“Maybe he’s just scared of his parents and doesn’t want to go home; it could be that simple,” Dad said as he put the pot of pasta sauce on the table next to the spaghetti.
I set the table, thinking about the letter that I hadn’t mentioned to my parents. The letter felt private, like something nobody else but Sam's father and I should see.
The word “wish” somehow made it my business. Plus, I had dreamed about finding the boy, and it happened exactly the way I had dreamed. That couldn’t have been a coincidence.
Sam and my sisters came back into the kitchen.
“I want to sit next to Sam,” Anna declared, pushing Marie out of the way.
“You can both sit next to him,” Allison interceded. “How about that? We’ll just put Sam in the middle.”
Dad winked at the boy. “Do you like spaghetti with tomato sauce, Sam?”
Sam’s eyes lit up, and he nodded vigorously.
After we had all dished up and were digging into the simple and delicious dinner, Allison elbowed my father softly. He looked at her with raised eyebrows then cleared his throat. “So, Sam, my wife and daughters tell me that you didn’t or couldn’t tell them where you’re from or where you wanted to go.”
Sam froze, his fork midway to his mouth.
“Are you sure you don’t want to write that down for us?” Dad continued. “Maybe there’s someone who really misses you and who would love to know where you are, someone who is very worried about you.”
Sam shook his head, first gently, then violently. Tomato sauce from his fork splashed across the table.
“It’s okay, buddy,” my Dad quickly reassured him. “You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to.”
“You can stay here for the night, Sam,” Allison chimed in. “Would you like that?”
Sam bit his lip and looked around the table, at my parents, then at me, Marie, and Anna. Then he smiled and nodded. He continued eating his spaghetti as if he hadn’t eaten in days. Maybe he hadn’t. Who knew?
I watched him. The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that meeting Sam had been some sort of cosmic act of providence. Maybe it was Vitrella in me. Why else would I have dreamed about this boy and then found out that his greatest wish was to be with his dad at Christmas? Me, a former angel and current wish fulfiller?
I did this thing in my head that Zack had taught me. When I picked a wish, I needed to give it my full commitment. He called it intent. But to me, it always felt a bit like faith. I needed to make a decision that I would fulfill this wish and that I had an unshakable faith in my success. It was like flipping a switch in my head. That was how I imagined it. Once the switch was flipped, there was no second-guessing and no doubts. The wish would be fulfilled.
I only half paid attention to my chores after dinner as I helped clean up the kitchen and put new sheets on Marie’s bed so Sam could take my little sister’s room. In order to find Sam’s dad, I needed to stay close to him and get all the information that Louise’s office would find out.
By the time I went to bed that night, I had devised a plan. I went to sleep with a smile on my face, happy that I was going to help this boy and fulfill his wish. I felt good about myself. This was good. I had dreamed about meeting someone with a heartfelt wish, and that person and the wish had presented themselves to me. What could not be right and good about that?
Only in a very brief moment between wakefulness and sleeping, that moment of drifting into unconsciousness, I remembered the fear and the sense of foreboding that my dream had always given me.
6
The next morning, Sam still didn’t speak. We hadn’t told him that we planned to take him to DHHS for fear that he would run away. But when we explained it to him after breakfast, he didn’t seem alarmed at all.
Anna insisted on coming with Allison and me to Concord instead of going to school, and she got upset when Allison didn’t let her. In the end, Dad took my sisters to school, and Allison and I drove to the Concord office of the New Hampshire Department for Health and Human Services.
I observed Sam as we rode the elevator up to Louise’s office. He didn’t seem scared or nervous but looked around with curious eyes instead. He smiled when Louise introduced herself and told him why he was there. I wasn’t surprised that he took an instant liking to Allison’s friend. With her mop of curly brown hair, her big teddy bear eyes, and round face, she had to be the least intimidating person I knew. Louise asked Sam the same questions we had asked him many times already, with the same results. Sam didn’t talk, and he didn’t want to write down his surname or where he was from.
