The Secret Ingredient of Wishes (10 page)

Rachel found another five slips of paper before she left work around eight that night. They popped up behind bottles of creamy lotion and were twined into the sides of the baskets. One balanced on the edge of the fan blade as it whirled softly above until Everley walked in the back to make another batch of cucumber water. Only then did the paper tip over the edge and drift down to rest on Rachel's outstretched hand. She'd stuffed them all, unread, into her pockets where they refused to crumple.

She blamed Violet's birthday wish. Accidentally granting it had changed things. Opened some sort of crack in her resolve, allowing wishes to slip through despite her refusal to do anything about them. If she didn't find a way to shut it again, the wishes might never stop.

The kitchen at Catch's house was empty, and Rachel was grateful for the solitude. The light over the stove burned a dim light that shone on enough of the tile floor that she could make her way around the island and into the even darker foyer.

Hurrying up the stairs, she tried to ignore the papers in her pockets but they seemed to be getting heavier by the minute. Her shoes scuffed on the carpet runner that ran the length of the second-story hallway. Her pockets felt weighed down, like they'd been filled with wet sand instead of two-inch strips of paper. She stumbled on the carpet's edge but somehow managed to keep herself upright.

Rachel rounded the corner and took the steps to her room two at a time. She trailed one hand on the wall as she ascended. With the door open, a stream of moonlight from the window illuminated the top half of the stairs. She tugged the door closed behind her. It slid along the track with a dull rumbling, and it banged the side wall, then rolled back a few inches. She looked over her shoulder, half-expecting to see someone there. Finding no one, she dug the wishes out of her pockets. The paper pressed crisp and cool against her sweaty fingers. Hands shaking, she stuffed them into the wish box she'd brought from her parents' house and set it on the desk at the top of the stairs.

She forced herself to walk calmly across the room. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up and her arms erupted in goose bumps. Dropping to the bed, she glanced at the box. If she didn't know better, she would have sworn the wishes had multiplied.

She crawled across the bed and shoved open the window. The air, hot and heavy with humidity, rushed in, bringing the scent of apples and something sweet she couldn't place. She turned as the air whispered her name. Leaning on the windowsill, she scanned the yard.

Ashe stood in the yard, so still it looked like he had grown up from the ground. He was far enough away that she couldn't be sure if he'd called out to her or if she'd imagined it. Rachel started to pull back inside when he looked up. She could just make out his half smile through the dark.

“Going to bed already?” he called up.

“Is there some thriving nightlife in Nowhere I've managed to miss?”

“We don't let just anyone in on the debauchery that goes down in this place. You've only been here a week. Jury's still out on whether or not you can handle it.”

“What makes you think I want to join in?”

“What? Hanging out with me and a plate of Catch's pie isn't your idea of a good time?” Ashe held a plate in the air as if to prove his point. A sliver of moonlight peeking through the clouds caught it, making the ceramic gleam white.

“The pie, maybe,” Rachel said with a laugh. But the thought of sitting close enough to him to eat off his plate made her skin warm. She tried to shove the thought away.

“Then I expect to see you down here in a minute.” He walked back toward Catch's house and out of sight.

Rachel watched out the window for a moment, then headed down to meet him. She stopped in the kitchen long enough to get her own piece of blackberry pie, careful not to make too much noise and disturb Catch, who had already gone to bed.

“You had like thirty more seconds and then I was giving up on you,” Ashe said from the darkness of the back porch. “Anyone who can resist Catch's pie is not someone I can be friends with.”

“Guess it's a good thing her pies are growing on me, huh?”

“Guess so.”

She dropped into the chair next to him, hiding her smile behind a forkful of pie. “Do you do this a lot? Come over and sneak pie after Catch is asleep?”

“It's not sneaking. But yeah, this is a pretty regular thing.”

“Why don't you just take a pie back to your place instead of having to come over every night?”

