I had been waiting for about ten minutes when a car came nosing up the cobbled street. I gave it a glance, but then looked away, disappointed. It was a silver-grey Mercedes saloon. I had faith in Hanna’s ability to borrow a vehicle, but she was not going to come up with anything like that.
The driver sounded the horn twice, impatiently, and I looked again. To my astonishment, it was Hanna behind the wheel – and not a moment too soon. As I pushed myself away from the wall and started towards the car, the front door opened and Bianca Müller flounced out, with an expression on her face that would have soured every cream cake in the bakery.
‘Tschüss,’ I said over my shoulder as I ran for the Mercedes’s passenger door. I knew I was going to pay for it later, but at that moment my only concern was to get away before she caught me.
I slid into the seat, pulled the door shut and clipped on my seat belt. I had a strange sense of déjà vu as the car pulled away from the bakery, Bianca vanishing behind us just as Frau Kessel had done the day Kai had picked me up. It seemed that wherever I went, I left a trail of irritated people behind me.
As we rounded the corner I said, ‘Where did you get this car?’
‘It’s my father’s,’ said Hanna.
‘And he let you borrow it?’ I asked incredulously.
Hanna didn’t take her eyes off the road. ‘Yes.’
I could smell clean leather and some sort of fresh smell like pine, as though someone had cleaned the dashboard recently. Herr Landberg was a prize pedant and ferociously status-conscious. A king of the local shooting club, he liked nothing better than to parade around in hunting green, looking as though his silver buttons would barely do up over the swell of his own self-importance. I couldn’t imagine him allowing his teenage daughter to take out a treasure like this.
‘Did you take it without asking him?’
She shrugged. ‘He’s OK with it.’
I didn’t believe that for a minute, but I didn’t contradict her. I felt suddenly overwhelmed. Hanna was the only one of my supposed friends who wasn’t pestering me half to death to wish things for her. And now she was risking her neck for me, risking a row of truly titanic proportions if her parents found out what she had done. Tears were suddenly pricking at my eyes. I had not expected this feeling of relief. It was as though a limb made numb by perishing cold was suddenly coming back to life before the warmth of a blazing hearth. I had known I was alone, but I had not realized how terribly I had felt it until this moment. If Hanna had not been driving, I would have hugged her.
‘Steffi?’ she said suddenly, interrupting my thoughts. ‘Look, if you’re going to curse Achim … ’
Oh no. Here it comes. Now Hanna’s going to ask me to wish just one thing for her. But to my surprise, she didn’t.
‘Why don’t you wish for something else – something for yourself?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. I raked my fingers through my hair. ‘I just want Achim gone,’ I said.
‘Well, look, we could … ’ She paused. ‘You could wish for anything.’ She glanced over at me. ‘Steffi, what do you need?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said stupidly.
‘Something?’ asked Hanna. Her voice was very low and there was a curious edge to it. ‘Someone?’ she said.
I thought briefly of Kai von Jülich, how I had wished for him. I didn’t know whether it was the taint of the witch’s influence or whether he had always hidden his cloven hooves under the cloak of those golden good looks, but I thought I would never wish for anyone’s affections again. I would take my chances with love like everyone else, and if I ended up alone, so be it. I shook my head.
Then it came to me. I had no idea how I was going to keep the bakery kitchen running if Achim really disappeared. My mother might help, but that depended on whether she felt able to leave my father. If the bakery had to close for a while, it would be catastrophic. If we couldn’t afford a new coffee machine, we certainly couldn’t afford to lose our entire revenue for weeks. But if we suddenly had a lot of money … It would be even harder to explain to my mother than the five hundred euros that were still stuffed in a vase in my sister’s room, but this was an emergency.
‘Money,’ I said suddenly. ‘To keep the bakery afloat.’
‘Money for the bakery,’ said Hanna flatly.
I thought I knew what she was thinking: What a drag. The chance of unlimited power and she’s thinking about the stupid bakery.
‘Yes,’ I said simply. ‘Look,’ I added, seeing the dubious look on her face, ‘I don’t want to ask for anything else. Other things – they seem to go wrong.’
I was thinking of the disastrous date with Kai von Jülich. Also, I was thinking of Jochen and the day he had visited me while my parents were at mass. If Hanna had some grudge like Jochen’s, I hoped and prayed that she would not share it. I supposed that this was the moment when I should ask her whether there was anything she wanted me to wish for, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Once the offer was made, I could hardly rescind it, and yet I could not face the thought of asking the question as casually as though I were asking if she wanted me to bring something back from the shops for her.
She didn’t ask for anything for herself, though, and when she spoke again I felt instantly guilty.
‘The money,’ she said. ‘How much would you need?’