“Natasha. Sweetheart.”
“Tell me the rest,” Natasha said brightly. And don’t call me sweetheart, she pleaded silently. Later, maybe, but not right now, because there’s a lump already in my throat.
Aunt Elena grew tender, which made Natasha want to run away.
“Anyway,” she said. “Klara and I built a house of cards that was twenty-two stories high.”
“Even more than the twenty quarters you balanced on your elbow,” Natasha said.
Aunt Elena laughed. “Balanced and caught, thank you very much.”
They sat quietly, but the might-accidentally-cry danger had passed. Natasha gently pulled her hand from Aunt Elena’s and placed both of her palms flat on her thighs.
She thought about Aunt Elena and the Bird Lady. She thought about Mama and the Bird Lady.
I quite liked your mother, you know, the Bird Lady had said. Implying what? That the Bird Lady had known Mama? If so, how? In a marshmallow sort of way, or something deeper?
Though she was a silly girl, too, the Bird Lady had also said.
What had Mama done that was silly?
Natasha didn’t want to ask Aunt Elena those questions, not now. Maybe she’d ask the Bird Lady herself, when and if she ran into her again. Wait, strike that. She’d ask her when and if she encountered her again. No more head-on collisions, please.
Natasha did have one last question for her aunt. She turned to look at her. “Aunt Elena?”
“Hmm?”
“Last night, when we were talking about butterflies . . .”
Aunt Elena waited. Her gaze was steady and kind.
“Did Mama believe?”
“That they were magic?”
Natasha nodded.
“She did,” Aunt Elena said with simple authority. “Klara believed there was magic in everything.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
That afternoon, Natasha took a walk along the edge of City Park’s frozen lake. The wind off the ice cut through her hat and scarf and coat and mittens, but it was worth it, because at home she’d been going stir crazy. She needed to move.
Two days earlier, on Friday, Benton had banged on her locker and made it open. That was the day she’d lain on her bed and thought about her third Wishing Day wish—to be someone’s favorite—as well as her second Wishing Day wish—to be kissed.
She’d steered clear of her first Wishing Day wish, which was that Mama would come back.
Which was impossible.
But what if it wasn’t? What if Natasha, like Mama, believed that there was magic in everything? If magic really existed, wouldn’t anything be possible?
When Aunt Elena was nine, the Bird Lady had given her magical marshmallows, and she and Mama had built a twenty-two-story house out of playing cards.
Four years later, Aunt Elena had celebrated her Wishing Day. She’d never told anyone what she wished for (and Natasha had tried hard to persuade her, as had Darya and Ava), but she vowed that her wishes had come true.
Aunt Vera had been thirteen once, too. She’d had a Wishing Day just like every other girl in Willow Hill, although like Aunt Elena, she refused to say what she’d wished for. As a grown-up, Aunt Vera dismissed the Wishing Day tradition altogether. Actively. Vocally. Angrily.
But long ago, Natasha had overheard something not meant for her ears. It was after Mama had disappeared. The aunts were picking tomatoes, and Natasha was supposed to be helping, but she’d fallen asleep in the warm sun. She’d awoken groggily to hear Aunt Vera say, “Well, that was just coincidence.”
“I don’t believe that for an instant,” Aunt Elena had said. “The day after your Wishing Day, the very next day, your complexion just happened to clear up? Not a single bump or pimple left?”
At the moment, Natasha had just listened. Later, she’d thought it through more properly. Aunt Vera had wished for clear skin? What a trivial thing to use a wish on! Then Natasha had gone to the old photo albums, where she’d found a picture of Aunt Vera as a young girl. Her face had been red and scaly and covered with pockmarks, and Natasha had felt ashamed.
But that day in the garden, Aunt Elena had barreled on to a new topic. “And what about Roy?” she’d said. “Are you going to claim Roy was a coincidence too?”
“Roy?” Natasha had said aloud.
Aunt Vera had gasped, and Aunt Elena had pulled Natasha out from behind her sleeping tree, scolding her for spying.
