by Hero Bowen
“What’s that supposed to mean?” A rush of hope bubbled in Nadia’s chest. If her mom had found a way to get rid of the debt, she’d have an express pass to Resurrection Town. And three whole wishing slots available to use for Nick.
“I’ve been talking to Mr. Caldwell,” Grace said. “He’s helping me find a way out of this debt. Three years doesn’t sound like a long time, granted, but that light at the end of the tunnel that you were talking about might never happen.” Her shoulders sagged, and she mumbled, “Especially considering who holds the lamp at the end of that tunnel.”
Nadia’s rush of optimism morphed into abject horror. Mr. Caldwell, the Atlanta Wishmaster? Had her mom lost her mind? She was talking about treason here, if she wanted to cross the Savannah Wishmaster like this.
“Are you hearing yourself right now?” she said. “If anything traces back to you, do you—”
“Your babcia is worried that our Wishmaster won’t release us from our debt, even after the debt is paid,” Grace replied in a hurry. “You know how she feels about Babcia. She’ll keep us indebted just to spite your grandmother.”
Nadia swallowed thickly. “So, you’re just going to get into debt with some other Wishmaster instead? I doubt Mr. Caldwell is doing this out of the goodness of his heart.” She ran a hand over her hair. “Actually, what is he doing?”
“Nothing is set in stone.”
The vague reply made Nadia cross her arms. Grace and Basha never told her anything, always treating her like she was still a little kid. This was the ice cream situation all over again. But she wasn’t about to let this slide.
“Are you staging a coup?” Nadia asked.
Grace checked the clock on her phone. “It’s all in the negotiation stages. Nothing for you to worry about, but we should really be going. The bakery closes in half an hour.”
Nadia’s mother disappeared down the unstable stairwell. What Grace had done was downright dangerous—this type of treachery could get their wishes taken away in retaliation, and they’d have no chance of pleading their case. More than that, though, striking a deal with the Atlanta Wishmaster could trap them in another debt to yet another power-hungry dictator, just one with a different name. Though she had never met Mr. Caldwell, she’d heard the rumors about his particular skills.
Nadia stared down at the floorboards. She didn’t want to stay any longer, surrounded by so many terrible memories.
“I’ll bring you back, Nick,” she whispered to the empty room, “before our time runs out.”
Leaving the flowers on the floor, she hurried after her mother.
“Let’s play the silent game,” Grace said when they’d gotten back into the car. “Whoever can be quiet the longest wins the game.”
So, as they drove back to the Kaminski Mansion, Grace remained tight-lipped, and there was nothing Nadia could do about it now that her mom had implemented her win-any-game wish. It felt more for theatrics, anyway, given that her mother probably planned on being quiet until Nadia stopped asking about her plans for treason.
Once she pulled into the driveway, Nadia killed the engine. “You’ll have to tell me eventually. Or am I supposed to wait around until Rome starts burning, huh?”
“You make it too easy for me to win the silent game,” Grace said. She got out of the passenger side, slamming the door a little too hard.
As Nadia left the car and walked toward the house, she was startled to find her mom standing still and quiet, staring down at the ground in front of the garden gate.
When she saw what her mom was looking at, she froze too. A spray-painted symbol glared up at her from the flagstone: a long red feather with a rippling tip that made it look like it was ablaze. The feather of the Zhar-Ptitsa, a phoenix-like bird from Slavic folklore known for fulfilling wishes. But the message was instantly recognizable to all wishmongers in Savannah—it meant “strike one.”
“No, this can’t be right,” Grace rasped. “The Wishmaster doesn’t have a reason to do this. Unless . . .”
At that moment, Nadia spied a strange shimmer, like a mirage, moving just beyond the garden gate. Her heart pounded as the flicker took shape as a man. If he’d just wandered a short way onto the porch, the house would’ve dealt with him, but the Wishmaster had evidently warned her lackeys against doing that. The good-looking Korean man was taller than Nadia, with dark hair, angry eyes, and a wishbone flower tattoo that seemed to sprout from beneath the neckline of a Gucci T-shirt. She vaguely knew him, though he was higher up in the Wishmaster’s rankings than the usual intermediaries Nadia dealt with.
