Wish

by Beth Bracken

  That was enough for now.

  After school, I walked home through the woods with Lucy.

  I told her everything. All about Jaleel. I’d never really liked a boy before. She knew that.

  She knew that.

  She didn’t know his name, but she knew who he was when I described him, his dark hair, his long legs, his smile, his eyes.

  “I’m going to the game,” she told me. “I’ll talk to him. See if he says anything about you. Don’t worry. I’ll make this happen.”

  I waited all night. Just the sight of the phone made my heart grow.

  She finally called, late.

  She’d been at the game.

  She sat by Jaleel.

  They talked.

  She mentioned me, and he said I was cool.

  My heart heated up.

  Then she stopped talking for a minute.

  There was more to the story.

  After the game, while she waited for her dad to pick her up, Jaleel had kissed her.

  Or she had kissed him. She didn’t know.

  Her voice shook as she told me.

  “It was a total accident,” she told me. “It didn’t mean anything. I think he might like you!”

  When I saw them in the hall today, the rose in my chest turned to coal.

  Soli

  In the woods, I stare at Lucy.

  “No,” I say again.

  “You’re not mad?” Lucy asks, her face full of hope. “Oh, good!”

  “No,” I say. “I am mad. I’m really mad. Right now I just wish you weren’t here.”

  A bright light bursts in the darkness of the forest. It blinds me.

  Then there’s silence.

  Just like that, Lucy is gone.

  Lucy

  In the woods, Soli was angry.

  I would have been angry too.

  Wouldn’t you? Your best friend kisses the boy you think you like—how would you feel? And imagine you’re the friend who does the kissing. How would that feel? Who feels worse, the betrayed or the betrayer?

  I feel like the worst friend ever.

  I didn’t mean to like him. I meant to get him to like Soli. When she talked about him, her face lit up.

  Soli likes to be in the shadows. Jaleel made her feel light.

  I wanted him to feel like that about her. But talking to him, and kissing him, his lips pressed against mine—that made me feel light as air and twice as bright. I forgot about Soli.

  Would Soli have forgotten about me?

  If it was the other way around. What would she have done?

  Would she have kissed him back?

  In the woods, when she was angry, Soli made a wish.

  As long as Soli and I have been coming to the woods, I’ve been trying to keep her from wishing. The woods can’t hurt you if you don’t wish. Anyone who believes in faeries knows that.

  I don’t know for sure if I believe in them. But I never let Soli believe in them, in the faeries. That was the one thing I did to keep her safe. My one protection. I told her my mother’s stories were just that. Stories. After all, I wasn’t sure. For all I knew they could just be stories my mother told me. Fairytales.

  Soli’s mother wasn’t from here. She had no reason to believe. Her mother hadn’t heard the stories her whole life. Not like my mother.

  The faeries, if they’re here, they’ve kept their distance. It hasn’t been easy. And if Soli ever said, “I wish—” I would change the subject or interrupt her.

  This time I didn’t stop her.

  And she wished me away.

  Away to the faerieground.

  Lucy

  The faeries aren’t at all how I imagined them. I thought they’d be pretty, and maybe sweet, tricky. I sort of thought they’d be like me. I pictured a blond little girl. Tinkerbell.

  They are darker than I imagined. More beautiful. Scarier. Meaner. They are not like me.

  Did I think they would be kind, when my mother talked about them?

  Yes, maybe I did.

  I don’t know.

  I don’t know what I thought. Maybe I never really believed her.

  One of the faeries, a strong one—she has tough muscles in her thin arms—comes over to me in the clearing.

  “Lucy,” she says. “The light one.” Her voice is like a broken glass bell.

  “Where am I?” I ask, even though I know already.

  The faerie looks around. “You’ve crossed into the faerieground,” she says. “You’re on Queen Calandra’s land now.”

  The stories are true. I never knew for sure. I suspected, sometimes. Sometimes I didn’t. Sometimes it made me mad and annoyed that my mom would believe in faeries, like a little girl. Sometimes it was just embarrassing. Sometimes I thought it was special, something cool and secret that only we really knew about.

  I always wondered. Now I know for sure. The stories are true.

  “Why am I here?” I ask, even though I know that already too.

  She sneers at me. I look down at my body. My clothes are dirty. Leaves linger in my hair. For the first time, I feel afraid.

  “You’re here because your friend wished you away,” she tells me. Then she laughs. “I’m sure you remember that happening.”

  Of course I do.

  I try to stand, but my hands are laced to the ground by braids of grass. “How can I leave?” I ask. “Does she just need to wish me back home?”

  Soli, I think. Wish me home. Please.

  The dark faerie shakes her head. “You’re not the one the queen wants,” she says. “She wants the dark one. The scared one. The lonely one. The other one.”

  “Soli?” I ask.

  “Yes,” the faerie says. “The queen needs Soledad to do something. A . . . favor. When she’s done it, you’ll be free.”

  “Can’t I do it?” I ask.

