I tear my gaze from the door. “Wouldn’t it be better if all your grandpa’s peacocks stayed together, instead of being shipped off to a bunch of different places? They’ve lived their whole lives together as a pride—that’s what peacock families are called—and they could live here. In our trees. All safe and protected. Then you’d always know where they were, and you could see them anytime you wanted.”
He takes his hat off and runs his fingers along the tiny brim. “Of course I’d like to keep them together, but I’m no farmer, Paige. I might like to learn new things, get my hands dirty now and then, but I could never take care of all this.”
“That’s the thing.” I hear Dolly’s tittering laugh from inside, and I stand in front of Mr. Ferro. “You don’t have to. Mateo’s dad wants to expand their herd, but they can’t get financing, so all they can do is rent. Why not have them rent from you? If they took care of the cows, you could split the profits from the herd, but they’d do all the work.”
“I—” He starts to shake his head, but I hurry on.
“If they take on the cows and pastures, and we lease out the other fields, the land wouldn’t be lost. And you could keep the garden, the greenhouse, and the horses.”
“What would I do with horses? I live in an apartment in Boston.”
“Remember how you said you wish your kids could experience what this is like? How they could use some time away from their phones? Maybe we could figure out a way so that lots of kids like yours could come and learn how to garden and ride horses. Then folks from town could come and buy the vegetables the kids have grown. They’d learn how to work and loads of other important things. You wouldn’t even have to be here all the time—you could hire someone to help. My family could teach them.”
“Mr. McBride, I heard you had quite the health scare. I’m so glad to see you up and around,” Dolly says from inside. “This is the gentleman I told you about . . .”
“I see the appeal,” Mr. Ferro says. “And it’s a fine idea, but realistically, I don’t see how—”
My fingers tap like Scotty’s. “If you don’t like that idea, we can think of another, but after today, your chance to change things is gone. When land is lost, it takes something away from all of us because it can never be put right again. You know it matters, or else you’d have sold your grandparents’ place right off—but you didn’t, because you know those birds are a part of your legacy, your heritage. This is your chance to put down roots instead of cutting them off. Heck, maybe you could even bring your grandma’s mural here, brick by brick, and rebuild the garage. It doesn’t have to disappear.”
“You’re a smart kid, Paige. I appreciate that, but it’s hard to put down roots when I travel so much for my work. Our worlds are just too different.”
“You’re wearing the proof that they can work together.” I point at his chest. “Look at your lanyard. It can hold your reporter badge, but it’s got your grandpa’s peacock right in the center. It’s part of us here on the reservation, part of your family, and part of your job. All of it works together to make something beautiful. And if we can rent the house from you, we can stay and care for your birds. And then you’d have a place to come home to. A place where your grandpa’s legacy lives on.”
I step back as he walks to the house and stares through the screen door. When Scotty thinks about things, his brain zips like a hummingbird flitting from one flower of facts to another, but Mr. Ferro’s mind rolls more like a steam engine, steamin’ and thinkin’, turning things over slow, then gaining speed.
My words tumble out, one after the other. “If your grandma cared for those peacocks out of love for your grandpa’s legacy, wouldn’t she like it if you carried on the same tradition? You’d be connected to the land like him, and you wouldn’t even have to be a farmer. You say you don’t have roots, but you do. Maybe not in a farm, but in your family.”
His hand opens and closes, and I feel him teetering, a water skipper on the brink.
“I gotta believe Royal came to us for a reason. It’s the only thing that makes sense. He needed a new place to put down roots, and he picked here. Right here.” I nod toward the screen door. “Can’t you trust him a little? Believe for one moment that maybe something bigger than all of us brought us together?”
With his face in shadow, peering through the screen door, I can’t tell what he’s thinking. Can he feel it? Can he see the way through as clearly as I do?
“We just need to go over a couple more things and get a few signatures.” Miss Dolly’s voice drifts through the screen. “Almost done.”
I touch the back of Mr. Ferro’s wrist. Then I lift it and press my last hope into his hand. “Sometimes, you just need to follow your heart, choose to believe, and make a wish.”
