If I were a knight, I’d unsheath a sword and go slice off the dragon’s head. “What are you going to do when he gets home?” I ask.
“I’m going to tell him to never touch the two of you ever again,” she says, and for the first time in years she doesn’t sound meek or scared. She sounds like herself. As if she’s fighting to be the woman she once was even as she’s still stuck.
I have to do something to save her from this curse. I have to find another way. I have seven days to do everything I can. I’m not going to let them go to waste. I will solve this problem if it’s the last thing I do.
Which it very well may be.
“Mom, do you have the keys to Xavi’s old car?”
Jana pipes in. “Kitchen drawer. I’ll get them.”
“Mom, we’ll be back soon. I promise.” Then I turn to Jana. “You’re coming with me.”
I haven’t driven in ages. I’ve rarely had the chance or the need. But I manage, slinging an arm across Jana’s headrest as I back out of the driveway. The rusty old car sputters as I shift into drive and head down our street to the main drag, then the highway that’ll take us to the Everglades.
The trip doesn’t take long, but there’s enough time to tell Jana where we’re going. She doesn’t resist and she doesn’t freak out, and I take some small bit of pride that she’s got a core strength in her, an iron barrier my dad can’t touch. I park in a deserted lot by an old dock that used to house a chartered tour company. Some people who live in the Everglades and don’t have or rent their own docks will stash their boats here, a risky move, since you’re not supposed to park your boat without a permit. But the cops hardly ever clamp down, and since these boat owners aren’t exactly running on the right side of the law to start with, I find no moral objection to commandeering one of their vessels for a quick ride.
“C’mon. Get in.” I motion for Jana to join me in The Themis Steed, a motorboat that’s barely big enough for the two of us but will do the job, since the owner was kind enough or drunk enough or stupid enough to leave the keys inside the glove compartment of the boat. This is not uncommon among boat owners.
“You’re just taking it?”
“I’ll return it. Obviously.”
Jana hops in and we power away, driving deeper into the thick reeds and dark reptilian-strewn waters. I know the route. I’d never forget the route. I stop after a few miles and turn off the motor.
I hold out a hand to Jana.
“We have to walk through the water?”
“Yeah.”
“But there’s probably pythons and boas and eels and so many yucky things,” she says.
“Probably, but you’re with me, and I’m basically the equivalent of python repellent. They won’t come near us. They don’t like my heat.”
“It’s still gross,” she says, and she sounds like she might gag, but she’s doing it. She’s getting out of the boat and stepping into the hot soup of the Everglades. We trudge through the saw-grass marshes, with tangly reeds that try to ensnare our legs and swampy branches that brush our skin, trekking foot by heavy waterlogged foot. The water is thick, and the mangroves are greedy, but we’re nearly there, and she’s on her porch.
If there’s anyone in the whole wide world who knows how to undo a wish it’s the Lady. She knows all the ways in and out of things that the rest of us can’t see. She has all the knowledge, and she gained it fair and square, along with a snow gator.
“Well, look who’s here.”
I climb up on the porch, my legs covered in mud and marsh, my sister by my side.
“Let me get you a towel.” She shuffles inside and returns with a dingy blue-and-white dish towel. I wipe off my legs, and notice her snow gator waddling from inside her home to the porch.
“He won’t hurt you. Either of you,” the Lady says, and pats the seat of her swing.
“He won’t, Jana. He’s nice,” I say to my sister as I wipe down my legs, then hand the towel to her. She does the same.
“Sit. And tell me who you’ve brought. Little sister, I trust?”
“This is Jana,” I say.
“Hello,” Jana says.
“What’s your poison, Jana?”
“Water. Or ice,” Jana says.
“You’re not sure which?” The Lady raises an eyebrow.
“I think water. He thinks ice.”
I grab hold of Jana’s wrist and hold up her zombielike hands.
The Lady’s eyes narrow, anger flashes in them, and she strokes her gator’s head. The gator leans into her hand, like a dog being petted.
Jana and I sit down.