“You shouldn’t be creeping around in people’s gardens, Croak,” Nadia said as bravely as she could manage. “Folks might get the wrong idea.”
“I just wanted to make sure someone appreciated my artwork.” He swept a multi-ringed hand down at the spray-painted feather. “A masterpiece, if I do say so myself.”
She nodded and said through gritted teeth, “We see it. Now get lost.”
“You want a second feather already? Wishmaster’s not keen on disrespect to her people,” he shot back.
Grace fidgeted. “She didn’t mean anything by it, Croak.”
“Let’s hope not.” He puffed out his chest, stretching the letters on his shirt. “What are the two of you doing out so late, anyway? Kinda suspicious, don’t you think, after you pocketed that wish from the heart surgeon today? I hope you weren’t trying to use it.”
“No!” Grace replied, a note too fast. “I’m going to deliver it tomorrow, as promised. We don’t even have the box with us. It’s in the house.”
Nadia scowled. “What, are we not allowed to leave the house now? Is that some new rule? How would I get the Wishmaster her precious wishes?”
She didn’t even understand why they were getting a feather in the first place—unless it had something to do with Grace’s phone call to Mr. Caldwell. Everyone double-crossed everyone in the wishing world, and if Atlanta’s Wishmaster thought he could get a better deal by ratting out a potential betrayal to Savannah’s, he no doubt would.
Croak’s eyes gleamed. “Nah. Just know I’m around. I’m always watching.” His expression hardened. “Especially you, Clover Eyes.”
Nadia snorted at his use of her code name. “Especially me? What did I do?” She scuffed the toe of her shoe against the spray paint and felt a slight tingle. “Don’t tell me this warning is for me. Are you afraid that the littlest Kaminski is going to stage a coup or something?”
She chose her words carefully, trying to feel out what Croak knew about her mother’s conversation.
“Not too far off the mark, is it?” Croak hissed, turning to Grace. “You have your warning. I’m sure you can figure out why.”
Grace blanched, and her hand went subconsciously to her back pocket where she kept her phone. Nadia’s stomach sank. Had the phone been tapped? Had Croak followed them to the condemned house and eavesdropped on the conversation? Or was there a different reason altogether for the warning?
Nadia forced a tight laugh to try to ease the tension. “Can’t you take a joke?”
“Sure. Let me know when you tell one.” Croak sneered at her. “Now, stay on the up-and-up, or else I’ll be back. This feather has already added ten more wishes to your debt. And you really don’t need a second one, do you? After all, the third might cost you all of your wishes—spent and unspent.”
Basha had been right. Maybe the Wishmaster didn’t intend to let them off the hook after the debt was paid. Maybe the tally would simply continue to increase. It wouldn’t be hard for the Wishmaster to keep making up allegations and transgressions—even if this one wasn’t all that fake. Nadia looked to her mother and saw her suspicions reflected back.
“No problem,” Nadia said bitterly to Croak. “Thanks for making a shitty day that much shittier.”
He smirked. “Any time.”
He started to walk away, but Nadia wasn’t about to let him have the last word.
“And tell my sister to fuck off,�
� she shouted at his wide, retreating shoulders.
Croak laughed but didn’t turn around as he spoke. “Keep it up, and maybe you’ll get the chance to tell her yourself. I hope I’m there to see it. I’ve always wanted to hear somebody’s last words.”
Nadia wisely bit back a reply about what happened to tyrannical Wishmasters like Kaleena. It had happened to the old Wishmaster, after all. And history had a habit of repeating itself.
Chapter Five
The next evening, Nadia found herself summoned to a family war council around the breakfast island in the kitchen. The meeting had come a lot later than she’d expected, in truth, but her mom and grandmother tended to make big decisions without her input.
Nadia poured herself a cup of coffee and settled down on one of the stools. “I take it you’ve discussed Mom’s scheming, then? Makes a change from me being the one in your bad books, Babcia.”
