Ava smiled uneasily.
“So, I decided to try a new tactic. Maybe if I helped other girls make their dreams come true, then girls would need me, admire me, like me.”
The Bird Lady told Ava about a girl named Gemma who loved to sing. The Bird Lady’s gift allowed her to see Gemma’s dreams: She longed to be a famous singer when she grew up. So, on her Wishing Day, Gemma planned to wish that at the upcoming audition for the school musical, she would sing as well as Judy Garland.
“Do you know who Judy Garland is?” the Bird Lady asked Ava. “She was Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.”
“My sisters and I watch that movie every Thanksgiving,” Ava said.
“Well, I thought Gemma was aiming too low—”
“Too low? Judy Garland is amazing!”
“And so I convinced her to wish, at her audition, to have the voice of an angel.”
The Bird Lady cut Ava a glance.
Ava opened her mouth, then shut it. Maybe an angel would have a better voice than Judy Garland.
“How did her audition go?”
“Gemma sang with the voice of an angel,” the Bird Lady said, throwing her hands out as if to say, What else? “Unfortunately, as it turned out, humans can’t hear angels, so Gemma’s performance was a bit of a . . . let’s just say misfire. There she was, singing her heart out . . .”
“And people heard nothing?” Ava said. She imagined a girl her age, singing and gesturing, her eyes shining. She imagined the other kids, whispering and giggling. The director of the musical, wearing an expression of pure confusion. “That poor girl!”
“There was the loveliest smell of lilacs, though,” the Bird Lady said. “I just love lilacs, don’t you?”
The Bird Lady told Ava another story, a story about a girl named Addie, who loved flowers. Her plants always died, however, so she was going to wish to be a good gardener. Instead, the Bird Lady urged her to wish for a green thumb.
“Let me guess,” Ava said wryly.
“Yes, she got a green thumb. Literally, a green thumb.” The Bird Lady tipped her head at Ava. “She got the gift of gardening, too, though.”
There were other incidents like this—the Bird Lady didn’t share all the details—and she told Ava that at long last, she had started thinking that she needed to scale down her help.
Ava suspected that the Bird Lady needed to stop offering “help” at all, but she kept her mouth shut.
“And that’s where Klara comes in,” the Bird Lady said. “Your mother, that is.”
“Yes. My mother.” Ava’s insides tightened.
“Klara’s plan was to wish to be beautiful,” the Bird Lady said.
“Beautiful?” Ava said, surprised. Her mother was beautiful. Was it because of her wish? “But you said earlier . . . I thought she wanted to be special!”
“And she equated ‘beautiful’ with ‘special,’” the Bird Lady said. “Falsely, I might add. At any rate, when I looked into Klara’s soul, I saw that what she really wanted was to impress a certain boy.”
Ava squeezed her hands into fists. Papa.
“Beauty is fleeting, however—not to mention that Klara was a lovely girl already. So, I went to her on her Wishing Day. I went to her at twelve a.m., the moment her Wishing Day began. I threw pebbles on her window. She pushed it open. We talked, and I . . . I made a teeny-tiny suggestion, a suggestion that wouldn’t turn Klara green or leave her unable to utter a sound. Truly, just a simple little suggestion.”
Ava’s guts clenched and released. For a moment, she feared she was going to throw up. “You told my mom to wish she’d won that contest thing instead of Emily?”
The Bird Lady sighed. “I did.”
“And you told her to make her wishes early instead of waiting for sunrise? Instead of waiting for Emily?!”
“I did, and I’m very sorry. I wish I hadn’t, and obviously I’ll—”
“Wait,” Ava said. “That means that you did this! The magic wasn’t punishing my mom. The magic was punishing you!”
“There’s no need to blow things out of proportion. Things are going to work out in the end,” the Bird Lady wheedled. “After all, you’re here!”
“But my mother! And Emily!”
“By the time we set things straight, it’ll be as if none of it ever happened.” The Bird Lady pleaded with Ava with her eyes. “I helped Natasha and Darya, didn’t I? I got us this far.”
Ava buzzed with angry adrenaline, but anger wouldn’t get her anywhere. Anyway, what the Bird Lady was suggesting, or almost-maybe-possibly suggesting, might be in line with what Ava already planned to do.
“I have to go back to the past and make sure you stay out of my mom’s business,” Ava stated.
“I think you do, yes.”
“Make sure you stay out of everybody’s business.” Her breath caught. “Except—crud. You’re meddling in my business right now!”
“Meddling . . . or clarifying?” asked the Bird Lady. She sounded tired. She sounded, for the first time, like the old lady she was. “I’ve thought about this for over twenty years, pet. And I’ve stayed out of other girls’ business in the meantime.”
Ava thought hard. She turned everything she knew around and around in her head. She had come up with this idea, not the Bird Lady. Knowing what the Bird Lady told her would help her, almost assuredly.
“And someone else will help you as well,” the Bird Lady said.
Ava stiffened. “I thought you said you no longer . . . Are you . . . are you looking into my soul?”
“No, pet. The soul of the world, perhaps. The soul of my mistakes? But not your soul, no.”
Ava was sucked into a memory—only it wasn’t a memory, because it was of something that hadn’t happened yet. She saw herself standing at the lake at City Park. She saw another girl standing beside her. She gasped.
“Tally?” she said to the Bird
