For a moment, the room was completely dark. The air was still and scentless. Then a light blinked on, and Van saw that they had entered a large, square, windowless room. A twisty glass chandelier hung from the ceiling like a glowing sea anemone. The walls were lined with built-in shelves. The room would have looked like a library, except that the shelves weren’t full of books. They were full of boxes. Wooden and cardboard and metal boxes, some the size of a giant’s shoebox, some small enough for a pair of baby booties. But Van guessed these boxes weren’t for shoes.
His heart pounded harder.
Maybe it was this pounding that shut out the other sounds. Maybe the sounds were just too soft for Van’s ears to catch them at first. But the moment Mr. Falborg switched on the light, from inside the boxes, a soft rustling had begun. The longer the lights were on, the louder the rustling grew, until the tapping, whispering, rattling sounds thickened around Van like shadows around a small circle of light.
“You’re the first person I’ve allowed into this room in many years,” said Mr. Falborg, drawing Van’s attention back. “I hope I can trust you. I hope we can trust you.”
Van’s pounding heart gave a squeeze.
Mr. Falborg stepped toward one wall of shelves, and the noise within the boxes grew even louder. For a moment he examined the rows of boxes, brushing his fingertips over their wood and metal and enamel sides. At last he pulled down a plain cardboard box that would have been just the right size for a pair of Van’s shoes.
Immediately, the other boxes went silent.
Mr. Falborg turned back to Van. “Allow me to introduce you.”
He lifted the cardboard lid.
A tiny face appeared over the side of the box. It had wide, round eyes and a small, mousy nose. Ruffled ears stuck out from either side of its head. At first it reminded Van of a lemur. But there was something monkey-ish—or even human-ish—about its mouth, which Van could have sworn was giving him a shy smile.
Van inched closer.
From a few steps away, the creature looked fuzzy, like it was covered with a thick layer of dust. But as Van drew near, he could see that the creature wasn’t actually fuzzy. It was translucent. Its body was a pale gray haze. He could see straight through it to the room’s other side.
“What is it?” Van whispered.
“This,” said Mr. Falborg, “is a Wish Eater.” He stroked its ruffled ear with one finger, and the creature tilted its head happily. “They don’t have a language of their own, so I’m afraid there’s no better name for them.”
“Do you mean . . . ,” said Van, trying not to sound as absurd as the words that were about to come out of him, “it eats wishes?”
“That is their only food, yes,” said Mr. Falborg. “Like pandas and bamboo, koalas and eucalyptus. They’re specialized eaters.” The creature tilted its head so Mr. Falborg could rub its other ear. “All sorts of things are eaten by other living beings, you know. Light. Gases. Warmth. This species happens to eat wishes.”
Van stared into the Wish Eater’s wide, misty eyes. “But—how does it work?” he asked. “When they eat a wish, what happens? Does the wish just . . . disappear?”
“Ah.” Mr. Falborg’s neat gray eyebrows rose. His smile widened. “That is when a wish comes true.”
Van felt off-balance suddenly, as though everything, including the floor under his shoes, had just become a little less solid. He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, the Wish Eater was still there, gazing straight back at him.
The Wish Eater’s nubby hands reached up and gripped the edges of its box. It craned toward Van, teetering slightly, sniffing the air.
“It wants a closer look at you,” said Mr. Falborg. “Don’t worry. They are perfectly gentle.”
Carefully, Van stretched out an index finger. The creature grasped it, its hand just large enough to close around the tip of Van’s finger.
Once, when he and his mother had taken a walking tour in Greece, Van had glanced down to find a tree frog riding along on his bare arm. The frog was so small, so weightless, it could have been with him for moments or hours without Van even knowing it was there. This creature’s touch was even gentler.
“Hold out your hands,” Mr. Falborg suggested.
Van cupped his palms. The Wish Eater climbed out of its box and into the curve of Van’s hands. Even now, holding its whole body, Van couldn’t feel its weight. There was only the cool, fuzzy, tickly sensation of its grippy toes and its long, misty tail.