Another friendly woman in her fifties came into the office and said hello to Sam.
“Rhonda is going to ask you to complete a couple of tasks,” Louise explained to the boy, “and ask you a few more questions. There’s a room next door with plenty of toys, where you two can go. Is that okay, Sam?”
Sam looked questioningly at Allison, who nodded with encouragement. Sam nodded too and followed the woman.
Once they had closed the door behind them, Louise opened blinds that covered a small window to the room next door. Through it, we could see Sam and the woman.
“Rhonda is a child psychologist,” Louise said to us. “She’ll make an initial assessment of his mental development and try to determine if he has been traumatized in some way. If he doesn’t open up to her, this will just be the first session, though. We’ve got an appointment with a medical doctor set up for Sam this afternoon to establish whether his muteness is caused by a physical disability. Considering he didn’t even recognize Rhonda’s attempts at sign language and doesn’t sign himself, I would hazard a guess that the cause is psychological. We will also want to know if the boy shows any physical signs of abuse.”
I shuddered. It was probably an everyday occurrence for Louise to deal with something like that, but I choked up at the thought that someone might have hurt Sam. Allison noticed and put her arm around me.
We watched Sam as he kept nodding or shaking his head at Rhonda’s questions, made drawings at her request, and played a few games. Louise explained that those were supposed to show Rhonda if Sam had passed the developmental milestones of most kids his age. The window must have been a one-way mirror, because Sam didn’t seem to notice us watching him.
Louise filled out some paperwork and made a couple of phone calls during Sam’s session. Afterward, Rhonda left Sam to play in the room by himself and came into Louise’s office. She asked Allison and me to keep an eye on Sam through the window and spoke with Louise in soft tones. I couldn’t help but strain my ears to listen. There wasn’t much to overhear, though. Rhonda hadn’t found anything out about who Sam was, but as far as she could determine from spending three quarters of an hour with him, he seemed like a healthy young boy. He could complete math and language exercises like a nine-year-old usually could, so she estimated that to be his age. Apart from that, he seemed to have a preoccupation with dinosaurs and magic. While the latter could indicate the desire to escape the real world, it wasn’t unusual for a boy that age at all.
After their brief chat, Rhonda fetched Sam from the other room and said good-bye.
“Sam, if you can’t or won’t tell us where you’re from or who your parents are, we won’t be able to contact them,” Louise said to Sam in earnest tones. “Do you understand that?”
The boy nodded.
“That means you’ll have to stay with another family for a while. Do you understand that too?”
Sam hesitated then pointed at Allison and me.
Louise shook her head. “No, unfortunately you can’t stay with Stella’s family. You see, we have to make sure that families are able to look after children we put in their care. So they register with us, and we check up on them. Parents that do that are called foster parents. The Martens aren’t registered with us as a foster family, so I’m not allowed to let you stay with them. I know that sounds complicated, but the adult world is sometimes complicated, isn’
t it?”
Now Sam looked a bit daunted. I didn’t want him to be scared, and I needed him to be somewhere safe while I fulfilled his wish. I squatted down so my face was level with his.
“Listen, Sam, what Louise is saying is that the family she has found for you is safe. Louise has made sure that your foster parents can look after you properly, that they have everything in place for you. Unfortunately, that would be a bit difficult at our house because poor Marie would have to sleep on the floor.” I elicited a smile. “I’m sure this family is really nice. And we can come and visit you, right?” I looked up at Louise, who nodded.
Sam didn’t say anything, as usual, but wrinkled his forehead, an expression that looked a little bit comical on a nine-year-old. I suppressed a grin. Obviously, he was deliberating whether this was the right move.
“It would only be for a little while,” I carried on, persuading him. “Until they find your mom—or dad.” I watched him closely when I said that. When I said “mom,” darkness clouded his wide brown eyes. But at the word “dad,” he looked… hopeful was probably the best word for it.
