The 12th Candle

by Kim Tomsic

  “Wait another generation for what?” Bailee asks.

  Minerva laughs, so we laugh, too, but Bailee and I have no idea what we’re laughing about.

  Bailee quiets and says, “I’m sorry, what does that mean?”

  Minerva grins like we’re all in on a joke. “Girls, girls, so many questions.” A phone rings in the back room. “Ta-ta,” she says. “Wish wisely.”

  Chapter 8

  Bailee and I talk the whole walk home, amped about Minerva’s strange store and the “magic” candle. It doesn’t matter that it’s all pretend; it’s fun to dream about. I twirl and say, “I’m going to wish for a new car for my momma, and for an art kit, and I’m going to wish that I win the Noodler contest!”

  “As your future lawyer,” Bailee says, smiling, “yes on the car and art kit, no on Noodler.” She skips forward and kicks a pebble. “You’re going to win that contest fair and square.”

  “Okay. Then I’ll wish for a house . . . a house with a slide from my bedroom to a chef-sized kitchen, and it’ll have two refrigerators full of food and . . . wait—forget I said house, I’ll ask for a castle!”

  “I love it! How about a trip to Disneyland,” Bailee says, “and a treehouse, and a mountain of gummy bears?”

  “Yes! I’ll wish for all that!”

  “Minerva was interesting, right?” Bailee says. “What do you think she meant by doing what needs to be done by the solstice?”

  “I don’t know. Who cares?” I laugh. “I’m going to wish for a puppy for me, a guinea pig for Momma, and for world peace—oh, and that I become a better basketball player than Priscilla so I can dunk in her face like how she always does to me. And I’m going to wish that Priscilla’s parents suddenly want to move so that Priscilla has to go to a new school.” I wonder if the Contrarium Curse would end if Priscilla lived a thousand miles away.

  We pass under a canopy of yellow leaves. The sun slants and starts to dip behind the mountainside.

  “According to the rules,” Bailee says, “you can’t wish for world peace, and you can’t wish that Priscilla’s parents want to move. You’re not allowed to mess with free will.”

  Bailee cracks me up—talking about rules in the middle of our make-believe magic conversation. Still, I go on, “I’m going to wish that our cafeteria serves real Italian lasagna and bakery cake and that they add cartons of Cherry Garcia ice cream next to the free frozen yogurt machine.” I grab the thin white trunk of an aspen tree and spin around it. “I’m going to wish for a whole bedroom makeover, and I’m going to wish that I can fly like a superhero!”

  “Whoa, don’t go crazy on me!” Bailee laughs.

  “Do you think if I wished to be a superhero, it would automatically come with stronger muscles, or are those separate wishes?” I step on a pinecone and it makes a satisfying crunch.

  “Hmmm.” Bailee puts on her lawyer face and considers the validity of my wish question like she’s thinking about the gazillion tiny words in a contract. “Probably a package deal.”

  “Oh my gosh. I’m the worst friend ever! All I’ve talked about are wishes for me. What do you want? What can I wish for that’s just for you?”

  “Really?” Bailee stops walking. “The candle is not like a never-ending bank account.”

  I laugh. “Whatever. You’re my best friend. If this thing were real I’d make wishes for you, so come on. What do you want?” I hook my elbow in hers, and we walk up to the mailboxes at my apartment building, a big metal square with thirty small doors.

  “Hmmm,” Bailee says. “I’d like the bedroom makeover wish, too.”

  “Done,” I say. “One Pottery Barn Teen room for you and one for me! What else?”

  I let go of Bailee’s arm and open the mail slot that belongs to Momma and me. I pull out a couple of past-due notices and a thin white envelope with my name on it. The return address has that familiar, boxy government stamp: FCI, 9595 WEST QUINCY AVENUE, LITTLETON, CO.

  Bailee spins in a circle and adds to her wish list. “. . . and a horse, too.”

  I shove the mail under my armpit. It’s not that I’m trying to hide my letter from Bailee, exactly, it’s just that I’m not ready to explain that I don’t want to open it yet. “FCI” stands for Federal Correctional Institution. This is my fourth letter from Daddy—one for every week he’s been gone, and I feel some sort of ways I don’t understand.