“But I wasn’t!” Natasha had protested. “Aunt Vera, who’s Roy?”
Aunt Vera had blushed furiously. “We were young,” she’d said in a strained voice. “It was a young romance. Now, enough is enough.”
Out by City Park Lake, Natasha ducked her head against the cold. She sifted through memories, but her knowledge of Wishing Day magic was sparse.
Tessa Clarke, who was two years older than Natasha, supposedly wished that her mom would find her lost wedding ring. Tessa’s mom supposedly did.
A girl named Ruby, who no longer lived in Willow Hill, had used one of her wishes to land a job in a big city. She was now a journalist in New York.
To make your Wishing Day magic stronger, some people said, you should find a purple pebble and clutch it in your right hand when you make your wishes.
Or, you should find a purple pebble and clutch it in your left hand while making your wishes.
Or, you should find a purple pebble and swallow it, wishing with all your might that you don’t choke to death.
At some point, the lore surrounding Wishing Day magic always turned ridiculous.
Papa once talked to Natasha about Wishing Day. It was one of the few times after Mama disappeared when Natasha felt as if Papa was truly there, and not off in his head somewhere.
The two of them had been pulling weeds out by Papa’s workshop. Natasha had been eight. She knew she’d been eight because when she was eight, she was in the second grade, and when she was in second grade, her class had studied Greek gods and goddesses.
“Ms. Florian said that the head honcho god was Zeus, and that he turned someone into a goat,” Natasha had said. “I would hate to be turned into a goat!”
Papa had chuckled and assured her that there was little chance of that happening.
He’d been more present back then. He’d still had hope that Mama would magically reappear.
“I could wish to turn into a goat on my Wishing Day,” Natasha had mused, “but I won’t.”
“Good,” Papa had said.
“Or I could turn Darya into a goat! Or Aunt Vera!”
“Do you think a goat could make pancakes as well as Aunt Vera? And the laundry—she’d eat it instead of folding it.”
Natasha had laughed. Then, sensing a rare opportunity, she’d pelted him with questions.
“Do Wishing Day wishes really work?”
“Depends on who you ask.”
“Was it really someone in our family who brought the Wishing Day magic to Willow Hill? Do you believe in magic?”
“Hmm,” Papa had said. “I suppose I do—but don’t go telling your aunt Vera.”
“I won’t.”
“But I don’t know if the magic began with one specific person. I do know that your mother’s side of the family seems to have a greater talent for magic than most.”
“Really?”
Papa had studied her. “Your mother teemed with magic, Natasha. At times she was absolutely incandescent.”
Natasha hadn’t known what teemed meant, or incandescent. But she’d hurried to a new question, because Papa’s eyes had grown misty. If he got too sad, he’d stop talking.
“Why don’t boys have magic?” she’d asked. “Why don’t boys have Wishing Days?”
Papa had taken a long time to answer, so long that Natasha had worried he wasn’t going to. But after several minutes, he’d said, “Willow Hill was founded in 1766. Generations of children have grown up here.”
Natasha had nodded.
“From what I’ve heard, boys did celebrate their Wishing Da
ys once upon a time.”
“Why ‘once upon a time’?”
Papa had looked at Natasha straight on. “Your great-grandmother had a cousin who nearly lost his hand in a sawmill.”
“Oh,” she’d said, not understanding.
“He lost two fingers. His wrist got torn up, too. Came close to bleeding out, but the doctor cauterized his wounds and saved his life.”
Natasha had stored cauterized away in her brain with the other new words.
“Funny thing, though,” Papa had continued. “He had just turned thirteen, so his Wishing Day wasn’t far off. And after his Wishing Day, his hand healed up, far more quickly than the doctor expected.”
“But Papa,” Natasha had said, disappointed. A hand mangled in a sawmill—that was exciting. The wounds healing? That was ordinary.
“His fingers grew back,” Papa had said quietly.
Natasha had sucked in her breath. “Oh.”
“That’s the only story about a boy and magic that I’ve ever heard—and remember, he wasn’t a regular town kid.”
