Straying From the Path Read online

  I could float before her on fairy wings, waving my magic wand, and it would be the same.

  My hands shaking, I remove the tiara. The gold holds the warmth from sitting on my head. Maybe I’ve imagined it. Maybe it’s all in my head. I’ve been working at that place too long. It’s starting to make me think I can change the world.

  For a week, I put on the tiara every night. I see the wishes, I know their outcomes. I help a girl in the suburbs find her lost cat. I convince a middle-aged woman to walk out of her abusive marriage. I find a winning lottery ticket for a harried mother of three. Another girl wins a beauty pageant. I see the scenes play out as if I stand in the middle of them. I am invisible and omniscient.

  Better, I move through my days like I believe. Yes, I can make a difference. Yes, dreams do come true. I believe in fairy godmothers. I think back to my own life, to the dream that made me drive to L.A. with nothing more than what I could fit in my trunk and pushed me through the door of every audition. Each step of the way there’d been a little voice whispering, You can do this.

  I thought it had been ambition. Maybe there’d been something more. Something to explain why I’d taken the steps and my friends hadn’t. I wear that tiara and I hear that same voice whisper, You can do this.

  A doctor marries the artist her wealthy family disapproves of.

  A lawyer in Manhattan quits her job and moves to the Bahamas to be a tour guide.

  And one little girl gets a pony for Christmas.

  I wave my magic wand and shower the world with stars.

  “Maddie, are you okay?”

  I blink at her, aware suddenly that Audrey has asked the question several times. “Yeah, I’m sorry, I guess I was daydreaming.”

  “I couldn’t tell,” she says with a wry grin. “A bunch of us are going out, you want to come?”

  “No, thanks. Too much to do.”

  “Come on, you haven’t been out with us in weeks.”

  That long? I think about it and can’t remember when I’d last been out with the group. I try to imagine going out with them now, sitting at the end of the table or bar, staring into space, barely eating. Not really belonging. I have better things to do.

  “I’m afraid I wouldn’t be very good company tonight. Next time for sure.”

  She gives me a look like she doesn’t believe me.

  Forcing a smile, I wave them off, then rush home, back to my real work.

  During the day, I see the faces of a thousand children, and I don’t see them anymore. I look for the stories, for the wishes hiding behind their eyes. When Paige—the small plump woman with the big eyes who wears a white wig and draws in wrinkles around her eyes so she can play the fairy godmother—waves her wand and asks the children to make a wish, what do they imagine, and is it something I can see? What will the tiara show me?

  A family with children gets off the streets in time for Christmas.

  An overlooked youngest daughter gets the lead in the school play.

  A battered woman presses charges.

  I move through my days like a ghost. No matter how many women and girls I see through the tiara, there are always more. The scenes never slow, never stop. I think if I do this enough, if I work hard enough, I’ll make all the wishes come true.

  It’s bound to happen, sooner or later, that I see someone I recognize. Someone I know, at least a little.

  The scene is a hospital bed. On the table beside the bed is a picture of a deathly sick little girl in a wheelchair. Beside her kneels a beautiful Cinderella in a blue satin gown, holding her hand, smiling brilliantly for the camera. That isn’t me, I tell myself. That’s a character. In the bed lies Abby, a ventilator protruding from her mouth and taped in place, a dozen wires trailing from her body. A monitor beeps, very slowly. Beside the bed sits her aunt, Christine, leaning her elbows on the mattress beside the wasted body, her hands clasped and head bowed in prayer.

  Christine is making a wish: Please God, take me instead.

  I grab the tiara off my head so quickly it tangles in my hair. Heart racing, I throw it on the floor, stare at it. A dryness makes my eyes hurt.

  Afraid to touch it, I leave it on the floor for a week, giving it wide berth as I move around the apartment in the course of my day. My muscles ache with fear, even as some small sense tells me that the wish hasn’t been granted.

  It can’t be granted. It’s a terrible wish. Unless it isn’t. If she’s willing to make that wish, if I have the power to grant it, who am I to deny it?