“Determined man, that father of yours,” the Lady says with a snort. “Doing the same to your sister.”
Jana scoffs.
“Thinks he’s got it all figured out. Thinks he can bring out your elements,” the Lady adds.
“But that’s never how the elements come out,” I say, and there’s an eagerness in my voice, like I want to prove I’m a good student, that I’ve learned, that I’ve listened.
“Never is. Elements don’t respond to that kind of human hubris.” She looks hard at both of us. “Or that kind of terror.”
I glance at my tough little sister, who tries hard to keep it together. But her eyes are wet, a giveaway that keeping it together isn’t so easy.
“So what brings you back?” the Lady asks me.
“I need to know how to reverse a wish.”
The Lady whistles low and shakes her head. “You wishing when I told you not to?”
“Yes, but I’m going to accept my punishment like a big girl. Only this question is about another wish. It’s not for me. It’s for my mom.”
“Wishes are binding, girl. There’s no way to turn one around unless you petition the granter union.”
“No other way at all?” I say; then I tell her what my dad wished for so many years ago, and what the wish did to my family. I don’t know that my mom could have protected us from him if she’d been healthy. But I know this—she didn’t have the chance. He reduced her to a husk of a wife, a shell of a mother.
“Granters are powerful, Aria. As powerful as the elements. Often more powerful than Mother Nature. More powerful than humans. Look at the peace in the M.E. Only possible because of granters.”
My heart leaps into my throat, thinking of Taj’s unwitting sacrifice. A tear forms in the corner of my eye—he’s one of the reasons why his country is no longer torn apart. But he’s one of those who are hurting.
“There has to be a way,” I say, pressing on as I return my focus to the Lady. I can’t just let my mother spend her days shrinking into a papasan chair. “There’s always a way. That’s what you taught me. You showed me the way to fire. Another way. How can there be no other way here than to ask the granter union to reconsider?”
“Oh, child. You are fire, through and through. All that passion, all the fury, all that righteous indignation.” The Lady chuckles, but she’s not laughing at me. “What makes granter magic so strong are the rules. The recording of the wishes. The regulations. The union. The payment system.” The Lady links her fingers together to demonstrate that sturdiness. “That makes the bonds of the wishes stronger.”
I bang my fist on the arm of the swing. I look at Jana and see the years unfolding in front of her. I couldn’t shield her from my dad, and I can’t protect her from her future, not when I’m about to vaporize in a matter of days.
“So, what are we supposed to do?”
“Aria, if the world were fair and just, there’d be a spell, a magic potion to undo this,” she says, then she lowers her voice to a whisper, even though no one is around. “Wishes can come undone when the wish has been fulfilled or when the wish no longer applies. If you wished to be purple on September 3 only, then the wish would apply to that day. Your father’s wish would come undone when the conditions of the wish no longer exist.”
“I can’t do that. I want to. But I can’t.”
The Lady nods several times. “I unde
rstand. Now, pet my gator and tell me all about how my fire recipe worked out for you.”
The Lady leans back into the swing. I bend down, and touch the gator’s head. Jana gives me a look as if I’m crazy. The gator’s skin is tough and leathery, but he leans into my hand as if I’ve just come home from work and he wants me to rub his chin.
“See that?” the Lady says, looking at her swamp pet. “You take care of him, you treat him right, he’ll take care of you when you need him to. He’s no ordinary gator.”
“I will take care of him,” I say as I look at the Lady. I want her to know that I’d never forget my debt to her. That I always intend to make good on it. “I promised.”
“I know you will, but that’s not what I mean,” she says, and we pet him together. She doesn’t say more. She doesn’t tell me what she means, so I don’t ask. Jana watches me, shifting her eyes from me to the gator and back again, and it registers for her that she can touch him too.
“It’s okay,” I say to my little sister, the girl I’m not able to save. “He won’t hurt you.”
The gator lifts his massive snout high in the air, waiting for a tickle. Jana obliges, one intrepid finger stroking his chin.
29
Wish, Officially
My father still hasn’t returned when Imran calls the next morning.