Basha shot her granddaughter a warning look. “Is no victory, dziecko. We are in bad books because of debt. I pay because Wishmaster knows wording of my wishes. Of my Grace’s wishes. Wishmaster would find way to destroy house—everything we own—if we disobey. And she will take all hope of wish from you too. Don’t forget this.”
“As if I could,” Nadia muttered.
“Your mama’s idea was good. Execution was bad,” Basha said. Grace had evidently won her over already. “But we do as we always do—we keep heads down, we play nice, and we soon be back on Wishmaster’s good side.”
Nadia snorted into her cup. “When have we ever been there?”
“You make good point.” Basha raised a finger. “But this is plan. Is better to have devil you know in power than devil you don’t. Though your sister is worst of devils—but no matter.”
The river of hatred between Basha and Kaleena flowed upstream and downstream. While Nadia knew that Basha’s anger came from Kaleena abandoning the family and saddling them with the debt, she’d never fully understood why her sister hated their grandmother so much. Judging by the timing of the fallout, it had something to do with the events of three years ago, when Kaleena had first seized power, but Basha kept her secrets locked up like the crown jewels.
“If is not Kaminski in Wishmaster seat, more danger for us,” Basha continued. “That pest, Adrian, found out what Kaminskis can do if threatened. He try to hurt us, we hurt him. I have enough of Wishmasters hurting my family—they hurt my parents, they hurt me, they do it no more. But is different with this Wishmaster. We keep sweet, we will survive.” She wagged her finger at Grace. “No Atlanta. Is recipe for disaster. Has gained us one feather already—I say no for us getting another.”
Nadia wasn’t sure if this was all for show. Unable to eavesdrop as her mother and grandmother plotted and planned through the course of the day, she had no idea if they’d secretly been discussing how to proceed with Mr. Caldwell. But she had to hope they weren’t stupid enough to carry on down that path. Her grandmother was right—it was a recipe for disaster, and a huge turf war. If they unseated Kaleena, it would create a power vacuum that people would gladly kill to fill.
Grace interrupted Nadia’s thoughts with a tap to her wrist, as if tapping the face of a watch. “You need to get going.”
“I do?” Nadia frowned. “There’s nothing on my calendar but a date with my TV.”
“Will rot brain, these shows,” Basha tutted. “You go to drop-off, silly dziecko. Wish needs delivery.”
Nadia eyed her mom. “You told Croak that you were going to make the exchange.”
“We need someone who’s good at schmoozing to get Black Hat on our side,” Grace replied. “If you’re nice to him, hopefully he’ll pass the word on to the Wishmaster that we’re remorseful.”
Nadia groaned. “You mean you need someone he has a crush on.”
“Kind of, yeah.” Grace shrugged. “So, get your sweet cheeks moving. I just texted you the meeting spot.”
Nadia wasn’t looking forward to the prospect of kissing up to Black Hat. He was one of the easier intermediaries to deal with, but only after she let him flirt with her without giving him the stink eye. She always felt the need to take a long shower after talking to him. Somehow, her lack of interest in no way deterred Black Hat from continually attempting to get in her pants, one bad pickup line at a time.
Reluctantly, she got down off the stool and picked up the wishing box, which sat pointedly at the end of the breakfast island. There was no use arguing with her mom and grandmother, but it felt a bit rich that she had to do this, when her mom had barely gotten a slap on the wrist for gaining them a feather—and ten more wishes on their debt.
Nadia pulled her hood over her head and trudged out of the house. As she walked down the garden path and out the gate to the Chevy, she caught sight of the faded glint of the spray paint on the walkway. She swallowed thickly and skirted around it, as if stepping on it might add another fifty wishes to the tally.
The debt was beginning to feel even more insurmountable. If her sister really didn’t intend to let them all off the hook when it was paid, then she’d never be able to revive Nick. It would all be for nothing, giving way to a life of eternal servitude: no husband, no new start, no chance to get away from this wish-hunting life. The debt would become her life. It already felt like it had.