  I haven’t been to an audition in months. Audrey’s stopped asking if I want to go to dinner. Barry, who sometimes plays Prince Charming opposite me, has stopped asking me what’s wrong after I tell him nothing a dozen times. His smile turns fake, and he stops talking to me at all. I only notice as a vague observation.

  I only ever feel real when I’m Cinderella. But I still can’t touch the tiara on my apartment floor. I wait for the letter telling me Abby has died. It doesn’t come.

  I wish . . .

  And I realize how long it’s been since I’ve even done that. I used to have lots of wishes. But I never see myself in the tiara.

  For the first time in ages, I sneak into the park after closing and go to the wishing well.

  Leaning on the stone wall, my chin bends almost to my chest, and my shoulders slump with the weight of the world.

  “I don’t know what to do.” I whisper, but even then my voice echoes. The stone carries it down to the thin layer of water pooling on the concrete at the bottom. The nights are getting cooler. I shiver. I should bring my coat, if I’m going to come out here. I should go back, go home. But what’s the point? I’d see that thing on my floor. I don’t want to see it ever again.

  What else do I have? I take stock: what else can I ever do in this world that would measure up to what I’ve accomplished waving my magic wand, making wishes come true?

  “What’s wrong?”

  I look behind me, assuming someone has snuck up, emerging from shadows. Security, maybe. If I get caught, I’ll be fired. But no one’s there.

  “I’m right here.”

  The voice comes from the well. Androgynous, a soft contralto, echoing then dissipating. If I hadn’t been sitting right in this spot, I might not have heard it at all.

  “Oh my God,” I murmur.

  The wishing well chuckles. “Don’t sound so shocked.”

  “But—” I close my eyes, shake my head. The well. Talking to me. That’s it, I’m crazy.

  “I know who you are. What you’ve been doing. You aren’t really surprised at all.”

  It’s right, of course. “If you know all that, then you know what’s wrong.”

  “Yes,” it says. It might even sound a little sad.

  I lean forward. “You know where it came from, don’t you? You know who gave it to me.”

  “Yes.”

  “I want to give it back. I have to give it back, find whoever gave it to me, wherever it came from, and give it back.” I grip the wall, urgency firing my nerves. I can solve the mystery. I can be free. “Tell me where that thing came from.”

  It remains silent for so long, I start to think I’ve imagined it. The well doesn’t speak, it’s my own addled mind.

  Then it says, “It came from me.”

  I stare into the shadowed space. “You?”

  “It’s the same magic, after all. Granting wishes.”

  “Then I’ll bring it back, I’ll throw it in—”

  “Don’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “It came from me, but it can’t come back. I didn’t give it to you.”

  “Then who did?” My voice is taut, nearly hysterical.

  “The girl who left it in your locker.”

  It speaks in riddles. Of course it does. “I don’t understand.”

  “The tiara came from me, but it’s been handed down ever since, for more than fifty years now. From girl to girl to girl. From Cinderellas to Snow Whites to Sleeping Beauties and b
ack again.”

  “But why? Why did it come to me? There’s a dozen other girls who play Cinderella.”

  “But you believe.”

  I come to the wishing well. Been doing it all along. I’m marked.

  “Then . . . then I have to pass it along, if I don’t want it any more.”

  However enigmatic the well is, it seems kind. A voice whispering through a cave on a breeze. “Yes. The wishes aren’t free, Maddie. Each one takes a little bit of you with it. You were never meant to sacrifice yourself for so long. I can even tell you who comes here to make wishes, who you can give it to next. Then you can replenish what you’ve given away.”

  “How?”

  “You have to remember your own dreams.”

  So. Time to write a note, tie it to the tiara, and hide it in a locker. Find the person who believes like I do, who sneaks into the park at night to make wishes at the well. Pass the burden on to her. And when she puts the tiara on her head, will she see Abby’s aunt praying by the hospital bed, wishing away her own life? Will the next girl grant that wish?

