The Wish Collector

by Mia Sheridan

  Angelina glanced around the party for a few more minutes, drinking in the splendor of the birthday decorations: extravagant bouquets of flowers on every surface, tables piled high with brightly wrapped gifts. Her father had spared no expense for his firstborn daughter. She watched as the women’s brightly colored dresses twirled to the music and the men—

  “That doesn’t seem like the safest place to be.”

  Angelina drew in a sharp breath, her hands grasping the wood of the trellis, another thorn piercing her palm.

  The man moved quickly, coming to stand beneath her as she stared at him, wide-eyed. Angelina swallowed, descending the trellis as the man stood back, allowing her room to lower her feet to the ground, his arms raised to his waist as if prepared to catch her should she slip and fall.

  She smoothed her dress, heat infusing her face as her heart raced madly beneath her breast. “I was just . . . ah, reaching for—”

  “A star?”

  A rose for my mother, she’d been about to say, but his words caused her to pause in surprise. She blinked as his lip quirked minutely. “A star, yes,” she said hesitantly. She glanced up, the stars like scattered diamonds on the black velvet of the nighttime sky. “Why, there are so many of them. I hardly thought anyone would miss a mere handful.”

  “Ah. And do you do this often? Snag stars directly from the sky?”

  Angelina tilted her head, her courage gathering. This man was teasing her and something about the way his eyes danced—even as his expression remained serious—caused a warm flush of something tingly to spread under her skin. “Of course. Several now.”

  The man reached forward suddenly, and Angelina drew in a breath, leaning away. Their eyes met as he plucked something from her hair, bringing his hand back so she could see that it was only a rose petal that had been ensnared in her unruly curls.

  “And what do you do with them? The stars?” He tilted his head. “Wear them as jewels perchance?”

  Angelina let out a small laugh, stepping away from the handsome soldier. His closeness was causing her to feel quite funny—flushed and dizzy, yet energized simultaneously. And her heart, it was beating as if it might leap from her chest.

  “Oh no, I have no use for jewels.” She began walking, trailing the back of her hand along the petals of a velvety red rose. The soldier followed, linking his hands behind his back. “No, I squeeze the magic right out of them and bottle it up.” She shot him a quick glance, nerves scuttling along her spine.

  She was used to talking to white people. She’d been sitting on her daddy’s knee and telling him stories since she could remember. And she often played with her half-brother, and one of her half-sisters, but this was the first time she’d spoken for longer than a minute or two to a white person who wasn’t part of her family, and she felt apprehensive.

  The man’s lips tipped into a smile and despite her nervousness, Angelina noticed he had a small dimple in his left cheek. “I see. And what do you use this bottled stardust for exactly?”

  “Well, I . . . haven’t decided yet.” She glanced at him. “What would you propose?”

  The soldier appeared to consider it for a moment. “Well, you could drink it up and provide light for an entire city.”

  Angelina laughed, a small, somewhat uncertain sound. But the soldier was smiling too, so she exhaled, looking at him shyly. Their eyes met again, and they both stopped walking.

  “What is your name?” he asked, as though it were the most important question he’d ever posed.

  Angelina glanced at the house where someone let out a loud shriek of laughter. “Angelina Loreaux.”

  The soldier held out his hand. “John Whitfield.”

  She took his hand in hers tentatively. She’d never been offered anyone’s hand before, most especially not a white man’s. It was big and warm. Strong. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

  “Please”—he dipped his head—“call me John.”

  Their gazes caught and she looked away, letting go of his hand, but the pull was too strong for her not to look back, straight into his blue gray eyes. “John,” she whispered, his name ghosting over her lips and lingering in the space between them.

  She heard the back door open and her name being called and glanced toward it, although the garden hedges concealed them. “Coming, Mama,” she called back. She looked at John. “I have to go.”

  She lifted her skirts and turned away, but her name said in John’s deep voice stopped her. She paused, looking over her shoulder.

  “I think you already drank some of that stardust, Angelina Loreaux.”

  She blinked. The look on his face was so earnest that it caused her breath to halt. His eyes moved to her parted mouth and then immediately returned to her eyes. She saw his throat move as he swallowed. “Goodnight, John Whitfield,” she said, backing away, and then she turned and ran, the scent of roses falling behind her, her heart beating to the cadence of her footfalls on the stone garden path.

  Above her, the stars glittered, and she felt as if she had drunk them up, felt as if they glittered inside of her too. She laughed, the wondrous sound swallowed by the boisterous noise from the party beyond.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  What the hell was I thinking?

  Jonah slowed to a jog, then came to a halt under the shade of the bald cypress. His chest rose and fell rapidly as he bent over, placing his hands on his knees as he worked to steady his heart rate.

  He’d pushed himself too hard and felt mildly nauseated, but the doubts in his head continued unabated nonetheless.

  Clara. He’d surprised himself by talking to her—despite that she’d heard him breathing. Others had heard him behind the wall before, had even called out a questioning, “Who’s there?” But he’d just ignored them, listening in amusement as they giggled and whispered that it must be Angelina they’d detected.

  This was different.

  But to agree with meeting her again? To sound so damned desperate for her to return? For what fucking purpose?

  Am I really that lonely?

  God. He straightened, swiping his fingers through his short sweat-drenched hair.

  I am. Shit. I am. He was cracking from loneliness, and now he was so needy for company he was willing to talk to unknown women through the cracks in a wall. Pathetic.

  Only . . . it wasn't just that he was lonely, though Jonah could admit that much was true, even if he did have Myrtle and Cecil to talk to.

  No, it had been her wish.

  Help me help you, Angelina.

  A mild cramp took up in Jonah’s calf, and he began moving to walk it off, heading in the direction of the dilapidated structures that had once been the slave cabins.

  He entered the copse of trees, meandering the pathways, reaching a hand out to touch the sun-warmed wood and turning his head so he could look through the window of the cabin he stood next to with his good eye.

  The cooler air of this wooded space washed over him, the simple pleasure causing his shoulders to relax. The birds twittered in the trees and for a moment, a deep, inexplicable peace settled in Jonah’s chest. Leaning forward, he looked into the empty cabin, dried leaves piled in the corners.

  Angelina Loreaux had lived here once. Help me help you, Angelina, the girl, Clara, had written.

  As if that were actually possible. Still . . . it intrigued him. He’d spoken to her so briefly, and yet she intrigued him. Her kind of unselfish compassion was rare. I should know.

  He’d been collecting between ten and twenty wishes a week for almost eight years now. Not as many wishes showed up on the lawn as in years past. Windisle and its legend were known only among the locals, and especially the old-timers. The ones who knew about it and passed it along were all dead or dying off now, and the legend with them.

  The weeping wall was solely a local attraction—if it was even popular enough to be called an attraction—due to the fact that the property was private. It wasn’t as if it could be listed as a place of interest for tourists, or includ
ed on sites meant for visitors to New Orleans.

  So the wishes that showed up were from people who’d heard the legend from someone or another and were desperate or curious enough to give it a try.

  Jonah read them once in a while, but mostly not anymore, despite what he’d said to Clara.

  "Clara," he murmured aloud, rolling her name over his tongue again, liking the way it sounded. Liking the slight shiver that moved across his skin as he repeated it once more.

  The truth of the matter was, he’d become bored by people's wishes a long time ago. They were always one of three things: a wish for money or some material item, a wish for love, or a wish for the healing of either oneself or a loved one. He didn't judge the wishes; he'd just grown tired of them. And it wasn’t as if he could make them come true. He lived at Windisle—if anyone knew the legend was only that, it was him. So the wishes, those scattered slips of paper, they'd become nothing more than a cleanup chore.

  But he'd never once read one for Angelina, never once read one cast for a stranger at all. It surprised him. And it had been a long damn time since he’d been surprised—him, the monster behind the wall. No, not the monster, the wish collector.

  One half of his lips tipped. Talking to her, those brief moments, he’d been transformed from the former to the latter. And it’d been a heady feeling. As if by magic, for just a moment in time, he’d not been hideous and deformed, ruined, but something good and . . . mysteriously enchanting. At least that’s what the winsome tone in her voice had expressed as she’d uttered the title.

  Her wish had made him feel curiously charmed by her, and their brief conversation had only strengthened that feeling. But it also made him yearn for things that were long out of his reach, and that was not welcome. That was decidedly dangerous. Unconsciously, he ran a hand over his ruined skin, feeling the repugnant grooves and ridges with the pads of his fingers. Yes, dangerous. And foolhardy.

  So he’d spent the night before moving the encounter from his mind whenever it pricked at his thoughts, and this morning pushing himself so hard on his run that he’d practically passed out from exhaustion.

  And still she lingered. This stranger. This wishful visitor with the soft, melodic voice, the unusually compassionate heart, and the deep interest in Windisle Plantation. He’d heard that in her expressive voice as well. He wondered what it would be like paired with the unknown features of her face, and it sent a strange little jolt through his system.

  Yes, she’d wanted to know more about the plantation, the history. And there was that too. Her request had made him feel useful, as if he had something to offer when he’d thought himself worthless for so long. It wasn’t much but . . . well, it was something and it had seemingly lodged inside of him in a way he was having a difficult time digging out.

  Moisture from the nearby Mississippi had formed a morning mist and it hadn’t yet burned away. It feathered into the trees, wrapping around his legs as he moved through it and toward the cabin his gaze was always drawn to as he ran past it on his jog. It was situated a bit farther from the others, under the shade of a moss-draped willow tree, its trunk twisted and bent as if it had decided to conform to the shape of the wind rather than try to fight against it.

  Jonah rarely went inside of the cabins, but he did today, the ancient floorboards creaking under his weight as he entered. She’d love to see these, he’d bet. He made an exasperated grunt in his throat. She’d love to see these? He didn’t even know her. Still, who wouldn’t love to see these? They were a part of history. For all he knew, they held secrets in the walls . . . under the dusty boards. Although they’d been cleared out years ago, maybe they held relics in some hidden place. He knew the preservation society was chomping at the bit to get their hands on this place. And for the sake of history, he could appreciate that. But these grounds . . . the manor house . . . it was his home, his sanctuary . . . his hiding spot from the daylight. It was all he had. The only thing still important to him in an existence that otherwise held no importance at all.

  He walked around the room, making his way back to the doorway quickly. The space was small even for one person, and from what he knew, entire families had occupied these tiny cabins. Unbelievable. A part of the Chamberlain family history he certainly wasn’t proud of.

  And yet, there were stories here. Stories that deserved telling, he supposed, and for that reason, he should set up a will, leaving the plantation to the preservation society. He was the last of the Chamberlains. After him, there would be no more.

  The depressing thought spurred him out of the cabin and back on the path toward the manor. It was another humid day, the heavy warmth of summer draping over him, sunshine caressing his skin, uncaring about the ruin. And normally, he would have enjoyed the sensation. But today, that old familiar feeling of keeping himself sequestered from the world pressed down upon him. It’d been years since he’d been leery of even allowing the sun to see him, but just then, the feeling returned, the one he thought he’d left behind as he’d grown accustomed to his scars, grown used to the way the light affected his injured eye.

  No, suddenly, all he wanted to do was sink into some dark corner of the library and lose himself in a book.

  "And just what is it you're frowning about?" Cecil asked.

  Jonah looked up, so caught up in his own depressing thoughts that he hadn’t realized he was so close to the house. Cecil and Myrtle were sitting on the porch, drinking lemonade.

  "Can't a man frown without it being about anything in particular?"

  Myrtle looked at him suspiciously and made a hrrmph sound.

  “And anyway, I’m always frowning.” He gestured to the side of his face that remained in a perpetual glower. “I don’t have much of a choice.”

  Myrtle took an unaffected sip of her lemonade. “Yeah, but there are levels of your unpleasant expressions. And that one just on your face? It rates pretty high.”

