Darya’s birthday was August twenty-eighth, four days into the new school year. This meant she’d started the year as a “tween.” She’d been the lone twelve-year-old in a sea of teenagers. True, turning thirteen brought its own set of problems, at least in Willow Hill. At least if you were a girl. But Darya could go la la la and pretend not to think about that for several more months.
“Cake, cake,” Steph chanted. “Everyone wants a piece, right?”
Darya yanked herself back to the moment. “Is Funfetti involved? Please tell me Funfetti is involved.”
Steph looked at her funny. Darya couldn’t figure out why until she glanced down at the cake—frosted with vanilla icing and dusted liberally with rainbow-colored stars, hearts, and moons.
“Ah-ha!” Darya said, feeling herself blush. “By which I mean, ‘Heck yeah, everyone wants a piece!’ Because . . . Funfetti!”
“Weirdo,” Steph said, but she cut the cake without pressing the point and passed around slices on white paper napkins.
“Mmm,” Darya said, taking a bite and letting its sugary sweetness wash over her.
“Should we give a piece to Natasha?” Steph asked.
Darya glanced across the cafeteria at her sister, who was older than Darya by ten months. Darya and Natasha were in the same grade at the same school in the same small town, which was—obviously—a complete and utter joy.
Ava, Darya’s other sister, also went to Willow Hill Middle School. Ava was a grade below Darya. She had a different lunch period.
Darya circled the cake with her arms and said, “No. Mine, mine, mine.”
Suki laughed. Steph did too, but said, “C’mon, shouldn’t we share?”
She gestured at Natasha, whose long brown hair almost succeeded in blocking her from the world. She was hunched over her sandwich, taking small, methodical bites while her best friend, Molly, chattered away about something or other. The rest of their table was empty.
“She doesn’t smile much, does she?” Tally commented.
“Exactly,” Steph said. “Funfetti might cheer her up!”
“Or, sad but equally possible, Natasha might bring us all down,” Darya said.
“Darya!” Steph said.
Darya scooped up a dollop of frosting with her forefinger. To Tally, she said, “Natasha is not . . . oh, how should I put it? Full of whimsy and light?”
Steph snorted. “And you are?”
Darya licked her finger clean. “But I don’t carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. I don’t get worried by everything all the time.”
To be honest, Darya worried plenty. The difference was that Darya managed to hide her feelings. Usually.
Natasha chose that moment to lift her head and meet Darya’s gaze from across the room. The two sisters stared at each other, until Darya, to her dismay, dropped her eyes first.
“Fine, take some over,” she said, pushing her own slice away.
“Now you’ve made me not want to,” Steph said. She lowered her voice. “I like Natasha. I really do. But—”
“Ugggh,” Darya said.
“You started it!” Steph said, swatting her. “Just, every so often she does look kind of spooky.”
“She’s not spooky. She’s intense,” Darya said, annoyed that now she had to defend Natasha.
Suki regarded Darya. “You are too, come to think of it. Intense, I mean.”
“I am not!” Darya turned to Tally and channeled that dude from The Terminator. “I. Am not. Intense. Do you understand?”
Tally laughed. Darya smiled and took a sip of water. Her mouth was dry.
“I bet she’s thinking about your Wishing Day,” Suki said, tapping her lip. “I bet you are, too. Are you?”
“No!” Darya said.
“Her what?” Tally said.
“Nothing,” Darya said, while at the same time Suki said, “Her Wishing Day! Duh!” Then she smacked her forehead. “Oh! Tally! You don’t know, do you?”
Steph did a snap and point. “’Cause you just moved here. Right.”
“La, la, la!” Darya said. “Moving on now, please!”
Tally glanced from girl to girl. “I’m confused. Will someone tell me what the heck a Wishing Day is?”
Darya groaned, because it was all going to come out. It always did. There was nothing she could do to stop it. There never was.
“Sorry, Tally,” Steph said. “One of the reasons Darya gets weird about it—and Natasha, too—is because her great-great-great grandmother invented it.”
