“G
et out of the road!”
Olivia looked up and realized she’d veered off of the sidewalk and into a bus lane, as a trio of angry mountain bikers zipped by, nearly tearing off one side of her wrinkled, dirty-hemmed dress.
She’d been walking for over an hour. The Palace was miles from her house, and she certainly wasn’t interested in breaking any records for speed. It was enough of a challenge to keep her feet moving at all, let alone think about where they were going or how fast.
After a bit of a delay and a chorus of curious murmurs as to Calla’s whereabouts, Lark had decided that the show must go on and had happily taken the reins. Olivia had passed off her thrift costume to Eve and scoured every corner of the Palace grounds, but Calla was nowhere to be found. Soren had hung around, trying to be helpful, comforting Olivia and telling her it would all be okay. But every second he was near her only made Olivia feel worse.
And so Olivia decided to walk home, back to the place where she couldn’t do any more harm. Or where, even if she did, nobody would be paying enough attention to notice.
She finally trudged around her corner, but standing in her gown at the foot of her stoop, Olivia knew she wasn’t ready to go inside. It wasn’t very late, and her parents would probably still be up. The last thing Olivia was prepared to do was to put on a good face.
She walked back out toward the street, turning at the corner and crossing over to Dolores Park. In the distance, on one of the low wooden benches lining the perimeter of the lawn, Violet was already waiting.
“How did it go?” Violet asked, blinking like she was afraid of the answer.
“How did it go?” Olivia repeated. She couldn’t hold the tears back any longer. They poured down her cheeks in endless sobs, her nose running and her cheeks red-hot. “How do you think it went? It was a disaster.”
She slumped on the bench next to her sister, expecting Violet to wrap an arm around her shaking shoulders. When she didn’t move, Olivia looked up to find her sister staring vacantly at the sidewalk.
“I told you so,” was all she said.
Olivia froze, a sob caught in her mouth. “
You told me so?
You’re the one who tricked me into wishing for Soren in the first place.”
“Of course I did,” Violet whispered. “Sometimes being alive means taking risks, and sometimes things can get messy, but—”
“Risks?” Olivia asked, screaming now, totally beyond
caring what she might look like to random, late-night passersby. “You want me to take
risks
? Like the risks you took? Like the reason you’re dead?” Olivia didn’t know why she said it, or where it came from, but the minute the question escaped her lips, she knew the words had been building inside her for a long time.
Violet looked back toward the gravel walkway. Her eyes were cloudy and her cheeks flushed red. She shrugged sadly and looked back up at her sister. “At least I
lived,
first.”
Olivia felt her body trembling with rage, her veins jumping, the blood rushing past her ears in hot, angry waves. “You’re impossible!” She held the hem of her dress in one hand and spun on her heels, walking quickly toward the curb. “I wish you’d just leave me alone.”
Olivia ran across the street, hurrying down the sidewalk.
It wasn’t until she reached her front door that she realized what she’d said.
T
he dress.
Olivia reached her stoop and looked down at her gown.
I wish you’d leave me alone.
What had she done?
She sprinted back up her street, cutting between a crowded row of parked cars and crossing toward the park.
The bench they’d been sitting on was lonely and deserted.
“Violet?” Olivia called out into the night. “Violet, come back!”
She whipped her head in one direction, then the other, scanning the dark, empty streets for her sister. “Violet!” she sobbed. “I didn’t mean it! I didn’t mean any of it.”
Olivia collapsed on the bench, her head falling into her hands. “Please come back,” she whispered into her fingers, tears soaking her palms.
And that was when she saw it.
At first it was just a light, a blurry glow between clenched fingers.
She let her hands fall to her lap and turned to the other side of the bench, the side where Violet had been sitting.
There, fluttering its wings precariously at the edge of the armrest, was a fragile, shining butterfly.
Olivia gasped, her hands again finding her face.
“Violet?” she asked quietly. “Please. Don’t go. Don’t leave me again.”
The golden butterfly flapped its wings once more, before lifting and gliding off into the night.
“H
oney, I think there’s somebody on our boat.”
Olivia’s eyes blinked open, a squeaky, high-pitched voice pulling her out of a deep and troubled sleep.
“What do you mean there’s somebody—”
Olivia, still in her gown from the night before, wrapped the itchy blue blanket around her shoulders and stumbled to her feet. Too upset to go home, too heartbroken to face her empty room, she’d decided to hail a cab to Sausalito and spend the night on her grandfather’s boat. She’d snuggled up under the shelter of the faded green awning and cried herself to sleep…completely forgetting that the boat now belonged to strangers. Strangers who were now standing across from her on the dock, seething in their tennis whites.
“This is private property,” the ambiguously British man scolded. Olivia swung one leg over the ledge at the stern, quickly reaching back for her discarded sandals and hopping up onto the swaying dock.
“Hey!” his wife called after her as Olivia took off running. “Get back here!”