Like he’d seen Mr. Falborg do, Van rubbed the creature’s ruffly ear with the tip of one finger. The Wish Eater’s eyes slid blissfully shut. It nuzzled down into Van’s palms. Then, with one translucent little hand, it reached up and patted the base of Van’s thumb.
Something inside Van’s chest lifted up and split open. It was the same feeling he got when he walked out of school after a long day and found his mother at the doors, waiting for him. He’d never had the feeling with anyone else, but he recognized it when it came. It was the feeling of being really, truly happy to be with someone, and of being even happier because that someone wanted to be with you.
“It likes you,” said Mr. Falborg. “They’re such social beings. It breaks my heart to have to keep them enclosed, but it’s the only way they’ll be still.”
The Wish Eater opened its eyes again. It gazed up at Van for a moment. Then it began to wheel around in happy little circles, its fuzzy body tickling Van’s palms. Van giggled.
Mr. Falborg smiled too. “I think of myself as a zookeeper rather than a jailor, although I wish I didn’t have to be either. I keep them safe. I try to keep them fed. I do what I can.” He paused, then said, in a heavier voice, “There are those who would like to kill every single one of these creatures.”
Van looked up, horrified. He clutched the Wish Eater closer. “What? Why would anybody want to kill them?”
Mr. Falborg gazed down at Van. “You have a kind heart, Master Markson,” he said. “Perhaps, in spite of your kindness, you can imagine why someone would want to possess a wish-granting creature’s power. To control it. Or, out of fear, to eliminate it entirely.” Mr. Falborg sighed. “And I’m afraid they are succeeding. I’ve been giving sanctuary to Wish Eaters for decades now.”
He gestured around the room. “There are some left, the especially quick or crafty or lucky ones, living in the wild—but they grow fewer and fewer as the years go by. Many of these, when they came to me, were starving.”
“Why were they starving?” asked Van, his heart squeezing. “I mean, with so many people making wishes . . .”
“Ah, but not all wishes are real,” said Mr. Falborg. “At least, not to a Wish Eater. A wish must be made on something: birthday candles, a wishbone, a coin thrown into a fountain. And when someone else is always watching and waiting to steal those wishes the instant they’re made . . .” He gave Van a significant look. “You can see why these poor creatures have been experiencing a dire food shortage.”
Van thought of Pebble snatching up the coins from the fountain, and of Barnavelt clinging to the chandelier above the birthday cake. He thought of the underground chamber with its hoard of bottled wishes. Maybe the Collectors weren’t just gathering wishes in order to keep everyone safe, as Pebble had said. Maybe they were taking those wishes away from someone else. Someone who needed them to survive.
Van looked down at the little Wish Eater. It stared straight back into his eyes.
“Not only are they being starved,” Mr. Falborg went on. “They are being hunted.”
“Who . . .” Van had to stop and swallow. “Who is hunting them?”
Mr. Falborg’s voice was very low, but in the sealed, silent room, Van had no trouble hearing it.
“Oh, I think you know the answer to that.”
Van swallowed again.
“That is why I felt the need to warn you.” Mr. Falborg reached up to a nearby shelf and grasped a tiny wooden box. “The Collectors are many. And they are dangerous.”
Van’s spine tingled.
Mr. Falborg opened the box’s polished lid. “Come on out,” he murmured. “No one here will hurt you.”
A creature the size and shape of a fruit bat scrambled trustingly up Mr. Falborg’s arm. It nestled against his neck, its body like a patch of mist.
“The mission of these other Collectors is to trap and starve these poor creatures until they are small and weak and helpless. Eventually, they are destroyed entirely.” Mr. Falborg nodded around at the rows of boxes. “If I am a zookeeper, they are jailers. They are torturers. Executioners.” Mr. Falborg met Van’s horrified gaze. “Awful even to imagine, isn’t it?” He stroked the tiny creature on his shoulder. “That’s another reason the Collectors would like to keep their very existence a secret. And anyone who is unlucky enough to see a Collector at work is either enlisted to help them . . . or eliminated.”
The tingle in Van’s spine turned to frost.