“Because he was in our family.”
“The wishes most boys made didn’t come true,” Papa had said. “But it was different for the girls, even the girls not connected to your bloodline.”
My bloodline, Natasha had repeated silently. The words made her brain feel stretchy, like taffy.
He’d shrugged. “My guess? After a while, the boys gave up. After a longer while, the boys forgot that they’d given up. They forgot that the tradition ever involved them at all.”
“The boys in my class make fun of Wishing Day,” Natasha had said.
“Well, they would, wouldn’t they?” Papa had replied, and that was the last he said about it.
Natasha continued along the path by the lake. Her nose was now at that yucky-runny-drippy stage where she couldn’t help but use the back of her mitten to wipe it.
She thought about Mama, and how much Papa missed her. What if Mama fell and hit her head on the day she disappeared? What if she got amnesia, and whoever helped her took her to a hospital outside of Willow Hill? If Mama couldn’t remember her name, then the hospital wouldn’t have known who to notify.
Maybe, over time, Mama got better from the head wound, but the amnesia stuck.
And then, slowly-slowly, her memories started coming back. Her old life hovered just out of reach, and then—swoosh—it fell into place all at once, like Peter Pan regaining his shadow.
“It was just a misunderstanding,” she’d say when she showed up at their door. “Natasha, you’ve grown so big! Darya, your hair is absolutely lovely—when did you learn to do updos? And Ava, little Ava . . . oh honey, I’ve missed you. I’ve missed all of you!”
Everyone would cry. Everyone would embrace. Aunt Vera and Aunt Elena would welcome back their sister with open arms. And then . . .
Papa would come in from his workshop, weary from the day’s work.
Everyone would grow still. Then, as if they’d been cued, the aunts and the kids would part, letting Mama step forward into the light. Ava would keep holding her hand, maybe.
Papa would choke out a sob and say, “Klara!” He’d rush to her and hug her, hard hard hard. Everyone would cry some more, but it would turn to laughing-crying. Happy crying. Papa wouldn’t leave Mama’s side. He wouldn’t stop gazing at her, not for a second, and his eyes would shine with love.
But that’s not going to happen, Natasha reminded herself, embarrassed by the lump in her throat.
She picked her steps carefully. Sometimes her boot broke through a thin crust of ice on top of the snow, and she slipped, but she didn’t fall.
It’s not going to happen, she told herself, even more firmly. She tried to push down her bubble of hope.
When that didn’t work, she tried a different tactic.
What if Mama came back—she wouldn’t—but just say she did, and her return wasn’t with hugs and laughter and happy tears?
Natasha had read a horrible story in English about a dried-up monkey’s paw that granted three wishes to whoever owned it. A man grabbed it out of the fire after its previous owner tossed it in, and he wished for two hundred British pounds.
A few hours later, the man and his wife found out that their son had been killed at the factory where he worked. He’d fallen into a machine that ground things up (which wasn’t so different from the sawmill Papa had told her about, come to think of it). At any rate, the man and his wife were given a lump sum of money as compensation—two hundred British pounds.
The man and the woman buried their son and tried to carry on. But the wife couldn’t, and a week later, she grasped the monkey’s paw and wished with all her heart that her boy was alive again. Soon afterward, the couple heard noises outside. Crawling, scrabbling, shuffling noises. Wet, ragged breaths. The wife didn’t care, and when she heard a dull rap on the door, she ran to unbolt it.
The man, though. He knew. He’d seen his son’s body before he’d been buried. He also knew what happened to bodies after they were buried. Their son had been in the ground for days.
The man wrestled the monkey’s paw from his wife and silently made the third and final wish. The wife reached the door and flung it open, but no one was there.
“I don’t get it,” Catie Trimble had complained. “The story just ends like that? What was the last wish?”
Natasha had needed no explanation. Neither had Stanley, who was in Natasha’s English class.
“Think about it,” Stanley had said. “The boy had died.”
“Yeah, but his mom wished him back alive!”
