“Did she mention Vin’s?” I asked as she put the phone away.
“Yes, Joplin, she did. You’ve made your point most eloquently. If this is some kind of delusion, then it’s a very convincing one. So, where were we again?”
“We weren’t anywhere,” I said, “except in the middle of a problem we can’t solve.”
When the doorbell rang, I leaped to my feet like the rescue squad had just arrived.
“I’ll get it,” I said.
I peered out the window before opening the door. And there stood Barrett, grinning and holding up a mixed bouquet of flowers, the kind they sell at those vegetable markets that open out onto the street. Only then did I remember inviting him to dinner after basketball practice.
“Come on in,” I said. “We need you desperately.”
“Excellent. Why?”
“My mom noticed that the girl was missing from the platter. Now it’s all out in the open.”
“Wow. Did she believe it?”
“Not at first. I had to use a wish as a demonstration. Sofie said it was all right, so don’t fuss at me.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good, because it worked. Also, as a side benefit, Jen’s on her way home with Vietnamese takeout.”
Mom called from the living room. “Who was it, Joplin?”
“Barrett,” I called back. “We invited him to eat with us, remember?”
There followed an embarrassed silence.
“We completely forgot about you,” I said. “But don’t take it personally. It’s been kind of a stressful day.” I got a glass from the cabinet and filled it with water so Mom wouldn’t have to go searching for a vase. “Here,” I said, putting the flowers in the glass and handing them back to Barrett. “Nice touch, by the way.”
“Oh my goodness, Barrett!” Mom said when he gave her the bouquet. “Aren’t you endlessly amazing?” She set the flowers on the coffee table and waved with her hand for him to take a seat. “I’m sorry about dinner,” she said. “But food is on the way.”
“No problem, Mrs. Danforth.”
“Mom, Barrett is part of this conversation too. He’s known about Sofie from the day she arrived. We’ve been trying to figure out a way to help her. So it’s good that he’s here.”
But Barrett wasn’t listening. He was leaning over and staring, like maybe there was a cockroach crawling in my lap.
“What?” I said.
“That.” He touched my wrist right above the thumb, where the skin had been rubbed raw, and the thin, reddish bruise that ran over the top of my wrist. Then he reached across and lifted the other one. It looked more or less the same. “Did somebody tie your hands?”
Mom jumped up like her hair was on fire and came to kneel in front of me. She studied the bruises and scrapes.
“I’m all right,” I said.
“Was this some kind of bullying thing? Did it happen at school?”
“No.”
I’d hoped to introduce the proposal without telling the whole story, because I knew Mom would go ballistic if she knew. Now it was too late. All the cats were out of the bag and running around our apartment.
“It happened on my way home. Actually”—I took a deep breath—“I was kidnapped by Lucius Doyle.”
It was like I’d set off an explosive device in the living room—exactly what I’d been afraid of. Everybody went nuts, like it was the end of the world. Worse, Mom pulled out her phone and started punching buttons.
“Stop!” I practically screamed. “What are you doing?”
“Calling the police.”
“No! That would ruin everything! Will you please just put that thing down and let me tell you what happened?”
She turned off the phone, but she kept it in her hand. She was going to take a lot of convincing.
“Mom, all he did was talk. He had a proposal to make.”
“Where?”
“Where what?”
“Where did this happen?”
“They took me to some empty office.”
“They? Took you how?”
“He has a girlfriend. She helped him. We went in a car.”
“Where exactly was this place?”
“I don’t know, Mom. It doesn’t matter. Please let me finish.”
I wasn’t about to mention the pillowcase or the slap. Then she’d call the police for sure.
“All right,” Mom said. “But hurry up. I’m having a heart attack here.”
“Okay, here it is. Lucius Doyle wants one more wish. Sofie, you were right. He feels stuck and he hates his life. He wants to marry his girlfriend and live out the rest of a normal life with her. He says that in exchange, he’ll release Sofie and send her back home to her family. He claims, and Sofie agrees, that he’s the only one who can do that.
“But there’s one big problem. Doyle needs to go first—because if Sofie is free, she can’t grant his wish. Once he has what he wants, he says he’ll release her. But we’d have to trust him to do it.”
“It’s just like the scorpion and the frog.”
I groaned. “Really, Barrett? Another story? Now?”
“No, listen. It’s very apt. The scorpion needs to get across the river, but he can’t swim. So he asks the frog to carry him. The frog says, no, you’ll sting me. And the scorpion says, why would I do that? If I stung you, we’d both drown. So the frog agrees, and halfway across, the scorpion stings him. As he’s dying, the frog asks, why? And the scorpion says, because it’s my nature to do it.”
“So this is your roundabout way of saying we can’t trust Lucius Doyle?”
“Yes.”
“I already knew that, Barrett.”
“Sorry. I thought it was pretty good.”
“You’re absolutely sure you don’t want me to call the police?” Mom just couldn’t let it rest. “The man is a criminal. He should be in prison.”
“Think, Mom! We need Lucius Doyle. It’s unfortunate, but it’s true. And if we sic the police on him, he’ll never let Sofie go. Please, can’t we just try to solve this on our own?”