  “No,” she says. “You can’t. Soledad has to do it.”

  “But then that’s all?” I ask. “Just a favor?”

  The faerie doesn’t respond, just gazes down at me.

  “What if she doesn’t want to do it?” I ask. “This favor for the queen.”

  The faerie laughs. “Well, forever is a long time,” she says.

  “How will she know what to do?” I ask.

  The faerie laughs again. “We’ll send her a message,” she tells me.

  Soli

  Lucy is gone.

  I can’t sleep. I don’t know what happened.

  Have the stories come true? The stories about wishing in the woods, about the faeries, all those silly stories her mother’s always told?

  They can’t be true.

  There are no faeries. Not in this world.

  But the fact remains.

  I made a wish.

  I wished Lucy away.

  At midnight, a rock shatters my window. A leaf is wrapped around it.

  I am afraid to touch it.

  I am afraid to stand near the broken shards of glass.

  There are words scratched into the rock in angry letters.

  I can’t read them.

  The only one I know is Lucy.

  Lucy

  My whole life, my mother has left the faeries offerings.

  She leaves the gifts at the edge of the woods. Pinned butterflies. Dried lavender. Mushrooms. Rosemary. A small jar of honey. Every time the season changes, she brings them something.

  I never go along with her when she leaves these presents. She goes alone, before dawn. The only reason I know is because once I followed her.

  Once, I asked her why.

  “I angered the queen,” she whispered.

  It was dark and we sat in lawn chairs in our backyard. Here and there, a firefly sparked.

  She reached up to her
neck and tangled her fingers in her necklace. She wouldn’t tell me anything more. I didn’t dare ask.

  Soli

  There’s a rock in my hand when I wake up. Yesterday comes rushing back. The wish. The light. Lucy disappearing.

  Did it happen?

  I stare at the rock.

  Yes.

  It happened.

  Lucy kissed Jaleel, and because of that, I made a wish that she’d disappear.

  And because of that, she did.

  I get ready for school.

  I try to forget that Lucy disappeared.

  I try to forget it’s my fault.

  I try to forget about the wish I made in the woods.

  Still, I put the rock in my pocket.

  What do I do now? Who would believe me?

  I can’t go to school.

  I can’t keep quiet, or pretend to be normal. I can’t pretend I didn’t wish my friend away. So instead of going to school, I go to Lucy’s house.

  The rock is a weight in my pocket while I run there, traveling a path I’ve traveled a thousand times.

  Ten thousand, maybe. More.

  I don’t take the shortcut through the woods. I never liked to take it alone. And right now, I’m afraid of the woods. I don’t ever want to go back there.

  I never dreamed the stories could be true.

  At Lucy’s house, I stand on the step. What can I tell Andria? What will she already know?

  Will she be worried?

  Will she blame me?

  I would.

  I do, I do blame myself.

  Before I can even knock, the front door opens wide. I hold my breath.

  Lucy’s mom looks at me the way a mother would look at a daughter. She’s not my mother, but she might as well be.

  She has always taken care of me.

  “Hello, Soli,” she says. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  Lucy

  I’m a prisoner. The faeries want me for something, but I don’t know what. It’s too dark to see anything where I am, here, in the shadows. My prison is dark and smells like death. I touch the walls in the dark and feel only wet stone. Gross. There’s no way out.

  Then my hand falls on a body. “Watch it,” a voice says. The body moves away.

  “Who’s there?” I whisper.

  “Keep quiet,” the boy says. “Don’t remind them you’re here.”

  I move back to my corner. “Who are you?” I ask. I try to keep my voice from shaking, but it isn’t easy. I’m afraid, and my voice betrays me.

  From the other side of the cell, the voice whispers, “My name is Kheelan. Don’t be scared. I’m a prisoner too.”

  “I’m Lucy,” I say.

  “I know who you are,” he says. “The light girl.”

  What? Light?

  My hair, maybe. But how does he know who I am? Who’s told him about me?

  “What do they want from me?” I ask.

  “Queen Calandra wants the dark one. Your friend,” Kheelan says. “The one in the shadows.”

  I forget to whisper. Instead, I laugh. “Soli?” I ask. “Dark?”

  Soli isn’t dark.

  Soli isn’t dark at all.

  Lucy

  When we were five, we promised we’d be best friends forever.

  To make the promise, we pretended we were having a faerie ceremony, even though Soli didn’t believe in them. Because I wouldn’t let her.

  Instead, I made it a game. We carved our names in the shadows of an old willow tree. The tree still stands in Willow Forest.

  Once, when we were small, Soli found a wounded bird by our tree house. She took it in. She fed the bird and kept it warm. She made a little bed for it in a box, with a pillow made of a rolled-up pair of socks and an old soft rag for a blanket.

  She named the bird Henrietta.

  As she cared for it, Soli sang to the bird, some sweet old lullaby her mother must have sung to her.

  Everything will heal.

  Everyone will feel

  Better, in the morning.

