This was not part of the plan, either.
Posey stared up at Olivia, her narrow yellow-specked eyes blinking furiously. Her thin, pale lips were still pursed, the memory of a whistle between them, when suddenly they
parted, and a wide, toothy grin divided her face. “All right,” she said.
Olivia stared at her. “All right?”
Posey nodded. “I guess there are some things I could tell you,” she said. “Like, for starters, I was just messing with you about the monarchs.”
Violet chuckled from over Olivia’s shoulder.
Posey gestured to a chair in the corner, piled high with thumbed-through pattern books. “Have a seat,” she offered. “You can put those anywhere.”
“I’m okay,” Olivia insisted, planting herself firmly on two feet.
Posey gave her a look and shrugged.
“Okay,” she began, “but you’re probably going to want to sit down for this.”
“A
ny questions?”
Olivia sat tall in a straight-backed wooden chair, her hands poised lightly on her kneecaps, her eyes trained on the foggy storefront window. The neighborhood was waking up around them, already teeming with morning errand-runners and the trendy Sunday brunch set. Everybody—hipsters; stroller-pushing young moms; grumpy, haggling homeless men—seemed to walk past the shop without even seeing it.
Olivia wondered, not for the first time that day, if she was dreaming.
After all, Posey, who was curled into a ball on the couch, using her small, nimble hands for emphasis, had just finished explaining to Olivia that she—Posey, Mariposa of the Mission—was magic.
A magical seamstress.
And now the magical seamstress, maker of magical dresses, weaver of mystical fabric that spat out glowing butterflies,
granting a single wish to its wearer, wondered if Olivia had any
questions.
Violet was crouched over the kiddie desk by the door, leaning forward on her elbows. Olivia stole a glance in her sister’s direction and saw that, for the first memorable time in the history of their lives, Violet was speechless.
Olivia felt a laugh escaping, a sort of guttural reaction to the complete absurdity of the situation. But it had been so long since she’d made a sound, or even swallowed, that a low gurgle caught in the back of her throat, eventually working its way up to a powerful cough.
“Would you like some tea?” Posey asked, making as though to stand.
“No!” Olivia said, and then realized that she was yelling. “Sorry, no. I’m fine, thanks.”
“Okay.” Posey nodded. “Look, I know it sounds crazy. And I don’t really have any explanation for it. My grandmother didn’t, either. It’s just something we’ve always been able to do. Sometimes, some people, we just
know
when we see them. That we have to help.”
“So you knew,” Olivia said, whispering now. “When I came in with the dress?”
Posey shook her head, her short, crooked bangs falling down over her eyes. “I knew before you walked into the shop.”
“
What does that mean?” Violet asked, looking up from the tiny desk, her head cocked to one side.
And then, as if in direct response to a question Violet hadn’t asked—because Violet technically wasn’t there—Posey continued:
“It means I’ve seen her around. I knew before she ever came inside.”
Posey looked directly at Olivia as she spoke, and Violet hopped up from the desk. “Can she hear me?” Violet whispered.
Olivia looked back at Posey. “Can you…” Olivia started carefully. “Who were you talking to, just then?”
Posey spread her sticklike legs out in front of her on the couch. She was wearing old, faded jeans that fell short of her ankles, but not in an intentionally stylish way. More like they were old favorites she couldn’t bear to throw out.
“Your sister,” Posey said flatly. “She’s here, isn’t she?”
Olivia looked from Violet to Posey, Posey to Violet. “But you can’t—”
“I can’t see her, no,” Posey said, pointing and flexing first one foot, then the other. “
I
didn’t wish for her, did I?”
“But how did you know that I did?” Olivia asked.
Posey threw up her hands. “Your sister dies. You have a magical, wish-granting dress,” she said, laying out the ingredients. “What else are you going to wish for?”
“But you didn’t know it was magic,” Violet prompted Olivia from the corner.
“Yeah,” Olivia agreed. “I didn’t know it was magic when I made the wish.”
“So?” Posey asked.
“So how could you know that I
accidentally
wished for Violet back?”
“You mean, other than the fact that you’ve been taking cues from the corner of the room since you got here?”
Violet and Olivia looked at each other, before Olivia hurriedly looked away.
