Thunder and rain made the squirrels run around the attic all night, but morning brought a show-off blue sky. Each warm, new mishmash piece of me clicked together before I finally got up.
Little Leti came to borrow a book. She wanted the one about the kid reliving the same birthday over and over, but I recommended a couple of ghost stories and the Mars colonization one too. She started reading right there on my floor.
A greasy bag of day-old pan dulce sat on the table in the empty kitchen. Dad sang a Spanish love song in the shower.
I picked up the phone and hung it up again. I ate a galleta first, chewing slowly until the last anise seed disappeared. I brushed my teeth, as if I was about to talk to my grandma in person. I picked up the phone again and called.
“¡Hola, mijo!” she said, like she couldn’t imagine anyone she’d rather hear on the phone. “How are you feeling?”
“Good. There’s something I want to tell you, abuela.” I swallowed and moved around the kitchen. “I think I want to try staying on the island for a while longer. Maybe it’s not so bad.”
“All right, mi amor. You are always welcome here, no matter what.” We talked about her bingo game, and a movie she saw with my tías. She gave up pretty easy, but that’s all right, I guess. She’s got her own old-lady stuff to do. I went up to take a shower and wash the lump out of my throat.
The next time I came downstairs, Mom was making omelets and Leti was drawing zombies at the kitchen table.
“Where’s the truck?” Leti asked. “I want you to give Ramona and me a ride to the spring pool.”
“It’s gone for good.” Leti sighed and slumped in her chair. “I got the bear back, though.” Mom nodded like it made sense. “The bear doesn’t grant wishes. But he’s good luck.”
“Can we see him?” Leti asked.
“Sure, and I’ll walk you and Ramona to the pool tomorrow if you want,” I said, and she almost bounced out of her chair. “We can do some fun stuff this summer while Mom and Dad are at work.” Mom winked at me and mouthed “Thank you.”
After breakfast, she took Leti outside to help move a tree that had fallen in the storm. Leti wanted to use a chainsaw. Mom said no but let her take some chops with the axe. I crossed my fingers that they would be safe and headed outside to clean the goat pen.
Mom’s laugh carried across the garden. I treated the goats to some new hay. As I laid down the last of it, Mom leaned over the fence. Chuck trotted up behind her.
“We’re going to make another birthday cake tonight, since your dad missed the last one,” she said. “I’ll pick up some candles after work.”
“I don’t need candles,” I said, and I meant it. “I’m good for wishes for a while. I’m sorry you never got to make your wish.”
“Who says I didn’t?” She climbed the fence and sat balanced on the post.
“Did you?” I asked.
She nodded. “Right after you told me about it,” she said. “Like, that night after you fell asleep. I twisted my ankle getting out here as quick as I could.”
“Did you wish to fly?” I said. “To be a crow?” I pictured her in the festival, warm light shining over her giant inky wings.
“Of course not,” she said. She rubbed moss off the fence post. “I wished for you to be happy. For you and Carlos and Leti to have a good life. That’s all I ever wish for. For you all to be brave and fierce and happy.”
“What?” I stood up and really looked at her. She said she would wish to fly. Some days I wasn’t sure if she even saw us.
“Shooting stars, birthday candles, dandelion puffs. You get them all, mijo. You are a survivor. And you are our ancestors’ wildest dreams. We can’t wait to see what you do.”
A butterfly landed on my shoulder, and I stayed as still as I could so I wouldn’t scare it. We watched its wings fold open.
“Thanks, Mom.” She scratched Greta behind the horns, and I rubbed Porridge’s belly. I cleared my throat. “You know, I’m thinking about staying on the island. But I still want to go to Lincoln Bay next year. If that’s still okay.”
“It’s more than okay.” She beamed. “You’re growing up into a pretty great guy. The island needs you. The mainland can wait.” We laughed, and the goats bleated. They like to feel in on the conversation.
“What were you going to do with Leti all summer if I was in Lincoln?” I asked. “Who would watch her while you were working?”
“We would’ve figured it out. She’s starting to get old enough to stay home a little too. She can try spreading her wings.” She patted Greta. “Maybe my wish worked, eh? Your dreams are gone.”
They were, but I didn’t want to jinx it. I hadn’t woken up from an attack dream since the storm. It wasn’t perfect. Sometimes I got shaky and sweaty before I even realized that a memory from that day had bubbled in my brain. I wrote in an old notebook a lot. Writing made it better. Something like that takes more than wishing.
We watched the butterfly rise up and soar over an invisible swell of air until it became another part of the great, wide sky.
I put some sandwiches and peaches in a bag with a towel and an old pair of Carlos’s swim trunks, since mine don’t fit anymore.
Chuck saw a squirrel eating oxalis and pulled the leash so hard it almost yanked my arm out of the socket. I wished I still had the Rooster, but the exercise was good for my leg, I guess. Ethan came by with some licorice and Boxwood. We walked to the beach to see what the tide had washed up. The whole island smelled like a new start.
