Broken Wish Page 21

  But now it struck him that this was really happening: Elva was gone, and they would put her in the ground and she would never, ever come back.

  Suddenly there it was: his grief, gushing out at last. Cay lowered his head as he cried, his nose wet, tears splashing onto his shirt. He felt Rayner’s arm wrap around him, and they sat like that for a long time. Finally, when Cay fell quiet, Rayner sighed and got up, his shoulders drooping as he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

  “I’d better get back outside and see what I can do for Papa.”

  “Rayner?”

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry we left you out. Elva and me.”

  Rayner reached out a tentative hand and ruffled Cay’s hair. “I’m sorry, too. For making fun of you. Maybe sometime you can take me exploring for fairy rings and wishing wells or whatever it is you look for?”

  Despite the hard knot of grief in his chest, Cay couldn’t help smiling. “I’d like that,” he said, and a smile flickered across Rayner’s face, too. “Just the two of us?”

  He didn’t realize what he had said until Rayner’s mouth crumpled with grief. “That’s all there is left,” he said, then hurried away, leaving Cay alone in the armchair.

  Mama finally came downstairs at supper that night. Papa got up at once and folded her into a hug, and they stayed like that for a long moment before breaking apart. Mama kissed the top of Rayner’s head and wrapped her arms around Cay. “How are my boys?” she asked.

  “We’re fine,” Cay said, looking worriedly up at her. “Will you eat something with us?”

  Papa filled a plate for her, piling on the ham and baked potatoes. “Hans and his daughters came over earlier to cook and bake. They left a cinnamon honey cake in the oven.”

  “They’ve all been so kind,” Mama said, picking at the food. “How goes it outdoors?”

  “We’re almost done, aren’t we, Rayner?” Papa asked, forcing a smile. “The fields were destroyed and there’s no saving that row of crops nearest the fence, but we managed to store almost all of the harvest underground. We’ll be able to replant and regrow.”

  “And Flower had her baby,” Cay added, and was rewarded with a smile from Mama at the mention of her favorite goat. “I wish Honey was still around to be its great-grandmother.”

  “I’m glad for this good news, and thankful we could prepare in time.” Mama’s smile slipped away, and they knew she was thinking of Elva again. Her fork dropped onto the plate, forgotten, and Papa and Rayner looked at each other, struggling for a new topic of conversation. They were both rescued by a tentative knock on the door.

  “That must be Bauer checking on us again. I told him we wouldn’t need anything tonight.” Papa pushed back his chair and was gone for several long minutes. He came back with an odd look on his face and a bundle of pure white starflowers in his hand. “That was Willem Roth. He left these for Elva. He looks like he hasn’t slept at all.”

  “The poor boy,” Mama murmured, taking the flowers from him.

  “He looked terrified. Still guilty about pushing my girl like that at the trial,” Papa said grimly. “He nearly shredded his hat in his hands as he talked to me. He’s leaving for Berlin in the morning, never to return, and good riddance.” He hesitated, looking at Mama.

  “Is there something else, Oskar?”

  “He told me there’s something at our gate. A big package, tied with blue ribbon.”

  Rayner and Cay watched in confusion as Mama’s mouth opened and closed. “Blue ribbon?” she whispered, staring at Papa. And then she put the flowers on the table and got up.

  Papa followed her, and Rayner helped Cay gather his crutches and trail after them. By the time the boys made it to the gate, their parents were already unwrapping a long, rectangular object covered in brown paper. It was about as long as Papa was tall, but it seemed light, moving easily when he gave it a nudge. A length of shining frost-blue ribbon fell away with the paper, and Mama gave a little cry when she saw the note underneath it. She tore it open.

  “What is it, Mama?” Cay asked, frightened by her stillness. “Who is it from?”

  “Mathilda,” she breathed. “This is a present for Elva.”

  The boys exchanged glances. “She doesn’t know about Elva,” Rayner said dully, but when Papa tore away the last of the paper, it was clear that Mathilda did know.

