The Bird Lady eyed them.
“If we’re going to be your friends, shouldn’t we know?” Klara pressed.
The Bird Lady cocked her head from side to side. She stilled herself and swallowed. “It’s Grace,” she said with dignity.
“Grace,” said Klara.
“It’s beautiful,” said Emily. “Bye, Grace.”
“Bye, Grace,” Klara echoed. “We’ll see you soon. I promise.”
Klara and Emily turned to leave.
“Wait!” cried the Bird Lady—or rather, Grace. “Wait please, darlings. Just for a moment?”
Klara and Emily shared a glance. They turned around.
“I do have one piece of advice for each of you, but it’s not meddling, I promise.” She looked at Emily and said, “Emily, be your own girl.” She looked at Klara. “Klara, be your own girl.”
“We will,” said Emily and Klara together.
I wish for a happy ending.
—NATASHA BLOK, AGE FOURTEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Emily, Age Thirteen
At sunrise the next morning, at the old willow tree on top of the hill the town was named for, Emily flung her arms around Klara and hugged her tight.
“It’s not good-bye,” she said. “It’s see you soon. Right?” She laughed a tear-clogged laugh and took a step back. They held on to each other, each girl’s hands on the other girl’s shoulders.
“Absolutely,” Klara said shakily.
“You’re still worried.”
“Well, yeah. I mean, we’re making all of this up as we go along, when people’s lives are at stake. Like Ava’s.”
“It is what it is,” Emily said.
“I know, but . . . I keep thinking about how much courage it took, what she did. She’s thirteen, the same as us. Can you imagine doing what she did? Leaping into such a huge unknown?”
Emily almost could. After all, she hoped she’d be leaping into the unknown herself.
“She did it for you,” Emily said.
“She did it for us,” Klara said. Then, softer, “Thank you, Ava.”
“Yes,” Emily said. “Thank you, Ava.” She looked deeply into Klara’s eyes, blocking out everything else. No filters, no posturing, no shying away from the terrifying question of what it meant to be alive in this world. She lost herself in Klara’s dark pupils, stepping purposefully into the abyss. Ava? Ava, are you there?
A shimmer. That was all, and that was enough. Emily put her hand to her mouth, reeling from the wondrous bigness of it.
Klara squeezed Emily’s shoulders and let go. “Okay,” she said shakily. “You first.”
Emily lifted her chin. There was magic in the air, most definitely. In a voice as clear as a bell, she spoke.
“For my impossible wish, I wish to have a better relationship with my mother. For the wish I can make come true myself, I wish to stay best friends with Klara forever.” Her voice tried to escape her, but she didn’t let it. “And for the deepest wish of my secret heart . . .” She trailed off and spoke the last bit from her heart. (((((Daddy.))))
She blinked at Klara, light-headed.
“Good job,” Klara said. “You did it.”
I did, didn’t I? Emily thought. She said, “Thanks. It’s your turn now.”
“I’m going to go all the way to the willow,” Klara said. “Will you come with me?”
“Of course.” Emily ducked under the willow’s graceful canopy and held up a section of fronds. Klara joined her, and they stood side-by-side by the willow’s great trunk. The willow had been alive long before either of them had been born and would be alive long after they were gone.
The early morning sun cut through the branches, dappling Emily and Klara with spots of impossible colors that, nonetheless, were possible. Emily stretched out her arms, her soul soaring. She lifted her face, stretched her arms wide, and soaked it in.
“Well . . . ,” Klara said.
Emily’s heart beat faster. She knew in general what Klara would be wishing for, but not the exact specifics.
A breeze made the branches sway, and Klara placed her hand on the willow’s trunk. Now the breeze whipped through the branches, and Klara’s hair blew crazily about her head. Emily’s hair was tossed and tangled, too. The air prickled with what felt like electricity, but Emily suspected it was a force far wilder.
“Um, I’m going to close my eyes,” Klara said. “I have to, because I can’t watch. But you can do whatever you want.”
“Got it,” Emily said, moved by the tears Klara wiped away.
Klara scrunched her eyes ferociously. “First, my impossible wish. I wish for impossible things to become possible, every so often.”
Emily smiled, because yes, Klara had gotten it just right. Wasn’t that what Ava had told Klara, that impossible situations call for impossible solutions?
“My second wish is the wish I can make true myself,” Klara said shakily. “I wish that Emily and I grow up to be good mothers, and that our daughters grow up to be good mothers, and that their daughters grow up to be good mothers.”
As Klara spoke, Emily felt a change in the air pressure, as if there was a ripple in the atmosphere. She was hit by a flood of images, and she knew she was seeing in her mind what Klara was seeing in hers.
A girl, probably thirteen years old, coughing and spluttering as she emerged from a lake.
Beside her was the Bird Lady. Grace! She looked the same as she had when Emily saw her yesterday, save for her outfit. In the vision in Emily’s head (was it a vision of the future? It felt like a vision of the future), Grace wore a sequined pantsuit. Wow.
“There, there,” Emily heard her say, patting the drenched girl’s back.
“Hey! Gentle!” someone else said. It was a girl with long, dark hair like Klara’s. She was older than Klara and Emily. Did Klara, in the future, have three daughters, just as she’d hoped? Was this Klara’s oldest daughter?
The older girl stood chest-deep in the water with Grace. Beside her were two other girls, one of whom said, “She’s fine, Natasha. You’re fine, Ava. Right?”
This girl laughed and did a victory dance in the water, her curly auburn hair gleaming in the light
