Wishing Day (4 page)

“W
hat's wrong?” Molly asked Natasha at her locker. “You look like you saw a ghost.”

Natasha clamped her lips together.

“For real,” Molly said. She tapped Natasha's shoulder, in the exact same spot where the Bird Lady had.

The Bird Lady had touched her, and said weird things to her, and then she'd
laughed
at her.

Silly, silly girl
. No,
silly, silly
girls
. Plural, because of Emily, whoever that was, and Natasha's mother, whom the Bird Lady had “quite liked.”

Natasha had prickled when the Bird Lady mentioned Mama. The Bird Lady wasn't allowed to
mention Mama, whether she'd liked her or not. There should be a law against it.

“Na
ta
sha,” Molly said in a singsong voice. “I will pester you until you tell me, so you might as well get it over with.” She widened her eyes. “Ooo!
Did
you see a ghost? I will be so jealous if you saw a ghost. Not that I believe in ghosts. But did you?”

A boy shut his locker with a bang. Natasha flinched.

Molly studied her. In a gentler tone, she asked, “Hey, are you all right?”

“Do you know anyone named Emily?” Natasha blurted.

“No. Why?”

“No reason.”

“Liar.”

Natasha dug her fingernails into the pad of her palm. “Something strange happened on the way to school, but it's not important. Anyway, I probably made it up.”

Over the next four hours, Natasha wondered if she
had
made up her encounter with the Bird Lady. If there was
any possible way
she'd imagined it all.

But she hadn't. She knew she hadn't.

When noon arrived, she and Molly claimed their
usual table at the back of the cafeteria. One other person sat with them, only not really, since he chose the farthest-away seat. Also, he had his nose in a book. He wore earbuds, and whatever he was listening to was turned up loudly enough for Natasha to hear it. It sounded like the soundtrack to a video game.

Fifteen feet away, in the middle of the room, Natasha's sister Darya held court among her friends. Thanks to the age cutoffs dictated by the school calendar, Natasha and Darya were both in the seventh grade. They stuck to their own circles pretty much, though. Or, Darya stuck to her circle. Natasha hung out with Molly.

“You don't have to let her outshine you, you know,” Molly said, gesturing at Darya. Darya's red curls bounced as she laughed. Girls clamored for her attention. She
was
extremely shiny.

“Who said I was?” Natasha said.

“If you curled your hair, and maybe used some shine serum, and wore skirts more often—”

“Thanks for your input,” Natasha said shortly. “I'm fine with who I am, actually.”

Molly hit her forehead with the heel of her palm. “
Bad
Molly! Bad!” She touched Natasha's arm. “Sorry. I didn't mean it in a judgy way.”

Natasha wanted to twitch away Molly's hand. She didn't, because then Molly would apologize a hundred
more
times. Then she'd try to psychoanalyze Natasha to find out why talking about Darya was so hard, and she'd be anxious and concerned, and it would all be for nothing because Natasha had no problem talking about Darya!

She didn't want to
be
Darya, that's all.

And she didn't want to be mothered or babied or “fixed,” not by Molly.

Molly started to say something, but didn't. Instead she slurped her mixed-berry smoothie, which came in a squeezable plastic pouch and was actually baby food. On the front of the pouch was a picture of Grover from
Sesame Street
holding an armful of strawberries and blueberries. On the back of the pouch, it said, “I, your furry friend Grover, adore delicious mixed berries!”

Maybe it was Molly who wanted to get all sorts of attention, like Darya. Maybe packing baby food in her lunch was her way of showing off?

Maybe Molly's the one who needs psychoanalyzing
, Natasha thought, and she felt better.

“So tell me about this morning,” Molly prompted, propping her elbow on the table and resting her chin on her palm. “What was the strange thing that happened?”

Natasha felt reluctance build up inside her, like wet sand. “Huh? Oh. I don't even remember.”

“Yes, you do. You were freaked out, I could totally tell.”

Natasha sighed. Then she gave Molly an abbreviated account of the morning's events. In her shortened version, she didn't physically run into the Bird Lady, and she didn't have a conversation with her. She simply saw her, nothing more.

“And there was a
bird
in her hair?” Molly said, delighted. “A living, breathing bird?”

She giggled, and Natasha felt annoyed. The thought rose in her head that
Molly
was a silly girl,
a silly, silly girl
. But the words didn't feel like her own, and a shiver rippled down her spine.

