Darya’s jaw tightened.
Natasha pressed her fingers to her temples. “Ava, that’s a nonstarter.”
“A ‘nonstarter’?” Ava said. “I think it’s the opposite of a nonstarter. What happened to Emily started it all.”
“Mama needs to let go of Emily,” Darya said.
“How?” Ava asked. “Emily was Mama’s best friend.” She appealed to Natasha. “You understand. You’re the one who learned about Emily in the first place.”
Natasha shook her head. “Trust me, Ava, I’ve gone around and around about the Emily thing.”
“The Emily thing?!”
“But what do we really know? At the end of the day, all we have is Mama’s word.”
“So?” Ava said. “When you tell me something, I believe you. When you told me about Emily, I believed you. I still do!”
“Ava,” said Natasha, and there it was in her tone again. Little Ava, cute Ava, gullible Ava. The baby of the family, too young for grown-up problems. “What if Mama made Emily up? What if she invented her, like an imaginary friend?”
Tears pricked Ava’s eyes. Like an imaginary friend?! For heaven’s sake, Ava was thirteen, not three.
“I realize it’s confusing,” Natasha said gently. “But it’s a possibility we have to consider.”
“Not me. I know Emily was real.”
“Except you don’t!” Darya said.
Ava fought her frustration. Darya wasn’t pretty when she was exasperated. Her teeth looked too little, her lips too twitchy.
“According to Mama, Emily was Papa’s little sister,” Darya said. “So why doesn’t Papa have any recollection of her existence?” She narrowed her eyes. “Little sisters are generally hard to forget.”
“The Bird Lady said Emily existed,” Ava said stubbornly.
“The Bird Lady?” Darya exclaimed. “You think she’s a reliable source?”
“I thought you liked the Bird Lady!” said Ava.
Spots of red bloomed on Darya’s cheeks. “I do. I’m just . . . all I’m saying . . .” She clamped her twitching lips shut.
Ava considered what she knew about the Bird Lady, which wasn’t much. She was as old as a mountain and as wrinkled as a prune, and the reason everyone called her the Bird Lady was because wherever she went, birds followed. Sometimes they perched on her shoulder. Sometimes they nestled in the thick white tangle of her hair. If she was wearing a hat, they rode jauntily on its brim.
Ava didn’t know what the Bird Lady’s real name was, she realized.
Did anyone?
“The Bird Lady mentioned Emily to both of you around the time of your Wishing Days,” Ava said. Her eyes met Natasha’s first, and then Darya’s. “Are you sticking to that part of the story, or are you taking it back as well?”
“The Bird Lady did tell me about Emily,” Natasha admitted. “But I’m with Darya. I’m not sure how much we can trust her.”
“Why?”
Natasha stretched out her legs, and the willow’s fronds rustled, making the sun cast dancing shadows on her shins. Ava thought Natasha was going to dodge the question, but Natasha said, “I asked her to leave me alone, but she wouldn’t. She disguised herself as a school cafeteria lady to trick me into talking to her.”
“What?” Ava said.
“She stole one of the school’s serving spoons. She wore a fake mole.”
“A fake mole?” Ava echoed.
Darya snorted. “When she tracked me down, she was wearing an enormous sombrero with felt balls dangling from the rim.”
Fake moles, felt balls . . .
“But she said that Emily was real,” Ava insisted. “She said that to both of you.”
“What if she was lying?” Darya said. “Or fibbing. The Bird Lady is more of a fibber than a liar, I think.”
“Meaning what?”
Natasha drummed her fingers on her thigh. “She doled out information in half-truths,” she said, and Darya nodded. “She was . . . cagey. I always had the sense she was hiding something.”
“Me too!” said Darya. “At one point, I asked her flat out what she wasn’t telling me, but she clammed up and did one of her disappearing acts.”
“Her disappearing acts,” Natasha repeated wryly. “Another example of why she’s not the best source.” She cocked her head. “Darya, did you ever get the sense that she wanted to say more, but for some reason she couldn’t?”
Darya’s eyes shifted. She gnawed on her thumbnail.
“Did you get that sense, Natasha?” Ava asked. “You must have, or you wouldn’t have asked.” She knew she was onto something, because a new emotion charged the air. “You said ‘couldn’t.’ You said you got the feeling that the Bird Lady wanted to say more, but couldn’t. What would keep her from saying something she wanted to say?”
Natasha put her hand on her collarbone, a gesture Ava knew. It meant Natasha was nervous.
“Do you think she made a promise to someone?” Ava pressed. “And, like, she couldn’t break that person’s trust?”
Natasha shrugged.
Darya held herself still, looking fixedly at nothing.
“Omigosh,” Ava exclaimed. A pure white space opened inside of her, and she knew. She knew what her sisters thought, but weren’t allowing themselves to say. “You think someone put a curse on her!”
Neither Natasha nor Darya contradicted her. Neither even flinched at her use of what most would consider a “babyish” concept: a curse. And not a symbolic curse, but a literal one.
“If someone put a curse on her, that means magic was involved. If magic was involved, then it had to do with Mama and Emily!”
Natasha blushed.
“You’re making connections out of thin air,” Darya said. “Also? Curses only exist in fairy tales.”
“Riiiiight,” Ava said. “Whereas magic and wishes and Wishing Days, on the other hand . . .”
“What if the Bird Lady’s nuts?” Natasha said in a rush. “Not just kooky, but diagnostically crazy?”
Darya pursed her lips. “Like Papa’s mom’s mom? The one with the weird name?”
“Elnora,” said Natasha.
“Great-Grandma Elnora wasn’t crazy,” Ava said indignantly. “She was eccentric, and because of that, she and Grandma Rose had a rocky relationship. That’s what Papa said. Like, Great-Grandma Elnora never hid the fact that she believed in magic, and as we all know, Grandma Rose—”
Ava broke off. “Grandma Rose! Holy fudge nuggets!”
“What?” Darya said.
Ava raced to put her thoughts in order. Papa’s mother, Grandma Rose, lived in a nursing home. Grandma Rose was the only grandparent the girls had a relationship with, because Mama’s
