper, and disaster would strike. Like the time Mrs. Barker, her science teacher, slipped and fell, fracturing her wrist. Mrs. Barker had sworn Poppy had tripped her, and despite Poppy's protestations that she'd merely looked at her teacher, this offense had been the last straw. Her father had been called from work, and Poppy had been expelled in disgrace. Other schools had been more kind about it, suggesting gently but firmly that theirs was not the right environment for Poppy and that she'd be better suited elsewhere.

John Hooper, Poppy's long-suffering father, had tried everything. He'd sent Poppy to the most expensive, traditional boarding schools, to the most progressive and nurturing day schools in the country, and even once to a convent. (That had not ended well—a broken stained-glass window dating back centuries and a vast restoration bill.) But the last expulsion had been the worst yet—a series of prank fire alarms that unleashed the wrath of the fire brigade and the local police department.

Poppy remembered seeing her father emerge through the smoke. There was no rush or panic, just the slow, heavy footsteps of a man resigned to disappointment. In all the heat, his eyes were cold blue ponds; when he saw her, they iced over. On the way home Poppy tried to deny the pranks, but he didn't want to hear it.

“Stop! Just stop!” he ordered.

“But I—” Poppy didn't get a chance to finish.

“Not another word.”

And she knew he meant it.

They drove back home in the most itchingly uncomfortable silence. Poppy stared out of the car window at all the people busying themselves with the mundanities of life and wondered if a single one of them could understand her. Had any of them ever felt as she had? For Poppy hadn't touched the alarm. And she hadn't started the fire. Yet she knew as an inexplicable truth, deep down inside of her, that somehow she had been the cause of it.

She had been frustrated, angry, sad . . . the desperate urge for the day to stop had rushed up and out of her. She had needed a break, just a moment of change, and the next thing she knew, the alarm had been blaring and the teacher had stopped her tedious testing and kids were jumping out of their seats, and she had been outside in the fresh air, and for those next few minutes, she'd felt calm.

“I give up,” her father uttered suddenly after he'd pulled into their driveway. He was facing straight ahead as though he couldn't even bear to look at her. They sat there, both as motionless as the car, and then the door was open and he was out, marching toward the house, keys clenched in his fist. Once he was inside he immediately fetched their suitcases and told Poppy to start packing. And that was how Poppy now found herself living in a new house, dressed in yet another school uniform, and about to start her eleventh new school.

Her father had left for work already. He and Poppy were beyond the usual niceties of father and daughter. No kiss on the cheek, breakfast on the table, no good luck or even good morning. Poppy knew he was trying hard just to tolerate her. He had already started his new job, the only one he could get at such short notice, one with an even lower salary than before. Their standard
of living had been gradually reduced with each new move—but they had never traveled so far away from her mother before.

Poppy was more than used to her parents living apart. Her mother had spent so much time in and out of different treatment centers and rehab facilities that Poppy had stopped associating her with home a long time ago. Yet this move felt different, as though family ties would snap under the strain of all these miles between them. She packed her school bag in the quiet, empty house and admitted to herself how much she would love to turn and see her mother there, like other mothers, reminding her not to forget her books and to wrap up warm because it looks cold outside. And then Poppy felt like a fool for even imagining such a thing. She doubted her mom would even miss her. She probably wouldn't even be conscious that she'd gone.

Melanie Hooper had been awake when Poppy and John went to say their good-byes. She had spent most of the last few years asleep or in a medication-induced stupor, but on this occasion, she was alert and even dressed in something other than pajamas. She was still lying on a bed—Poppy tried to think when she had last seen her mother upright—but the curtains in the room were open, and the light offered some hope in the otherwise dull and austere atmosphere.

John broke the news they were moving up north and Melanie shed a tear. Like a child, she repeated after John that it was “for the best” and she promised to be brave.

When John stepped out for coffee, Melanie grabbed Poppy's hand. “What was it this time?” she asked feverishly.

“A fire,” Poppy mumbled.

“It's not your fault,” her mother said urgently, squeezing Poppy's hand more tightly.

Poppy couldn't breathe; the sudden prospect of understanding had caught in her throat. She looked into her mother's eyes and let her limp fingers softly squeeze back. Melanie's nails dug into Poppy's palm. Her lips pursed.

“It's the devil in you,” she whispered.

Poppy flinched like she'd been struck and pulled her hand away just as her father walked in and passed Melanie a glossy magazine that she cooed over with delight. The intensity in her face vanished and her usual misty expression returned.

What Poppy didn't know was that, after they left, Melanie woke in the night with tears running down her face. It took three members of staff to restrain her.

“My baby! My baby,” she wept in despair, and the tears kept falling until she was sedated and the drowsiness took hold.

As she fell back asleep, the dreams became hazy, less real—memories from a life long ago, lived by a person she could hardly recognize . . .

A woman with soft, blonde hair and pretty features was watching a baby as it lay in a crib. Herself and Poppy, Melanie realized faintly from the depths of her dream. She'd been watching Poppy for hours, she remembered, unable to pull herself away. The phone was ringing in the distance, but she chose to ignore it. She had dark circles beneath her blue eyes. She had pins and needles in
both feet. Her lower back ached. She was tired—she'd never felt so tired.