“She didn’t ‘invent’ it, and there’s more greats than that,” Darya groused. “She was my great-great-great-lots-more-greats-great-grandmother. If we’re going there.”
“And Darya’s great-great-blah-blah-grandmother, well . . .” Suki spun circles in the air with her hand. “I guess Darya doesn’t want to say ‘invent,’ but she made it so that there’s a tradition here in Willow Hill, and the tradition’s called Wishing Day. Everyone does it.”
“Every girl,” Steph said. Her eyebrows flew up. “Oooh, Tally, when did you turn thirteen?”
“April nineteenth,” Tally said.
Steph moved her lips as if silently making a calculation.
“Nope,” Darya said.
Steph slumped. “Bummer. You’re right.” She turned to Tally. “Sorry, Tally, but you’re too late.”
“Too late for what?” Tally demanded.
Suki and Steph shared a look. Then they looked at Darya.
“Okay, fine!” Darya said. “Just tell her!”
Steph perked up. “Well, on the third day of the third month of your thirteenth year—”
“If you’re a girl, and if you live in Willow Hill,” Suki interjected.
“That’s when your Wishing Day is!” Steph said.
“Not everybody believes in it, but everyone does it,” said Suki.
“Some people take it more seriously than others, that’s all,” said Steph. “Natasha, for example. Natasha’s a true believer. Special status.”
Again, Tally searched each girl’s expression. She lingered on Darya. “Is this some kind of goofy initiation? Ha, ha, let’s make the new girl look like a fool?”
“No!” Darya said. Shame made her feel queasy, because they weren’t putting Tally on. “It sounds ridiculous. It is ridiculous.”
“No, it’s not,” Steph protested.
“But we’re not messing with you,” Darya finished. “It’s just . . .” She spread her arms and smiled a game-show hostess’s smile. “Welcome to weird, weird Willow Hill!”
Tally was still suspicious, Darya could tell. But her posture relaxed slightly. “So what do they believe, the believers?” She jerked her chin at Natasha. “Like your sister, for example?”
“You get to make three wishes,” Steph explained. “An impossible wish, a wish you can make come true yourself, and the deepest wish of your most secret heart.” She grinned. “And Darya’s great-blah-blah-grandmom made it up. Pretty cool, huh?”
“No one actually knows that my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother had anything to do with it,” Darya said. She had to count out the “greats” beneath the table, but she was pretty sure the others didn’t see. “Maybe the Wishing Day tradition started with her, but maybe not.”
“Oh, it did,” Steph said.
“Darya’s ancestors are from the old country,” Suki said, rounding her vowels with amusement. “The old country means Russia, which is where Darya’s grandmom was from. The great-great-great one, and she had powers. Like, she communed with nature and tree spirits and stuff, because she was . . .” She hesitated. “What’s the word for what she was?”
“A Baba Yaga,” Darya muttered.
Suki cupped her hand over her mouth. She whispered, very loudly, “Which means witch, but we don’t say that because it hurts Darya’s feelings.”
Darya’s face grew hot. “I’m right here. I can hear you. And Tally, I’m sure you’ve figured this out by now, but Suki’s the one who wants to believe
this crap, not me. Suki and Steph and Natasha.”
Suki stuck out her tongue, because Suki didn’t get it. For Suki, magic meant fairy tales, and fairy tales were feathery blue dresses covered in sequins, frocks she could slip over her head before twirling off in delight.
Darya, on the other hand, hated fairy tales. Fairy tales were all fun and games until someone got pushed into the oven.
“Huh,” Tally said. She was skeptical, but trying to hide it.
“Yeah, the whole thing’s dumb,” Darya said—and she felt a pang for her quaint, embarrassing, old-fashioned town, which surprised her. Looking in from the outside, Willow Hill seemed small and silly.
“Okay,” Suki said. “But.”
Darya eyed her.
“You can say it’s dumb,” Suki said. “That’s your right. But does your saying so make it so?”
“Um, yes,” Darya said.
“No. You’re just acting this way because of Tally. Because you’re embarrassed, because your family did so start it.” She shot a glance at Tally. “Darya’s family has always been . . . special.”
