“Of Slaughterhouse-Five?” Emily said.
Slaughterhouse-Five was brilliant. Klara and Emily both thought so. But for the Bird Lady to take it out of Klara’s hands . . .
Emily was fine with weird. But Emily wouldn’t take a book out of a random person’s hands.
Klara sat up, dug through her backpack, and lay back down with the battered paperback. She flipped to the middle and handed it to Emily. “She pretended to read straight from the book, but when I went back and checked, she’d . . . paraphrased, more like.”
Emily scanned the page. “The bit about time? Is that what she read—or kind of read?”
Klara nodded. “The part about how time is like a fly trapped in amber. How we see each moment in time as if it’s frozen, and that every moment has always occurred and always will occur.”
Emily read aloud: “‘All time is all time, it does not change or lend itself to explanations—it simply is.’”
“Yeah.”
“And she wanted to share that with you?” Emily asked. “Did she say why?”
“She did not.”
“Did it have to do with your Wishing Day?”
“Probably, wouldn’t you think?”
Emily shifted as a honeybee buzzed lazily past. She followed it with her eyes, thinking that the honeybee wasn’t trapped in amber, obviously. Emily wished she understood the Kurt Vonnegut quote. It sounded cool. What did it mean, though?
“Did it freak you out?” Emily asked.
“That’s the craziest part. It didn’t,” Klara said. “At least, not when it happened. But the more I think about it . . .” She exhaled. “Who knows? Maybe she’s nuts. Maybe she honestly just wanted to remind me not to make my wishes lightly.”
“A public service announcement,” said Emily.
Klara half laughed. “Sure. Yeah.”
Emily looked at Klara, and Klara held her gaze, open and unguarded. There were so many colors in Klara’s eyes. Not just brown, but brown flecked with gold, green, and even pinpricks of dusty rose.
“What are you going to wish for?” Emily asked. “If you want to talk about it, that is.”
“I do, if you do. Unless you think it’s illegal or something.”
“Wishing Day Jail? That would not be good.” Emily hesitated. “But Klara, don’t ask me. You’re the expert on all this.”
“I’m no expert.”
“Your family, then. My mom didn’t even make her Wishing Day wishes.” She considered that for a moment. “I bet she thinks it’s illegal.”
“I think we should make our wishes together,” Klara said, animated. She pushed herself into a sitting position. “Like . . . at sunrise, at the ancient willow tree at the top of Willow Hill.”
Emily sat up. She envisioned herself and Klara side by side, bathed in the hues of the rising sun. Emily loved sunrises. She was obsessed with catching them in a sketch one day, but their wealth of colors made it a challenge: pink, tangerine, the milky haze of lavender, as well as a yellow-blue color sometimes referred to in art books as the “forbidden color.”
Normally, yellow mixed with blue became green: kindergarten finger-painting science at its finest. But during sunrise, the light frequencies of yellow and blue didn’t cancel each other out. Rather, they flooded into each other, creating an ethereal color that didn’t have a name.
“The top of Willow Hill at sunrise,” Emily said. “Okay, let’s do a practice run. You first.”
“Here, or Willow Hill?”
“Here. Our wishes, that’s all.”
Klara lifted one eyebrow.
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” Emily said.
“Naughty girl,” Klara teased.
“Thought I was practically perfect.”
“Who says you can’t be both?”
Emily grinned.
Klara lifted her hair and dropped it over her shoulders. “Well, for my impossible wish—and no laughing—I’m thinking . . . maybe . . . of wishing to be beautiful.” She said the last bit in a rush, and her cheeks reddened.
Emily’s reaction surprised herself. It surprised Klara, too. Emily could sense it.
“You’re mad,” Klara said.
“What? No, Klara, I’m not—” Emily broke off. “Why would I be mad?”
“You disapprove, then. Why?”
Emily wasn’t sure. There was nothing wrong with beauty. Just, for Klara to use a wish to change her appearance . . . Klara, who began their friendship with a heartfelt pledge not to be superficial . . .
It seemed very un-Klara-like.
Then Emily saw it, the real motive behind Klara’s wish.
Klara wants to be beautiful for Nate, Emily gleaned.
Emily considered telling Klara that Nate already liked her, that he’d keep liking her, and that anyway, he thought she was beautiful already. Only she couldn’t, not without explaining her whole . . . gift thing.
“Wish for whatever you want,” Emily ended up saying. “I mean, you already are beautiful, but Klara, it’s your wish. Whatever you want is what I want for you.” She pretended to be stern. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Klara said, relaxing. “Thank you for not making fun of me.”
“I would never!”
“I know, which brings me to—drumroll, please—my second wish, the wish I can make come true myself. I’m going to wish to stay best friends with you forever.”
Emily melted. “Klara!”
“And for the deepest wish of my secret heart?” Klara said. She grew solemn. “I’ve thought about this a lot. It might not make sense, exactly . . . but what part of this does, right?”
Emily waited.
“The deepest wish of my secret heart is that magic is real,” Klara said. Her eyes were luminous. “Because if it is, and my wishes come true, my life will be pretty much perfect.”
Because of Nate, Emily thought, pierced by a stab of jealousy. She shook herself. No, because of Nate and because of me, she corrected herself. She reminded herself of another kindergarten lesson: Love was not a cup of sugar, and love didn’t run out. There was always enough to go around.
“I don’t need much,” Klara continued. “I want to grow up and get married and have a family. Maybe have three daughters, just like my mom. Maybe that sounds boring and predictable, but that’s what I want. I want to be a good mom and a good wife and a good friend . . .”
Klara’s voice hitched, and Emily’s heart skipped a beat.
“Klara,” she said. “Hey. Hey. There’s nothing wrong with any of that. Do you think I’m going to judge you? I’m not!”
“You might. You could. I wouldn’t blame you if you