  “What’s your dream, Maddie?” the well breathes. A chill air rises from it.

  I stare vacantly at the stones on the wall, concrete painted with fake lichens. “I don’t remember.”

  “It’s not so hard to give the power up,” it says, sounding frustrated now. “Sara, who plays Snow White in the parades. Choose her.”

  And while I wait, frozen, unable to decide, maybe Abby will die, taking the decision out of my hands. Then we, those of us still living, can all be miserable.

  “It’s very cruel,” I say, “To grant someone power, then make sure it kills them.”

  “But that’s the way of fairy tales.”

  I push myself away from the wall. Travel the cobbled path around the castle, run from the sound of rustling leaves, and flee the park.

  Can the princess who wears the tiara ever see herself?

  I stand in front of my bathroom mirror and put it on.

  The scene has changed, but only a little. Abby looks worse, if that’s possible. Her skin has a yellow cast to it, as if internal organs are in the process of failing. More tubes, more wires, more drip bags are attached to her. Her aunt Christine sits back in her chair, hugging a thick cardigan around her. Abby’s mother leans on the bedside, clinging to the girl’s hand.

  The wish is still out there. I see it there, in the mirror in front of me. Mirror, mirror on the wall . . .

  I touch the tiara, preparing to take it off again, knowing the well is right. This isn’t my decision to make. The tiara has spoken. But I don’t have to be the one to see it happen. Let Sara do that.

  But I don’t take it off. Blinking, I can bring myself into focus. I study the image: a twenty-one-year-old college dropout with shadowed eyes and gaunt cheeks. I look like one of those girls who starves herself to be thin enough for Hollywood auditions. I haven’t realized I haven’t been eating. Short hair, bleached blond. Pale skin. A crown on my head, its gemstone sparkling. A princess in the midst of her worst challenge, before the happily ever after finds her.

  But I can’t see that road before me anymore. I can’t see how my story ends. I only know three things, the fairy tale three: I don’t want Abby to die. I don’t want Christine to die. This power I wear on my head has to be good for something.

  I close my eyes and see the hospital room. I hear Christine, wishing in her mind, Take me instead.

  Granting a wish takes a piece of me, that was what the wishing well said. What do I have to give to grant a wish that saves a life? I look in the mirror again, see myself in the room, and think, with all the power of my life, No, take me.

  Abby opens her eyes, and her gaze meets mine, sees me, just before I fall, and the world spins away.

  Swing Time

  He emerged suddenly from behind a potted shrub. Taking Madeline’s hand, he shouldered her bewildered former partner out of the way and turned her toward the hall where couples gathered for the next figure.

  “Ned, fancy meeting you here.” Madeline deftly shifted so that her voluminous skirts were not trod upon.

  “Fancy? You’re pleased to see me then?” he said, smiling his insufferably ironic smile.

  “Amused is more accurate. You always amuse me.”

  “How long has it been? Two, three hundred years? That volta in Florence, wasn’t it?”

  “Si, signor. But only two weeks subjective.”

  “Ah, yes.” He leaned close, to converse without being overheard. “I’ve been meaning to ask you: have you noticed anything strange on your last few expeditions?”

  “Strange?”

  “Any doorways you expected to be there not opening. Anyone following you and the like?”

  “Just you, Ned.”

  He chuckled flatly.

  The orchestra’s strings played the opening strains of a Mozart piece. She curtseyed—low enough to allure, but not so low as to unnecessarily expose décolletage. Give a hint, not the secret. Lower the gaze for a demure moment only. Smile, tempt. Ned bowed, a gesture as practiced as hers. Clothed in white silk stockings and velvet breeches, one leg straightened as the other leg stepped back. He made a precise turn of his hand and never broke eye contact.

  They raised their arms—their hands never quite touched—and began to dance. Elegant steps made graceful turns, a leisurely pace allowed her to study him. He wore dark green velvet trimmed with white and gold, sea spray of lace at the cuffs and collar. He wore a young man’s short wig powdered to perfection.