“Actually,” Barrett said, “don’t despair!” I swear his eyes actually twinkled. “Once Sofie is safely home . . . then you call the police!”
Mom blinked. “Very nice, Barrett. That makes me feel infinitely better.”
19
A Family Thing
MOM PUT ON SOME MUSIC. She chose Bach because she said his music always helped her think. But I wasn’t so sure about the thinking part. It actually made me feel dreamy and restful, like I was floating over the ocean on a bed of clouds. It must have done the same for Sofie and Barrett too, because we all just sat there and listened.
“You know,” Mom said when the first piece was over, “the world is full of miraculous things. I mean, to think that someone long ago could write music like that. We call it genius, but what does that mean? How do you explain it? And then, centuries later, that same music—or the words of Shakespeare, or, I don’t know, the sun shining through autumn leaves can spark something inside of us that is far more profound and indefinable than mere logic or reason. Why shouldn’t there be magic in a world where such miracles can happen?”
None of us had an answer to that question.
The next piece was less dreamy and more cheery. Dancing-around-being-happy music. I was just about to say that while I thought the Bach was awesome, it wasn’t helping me think about Sofie’s dilemma, when Jen came home. With her came the smell of curry. We heard a rustle and thump as bags of takeout were set on the kitchen table. Then she came into the living room smiling and conducting the music with her index fingers.
“Hi,” she said. “What’s up?”
Every time we told the story, we got better. Not any more believable, but at least the narrative was clear.
It helped that Mom supported us, and the phone call story nailed it. Jen admitted she’d wondered what had suddenly prompted her to check in with Mom. And it had been ages since we’d gotten takeout from V
in’s. It had just popped into her mind.
Naturally, the parts about Lucius Doyle were especially painful for Jen. His status as a bad guy wasn’t exactly news by then. But kidnapping me, and most especially what he’d done to Sofie—that really, really disturbed her. And if she had any doubts about that part of the story, the terms of Doyle’s proposal erased them. It was as good as an admission of guilt.
“Well,” Jen said, “it’s beyond strange—but I actually believe you.”
“Good,” I said, because I had the feeling that if anyone could find a solution to Sofie’s problem, it was going to be her.
Or maybe Barrett. It was a toss-up.
“All right, let me ask you something,” Jen said, going into analytical mode. “There’s something you kind of slid over, and I think it’s important: Why are you all so all-fired sure you need Lucius Doyle at all? He might have just said he was the only person who could send Sofie home because that gave him leverage to get what he wants. He must know you’d never help him otherwise.”
I looked at Sofie. So did Barrett. Jen was right. We’d never even thought to ask.
“Well,” Sofie said, “we tried everything else and it all failed.”
“Who’s we?”
“The family I lived with . . . when I was a person before.”
Jen gave Sofie a quizzical look. “When you were what?”
“A person.” She touched her face, her arms, to show that she meant being real and alive, not just a picture on a delftware platter. “Like I am now.
“I’d been trapped in the platter for a very long time by then. No one had ever thought to wish I was otherwise. But then the platter was sold at an auction to a woman who was childless and feeling very heartsick about it. So one day she was looking at the platter and she wished that I were her daughter. It was exactly like what happened with Joplin—she was talking to herself, not seriously believing it was possible. But all of a sudden, there I was, standing in her kitchen.”
We all sort of went huh—imagining it. And I could see why, this time around, Sofie had decided to appear in the garden instead of my bedroom at night. I might have had a stroke.
“Once she and her husband had gotten over the shock, and once they’d heard my story, they were determined to help me. We decided to do the obvious thing: The mother would wish me home. She was the one who had to do it, of course, because the power rests with the owner of the platter, and she was the one who’d bought it.
“So we said our good-byes. She made her wish and I vanished. A few hours later, I called them collect from Amsterdam. Technically, I was home, or at least I was in the same place where I’d lived back then. But my family and my home were long gone. It was all concrete, and cars, and shop buildings. So my new mother wished me back.”
I let out a huge breath. I hadn’t even noticed I’d been holding it. Sofie hadn’t told us any of this.
“That was the first failure. Then my new father said that maybe the wording had been the problem. Mother should have wished me back to my home at the time I lived there. Or maybe even more precise, on the day before I was first asked to pose by Hans van der Brock. That sounded like a good guess. It made logical sense. So we said good-bye again, and this time my mother said the exact words—we had even written them down to be sure there was no mistake. But nothing happened. Nothing at all.
“After that, we gave up on sending me home. We couldn’t think of any other way. So we settled in and became a real family.
“It wasn’t easy for them. They had to rearrange their lives because of me. But they said they were glad to do it. We moved out to the country, far from other people who might notice things and tell tales. We didn’t have company or go out into the world much. And we were schooled at home because I didn’t have a birth certificate, no papers of any kind. Legally, I didn’t exist.”
“You and who else?” Jen asked. “You said ‘we.’”
“My sister. She was born four years after I came.”
“Were you responsible for that?” I asked Sofie. “The new baby?”