“Ethan, listen. I’m staying on the island, but I’m still going to try out Lincoln Bay next year. They have a lot of cool stuff, and I’ll get to spend more time with my dad’s side of the family.”
“But you’ll live on the island?”
“I’ll live on the island,” I said.
Ethan smiled. “You’re gonna miss seeing me in class. Eating lunch in the pool. Volunteering at the museum…” He trailed off, and I shrugged.
“Maybe,” I said. He bumped my shoulder, and I laughed. “I definitely will, but we can still hang out, and do our homework together, and go to the beach!” I pointed at the whirligigs over us marking the path across the island.
We passed Dad and Leti by the lake. He’s been spending less time there since the big storm, but they sat on a bench sharing a bag of popcorn from Herb’s, like they expected Marvelo to turn up and put on a show any minute. I yelled hello, and they waved like they hadn’t seen me in days.
“You’ll be home in time to rehearse for the festival if you catch the early ferry,” Ethan said.
“We’ll see.” We already had a secret plan for what to do next year.
Ethan kept looking at me funny, but he would look away when I looked back. We passed the notice board at Herb’s. Flyers for a new kids’ basketball league and a free bike hung over my faded found-bear-statue flyer. I tore my old paper down and wrote down the number for the free bike. The seat came from a tractor or something, but I could switch it for something better. I wrote down the number for the basketball club too, for Leti.
Ethan looked at me. “I thought you’d get a new bike with the Rooster money,” he said. Dad had offered to take me bike shopping when we got paid, but it didn’t seem like such a big deal anymore. Ethan sighed.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“You don’t want me to get the bike?”
“The bike is fine,” he said. I waited. He walked away with his head down.
“At least we’ll be ready if we ever find something that grants wishes again,” I said. Our odds are probably better of finding a whole mastodon on top of a pile of old coins, but you never know.
We let Chuck and Boxwood off their leashes, and they chased swallows they could never catch. We zigzagged down the beach to the pier to visit Huxley. The beach is different now. You’d only notice if you spent a lot of time here. Sand and logs had shifted, and the bluff was steeper. Huxley stood where we had left him, close to the beach but far enough from the highest tides. He looks like he’s guarding the island, green eyes watching the sea. Izzy thinks maybe his wishbone is a slingshot after all. Izzy’s mom said he could live on the beach instead of in their backyard. He is special, even if he doesn’t grant wishes. If anybody wants to come talk to him, they can. He was too heavy to carry across the island anyway.
We poked around in the tide line and found a wavy rock that Ethan said could be a fern fossil. I munched on glasswort and made sure gulls didn’t swipe our sandwiches. Ethan looked at me funny again.
“Spit it out already!” I said. I thought he would walk away, but he moved closer.
“I saw it, Newt. I saw Marvelo.” His breath smelled like licorice. “Last night. I walked to the lake while I waited for a pizza my mom ordered. I wasn’t there two minutes, and I saw it. Thirty feet from shore, the water swelled…and there it was. It wasn’t a fish, or a log, or anything. It was big. A huge, scaly back. It lasted a few seconds, I don’t know how long, and then it was gone.” He was breathing hard, like he’d been holding his breath until he told me. “I wanted to tell you so that, you know, you’d know that your dad was telling the truth. Or he could’ve been. It’s there. I promise.” Ethan is the first guy I would think of after my dad that might lie about Marvelo. But he looked earnest, and it felt true.
“Are you going to tell anyone?”
“I just did,” he said.
“No, I mean…for the reward?”
He raked lines in the sand with his fingers, and a wave smoothed them out.
“Nah. If we keep talking about it, sooner or later someone will believe us, and where does that get him? Things would change, and I like the island how it is. I don’t have any proof anyway. But…it was pretty amazing. Something’s there.” He smiled and I smiled, and we poked around in the kelp.
There was nothing to say back.
Ethan held out a tarnished ring. Its stone had fallen out, but you could still see the vine design around the band. Maybe an island visitor lost it a hundred years ago during a masquerade party. Ethan popped the ring into his pocket. Chuck spotted Izzy before we did and lunged down the beach. She was playing in the surf with her mom, splashing and diving in the waves. Boxwood ran after Chuck, and Ethan followed Boxwood. Their crooked, twisting tracks scarred the wet sand before the tide smoothed everything over again.
I ran until my lungs hurt, which didn’t take long. But the more I run, the more my leg stretches and feels stronger. I can’t erase the attack, but I am getting better at deciding when to think about it. I focused on the warmth of the sun, Izzy’s laugh, that good low-tide smell, and Ethan’s cartwheels into the ocean swells. I could carry them all with me like invisible milagros.
The light caught inside a tide pool by my foot. A purple crab hid in rubbery kelp beside a bouquet of anemones. I swirled the water around until little specks twinkled in the slosh above the urchins. They could be tiny bits of algae, sand, or Ethan’s lost gold dust. But I hoped they were tardigrades—water bears finding their way through the world.
I waved my friends over, and we all looked closer.