Authors: Heather Swain
Selfish Elf Wish (33 page)
“What if I’m not strong enough? What if Clay and Dawn come back? Now that Ivy’s not here . . . what if Mom’s not here?” She looks from me to Fawna.
Grandma reaches out and lays a hand on Willow’s shoulder. “You would like to have your mother near, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course,” says Willow.
“What do you think?” Fawna asks me.
“Me?” I sputter. “I . . . I . . . I don’t know. How would I know?”
Fawna stares at me with kind and patient eyes. She always asks a question for a reason, and I know she won’t let me off the hook without an answer. I look away from my sister and my grandmother to a spot of sunlight filtering through the window. “I guess we should stay to help Willow,” I mutter.
“Zephyr,” Grandma says. I glance at her but I can’t look straight into her eyes. “When someone asks your opinion, you should do them the honor of telling the truth about what you feel; otherwise, people will stop asking.”
“But what if what I want makes everybody else mad?” I ask.
“Is it the worst thing in the world to have others mad at you?”
“Yes!” I say. “It’s terrible.”
She smiles kindly at me. “But isn’t it worse to hide your true feelings?”
“But Grandma!” I whine then I stop myself, remembering my best elf self. “I’m trying not to be selfish.”
Grandma laughs gently. “Why is it selfish to say what you want?”
“Because what I want will take away what Willow wants,” I explain. “And I don’t want everyone to hate me for that.”
“Oh but my dear,” Grandma says, holding her arms open to me, but I don’t budge. “We all love you for who you are, even if that means you want things that we don’t want. Besides,” she says with a little shrug, “is the only solution for your mother to be here or there?”
“I guess it is,” I say. “No matter how strong Mom’s magic is, she can’t be in two places at once.”
“But perhaps instead of your mother, Willow could have me,” Fawna says.
Willow’s face lights up, but my face falls. “You mean you’d stay here?” we ask at the same time.
Fawna nods. “I could, if it allowed more people to have what they want and need.”
“So wait . . . does that mean Mom and Dad are planning to go back to Brooklyn?” I ask cautiously.
“I don’t know,” Fawna says. “But perhaps they’ll be more easily convinced to go if I stay here.”
“Oh Grandma!” I say, and fall into her arms. “Would you do that for us?”
“Of course,” she says with a happy laugh. “Anything for you.”
The next day, as my family packs up for Alverland, Poppy, Bramble, and Persimmon run around the clearing in crazy circles like dogs chasing their tails. They haven’t had this much fun in months, and again I feel selfish for wishing we’d go back to Brooklyn.
“All right, you wily badgers,” my father calls to my littler sisters and brother. “Come over here and say good-bye to Willow.”
They scramble up the porch steps and attack my sister.
“We’ll miss you sooooo much!” Poppy exclaims.
“I’ll miss you, too,” Willow says as she hugs the three of them close to her body.
“When are we going to see Willow again?” Bramble asks.
“At her wedding!” Dad says.
“Oh my, I can’t believe you’ll be getting married so soon!” Mom says, and then she throws her arms around Willow again.
If you ask me, elf good-byes take far too long with all the hugging and kissing and declarations of never-ending love. I like the erdler high five and see ya’ later version better. But when it’s my turn to say good-bye to Willow, I almost lose it. I clutch my sister and don’t want to let her go. “Thank you,” I whisper into her ear.
“For what?” she asks.
“Just . . . for . . . I don’t know . . .” I look up into her face. “For loving me no matter how badly I screw up.” Then before I start blubbering like a baby, I let go and run for the woods.
An hour later, on the path back to Alverland, I can’t take it anymore. I hang back, letting my brothers and sisters pass me so I can walk with Dad, who’s bringing up the rear. He smiles at me as I fall into step with him. “Dad,” I say, “what are we doing?”
He looks around at the trees and snow-covered ground. “I think we’re heading back to Alverland, if I’m not mistaken.”
I hold his wrist and slow down so the rest of my family gets out of ear-shot. “No, I mean, are we going back to Brooklyn or are we staying here?”
