Chapter Twenty-Nine

Change can come in tiny packages like a cocoon or a butter­fly chrysalis, or it can sweep over the land and remake the whole world with seasons of sun or ice.

Mostly though, change is more subtle—a tiny root sprouting from a seed, burrowing down into the earth, growing stronger, and then pushing the rest of the seed upward till it opens to the sky and become leaves.

It’s hard to look at the towering branches of a giant cottonwood and remember it all started with a tiny seed small enough to hide in a puff of cotton. It doesn’t matter if seeds fall down deep cracks or are buried under a pile of thorns. They can take root and grow into something wonderful, if they remember to always follow the light.

Tufts of white cotton float on the breeze, catching on my lashes and gathering in swirls at my feet like snow, but it’s a warm, sunny day. The swish, swish of my boots sends the miniature drifts whirling, each cotton puff spinning around its precious seed.

A few white bits of fluff settle on the rim of the pot I carry, and I blow them away. I need this for more important things.

Grandma was the one who was good at flowers, and she’d probably have gone for the poppies, or maybe the irises, but I am a farmer’s daughter, and I’d rather give Mateo’s mom something more useful. So I transplant a whole potful of strawberry plants, deep green leaves with tiny white and yellow flowers, and press the dirt around the roots to keep them safe. I don’t worry about the holes I leave in the berry patch, ’cause with a little love and care, flowers and berries spread out. Love shared only grows—everybody knows that.

It’s not the bouquet Mr. Rivas picked out, but it’s something to last through all the seasons. Something that can give her berries again next year.

Next year.

It’s still a thrill to say that and know I’ll be here.

Scotty says peacocks symbolize rebirth, so it’s fitting that when Mr. Ferro sat in Dad’s chair for the second time that day, he had Royal’s picture beaded around his neck. And when he signed those papers, he changed all of our lives for good.

Our farm was reborn.

With Mr. Ferro’s purchase of the barns and surrounding fields, Mom was able to pay our debts and still keep the house and ten acres—including Queenie’s barn.

As for the other seventy acres, Mr. Rivas, Mateo, and Mr. Ferro’s new farmhand have been moving cattle to new pasture and fixing fences all week. It would have been done already, but Royal’s new home needed to be finished first.

Scotty said we needed to celebrate the new farm by lighting the wishfire to welcome new friends, restart our year, and reset our wishes. We wouldn’t change the tradition for always, but just this once, we wanted to celebrate the change and show our hope for the future. Like Mr. Ferro’s pride of peacocks, we all get a second chance, and that’s worth celebrating.

“Ha! Ha! Heyo!” Royal’s neck rolls as he calls from his high perch inside the newly completed aviary.

“Is that so?” I say to him with a smile. I set the strawberry pot down and slip inside the aviary. I close the door, grab a couple apples from the treat bucket, and roll them onto the grass, where a few peahens walk under Royal’s watchful eye.

He flaps down, and they scurry away, still nervous from their move. With his long tail folded behind him, he pecks the apple, eyes the door behind me, then peers at me as if to scold me for my rudeness.

“Not my fault.” I back toward the door. “The vet said you need another few weeks of rest before we turn you loose. You’ll be out soon.”

“Paige!” Mom waves me over to the horse barn.

Inside the biggest stall, Mr. Ferro has his hands all tangled in Queenie’s mane as Mom talks him step by step through a simple French braid. “Not that way. Twist these other two right here.”

“How can you possibly tell that that bit of hair is any different from this one? They’re all the same. Look, there’s some hair. Here’s some hair. It’s all hair.”

“Here, let me show you again.” Mom reaches for Queenie’s mane, and the smile on her face warms me right down to my toes.

“She’s really digging that,” Mr. Ferro says. “If she could talk—”

“She’d boss me around all day. We don’t call her Queenie for nothing.” Mom’s skilled fingers fly through the braid, and she spies me at the stall door. “Paige, is everything ready?”

“Yep.”

“You’ve got hoses and buckets?”

“Yep.”

“Where’s Scotty?”

“Counting marshmallows, to make sure everybody gets exactly the same amount.” It’s a good thing we have a chocolate bar for everyone or he’d probably cut them all up, square by square, and make them even too.

“You’re not even watching what you’re doing.” Mr. Ferro tsks. “Now you’re just showing off.”

“Oh whatever.” Mom ties the braid off with a band and rubs Queenie’s neck. “You don’t look at your keyboard when you type, right? It’s the same thing. Just practice; you’ll get there.” She opens the back panel to Queenie’s stall. “Okay, off you go.”

Tossing her head, Queenie blows hot air and trots outside with her tail high. Her ears swivel toward Milkshake’s pasture, where Prince bucks and frolics beside his mother, his little tail flapping behind him.

The stall door creaks as Mom pulls it shut. “When Kimana comes, can you two roll some logs over for seats?”

