Momma was on the front porch, drying her hands on a towel as Papa stopped the wagon and we both jumped down. Papa hurried up the steps and grabbed her in a hug like he had done to me as he announced the good news. Momma gave a quick, girlish squeal of surprise that set both of my sisters giggling, but over the din of it all, Papa was telling Momma of the farm.
I looked around. “Where’s Mark?” I asked. He should have been here after the way he had run ahead of us.
Old Jan, who had been sitting on the porch with my sisters, put his arm around my shoulders and walked me back off the porch and toward the wagon, where women were congregating. His face wore a worried, strained expression.
“Do you have those purchases you went for?” he asked.
“I do.”
“Then you better get on with your deliveries as quick as you can.”
“But where’s Mark?” I asked again.
Old Jan glanced around before he spoke in a low voice. “He’s at the superintendent’s office.”
My heart froze. Had Mark been stopped by the Pinkertons when he had run ahead of us?
“He’s not going to get fired too, is he?”
“Just get your deliveries taken care of,” Old Jan said. “Quickly.”
I nodded and climbed up into the wagon, calling Aneshka and Holena to help, and we were soon handing down goods to the women who had followed us. I had expected to be done with that quickly, as only a handful of women had seen our wagon coming into camp, but soon I noticed that the line was not getting any shorter, and I was handing out goods to women who lived several streets away. Word was apparently spreading fast. Within an hour, I had dispersed nearly everything.
Aneshka and Momma set off to deliver the few orders that remained so that Papa and I could eat our supper. We were just walking up the porch steps when someone shouted behind us.
“There they are—and that’s Torentino’s wagon. I recognize his team! I knew it!”
We turned back to see Mr. Johnson walking toward us, Mark beside him. He didn’t look like he had been dragged in by the Pinkertons. No one was forcing him to walk with Mr. Johnson. I threw a questioning glance at him, but he looked away.
“If you’ve brought contraband goods to this town, I’ll have you arrested!” Mr. Johnson shouted, running to the wagon to look inside. When he saw that the bed was empty, he didn’t seem to know whether to puff up indignantly or slink away shamefaced.
“We rented the team and wagon to move to town,” Papa said. “So we can get out of our house by the deadline.”
Mr. Johnson squinted at us, angry he hadn’t caught us redhanded. Then he wagged a finger at my father. “You think you’re so smart, do you? Well, don’t. We know all about you—this boy has told us everything about your secret union meetings.”
“But that’s a lie!” I said, looking angrily at Mark. “There were no secret meetings here.”
Mr. Johnson gave a snorting laugh, his arrogance returning in force. “We know all about you now, and word’s gone out to every other mine in the state. You won’t find work anywhere. You’re finished in the mines. You might as well pack up your bags and go back to where you came from.”
Papa and I looked at each other for a brief moment, the n Papa burst out laughing.
“You’re right, Mr. Johnson,” Papa said. “We are finished in the mines. Good-bye.”
We went inside and shut the door behind us, but not before seeing Mr. Johnson’s shocked expression. My father was still laughing.
I watched through the window to make sure he did no harm to the team or the wagon. It was probably the sort of thing he would gladly have done if he’d thought of it. As it was, he was so surprised by Papa’s reaction that he did nothing but walk away. I might have laughed too, but through the gathering darkness, I could see someone else turn away.
Tears sprang to my eyes. I knew Mark was angry with me, but I never thought he would be spiteful toward my whole family. The pain of his betrayal was sinking in now that the confrontation with Mr. Johnson was over. I skipped the supper my papa was piling on a plate for me and went straight to bed, where I cried myself to sleep before my sisters got home.
The next morning we were all up early. We ate a hasty breakfast of oat porridge and coffee. Momma, who had been up before any of us, packed a cold lunch of bread, pickles, and cheese. When breakfast was done, we cleaned everything in the kitchen and arranged it all in the washtubs or crates, using towels and blankets to cushion the few fine things Momma had brought with her from Bohemia. Packing was not a difficult task; after a year in America we had little more than what we had come with. Yet our hearts and minds were all filled to bursting with the realization of Papa’s dream, and that gave a new richness to our labors.
Of our neighbors, only Old Jan and Martina came to help us. She brought plum kolaces for our dinner on the road and stayed to help Momma fold the sheets and blankets so they would come out crisp and ready to use. Old Jan helped lift our goods up into the bed of the wagon. I avoided him, still too angry about his son’s lies to want to face him.
When nearly everything was in the wagon, Old Jan and my sisters took the team to the creek to drink and eat a few mouthfuls of grass before we hitched them up. I stayed behind to help Momma with the last few chores. Papa found me out back a short time later, beating the dirt from the last rag rug.
“That will do, Trina. Don’t you have any good-byes you want to say before you go?” he said, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder toward Mark’s house. “He’s working the night shift again, so he should be home.”
Bitter anger surged in me again. “He betrayed us, Papa! He lied to the superintendent about you just to get us in trouble. I never want to see him again!”
Papa’s eyebrows shot up. “Is that what’s been bothering you all this time? Trina, it was a trick.”
“A trick?”
