Wishing Day (7 page)

T
here was a Johnny Cash song Natasha liked. Papa used to sing it, accompanying himself on the lute. It was slow and melancholy, but exactly the
right
kind of melancholy—though Natasha suspected that such a sentiment wouldn't make sense to most people.

“'Cause there's something in a Sunday that makes a body feel alone.” She loved that line. She understood that line. She, too, had felt alone when she woke up this morning. Everything was quiet. Everything was still. Outside, the snowy haze was infinite. Smoke curled from the chimneys of nearby houses, and that was the only indication that other people were out there, living
their own Sunday mornings.

Natasha looked out her window for a long time. At some point, Ava started rustling about, and Natasha moved to the wall that separated their rooms. She could hear Ava humming. Sometimes Ava added words. The words had to do with Ava's hairbrush, from what Natasha could make out.

There was something reassuring about Ava's song. She was twelve now, but she was still Ava.

Natasha opened her door quietly and stepped into the hall. She padded past Ava's room, then past Darya's. Darya was dead asleep. Natasha had no doubt about that. She was nearly impossible to rouse on weekdays, and on weekends, she stayed in bed till noon if the aunts let her.

Her aunts' rooms were at the end of the hall. Aunt Elena had moved into the guest room, and Aunt Vera had taken over Mama and Papa's room. Not in a bad way; it was just that Papa never went in it anymore. He slept in his workshop, or downstairs on the sofa.

Natasha saw that Aunt Vera's door was open. Her bed was neatly made, and Natasha smelled the citrus scent of her shampoo, which meant she'd already showered. Soon, the smell of biscuits and bacon would
fill the house. Aunt Vera believed in a hearty breakfast.

Aunt Elena's door was cracked, and the light was on, so Natasha knocked.

“Yes? Come in!” Aunt Elena called.

Aunt Elena's bed was a mess. Aunt Elena herself was in her bathroom, curling her hair. “Oh, Natasha,” she said, turning a bit pink. “You must think I'm so silly, don't you?”

“Why?” Natasha said.

“Playing with hairstyles. You know.” Her eyes brightened. “Want me to do yours?”

“No thanks,” Natasha said, and Aunt Elena laughed.

“Maybe one day,” she said.

“I doubt it,” Natasha said.

“Well, sit and chat with me,” Aunt Elena said, turning back to the mirror.

Natasha sat on the edge of the bathtub. She watched Aunt Elena clamp a strand of her brown hair in the curling rod and roll it up. Aunt Elena counted to ten—Natasha could see her lips moving—then slid the curling rod free. A shiny spiral curl bounced against her collarbone.

“I'll brush it out, don't worry,” Aunt Elena said.
“In the end, it'll just be waves.”

“Okay,” Natasha said, though she hadn't been worried. “It looks pretty.”

Aunt Elena smiled at Natasha in the mirror. “You think? Really?”

Natasha nodded. Aunt Elena was pretty no matter what. Her hair was several shades lighter than Natasha's, and she shared the same delicate features as Ava and Darya. Ava and Darya both took after Mama's side of the family (which was also Aunt Elena's side of the family), while Natasha, with her serious eyes and darker coloring, looked more like Papa.

“Can I ask you a question?” Natasha said.

“Sure,” Aunt Elena said.

“It has to do with the Bird Lady.”

In the mirror, she saw Aunt Elena's eyebrows lift.

“Ava made me think about it,” Natasha went on. She found that she was clenching her fingers, and she made herself stop. “Because of how cold it is? And the butterflies? And just, you know . . .” She swept her hand to indicate Aunt Elena's bedroom window, its view similar to Natasha's. “Everyone stays in when the weather's like this, for the most part.”

Aunt Elena curled another strand of hair.

“It's just . . . where does the Bird Lady go? Where
does she live? Where does she get her food?” Natasha's fingers folded into her palms again. “What's her deal?!”

“Natasha, I don't have an answer for you,” Aunt Elena said. “I've wondered the same things myself, many times.”

“Well,
that's
no help,” Natasha said. She clapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry.”

“It's okay. You're right, it's not any help.”

“She's so odd,” Natasha said.

Aunt Elena nodded.

“She wears pajama pants. She lets a bird live in her hair!”

