Wax Read online

  Contents

  * * *

  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Pick a fight with a computer

  Engage in childish name-calling

  Freak out

  Devise a strategy

  Scream

  Lose grip on reality

  Freak out again

  Weave a merry web of lies

  Drown problems in hot fudge

  Hide the booty

  Do research

  Trespass

  Try to Monday

  Flee the cafeteria

  Practice reading comprehension

  Stay on the road

  Celebrate a local holiday

  Retreat

  Obsess

  Abandon personal hygiene

  Self-preserve

  Shit self

  Bundle up

  Lose all hope

  Pay a visit to the Grosholtz Candle Factory

  Take a week off

  The Future

  Sample Chapter from HELLHOLE

  Buy the Book

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2016 by Gina Damico

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

  www.hmhco.com

  Cover photo © by Steve Gardner

  Cover design by Lisa Vega

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Damico, Gina, author.

  Title: Wax / Gina Damico.

  Description: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016. | Summary: Seventeen-year-old Poppy stumbles into a secret workshop at the infamous Grosholtz Candle Factory and soon, a wax boy called Dud is helping her uncover an evil plot that threatens her hometown of Paraffin, Vermont.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2015035202 | ISBN 9780544633155 (hardback)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Wax figures—Fiction. | Supernatural—Fiction. | Mystery and detective stories. | Humorous stories. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Humorous Stories. | JUVENILE FICTION / Mysteries & Detective Stories.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.D1838 Wax 2016 | DDC [Fic]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2015035202

  eISBN 978-0-544-63318-6

  v1.0616

  For the CCE.

  Sex, murder, comedy . . .

  all in a night’s work.

  Acknowledgments

  Here is what you’d find in the Acknowledgments Wing of my wax museum:

  A shrine to my agent, Tina Wexler: confidante, hilarious-story trader, doodler of a magnifying glass named Grandpa. Thank you for being a wonderful friend and a wonderful agent, in that order.

  An altar to my editor, Julie Tibbott: When I got the idea for this book, my very next thought was, This is something Julie will totally dig. Thank you for liking weird things. And Jesus Christ Superstar.

  A family diorama: These poor souls, predicted to have left me long ago, stuck around through hell, high water, and painful revisions. Only the strong have endured, and to them, I say thank you.

  A collection of stately busts of those working tirelessly behind the scenes: Betsy Groban, Julia Richardson, Lisa DiSarro, Hayley Gonnason, Ruth Homberg, Helen Seachrist, Amy Carlisle, and all the other rock stars at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Katie O’Connor at Audible; Roxane Eduard at Curtis Brown; Berni Barta at ICM; Maxine Bartow, copyeditor extraordinaire; and Lisa Vega and Steve Gardner for that gorgeous, creeptastic cover.

  A series of commemorative candles lit to honor those who champion my books and all books: librarians, teachers, booksellers, bloggers, and word-of-mouthers, plus an especially fragrant one for Dodie Ownes.

  And finally, a mirror. That’s YOU, dear reader! Thank you for lending me your eyeballs for a while (or ears, if you are listening to the audiobook). No matter which organs you use to consume this story: I hope you enjoy.

  Thanks for visiting the Acknowledgments Wing! No refunds.

  THE TOWN OF PARAFFIN SMELLED OF ROT.

  And apples and oranges. Cranberries and peaches. Ginger and cinnamon, coconut and honeysuckle. Roses, lilies, lavender, and freshly cut grass. Chocolate chip cookies, banana splits, vanilla beans, and snickerdoodles.

  It smelled of Citrus Dreams, Tahiti Sunsets, The Night Before Christmas, and New Car Leather. Babbling Brooks, Sun-Kissed Linens, Ocean Breezes, and Stolen Midnights.

  Spice and musk and tea and rum. Love and home and peace and America.

  The town of Paraffin smelled of everything.

  Everywhere.

  At the same time.

  All the time.