“Anyway, that's the whole story,” Natasha said. “I saw the Bird Lady. She was weird. The end.”

“She's probably lonely,” Molly mused. “If you see her again, you should, like, try to get to know her. Just because she's crazy doesn't mean she doesn't need friends.”

“You shouldn't say ‘crazy.'”

“Mentally ill, whatever.” Molly shrugged. “Maybe she's manic-depressive. Maybe today you saw her manic side, and next time you'll see her depressed side.”

Natasha flattened her hands on the cafeteria table. Mama had had a depressed side.
Her dark times
, that's how Mama had described the days when she didn't get out of bed. Natasha hated thinking of Mama descending into darkness. She even hated thinking of the Bird Lady descending into darkness. She didn't want that for anyone.

“My cousin, Lucille?” Molly said. “Who lives in the apartment complex near the railroad tracks? She knew a woman who was
always
depressed. Also she had hair everywhere, including her arms and hands and even her palms.” She paused. “I don't think the hair was related to her depression, though.”

Natasha had no reply. Molly said the most bizarre things, usually in a completely offhand way.
My mom baked blueberry muffins for breakfast, with real blueberries. Not canned. And Lucille? My cousin? She knows a very hairy woman who happens to be depressed.
(Beat.)
Hey, do you have any lip gloss?

Movement drew Natasha's attention. She looked up and saw a bird swoop from one end of the cafeteria to the other. She blinked, shook her head, and looked again.

“Molly?” she said. She pointed. “There's a bird in the cafeteria.”

Molly's mouth fell open. Then she grinned and said, “A
www!
Hi, little birdie!” To Natasha, she said, “Is that the same bird you saw in the Bird Lady's hair?”

“The Bird Lady's bird was brown.”

“This one's blue, so not the same. But why is there a bluebird in the cafeteria?”

“I have no idea.”

“Maybe he's hungry. Maybe he needs some bread crumbs.” Molly scanned the table. The earbud boy sitting across from them had a sandwich, and Molly leaned over and picked up the part he hadn't yet eaten.

“Hey!” he said.

She pulled off the crust and tossed the rest back. She tore the crust into smaller bits and sprinkled them on the floor. “Here, little birdie! Food! See?”

The bird made another pass across the room. It dipped low and hovered in front of the cafeteria's wide glass window, and Natasha felt faint. Outside the lunchroom, partially obscured by the thicket of trees bordering the courtyard, was a person.

A lady.

A tiny lady in a yellow raincoat and bunny slippers who was doing a terrible job of being sneaky, if being sneaky was her goal. She popped out from behind a snow-covered pine and waved her scarf back and forth,
like a matador trying to attract a bull. Then she ducked back behind the tree. She popped out again, her smile lighting up her face. She waved the scarf wildly. Then, far too nimbly for someone so old, she darted once more behind the tree.

No
, Natasha thought. The Bird Lady could not be outside the cafeteria, during lunch, waving at Natasha while everyone else ate and chatted and squirted too much ketchup over their fries. Nor could she be swishing her Little Red Cap scarf back and forth, the silk rippling and fluttering like something alive.

Except she was, and that particular kind of story scarf was called a
mantilla
. Natasha just remembered.

“Molly?” Natasha said. “Do you see that lady out there?”

The Bird Lady did a strange foot-hopping dance, waving her mantilla back and forth.

“The birdie's not eating the bread crumbs,” Molly complained. “Eat the bread crumbs, birdie!”

Natasha twisted in her seat, searching for Darya. If Darya was looking out the window . . . if Darya saw the Bird Lady . . .

Would that make things better or worse?

Darya was hunched together with two other girls,
the three of them laughing at something on one of the girls' phone.

It started snowing. The scrim of white made Natasha even more dizzy. The Bird Lady beckoned her, using her hand to say,
Come along, hurry now, quick-quick-quick.
Natasha half rose from her chair, and if Molly hadn't yanked her back, she didn't know what she would have done.

“What are you doing?” Molly said. “You've eaten, like, one bite of your apple.” She thrust out her squeezable plastic pouch with Grover on the front. “Here, take this.”

Natasha grabbed Molly's wrist. Molly's eyes widened. “Look out the window. The Bird Lady's right there!”

