Wishes Read online

  “So why doesn’t she go after him?” Berni snapped.

  “Two reasons: because of the wish you gave her and because Nellie doesn’t know how. You can’t just put wolf’s clothing on a sheep and expect the sheep to turn into a wolf. Nellie is Nellie, whether she’s fat or thin.”

  Berni turned away from the scene, putting her hand to the side of her eyes. “I can’t bear to see any more.”

  Pauline waved her hand, and Nellie and the room disappeared.

  “So now what happens?” Berni asked.

  “That’s up to you. We supply the—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m supposed to supply the wisdom. I haven’t been exactly wise so far, have I?”

  “Oh, well, what does one fatty more or less matter?”

  Berni winced. “You’ve made your point. So maybe I was wrong. You said Montgomery loved her. Would she be with him now if she wasn’t bound by the wish?”

  “Probably, but who knows? One can’t predict these things.”

  Berni looked back at the fog. “I would like to know more about Nellie. Is it possible to see all of her life? From the beginning?”

  “Of course.” Pauline waved her hand, and there was a pretty woman in a Victorian bed straining to give birth.

  “I’ll leave you,” Pauline said, rising. “I’ll return when it’s nearer Christmas 1896.”

  Berni waved her hand absently and stretched out to watch. She’d already learned that time in the Kitchen wasn’t like earth time. The scenes seemed to fly past. Berni saw that from the beginning Nellie was a quiet, solemn, eager-to-please child. Her mother wasn’t well, so Nellie was never allowed to make even the smallest sound; and since her father’s business made little money in its early days, Nellie always had many chores. As a reward for all her obedience, Nellie was pretty much ignored by her parents.

  When Nellie was eight her mother gave birth to Terel, then was seriously ill until she died four years later. But Nellie didn’t mind caring for the child. She held the screaming infant and looked at it with love. For the first time ever she was going to have someone who would return her love.

  After his wife died, Charles Grayson seemed to have no qualms about leaving his twelve-year-old daughter with the responsibility of caring for the baby. Nellie was a good mother, but she was so starved for affection that she gave the baby anything she wanted, so that Terel grew up believing that Nellie had been put on earth solely to do Terel’s bidding.

  In adolescence Nellie began to gain weight. Berni saw the way boys flirted with Nellie, making her blush, and how she looked back at them. Then, at home, Charles would forbid Nellie to go out and leave the toddler alone. Nellie would go to the kitchen and eat.

  By the time Berni got to 1896, she really understood Nellie’s life. Nellie had no idea how to fight for what she wanted. All she knew was how to give.

  Berni watched as Jace Montgomery came into Nellie’s life, saw the way she blossomed under his love, and Berni smiled warmly. Nellie deserved to have someone love her, deserved to stop being a slave to her father and sister.

  Things changed when Nellie started giving her three wishes away, and Berni felt herself grow smaller. She hadn’t meant to hurt Nellie. Heaven help her, Nellie had had enough pain in her life, and she didn’t need any more, but the wishes had increased Nellie’s burdens.

  Berni watched Nellie at the Harvest Ball and thought she looked beautiful. A little wide, perhaps, but she was so in love her entire body glowed. After the ball Berni saw what Terel did with Jace, sending the phony telegram, then stealing Jace’s letters to Nellie and hiring some poor woman to write replies to him so he’d think Nellie had answered him.

  “You conniving little manipulator,” Berni muttered.

  She watched as Jace returned to town, then saw the scene when Terel pretended to be ill. Berni heard Jace ask Nellie to leave with him, and she heard Nellie say she could not leave. “Because of the third wish,” Berni said aloud.

  At last she came to Nellie hanging the greenery in the parlor. It was two days since Jace had asked her to leave with him and three days before Christmas.

  The scene became covered with fog.

  “What shall it be?” Pauline asked. “More wishes?”

  “Can I go back to earth and help Nellie?”

  “Go back to earth? You want to leave the Kitchen? Leave here for all the nastiness of earth? You know, you didn’t see all of the Feasting room. They have chocolate mountains in there. And it’s not wimpy milk chocolate but that really deep, rich, dark chocolate. You can eat all you want and never gain an ounce.”

  Berni hesitated as she imagined chocolate mountains. “No,” she said firmly, “I want to return to earth. Nellie needs a teacher. She’s no match for that sister of hers. She needs some help.”

  “But I thought you liked Terel. I believe you said she reminded you of yourself.”

  “Terel is exactly like me, and that’s why I need to fight her.”

  “Fight her?” Pauline said. “But I thought you wanted to make her into Cinderella.”

  “She already thinks she is Cinderella. What right does she have to take everything away from Nellie? Nellie is a hundred times the person she is. Can I go to earth or not?”

  “You may go, but the limit is three days, and I warn you, these visits rarely work out.”

  “I’ll take my chances. Now, I’ll need to know some about the family. I plan to arrive as the Grayson family’s long-lost relative, their very rich relative. Do you think I might have a wardrobe, something in green silk to match my eyes?”

  Pauline smiled. “I think something might be arranged. There are rules, though. What has happened stands. You cannot change what Nellie has already wished.”

  “I don’t plan to disturb her family’s comfort,” Berni said with a smile. “They’ll be the most comfortable family in America.”

  “And three days,” Pauline said. “That’s all the time you have.”

  “I won my second husband in three days, and I didn’t resort to magic. How about a hat with an ostrich plume? And how about shoes with lots of buttons?”

  “I hope you do this well,” Pauline said softly.

  “I always get what I want. Terel doesn’t stand a chance against me.”

  Pauline sighed. “All right, then, come along. We’ll embed you in the memory of the Graysons so they have some knowledge of Aunt Berni, then we’ll send you down.”

  “And clothes,” Berni said. “Don’t forget clothes. How about an amber necklace?”

  “You will have all the clothes you want. I hope I don’t regret this—and, more importantly, that Nellie doesn’t regret this.”

  “Don’t worry. When it comes to being a bitch, I wrote the book.”

  “That’s a book I don’t want to read,” Pauline muttered as she started walking.

  Chandler, Colorado

  1896

  “How rich?” Terel asked, biting into one of Nellie’s crispy apple tarts.

  “Very wealthy,” Charles said, putting down the letter. “And she has no other relatives besides us. It’s my belief that she wants to choose one of you as her heiress.”

  “One of us?” Terel asked, glancing sideways at Nellie, who was sitting at the far end of the dining table. As usual, Nellie wasn’t paying attention. Not that Nellie was ever a barrel of laughs, but in the last two days, since that man had come storming into the house, Nellie had been a veritable gloom factory. “Why just one of us?”

  “She says she doesn’t want her fortune divided. She wants it kept intact after her death, so I take that to mean she plans to leave it all to just one of you.”

  “Mmm,” Terel said thoughtfully. “I do wish you’d told us of her visit before the day of her arrival.”

  “I can’t think why I didn’t,” Charles said, genuinely puzzled. “I’m sure I knew about the visit, but I don’t know why I never said anything.”

  “Oh, well,” Terel said, licking her fingers, “I shall do my best to take car