  Each scent layered one on top of the other, mixing and mingling, fusing and swelling into an odorous abomination that could knock an unsuspecting sniffer off his feet​—​a gag-inducing whiff that attacked the nostrils with a ruthless barrage of cinnamon-and-death-scented stink.

  Other than that, Paraffin was a lovely place to visit.

  Its population numbered 1,014. The streets were tree-lined, the lampposts adorned with Star-Spangled Banners. The town square overlooked a little blue lake, where human-hating geese assembled to peck at bread and discuss their plans for world domination. Across the lake rose Mount Cerumen, a postcard-perfect background for the fireworks that exploded over the waterfront every Wednesday night in the summertime. Main Street featured country shops stocked to brimming with farmhouse tchotchkes, animal-themed coffee sets, and wooden signs with painted homespun sayings like “If You Want Breakfast in Bed, Sleep in the Kitchen” and “When I Get the Urge to Clean, I Lie Down Until It Passes!” plus enough chocolate, cheese, and pure Vermont maple syrup to sustain the populace well into the apocalypse.

  But these and any other regional attractions paled in comparison with the ever-present behemoth across the lake. Nestled in the foothills of Mount Cerumen sat Paraffin’s bread and butter, the real cash cow with which no amount of cow-shaped dairy creamers could compete: the Grosholtz Candle Factory.

  The building was a strange amalgamation, a mutant hybrid from two vastly different eras: the front, a modern retail experience comprising clean lines, bright colors, and welcoming customer service; the back, a soaring candelabra of a structure, a castle straight out of Transylvania, with spires looming so high that in the dead of winter they cast eerie, spiky shadows onto Paraffin’s sidewalks.

  It had been there for as long as anyone could remember. Its provenance was murky; spotty record-keeping at the time had all but doomed its origins to the frustrated conjectures of local historians. To have the archives tell it, the entire enterprise seemed to have popped up overnight. And while the layers of architectural schizophrenia suggested that it had changed hands more than once, the names of the owners of those hands were lost to the icy Vermont winds.

  But no one really cared where it came from. Whatever its past, the Grosholtz Candle Factory had grown from its humble beginnings into a wax-poured juggernaut of industry, posting annual sales of half a billion dollars and growing. Convinced that happiness was only a twenty-dollar hunk of wax away, candle enthusiasts came from all over the world to gape at the groaning shelves of merchandise, watch the children’s barnyard animal show, peruse the candle museum, make their own candles and wax hand molds, and, of course, take the factory tour.

  The tourists​—​a special brand of sightseers, happy to endure a multiple-hour car ride as long as there were tasteful wicker basket displays at the end of it​—​loved the conglomerated smell. As if on a pilgrimage, they’d walk through the store’s swishing automatic doors, close their eyes, and inhale deeply, dragging every note of sage and sandalwood a
nd Santa’s Sleigh down to the bottommost pocket of their lungs.

  Those who lived in Paraffin year-round thought these people were bonkers. Every morning at sunrise that ubiquitous funk would waft down from the factory, skate across the pond, and wriggle between each and every molecule of clean mountain air. Some townspeople claimed that they could no longer smell it. Those townspeople were lying.

  Though probably with good reason. Because with the stench came a small, barely quantifiable feeling of unease that no one in town could put a finger on. With its spectral architecture, the factory had a certain quality​—​something out of a dark and twisted fairy tale, perhaps. Although additions had been made to bring it up to modern standards, the wooden structures of the original remained, tucked away from the tour buses, snaking up the side of the mountain like the legs of a prowling spider. Over the years, urban legends had bubbled up, stories about malevolent spirits and dark presences. With the smokestacks puffing late into the night, the entire framework seemed to breathe, savoring the scents of its own making.

  But other than the weirdness, the smell, and the blatant tourist-trappiness of it all, Paraffiners had nothing but love for the Grosholtz Candle Factory. It created jobs and kept the economy afloat at a time when many other small manufacturing towns in the area had perished. And with candles stuffed into the nooks and crannies of every home, no one was left in the dark when the occasional nor’easter knocked the power out.