Poppy, however, never seemed tired at all. Dressed in a pink vest with a bunny on the front that clashed with her dark, wild looks, Poppy stared back at her. Only a few weeks old and she showed not a trace of emotion—she seemed so in control, so independent.

A storm of thoughts tossed around Melanie's mind.

She's only a few weeks old and she doesn't need me!

Is she normal? She's not normal.

Why don't I love her? Of course I love her!

Then, guiltily—
what kind of mother am I to even think such a thing?

The next thought came out of her mouth as a scream. The words followed, words of shock yelled down the stairs, through the house: “John! John! Poppy's eye just changed color.”

Melanie sprang to her deadened feet and, ignoring the pain, picked Poppy out of her crib, holding her at arm's length so she could look more closely. Sure enough, one of Poppy's blue eyes was now green and a black dot had emerged from it, a satellite to the pupil. She gave a shiver, quickly put Poppy down, and backed away from her daughter. Her husband was at the door, out of breath.

“What's happened? What's wrong?”

“John! You've got to come and see this.”

The pediatrician hadn't been able to explain it. It was a strange phenomenon, but apparently babies' eyes do change color, and Poppy's had merely turned more quickly. Different color eyes were rare but not unheard of and, she suggested, rather an attractive feature to possess. Melanie smiled weakly, unable to express why
she felt so unsettled by this development. The doctor, a young woman so polished that her hair and skin seemed to reflect the light and cast a shadow on Melanie, scribbled something down on Melanie's notes.

“Are you getting enough sleep? Any sleep?” she asked with a smile.

Melanie wondered whether to come clean and then decided she was too exhausted to try to explain. “Sleep's not really the problem,” she sighed.

It was only a white lie. Poppy never disturbed them. If she was able, Melanie could be having twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep a night. The brand-new baby monitor had never picked up a sound. So Melanie would lie in bed each night, the long, long minutes ticking by, wishing for just one cry from her baby.

The doctor added another sentence to the notes. “Isn't your mom lucky to have you?” she said to Poppy in that voice grownups reserve for young children.

Melanie didn't begin to weep until she was outside.

It wasn't their last visit to the doctor, merely the beginning of a series of appointments that were to become more and more regular over the following months. Poppy did not smile. She didn't laugh . . . or gurgle . . . or even cry. Other mothers envied such an easy baby, and their compliments made Melanie doubt herself even more. How could she ever tell them that Poppy wasn't easy—she was different, strange, not . . . not normal?

Melanie would look into Poppy's contrasting eyes and try to make some connection, but Poppy would stare back, unblinking, giving nothing away. Melanie loved her baby. She really did. But she knew it to be absolutely true that her baby did not love her.
And no amount of baby books and teddy bears and musical toys seemed able to change that. The only thing that inspired a reaction from Poppy was the cats.

They came at night. At first just one, then a few, then more and more. They would sit on the roof and the windowsills and meow to the moon as if heralding Poppy's arrival into the world. They left mice on the doorstep as an offering to her, even on one occasion a baby squirrel. Melanie screamed when she saw it and sent John outside to dispose of it. If ever a cat got inside the house, it would climb into the crib, and Melanie would find it curled around Poppy, encircling her head protectively. Poppy would look up at Melanie, and her eyes would be shining bright, happily almost.

So Melanie went back to the doctor with these various complaints, and the doctor would nod and jot things down and then ask again how she was coping and if she was getting enough sleep, until one day she prescribed her some mild antidepressants and sleeping tablets just to help her through this difficult time. Melanie wanted to protest, but the prescription in her hands felt like a relief. If she couldn't find a remedy for Poppy, at least she could find one for herself.

So when the flies dropped dead onto the beige carpet in Poppy's room, black and dry so they crunched if you stepped on them, Melanie didn't scream. She just simply vacuumed them away. And when Poppy wrote strange signs on her dolls' stomachs, or made the taps turn on and off while she sat trapped in her high chair, or hummed tunes Melanie had never heard of but that made spiders spin webs across the ceiling like a lace shawl, or
screamed so piercingly high that glass would crack—Melanie just reached for another little pink pill to beat the baby blues.

John remonstrated with her. He pleaded and begged, grew angry and violent, wept with despair.

“She's not ours,” Melanie kept repeating. “She doesn't belong to us.”

John punched the wall, then called for the doctor. An ambulance arrived and took Melanie away for treatment until, a few months later, she returned, bright and clean and repaired. However, it didn't take long before she broke down again.

“Where's
our
baby?” she would cry. “Where can she be?”

The doctors diagnosed postnatal depression and told John in grave voices that this could be an extremely serious condition. He would need to keep a close eye on his wife and be extremely patient with her. John tried his best, but as his wife's mind slipped away, it took with it his future, and he found it impossible to keep his anger to himself. When he yelled at Melanie that she'd “gone mad,” Poppy—a toddler by then—looked at him sympathetically. When she saw him packing a suitcase full of her mother's clothes, she brought him the book Melanie was reading and her perfume and face cream. Things, in fact, that he would have forgotten.