A Well-Timed Enchantment

by Vivian Vande Velde

  Absently, she wiped cat fur from herself.

  I wish that Mom and Dad were back together again and that we'd all be happy again. That's what she had told herself she would wish if she ever got a second shot at it.

  But you can't go wishing happiness on other people, she thought; you've got to make your own. People were going to be what they were going to be.

  She looked down at Oliver, who looked up at her.

  It'd never work. It was a stupid idea. He was a cat. People in tenth-century France had thought he was weird. How would he ever pass in twentieth-century America? Or twentieth-century France for that matter? He'd have no family, no personal history, no education. What could she say: Look what followed me home, Mom. Can I keep him? It was totally ridiculous. The problems were insurmountable.

  She looked at the well.

  She looked at Oliver.

  She smiled.

  Then again, she thought, what could she do but cross her fingers and hope for the best?

  She leaned over the well and wished.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Front

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY