Wishes (9 page)

I took out a tissue and blew my nose. “I know it was stupid,” I said. “It’s just that . . . for a minute . . .” This was useless. I couldn’t explain what it was like to want to be someone different from what I was. “Anyway, it’s over now.”

“We saw,” Peter said. “Your picture’s being used to mop up a spill in the men’s room.”

“There’s a mustache on it,” Verity added with some satisfaction. “Cheswick told me.”

“Okay, okay,” I said.

“How’d that happen, anyway?” Becca asked. “The Prom Princess thing.”

“Magic,” I muttered.

“I knew it,” Verity said.

“I found the fairy on
Walpurgisnacht
.”

“You’re kidding!” Bryce exclaimed.

“Well, not the fairy. Not just then. But the treasure. It was a wish. I could make any wish I wanted.”

“Geez,” Cheswick said, impressed.

Peter frowned. “Any wish?” he asked. “You could ask for anything you wanted, and you’d get it?”

I nodded.

“And you asked to be Prom Princess?”

“I told you it was stupid. All the wishes were stupid.”

“All?”
Bryce asked. “You got more than one wish?”

I sighed. “I also wished for a new stove.”

“Are you insane?” Becca shouted.

“And . . .” I was in full confession mode now, so I had to say it. “I wished for Peter to love me too.”

I saw Peter’s cheeks redden. “So that’s why I was acting like an idiot.”

“Cheswick doesn’t need magic to love
me
,” Verity said loftily.

“Neither do I,” Peter said. “Maybe someday you’ll realize that, Katy. Or will I never be enough for you?”

I looked into his scowling face. “That’s not it,” I explained. “Of course—”

“Why can’t you just accept me for what I am?” he said hotly. Becca put her hand on his arm, but he brushed her away. “I’ll never be some romantic poet who spends all day thinking of ways to make you happy. That’s not who I am. But I’ve always been there for you when it mattered.” His voice broke. “Doesn’t that count for something?”

“Peter—”

“Forget it,” he said. “We’ve got to get to class.”

He was the first to leave. The others followed. Becca squeezed my hand before she left.

I felt myself shaking. I knew why Peter had been so hurt when I’d told him about my wish to make him show me that he loved me. By always wanting more, I was saying that what I already had wasn’t enough. That Peter wasn’t a good enough boyfriend. That my friends weren’t good enough for me to be proud of them.

That was what Gram had been trying to tell me when she got rid of the new stove and put the Creature back in its sooty corner: that something doesn’t have to be perfect for you to love it. Maybe the people who cared about you didn’t have to be perfect either, I thought. Maybe they didn’t have to love you in exactly the “right” way. Maybe it was okay to show love in whatever way you could.

And wasn’t that what I’d been looking for, anyway, what all my misbegotten wishes had been about? Being loved, having love? Something I’d had all along?

No wonder my wishes hadn’t worked. I didn’t need them. I already had everything I wanted.

I closed my eyes and felt the spring breeze, green and pure on my face, and I finally knew what I really wanted. My last wish.

“Artemesia,” I whispered.

12.

“What now?” she demanded, prickling with hostility.

“I don’t need any more wishes,” I said.

“Hah! I wondered how long it would take you to realize that.”

“Does everyone who finds the treasure want to give it back?”

She shrugged. “Everyone with any brains. Too bad you can’t do it.”

“I can’t? Why not?”

“Rules.”

“What rules?”

“
Fairy
rules, pinhead. Now just take your stupid wishes and quit bothering me.”

“No! I mean, there must be some way.”

“There isn’t, get it? No way. No—” Suddenly she doubled over in pain.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Nothing. Just . . . go away.”

She was winking in and out, evidently trying to disappear, but I think the pain she was feeling was too strong to allow any magic to work. I wished I were an empath like Mrs. Bean and Gram—they’d know what was wrong just by touching her—but still, I thought maybe there might be something I could do. So I knelt down beside her and, hesitantly, put my hands on her shoulders.