Without disturbing the nuzzling Wish Eater, Mr. Falborg reached into his pocket and drew out a small white square. He held it toward Van on one open palm.
Van squinted down at the square. It was a photograph.
A familiar photograph.
The very same photograph that was currently tucked inside Van’s own pocket. This copy was less battered and faded, but the same younger Pebble and the same Mr. Falborg smiled up at him from its surface.
It was getting hard for Van to breathe.
“My own great-niece was taken by them.” Mr. Falborg’s voice was soft and sad. “Five years ago. I haven’t seen her since, but I still carry her with me everywhere.”
I know her! Van nearly blurted. She’s all right! But then he remembered Pebble’s intent face as she’d passed him her own copy of the photograph. I know both sides, she’d said, as though Van would understand.
But he didn’t.
Was Pebble a prisoner? She certainly didn’t act like it. Was she giving him some kind of secret message? Had she been telling him the truth at all? Would it put her—or him—or everyone in danger if he mentioned her to Mr. Falborg now? Van didn’t know what to believe. Besides, Mr. Falborg was already tenderly slipping the photo back into his pocket. Van decided, as he often did, that it might be safer to listen than to speak up.
“They will force you to join them, just as they did to her,” Mr. Falborg continued. “You deserve, at the very least, to know what you’ll be helping them to do.” Mr. Falborg gave the tiny creature on his shoulder another stroke. He waited until Van met his eyes. “But you still have a choice. If you are willing, you can use this chance—this very rare chance—to help these creatures and their kind instead. This would require great risk on your part,” he went on, holding Van’s gaze. “I don’t wish to put you in danger, Master Markson, but the truth is that you’re already there.”
Fear clamped like a fist around Van’s throat. But then the Wish Eater climbed up his arm and nestled into the crook of his elbow, its little hands patting Van’s skin, and the fist abruptly loosened again. Van took a deep breath. It was funny—having someone so small and fragile to care for made him feel bigger and stronger than he ever had before.
“What would I have to do?” he asked.
“Simply do what you already do so well,” said Mr. Falborg. “Notice everything. Go back to the Collectors. See where and how these creatures are being imprisoned. How many of them there are. How badly they’re mistreated. Look for weaknesses in the Collection’s security. And then come and share what you’ve learned with me.”
Van hesitated. Mr. Falborg was asking him to spy on the Collectors. Just like the Collectors had asked Van to spy on him. But Mr. Falborg was a kindly old man in a three-piece suit who was trying to keep a bunch of little creatures safe. The Collectors were a secret wish-stealing army. They were kidnappers. Jailers. Killers. The choice was so easy it didn’t feel like a choice at all.
At least, his choice was easy. Mr. Falborg’s choice didn’t seem quite so clear.
“Are you sure you want me?” Van asked. “I mean, I’m—I’m not—”
“You are perfect,” said Mr. Falborg, staring straight into Van’s eyes. “Yes, you’re small. You’re unable to hear some things. You’re an ordinary boy—meaning that you are not one of them. All of these things make you exactly what we need. You can do things I never could. You can move among the Collectors without being suspected. You can uncover their secrets just by watching and listening in the ways you already do. And then you can listen to your conscience and choose the path that is truly right.” Mr. Falborg smiled again. “You don’t know, Master Markson, how very special you are.”
Something warm and bright began to fill Van’s body.
“Okay.” Van took a deep breath. The warmth and brightness flared, and the fist around his throat disappeared for good. “Okay,” he said again. “I can do that.”
The look that broke across Mr. Falborg’s face was like sunrise in a clear blue sky. “Thank you, Van.” He held out his hand. “We all thank you.”
Van shook it.
“Now.” Mr. Falborg nodded toward the little batlike shape on his shoulder. “It’s time for this one’s feeding. It’s quite a struggle to keep them fed, especially in secrecy.” He pulled another key out of his vest pocket and unlocked a large leather trunk. He lifted out a meatless wishbone. “But Gerda’s made friends with all the local butchers, which helps.”
Spotting the wishbone, the batlike creature glided down from Mr. Falborg’s shoulder and scampered onto the carpet.