  Jonah turned his head to give her a better view and then, satisfied that she could see it clearly, narrowed his good eye at her. “Don’t you two ever work?”

  Myrtle took another long sip of lemonade. “It’s a full-time job worrying about the likes of you. I’m plumb tuckered out. How about you, Cecil?”

  Cecil nodded. “Tired doesn’t begin to cover it, Myrtle. Why, I might have to take me a nice long afternoon nap in the hammock out back after this.”

  It was Jonah’s turn to hrrmph.

  Myrtle patted Cecil’s knee. "You refresh yourself with a nap. I'm running to the grocery store for some items.” She turned her attention back to Jonah. “You want anything specific for dinner? You wanna come with me maybe, Mr. Sourpuss?" She raised her own brow.

  "Whatever you make for dinner is fine by me, Myrtle. And no, I don't want to come with you. Stop asking."

  She shook her head, the beads adorning a myriad of tiny braids in her hair making soft clinking sounds with the movement. "Nu-uh. You're gonna have to fire me to get me to stop asking. One of these days, you're gonna say, 'Why yes, Myrtle, you pretty thing. I'll come with you, because I'm done pretending to be a vampire who melts in the sun, and I'm ready to join the world again because I still have something to offer.' Your personal patronage at Winn-Dixie is as good a start as any."

  Cecil chuckled, evidently apathetic to the particularly high-level glare Jonah turned his way.

  Jonah moved past them both and into the house. "Don't hold your breath. I'm a lost cause, Myrtle," he muttered. And he had nothing to offer. Unless scaring small children was considered a worthy endeavor.

  Myrtle and Cecil must have heard him because Cecil shouted, "If we believed that, we'd a hightailed it outta here a long time ago."

  Jonah sighed, but gratitude filled him nonetheless, partially replacing the dismal emotions that had filled his chest as he’d stood in those cabins and then followed him back to the house like spirits who could reach inside of his chest and squeeze. Because the truth was, he loved Myrtle and Cecil and couldn't live without them, and they very
well knew it. If not for them, Jonah Chamberlain would be utterly and completely alone.

  He couldn’t hope for things he’d never have. He couldn’t. Yes, he had been charmed by the girl. By Clara. But he wouldn’t allow himself to be charmed any more. She might show up at the wall next week. She might not. He couldn’t care. Because either way, he promised himself, I won’t be there.

  **********

  Why the hell am I here?

  Jonah sat at the base of the wall in the shade of a giant, ancient oak, the same spot he'd sat the week before. He brought one knee up, resting his arm on it as he waited. The day was turning to evening, that hush that came with the lowering sun descending upon Windisle. His heart beat anxiously, and he attempted to slow it by breathing deeply. "Idiot," he murmured.

  You don't even know her. She might not even show up.

  You promised yourself you wouldn’t either.

  A few minutes later he heard the distant closing of a car door and then the soft footsteps of someone approaching. "You there, Jonah?" she asked, her voice moving from up high to the spot right beside where his cheek rested on the stone.

  He tried not to answer. He really did. If he was silent long enough, she’d go away and take these unwanted feelings with her.

  "Yeah," he finally said, attempting to sound bored, but not managing it. Instead, his tone was laced with excitement, and he shut his eyes as he chastised himself. But before he got too far, something sharp and tangy smelling came through the crack, hitting his nose and causing his expression to slip into a confused frown. "What's that smell?"

  She smelled bad. This was . . . No, this was good, a positive discovery. He couldn’t possibly hope to get to know someone better who assaulted his nose. Not like he really had room to be picky. After all, he’d assault her view if she got a look at him, but still. It was a positive development . . . something to hang on to.

  Clara laughed softly and the sound was musical. Sweet. "Liniment. Can you smell it from there? My neighbor, Mrs. Guillot, swears on it for sore muscles. I've been woozy all day from the odor. I think the way it works is it causes you to pass out so you don't move all day, resulting in zero muscle strain."