“And her wish worked,” Stanley had said patiently. “He came back to life.”
“Which was a good thing,” Catie had insisted. “I still don’t get it.”
Ms. Woodward, at the front of the room, had refrained from interfering.
“It wasn’t a good thing because the boy had already been buried,” Stanley had said. “It was his body that came back to life.”
“Oh!” a guy named Erich had said. “He was rotten!”
“He probably had maggots all over him,” another guy had said happily. “Plus, bodies stink when they decay. Like, really really bad.”
Catie had turned pale and told the boys that they were just mean. That they were making fun of all wishes by turning them into something stupid and gross, and wasn’t that freedom of religion, except the opposite? Wasn’t it the opposite of freedom of religion? Catie was allowed to believe in wishes as much as she wanted, she’d exclaimed, and Stanley and Erich shouldn’t get to make fun of her just because she got a Wishing Day and they didn’t!
At that, Ms. Woodward had stepped in and said it was time to move on. Catie had sniffled for the rest of the hour, sending red-rimmed glares at anyone who looked at her.
It made Natasha wonder if Catie had had her Wishing Day already, and if so, what she’d wished for.
A few weeks later, Ms. Woodward made them read a poem called “The Second Coming.” It was a shivery sort of poem, but in a good way. It was about how life was bigger and more unpredictable than anyone could grasp, kind of.
The last line had imprinted itself in Natasha’s brain: “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
Catie Trimble had complained about “The Second Coming,” too. Lots of kids had. Natasha’s class echoed with the refrain of, “Why do we have to read this stuff? It’s so bo-o-o-oring” and “How is this ever going to help us in the real world? It’s not, that’s how.”
Stanley, Natasha remembered, had half raised his hand a couple of times and tried to talk about real things, like what he thought the poem meant and how he liked the way certain phrases sounded. He’d been shot down, and Natasha had sat there mutely.
She should have spoken up. The part about the beast had made her shudder, but it made her like the poem even more, because it meant the poem worked. If Natasha could ever make readers shudder or cry or laugh out loud, she would be ecstatic.<
br />
But stories and poems weren’t real. They were made up.
If Mama came slouching home after all these years . . .
If Mama were dead, and Natasha’s wish brought her back to life . . .
Natasha reached the stone bench that marked the halfway point of the trail. The bench was covered with snow, and Natasha imagined a woman lying beneath, her feet at one end and her head at the other. Her hands would be crossed over her chest, and her expression would be . . .
Oh, for heaven’s sake, Natasha told herself, exasperated. Her expression would be peaceful, okay? Can you stop being morbid, please?!
She went two or three yards farther. She gazed at the lake, which had swallowed up a little kid two winters ago. The kid had run out onto the ice, and the ice broke beneath her.
Natasha wrapped her scarf more tightly around her. She hoped the Bird Lady did have a way to stay warm. She hoped the Bird Lady had a home, whatever form that home might take.
“Natasha!” Darya called.
Natasha blinked. She used her hand to shield her eyes from the sun and glanced all about.
“Natasha!”
She spotted Darya by the tree line, wearing a bright red coat and a frown. Like Little Red Cap, Natasha thought. But grouchy.
“It’s time for dinner,” Darya called, tromping closer. “Aunt Vera sent me to get you.”
Natasha felt a strange falling sensation, similar to the other leaps out of time she’d experienced recently. It couldn’t be dinnertime. There was no way she’d been out here that long. She checked the horizon, and relief coursed through her.
“You’re full of it,” she told Darya. “The sun’s just starting to set.”
Darya picked her way through the final yards of high snow that separated them. She hadn’t used the path. Instead, she’d taken a shortcut straight through the forest behind their house. She put her hands on her hips, and her body threw a hard shadow behind her.
“Fine,” she said. “It’s time for you to help fix dinner. Aunt Vera needs you to peel the potatoes.”
“Why can’t you peel the potatoes? Or Ava?” She gestured at Darya’s feet. “And flip-flops, Darya? Really?”
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