  Better, in the morning.

  Soli fed the bird, and dripped water into its open beak. Slowly, it healed. Soon, the bird flew away.

  Soli gave that bird its life back.

  She gave me my life back too, when my dad died. I couldn’t talk about it, afterward. Not to my mom, not to Soli, not to anyone.

  After the funeral, Soli came to my house.

  “You don’t have to talk,” she told me. “But we need to be together. And soon you’ll feel better. I promise.”

  We stayed in my room, and she hummed, and she stroked my hair.

  Better, in the morning.

  She was right. We need to be together. Best friends forever. And look at us now. Fighting over a boy, a boy I barely even cared about.

  Lucy

  “Why are you here?” I ask the boy in the other corner of the cell.

  “It’s a long story. But Queen Calandra thinks I’m rebellious,” Kheelan says. I can hear the smile in his voice. “So she’s punishing me.”

  “I guess that makes two of us,” I mutter.

  “Will your friend come for you?” he asks.

  “She’s my best friend,” I say. I think of our names carved on the old tree. “She’ll never leave me here.”

  “That’s part of her plan,” he says. “The queen’s, I mean. Not your friend’s.”

  “Who is she, anyway?” I ask.

  “Calandra?” Kheelan says. “Ah, she’s just the queen. She’s been around for a while. She is many long stories, not all of them true.” He pauses and adds, “Most of them with unhappy endings.”

  “Is she dangerous?” I ask.

  Kheelan laughs. “Dangerous,” he repeats. “Is Calandra dangerous.”

  “I don’t know anything about her,” I say.

  “I know,” he whispers. “I’m sorry.”

  We are quiet for a minute. Then his voice floats across the cell.

  “Of course she’s dangerous,” he says. “But like anything else, she only has power if you let her have it.”

  “I’m afraid,” I whisper.

  I feel Kheelan’s fingers grasping mine. “Don’t be,” he says.

  A heavy door opens. We move apart. Light creeps in, blinding me.

  “The queen will see you now,” a deep voice says. Hands grab my shoulders. “Get up,” the man says.

  I stand up and Kheelan quickly reaches up and grabs my hand.

  “Don’t let her break you,” he whispers. “Be strong, Lucy.” He squeezes my fingers, and then lets go.

  The guard drags me out from the dark.

  Soli

  Lucy’s mother looks terrible.

  “Hi, Andria,” I say.

  “Do you know where she is?” Lucy’s mom asks.

  She’s worried.

  Of course she is.

  I forget sometimes that I’m not Lucy’s whole world.

  I look around. “Can I come in?” I ask.

  “Of course,” Andria says. “I’m sorry. Yes. Please come in.”

  I sit down on the couch. Lucy and I have sat here so many times. Will we ever sit together again?

  “So?” Andria asks. “Where is she? I’m so worried about her.”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  Andria’s face turns pale. “When is the last time you saw her?” she asks.

  Can I tell her the truth?

  That in the forest, I wished her daughter away, and it worked?

  That I think faeries took her?

  That they sent me a message?

  Lucy always pretended not to believe in faeries, but I know Lucy’s mom does.

  “Lucy is gone because I wished her away,” I blurt out.

 
“What?” Andria whispers. Her eyes grow wide.

  “We were in the forest,” I say. “Yesterday, after school. I was mad, and . . . ” Tears sting my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  Lucy’s mom closes the window. Then she pulls the blinds. Then she locks the door.

  “Listen to me very carefully,” she says. “Did they try contacting you?”

  I pull the rock out of my pocket. Andria’s face is white. “This came through my window,” I tell her. “Lucy’s name is on it.” I hold it out to her.

  Andria grabs the rock.

  She turns it over in her hands.

  She rubs her thumb across Lucy’s name.

  “Do you know what it says?” I ask.

  Andria reads the strange letters. “A faerie’s contract has been made. Come to Willow’s Gate to find Lucy.”

  She swallows hard. “It’s the faerie language,” she tells me.

  “I can’t believe they’re real,” I say.

  “Oh, they’re real,” Andria says.

  Something in her voice tells me to not question her.

  “How do we get her back?” I ask.

  Andria sighs. “We don’t, Soli,” she says. “You do. You’re the only way.”

  “How?” I whisper.

  “You have to go to them,” she tells me. “No one else can do this.”

  “What do I do?” I ask, trying to be brave.

  “Go to the depths of Willow Forest alone,” she tells me. “Find a four-leaf clover. Then pull each of its leaves. When they’re gone, say your wish.”

  “No way,” I say. “I’m never wishing in the forest again.”

  “You need to wish to see a faerie. Otherwise the door will be invisible to you,” Andria explains. “And if the door stays invisible, we’ll never get Lucy back.”

  “Okay,” I whisper.

  Whatever it takes.

  A hunt for a four-leaf clover in the middle of the woods.

  Andria gazes at me. Then she takes off her necklace. A silver shape hangs from a thin silver strand.