“Aria,” Imran says, rocks in his voice. “I’m disappointed.”
He says it like a father who just discovered his daughter cheated on a math test, or worse. Who fibbed her whole way through high school, eyeing the papers of other students, plagiarizing their ideas and thoughts.
I sink down to the floor of my bedroom. Every part of my body feels heavy, my arms and legs like sandbags. My wish is now official.
My imagination hunts for Taj in the underground tunnels of New York City, but I know he’s very likely nonexistent. He’s a cipher until the next reckless, bankrupt fool needs something he can’t get on his own. Or until he’s freed in six more days, when I replace him.
“You had such potential,” Imran says, and I can hear the wistfulness in his voice. The loss.
“I’m sorry,” I say, choking back a tear. “I wanted to do well for you.”
Imran believed in me. Imran gave me an opportunity. For a few short months, he was a far better father figure than the real one I’ve been saddled with. Imran, at least, tried to keep me away from trouble. He didn’t want me near someone who’d already wished. Someone who’d been tempted and gave in to the worst kind of Faustian bargain.
“I wanted you to do well too. I want the Leagues to be the best. That’s why we struck a deal with the union to test for granter use. We want our Leagues clean; they don’t want their granters used simply for sport. And you were one of the best I’d ever seen. Why did you have to wish for more?”
My brain trips over the last word he says. More? I didn’t wish for more. I wished for natural-born fire. But then, I’m not going to argue semantics with Imran. The result is the same—I’ve been expelled. And my family too.
“I wanted to stay in the Leagues,” I say, and it’s half-true, but it’s as close as I can get to a true answer. I had too much want, too much need, and I reached too far. I got greedy.
“It makes me sad to have to do this, Aria. But you have a lifetime ban. There will be no more Girl Prometheus.”
But the strange thing is, he says nothing about my family, about the ban for stealing elements earning them a ban too. Maybe he forgot to mention it?
“I’m sorry. I’m very, very sorry.”
“I know you are,” he says, but there’s no reprimand in his tone. He sounds strangely warm, even forgiving as he continues. “And I also know those burns on your hands aren’t from playing with fire when you were a kid. I only wish there was something I could do about where they came from.”
My chest closes in on itself. They’re the most comforting words a man has ever spoken to me.
“Me too,” I whisper.
“I’ll have to call your father now and inform him. Rules, you know.”
“Of course.”
The call ends, and I lie on the couch in the living room to wait. My father is probably in his car, driving home from his fishing trip, answering a call from Imran on his cell phone. Soon, my dad will barrel through the door, and I have no game plan. I have no strategy. I glance at my mother. She is freshly made up this morning. She wears mascara. I haven’t seen her wearing mascara in years. Jana ran her a bath earlier. Then I sent Jana to Mindy’s house.
“You look pretty,” my mom says to me as we wait. I look down at my clothes. Shorts, boots, black T-shirt, hair pulled back in a ponytail. I wish I had a sash of bullets to string across my chest, and a gun in a holster on my hip. I can’t help but feel I need something to face my father, to face this reckoning. The irony is, I have two perfectly good weapons in my hands, but I won’t use them.
“So do you,” I tell her, though I wonder if she brushed on eyeshadow and blush for his return from a trip, the good wife welcoming the warrior home, or if she freshened up for herself. I want to make sure her fighting words were real, that she’s not going to cave when she sees him, as she always has. I crouch down next to her, take her hands in mine. “What happens when he gets home, Mom? What are we going to do when he freaks out about the Leagues and me?”
“I’m going to tell him to leave,” she says crisply. “I’m going to tell him that I never want to see him again. That I never want to be his wife again. That would erase the wish, wouldn’t it? I wish for my wife to never leave me,” she says, bitterly reciting the words that chained her. “If I’m not his wife …” She trails off.
A rush of hope fills me. She’s right. Like the Lady said, like Taj said, the wording matters. The wish would no longer hold if she’s no longer his wife. I squeeze her hand.
“Let’s hope so,” I say. But as far as I can see, all bets are off when it comes to gaming a wish.
