Darya snapped her fingers in front of Ava’s face. “Ava. Why the holy fudge nuggets?”
“Because Grandma Rose, who is Great-Grandma Elnora’s daughter, believes in Emily,” Ava marveled. “Want to know how I know? Because she called me Emily once!”
Natasha crinkled her forehead.
“And you can’t write off Grandma Rose as being kooky or nuts or eccentric, at least not in the ‘believing in magic and curses and stuff’ way,” Ava said, her words tumbling over one another. “Grandma Rose rejects all of that stuff. Think about it: What’s Papa’s one rule for when we visit her?”
“That we don’t bring up magic,” Darya said grudgingly.
“Because she’s not a believer,” Natasha added.
Ava’s pulse fluttered. “But she called me Emily. At the nursing home, Grandma Rose called me Emily.”
“When?” asked Natasha.
“The last time we visited. We’d taken her to the common area for bingo, remember? She had that yellow blanket over her lap, because she always got so cold.” Ava saw the scene in her mind, Papa standing behind Grandma Rose in her wheelchair while Ava and her sisters perched on folding chairs on either side of her. Ava could practically smell the nursing home’s distinct scent, a cloying mix of dying flowers and cleaning products.
Natasha tapped her lower lip. “The prize cart.”
“Yes, the prize cart,” Ava said. “That’s the only reason she wanted to go.”
“Grandma Rose does love that prize cart,” Darya said.
It was nothing but a metal cart on wheels, the sort librarians used when reshelving books. After each round of bingo, an aide wheeled the cart to the elderly winner, who got to choose from a variety of inexpensive prizes: costume jewelry, bookmarks, little packets of tissues. Sometimes bananas, although what kind of bingo prize was a banana?
“I pretended to sprinkle winning-number fairy dust over her bingo cards,” Ava said with a frown. “That’s seriously all I did.”
“Omigosh, yes,” Natasha said. “And Grandma Rose sucked in her breath so hard that I thought she was choking.”
“She said, ‘Emily, no,’ and slapped my hand,” Ava said. The slap had stung, but more than that, it had hurt Ava’s feelings. It had made her feel like Grandma Rose was a stranger.
“She started, like, rocking in her wheelchair,” Natasha said. She moved back and forth, mimicking Grandma Rose. “She picked at her blanket, practically tearing it to pieces—”
“And that bossy aide demanded to know what we’d done to distress her,” Darya said. Her expression confirmed that she remembered too. “The aide with the huge glasses and big hair, who always smells like onions.”
Ava nodded.
“She told us we should leave, because clearly we’d overexcited her,” Darya continued. “I was like, ‘Where do you get off, acting like you know what’s better for our grandmother than we do?’”
“We did leave, though,” mused Natasha.
“And we haven’t been back since,” said Darya. She frowned. “That’s really sad.”
It was sad, Ava thought. Maybe, after her Wishing Day, she’d ask Papa to take them to visit her.
“But it was the fairy dust that upset her,” Ava said. Goose bumps rose over her arms. “Because, you know . . . magic.”
Her sisters didn’t respond for several seconds. Then Natasha cleared her throat and said, “Aunt Elena is trying to make Mama go see Papa.”
“You’re changing the subject,” Ava said.
“She agrees that it’s ridiculous how Mama keeps living in denial,” Natasha persevered.
“Only I think we’re all living in denial,” Ava said. She slid her hands under her thighs, determined not to fidget. “But once we find out the truth about Emily, there won’t be anything left to deny.”
“Ava . . . ,” said Natasha.
Ava’s breath caught. “No. Don’t say my name like that.”
“I do want our family to be a family again, Mama included,” Natasha said.
“Yes! Good!”
“And maybe you’re right about Mama. Maybe, until she finds out what happened to Emily, she won’t be able to come back to us for real.”
“Yes! Which is why—”
“But if, once upon a time, there was an Emily, there isn’t an Emily now,” Natasha concluded. She maintained eye contact for barely a moment before looking away. She rose to her feet and brushed the dirt from her jeans. “I’ve got to go. I’m meeting Stanley at Rocky’s Diner.”
A lump formed in Ava’s throat. “Meeting your boyfriend is more important than this?”
Natasha studied Ava with an expression Ava couldn’t interpret. “Ava, I’m going to ask you a question that you’re not going to like.”
“Fantastic. That sounds awesome.”
Natasha continued to look at her, and Ava felt a jolt of recognition. Pity. Natasha was looking at her with pity.
“Omigosh,” Ava said. “Just ask.”
Natasha squatted so that she was at Ava’s eye level. She propped her elbows on her knees and stacked her forearms. One small nudge from Ava, and over Natasha would go.
“You think you’re the only one who can solve our family’s problems,” Natasha stated. “I understand why you feel that way. I love you for feeling that way.”
Ava waited.
“The thing is,” Natasha continued, “are they actually your problems to solve?”
Ava almost laughed. This was Natasha’s big question? The absurdity of it, combined with Natasha’s earnestness, made it tempting to tease her sister. Maybe she’d poke Natasha after all, just to see her topple over.
“Um, yeah, they are my problems to solve,” she said, trying to keep a duh inflection from her tone.
Her reasoning was simple. On the third day of the third month after a girl’s thirteenth birthday, every girl in Willow Hill got to make three wishes: an impossible wish, a wish she could make come true herself, and the deepest wish of her most secret heart.
Natasha had made her wishes.
Darya had made her wishes.
Ava was the only sister with wishes left to use, as Natasha well knew. If Ava didn’t fix things, who would?
“You don’t understand what I’m saying,” Natasha said. “What I mean is,