  But I’m not going to lie. There is one emotion I do understand—I’m angry. Why did he have to be at the wrong place at the wrong time? And why didn’t we ever talk about it? It’s not fair. We used to work through everything. But after Daddy came home on bail, Momma cried a lot, so instead of discussing his court case and the accusations, we spent those months acting as if things were normal, even when we moved into the apartment.

  I got so good at pretending that now I pretend he’s off on an important business trip or on an adventure, and these letters are actually notes from exotic places. If I don’t read them, it’s easier on my heart.

  “Okay?” Bailee says as I tune back in. “Make it a white horse.”

  “Just a horse?” I force lightness into my voice. “How about a narwhal?”

  “Wait, isn’t that a mythological creature?”

  “No, unicorns are fake. Narwhals are real.”

  “Perfect! I’ll just need a bigger bathtub.”

  We both laugh and climb the stairs to my second-floor apartment.

  I take the silver key from the chain around my neck, unlock the door, and flip the light switch.

  Nothing happens. No light. I flip it up and down and up and down, but of course nothing changes.

  “Dang it! There goes the electricity again.”

  My momma is really smart and gets A’s on all her tests in night school—she wants to be a physical therapist—but she forgets a lot of things like groceries, putting gas in the car, and paying utilities. Xcel Energy shuts off our electricity at least three times a year. I don’t mind so much in the summer, because it stays light outside until nine o’clock, but in December, the days are really short. Right now, it’s only 4:20 p.m. and the sun is already starting to go down, and the worst thing about our tiny apartment is that it doesn’t let in a lot of natural light.

  “Dang it!” I drop the mail and my backpack on the floor and say my new crummy color. “Sepia.”

  “Mauve!” Bailee says, adding her own cursing color.

  The leafy oak tree outside blocks most of the window light. The remaining droopy yawns of sunlight stretch through the open door. I hurry to the kitchen, set my silver candle box on the counter, and pull a flashlight from a drawer. Click click. “Out of batteries!”

  “Mauve!” Bailee repeats.

  “Here.” I hand the flashlight to Bailee. “Check what size batteries we need.”

  Bailee unscrews the flashlight, and I squat in front of our mostly empty pantry to find the battery box. I move aside cleaning supplies, a carton of plastic garbage bags, and the framed pictures I made for Daddy when he lived with us. Some frames are wrapped in bubble wrap and others are just on the floor. Momma hasn’t gotten around to buying nails, so we can’t hang them yet. Behind the frames, I find the shoebox where we store new batteries.

  “The flashlight needs D batteries,” Bailee says.

  I dig past the As, the AAAs, the square nine-volts, and even a pack of Cs. No Ds.

  Bailee shuts the apartment door and the room shadows into shades of gray.

  “Hey, why are you shutting the door?”

  “Can’t let in too many bugs, otherwise your mom will spend all night catching them to carry outside.”

  She’s right. I shove the battery box back to its spot behind the frames and stand up. The final rays of light squeeze past the tree and in through our small front window. I pull open a kitchen drawer, take out the matches, and untie the lavender ribbon from my silver box.

  “You’re going to light your new birthday candle?”

  “No choice.” I grab the green candle from
the box. “We’ll be in the dark soon.”

  “Yeah, but . . . shouldn’t you light a different one?”

  I strike the match and hold it to the wick. “Nah, the others are way too short.”

  My new candle sizzles to life and sends a rich warm glow throughout the apartment, which includes a total of two bedrooms, one bathroom, zero hallways, and a living room that’s also a dining room and kitchen all pressed into one. The yellow flame glimmers.

  “Whoa,” Bailee says, all breathy. “I’ve never seen that much light from a single candle.”

  “Or even a flashlight,” I say, equally impressed.

  “Aren’t you worried about wasting it, you know, since Minerva made it feel so special?”

  I laugh. “Haha, good one.”

  Bailee laughs, awkward and stiff.

  “I mean, it’s fun dreaming about wishes, but we don’t really believe in all that, right?” I say.

  Bailee rubs the back of her neck. “At least we have light.” The flame reflects off her glasses.