Molly turned and squinted through the glass. Snow fell thickly from the gray sky. The old lady was gone.

“You are so random, Natasha,” Molly said. “First you say there's a bird in the cafeteria, only ha ha, not really. Then, ‘Look, there's an old lady!', only not really again. And then you completely zoned out, like you weren't even here.”

“There
was
an old lady,” Natasha said.

“Yeah, this morning on your way to school,” Molly
said. She took a sip of her
Sesame Street
smoothie.

“And the bird—you saw the bird!” Natasha cried. “You
fed
the bird!” She gestured at the floor beneath Molly's chair, where Molly had dropped the bread crumbs.

They weren't there.

She glanced up and around the cafeteria ceiling.

No bird. Not even a feather.

“Natasha?” Molly said.

Natasha looked out the window. Then she looked at Earbud Boy, who held a graphic novel in one hand and his sandwich in the other. There were bite marks on the sandwich, but no missing strip of crust.

The little hairs on the back of Natasha's neck stood up.

It was as if the real world had collided with a hidden world, a world which other people couldn't see. Possible and impossible, tangled hopelessly together.

            
I wish to be in charge of something,

            
so I can boss people around

            
and they'll have to listen.

            
—
V
ERA
K
OVROV, AGE THIRTEEN

N
atasha stayed on high alert for the next several days, waiting for more odd things to happen.

When nothing did, she felt curiously let down.

Then, four days after her encounter with the Bird Lady, she overheard her aunts talking about her. It was Tuesday morning, and Natasha was heading downstairs for breakfast. She froze.

“. . . but what
you
don't seem to understand is that I want what's best for her too,” Aunt Vera was saying. “Natasha was
five years old
when Klara left. Five years old!”

“Yes, Vera,” Aunt Elena said. “I was there, too.”

“She'd started kindergarten only days before, and afterward, for weeks, she said, ‘Why isn't Mama taking me? Why can't Mama pack my lunch?'”

“It broke my heart,” Aunt Elena said.

“
Klara
broke her heart,” Aunt Vera said. There was an edge to her voice. “Klara broke everyone's hearts.”

“Vera, please. I'm not trying to rewrite history,” Aunt Elena said. “I just . . . I don't want you to
erase
history.”

“The past belongs in the past,” Aunt Vera said. “I told you that on Natasha's Wishing Day. I told you nothing good would come of it.”

“How do we know nothing good came of it? How do we know if anything happened at all, since we don't know what she wished for?”

“Elena, leave it alone,” Aunt Vera said.

Aunt Elena lowered her voice, and Natasha strained to hear. “Klara never told me her wishes, either. Did she tell you?”

Silence.

“The girls used to ask. They asked what our wishes were and what their mother's wishes had been,” Aunt Elena said.

“Not Darya.”

“Yes, even Darya. They adored talking about
Wishing Day—until they learned not to.”

“
Learned
not to. Exactly,” Aunt Vera said. “You say it as if I did something bad, but I did it to help them.”

“Why did you go with us to the top of Willow Hill, on Natasha's Wishing Day?” Aunt Elena asked.

“Because . . . well, because . . .”

“Because one thing we
do
know is that Klara believed in Wishing Day magic. Klara wanted the tradition to live on.”

“One moment she did, one moment she didn't,” Aunt Vera said. “That's how I recall it.”

“And the tradition
has
lived on,” Aunt Elena said. “Every girl in Willow Hill knows about it. Every boy, too, I suspect. If we had let Natasha's Wishing Day simply pass by, what message would that have sent?”

“Enough, Elena,” Aunt Vera snapped. “Encouraging children to believe in magic does nothing but cause pain.”

“That's not true.”

“Isn't it? Natasha hardly touched her dinner last night. She went straight to her room at eight o'clock, but the light under her door was on until almost eleven.”

“She's a teenager,” Aunt Elena said. “Teenagers are moody.”

“Klara was moody,” Aunt Vera challenged. “For that matter, Klara's moodiness started right after
her
Wishing Day. So there!”

Natasha frowned.
Was
she moody, like Mama? She tromped down the remaining stairs, and Aunt Elena smoothly changed the subject. “What we need is
khrenovina
sauce, don't you think?”

“And sour cream,” Aunt Vera said. Then, “Good morning, Natasha. Aunt Elena's making her
pelmeni
for us. Fried
pelmeni
with
khrenovina
sauce, now that's a dinner fit for a cold night.”