Olivia ran harder than she’d known she could, her bare feet burning on the gritty pavement. She didn’t look back until she’d reached the main road, ducking inside a bait-and-tackle shop and peeking out from behind the door.
She flattened against the wall, a display of fishing lures flopping around her face, catching her breath until she was convinced she wasn’t being followed.
“Sorry,” she murmured to the befuddled shopkeeper, a salty old man in a black wool cap. “Do you think I could use your phone?”
Forty minutes and one silent cab ride later, Olivia was quietly letting herself in the front door of her house, hoping against all odds that her parents had chosen this morning as the first in their lives to sleep in.
“Where the hell have you been?”
No such luck.
The question came from Mac, who was rushing toward her with short, brusque steps, his face red and worn.
Over his shoulder, Bridget appeared in her bathrobe, her blond hair flattened to her face and her cheeks marked with drying tears.
“Sorry,” Olivia said, so softly she wondered if she’d even said anything at all.
“What were you thinking?” Mac continued. “You can’t just disappear. We’ve been up all night, calling anybody we could think of, trying to find out where you were.”
Bridget joined them in the hall, silent for once, and Mac turned to her abruptly, as if he’d forgotten she was there.
He put a sturdy arm around her shoulder and hugged her close.
It was the first time Olivia had seen her parents touch each other in months, and for reasons she couldn’t quite explain, it made her furious.
Who were these people? And who were they kidding? Her parents had hardly even said a word to her, let alone each other—unless it was four letters and screamed from behind a slamming door—in weeks, and now they were going to go through the whole worried-parent-tag-team routine?
Olivia rolled her eyes, exhaled a flop of tangled hair out of her face, and hugged the blanket closer to her shoulders, starting up the stairs.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Mac called after her. “We’re not done here.”
Olivia turned on her heels, her heart pounding.
“Done?” she shouted back. “Done with what? What are you doing? All of a sudden you’re
worried
about me? You want to know where I’ve
been
? Where the hell have
you
been?”
Mac and Bridget looked at each other, appearing to shrink back into themselves.
“You can’t just decide to be parents when it suits you,” Olivia said, before scampering up the two flights to her room, slamming the door behind her, and collapsing onto her bed.
A
fter changing out of her dress and shoes, Olivia stormed back downstairs, pulling the front door open and slamming it shut behind her.
She started down the street, not entirely sure where her feet were taking her, but too exhausted to second-guess. A few blocks of trance-walking later, she found herself under a familiar awning, peering in through cloudy windows at a small girl hunched over a sewing machine.
Olivia pushed through the doors, the metallic, ear-piercing chimes causing her to jump.
“Back so soon?” Posey greeted her without looking up.
Olivia walked slowly across the uneven floorboards, her eyes drifting from one expressionless mannequin to another. Suddenly, she recognized herself in their faces: blank, sullen, empty.
She sank into a heap on the ratty sofa without saying a word.
Posey switched off the machine, a thick silence hanging in the room. She spun around on her low swivel stool.
“What happened?” she asked. Olivia could tell by the hushed tone of her voice that she already knew it was bad.
“I need your help,” was all Olivia could manage, before falling apart into a now-comfortable rhythm of labored breathing and rocking sobs.
Posey sat beside her, not so close that their bodies were touching, but close enough so that Olivia could feel her gaze, wide with careful alarm.
Once Olivia had caught her breath, she started again. “I used my last wish for something terrible,” she said, “and I need you to help me take it back.”
Posey started to say something, but Olivia cut her off.
“I didn’t mean it,” Olivia said. “I said I wanted her gone, but I don’t. You have to believe me.”
“Your sister?” Posey asked quietly. “You wished your sister gone?”
Olivia looked at the floor and nodded.
“Why would you do that?” Posey asked, her eyes bright and concerned.
“I wasn’t thinking.” Olivia sighed. “But there has to be something you can do. I know I’m out of wishes, but—”
“Technically,” Posey interrupted, “you’re not.”
Olivia tugged on the sleeve of her faded cotton sweatshirt. “What does that mean,
technically
?”
Posey scratched the back of her head with one finger and turned her back to Olivia. “Well,” she said, “there’s good news and there’s bad news. Which do you want first?”
Olivia took a deep breath. “Good,” she said. “If I don’t hear some good news soon, I might not make it.”
Posey nodded. “Remember the dress you wore to the charity event? When you made your second wish?”
Olivia thought back. The gala. The Accidental Soren Wish. “Yes.” She nodded. “I wished for a guy to like me, but I didn’t—”
Posey licked the corners of her mouth. “Okay,” she drawled, “and do you remember if anything…happened…right after you made the wish?”
Olivia sighed. “Yes,” she said sadly. “A lot of things happened. The wish came true.”
Posey spun around and looked at Olivia long and hard, as if considering the features on her face for the first time.