Sam looked at Louise and nodded.
“Okay,” she said in an upbeat tone. “Allison and Stella can come along so they know where Donna and Grant live—the nice people you’re going to stay with.” She gave Allison directions because Sam’s foster parents lived halfway to Average, and we could drive home straight after. Louise would take her own car.
“Can I ride with you, Louise?” I asked. She looked surprised at the request. “I have a couple of questions to ask you.”
***
In the car, I asked Louise if I could do an internship in her department. Interning at places where I could possibly find help in making someone’s wish come true was kind of my “method.” Well, I’d had to come up with some kind of technique. Unlike Vitrella, I was an ordinary human without any magic at my disposal. Working in different places put me in touch with other people that might be helpful in fulfilling a wish or gave me access to something I might need. I’d come up with the idea when I volunteered at the senior citizen center to find a new husband for Mrs. Mancini. I had picked Vito, a distinguished Italian scholar, but someone else ended up marrying Mrs. Mancini—Vito’s friend Bertie, a slightly demented artist. No matter; the match had happened because I set things in motion with the gentlemen I’d met at the senior citizen center. I had stuck with that method. I had done a stint at a beauty salon. The wish had been a Cinderella-style makeover, and I’d used a somewhat illegal method of manipulating a raffle to make that happen. At the hospital, I’d made a terminally ill girl very happy by dressing up as Hello Kitty and then got roped into visiting ill children in cartoon character costumes on a regular basis.
I figured it would be easier for me to find Sam’s father if I was close to the investigation Louise’s department was doing. It also couldn’t hurt to have access to their database. Louise had a disappointing answer for me, though. “We only have a couple of spots for interns, I’m afraid, and they fill up pretty quickly. They tend to be college students who apply well in advance. Maybe next year…”
She saw my face. “Hmm, how about you do a couple of days work shadowing just to see if you would even like it there? An internship is quite a commitment, you know? Your mom tells me that you’ve done a bit of volunteering here and there—I guess you’re trying to figure out what you would like to major in?”
I nodded.
“Great, so a few days with me will give you an idea if this would be a job for you. I promise.”
“And I could start pretty soon, right?” I would take that. Better than nothing, and maybe it wouldn’t even take that long to find Sam’s father.
I was pretty pleased with my plan. I was even more pleased when we met Sam’s foster parents. Donna and Grant Fisher seemed like a really nice older couple. They had a son who was in college in California. On the mantelpiece in the living room, there were pictures of him alongside photos of the kids the Fishers had fostered long term. When Allison and I said goodbye to Sam, he was sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of milk and a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie, looking pretty comfortable.
That evening, I put a red candle in the window. It was my signal for Zack to meet me at the bench by the river at lunch the next day.
Sometimes, I found a note from him under my pillow saying to meet him. I had no clue how he managed to get into my room, let alone our house. It should have freaked me out, but it turned out that I was the freak with the major crush, and I kind of liked that he had been there and touched my pillow. I knew it was weird. Didn’t I mention that I was romance starved?
It wasn’t really necessary for me to inform him of every wish I had started fulfilling, and the candle was more of an emergency-but-not-matter-of-life-and-death thingy. However, I was really pleased with this wish and proud of myself.
The problem with my feelings for Zack was that we were so not on the same level. He was a gorgeous angel who had saved my life and my sisters’ lives. I was an ordinary human teenager who wasn’t even that pretty and had no particular talent. In other words, he was on a pedestal, and I was somewhere down on the ground, in the mud. Sure, my self-confidence grew with every wish I fulfilled. Sometimes, I saw Zack looking at me with a glint in his eyes. That was when he didn’t expect me to succeed, and I surprised him with an original idea. I loved it when that happened. Truth be told, that was one of the reasons why I kept doing this. I knew it was kind of lame, but hey, if I had the chance to impress a sexy angel, I would take it. After the whole Mal incident, I’d even had the feeling that Zack would genuinely be sorry if something happened to me. Maybe I had nudged my way into his heart just a teensy little bit. I wanted to keep doing that. Maybe one day, I would make it all the way in there, be at home there. I could always hope. At the end of the day, he was still an angel, and I was a human.