“The superintendent and his detectives will listen for hours to anyone willing to squeal on union organizers. Marek knew we were going to need time to unload goods if we had them. When he saw us coming, he ran to the superintendent and told them the kind of stories they wanted to hear so we had time to unload. Old Jan explained it all last night.”
“Why did he say you’d had meetings, then?” I said, still angry.
“Well, what harm could the mine do to me? He didn’t want to get anyone else in trouble who still needed the job here.”
“What about them?” I asked. “If he said he’d been at these meetings, couldn’t he have been in trouble too?”
Papa’s face grew serious and he nodded. “It was certainly a big risk for him. We can only hope that it doesn’t come back to hurt them. He did it for you, Trina. Now go say good-bye.”
Tears burned my eyes as I realized the size of my mistake. Mark had risked his own job to help me get a dream, even though that dream stood in the way of what he wanted. I put down my broom and hurried to Mark’s house.
He was not home, so I knew where he had to be. If he had things on his mind, he had always gone to the same place I went, so I set off for the creek. At the creek bottom I found the horses tethered in a patch of dry grass where they were chewing contentedly. But my sisters and Old Jan were not with them. It seemed all our paths led to the same place in this last hour before we left the camp for good. That felt right to me. Whether there was any magic in that quiet pool or not, it was forever linked to our dream in America. I was glad to get the chance to say good-bye to Mark and his father there, where so many good things had happened. And I hoped that the spot might have one more bit of magic left for Mark and me.
When I rounded the bend, I saw what I had expected to see. The cottonwood leaves were turning autumn gold, and Old Jan, Mark, and my sisters were all together in their golden shade. I had thought that perhaps my sisters had taken Old Jan there so he could tell them one last story, but the telling seemed to be the other way around. Aneshka was talking up a storm, her hands gesturing wildly. Holena was nodding in agreement and throwin
g bits of bread into the pool. Mark was sitting by himself a short distance from the others with his back toward them and his shoulders hunched. A painful tug at my heart stilled my breath when I saw him.
Aneshka glanced up from her storytelling and saw me approaching. A huge smile spread across her face and she gave a quick bounce of excitement.
“Trina’s here! Now he will come for sure!” she called excitedly. She ran to me and grabbed my hand, to pull me to the tree.
“What? Who will come?” I asked. Everyone I expected to see was already there.
“The magic carp, of course,” Aneshka said.
Old Jan smiled up at me from his seat on the tree root. “Your sisters have been telling me the whole story of your wishes, and how they have all come true. They brought me here so I could see the carp and make a wish too.”
Holena turned to me. “Please help us find him, Trina. We want Old Jan to get a farm too.”
“And he could wish to have his leg back,” Aneshka said.
“And Mark could marry you,” Holena added quietly.
“Holena!” I said, glancing, mortified, at Mark’s back. He gave no sign that he had heard, but I knew he had.
Old Jan laughed. “That’s an awful lot to wish for,” he said.
“But we got all our wishes,” Aneshka pointed out.
“But you have to see the fish first,” said Holena, “and we’ve been down here a long time. I don’t think he’s going to come.”
“Well, never mind, girls,” said Old Jan. “Magic carp can be finicky things. They don’t show themselves until they’re good and ready.”
The twinkle of pleasure in his eyes warmed me. “That’s true,” I agreed. “But Old Jan will still be here, Aneshka. He can come look for it, and sooner or later, he’s bound to see it. Then he can make whatever wish he wants to.”
“Will you, Old Jan?” asked Aneshka. “Promise you will come down here every day until you see the carp and make your wishes.”
“Please?” Holena said.
“Well, I don’t know if I can promise every day,” said Old Jan, “but I’ll try, for you girls.”
“Oh, but it’s not for us,” Aneshka said. “It’s for you.”
“This is all such nonsense!” Mark said suddenly, jumping to his feet. “Enough of your magic and your wishes and your dreams, Papa! It all comes to nothing!”
“But it hasn’t,” I said. “My family has their farm, and we are going there right at harvest. Come with us, Mark. Please.”
“We’ve been through this before, Trina.”
“But it would just be for a little while. You could look for work in town. Maybe you could even go to high school. You told me once you had planned to do that before your papa’s accident.”
“It wouldn’t make a difference! I’m a coal miner, and I’ll always be a coal miner, and that’s not good enough for you.”
“But what about your dreams for the future?” I begged.
“My dream for the future was you. I don’t think I believe in dreams anymore.”
I stepped forward and took his hand. “Mark, I love you. If you would just try again, I promise I will wait for you, and I’ll go anywhere with you.”
“Anywhere but here,” he said.
Slowly I nodded. “Anywhere but here.”
“And with this foot, I can’t work anywhere else.”
“But you can, if you just try! If you would just believe—”
Mark shook his head and pulled his hand out of mine. “It’s all dreams, Trina. And for a while you had me believing, but life isn’t like that. Life isn’t one of Papa’s fairy tales, full of dreams and wishes and magic fish.” He paused and took a deep breath. When he spoke again, he was pleading with me, his eyes desperate. “I have something here, Trina. It may not be much, but it’s real. Stay with me, like you promised.”