“Sure.” I’m too excited to sit still anyway. Might as well be useful. Our bench logs always start pretty far out at first—to keep them safe—but we roll them closer as the roaring heat fades and gives way to coals.

By the time Kimana rides up, I’ve already got one log rolled into place.

She hops off her bike and joins me at the next log. We brace our hands against the heavy log, digging our heels in to push it into place.

“One more,” I breathe.

We walk to the last log, closest to the pile, and give it a good shove, but it rolls back, hung up on something.

“It’s probably a rock. I’ll get it.” I step over the log and toe the grass with my boot. I hear a metallic clink and kneel to brush the grass aside.

A thin, curved blade is wedged against the log, its long wooden handle disappearing beneath the load.

“Roll it back!” I shout, barely waiting for Kimana to get out of the way before I roll the old tree. One push, two, and then it’s off.

I lift Dad’s shovel from the tall grass, and bits of dirt fall from the handle. Last year, under the snow and ice, we never saw it here. Not once.

“It was waiting for us.” I grin at Kimana, clutching the handle with both hands, as if the shovel might disappear again.

The only way Dad’s shovel would be here is if he worked here on that last day. I always wondered what he’d done while I played inside, working on my robot design, and now I know.

Dad was looking after our wishes.

By the time Mateo and his family come by, I’ve buffed the rust off the blade, sanded away the few slivers winter raised on the handle, and shoveled a few thistles into the pile, just for fun.

“I’ve got something for you,” I say to Mateo’s mom. I hurry to Royal’s aviary and grab the strawberries. “They’re not fancy, but I hope you’ll like them.”

“Gracias.” Mrs. Rivas fusses over the plants and nods her thanks.

“De nada,” I say as Mateo takes the pot from his mom and carries it farther from the pile.

He shoots me a wicked grin. “You already roasted one pot of flowers. Let’s keep this one back here, so you don’t cook another.”

I make a face at him, but we both grin.

“It’s my turn to light the wishfire.” Scotty kneels beside a pile of shavings, cardboard, and papers jammed beneath the branches.

“Want some lighter fluid?” Mateo asks, but Scotty scowls as though Mateo asked if he wanted to light his own hair on fire.

“No cheating allowed.”

“Okay.” Mateo smirks at me and Kimana, then looks past us. “Check it out.”

Royal stands beside a peahen, his tail fanned wide in an arc of green-and-blue feathered eyes.

The hen bobs her head, and Royal shakes his wings, his tail rattling softly.

“I think he’s feeling better,” Kimana says, then waves at her dad and Hutsi, walking up from the house with hot dogs and buns.

T-Rex thumps his tail to greet them, but stays a good hundred feet away. Scuzbag and Magic Cat doze by his side.

A crackling rises behind us, and Scotty dances back from the flames. “I did it. I did it!”

“You sure did.” Mom pulls him close for a squeeze as fire licks the sky and roars beneath the branches. He squirms free and runs to the log where Mateo’s parents sit beside the marshmallow sticks and s’mores supplies.

“Not yet,” I warn. “Let it burn down enough for hot dogs, then I’ll make s’mores with you.”

I stick Dad’s shovel upright in the dirt, and then jump on the edge with both feet so it’s buried deep into the earth. I don’t want to lose it again. Besides, we’ll need it to put the ashes out before the night is through.

The wishfire burns hot, sparks drifting on the smoke like dancing fireflies. When the last branch catches fire, I pull a round stone from my pocket. “Does everyone have their wishstones?”

Most everyone pulls a rock from a pocket, but a couple people pick one up off the ground.

“Make your wish!” I cup my stone in my hand, ready to make my wish, but Mr. Ferro touches my arm.

“Trade me. I think you should use this stone.” He plucks the round rock from my hands and drops Dad’s heart-shaped stone in its place. “That’s better.”

“Kimana wishes you’ll be on the robotics team again,” Scotty says, and Kimana whirls.

“Hey! You’re not supposed to listen.”

“Wish granted. I’ll be there.” I laugh, and smile wide as she grins back at me.

“Can we wish for food?” Mateo stands over the hot dogs. “I’m starving.”

I run my thumb over the twin bumps at the top of my stone and circle the smooth hollow in the center, tracing the same lines my Dad did a hundred times before. Gently, I bounce the stone in the center of my palm, feeling the weight of it.

So much lost, and so much found.

None of this is how I imagined it would be, or ever wanted it to be, but now that it’s all fallen into place, all the pieces fit. And joy fills in the cracks.

Cupping my stone to my lips, I whisper my wish.

Mom holds her stone toward the fire. “Everyone ready? Stay back in case one of them pops out of the fire.”

“Ready,” we chorus.

I squeeze Dad’s heart in my hand, a last hug for the way things were and a hope for how things might be.

“Aim,” Mom says.

We draw our hands back, a circle of friends and family.

“Wishfire!” Mom sings.

I swing my arm, open my hand, and let go.