“And maybe I'll make honey cookies for dessert,” Aunt Elena said. She turned off the stove and moved the eggs from the heat. “Your mother made the most delicious honey cookies, Natasha.”

Natasha took a seat at the table. Feet thumped on the stairs, and Ava burst into the kitchen, a whirlwind of messy braids, socks-turned-into-arm-warmers, and a shirt of Papa's that she'd modified by bunching up the excess fabric and securing it with a rubber band.

“Honey cookies?” she sang. “Did I hear someone say ho-o-o-o-ney cookies?” She grinned and twirled. “You made at least twenty-five, right, Aunt Elena? If we bring a food item, the rule is it has to be enough for everyone.”

Aunt Elena's eyes widened. “Oh, no. Ava, sweetie . . .”

“For our unit on family histories. For my presentation.”

“I thought I'd make them tonight, for the family. I forgot about your presentation!”

Ava's smile faltered. “You for
got
?”

“Not entirely! They were on my mind, clearly! I forgot
why
I kept thinking about them, that's all!”

A new noise came from the staircase: the precise clop-clop of Darya's one-inch heels. “One inch” because that was as high as the aunts allowed; “heels” because Darya was Darya and refused to wear snow boots. She thought they were ugly.

“Uh-oh, no cookies for your presentation?” she said. She tightened her ponytail, which hung in a bouncy spiral. “Oh well. Guess you'll fail.”

“Darya!” the aunts said.

Darya laced her fingers and stretched, straightening her arms and reaching her upturned palms toward the ceiling. She was slender and strong and graceful, the type of girl who would never run smack into a tiny old lady with a bird in her hair. Who would never
believe
in a tiny old lady with a bird in her hair.

Natasha thought about the conversation she'd overheard, and Aunt Elena's claim that “even Darya” used
to adore talking about Wishing Days. Maybe or maybe not, but that Darya no longer existed.

“What am I going to do?” Ava wailed. “My presentation is
today
. My teacher is going to hate me!”

“Ava, slow down,” said Aunt Vera. “It's not the end of the world.”

“Yeah-huh, because I
have
to bring a cultural artifact. It's the biggest part of the assignment. Fred Williams had Bulgaria—”

“
Fred
?” Darya said. “Who names their kid Fred?”

“And he dressed up as Viktor Krum. He wore a red robe and carried a flag and everything!”

Darya held open her hands. “Who the heck is Viktor Krum, and what does he have to do with anything?”

“He was on the Bulgarian Quidditch team,” Natasha explained. “From Harry Potter.” She turned to Ava. “And Ava, you were supposed to
help
Aunt Elena make the cookies. If you're going to blame anyone, blame yourself.”

“Wait,” Darya said. “If that dude was from Harry Potter, then he's not real. He's made up.”

“Ms. Gupta said it was okay,” Ava said. “Plus Fred gave facts about the real Bulgaria.”

“As I am not interested in this conversation, I am
going to go fold laundry,” Aunt Vera said, untying her apron and laying it on the counter.

“I'll help,” Aunt Elena said.

“You scared them away,” Darya said. “You made them feel like bad parents.”

“They're
not
parents,” Ava said.

“You could have brought one of them as your artifact. They're Russian, kind of.” Darya tsk-ed. “But you blew that opportunity, didn't you? And made our dear sweet aunts feel like crap, all in one fell swoop.”

Ava's eyes widened. Tears welled and threatened to spill over.

“Darya,”
Natasha said.

“What?” Darya said.

Natasha gave her a look, and Darya's smile fell away. Her teasing hadn't been funny; she'd made Ava feel bad, she'd gone too far. All of this played across Darya's face, and Natasha sighed. Darya was exasperating, but she wasn't unkind. Not on purpose. Just, some of her bids for attention were better than others.

Natasha caught the tail of a memory, from when Natasha and Darya had been closer. Darya had developed an impressive array of silly voices, and as a second grader, she'd gone through a phase of talking
out of the side of her mouth like a truck driver. Her deep belly laugh—coming from such a little girl—had made everyone near her laugh, too.

“Hey, I know,” Darya said. Her tone was no longer glib. She was trying to fix things. “If you're allowed to go as someone fake, then dress up as a character from a Russian fairy tale.” She slid into her seat and helped herself to some eggs. “Like that girl who was banished into the woods and torn to pieces by wild animals. You could be her.”

