She glanced at the Bird Lady, and the Bird Lady swept the wisteria vines to the side, revealing a large, dark hollow within the trunk of the oak.
“Whoa!” said Ava.
The Bird Lady smiled more broadly. “I know.”
The hollow was big enough for a person to duck into. To sit, to hide. “It’s fantastic.”
“It’s where I store my secrets.”
Secrets! Yes! At once, Ava remembered why she’d come. “My aunt. Aunt Elena. When she was my age, you told her to wish to forget Emily!”
A shadow crossed the Bird Lady’s face. She bade Ava to step into the oak’s hidden nook, and Ava did. Within the hollow, wedged into nooks and crannies, Ava spotted dozens of glass soda bottles. More bottles hung from the roof of the hollow. The bottles dangled from lengths of twine, one end of the twine looped around the bottle’s neck and the other end secured to one of the many knobby bits in the upper reaches of the trunk.
Within each glass bottle was a rolled-up scroll of paper.
“What are these?” Ava asked.
“My secrets, as I said.”
Ava reached for one.
“No,” the Bird Lady said. Ava withdrew her hand.
Unsure what to do, she lowered herself to the moist soil. Bark dug into Ava’s back, and she shifted positions, drawing her knees to her chest and holding them with her arms. The Bird Lady mimicked Ava’s posture. The space was so tight, their knees touched.
Ava’s memory flashed to an earlier time. She’d been little, maybe four years old, and she and Mama were playing house in a pink plastic cottage that belonged to Ava’s preschool. At noon, after school was dismissed and the other parents and children went home, Mama and Ava sometimes snuck back into the playground. Laughing and holding hands, they’d dash to the child-sized cottage with its stools shaped like red mushrooms with white polka dots. Mama had to scrunch to perch on one, and even so, her head grazed the cottage ceiling.
“Tea?” Ava would ask.
“Oh, yes,” Mama would say. “And biscuits, if you please.”
In England, cookies were called biscuits. Mama had taught Ava that, and Ava had been charmed. When they sipped their pretend tea, they’d lifted their little fingers.
Ava, at four, hadn’t understood her mother’s depression, just that on some days, Papa or one of her aunts picked her up from preschool instead of Mama. “Your mother is tired,” Ava was told, or “Your mother had a rough day.” Ava had no premonition that one day Mama would be gone. Not resting, not having a rough day, just gone.
“Hold on,” Ava said, giving herself a shake. She was sitting knees-to-knees with the Bird Lady, not Mama. “How did you know my name?”
“How did you know mine?” the Bird Lady retorted.
“I don’t. I mean, obviously ‘the Bird Lady’ isn’t your real name. What is?”
The Bird Lady’s eyes darted away. She picked at an imaginary bit of fluff on her overalls.
“Fine,” Ava said. She wasn’t here for games. “You said you were waiting for me. Why?”
“I imagine it’s the same reason you came looking for me.”
“My aunt said you knew Emily.”
“I did. I hope to again one day.”
“You do? Meaning what?”
“Meaning exactly what I said: that I hope to know her again one day.”
“So she existed? For real?”
The Bird Lady huffed. “Of course she did! Hopefully, she still does!”
“Will you tell me about her? Please?”
The Bird Lady didn’t answer.
Ava picked up a leaf, damp and beginning to rot. She shredded it into strips.
“I knew your mother, too,” the Bird Lady said. “Klara.”
Ava stopped.
“Emily and Klara, they had such big plans,” the Bird Lady said.
“For their Wishing Days,” said Ava. Only moments ago, she’d assured the Bird Lady that she had no doubts Emily was real, but she’d said that to make sure the Bird Lady kept talking. Also, Ava had always wanted Emily to be real, because she wanted to believe her mother. The story about Emily was horrible, but the story without Emily was worse. If Emily didn’t exist, and never had existed, then Mama hadn’t abandoned their family out of grief and guilt. She’d just . . . abandoned them.
But now, listening to the Bird Lady—hearing the wistfulness and the regret in the Bird Lady’s voice—Ava realized she’d turned a corner.
Emily was real.
Emily was real.
Emily. Was. Real.
“She and Klara had planned to meet at the top of Willow Hill at sunrise and make their wishes together,” the Bird Lady said. “But Klara failed. Klara broke their promise, and Emily suffered the consequences.”
“But it was an accident,” Ava said.
“Your mother wanted to be special,” the Bird Lady said.
Ava bristled.
“As for Emily, she was special,” the Bird Lady went on. “She was an artist, a good artist, and one day she’d be famous. Everyone said so.”
“So why did you tell my aunt to forget all about her? Did you tell Aunt Elena that?”
The Bird Lady jiggled her knee. “Do you want me to continue?”
“If you don’t deny it, I’ll assume you did.”
“Assume what you please. If you want to hear from me what I may or may not have told Elena, however, I suggest you shut up.”
Ava set her jaw.
“Klara was special, too,” the Bird Lady said, giving Ava a reproving look. “Of course she was. I’m just . . . I’m hoping you’ll understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Klara didn’t think she was special,” the Bird Lady continued. “That was the problem. She was popular, she was pretty, but she wanted more.”
“Well, I think that’s a good thing,” Ava said. She was proud of Mama for not caring about superficial qualities.
“There’s something else,” the Bird Lady said. “That silly contest. The Academic Olympiad.” The Bird Lady pursed her lips. “Emily didn’t care whether she won or not. For Emily, art was about creation. About adding beauty to the world.”
Ava got a bad feeling in her stomach.
“And then there was Nate,” said the Bird