“This Wish Eater is a very small one, so it has to be a rather small wish in order for him to digest it, so to speak,” Mr. Falborg went on, as the creature made an excited little twirl. “Can you think of something fairly small and simple that you want?”
“Me?” Van gasped.
Mr. Falborg held out the wishbone. “Yes. You.”
“You mean . . . ,” Van began. “You mean I can make a wish right now and it will definitely come true?”
Mr. Falborg smiled. “That’s right. Although there are certain things that wishes cannot do. They can’t control the Wish Eaters themselves, they can’t kill or directly cause harm, they can’t alter time, they can’t force a person to do something they fundamentally would not do. And as I said, for a small creature like this one, the wish should be small and simple. This means no talking dinosaurs, no personal spaceships. . . .”
Van thought again of Pebble’s desperate face beneath the streetlamps. Do you know what kind of things people wish for? Do you want to get trampled by dinosaurs? But not every wish had to be dangerous or dumb, Van reasoned. He would choose the smallest, simplest, safest wish he could. “I guess . . . I’d wish for nobody to notice that I snuck out to visit you. Is that small enough?”
“An excellent choice. Now, make that wish as clearly as you can.” Mr. Falborg knelt, holding out the wishbone once again. Van grasped the other end. The batlike Wish Eater hopped up and down beside their knees. Still tucked in the crook of Van’s elbow, the other Wish Eater watched with its big eyes. “On the count of three, you make your wish, and we snap the bone. I’ll make sure you get the larger half.”
Van took a trembling breath.
“Now,” said Mr. Falborg, “one . . . two . . . three.”
I wish that no one at the opera notices I’ve been gone, Van thought.
The bone snapped.
A ghostly white trail dribbled from the fragment in Van’s hand. If Van hadn’t been watching closely, he would have missed it. The batlike Wish Eater opened its little mouth and caught the falling droplets. It looked just like the hamster in the science room at Van’s last school, drinking from its wall-mounted water bottle.
The Wish Eater seemed to shimmer. A heartbeat later, that shimmering, wavering silvery-ness filled the whole room. The air felt heavy, as though a downpour was about to break. Droplets of invisible mist coated Van’s skin.
And then, as quickly as it had appeared, the mist faded. The batlike Wish Eater sank back on t
he floor, looking sleepy and content—and, Van thought, a teeny bit larger than it had before. Before he could be sure, Mr. Falborg had scooped it up and settled it comfortably in its box.
“Back to sleep now,” he murmured. He replaced the lid and slid the box back into its spot on the shelf.
“I saw it,” said Van, when Mr. Falborg turned to face him again. “I saw the wish. I saw him eat it. And then everything . . . sparkled.”
“Lovely, isn’t it?” Mr. Falborg murmured back. “It grows rarer as the years go by. And the world grows less interesting.”
“So did it . . . ,” Van breathed. “Did the wish come true?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.” Mr. Falborg gazed down at the Wish Eater snuggled into the crook of Van’s arm. “You understand now, don’t you? You see why these wondrous creatures must be saved before they disappear forever?”
Disappear forever. Even the words made Van’s chest ache. “Yes,” he said.
“Ah.” Van could have sworn Mr. Falborg’s eyes filled with tears. “I am so glad.”
Very gently, Mr. Falborg reached down and eased the drowsy Wish Eater out of Van’s arms. A pang of sadness laced through Van as he watched the creature disappear into its box. It had been so sweet and affectionate. Without it, he felt suddenly alone and small again.
But then Mr. Falborg turned around and placed the box in Van’s hands.
“Here,” he said. “It’s yours.”
Van’s mother had had a strict no-pets rule for as long as Van had begged her to break it. She said that they couldn’t move a pet from city to city and country to country, and even though Van had argued, he knew deep down that she was right.
“But . . . ,” he began.
“They’re simple to care for,” said Mr. Falborg encouragingly. “They sleep most of the time. When they’re enclosed in a dark place, they’re completely passive. And it has clearly already bonded with you.”
“What about the Collectors?” Van whispered, hugging the box tight. “They’re watching me. Will they try to take it?”
The Collectors Page 10