19

Ophelia’s world somersaulted around her and she fought to catch her breath, her body stinging from the sudden blow. Something had knocked her, sent her soaring off the fountain and tumbling down to the cement walkway, where she landed in a heap.

Ophelia shook her head, then looked up to find the shadow of a man draped over her. He had a thick beard and much too heavy a coat for the late-spring sun. His cheeks sagged into his thick silver beard. His pants were torn and his toes threatened to poke through the tips of his thin-skinned sneakers. He had swiped at her almost absentmindedly, as if she were a wasp or a moth, sweeping her off the fountain in mid-jump. With her eyes shut, she hadn’t seen him coming.

Ophelia’s right hand clasped the vial as her left went straight to one of Rolleye’s canisters, afraid this man would need a good spritzing, that he’d probably seen too much. Except he wasn’t paying any attention to her. He sat on the edge of the fountain, leaning back, stretching out his legs, looking up at the clouds. Ophelia scurried backward on hands and knees, finding the bushes again and crawling underneath them, wings folded tight against her.

“Fiddlesticks!” she said, frustrated enough to use the f-word—or one of them, anyways. First the airplane, now this. Didn’t these people realize she was a benevolent being of magic and light? Now she would have to wait for him to move before she could finish the job. That or knock him unconscious, though he looked like he had enough problems without some fairy blasting him with knockout gas. His eyes spoke of a sort of bone-deep weariness. Ophelia didn’t want to add to his troubles, but she would do what she had to. She would give him a good solid tick or two, and if he was still in her way, he was getting sprayed.

She watched from behind her cover of leaves. The man pulled at his beard, glancing around the same way Ophelia had, then leaned back farther. One of his hands dipped into the water, trawling the bottom, drudging up whatever treasure he could find. Without opening his dripping wet fist he crammed his gatherings into the pocket of his coat and then went back for another haul. Ophelia could hear the coins scraping against the bottom of the fountain. She counted in her head.

He did this six times, three with each hand, before a boy—a teenager, she guessed—paused on his way into the mall and stared. “Hey. What’re you doing?” The boy’s voice was laced with accusation.

The man with the coat full of coins startled, then stood up and stumbled off, the cuffs of his sleeves soaked through, fingers dripping. The teenage boy shook his head and went the opposite way.

Ophelia waited for them both to go, checked once more to make sure the area was clear, then quickly fluttered back up to the edge of the fountain.

“Oh bumblebutts,” she muttered.

She turned and looked for the old man with the worn pants and shabby shoes, spying him in the parking lot. Six fistfuls of ungrantable wishes in his pockets.

Plus one.

The one she needed. That she’d been this close to grabbing.

Taken before it was granted.