Ava scrunched her forehead. “How am I supposed to dress up as a girl torn to pieces?”

“Okay, then go as the girl who was eaten by crows,” Darya said. “What was her name?”

“
His
name was Prince Ivan, and he was a boy,” Natasha said.

“Is it against the rules for a girl to dress up as a boy?” Darya said. She turned toward Ava. “If you don't want to be Prince Ivan, you could go as the boy sliced into pieces by his uncle. Or the kid who was thrown over a cliff. Or the girl who was forced to take a bath in boiling water and whose skin slipped off in long strips!”

“Darya, why would Ava want to dress up as a dead person?” Natasha said.

“Because it would be awesome! Because Russian fairy tales have the most awesome deaths ever!”

An illustrated collection of Russian fairy tales stood in the bookshelf in the den. It had belonged to Mama when she was younger, and the children in the fairy tales did come to extraordinarily gruesome ends.

If anyone ever wrote a fairy tale about Klara and the Three Little Girls, however, it would be the mother who met the terrible fate.

Well,
and
the daughters, since the daughters were the ones left behind.

But Mama, when she'd read the fairy tales to Natasha, had changed the stories any way she wanted. In Mama's versions, the children
didn't
die. The children escaped the crows and ran away from the cruel uncle. They only pretended to fall over the cliff.

Natasha recalled a story that Darya hadn't mentioned. It was about two maidens who lived in a castle, one with yellow hair and one with black. They were the best of friends and loved each other like sisters, but over time, the black-haired maiden grew jealous of the yellow-haired maiden's grace and beauty. One day she told the king a lie: that the yellow-haired maiden snuck out of the castle every night and danced until dawn with the
domovye
, the Russian version of elves.
The king was furious. He sliced off the yellow-haired maiden's head, and in the book version, the girl's head stayed sliced off. Too bad, so sad.

In Mama's version, the girl with black hair wept with remorse and scooped up her friend's head, cradling it in her arms. She kissed her friend's cheek, put the head back on the body, and tied it in place with a ribbon.

“Ava, blow your nose,” Natasha said. “Darya, eat your breakfast.” She scooted back her chair and strode toward the back door.

“What about my presentation?” Ava said. “Wh-where are you going?”

“To Papa's workshop. You can bring one of his lutes.”

Natasha grabbed her coat from the closet, buttoning it up as she crunched across the new snow blanketing the yard. Flakes drifted lazily down.

She knocked on the door to Papa's workshop. She got no response, so she turned the knob and stepped inside.

“Papa?” she said.

He snored and shifted on the battered mattress in the corner of the room. He slept out here more often than he slept in the house.

“I'm borrowing one of your lutes,” she said. “Ava needs it for a project.”

Papa stirred in his sleep. Natasha sighed and went to him, pulling up the worn quilt so that it covered his shoulder.

She lifted one of the finished lutes from the rack by Papa's workbench. The one she picked was made of maple, swirled through with burls. Its soundboard was the shape of a teardrop, and in the middle of the teardrop, Papa had carved a lattice-covered hole, which on a lute was called a rose. When the strings of the lute were plucked, the rose amplified the resulting sound waves. That's how the music was made.

Natasha couldn't do it, though. Play the lute.

Neither could Ava. Neither could Darya.

Papa could, though it had been a long time since he had.

And Mama used to play the lute. Her slim fingers had danced over the strings, and she sang folk songs from Russia that made four-year-old Natasha dance, or try to, which made Mama and Papa laugh.

She carried the lute carefully, balancing it on her upraised knee as she closed the door of Papa's studio. It had stopped snowing, but she shielded the lute with her coat out of habit. Lutes were delicate instruments.

Halfway across the yard, she drew up short. There was a stone lying on the snow-packed path between Papa's studio and the house. No, two stones. The bottom stone was large and round and flattish, like a pancake. The second stone sat on top of the pancake stone. It was gray, about the size of a plump strawberry. Between the two stones was a creased piece of paper. The wind fluttered its edges, revealing a blur of words.

Goose bumps rose on Natasha's skin.

She stepped closer and knelt, taking care not to bump the lute. She pulled free the note, which was folded into fourths. On the uppermost side, in neat, precise handwriting, it said
Natasha
.