Aunt Elena lifted her shoulders. “Most people think she's bonkers.”

“Do you?”

Aunt Elena studied her reflection. She shook out her hair to find any leftover straight parts, and when she did, she sectioned them out and curled them one by one.

“When I was nine, I climbed to the top of Willow Hill,” she said. She bit her lip. “This story doesn't have to do with whether the Bird Lady is bonkers or not, actually. Or maybe it does. Huh, I don't know.”

“Tell it,” Natasha said.

“Well.” Aunt Elena put down the curling rod and
unplugged it. She turned to Natasha. Her hair was a cascade of curls.

“I was nine, and at the top of Willow Hill, I saw the Bird Lady,” she said. “She was threading her way in and out of the branches of the willow tree. You know the one.”

The great willow. Natasha nodded.

“In and out, in and out, like a needle through cloth. It looked like she was scattering seeds, and . . .”

“And what?”

“I asked if I could help,” Aunt Elena said sheepishly.

“Oh,” Natasha said. She was touched by the image of Aunt Elena as a little girl, shyly approaching the Bird Lady.

“I asked if I could help, and the Bird Lady said, ‘Took you long enough, didn't it?'” Aunt Elena lifted her eyebrows.

“Then she gave me a small leather pouch. Only instead of seeds, the pouch was filled with marshmallows.”

“Marshmallows!”

“It's true. Vera never believed me, but your mother did.”

Natasha swallowed. If Aunt Elena had been nine,
her mother, Klara, would have been ten. Two years younger than Ava was now.

“I started to scatter them as if they
were
seeds, but the Bird Lady put her hand on mine. ‘You eat,' she told me. ‘Not for the birds. For you.'”

“Was her hand wrinkly?” Natasha asked, remembering the day the Bird Lady gave her the second note. Her knuckles had been red, and her fingers had been stick-like and curved. Her skin had been as thin as crepe paper.

“I think her hand has always been wrinkly,” Aunt Elena said.

“It couldn't have
always
been wrinkly. At one point, she must have been a girl herself.”

Aunt Elena pursed her lips. “Can you imagine her as a girl?”

Natasha tried, but in her mind's eye, the Bird Lady refused to grow young. No backward time-lapse photography for her, no transformation from crone to matron to maid.

Crone, matron, maid
. Where had those words come from? They were just fancy words for an old lady, a woman, and a girl, but it was disconcerting how they'd slipped into her thoughts from nowhere.

She gave herself a shake.

“I can't imagine the Bird Lady as a girl, no,” Natasha said. She cleared her throat. Her voice sounded rusty. “Did you eat the marshmallows?”

“I did,” Aunt Elena said. Her eyes twinkled. “I know, I know, never take candy from a stranger. But the Bird Lady wasn't a stranger, exactly . . .”

“She's just strange,” Natasha finished.

“They were lighter than spun sugar,” Aunt Elena said. “They were
extraordinary
, Natasha. They melted in my mouth, and
I
felt lighter than spun sugar. So light I could fly! I couldn't—yes, I tried—but for a week, my life was charmed. I was picked to feed our class hamster. My shoelaces never came untied, and my hair never got tangled. I found pennies on the sidewalk, and a blue glass egg. And for that entire week, no one got mad at me for anything, even Vera.”

Aunt Elena stepped closer. She tucked Natasha's hair behind her ear. “And your mother and I? We built the
best
house of cards in the
history
of card houses.”

Natasha smiled uncertainly. She had so many questions about Mama, but when Mama's name came up, she invariably got anxious.

Aunt Elena perched on the rim of the tub next to Natasha. “Your mother was always good at card houses. We'd have contests, Klara and I, and mine
always fell down before hers.”

She clasped Natasha's hands. “She took it very seriously. She built her houses to last.”

A heaviness settled over Natasha.
Until it mattered
, she thought.

“What's that?”

Natasha blinked. Had she spoken the words aloud? “Nothing. Never mind. I have no idea.”

Aunt Elena searched Natasha's expression, and Natasha brought back her stiff smile.

I'm smiling, see?
she thought, although she kept her lips pressed together to make sure no words spilled out this time.
La la la, happy me. Go on and finish your story—doesn't that sound nice?

“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.”

T
hat 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 Days 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.”