Anyway, this wish was something out of the ordinary. I had dreamed of Sam. You could call that a vision, right? It was something supernatural at least. Zack always told me to listen to my intuition, and maybe this was a form of really strong intuition. Maybe I had trained it to a greater capacity. Whatever it was, it felt a little bit as if the wish had picked me, not the other way around, and therefore, my faith in my capability to fulfill it was stronger too.
I knew in my heart that it was foolish to think that Zack and I would ever get together in a romantic way, but I wanted to see the glint in his eyes. I wanted to feel proud. I wanted to feel hope.
So when I met up with Zack the next day, I approached the bench with a spring in my step. It wasn’t raining at all; instead, it was a glorious autumn day—New Hampshire at its best. The leaves on the trees and on the ground shone in the brightest reds and yellows. It was cold but sunny. I wore a blue woolen hat and a matching scarf that looked good on me and brought out my eyes. I felt more self-confident than ever.
I didn’t waste any time telling Zack about my dream—how it had come true, about Sam, and what had happened the day before. The more I talked, the more my confidence waned. The expression in Zack’s eyes was not at all what I’d expected. When I told him that I had committed to Sam’s wish and that I had already gotten started on fulfilling it, his entire face scrunched up. He still looked so handsome, though, even with a wrinkled nose and wrinkled forehead. That confused me even more. I actually didn’t finish my sentence, trailing off.
I looked away, toward the river, so he wouldn’t see that my eyes had watered a little. “What… what’s the matter?”
“I wish you would have told me about this before you committed to it,” Zack said. “I don’t know what to do, if it’s too late to abort. I need to get back to you on that.”
I looked at him in surprise, tears forgotten. “What do you mean, abort? I can’t do that. And I don’t understand—why should I?”
Zack sighed. “I can’t tell you why, but this is not a good wish for you, Stella.”
“What do you mean? It came to me in a dre
am! It is the perfect wish for me. How else could I have interpreted that?” I couldn’t help but sound a little testy.
Zack rubbed his face and got up then paced in front of the bench. He had never done that before. He looked nervous. Normally, he was always so poised. “I can see why you might think that. But trust me, this is not something you want to get involved in, Stella.”
“Tell me why.”
“I can’t. Please just trust me on this.” He looked at me pleadingly.
My heart melted into a puddle. How could I say no to him when he asked me like that? I was close to panting and wagging my tail. Pathetic. Part of me wanted to do nothing more than say, “Yes, my darling Zack. Of course. Of course, I trust you. Anything.”
If it would have been only Zack and me to consider in this, I might have given in to that impulse. Or maybe there still would have been that little voice in my head, that part of me that wanted to pick at anything until it unraveled, that couldn’t leave something alone. I didn’t know.
But this wasn’t just about Zack and me. At the very least, it was also about my family. I had gotten Marie in danger the last time I had given up on a wish that I had committed to. I had lost my armor when I had lost faith, and that was the time when evil could exploit my vulnerability. Last time, Mal had taken advantage of that.
There had been no sign of him since Zack had banished him, but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t vigilant. Since then, I had made sure to see a wish fulfillment through. I was scared that Mal or another evil entity might come back if I didn’t.
“I wish it were that easy, Zack, but I need a good reason,” I whispered and hardly dared to meet his eyes. I was afraid of the disappointment, of the anger, of dislike, or even hatred. But I looked at him nonetheless. I didn’t see any of those emotions. Zack’s expression was unreadable.
His voice sounded exasperated, though. “I just can’t tell you. But please, Stella. Don’t fulfill this wish. Bad things will happen if you do, and I might not be able to protect you.”
Wish for Santa: Average Angel Page 3