“Regardless,” Posey continued, swinging her legs down and walking slowly to the other side of the room. “There are some things we need to talk about.”
“Okay,” Olivia said, following Posey behind the hanging quilt in the corner. “Like what?”
“Like rules,” Posey said, crouching down and opening a hidden, rounded door. Cool, damp air rushed out, encircling Olivia’s feet, as Posey reached into what appeared to be a neglected crawl space. She fumbled around with one arm before pulling out a heavy, leather-bound notebook and plopping it onto the floor.
Olivia knelt beside Posey to get a closer look. Loose, yellowing pages shuffled out from one side, and a cloud of dust escaped in a
poof
around their faces.
“Hold on,” Violet, who was standing over Olivia’s shoulder, interrupted. “Does Harry Potter know she stole his diary?”
“Sorry about the dust,” Posey said, squinting and waving her hand through floating particles. “I haven’t opened this since, well since my
abuela
died, I guess.”
Olivia nodded and shifted her weight forward. The aged brown leather was embossed with the initials
M.M.
in shiny gold print. Posey flipped open the cover, which was slowly pulling away from the thick, frayed binding, and carefully turned through the pages.
“This is just the record book,” Posey said, running her finger down a list of names, scrawled in the same elegant script. “I need to sign you in.”
Olivia looked up at Violet.
“Maybe she wants to send thank-you notes?” Violet offered.
Olivia rolled her eyes. “So.” She turned back to Posey. “The rules?”
“Right,” Posey said. “Rules. There are only a few, but they’re important. Especially the first one.” Posey found a pen from behind her ear and began filling in the date on the next available empty line. “The first rule of Wish Club,” she was saying, “is that you do not talk about Wish Club.”
Olivia nodded as Violet rolled her eyes.
“Wish Club?” Violet droned. “Unless Brad Pitt is hiding in that closet somewhere, I don’t think a
Fight Club
reference is all that appropriate.”
Olivia was close to laughing when she felt Posey’s eyes, hard and severe, boring holes into the crown of her head.
“Okay.” Olivia nodded. “Got it. Next?”
Posey snapped the pen into the binding of the open book. “The second rule of Wish Club,” she went on, “is that you DO. NOT. TALK. About Wish Club.”
She stared unblinking into Olivia’s eyes, as Olivia began fiddling with her fingernails.
“Um…” She spoke tentatively. “Okay?”
“Seriously,” Posey went on. “I know it’s hard, but you can’t tell a soul. Not about the dresses, not about the butterflies, definitely not about the wishes. Not even about me or this shop.”
“Sounds like a pretty successful business model,” Violet snorted. She was now wandering around the shop, glancing at a series of framed articles featuring photos of a much younger Posey and a large, gray-haired woman draped in a muumuu.
“I don’t need the business,” Posey said sternly.
Olivia could feel Violet taking a step back from the frames, as if she’d set off an alarm.
“All that matters to me is that I help people who need helping,” Posey explained. “And if you go running to all of the Bay Area with this, I won’t be able to do that.”
Olivia nodded.
“It’s important that your sister understands that one, too,” Posey said.
Olivia looked back to where Violet was standing in front of one of the mannequins, inspecting its hard, angular face. Olivia threw her a look.
“Aye, aye,” Violet said, saluting the frozen bust.
“I think we’re good,” Olivia reported back.
Posey indicated a line on the notebook and passed Olivia the pen.
“The rest of the rules are pretty straightforward,” Posey continued, scratching a scabby bug bite near her wrist. “Every time I make you a dress, you get to make a wish. Three dresses, three wishes. You’ve already used one, so that leaves two.”
“Why only three?” Olivia asked quickly, before flushing red. “Not that three’s not enough. Just, you know, curious.”
Posey shrugged, grabbed the edge of a low, wobbly table, and hoisted herself up to her feet. Olivia didn’t get it; Posey looked and sounded like she was around her age, but the way she carried herself from place to place, her fragile bones and careful waddle, made her seem ancient.
“It’s a magic number?” she offered, pulling her argyle sweater—itchy looking, and with a big hole at the collar—down over her nonexistent hips. “I really have no idea. Do you mind if we keep this moving? I have an alteration at ten.”
Violet chortled from her perch by the window. “Shouldn’t there be elves for that kind of thing?”