She grinned. “The best wish I ever granted. And for a while, we were all very happy. But after a while we discovered another, more serious complication. It appeared that I was frozen in a particular moment in time. I didn’t grow any older and apparently never would. So they couldn’t ‘raise’ me the way parents normally did—teaching me and training me for a future independent life. I could learn things and grow in my mind, but I would always be a child.
“And”—she hesitated here, pulling in a deep breath—“apparently I would go on like that forever. I would never die. You have only to follow that thought to see the many, many problems presented by my situation.”
“Oh my God!” Jen said, her hands crossed over her heart.
“Then one day, when I had been with them for eleven years, my mother had a sudden inspiration. She said, ‘What if the platter was broken? Do you think that might break the spell?’ I was amazed we hadn’t thought of it before.”
“Wait,” Mom said. She was sitting bolt upright now. “This mother you’ve been talking about—she was the one who broke the platter?”
“That’s right. But this time it was going to be a lot harder to say good-bye. We loved each other very much. And we weren’t all in agreement about it, either. My mother felt strongly that it was the right thing to do, but Daddy was against the plan. He was afraid something might go horribly wrong. And to be honest, I think he couldn’t bear to let me go. He and Mother argued about it. I heard them late at night when they thought I was asleep.
“And then there was my sister to think about. She knew nothing about my situation. They’d put off telling her because she was so young. It would come as a shock to her, whether they explained it or not.”
This part of the telling felt strangely different from the rest, and not only because I knew about the “darkness and forgetting.” There was a sudden stillness in the room, like nobody dared to breathe.
“I’m not sure exactly why it happened as it did. Mother was determined to help me. The fact that I didn’t grow, couldn’t have a future, and would be still as I am now long after all of them were in their graves—it troubled her very much. She thought it was selfish to keep me if there was any chance of setting me free. So she decided to do it when Daddy wasn’t around to stop her.”
She sighed. “That must have been a hard decision. But she was strong, a person of conscience. So one morning when we were alone she said, ‘We have to break the platter now. I’m not sure I’ll ever again have the courage to let you go.’”
“Claire!” Mom whispered.
Sofie gasped, and everybody froze.
“It was winter. I was upstairs in my room writing a book report. You were supposed to be doing geometry.”
“Anne?” Sofie said.
“You just vanished!” Mom wailed. “You never said good-bye. It was so awful. I thought—oh, such terrible things!”
“Wait, Mom! You were the sister?”
She nodded but never took her eyes off Sofie. “It was in the middle of a snowstorm—”
“I remember.”
“I knew you couldn’t have left the house. Your boots and coat were still in the mudroom. And there wasn’t a footprint or tire track anywhere! There was snow piled up against the doors. But you weren’t in the house, either.”
She pressed her fingers to her temples, and her voice came out like a groan. “I thought you were dead. I searched the house for your body!”
“Oh, Anne!” Sofie scooted over and sat close to Mom, put her arms around her. “It must have been so terrible for you.”
“We weren’t allowed to bother Daddy when he was working, but I was so scared I went in his office and told him everything—that you had disappeared and Mother was upstairs locked in the bedroom, crying. So he went up there, and I heard them screaming at each other for what felt like hours. And then I was alone in the dark, and after a while I went to my room and locked the door. I e
ven slid a chair under the knob. I was so afraid.”
I saw Jen shaking her head—probably thinking, as I was, of that poisonous, secret past Mom had kept to herself all these years. If only she had reached out, explained why she was so sad . . .
“In the morning, Daddy came to my room and I let him in. What else could I do? He said a lot of things that didn’t make sense—that you’d ‘gone home to be with your real family,’ that ‘it was what you wanted.’ I knew he was lying. I mean, I would have known about this ‘other family’ if you’d really had one. You would have packed up your things, and I would have seen you doing it. You would have given me time to get used to the idea. And you would never have gone away without saying good-bye.”
“It happened so suddenly, I didn’t have a chance. But everything Daddy said was true. And if he’d told you the whole story, you’d have thought that was a lie too.”
“I guess so,” Mom said. “Oh, Claire!”
I thought back on that week we’d spent in her father’s spooky old house, how she wouldn’t sleep there, wouldn’t go upstairs, didn’t want any of his things except his papers. Of course it would be hard for her, going back to the place where her sister had vanished—and she thought her parents might have killed her! And Mom was so young then, alone with that terrible thought. No wonder she’d been so miserable and sad.
“When I first saw you,” Mom said, “when you walked into the kitchen that day, my hair practically stood on end. Your face, your voice . . . they were so familiar, exactly as I remembered my sister, Claire. But I knew that made no sense at all. She disappeared more than thirty years ago. If she’d somehow survived—and changed her name—she’d have been a grown woman by now. Yet I still couldn’t shake the feeling it was you.”
“I know,” Sofie said. “I felt it too.”
At that point, Jen got up and went into the kitchen. Barrett and I followed, leaving Mom and Sofie to their private moment.
Jen started taking cardboard cartons out of the bag and putting them in the microwave two at a time. We all sat around the table, watching the little white cartons going round and round.
“Jen,” I said. “Did Mom ever tell you any of those things? That she’d had a sister?”
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