Swaddled in all my hopes and dreams, and worn smooth from a thousand wishes, Dad’s heart-shaped wishstone seems to glow in his open hand.
He stares at the stone, and his gaze cuts to mine, but I don’t hide. I open my soul, letting all the hope and fear inside me shine through as I will him to feel what I feel, see what I see, and love what I love.
“It’s my Dad’s wishstone,” I whisper. “Please, please . . . make a wish.”
Dad’s stone disappears as Mr. Ferro’s fingers close around it.
I hold my breath and hope.
He opens the door. “Wait!”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Change can come in tiny packages like a cocoon or a butterfly chrysalis, or it can sweep over the land and remake the whole world with seasons of sun or ice.
Mostly though, change is more subtle—a tiny root sprouting from a seed, burrowing down into the earth, growing stronger, and then pushing the rest of the seed upward till it opens to the sky and become leaves.
It’s hard to look at the towering branches of a giant cottonwood and remember it all started with a tiny seed small enough to hide in a puff of cotton. It doesn’t matter if seeds fall down deep cracks or are buried under a pile of thorns. They can take root and grow into something wonderful, if they remember to always follow the light.
Tufts of white cotton float on the breeze, catching on my lashes and gathering in swirls at my feet like snow, but it’s a warm, sunny day. The swish, swish of my boots sends the miniature drifts whirling, each cotton puff spinning around its precious seed.
A few white bits of fluff settle on the rim of the pot I carry, and I blow them away. I need this for more important things.
Grandma was the one who was good at flowers, and she’d probably have gone for the poppies, or maybe the irises, but I am a farmer’s daughter, and I’d rather give Mateo’s mom something more useful. So I transplant a whole potful of strawberry plants, deep green leaves with tiny white and yellow flowers, and press the dirt around the roots to keep them safe. I don’t worry about the holes I leave in the berry patch, ’cause with a little love and care, flowers and berries spread out. Love shared only grows—everybody knows that.
It’s not the bouquet Mr. Rivas picked out, but it’s something to last through all the seasons. Something that can give her berries again next year.
Next year.
It’s still a thrill to say that and know I’ll be here.
Scotty says peacocks symbolize rebirth, so it’s fitting that when Mr. Ferro sat in Dad’s chair for the second time that day, he had Royal’s picture beaded around his neck. And when he signed those papers, he changed all of our lives for good.
Our farm was reborn.
With Mr. Ferro’s purchase of the barns and surrounding fields, Mom was able to pay our debts and still keep the house and ten acres—including Queenie’s barn.
As for the other seventy acres, Mr. Rivas, Mateo, and Mr. Ferro’s new farmhand have been moving cattle to new pasture and fixing fences all week. It would have been done already, but Royal’s new home needed to be finished first.
Scotty s
aid we needed to celebrate the new farm by lighting the wishfire to welcome new friends, restart our year, and reset our wishes. We wouldn’t change the tradition for always, but just this once, we wanted to celebrate the change and show our hope for the future. Like Mr. Ferro’s pride of peacocks, we all get a second chance, and that’s worth celebrating.
“Ha! Ha! Heyo!” Royal’s neck rolls as he calls from his high perch inside the newly completed aviary.
“Is that so?” I say to him with a smile. I set the strawberry pot down and slip inside the aviary. I close the door, grab a couple apples from the treat bucket, and roll them onto the grass, where a few peahens walk under Royal’s watchful eye.
He flaps down, and they scurry away, still nervous from their move. With his long tail folded behind him, he pecks the apple, eyes the door behind me, then peers at me as if to scold me for my rudeness.
“Not my fault.” I back toward the door. “The vet said you need another few weeks of rest before we turn you loose. You’ll be out soon.”
“Paige!” Mom waves me over to the horse barn.
Inside the biggest stall, Mr. Ferro has his hands all tangled in Queenie’s mane as Mom talks him step by step through a simple French braid. “Not that way. Twist these other two right here.”
“How can you possibly tell that that bit of hair is any different from this one? They’re all the same. Look, there’s some hair. Here’s some hair. It’s all hair.”