“I can’t, even if I wanted to. Mr. Johnson would just have you fired too, to get rid of me.”
“And, you don’t want to.”
I dropped my eyes and shook my head again.
“Good-bye, then,” he said, bitter and defeated. He stepped out of the shade and walked away without looking back. I wanted to run after him and beg him to change his mind, but I knew it was no use. I sat down on the root, trying to fight back tears, but without success. Holena sat down beside me and slipped her hand into mine.
“He’ll change his mind, Trina, when he hears how nice our farm is,” she said. “You will write him every day. He’ll see how much he misses you, and he’ll come join us and marry you, and you’ll be happy. Okay?”
Despite my sadness, I couldn’t help smiling at her innocent faith. “You are just like Papa,” I said, hugging her to me.
She squeezed my hand and nestled against me. “So are you.”
“Come on, we’re wasting time!” Aneshka said. “Trina, help us make the fish come out.”
The pool had shrunk over the summer to little more than a wide spot in the creek. I could see no sign of the fish. I couldn’t even be sure it was still there now that the water was so low. With noisy Aneshka there and the water no longer lapping at the roots of the tree, the magical feel of the place was gone. Or maybe the magical feeling was gone because all the wishes had been granted.
I shook my head to clear it of the idea. Though it had only been a few months since I’d first come here, I felt much more grown up. I planned to face the future with a clear head. No more magic fish for me.
“Aneshka,” I said, “seeing the fish won’t make any difference. Everyone has to do what they will in their own time.”
Aneshka stamped her foot. “But it will! The fish is magic! You saw it, and we got three wishes.”
“It’s true we got our wishes,” I said, thinking back over all that had happened that summer, “but we’ve worked hard for them too, haven’t we. The fish didn’t send me to the Llewellyns’ house to do their washing, or to Mr. Torentino for jars.” I laughed at a new thought. “In fact, you might say it was Mr. Johnson who granted our wishes. He’s the one who sent away the plums, overcharged me for the jars, and made Papa and me go to Trinidad for the order. Why don’t you go ask Mr. Johnson for three more wishes, Aneshka.”
She glared at me. “You said you believed, Trina. You said so yourself!”
I nodded. “I did believe, and that’s when things really started getting better. I think—” I paused and chose my words carefully, wanting to get it right. “I think the magic was in the believing, and not the other way around.”
Aneshka looked confused, but Old Jan smiled and nodded. “Believing can be powerful magic, indeed.”
“But if there’s no magic fish, what is there to believe in?” Aneshka said.
“Your dreams,” I said. “Don’t you see? Once we believed we could get our dream, we all started working harder for it and didn’t give up. Well, you didn’t give up, Aneshka, even when I did, and you pulled me back when I strayed. Hard work and believing is what got us our farm.”
“That’s not true!” Aneshka said. “How do you explain the plums? How do you explain that Mr. Torentino just happened to know someone with a farm for us? That wasn’t our hard work; that was magic!”
“Well, let’s think about that,” Old Jan said slowly, considering. “The plums were certainly lucky. But as for the farm, what does Mr. Torentino do for a living?”
“He owns a store,” Aneshka said.
“More than that. He brings all kinds of goods to the mining camps like ours, right? He buys produce from farmers and sells it to Mr. Johnson. He probably knows a hundred farmers, and farming’s hard work for low pay. Some of them are bound to be as desperate to get out as you are here. I think opportunities are probably around us all the time, but we have to be looking for them before we see them. What do you think?”
Aneshka frowned, but before she could answer, Papa appeared from upstream with the horses and called to us. Holena and Aneshka both got to their feet. Aneshka gave Old Jan a hug. “I still think it’s
magic,” she insisted before flouncing off to where Papa was waiting.
“Maybe when Mark sees it like Trina does, his dreams will come true too,” Holena said to Old Jan as she hugged him.
He patted her cheek and smiled. “Perhaps.”
He chuckled as he watched her skip away. “With her wisdom, Holena will always have magic,” he said.
“And Aneshka?” I asked. We watched as she took the reins from Papa and started bullying the horses up the path.
“That one won’t need magic. She’ll make things happen all on her own.”
“And Mark?” I asked quietly after a moment. “What about Mark?”
Old Jan sighed. “My little Marek has let magic slip through his fingers, and not for the first time.”
“Do you think Holena is right? Do you think he might still change his mind if I write?”
Old Jan gave a sad sigh. “Marek gave up on his dreams when I lost my leg. That was my fault, I suppose, because I quit believing. He tried to revive his dreams this summer, but they are so fragile, Trina. Maybe, when his heart is not so full, he’ll find the strength to try again.
“As for me, watching you this summer has me believing again. I think you may be leaving behind just enough magic for the two of us.”
I brushed tears from my cheeks and gave Old Jan a hug. “I’ll miss you,” I said.
“Write when you can, child,” he said.
I started back up the path, toward where Papa and my sisters had disappeared around the bend. Just enough magic, he had said, but I was leaving behind more than that. I was leaving behind good people, the hardest thing of all to leave. But just maybe I was leaving behind enough hope for a wish, and of course, there was still the magic carp.
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