  The witch had sent them a coffin made of glass. But it wasn’t made of sheets of glass, like a window, but of thousands of shards and fragments and slivers. A spiderweb of delicate cracks covered the whole surface where the pieces had been joined together, yet the coffin looked as perfect as if it had been made by a master glass blower. It’s magic, Cay thought, awed, looking at Mama. Papa and Rayner were watching her, too, their faces full of worry.

  But the sight of Mathilda’s gift hadn’t upset her at all. In fact, Cay hadn’t seen her so composed all day. She knelt down and ran a steady hand over the surface of the beautiful coffin.

  “I can get rid of it,” Papa said uncertainly. “The witch would never know.”

  “No, Oskar. Mathilda made this for Elva, and to Elva it will go.” Mama’s lips trembled, but she kept her composure as she lifted the lid. Mathilda had lined the bottom of the coffin with rich, deep purple velvet and placed a small pillow of the same material at the head. “We’ll bury my darling daughter tomorrow,” Mama added, a tear gliding down her cheek, “and we’ll do it in this.”

  Papa put his hands on her shoulders. “It will be done.”

  “I wish I had told her how proud I was of her,” Mama said, her voice breaking. “She helped us save our farm. We wouldn’t have known about that storm, if not for her.”

  “And she saved me,” Cay said softly. “She saw in the mirror that I was hurt by the well. Who knows if I would have been found without her.”

  Mama wiped her face. “All these years, we made her hide her visions. I’m glad she met Mathilda. I’m glad they had each other, and that Mathilda gets to say good-bye in this way.”

  Cay swallowed hard, and for the second time that day he felt Rayner’s arm wrap tightly around his shoulders.

  Elva was gone, really gone. She would never read fairy tales or embroider fantastical creatures with him again. She would never go on adventures with him, travel the world with him, or see him grow up and become a great explorer and maybe have a daughter of his own someday, a beautiful girl with golden hair who was also named Elva.

  Cay leaned heavily on his crutches, the ache in his leg nothing compared to the pain in his heart, and looked at the sunset spreading fiery colors across the sky.

  Tomorrow, this glass coffin would be Elva’s new home. She would lie there, forever a sleeping beauty in the North Woods, while the world moved on and everyone else grew old and gray.

  A few days earlier, when she had left Hanau behind, Mathilda had vowed never to come back. And yet here she was, hidden behind one of the trees still standing on the Heinrich farm, watching Oskar and his son carry the glass coffin into the house. The younger boy, Cay, followed on his crutches, but Agnes stayed a moment longer, looking out over the land with the frost-blue ribbon in her hand. The color in her cheeks had faded, yet she looked almost the same as when she and Mathilda had met all those years ago. For a second, her eyes swept over the tree that hid the witch, as though she could see her, before she turned and went back inside with her family.

  Mathilda sighed and sat down to wait for morning.

  “The funeral is at dawn in the North Woods,” she had overheard a farmer say, when she had driven through town on her wagon. “I guess Oskar and Agnes think that’s what she’d want.”

  And so Elva would return to the forest. She would take the same path she had always taken to see Mathilda, but this time, she would not come out again.

  The witch blinked away hot tears as night fell over the farmland. There was no use in wishing things had been different—that instead of moping, she had used her own mirror to communicate with Elva and protect her
from this catastrophe. There was no satisfaction in regret, and yet Mathilda couldn’t help thinking, If only, if only, if only.

  Yesterday, while cleaning the broken glass, she had admired the sun shining on the shards and slivers and had gotten the idea to merge them with magic. It seemed appropriate to surround Elva in glass touched by the sun, when the girl had brought so much sunlight into Mathilda’s lonely life.

  Hours passed, and when dawn lit the horizon, Mathilda saw several neighbors come and knock on the Heinrichs’ door. Oskar and his son came out with the coffin, covered with a thick cloth, and laid it on a wagon. Cay came next, then Agnes, leaning on another woman, and the whole procession slowly made its way toward the river.

  Quickly, Mathilda left her hiding place and went into the empty house.