“What?” Olivia asked impatiently.
“Interesting,” Posey said.
“Why is that interesting?” Olivia asked. “I made a wish. The wish came true. Isn’t that kind of how this works?”
“Sure,” Posey allowed, “when you’re wearing a magic dress.”
A narrow smile snaked across Posey’s lips.
“Wasn’t I?” Olivia asked quietly.
“Did you see a glowing butterfly come out of it?” Posey countered.
Olivia’s eyes stretched wide.
The butterfly.
She might have forgotten making a wish, but she definitely would have remembered a fluorescent bug flying around her ankles. “No,” she said slowly. “There wasn’t a butterfly that time.”
Posey lifted her dark, thin eyebrows and stared into Olivia’s eyes.
“So the dress wasn’t magic?” Olivia asked, the words
jumbling together and racing out of her mouth. “But why not? I mean, you made it, didn’t you?”
Posey’s smile vanished and she shrugged. “I made you a dress,” she said. “But it was only a dress. You broke a rule. You told your friend about the shop.”
Olivia sat sharply back. “But I didn’t tell her anything about
you
,” Olivia insisted.
“I know you didn’t,” Posey said, “which is why I only faked the dress that one time.”
“So last night’s dress was real?” Olivia asked, a heavy sadness returning to her voice.
“Afraid so,” Posey said.
“But,” Olivia said, beginning to work things out, “if the dress I wore at the museum wasn’t
really
magic, then that means I still have one dress left.”
Posey nodded.
“Exactly,” she said, the word hardly out of her mouth before Olivia had hopped up to her feet.
“This is perfect!” Olivia shouted. “I can wish for Violet back again!”
Posey sat quietly, her gaze shifting to the ground.
“What’s wrong?” Olivia asked.
“There’s still the bad news,” Posey said. “Remember the rules?”
Olivia closed her eyes, remembered that morning with Violet and the dusty diary.
“Sure,” Olivia said. “No telling anyone about the dresses, no wishing for world peace, no wishing for more wishes…”
Posey sat patiently and Olivia felt her face falling. They spoke at the same time:
“No wishing the same wish twice.”
“You already wished for Violet once,” Posey explained slowly. “I’m sorry.”
Olivia scanned Posey’s face, her small, doll-like features, as if searching for a clue.
“Wait,” Olivia gasped. “What about the wishing-from-the-heart thing? Wasn’t that a rule, too?”
“Yes.” Posey nodded uncertainly. “But—”
“But in my heart,” Olivia continued eagerly, “I never would have wanted Violet gone.”
Posey shrugged sadly. “I’m sorry, Olivia,” she said, “but in that moment, you did. Or else the wish wouldn’t have come true.”
Olivia’s eyes were frantic, her fingers trembling in her lap.
“Maybe,” she said quietly. “But I was so upset. And everything she was saying was just making me feel worse.”
Posey smiled, her eyes warm and sympathetic.
“Nobody knows how to push our buttons better than family.” She smiled.
Olivia sat back onto the couch, her eyes glazing over. She felt as if she’d been punched in the gut, her breathing choppy, her knees wobbling and falling in toward each other.
Posey stood and crossed the room to an old armoire. She opened the door and pulled out a garment bag, identical in shape and color to the others Olivia had received. She laid the bag gently over the back of the couch. “Here you go,” she said. “Your third and final dress.”
“I don’t want it,” Olivia mumbled under her breath.
“What’s that?” Posey asked.
“I’m sorry,” Olivia said. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful.
It’s just, if I can’t wish for Violet back, there’s nothing else worth wishing for.”
Posey shrugged. “Well, it’s up to you whether you use it or not,” she said, settling behind the desk, feeling for something in a low drawer. She pulled out the faded leather journal and opened it in her lap. “But the dress is yours. I said three dresses, and I keep my word.”
Olivia scooped the bag into her arms and started for the door.
“Olivia, wait,” Posey called out to her.
Olivia turned back as Posey ducked under the table, rummaging through a collection of shopping bags and holding one out for Olivia to grab.
“What’s this?” Olivia asked.
“Something else that belongs to you,” Posey replied mysteriously.
Olivia opened the bag and reached inside, catching a familiar handful of satiny fabric. The colorful kaleidoscope of Violet’s secondhand dress peeked up from between the bag’s rope handles, and Olivia’s breath caught in the back of her throat.
“I’m sorry I’ve kept it so long,” Posey said. “I didn’t know if you still wanted it mended or not.”
“That’s okay,” Olivia said, her fingers landing comfortably on the still-torn seam. “I like it the way it is.”
Posey smiled and nodded, settling back into her tattered armchair and taking the journal from the desk. She uncapped a pen and scribbled something on one of the worn yellow pages.
“Thanks, Posey,” Olivia said softly as she opened the door. “For everything.” She stepped out into the bright afternoon sunlight and headed for home.