“Omigosh,” Darya said, cradling her head in her hands.
“So the tradition’s not dumb. What’s dumb would be if Darya didn’t make her three wishes, even if she doesn’t believe in it,” Suki said.
“Even if she feels the need to pretend she doesn’t believe in it,” Steph threw in.
“But . . . nobody’s wishes really come true,” Tally said. She looked confused, as if again she suspected she was being made fun of. “It’s just a game. Right?”
“Right,” Darya said. The not-good feelings were boiling up inside her. She tried to tamp them down.
“No,” Steph said. “I know how it must sound—”
“Crazy?” Darya suggested. “Nutso, make-believe, babyish?”
“But it’s not a game,” Steph insisted. “We’re not trying to trick you, Tally. I guess we forget how odd it sounds to the outside world.”
“And the thing is, no one knows if the wishes come true or not,” Suki added.
It felt to Darya as if her head was floating away from her body. The bad feelings were getting the best of her. “Really, Suki? Either tell the truth or don’t.”
Suki flinched at Darya’s tone. She looked startled, and then all at once dismayed, as if immediately ready to drop the subject after all.
“You made your three wishes,” Darya said, pressing forward anyway. “Steph did too. Did they come true?”
Steph touched Darya’s arm. “Darya . . .”
“No, that’s my point,” Darya said. “Who’s dumber, the two of you for believing in Wishing Days, or me for knowing better?”
Darya breathed in and out, trying to regain her control. Steph, on her Wishing Day, had set free three helium-filled balloons, after asking Darya and Suki to kiss them for luck. Then she’d whispered her wishes as she released them. Her impossible wish was for her stepfather to stop being such a jerk. The wish she could make come true herself was to persuade her mom to let her get her belly button pierced. The deepest wish of her secret heart? To be spotted by a talent scout, turn famous overnight, and have her own sitcom. She’d made these wishes half a year ago.
Darya didn’t know what Suki’s first and second wishes had been, but her third wish had been for her boobs to grow. She’d told Darya and Steph during a sleepover, in the hushed darkness before dozing off.
“You don’t know our wishes didn’t come true,” Steph said, her voice overly controlled.
Darya swallowed. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I just . . .”
“You’re being mean because of your mom,” Suki said. She crossed her arms over her flat chest. “Because . . . well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? You could wish for her to come back.”
If Suki were trying to cut Darya down to size, she had every right to. Darya kept her mouth shut and tried not to cry.
Tally shifted awkwardly.
Several tables over, a boy brayed a rude laugh.
Someone else dropped a piece of silverware, which clattered on the floor.
Darya took a shuddering breath. She glanced at Steph, then at Suki. Were they okay, the three of them? She hadn’t meant to be unkind. It was all her fault.
She moved her gaze reluctantly to Tally. “What Suki means . . . it’s just, my mom, she’s not . . .”
“We don’t talk about Darya’s mom,” Steph filled in.
“We don’t,” Suki said quickly. “And I wouldn’t have, it’s just . . .” Her words trickled off. “Sorry.”
Darya shook her head. She was the one who was sorry. Her throat felt thick with held-in tears, and she marveled, not for the first time, at how much it hurt to hold emotions in. It just plain hurt . . . and still she did it, all the time.
Steph pushed her fingers through her hair. “Let’s forget about wishes. Starting now, only happy thoughts allowed.”
“That’s easy,” Suki said. Her relief was audible. “Cute boys.”
“Four-leaf clovers,” Steph said.
Tally played along, pursing her lips and drawing her eyebrows together. “Um . . . unicorns?”
Suki giggled. Steph smiled. Slowly, Darya began to come back to herself.
“Unicorns pooping rainbows,” she qualified. “And friends.”
CHAPTER TWO
That afternoon, Darya went by the public library before going home. She took the longer way through the woods instead of the shorter way on the sidewalks, because she liked the woods. She liked the way the shadows played among the trees. She liked the fecund smell of the earth. Fecund was a new word for her. She’d stumbled across it during English, and she’d used the class computer to look up the definition.