Olivia groaned. “Would you please shut it?”
Posey started, nearly dropping the crowded daybook she’d been consulting at her desk.
“Not you,” Olivia assured her. “Sorry. Go on.”
Posey looked up from her planner to quickly run through the rest of the rules:
Wishes will only be granted when the wisher is wearing a magical Mariposa dress.
No wishing for ridiculously unattainable and universal things, like world peace or an end to hunger and poverty.
No wishing the same thing twice.
No wishing for more wishes.
Olivia signed her name and Posey snapped the book shut.
“That’s it,” Posey announced. “Anything else is fair game.”
Olivia crawled to her feet and joined Violet, already hovering at the door. “Wow,” Olivia said uncertainly. “I don’t even know what to—I mean, I’ve never really—”
“Don’t mention it,” Posey said, settling in behind her sewing machine. “Oh, there’s one more rule. Whatever you wish, wish carefully, and make sure it comes from your heart. Those are the only wishes that count.”
“A
t the end of the road, turn left.”
The persistent GPS narrator blinked from Violet’s lap.
“There,” Violet shouted in a mock-British accent, imitating the recording and pointing toward the on-ramp. “I believe he means right there.”
It had been a full day of firsts for Olivia. Her first time seeing a ghost. Her first time
talking
to a ghost. Her first time believing in wishes and magical dresses…
And now, her first time driving across the Golden Gate Bridge.
When they’d gotten back to the house from Posey’s shop, Violet had convinced Olivia that they absolutely
had to
spend the afternoon driving around the city and finding out exactly what Violet, in her reincarnated but bossy-as-ever form, could and could not do. Bridget was at work, and Mac was napping on the living room couch, CNN news tickers flashing against his sturdy, sleepy frame. The keys to the loaner BMW were on the counter. Technically, Olivia wasn’t yet on the rental insurance, but Violet wasn’t interested in technicalities.
They’d spent the afternoon getting lost in the peaks and valleys of North Beach, Russian Hill, and the Marina, window-shopping—where they’d learned that even though Violet was solid to Olivia’s touch, she passed through everything else like ether. Much to Violet’s dismay, this made shoplifting a basket of Kiehl’s products or sipping a bowl of chai heartbreakingly impossible.
After a few rounds of their new favorite game, which involved Violet standing in the middle of the sidewalk as complete strangers walked directly
through
her body, Violet decided it was time for a road trip.
Enter Sir Hamish, as Violet had immediately christened the electronic device. She had programmed a secret destination into the boxy neon screen and was repeating affected commands as Olivia struggled to keep up.
“Where are we going?” Olivia asked, screeching to a stop at the crest of a hill.
“There it is!” Violet squealed, pointing through the windshield at the famous bridge, rising red and regal above the fog. “I can’t believe we
live
here,” she said, for the umpteenth time that day.
“I can’t believe Mom
grew up
here,” Olivia added. It still hadn’t sunk in that all of the sights and sounds Olivia was experiencing for the first time every day had been the backdrop and sound track to her mother’s youth.
Olivia followed Hamish and Violet’s instructions and soon realized they weren’t just admiring the bridge, they were crossing it.
“Man.” Violet sighed, stretching out the window for a better look at the turquoise water, streaked with boats and
dotted with little green islands. Olivia tried to sneak a peek but was anxiously gripping the steering wheel, trying not to think about the massive red suspension beams hanging high above or the choppy water far below.
Olivia finally exhaled as they bumped back over the grating and onto smooth pavement, the lush hills of the Marin Headlands ushering them through a mountain tunnel and into the quaint harbor town of Sausalito.
Bridget hardly ever talked about growing up in Sausalito, and the one time the Larsen family had visited the West Coast, when the girls were seven, they hadn’t even seen her old house. Both of her parents—Grandma Sybil and Grandpa Joe—had already died by then, and the only somewhat nostalgic stop Bridget had made was to see her father’s boat, a snazzy sporting yacht still docked in the marina.
“Mom inherited that boat, didn’t she?” Violet pressed as they took a sharp turn down into the valley. “I thought we could go check it out.”
“They’re trying to sell it,” Olivia protested, vaguely remembering her parents arguing about the upkeep and not having enough free time to enjoy it.