She tried to push me away, but she didn’t have enough strength. “Don’t fight me,” I said. “Let me help if I can.”

She sobbed as she gave in and allowed me to hug her.

The pain shooting through her was horrible. “Go . . . go . . . ,” she whispered feebly, but her words were drowned out by another voice, a strident, sure voice full of power and malice that emanated from inside her mind.

Bring her to me,
it said.
I can help her, Artemesia. Show her the way.

“She’s talking about me,” I said.

“Don’t listen to her!” She doubled over again. “Go away. Go away . . .” She was so weak, she could hardly speak. But the voice inside her, that authoritative, terrible voice, was finally fading, and so was Artemesia’s pain.

“Who was that?” I asked. “The voice in your head.”

She pushed away from me. “That was the queen,” she said, defeated.

“The queen?”

“The Fairy Queen,” she mumbled.

“Can she hurt you without even being near you?”

“The queen can do anything she wants,” she said, wiping sweat off her forehead. “So don’t even think about it.”

“Think about what?”

“Going to her. I know that’s what you want to do.”

“She said she could help.”

“But she won’t. Listen to me, Katy. Since you found the box, she knows who you are, she knows you’re a witch, and she wants you for your magic. So stay away from her. It’s your only chance.”

“But I can’t, don’t you see?” I heard the note of hysteria in my voice. “I have to get rid of the wishes. It’s too tempting to just snap my fingers and have anything I want. Every wish I make is going to take me further and further away from who I really am and what’s really important to me.”

“I know,” she said. “I came to the same realization. And like you, I thought she would do the right thing.”

“But she didn’t?”

She laughed ruefully. “What do you think? Look, you don’t want to end up like me, granting wishes that you know are only going to hurt people. Being alive without actually
having
a life.”

“How do you know that’s what’ll happen?”

“It’s what always happens, at least to witches.”

“Then you
are
a witch,” I said.

“I was. A shape-shifter. I’m just a servant now.”

“To me?”

“No, to her.
Her.
You saw what she can do.”

“Yeah. She was in your mind.”

“No joke. And sticking pins into the rest of me for telling you to stay away from her.”

“How long have you been . . . like this?” I asked.

“Three hundred years, give or take.”

“You’ve been the queen’s servant for three hundred years? What about your family?”

“After I went to see the queen, I never saw them again.”

We sat together in silence for a while. Finally I spoke. “What did you wish for?” I asked. “All that time ago?”

She shook her head. “I wanted to be pretty,” she whispered. Then she laughed, a sad, miserable sound. “Now no one cares what I look like, anyway. They just all want their wishes to come true. That is, until they do.”

I picked a daisy off the grass and pulled its petals off. “If you didn’t have to be a fairy, what would you do?” I asked.

“I’d go to school.”

“Really? Why?”

“You wouldn’t know.” She smiled. “School’s just another thing you don’t think is important because you’ve already got it. But I haven’t, okay? I don’t have friends and teachers and books and a future. I don’t have anything, really. So yeah, I’d like to go to school.” She lowered her eyes. “If you must know, I’d like to be like you.”

“Like me?” I could hardly believe it. Someone actually thought my life was worth having. That it would be cool to be me. It’s funny how differently people see things.

“How’d the queen talk you into becoming a fairy?” I asked.

She turned away. “You don’t understand. There’s no choice. Not for me. And probably not for you, either. I’m sorry, but she knows you now, and she wants you. Unless you run and keep on running, it’s over.”

I put my arm around her. This time she let me, without so much as a dirty look. “I’m not running anywhere,” I said.

“Then she’ll hurt you.”

I shrugged. “Maybe I’ll hurt her first.”

“Right. And for your next trick, you’ll speak from beyond the grave.”

“You don’t know that.”

She smiled. “So are you planning to attack the Queen of the Fairies?”

“Not me, Artemesia.
Us
.”

“Oh, please.”

“Why not? I think the two of us could fight her if we had to. I’m a telekinetic. You’re a shape-shifter—”

She pushed me away. “No, I’m not!” she shouted. “Not anymore. She took what magic I had away from me.”

