“You might have froze to death yourself,” I said.
“Naw. Drink enough’ll keep a man warm. Heh, heh.”
I let that pass. “What happened when you got to the hospital?”
He shrugged. “Some people come around, ask if we need help, whatnot. All o’ th’sudden, Starla crumples like a empty can.”
I can’t say how, but I saw it right then, so clear in my mind’s eye. Gram had just crumpled. Something had left her and she’d just crumpled. Her time had come. It wasn’t the cold that had killed her, after all.
“Was she still silver?” I asked, though I thought I knew the answer.
“Naw. Jus’ for that time she was walkin’ around.” Pa paused. “Weren’t long after that, they put her in a bed and them machines went wild, beep-beepin’. They came and said she died.” He rubbed his hand through his hair. “Gonna miss that old girl. She never judged me harsh. She never did.”
I stood stock-still for a time, just watching that night play itself out like a movie in my head. By the time I was ready to ask Pa another question, he was passed out again.
I rolled my eyes. “Mighty nice talking to you.”
But then, after a minute, I had to admit—it sort of had been.
I was asleep myself when I heard the door unlock. I opened my eyes in time to see the sheriff give me a stern look before he allowed Jura to shuffle by him. She had a plate in each hand. The door shut behind her.
“Mm-mmm! Room-temperature canned peas and beets!” she teased. “You hungry?”
I took the plates from her and set one beside Pa. “You in trouble, too?”
“No. I told Thrasher I might be able to talk some sense into you.”
I sighed. “It don’t matter how much sense you make, Jura. The magic’s gone.”
“No, no. I know,” she said. “What I really wanted was to ask you something.”
“What?”
She leaned her back against the door. “Did you mean what you said out there? About how people couldn’t know for sure they couldn’t fetch wishes because they’d never tried?”
It took me a second to even remember having said it. “Guess I must have.”
“I was thinking—what if you teach someone else to fetch wishes?” Her eyes sparkled at the notion.
I quirked my lips. “I dunno. Maybe. You want me to try to teach you?” It did make some sense. If somebody else could grant wishes, they could fetch the flood away.
“No, Genuine.” Jura smiled. “I want you to try to teach everybody.”
22
Yellow Sherbet Sunrise
SURPRISINGLY, THERE WEREN’T A LOT OF TAKERS. In the end, it was Jura and me, Dilly Barker, Travis and Miz Tromp, Ham, and Mister Strickland on top of that hill outside of town hall. Well, Sheriff Thrasher was there, too, but I think that was mostly to keep an eye on me.
It was full dark out, and each one of us had a plastic cup in hand. Problem was, the sky was blanketed with clouds and, yes, it was still raining.
“I don’t know if this is going to work,” I said to the others. “I think the best thing you can do is imagine the stars on the other side of the clouds. Really see them as best you can. Then, once you have them clear in mind, whistle.”
“Whistle how?” Dilly Barker asked.
“Loud and firm,” I replied.
“Like you’re callin’ a pig?” Ham asked.
“Something like that,” I agreed.
They started whistling.
“Wait!” I shouted. “Sorry. Hold up your cups, too. All right. Now, just call the starlight down, if you can.”
They each had their way of doing it. Jura held her cup in one hand, and as she whistled, she gestured a welcome with the other. Ham did indeed whistle like he was calling his prize pig. Meanwhile, he shoved the cup at the sky like he was offering the stars a pail of sweet feed. Mister Strickland’s whistles came short and fast, and he tapped the bottom of the cup as he went. Miz Tromp’s crooning was soft and sweet, and Dilly Barker’s made me think of fairy tales, for some reason.
Travis held his cup in both hands and pressed it hard to his forehead. He stayed like that for a long time, real still, before he began to whistle. It started out as a low, spreading sound, if that makes sense to you, but all at once, it became a tune—one I’d heard before.
It was the song the stars sang.
It was then, when Travis’s song streamed into the night, that the clouds gave way and the starlight began to flow.
“If that don’t beat all,” Sheriff Thrasher whispered.
I don’t think the others even heard him, they were so astonished by the six quicksilver waterfalls that spilled from the sky into their cups and over their hands, splashing to the ground, casting flares of silver sparks that danced like brief fireflies in the night.
When the cascade stopped, Travis turned to me, his hands dripping starlight. His breath was short, like he’d just run a race, and he was grinning so hard you’d have thought he was another Travis entirely. “What do we do now?”
The others looked up, also waiting for my answer.
I told them about how my great-gram drank the starlight, and how Gram used her pocket lint to make wish seeds from it. “And y’all know about my wish biscuits,” I said. “I guess I’ll tell you what Gram told me. It’s best if you find your own way.”
There came a long period of quiet then, while the new wish fetchers considered the method that might be their own. In the end, not every one of them decided right then, but here’s what each of them finally concluded.
Instead of wish biscuits, Miz Tromp makes beautifully iced wish cupcakes. I myself have been the recipient of a Miz Tromp wish, and it’s no fable to say those cakes taste like sunshine drenched in honey.
Ham pours his starlight into the gas tank of his truck, and then, something like a magical compass, the truck nudges him wherever he needs to go to find the substance of a person’s wish.