“Good luck,” Violet dismissed her with a scoff. “I’m sure people are just lining up to buy luxury yachts in this stellar economy.”
Olivia turned dramatically to face her sister, her eyebrows arched like horizontal question marks.
“I read things.” Violet shrugged. “I’ve had a lot of time on my hands lately, okay?”
Part of Olivia wanted to know more.
A lot of time on your hands, where?
But another part, a bigger part, just wanted to
enjoy the fact that she was sitting in a car next to her sister, on their way to another adventure, waiting for a stoplight to change.
The girls followed the winding cliffside road into town. The sun was just starting its long drop into the Pacific, and in the distance, T-shaped rows of clean white boats threw their reflections, shimmering and gold against the water.
They pulled into the Sausalito Yacht Harbor parking lot and Violet jumped out first. “There it is!” she shouted, pointing to a medium-size, sport fishing boat at the end of one row. Olivia immediately recognized the green canvas awning, and the gold lettering on one side of the wide, boxy hull. “
Sybil.
” After they’d gone back to Willis, Violet had told all of their friends that she’d have a boat named after her one day, just like her dead grandmother in California.
“I can’t believe it’s still here,” Olivia murmured, following Violet as she hopped over the margin of choppy water and landed heavily on the deck. Olivia ran her hands along the cool brass railings, stepping down into the cabin and peering inside the tinted, round windows.
“It looks like nobody’s been in here for years,” Olivia said, noting the sterile white sheets thrown over the silver-bottomed stools and heavy antique steering wheel. Like a flash, she remembered the tiny twin beds that were built into the wall in the cabin below. She and Violet had begged to sleep there, to stay the night on the boat by themselves. They didn’t care if the boat left the harbor, they just wanted to play with all of the tiny things. Tiny pillows, tiny pots and pans, even a tiny toilet that flushed with a tiny, foot-shaped pedal.
“Remember when I thought I clogged the toilet and started to cry?” Olivia asked, pulling away and turning back to Violet.
All around her, the deck was empty.
“Violet?” she called out, the sharp quiver of her voice echoing into the ocean. Her eyes wildly scanned the flat, clean surface of the blue water, the deserted deck of the ship.
Was that it?
Olivia thought, her stomach dropping. Had Violet left? Was she all by herself again?
“Up here!” Violet sang.
Olivia felt blood rushing back up to her face and breathed a thick sigh of relief. She followed the sound of Violet’s voice up the narrow flight of stairs that led to the upper level.
“Don’t tell me you forgot about the roof deck!”
Olivia swung her legs over the railing and found Violet lying back against the pointed bow, knees bent, eyes trained on the deepening sky.
“We live in California,” Violet announced, her voice slow and deliberate. “I used to tell everyone I was going to move here when I turned eighteen, remember?”
Olivia grabbed her sister’s wrist and gave it a little squeeze. Violet’s obsession with the
Sybil
had been only the first in a series of West Coast fantasies. She’d always said she was a California girl at heart, and had dreamed about living on their grandparents’ boat and sailing it up and down the coast.
All this time Olivia had spent being miserable about the move, she’d forgotten it was the one thing Violet had wanted to do most. She had been living out her sister’s dream and hadn’t even realized it.
“I guess it’s not so terrible here,” Olivia allowed with a sad smile. A graceful sailboat glided across the bay, momentarily hiding, then revealing, bits and pieces of the flickering city lights.
Violet rolled her eyes. “It’s no
Willis
, but you’ll adjust.”
Olivia laughed. “Everything’s just so different,” she said quietly. “At school, I mean.”
“Come on.” Violet nudged Olivia’s shoulder with her own. “You just have to give it a chance.”
Olivia nodded silently.
“Besides,” Violet added, “we’ve got all
this
to play with.”
She spread her arms wide, as if to wrap the city in a hug, and Olivia couldn’t help but laugh. With Violet right there beside her, it was almost impossible to remember what life had been like before. It was as if she was suddenly seeing in color again, after months of living in black-and-white. Her old, gray life felt unimportant and far away.
As the sky faded from royal blue to inky gray, the sisters lay side by side, just like they’d done since they were small; Olivia connecting the dotted constellations, Violet holding out for shooting stars.