“Here, let me show you again.” Mom reaches for Queenie’s mane, and the smile on her face warms me right down to my toes.
“She’s really digging that,” Mr. Ferro says. “If she could talk—”
“She’d boss me around all day. We don’t call her Queenie for nothing.” Mom’s skilled fingers fly through the braid, and she spies me at the stall door. “Paige, is everything ready?”
“Yep.”
“You’ve got hoses and buckets?”
“Yep.”
“Where’s Scotty?”
“Counting marshmallows, to make sure everybody gets exactly the same amount.” It’s a good thing we have a chocolate bar for everyone or he’d probably cut them all up, square by square, and make them even too.
“You’re not even watching what you’re doing.” Mr. Ferro tsks. “Now you’re just showing off.”
“Oh whatever.” Mom ties the braid off with a band and rubs Queenie’s neck. “You don’t look at your keyboard when you type, right? It’s the same thing. Just practice; you’ll get there.” She opens the back panel to Queenie’s stall. “Okay, off you go.”
Tossing her head, Queenie blows hot air and trots outside with her tail high. Her ears swivel toward Milkshake’s pasture, where Prince bucks and frolics beside his mother, his little tail flapping behind him.
The stall door creaks as Mom pulls it shut. “When Kimana comes, can you two roll some logs over for seats?”
“Sure.” I’m too excited to sit still anyway. Might as well be useful. Our bench logs always start pretty far out at first—to keep them safe—but we roll them closer as the roaring heat fades and gives way to coals.
By the time Kimana rides up, I’ve already got one log rolled into place.
She hops off her bike and joins me at the next log. We brace our hands against the heavy log, digging our heels in to push it into place.
“One more,” I breathe.
We walk to the last log, closest to the pile, and give it a good shove, but it rolls back, hung up on something.
“It’s probably a rock. I’ll get it.” I step over the log and toe the grass with my boot. I hear a metallic clink and kneel to brush the grass aside.
A thin, curved blade is wedged against the log, its long wooden handle disappearing beneath the load.
“Roll it back!” I shout, barely waiting for Kimana to get out of the way before I roll the old tree. One push, two, and then it’s off.
I lift Dad’s shovel from the tall grass, and bits of dirt fall from the handle. Last year, under the snow and ice, we never saw it here. Not once.
“It was waiting for us.” I grin at Kimana, clutching the handle with both hands, as if the shovel might disappear again.
The only way Dad’s shovel would be here is if he worked here on that last day. I always wondered what he’d done while I played inside, working on my robot design, and now I know.
Dad was looking after our wishes.
By the time Mateo and his family come by, I’ve buffed the rust off the blade, sanded away the few slivers winter raised on the handle, and shoveled a few thistles into the pile, just for fun.
“I’ve got something for you,” I say to Mateo’s mom. I hurry to Royal’s aviary and grab the strawberries. “They’re not fancy, but I hope you’ll like them.”
“Gracias.” Mrs. Rivas fusses over the plants and nods her thanks.
“De nada,” I say as Mateo takes the pot from his mom and carries it farther from the pile.
He shoots me a wicked grin. “You already roasted one pot of flowers. Let’s keep this one back here, so you don’t cook another.”
I make a face at him, but we both grin.
“It’s my turn to light the wishfire.” Scotty kneels beside a pile of shavings, cardboard, and papers jammed beneath the branches.
“Want some lighter fluid?” Mateo asks, but Scotty scowls as though Mateo asked if he wanted to light his own hair on fire.
“No cheating allowed.”
“Okay.” Mateo smirks at me and Kimana, then looks past us. “Check it out.”
Royal stands beside a peahen, his tail fanned wide in an arc of green-and-blue feathered eyes.
The hen bobs her head, and Royal shakes his wings, his tail rattling softly.
“I think he’s feeling better,” Kimana says, then waves at her dad and Hutsi, walking up from the house with hot dogs and buns.
T-Rex thumps his tail to greet them, but stays a good hundred feet away. Scuzbag and Magic Cat doze by his side.
