The Poppy Child

Prologue

Off. On. Off. On

The handle flipped up. The handle flipped down. I giggled as the water splashed my wrists.

   "Papa, look! Look," I invited him. He lifted my hand off the silver faucet handle, not gently but still not in a mean way. He muttered something about No touching, he needed to save water for dinner, and I said Ok because Papa makes nice dinners and I don't want to be out of food for playing with the water. I wiped my hand off on my overalls before I scrambled onto a stool. He was almost done making dinner--from the looks of it, cabbage, again--so I passed the time by kicking the honey-colored wood at the sides of the kitchen table. It was so shiny,  I could see the reflections of my socks in it, one blue with yellow stars and the other with pink and orange stripes. I didn't like orange. Why did I have orange on my sock? I made a face at the orange parts to let it know I didn't like it.

   Frowning so hard made my face hurt, so I concentrated on kicking some more. I liked the thump my toes made against the wood. Thump-thump-thump. "Thump-thump thumpity thump-thump!" I sang. I liked to sing. Papa says Mama used to like to sing, too, before she disappeared when I was a baby. That was six years ago--not a big number, like eleven or twenty-three--so you'd think I'd remember it, but nope! I don't remember much. I start remembering things from when I'm four, and that was two years ago. What a long time! If I keep aging two years, I thought, soon I'll be eleven.

Eleven was a big number.

   I stopped my kicking at once, a frown creeping on my face again."I'm old!" I announced suddenly. Papa went kind of still, then turned to me slowly. He was smiling just a little bit, and his glasses were at the end of his big nose. 

"Old, you say? Eat up,"he added as he pushed a bowl of cabbage, bacon and nutmeg towards me. I took a bite before saying anything.

"Old," I repeated, nodding my head so that my ponytail got in my face. I liked it when it did that. Daddy says it's like Mama's, all wavy like water, but dark brown like his. 'Chestnut', he'd called it. That was a tree. He knew a lot about trees.

"Emelie, alanna* , you're six. What makes you say you're old?"

I smiled because I liked to hear that I was six. My birthday was two months ago but it was still nice. "Well..." I started. "Soon I'll be--Soon I'll be eleven."

Papa smiled harder. "How soon?"

   I made a face. Numbers were hard. "Well..." I started. I counted on my fingers, and carried on kicking with the star-socked foot--that was my left foot, I knew, at least I knew the difference between left and right--to help me concentrate. Finally I had come up with an answer. "So, you see, sir," I began, using the phrase Papa often used when trying to explain something to his customers, "if I can age by two's...". I slowed down because Papa looked confused. "I'll be eleven iinnnnnn... five years," I finished, feeling pleased with myself. Especially because I'd been able to confuse Papa. 

   But then he smiled again and said, "It's true that you'll be eleven in five years." There was something in his voice that let me know he hadn't said it all yet. "But nobody can age by two's."

"But dogs age by sevens!"

"Yes, and faeries don't seem to age at all. Unfortunately--or fortunately, depending on how you look at it-- we aren't dogs or faeries. Not you and me, at least."

   I stared at him, confused, but suddenly the doorbell rang. I started to ask--Fairies?Like the ones in the story books?-- but Papa got up before I had a chance, straightening his starched white shirt and saying, "I'll get it. Hurry up and eat, Em," as if he knew we were to have visitors. If we were to have visitors, I thought, I should look nice. My overalls had managed to stay clean even though I played outside all day. But my ponytail was a mess from all that nodding. Maybe if I said Hello, my name is Coburn McFadden and shake hands like my father did, except say Emelie instead, they would be so surprised they wouldn't even notice. So I scooted off of the stool, frowned at the orange on my right sock, started to follow Papa down the hallway, spun around, halfway-climbed onto my stool, took another bite of dinner, jumped off, frowned at the orange on my left sock for good measure, and then followed Papa down the hallway.