Dad looks up into the canopy of trees above our heads. The sky is brilliant blue today and the air is clear. “It’s nice here, isn’t it?”
I nod, but a heaviness comes over me.
“What do you want to do?” Dad asks me.
I shrug, reluctant to tell him my true feelings, so I ask a question instead. “What’s Mom want to do?”
Dad is quiet for a moment. “Mom feels torn. She’s needed in both places, and no matter what she does, it leaves someone vulnerable.”
“Not if we all stay together,” I say. “In Alverland.”
“Is that what you want?”
I remember what Fawna said to me about being honest when someone asks my opinion. “You really want to know?”
Dad nods.
I take a big breath. “I love it here.” I motion to the snow-covered pines, the hawks circling overhead, the squirrel tracks across the ground. “And I hate to see my family threatened.” I think back to Clay holding Persimmon prisoner in the tree. “But,” I say and cross my arms, “I’m selfish enough to want to go back to Brooklyn for myself and for Briar, because we both love it there, too.”
“I don’t know that that’s so selfish,” Dad says.
“Not everyone feels that way.”
“Yes, but . . .” Dad sighs, sending out a plume of white air. “I don’t know that we have a choice anymore.”
I look up at him, bewildered.
“Someone has to keep an eye on those dark elves running loose around New York,” Dad says.
“I think they have bigger plans than we know,” I tell him.
“You’re probably right.”
“But if they come back to Willow’s . . . ?”
Dad lays a hand on my shoulder. “Your sister can take care of herself, and she’s got Fawna and all the other first-firsts to help, too.”
“Does that mean we’re going back to Brooklyn?”
He nods. “For now I think we will.”
Even though I’m happy, I can’t quite smile and feel relieved yet. “What about Briar?”
Dad shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he admits. “Flora is very upset.”
I stamp my foot into the snow. “It wasn’t Briar’s fault any more than it was my fault, though.”
“No one thinks it was.”
“Then why can’t she come back with us?”
Dad sighs. He loops his arm through mine as we walk down the path. “Briar is a youngest-youngest, so her mother worries that she’s more susceptible than you because of her birth order.”
“Susceptible to what?” I try to work it all out as we move through the woods, which suddenly seem bigger and more mysterious to me than they ever have.
“To trouble,” Dad says. “I don’t know why, but youngest-youngests tend toward darkness. You see how Dawn is, and her mother, Hyacinth. It runs in the blood.”
“But that’s not fair,” I say. “Briar’s a good person.”
He nods. “We all know that, but we have to do our best to keep her that way. And even you can see that she takes more risks and makes poorer choices than you do sometimes.”
I can’t argue that one, but still the thought of going back to Brooklyn without Fawna and Briar is too much. “She has to come back with us.”
“We have to leave that up to Aunt Flora and Uncle River.” Dad hugs me to his side. “But I’ll do my best to convince them.”
chapter 25
I HAVE MORE
butterflies in my stomach than I’ve ever had. Well, maybe not as many as when I was battling Clay and Dawn in the forest, or when I was waiting for Aunt Flora and Uncle River to decide if Briar could come back to Brooklyn, but other than that, I’m pretty well freaked out.
butterflies in my stomach than I’ve ever had. Well, maybe not as many as when I was battling Clay and Dawn in the forest, or when I was waiting for Aunt Flora and Uncle River to decide if Briar could come back to Brooklyn, but other than that, I’m pretty well freaked out.
“What are you going to wear?” I turn to Briar, who studies our shared closet as we get ready for Chelsea’s New Year’s Eve party.
“I don’t know.” She scoots hangers over the bar. “I’m thinking about skinny jeans, yellow Uniqlo sweater, and boots. What about you?”
“Can’t decide.” I flop back on the bed and close my eyes. “Isn’t it funny to be back in the erdler world worrying about what we’re going to wear?”
