“Well, if it does, that would feel pretty good. I would feel pretty good.”
“As you should! I don’t know what I was thinking!” She thumped her forehead with the heel of her palm. “Except I don’t think that, and I won’t.”
“My mom didn’t make her Wishing Day wishes,” Emily mused.
“And did it hurt her? No.”
“I’m not sure that’s true. If she had made her wishes, maybe she’d believe in magic. If she believed in magic . . .”
Klara caught on. “Oh. Maybe she’d understand you better.” She frowned. “So . . . ?”
“I think my mom feels safer in a world without magic. I think it made her world flatter, though. All her life, she’s done her best to scrub her life clean of surprise, but where has that gotten her?”
Klara didn’t answer.
“If we don’t make our wishes—or if you don’t, Klara, because I’m going to no matter what . . .” Emily studied her friend. “You’d never choose to give up your eyesight, would you? Or your hearing, or your sense of smell?”
“All right, all right. I hear what you’re saying. I’ll . . . I’ll make my wishes. I’ll make the exact wishes I’ve been planning on making, and I won’t change them at all.”
Emily made a face.
“What?”
“You’re forgetting about Ava,” said Emily.
“What about her?”
“She’s here with you—with us—because she wished to be. She used her Wishing Day wishes on us. That’s pretty cool.”
Klara blushed. “I guess it is. I hadn’t thought of it that way.” She gave a tremulous smile. “She said impossible situations call for impossible solutions.”
Emily saw pride in Klara’s eyes, and for an instant, she could see the wonderful mother Klara would one day be.
“But Ava needs to get back to her own present, doesn’t she? So, you might need to revise your wishes after all,” Emily said. “I’m not telling you what to wish for. I don’t have a clue about any of this, believe me.” She chose her words carefully. “Just, if our wishes are supposed to come from a pure place, an honest place . . .”
Emily saw a glimpse of another time, another possible outcome. The magic that might have taken Emily and erased her . . . Emily caught just the flickering reflection of yet another truth, one that cut her to the core. Her mother already didn’t see her, not really. After years and years of living unseen, might Emily have disappeared regardless? Might the magic be telling Emily to see this truth clearly now?
“Things are different than they were yesterday,” she said. “We know things that we didn’t know before, and we can’t unknow them.”
“Changing what I wish for because I choose to is different from letting the Bird Lady convince me to,” Klara said. “I get it.”
“There’s more,” Emily said, and her heart almost cracked as she shared her revelation with Klara. When she made her request, Klara shook her head vehemently.
“No!” she protested. “How is that different from . . . you know?!”
“Because it is.”
A tear squeezed from Klara’s eye. Then another. Her chin wobbled, and she took a ragged breath. She glanced away from Emily, which told Emily that Klara would honor her request. This small good-bye was a preview of what was to come.
They talked about how to proceed. Klara wondered aloud if she should spend the night at Emily’s to avoid the Bird Lady, or if the Bird Lady would find her at Emily’s just as easily?
“And what am I supposed to say to her if she does find me?” Klara said. “Everything feels precarious.”
“Everything is precarious,” Emily said. “I don’t think you should interact with the Bird Lady at all. You or me. We’ll ignore her if she tries to talk to us.”
At first, Klara agreed. But then she changed her tune. She told Emily that they couldn’t just avoid the Bird Lady, as much as they might want to.
“I don’t understand,” Emily said. “Are you saying this, or Ava?”
“Ava—but she’s right.”
Emily arched her eyebrows.
“We can’t avoid the Bird Lady because of all the other girls,” Klara said hollowly. “The girls to come.” She wrapped her arms around her ribs. “We have to tell her to stop messing around with other people’s wishes.”
“After school, then,” Emily said reluctantly. “We’ll get it over with, and we’ll still have time to spare.”
“Not much,” Klara said.
“No. But enough.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Ava
Ava was disappointed to find that going through a school day with Klara was almost as tedious as going through a school day on her own, except for the assembly in which the principal announced the winner of the Academic Olympiad.
“Let’s hear it for Emily Blok!” he heralded, launching a loud, long roar of applause. When Emily returned to her seat beside Klara, Klara gave her a fierce hug. She was happy for Emily. Ava felt that happiness in every one of Klara’s cells.
Emily’s mother, who had been invited to the school for the assembly, sought Emily out after the students were dismissed. Ava, through Klara’s eyes, saw a small, prim woman whose eyes darted back and forth. Ava saw a small, prim woman who one day would be her grandma Rose, who one day would be small and prim in the care center where Future Ava would go to visit her.
Emily’s mother, who one day would be Grandma Rose, hugged Emily and loudly exclaimed how proud she was of her. Then, lowering her voice, “For heaven’s sake, why didn’t you wear that nice blouse I ironed for you this morning?”
Emily’s expression went from happy and open to wary and cautious. Ava wanted to hug Emily now, hug her for real, the way Klara had. “Mom, kids don’t really wear . . .” She blinked. “That blouse is too fancy for school.”
“But you won an award! You were called to the front of the entire auditorium!”
“Because of the contest, Mom. Not because of how I dress.”
Her mother made a sound of exasperation. “It was your chance to shine. I don’t understand you, Emily. I really don’t.”
The principal came over and clapped Emily on the back. He held out his hand to shake Emily’s mother’s