He slumped down farther into the chair and kicked his feet up on the railing. His elbow bumped into hers, jostling her plate. “For one, I like coming over here. The company's usually pretty good,” he said and slid his eyes to hers as if to say she was letting him down in that department. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “And two, it's easier to justify eating as much pie as I do if I have to walk a little ways to get it.”

She laughed. “Completely justifiable.”

“Catch told me you've been helping her out some with the baking. You must've really won her over in the past week.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Most people only get to touch her pies when they eat them. And by most people, I mean everyone. She's very territorial when it comes to her kitchen,” he said.

Rachel's hand paused with the fork halfway to her mouth. “Are you serious? She barely even gives me a choice before she hands me something to do.” She'd just assumed Catch was that way with everyone. The fact that she wasn't sent a flush of gratitude through Rachel's chest.

Ashe set his empty plate on the deck, the fork clattering against the plate. “Consider yourself lucky, then. She doesn't open up to a lot of people. Even ones who were in her life and her kitchen every day for years.”

She wondered if he was referring to Lola. But she kept the question to herself. Just thinking about Ashe's wife reminded her of the wish she'd ignored earlier. And the ones she'd hidden upstairs. She laid her head back against the chair and looked at the blackening sky instead of at him.

“Wishing on shooting stars?” he asked.

“I don't need stars for that,” Rachel said.

 

10

When Rachel woke, the sound of rain beating against the house drowned out the fluttering of paper. She listened, eyes closed tight, grateful for the reprieve. For a few seconds, she thought she'd imagined the wishes fluttering against each other in the box, as if trying to get her attention. It wasn't until a drop of cool water hit her forehead and dribbled into her eye that she jerked fully awake. She lurched forward as the rain pelted her. Still disoriented from sleep, she almost toppled off the side of the bed. She groped for the light on the windowsill. The wet chain pull slipped through her fingers.

She tugged on the window. It didn't budge. She crouched, pressing down on the lip and putting all of her weight into it. She grunted. It still didn't move. Not even an inch. The rain soaked through her tank top within seconds, and the tips of her hair clung to her collarbone.

“Damn it,” she said.

She sank back onto the bed as the rain continued to pour in.

Grabbing her pillow and the comforter, Rachel dragged them off the bed, more water dribbling down her arms, and yanked off the sheet next. She balled it up and stuffed it into the window opening to buy a little time. She reached for her phone and realized she didn't have Ashe's number. Leaving it on the desk far from the window, she jogged down the stairs on the balls of her feet.

The dark kitchen confirmed her instinct to call Ashe. If Catch wasn't already up and baking, Rachel didn't want to wake her. She found the list of names and numbers where Ashe had told her it would be and dialed his number on the old house phone attached to the wall between the kitchen and the laundry room.

He picked up on the second ring and instead of saying hello, he asked, “What's wrong?” His voice was tense, hard with worry.

“It's Rachel. My window is stuck open and the rain is soaking everything. I can't get it to close, and I don't want it to ruin any of Catch's things. I didn't know what else to do,” she said in a rush.

“But Catch is okay?”

“Yes, I think so. I didn't want to wake her up.”

“So, you thought you'd wake me up instead?”

Rachel startled as lightning flashed across the sky. Thunder followed a few seconds later. “If I'd gone to her, she would've called you, so you'd be woken up anyway. Can you please just come help me?”

“I'll be there in a minute.”

By the time she got back upstairs to wait by the window, he was already racing through the backyard, rain soaking him. She didn't hear the back door slam shut and could just make out the footfalls of his shoes on the stairs.

When he stepped into the room, she momentarily forgot why he was there. His T-shirt slicked across his chest and molded to the tight muscles underneath. He dragged his wet hair back off his face and caught her staring at him. His smile was quick and sent a jolt of heat through her.

She looked away. “No umbrella?”

“I don't mind being a little wet.” He walked across the room, water and grass transferring from his shoes to the floor with each step. “So, let's see this window.” He walked over to the bed, toed off his shoes.

“What're you doing?”