The minutes tick, and my ears are trained on my father’s sounds. Even after being away for two months, I can pick up the rumble of the engine of his Pontiac the second he turns onto our street several houses away. The car trundles down the road, the engine sputtering. I can hear him well before he slides his car into the driveway and kills the engine. Then the sound of his sandals slapping the concrete floor of the garage, the creak of the doorknob, the heave of his disappointed sigh.
He walks in through the front door and sees me on the couch. His face is sunburned and covered in stubble from being out at sea for so many days. I stand up, and he shoots me a glare. His lips are tight, closed. His eyes narrowed. I wonder if this is how his father looked when he was angry. How his father stared at him before he hit him. Before he taught him how to be a man.
But I don’t entirely care why my dad is the way he is. There are things we can control and things we can’t control. He had a choice. He made the wrong choices.
“Catch anything good?” I’m shocked that I’ve made the first move, breathed the first words.
“Marlin. This big.” He holds his hands out wide.
“Where is it?”
“I’ll pick it up later,” he answers in the most disinterested voice. “It’s being cut.”
“Cool. I bet it’ll taste great. Maybe grill it.”
He tilts his head and stares at me, like he’s trying to figure out how I could have this casual conversation with him.
Then he nods several times. “Grilled marlin. Sounds good. You like grilled marlin, dear?”
The question is for my mother. She looks at him sharply. “No. I don’t.”
I want to pump my fist in the air. Small victory for her, but still, it’s a victory.
He ambles into the kitchen, opens the fridge, roots around. “I wish there was a beer here,” he says. Then he slams the fridge door and looks at me. “I wish there was a burger. I wish there was ketchup.”
His words are biting, but his lip is quivering, and he’s going for an old standard. The wounded old dad. �
�I coached you, Aria. I went to every show. I helped you; we made fire together.” There’s a hitch in his throat. The crying act. The tears that reassure his black heart that the way he treats me is okay when it’s not okay.
“We never made anything,” I spit back as I cross my arms. “And who are you to talk about wishes?”
He raises an eyebrow, casts a curious look, like he can’t possibly know what I mean. I can tell he’s ready to play the confused part. But the next words don’t come from him or from me. They come from my mom. She’s stood up, and she’s making her way over to us, wobbly and precarious as she goes.
But determined.
She makes it to the kitchen and points a finger at her husband. “I loved you, Felix. I would have stayed with you forever. You didn’t have to wish for it. You didn’t have to wish for this.” She gestures to her own deflated body, then to her chair.
“You’re not making any sense, sweetheart,” he says to her, and reaches for her, trying to wrap her in a hug.
She holds off his embrace. “And I’ll tell you another thing. Don’t you ever put your hands on my daughters again.”
Fierce and angry, she points a righteous finger at him. Then she takes another step toward him, stumbles, and topples to the floor. I bend down to help her. So does he. We are face-to-face. I reach for her elbow, but he slaps my arm away. “Don’t touch her,” he shouts. The facade is gone, the mask fallen.
“Don’t you touch her.”
We stare at each other, locked in crosshairs, a face-off finally.
“I mean it,” he seethes, and I remember what he’s capable of. I remember what’s at stake. But then I remember I’m not keeping his secret anymore. The secret has been shared. He has no more power over me.
“No, I mean it. I mean it this time. Don’t touch me, and don’t touch Jana. Because now Mom knows what you did to me, and Imran knows what you did to me, and if you touch Jana, I’ll call the authorities. I’ll make sure everyone knows what you did to me and to her,” I say. I don’t bother adding that I’ll be in some no-man’s-land in a few days. I don’t bother because I’ll tell everyone what he did before I’m taken away. I’ll tell everyone to keep him away from my sister. I can’t save myself, but I can save her. I can save her with words. I never understood that until now. I never got it until now. No one ever wanted to help me. There was never anyone to turn to, no one to tell. So I did what I had to do. I shut my mouth. Now I don’t have to be quiet any longer.
The Fire Artist Page 18