A crackling rises behind us, and Scotty dances back from the flames. “I did it. I did it!”
“You sure did.” Mom pulls him close for a squeeze as fire licks the sky and roars beneath the branches. He squirms free and runs to the log where Mateo’s parents sit beside the marshmallow sticks and s’mores supplies.
“Not yet,” I warn. “Let it burn down enough for hot dogs, then I’ll make s’mores with you.”
I stick Dad’s shovel upright in the dirt, and then jump on the edge with both feet so it’s buried deep into the earth. I don’t want to lose it again. Besides, we’ll need it to put the ashes out before the night is through.
The wishfire burns hot, sparks drifting on the smoke like dancing fireflies. When the last branch catches fire, I pull a round stone from my pocket. “Does everyone have their wishstones?”
Most everyone pulls a rock from a pocket, but a couple people pick one up off the ground.
“Make your wish!” I cup my stone in my hand, ready to make my wish, but Mr. Ferro touches my arm.
“Trade me. I think you should use this stone.” He plucks the round rock from my hands and drops Dad’s heart-shaped stone in its place. “That’s better.”
“Kimana wishes you’ll be on the robotics team again,” Scotty says, and Kimana whirls.
“Hey! You’re not supposed to listen.”
“Wish granted. I’ll be there.” I laugh, and smile wide as she grins back at me.
“Can we wish for food?” Mateo stands over the hot dogs. “I’m starving.”
I run my thumb over the twin bumps at the top of my stone and circle the smooth hollow in the center, tracing the same lines my Dad did a hundred times before. Gently, I bounce the stone in the center of my palm, feeling the weight of it.
So much lost, and so much found.
None of this is how I imagined it would
be, or ever wanted it to be, but now that it’s all fallen into place, all the pieces fit. And joy fills in the cracks.
Cupping my stone to my lips, I whisper my wish.
Mom holds her stone toward the fire. “Everyone ready? Stay back in case one of them pops out of the fire.”
“Ready,” we chorus.
I squeeze Dad’s heart in my hand, a last hug for the way things were and a hope for how things might be.
“Aim,” Mom says.
We draw our hands back, a circle of friends and family.
“Wishfire!” Mom sings.
I swing my arm, open my hand, and let go.
I’m so thankful for everyone who helped this story grow from wishes to reality. First and foremost, my brilliant editor, Lisa Mangum, and my product manager, Heidi Taylor Gordon, who helped me find the story I wanted to tell, and bring it to light. A huge thanks to everyone else at Shadow Mountain who worked so hard on this story: Chris Schoebinger, Troy Butcher, Callie Hansen, Richard Erickson, and Malina Grigg. Working with you is a joy, and I’m so very grateful.
To my wonderful agent, Stacey Glick, thank you always for believing in me and going on this journey with me.
Thanks to my writing group for putting up with my crazy world, listening to my stories, and loving me anyway. You guys are the best. Special thanks to Nicki Stanton for slogging through the mire with me; to Marcy Curr for writing all night with me; and to John Roscher, our host with the most. To Daniel Noyes for sharing his brain, and to Seriously Gina for sharing her cabin and heart. To writing coach Ali Cross and her StoryNinja academy for helping me flesh out the original outline, and to all my writing friends with Storymakers, Snake River Writers, and elsewhere, my sincere thanks. Love you guys.
To my beta readers and sensitivity readers of awesomeness who answered my many questions and offered wonderful suggestions, thank you for sharing your world with me. To Moses Collier for letting me reimagine him as a teacher and giving me pointers. To Georgette Running Eagle for answering texts at weird hours with odd questions. To Tonia Anthony Countryman; the Toane family: Kerwin, Melody, Natasha, Feather, Dakota, Little Man, Tamina, Aspen, and LakotaRose, and Baby; Lisa Eddington; Talysa Sainz; Ximena Martinez Bishop; Caterina, Tomas, and Mateo Bishop; Courtney Weaver; Courtney Hartley; and Heather Warren.
The Wish and the Peacock Page 22