“Unless you can make me levitate, I'm going to have to get on the bed to see what's going on with the window.”

“Right. Sorry,” Rachel said.

Kneeling on the bed, he yanked on the window. It didn't budge for him either. He tried to push it open a little farther, the muscles in his arms tightening and flexing beneath the sleeves of his tee. He slipped a mallet from a belt loop on his jeans and tapped the rubber end along the top edge of the window frame. It shifted an inch or so. He stood, braced his butt against the side wall, and shimmied the window back and forth. With another nudge of the mallet, it dropped with a sharp
thwack
.

Rachel jumped and steadied herself with a hand on the back of the chair. Her fingernails dug into the soft velvety fabric.

Ashe slid the window up and down a few more times to make sure it wasn't a fluke. “Should be okay now. If it starts acting up again, just give a holler,” he said.

He started to move off the bed, but paused in front of Rachel's family photo on the shelf. Squatting, he lifted the thin gold frame. He narrowed his eyes at the empty space between Rachel and her parents, where Michael had been.

Holding the picture so it faced her, he asked, “Why are you standing so far away from your parents? Did you have an imaginary friend or something you wanted in the picture with you?” He flashed her a teasing smile.

Rachel grabbed it from him and hugged it to her chest. “That's just the way the photographer positioned us,” she said to keep him from asking any more questions. To keep the truth of her brother from coming out. She carried the picture to the other end of the room and set it facedown on the desk. She leaned against the closet door, watching him. “Thanks for fixing the window.”

Ashe climbed off the bed and then sat on it to retie his laces. He looked up at her from under thick, dark lashes. His smile was crooked, like he knew she was hiding something. “Anytime,” he said.

Instead of going back downstairs, he stopped in front of one of the bookcases. She told herself that he was just checking to make sure she hadn't nicked the shelves. But she knew better. Even before he ran his index finger along the edge of the wish box—which sat open on the desk though she didn't remember opening it—she knew she should have thrown them away or burned them. Keeping them all out in the open was just the type of thing that would pique Ashe's interest. Though she hadn't expected to have him in her bedroom to ever see the box and wonder what it was.

Curiosity lit up his eyes when he looked at her. “What's this?”

Rachel stood and shifted so her body was angled away from the wishes like her world didn't revolve around them. “Nothing.” She sucked in a breath when he dipped his hand inside to tease the paper.

“Hexes on former boyfriends?” Ashe removed a few pieces of paper. Even from the distance, Rachel could see ink, still dark and solid, refusing to fade despite her ignoring them. He fingered one with his thumb, but kept his eyes on hers instead of reading it. “Supersecret spy hit list?”

“Put them back,” she said. It came out as a half command, half plea. She balled her shaking hands at her sides and waited. After another few seconds, she said, “I mean it, Ashe.”

He dropped the pieces back into the box one at a time. One caught on the lip of the box and hung there until he flicked it back inside. Holding his empty hands up in surrender, he said, “So, you do have secrets.”

“And you don't have any respect for other people's privacy. Now get out.”

“Oh, c'mon, Rachel. You can't be mad at me for being curious.”

Rachel gave him a little shove to get him moving. He believed in what Catch could do, so he might believe in her too. But that wasn't a risk she was willing to take. Not yet anyway.

*   *   *

She was still getting used to the idea that her job was more hanging out with a friend for six hours a day than actual work. Rachel tried to keep busy, earn her keep. But Everley was making it increasingly difficult.

“You did that yesterday,” Everley said as Rachel Windexed the front window.

Not bothering to turn around, she replied, “Doesn't mean it doesn't need it again.”

“I don't pay you enough for you to work twice as hard as me. Please come sit down. Oh, and here comes a very good excuse.”

The man walking through the construction doorway was well over six feet tall, with skin the color of the bark on the black cherry tree in Catch's yard and a bright smile. Even in the heat, he wore a full suit with a fuchsia tie knotted tight at his neck. He shifted a take-out bag to one hand and gave Ashe a combination handshake hug.