  “I know why you’re here,” he said, when they stepped close enough for conversation. “You’re after Lady Petulant’s diamond brooch.”

  “That would be telling.”

  “I’ll bet you I take it first.”

  “I’ll make that bet.”

  “And whoever wins—”

  Opening her fan with a jerk of her wrist, she looked over her shoulder. “Gets the diamond brooch.”

  The figure of the dance wheeled her away and gave her to another partner, an old man whose wig was slipping over one ear. She curtseyed, kept one eye on Lady Petulant, holding court over a tray of bonbons and a rat-like lap dog, and the other on Ned.

  With a few measures of dancing, a charge of power crept into Madeline’s bones, enough energy to take her anywhere: London 1590. New York 1950. There was power in dancing.

  The song drew to a close. Madeline begged off the next, fanning herself and complaining of the heat. Drifting off in a rustle of satin, she moved to the empty chair near Lady Petulant.

  “Is this seat taken?”

  “Not at all,” the lady said. The diamond, large as a walnut, glittered against the peach-colored satin of her bodice.

  “Lovely evening, isn’t it?”

  “Quite.”

  For the next fifteen minutes, Madeline engaged in harmless conversation, insinuating herself into Lady Petulant’s good graces. The lady was a widow, rich but no longer young. White powder caked the wrinkles of her face. Her fortune was entailed, bestowed upon her heirs and not a second husband, so no suitors paid her court. She was starved for attention.

  So when Madeline stopped to chat with her, she was cheerful. When Ned appeared and gave greeting, she was ecstatic.

  “I do believe I’ve found the ideal treat for your little dear,” he said, kneeling before her and offering a bite-sized pastry to the dog.

  “Why, how thoughtful! Isn’t he a thoughtful gentleman, Frufru darling? Say thank you.” She lifted the creature’s paw and shook it at Ned. “You are too kind!”

  Madeline glared at Ned, who winked back.

  A servant passed with a silver tray of sweets. When he bowed to offer her one, she took the whole tray. “Marzipan, Lady Petulant?” she said, presenting the tray.

  “No thank you, dear. Sticks to my teeth dreadfully.”

  “Sherry, Lady Petulant?” Ned put forward a crystal glass which he’d got from God knew where.

  “Thank you, that would be lovely.�
� Lady Petulant took the glass and sipped.

  “I’m very sorry, Miss Madeline, but I don’t seem to have an extra glass to offer you.”

  “That’s quite all right, sir. I’ve always found sherry to be rather too sweet. Unpalatable, really.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Hm.” She fanned.

  And so it went, until the orchestra roused them with another chord. Lady Petulant gestured a gloved hand toward the open floor.

  “You young people should dance. You make such a fine couple.”

  “Pardon me?” Ned said.

  Madeline fanned faster. “I couldn’t, really.”

  “Nonsense. You two obviously know each other quite well. It would please me to watch you dance.”

  Madeline’s gaze met Ned’s. She stared in silence, her wit failing her. She didn’t need another dance this evening, and she most certainly did not want to dance with him again.

  Giving a little smile that supplanted the stricken look in his eyes, he stood and offered his hand. “I’m game. My lady?”

  He’d thought of a plan, obviously. And if he drew her away from Lady Petulant—she would not give up that ground.

  The tray of marzipan sat at the very edge of the table between their chairs. As she prepared to stand, she lifted her hand from the arm of her chair, gave her fan a downward flick—and the tray flipped. Miniature daisies and roses shaped in marzipan flew around them. Madeline shrieked, Lady Petulant gasped, the dog barked. Ned took a step back.

  A ruckus of servants descended on them. As Madeline turned to avoid them, the dog jumped from Lady Petulant’s lap—for a brief moment, its neck seemed to grow to a foot long—and bit Madeline’s wrist. A spot of red welled through her white glove.

  “Ow!” This shriek was genuine.

  “Frufru!” Lady Petulant collected the creature and hugged it to her breast. “How very naughty of you, Frufru darling. My dear, are you all right?”