51

Curled up in her bedroom chair that night, Vân Ước thought about boat trips, putting down roots, bitter marmalade, and what makes home home. How many times do your feet have to press down on a path before they make an imprint, before pieces of soul start sticking? What makes us belong in the place we call home? Who had said that someone you love must be buried in a land before it could be considered to be your home?

That morning, she had knelt on the rough asphalt footpath, meticulously brushing away the grit encircling the silver disk she was photographing, knowing she must look odd, but she didn’t care; everyone around here knew her; these were her streets, hers to walk, hers to photograph, to transform. Her very DNA was somewhere in that footpath from childhood skinned knees.

And there was her lightbulb moment for her art portfolio.

It was seductive, the idea of where we walk absorbing us, something of our self being drawn down into the earth with each step we take. What strands might be pulled from our soles as we walk the streets, tired, hopeful, frightened, happy, full of the beauty of what is around us, full of the sorrow of what we are escaping from, or returning to.

It seemed that the paths hummed with the energy pressed into them.

Feeling planted here was the gift her parents gave her.

The gleaming silver chain mail of her footpath disks.

The green and purple jewel-like glass that illuminated the last wave of migrant rag-trade workers, who were eventually superseded by women like her mother, out of the old Flinders Lane workshops, into bedrooms, living rooms, and garages.

The luscious green privilege of the school oval.

Hers, to interpret and offer back to the world. What it means to me, she thought, is what it means to everyone. Belonging where we stand. Knowing that where we stand is home.

Some time in the future the big portfolio breakthrough might be a comfort. But now was not that time. What could possibly provide comfort now?

She went, once more, through every detail of the date. One perfect date is better than no perfect dates. But she would have preferred a few more than one, and would even have settled for a larger number of meh dates. Because a meh date with Billy would at least have meant more time with him, and, already, in anticipation, she felt sorely cheated on that front.

She took the wish vial from its hiding place, put it on her desk, and sat back on the chair without bothering to put on the light. She slipped down into the realm of full-wallow self-pity—from self-pity at the state of things about to change with Billy, to self-pity that she couldn’t really justify her self-pity when she compared her paltry plight to the true peril faced by her mother and her aunt.

Sad and pissed off wove themselves together in one heavy blanket of righteous misery.

She looked at the wish vial, a sliver of silver catching the glow of light that washed soft the city sky at night.

Pick me up. Pick me up. Pick me up.

Shut up.

Her wish phrasing had been idle and careless, forming itself without her having to think about it.

She wasn’t about to wish, now, that Billy didn’t find her fascinating, or prefer her to all other girls.

She wasn’t going to wish for something different, and perhaps create a different tangle of problems.

No, Jess had come up with the right word: she was simply going to wish to unwish the first wish. That would bring her back to a neutral reality. Back to the time when Billy didn’t know who she was, or care who she was, didn’t notice her.

Back to the land of true things.

So, that was all she had to do.

Easy.

Plus, she totally didn’t believe in it anyway.

Times a thousand.

So.

There was nothing at stake, really.

There was no wish!

It was a simple case of Billy Gardiner loves Vân Ước Phan.

It must be.

Why was it, then, that she’d been sitting here for two hours, in the dark, feeling so bleak, putting off the moment, the simple action, of picking up a small glass vial?

Because even if there were a fraction of a chance that she had, in fact, wished Billy’s affection into existence, she was going to miss it like breathing.

She did not want to lose it.

But she wasn’t prepared to live with the possibility that his affection was based on a careless wish, i.e., a lie.

Those two things were never going to be reconcilable no matter how long she sat there staring into the deepening night.

She picked up the vial.

She held it for who knew how long.

She held it until it was blood-warm.

With a deep breath that turned into a sob, she unwished the first wish.

Heart racing, she opened her hand. The vial was gone. Again. Misplaced. Disappeared. On her chair. On the floor. Up her sleeve.

Who cared?

The wind screeched and pushed at the windowpanes.

The deed was done.

She walked stiffly the few dark steps across to her bed, fell back onto her pillow, still dressed, and went to sleep crying silent hot tears, in the miserable consciousness of believing the unbelievable, and clenched against the effects of the unwished wish.