  It was bigger than her cottage, but it had a cozy feel. There were signs everywhere that a family lived there: a boy’s mud-splattered boots by the door, piles of laundry in a woven basket, and books scattered around a parlor where all the chairs were worn from use. Elva had grown up here, and Agnes had been happy. Mathilda’s hungry eyes took all of it in, even as she stayed alert. Room by room, corner by corner, she searched for Elva’s mirror.

  If the girl’s soul was trapped inside, there had to be a way to free it. She had to try—but no matter how hard she looked, no table, no drawer, no space beneath the furniture revealed it.

  “Where is it?” Mathilda muttered, frustrated. Perhaps Agnes and Oskar had decided to bury it with Elva. And now the witch would have to run after them or miss the funeral entirely. She slipped her hood back over her head and left, moving quickly over the bridge to the woods.

  Elva had been well-loved, for fifty or sixty people altogether stood in a half circle around the great willow that had served as Mathilda’s first landmark. The men bowed their heads and the women leaned on one another, and even the children were quiet, holding bouquets of vibrant wildflowers as the pastor spoke solemnly and read passages aloud from a book.

  Mathilda stood apart, hidden behind an oak tree. Through the crowd, she could just see Oskar and his tall son standing close to the tree. Agnes and Cay had to be nearby, and Elva, too, in her glass coffin. The witch swallowed hard, pressing her forehead against the rough bark of the oak as she waited for the service to be over.

  She tried desperately to think of what Josefine would do or advise in her situation. But all she knew was that when a magic-wielder gave their soul as the price of magic, it was impossible to reverse. Consequences always were. “Where magic gives, it can also take—in ways that no one can foresee,” she had told Agnes once, the very words Josefine had taught her long ago. Mathilda raked her hands through her hair, listening to the pastor drone on and on in his low, deep voice. Even if she could find the mirror, trying to free Elva’s soul from it would be downright dangerous—every bit as dangerous as trying to turn back the hands of time.

  A strangled sob escaped from her throat, and Mathilda pressed her hands over her mouth. There was no way to pull Elva’s soul out of the mirror that wouldn’t be potentially as destructive—or even more so—than the storm. It would be an impossible feat.

  At last, the mourners began to disperse, heading back out of the forest to a Hanau that would never again have Elva or her sunshine in it. When they were all gone, Mathilda peered out and saw Agnes and Cay still talking by the tree, with the glass coffin lying beside them.

  “I’ll give you a moment with her,” Agnes told her son. “But don’t take too long. The men have to come back to put Elva…to put the coffin in the ground.” Her voice cracked on the final words.

  “Yes, Mama,” Cay said. Agnes kissed his forehead, took one final look at her daughter, and walked away very fast, her face crumpled with grief.

  The scrawny, fair-haired boy leaned one of his crutches against the willow tree. With his free hand, he lowered a satchel off his back. “Hello, Elva,” he said, with a catch in his throat. “You heard Mama. I don’t have a lot of time before the men come back.” When he moved to set the satchel on the ground, Mathilda got her first good look at Elva. She thought her heart couldn’t possibly hurt more if she had stabbed it with a glass shard.

  The girl looked like a young fairy queen on her bed of deep purple velvet, with a crown of white starflowers in her long, rippling hair. Her hands had been folded over a bouquet of wildflowers, and her cheeks were as pink as they had been when she was full of life.

  The witch buried her face in her hands, so overcome with grief that she nearly missed Cay’s next words. “I brought something for you,” he told his sister. To Mathilda’s shock, he reached into the satchel and pulled out not only the mirror but also the red silk slippers she had given Elva. “Rayner went into your room and got them for me. He says he wants to go exploring with me. I’m glad, but…I wish you were here so you could come with us, too.”

  He was silent for a long moment, bending his head over the objects in his hands, and Mathilda had to bite her lip hard to keep from sobbing with him. This is my fault, she thought. If I hadn’t been so stubborn, this boy would still have his sister.