  “Yeah.” The room is stuffy since the apartment has been shut all day, which would not be a big deal in a normal December since Colorado is usually chilly this time of year, but Goldview’s “magical” weather has delivered bonus doses of warm days. “Ugh, no electricity means no ceiling fan.”

  Bailee sighs. “And no cake baking, either.”

  “Sepia,” I say, sinking into one of our three wooden kitchen chairs. I slump at the lopsided table. The flame flickers and a trail of green wax inches its way down my pointing finger and then drips onto the table.

  “I’m sorry, Sage,” Bailee says. “We can bake at my house if you don’t mind my little brothers eating half the cake.”

  “Thanks.” More melted wax warms my fingertips. “I sure wish Momma had paid the electric bill this time.”

  A rush of wind bursts out from the air vent, blowing out the candle. At the same time, the lights and ceiling fan click on.

  I jump up and Bailee screams.

  “Hot magenta!” I say. “Best timing ever!”

  Bailee glares at the trail of smoke rising from the candle. “Sage.” She crosses her arms over her stomach. “You just made a wish.”

  “What?”

  “You just said you wished your mom paid the electric bill, and then the electricity came back on!”

  “Yeah . . . I guess I did,” I say. “Cool coincidence!”

  “You know I am not a believer in coincidences.”

  “Well, this is proof you should be.” I set the candle on top of our lopsided table, and Bailee snatches it up, holding it in the careful way Minerva had at the store—with reverence.

  “Okay, I’m just going to say it,” Bailee says. “All joking aside, I think this candle is magical.”

  Chapter 9

  The oven bell dings, alerting us that the preheat is done and the temperature has reached 350 degrees. I carefully slide the cake pan inside and set the timer.

  Bailee dumps the empty cake mix box into our recycling bin and puts the wax liner into the regular trash. She picks up the candle from the tile countertop. “Sage,” she says in a soft voice, which tells me she is going to try again to convince me, “you made a wish, and according to Minerva, since you turn twelve today, you’re officially in the in-between.” She twists the candle. “I really think Minerva gave you a charmed candle or she charmed your candle or something.”

  “Oh, Bay. You can never tell when people are joking.” I wet a sponge and focus on wiping cake mix from the counter. I don’t want to let her see my hope, because hope is a dangerous thing. Last time I let it rise, the jury said “guilty” and sent Daddy away.

  “I’m pretty sure Minerva wasn’t joking. Why else would she give you all those rules?”

  I toss the sponge into the sink. “Don’t tell me you have them committed to memory.”

  “Yep.” Bailee waves the candle like a wizard’s wand and recites Minerva’s rules again. “Three wishes today. No asking for more magic. No unwishing wishes.”

  She goes on and all I hear is, “Do this, don’t do that. Blah blah blah.”

  Still, her sureness floats my hope to a shade of bubblegum pink, but this has to be impossible. “You’re joking with me, right?” I laugh nervously.

  Bailee shakes her head.

  “Swear it,” I say. “Swear to me on your pile of hand gels, including the pink pomegranate one, that you’re not joking?”

  “I was half joking before, but now I’m all in.” Bailee does not bite her lip. Her face stays lawyer-level serious. “Minerva slipped something in the box. We should check it out.”

  She grabs the silver box, lifts the lid, and takes out the white pillow cushion. Under it, she finds a small roll of paper. “Look!” She unrolls the paper and squints to read it.

  “Well?”

  Bailee clears her throat. “‘No wishing on religious holidays or celebrations, including but not limited to Hanukkah, Christmas, Diwali, Muharram, Purim, Ramadan, Jan . . . Janmashtami—’”

  “Okay, skip the list, I’ll never remember all those.”

  “‘Furthermore, Saturdays and Sundays are days of rest. You are allowed to pray if you so choose; however, there shall be no wishing.’”

  I chuff even though belief and hope are sneaking up on me. “Yeah, Minerva already said that.”

  “And,” Bailee’s voice rises and now she’s jumping up and down, “you get a bonus wish at eleven fifty-nine p.m., since that’s the exact moment of your birth!”