Any other kid could have used their phone, but Aunt Vera wouldn’t let Darya have a phone. Same for Natasha and Ava. They didn’t even have flip phones, not even “for emergencies only!” They were the only kids in America who didn’t have phones, surely, so in that way Darya supposed Suki was right. Her family was special. Happy happy, joy joy.
Anyway, fecund meant fertile. It meant the dark, wet smell of soil and logs and rotting leaves. Darya liked learning new things, and she liked the discipline required to figure things out—just as she liked the nose-crinkly scent of the woods.
It was an ugly word, though. Fecund. It was funny how ugly words could describe lovely things, and vice versa. The world was full of smoke and mirrors. A word—or a person, or a thing—could seem one way on the surface and be totally different when you peeled back the layers and peered beneath.
The cool air of the library hit Darya as soon as she stepped inside, along with the musty scent of old books and stale perfume. She caught a whiff of paste, too, the thick gloopy kind used in kindergarten. A memory whispered from the edge of her mind—paste scooped out with something flat and wooden. One of those spoons that accompanied baby cartons of ice cream? Maybe a Popsicle stick?
Then the memory was gone, and Darya was left with a fuzziness in her head that would take time to shake off.
Darya strode past the circulation desk without looking at Ms. McKinley, whose face bulged out as if she’d had heaping servings of pudding every day of her life. Ms. McKinley wore too much perfume as well. Fake flowers mixed with baby powder, mixed with sweat.
When Darya reached the row she wanted, she ducked in and sat cross-legged on the floor. She pulled out one of the heavy yearbooks, checked the date, and pushed it back in again. She tugged a second one free. Yes, this one. The binding was creamy and substantial, and inside, the oversized pages were slick, bursting with black-and-white photos of smiling girls and boys.
Klara Kovrov, Tennis Club, read one caption, and there she was, her hair dark and glossy like Natasha’s. A wide smile, possibly a little wild. She was glancing to the side and not at the camera, and Darya wondered, as she always did, whom her mother had been looking at. A friend, making googly eyes and sticking out her tongue to make Mama laugh? A boy she had a crush on?
Papa
had gone to Willow Hill Middle School just like Mama once had, and like Darya and Natasha and Ava did now. In the tennis club photo, Mama had been in seventh grade. Papa was two years older. When Mama was thirteen, he’d have been a freshman in high school. It could have been him she’d been smiling at, though. Who could say it wasn’t?
Darya felt a tickle on her neck, and slammed the yearbook shut.
“Oh!” someone said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
It was Tally. She was squatting on her haunches right behind Darya, though Darya couldn’t make sense of it. Had Tally crept up on her? How had Darya not heard her before now? Was Tally spying on her?
Although, if that was the case, Darya had only herself to blame. Daydreaming was one thing. Getting lost in a daydream was another.
“Why are you here?” Darya asked.
Tally dropped out of her crouch and sat beside Darya, crossing her legs and scooching closer. “I felt bad about lunch. I didn’t mean to bring up . . . you know. Your mom.”
“Shhh,” Darya said.
“Oh, sorry,” Tally said. “Wow, I say sorry a lot. Have you noticed?”
Darya leaned out past the shelf and glanced toward the front desk. “You have to whisper, seriously, or the librarian will come charging over to shush us. Then when she sees it’s me, she’ll be all, ‘Oh, Darya, is there any news?’ When she knows there isn’t, because there never is.”
“About . . . ?”
“My mom. Yeah.”
“Well, that sucks.”
Darya snorted. “Yeah.”
Tally studied Darya with guarded eyes. “So what actually happened to her? I mean, if you’re up for telling me.”
Darya’s muscles went on high alert. “I’m not.”
“All right, relax,” Tally said, making a calm down motion. “But for the record, I bet you’ve heard plenty about my mom. Am I right?”
“No,” Darya lied. She tried to slow her racing heart. “All I know is that you live with, like, foster parents.”
“That’s all, huh? You live a sheltered life.”