  “Don’t worry about Mama and Papa,” Cay went on, his voice thick with tears. “I’ll take care of them, I promise. I’ll make sure Mama eats something. And I’m going to keep studying and sewing and exploring, and I’ll try to do great things when I grow up, so you’ll be proud of me. That’s a promise, too.” He wiped a sleeve across his face and gently laid the slippers on top of the coffin. “You should have your shoes back. And this.”

  He unwrapped the mirror from its velvet cloth and lowered it to the coffin.

  And then he gave a scream of fright.

  Mathilda gasped, but Cay was shrieking too loudly to hear her. He dropped the mirror and fell backward on a patch of moss. The glass, too, was lucky to have a soft landing among the ferns and grass. It fell against a small boulder, which tilted the angle so that the witch could see what had terrified Cay so: The mirror was not reflecting its surroundings. Even though it was facing away from Elva, it showed her coffin, draped in a shroud of darkness. Mathilda could just see the silhouette of the girl’s body in the dimness, her slender shoulders and the edge of her elbows, but all else—including her face and hair—was obscured in the shadows.

  The hair rose on Mathilda’s neck and arms.

  Cay Heinrich had called up a vision. He, too, had something of his sister’s gift of sight. Elva had never spoken of it, but perhaps she had not known. Perhaps he had not known.

  “E-Elva?” Cay whimpered.

  The image changed. They saw Elva sitting on her bedroom floor as a storm raged outside, gazing into her looking glass. Suddenly the girl collapsed, and something like a miniature sun, glowing bright gold, emerged from her body just over her heart and sank into the mirror. They were witnessing the moment Elva had paid the price for her attempt to change the past.

  “No!” Cay shouted, as the mirror glowed gold before him. He crawled over to it and grabbed it with both hands, shaking it frantically as though that might dislodge his sister’s soul. “Elva! Elva, can you hear me? Are you inside?” But the glow faded at once and the mirror went back to its normal state. Cay clutched it to his chest and wept and wept, his body rocking with the force of his sobs as he called his sister’s name.

  Mathilda longed to go and comfort him, but her limbs would not obey her. She stood frozen with grief as Cay slowly got onto his uninjured leg and tucked the crutches beneath his arms. He stayed still for a while, thinking, and then slipped the mirror back into his satchel before moving away through the trees, glancing back several times at his sister in the coffin.

  The witch pressed her lips together but made no move to stop him. She had longed to find that mirror earlier, but now she was certain that any attempt to free Elva would be fruitless and maybe even deadly. And in any case, it felt right that Cay should have it to remember his sister by.

  Finally it was Mathilda’s turn to say good-bye.

  She moved forward, kneelin
g beside the coffin, with apologies on her lips. She wanted to tell Elva how their friendship had changed her life, and that the trial had not been in vain, as painful as it had been. And she longed to say that deciding to open up to Elva—after so many hurts and disappointments—had been worth it, and she would live the rest of her life with that lesson. I will try again, she thought. I will let someone else into my heart. But kneeling beside the coffin, with the freshly dug grave nearby, Mathilda could not find her voice. She could only lay a gentle hand on the glass and hope Elva knew everything she couldn’t put into words.

  The witch gathered some ferns and held them in her hands, drawing her magic from the earth around her. The energy flowed from the soil, to her body, to the greens she held, and it felt warm like the sun on her back. The ferns transformed into a bouquet of bright, cheerful flowers.

  “Yellow roses for friendship,” Mathilda whispered, laying them atop the coffin. “And for the sunshine you gave me. Good-bye, Elva.”

  Her eyes filled with fresh tears as her hand brushed against the red silk slippers. Elva had been the last one to wear them and had used them to come to see her. Elva had cared; she had liked and accepted Mathilda for who she was, and that had made every bit of pain worthwhile.

  Mathilda took the red slippers and hugged them against her chest. Cay had taken the mirror to keep Elva close, and she would take the shoes for the same reason.

  Men’s voices sounded from a distance. They were coming back to bury Elva.

  The witch touched the glass coffin one last time and looked at the girl’s beautiful, peaceful face, filling her memory with the sight of it.