  Bailee scoops up the candle, grabs the matches, and strikes one. The flame ignites from blue to white.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Testing. If the candle isn’t magical, then no biggie.” She presses the flame to the wick and lights it. “Wish for something we can see immediately.” Bailee twists the candle in her palm. In an airy voice, she adds, “Sage, Minerva wouldn’t have wasted our time with so many rules if this wasn’t real.”

  The candle flickers and the sulfur smell from the match tickles my nose.

  She hands the candle to me. “Make a wish we can see right away.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes! Please. What will it hurt if you just try it?” A drop of wax melts its way down the side of the candle and warms the end of my thumb.

  I twist my mouth to one side and as I think and think, drop after drop trails down the mint-green stem.

  “Come on!” Bailee says.

  “Okay. I’ve got it. I wish right now I had a pepperoni pizza to eat at a non-lopsided table.”

  “Oh, smart!” Bailee says. “You might have just found a loophole to get two wishes in one—pizza and an even table.”

  “What?”

  “A loophole! You said ‘at’ a non-lopsided table instead of ‘and,’ so it came out as just one wish.”

  Bailee loves rules, but she also loves loopholes, because a loophole is a way to legally get around a rule.

  Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip. Wax races down the candle.

  I blow it out, and at the exact same moment, the doorbell rings.

  Bailee and I jump clear to the ceiling, and I’m not going to lie, I might have peed a little, too. We run to the door and I call through the thin wooden frame, “Um . . . who is it?”

  Bailee’s eyes are as wide as mine feel.

  “It’s Tammy from next door. I have a little something for your birthday.”

  Miss Tammy is Momma’s closest friend. When we needed an apartment, she told us about the one next to hers.

  I swing open the door with a big hello ready on my lips, except Miss Tammy is holding a pizza box! Steam rises from the corners and the scent of pepperoni floats to my nose.

  “This is for you,” Miss Tammy says.

  Bailee’s hands fly over her mouth, knocking her glasses crooked.

  “Blue bunny rabbits!” I scream, slam the door shut, drop to a squat, and curl my arms around my shins. “Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! My wish just came true!”

  C
hapter 10

  Sage?” Miss Tammy says from the other side of the door.

  Bailee swings it open. “Sorry, Miss Tammy.”

  I stand up. “Sorry. I . . . I . . .” My mind is too buzzy to think of a lie. “Uhhh . . .” Swallow. “Thank you!”

  Miss Tammy squeezes her penciled-in eyebrows together, her blue eyeliner shining extra thick under the porch light. “Are you okay, Sage?”

  “Yes, ma’am. It’s just a big day, turning twelve and all.” I fold my arms over my stomach. “Um . . . would you like to come in?”

  “I would, but I can’t stay.” She steps around my backpack and the scattered mail and sets the pizza on the crooked tabletop. “Goodness, your momma still hasn’t fixed this table.” She squats down. “Sage, come lift this side a couple of inches.”

  I do and Miss Tammy pushes in the wobbly leg and twists it until it tightens in place. “There we go.”

  Miss Tammy stands up and brushes herself off. I set down the table.

  “It’s not lopsided anymore!” Bailee squeals and then clamps a hand over her mouth again.

  “Oh, Bay Leaf.” Miss Tammy laughs. “It’s just a little repair. Not a big deal.” She glances at the thin gold watch squeezed around her freckled wrist. “I have to hurry in for my shift at the café. Now, come here, my little spice.” She pulls me in for a tight hug, wrapping her plump arms around me. The scent of her Aqua Net hairspray fills my nose, and I return the hug, watching steam rise from the pizza box.

  Miss Tammy leans back, holding me by the shoulder. She studies my face and her voice goes weepy. “Happy birthday, darling. I can’t believe you’re twelve today.” She sniffles. “Have I ever told you I was the first person who held you when you came home from the hospital?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She’s only told me twelve million times, and it’s made me smile twelve million times, too. I love Miss Tammy almost as much as I love my momma and daddy.

  “Well of course I have.” She pulls a bright dandelion-yellow envelope from her purse. “Here’s your card. I’m going to go ahead and blow the surprise right now and tell you I slipped ten dollars inside. It’s not a lot, but it’s yours to spend however you’d like.”