“I really thought they weren’t going to let me come back,” Briar says for the six hundredth time since we got to Brooklyn last night. It took a lot of convincing, but Flora and River finally agreed that Briar could return on the condition that she never cast another spell on an erdler and that she has to go back to Alverland for Willow’s wedding and for the whole summer.
“Maybe I should wear my orange T-shirt with the manga girl,” she says. “Kenji likes that.”
“What if they don’t want to see us?” I ask, sitting up now.
“I keep having the same thought. What if we walk in and they’re like, ‘Ho-hum who are you?’”
“At least Bella won’t be there tonight.”
“You sure about that?” She holds up a short skirt and the manga top in front of her body, studying herself in the mirror.
“Are you joking? Chelsea and Bella hate each other.”
Briar shakes her head. “That never stops erdlers from pretending to be friends.”
“True,” I say. “It’s not like dark elves and light elves, is it? Erdlers can be both good and bad, sometimes at the same time.”
“You don’t think elves are that way?” She shoves the skirt back into the closet and takes out a pair of black cords instead.
“Just seems more cut and dried with us. You’re either dark or you’re light. Good or bad.”
Briar shakes her head and puts the pants and shirt back in the closet. She flops down on the bed beside me. “I’m not so sure about that anymore.”
I turn over and prop myself up on my elbow so we’re face-to-face. “You’re a good person, Briar.” I reach out and squeeze her shoulder. “Doesn’t matter if you’re a youngest-youngest or a first-first or a middle like me.”
“But what if it does matter?” she asks, biting her lower lip. “What if that’s the reason I do things like let Clay and Dawn cast a spell on me?”
“You had no control over that. You had no way of knowing what they were up to.”
“But you knew right away that something was wrong with them.”
I’m quiet because it’s true, but then I say, “They would’ve found a way in, Briar. Whether it was through you or not.”
“I just made it easy.”
I hug her. “I love you for who you are.”
“Thanks.” She pulls away. “I hope Kenji does, too.”
I draw in a deep breath. “There’s only one way to find out.” I hoist myself off the bed. “And we’d better get ourselves together. We have to meet Ari and Mercedes in twenty minutes.”
At nine-thirty sharp, Ari and Mercedes are waiting for us on the train platform so we can ride the subway together to Carroll Gardens, where Chelsea lives.
“So?” I ask as soon as the doors close and we pile into seats. “How was it? How was the performance?”
“Oh honey,” Mercedes says, slapping my leg. “You don’t even want to know.”
“I’m dying to know,” I tell her. “Who played my part?
“Nobody,” she says with her eyes wide.
“Padgie didn’t recast it?” I ask.
“Padgie,” Ari says, “has taken a mental hiatus.”
Briar and I both blink at him.
Mercedes cracks up. She looks great with her curls pulled back in a loose ponytail and a new Brooklyn Industries coat she got for Christmas. “After you guys left and Timber and Kenji took their ill-advised road trip, Padgie lost his cotton-picking mind. The man just wandered around the stage, pulling at his hair, muttering like he was Lady Macbeth”
She does a perfect Mr. Padgett impersonation, muttering, “How could they do this to me?” which makes us all snicker.
“Never mind that the fool had never finished writing the dang musical,” Ari adds.
“By the time Timber came to his senses and got back to Brooklyn, Padgie was long gone,” Mercedes says.
“Where’d he go?” Briar asks.
“La-la land,” Ari says.
“The cuckoo nest,” Mercedes adds.
“Huh?” Briar and I both say.
“The man just checked out,” Mercedes says. “He was like an empty house. Ain’t nobody home.”
“Now he’s on an extended personal hiatus,” Ari tells us. “In Aruba.”
“And the performance?” I ask.
Mercy shakes her head. “Never happened.”
I reach out for her arm. “Oh Mercy, I’m so sorry.”
“I know, right?” she says, shaking her head. “I finally get a decent part and the director flies the coop. But . . .” She smiles big. “I did get cast in that mayo commercial!”
“I’m so happy for you!” I hug her tight.
“But you know what the best part was?” Ari asks.
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