“But you turned into the fairy-tale fairy. On Snyder Avenue. Bibbity bobbity boo, remember?”

She looked abashed. “That’s the one thing I
can
turn into,” she said. “She allows me that one trick.”

“Why?”

“Never mind.”

“Well, that’s crazy. If you can shift into Fairy Barbie, you can shift into something else. Anything you want.”

“You don’t get it. I’m nothing but a slave, and she knows it.”

“Don’t say that,” I said. “I
touched
you. I’ve felt what you feel. You’re nobody’s slave. Not in your heart.”

She swallowed. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “Still, even if we went through with this suicide mission, what could you—we—do?”

She had me there. “I don’t exactly know,” I said honestly. “I don’t know what kind of magic the queen has.”

“She has whatever you have. That is, she’ll take your power and use it against you. That’s what she did with me.” She looked up at me through lowered brows. “I wasn’t exactly a pushover, you know. I tried to fight her.”

“But you didn’t have me with you.”

For the first time, I saw the trace of a smile in her eyes. “You’re pretty confident, aren’t you?”

“I come from a long line of smart witches,” I said. “I’ll bet you do, too.”

“The smartest,” she agreed.

“So together we’ll think of something.” I stood up and held out my hand to her. “Are you with me, Artemesia?”

She grasped it and bounded to her feet. “Call me Artie,” she said.

“I’ll show you where she lives,” Artie said as we walked through the Meadow. “But I don’t think we should go in there unprepared.”

“Okay, but how are we supposed to prepare?”

She thought. “The best thing would be if we knew her name,” she said. “Knowing a fairy’s name makes her vulnerable. That’s why the queen doesn’t tell anyone what hers is.”

“So how do we find out?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Oh, man.” Part of me was beginning to wonder if maybe our half-baked plan needed more thought. But then, Artemesia had been the queen’s captive for three hundred years, and this was probably the first time she’d ever felt any hope of getting away. If I bailed now, I might never convince her to stand up to the queen again.

“Maybe we don’t need the name,” I offered. “We’ll find some other way.”

In the near distance, Mr. Haversall and Dingo the dog were ambling toward us. The old man waved.

“Who’s that?” Artie asked.

“Mr. Haversall’s the docent who leads people through the fog on holidays,” I said. “But he’s here all the time, anyway, walking his dog.”

“Is he a wizard?”

I nodded. “A rainmaker.”

She raised her eyebrows. “He doesn’t look very magical.”

I laughed. “That’s what’s great about the Whitfield families,” I said. “Nobody looks magical, but almost everyone is.” I waved back. “Hi, Mr. Haversall,” I said. “And Dingo.”

“Woof.”

“Dingo says greetings,” his owner translated, tipping his cap to Artie.

I introduced them. “Katy says you’re a rainmaker,” Artie said.

“Ayuh. But Dingo here’s the real magician. Isn’t that right, boy?”

“Woof,” Dingo said.

“Er . . . Mr. Haversall here will tell you that Dingo’s the reincarnation of a great wizard.”

Artie rolled her eyes. Fortunately, the old man didn’t see her. “Ayuh,” he agreed. “The last time Dingo passed away from life, he’d had enough of being human. Too many worries, isn’t that right?”

“Woof,” Dingo affirmed.

“So he made it so’s he’d come back this time as a dog.” The old man winked at Dingo. “No problems, no complications. Just three squares a day, long walks in the park, and a soft bed at night. Right, boy?”

“Woof,” Dingo said. It was all he ever said. He raised his paw.

“Dingo wants to shake hands,” Mr. Haversall said with a chuckle.

Artie was sighing and crossing her arms, so to keep from hurting Mr. Haversall’s feelings, I knelt down and held out my hand to the dog. “Hi, Dingo,” I said. “Shake?”

He put his paw in my hand.
Esmeralda Ludovica Angelique Brittany von Schlaffen
, spoke a voice in my head.