  Yes, the town of Paraffin was a happy place. The grass was green; the streets were clean. The residents were good, wholesome cheese-loving people. They worked hard, they loved their kids, and they greeted every day with a smile. They said hello to one another in passing, and they watered their neighbors’ plants while they were away. They had no reason to distrust their fellow citizens or suspect that they were up to anything heinous, no reason at all.

  Until, one day, they did.

  1

  Pick a fight with a computer

  POPPY PALLADINO HAD TRIPPED, FALLEN, AND HUMILIATED herself on live television in front of thirty million Americans, but convincing the CVS touchscreen to reverse its stance on her bungled self-checkout transaction​—​that was pure torture.

  “Help is on the way!” the computer chirped.

  “I don’t need help,” Poppy told it. “I need you to take my coupon.”

  The pharmacist leaned out over her pharmacy battlements. “You need some help, hon?”

  “I’m told it’s already on the way.”

  The pharmacist came to her aid, a woman with limp hair and glasses that in all likelihood had been swiped from the nearby rotating eyewear display. She must have been a recent transplant; Poppy had never seen her around town before. The name tag on her blue polo shirt said JEAN!

  “Hi, Jean!” Poppy said. Politeness went a long way in the art of savings.

  “Hi there. What seems to be the problem?”

  “Sorry to pull you away from your drugs. It’s my coupon.” Poppy showed her the crumpled-up coupon smelling of receipt ink and old gum that had been trawling around the bottom of her bag since her mother imparted it two weeks earlier. “It didn’t work.”

  “Well, let’s give it another try.” She took the coupon from Poppy and smoothed it between her hands, as if Poppy had not done this half a dozen times by now.

  Only twenty minutes were left before she had to get back to school for rehearsal, but Poppy remained patient​—​albeit less than thrilled to have to sit through yet another round of Let the Adult Fix the Thing That the Idiot Teenager Broke. “The machine told me to scan my coupons,” she explained, “so I did. Then it beeped. Then it scolded me. Then it stopped talking altogether and decided to have an existential crisis instead.”

  “Sorry about that. These things can be finicky sometimes.” JEAN! put a hand on her chin and looked from the screen to Poppy. “Did you wave it across the scanner in a fluid mo​—”

  She froze. Her mascara-laden lids began to blink rapidly. “Wait a sec. Are you . . .”

  Oh, crapnugget.

  “Yes,” Poppy said through the tiny hole her mouth had formed. “Yes, I am.” Immediately she looked down at the floor and rubbed the scar at the edge of her hairline, her default reaction whenever someone recognized her. It wasn’t her favorite reflex; she’d prefer to strike a heroic stance and burst out of the nearest plate-glass window in an epic display of bravado and fearlessness. But some bug in her internal programming wouldn’t allow it.

  JEAN! put a hand to her mouth, which Poppy could tell was twitching at the edges. “Oh, my.”

  “Please, just​—”

  “Poor thing.” Despite the woman’s best efforts to be polite, her eyes crinkled in that way that suggested there was a laugh coming, a bombastic chortle barreling its way up her throat with no regard for tact or civility or the feelings of an emotionally fractured seventeen-year-old. “How are you holding up, dear?”

  Poppy’s tight mouth contorted into a tight smile. “I’m fine.”

  On paper, at least. Poppy’s therapist had officially labeled her “No Longer Traumatized,” a phrase that her best friend, Jill, had found so hilarious, she had it printed on a T-shirt and gave it to Poppy for her birthday. “Everything’s fine,” she reiterated.

  The pharmacist, fully embracing the fineness of the situation, was fighting the giggles so hard, her neck wattle was quivering. “It wasn’t that bad, you know.”

  Poppy was beginning to think that a dollar off deodorant wasn’t worth this level of ballyhoo. “I’m sorry, but the coupon . . .”