Impossible as it might be, the only way she could ever find freedom was to wish away this debt before Nick’s deadline came around. And she still didn’t know exactly how long she had. Her arm tightened around the wishing box, but there was no point in daydreaming—this wish was already documented. Maybe after this one had been delivered, she could begin to think about ways of tracking down a wish outside of the Wishmaster’s all-seeing gaze.
At the imposing gates of Bonaventure Cemetery, two statues stood sentinel—one clutching a vase, the other leaning into a cross. After locking up the Chevy, Nadia had stuffed the wishing box inside her battered maroon leather satchel, which she slung across her body. She breezed past a tourist group waiting for a good spooking, courtesy of the evening tour guides.
The honeyed light of early evening spread across the sprawling expanse of Bonaventure and the Wilmington River beyond it. Even in the daytime, the cemetery oozed eeriness. Lifelike statues waited around every corner to startle the heart, and they took on a whole different level of sentience when evening crept in. Over the years, Nadia could’ve sworn she’d seen a few of them move out of the corner of her eye, especially Little Gracie, Bonaventure’s famous sitting figure of a small girl taken by pneumonia long before her time.
Nadia wasn’t usually a superstitious person, but cemeteries had the same palpable yet inexplicable sensation that made people speak in hushed tones when they stepped into libraries and places of worship: the epicenters of countless stories that inspired and enthralled. Cemeteries were no different, for what were lives but collections of stories, relayed through those left behind? And Nadia was the keeper of Nick’s stories, though they might never be finished.
Striding along the open gravel pathways that crisscrossed between plots, she double-checked the name her mother had texted her: Marie Corbin. A grave she knew from the last time she was coerced into doing a drop-off. Because of the throngs of tourists, the wishing world contacts rarely chose a famous grave like Johnny Mercer’s, or Conrad Aiken’s well-known bench with the thought-provoking inscription Cosmos Mariner—Destination Unknown, though sometimes Nadia liked to walk past them anyway.
Her favorite, if a person could have a favorite gravestone, was Corinne Elliott Lawton’s. A young woman, now immortalized in stone, perched beside a large white cross, as though she were just resting her legs after a trek around the cemetery. She’d died the year she was meant to turn thirty-one, the age Nadia was now. Perhaps that was why Nadia liked it—as a reminder of where she very well might’ve been if not for her mother and grandmother hovering around her after Nick’s death.
Nadia kept walking, mulling over the feather warning and her upcoming schmooze with Black Hat. She wasn’t
even sure she knew how to schmooze anymore. But the threat of turning that feather into two made her determined to try. Still, she checked the back pocket of her jeans, where she felt the comforting outline of her folding knife—just in case Black Hat or another of her sister’s cronies decided a feather wasn’t punishment enough.
She cut through a border of shrubs and slinked past a live oak to reach the Corbin family plot, marked by a tall Celtic cross. Black Hat waited, wearing his signature black top hat. He was in his mid-twenties and pale in an I-might-be-a-vampire-or-at-least-severely-anemic kind of way. She couldn’t decide if the combination made him look like a confused goth, a failed magician, or a cemetery tour guide—and in Savannah, those three weren’t mutually exclusive. Whichever it was, the ensemble served its purpose, since when he wasn’t picking up wishes, he actually was a tour guide. It was all part of the Wishmaster’s strategy of finding ways to hide in plain sight.
Black Hat usually went solo, but another guy stood nearby, sunglasses on, hood up. Not exactly incognito, if that was what he was going for. Sunglasses, in the evening, in a graveyard . . . He might as well have been wearing a neon sign that said Hey, you, don’t look at me!
He was probably the buyer. Sometimes they tagged along with the intermediary if they were in a rush to get their wish. But there was something oddly familiar about the hooded figure.
“The only song of his that most people can name is ‘Moon River,’ which is a damn shame. I’m a ‘Fools Rush In’ man myself,” Sunglasses said to Black Hat. He hummed a line as he shoved his hands into his pockets.
“Ah, of course,” Black Hat replied, looking entirely lost for words.
“Not the version you’re probably thinking of,” Sunglasses went on. “Everyone thinks about Elvis first, but that ain’t the one. Nah. Johnny Mercer’s lyrics were killer. Man, he—”