  “Oh, yes! You know what, hon? Just take it.” She pushed the deodorant into Poppy’s hand, then grabbed a package of Skittles and a ChapStick and piled those on top as well. “After all you’ve been through? You deserve it.”

  Poppy considered her offerings. “You’re right. After all I’ve been through, I do deserve the promise of moist, kissable lips.”

  JEAN! gave her a loving pat on the hand and ushered Poppy toward the exit, gallantly waving her arm at the sensors to make the automatic doors swish open.

  The doors closed behind Poppy as she left, but not fast enough to muffle the explosion of laughter from within.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Poppy had not always been America’s preferred object of ridicule. Six months prior, no one outside Paraffin had known her name. And within Paraffin, she was simply That Girl. The Blond One. With a Penchant for Maple Ice Cream and Musical Theater.

  She’d had no reason to suspect that trying out for Triple Threat would be a bad idea. After all, she could sing, act, and dance, thereby satisfying the trio of purported hazards. And she wasn’t delusional, either​—​it was more or less agreed upon by all who saw her perform that she was good. Maybe big-fish-in-a-small-pond good, but certainly not the sort of train wreck those reality show talent competitions love to poke fun at, with goofy sound effects and dramatic close-ups of the judges, their beautiful faces twisted into dual looks of pity and God-given superiority.

  She would do right by The Sound of Music. She would make her hometown proud. She would never be relegated to the blooper reel.

  But what everyone at home and in the audience at Radio City Music Hall had failed to account for on that steamy June evening was one simple, fateful equation: incompetent stagehands + an inconsiderate preceding act = imminent tragedy.

  It wasn’t her fault.

  It wasn’t her fault that the El Paso Players were absolute morons and decided to stage the musical number “Be Our Guest” from Beauty and the Beast complete with real food that would be tossed and smashed around on a stage that was already slicker than an ice-skating rink​—​all while citing their commitment to “authenticity,” as if singing and dancing cutlery were the epitome of realism. It wasn’t her fault that the wreckage got nothing more than a quick mop during the commercial break. It wasn’t her fault that she was scheduled to go on after them. And it certainly wasn’t her fault that she slipped on an errant bit of pie and pudding (
en flambé) and crashed to the floor in a pile of screeches and flailing and braids and sensible Austrian costumery.

  It . . . was her fault that she chose to continue with her performance despite the gigantic gash that had opened up in her forehead. Blood gushed down her face as she crooned “‘The hills are alive . . .’” with a sweet, maniacal smile, gamely attempting to look as though she hadn’t been mauled by an Alpine wolf.

  Because the show, as everyone knows, must go on.

  In the moment, she thought she’d recovered quite well. She didn’t realize that the audience was sitting there horrified, transfixed, and that the judges were yelling for her to stop. She’d plunged gashfirst into the zone, the Theater Zone, and hadn’t snapped out of it until she’d sung through the last note​—​at which point she realized that she was drenched in gore, her teeth had turned red, and everyone in that theater and in homes across America was pissing themselves with laughter.

  Then she passed out from blood loss.

  When she regained consciousness, she was no longer the plucky young ingénue from small-town Vermont whom Katy Perry had called “adorbs.” She was Maria von Tripp. Julie Androops. The undisputed queen of the Internet. Clips of her demise got millions of hits in mere hours. Major newspapers printed her photo. Saturday Night Live did a sketch about her.

  Of course, not everyone had been mean-spirited. The paramedics had a lot of comforting things to say. She got cards and flowers from well-meaning viewers across the country. Ellen had extended an invitation to her talk show. (Poppy’s parents, fearing overexposure and the opportunity for another dance-related catastrophe, declined.)

  But overall, the damage had been done. Her confidence: shattered. Her nails: bitten to the quick. She couldn’t sleep without the aid of Forty Winks, a Grosholtz candle her parents had imposed upon her, insisting that it was scientifically proven (it wasn’t) to induce drowsiness and treat insomnia. And even now, five months later, all it took was a JEAN! to throw a little snicker her way for the wounds of humiliation to be freshly torn anew.