The Dream-Maker's Magic (22 page)

Leona said much the same thing that morning as we did a final sweep of the taproom before opening for lunch. “What do I have left to wish for?” she said. “I've secured the tavern. Business has been wonderful. I've fallen in love. My friends have discovered riches. I think it would only be greedy for me to ask for anything more.”

“Well, I've still got plenty left to want,” Sallie said, bustling up with her hands full of ribbons. “I'm going to ask for love and money and fame and anything else I can think of.”

What I wanted was a way to make a graceful transition, from who I was now to who I wanted to be. To change, as Gryffin had asked, from a boy back into a girl. Partly because he had asked—but only partly. I loved him, and I had said so, and I wanted to be able to show the world that I did. And I wanted to be myself as I did so.

In the end, I took out the carved coral disk that the itinerant peddler had given me so long ago, the one he had said represented femininity. I had brought it with me from Thrush Hollow but hidden it in the very bottom drawer of my dresser, not wanting to be troubled by any of its ancient magic. But now, at Wintermoon, on the cusp of a new year, I thought it might help me cross a threshold from pretend to real. I attached it to the wreath and silently spoke my wish.

But, like Sallie, I had many other things to hope for. Ever since Melinda had made that memorable visit to Thrush Hollow, I had collected a scattering of wishes, and when I couldn't bring them to the Dream-Maker, I had attached them to Wintermoon wreaths. Today, I breathed wishes for each of the people I knew and cared about, specific ones when I guessed what they were, and general ones when I didn't. I asked for Gryffin to be well and out of pain. I asked for Sallie to find love and happiness, for Leona's great good fortune to continue. I spared a thought for Phillip, whom we had not seen since Raymond's announcement, and I wished him a little good fortune of his own. I remembered Sarah and Bo, Emily and Randal, my mother and Georgie. After I had run through the names of all the people I knew, I ended the way I always did:
Let everyone have at least one wish come true
. And then I tied a knot of multicolored ribbons to the greenery, a rainbow spiral of undifferentiated desire, and let each one represent what it would, so long as it was good.

“We'll burn that tonight,” Leona said, coming up behind me. “Chase's coming with some of his friends. Will Gryffin be here?”

“He said he would,” I replied.

“What has he decided about the surgery?”

“I don't know that he has decided yet. But I hope he'll do it.”

Just then the door opened to admit our first customer of the day. But this was a familiar one. “Ayler!” Leona exclaimed. “In town for Wintermoon?”

The Safe-Keeper gave each of us a warm hug and his dreamy smile. “Just for a few days,” he said. “But I thought I'd spend the holiday here. I assume you're burning a wreath tonight?”

“Yes, and it will be quite the occasion,” Leona said gaily. “Even the Dream-Maker will be here. Don't you think that means our wishes stand an even better chance of coming true?”

“Indeed, I do,” Ayler replied. “I can hardly wait to see what the new year brings.”

“After this year? Neither can I,” Leona said with a laugh.

What the next hour brought was a steady stream of customers, all of them hoping, no doubt, to catch a glimpse of the Dream-Maker on this particular day. Foreseeing this possibility, we had pressed Sallie's sisters into service again, and I divided my time between working in the kitchen and waiting on tables in the taproom.

It was mid-afternoon when I approached one of the booths where two women were seated. Assessing them automatically as I got closer, I assumed that their fair hair and matching profiles indicated that they were probably sisters. But when I arrived smiling at the table, and they both looked up from their menus at the same time, I realized they were twins. Their features were so similar they could have been one person set before a mirror, except that the one woman was smiling and the other was not.

“Good afternoon,” I said. “I'm Kellen. What can I get you today?”

“The roasted chicken sounds very good to me,” said the smiling woman.

Leona came hurrying up beside me. “We might be out of the roasted chicken,” she apologized. “It's been a more popular item than we anticipated. But the braised turkey is quite tasty.”

“Then perhaps I'll try the turkey,” the woman replied.

Her sister was watching me with a frown on her face. “Why are you dressed like that?” she asked abruptly.

Leona, who had turned away, turned back in surprise. I felt a blush come to my face, but I maintained a nonchalant expression. “Dressed like what?” I said.

The frowning twin waved her hand at my clothes. “Like that. Like a boy. You're a young woman under that shapeless vest and those baggy trousers.”

“Eleda,” her sister said in an admonitory voice. “Perhaps that's a secret.”

“Well, it's a ridiculous secret,” Eleda said roundly. “No reason to be pretending anymore.”

The smiling twin sent an apologetic look my way. “My sister is a Truth-Teller,” she explained. “It's sometimes most inconvenient. I'm sorry if her plain-speaking makes your life more difficult.”

I couldn't respond. I risked one quick look at Leona, who was staring at me in complete confusion, and then I dropped my gaze to the floor. “It was a secret that had to come out sometime,” I mumbled.

Eleda made an impatient noise. “Maybe that's why Gryffin wanted us to come over here today,” she said. “
I
thought it was because he wanted us to try some fine cooking, but maybe he wanted us to be proclaiming truths.”

“You, not us,” her sister replied with a merry laugh. “And the truth is, I'd like to try some of that turkey.”

“Right away,” I whispered, and ran for the kitchen.

There I stood for a moment, my back braced against the wall, my heart racing, my blood tingling through every vein.
Had
Gryffin sent a Truth-Teller to Cottleson's to expose me? He knew dozens of Safe-Keepers and Truth-Tellers, for many of them consulted regularly with the queen—and he had been very clear on this topic not long ago. If he had had a wish of his own, it was to see me take my true identity. He would never betray me himself, but might he send a Truth-Teller to the place where I lived, on the chance that the secret was ready to be told? Yes, I thought, he would. And it seemed he had been right. For the truth had come out; my secret had been revealed. My Wintermoon wish was set to come true even before the burning of the wreath.

Sallie's sister glanced over at me from where she sat, rolling out bread. “What's wrong with you? See a spider in the salad?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No—I think I saw a ghost of myself walking through the tavern door.”

“You saw
what
?”

“Never mind. Would you take a shift waiting tables? I'll stay in the kitchen and cook.”

So I didn't have to face the sharp-eyed Truth-Teller again—and I took care not to be alone with Leona for the rest of the day. By the time the early dark of winter fell, the tavern had completely cleared out, as all the customers hurried home to their friends and families. Sallie came into the kitchen to collect her siblings.

“Time to go home,” she said, pulling on her coat. “Our father's probably already got the bonfire started.”

“Is everyone gone out front?” I asked.

“Everyone except Ayler,” Sallie said. “Leona asked if you could bring out a pot of tea for the two of them. She's sitting in the back booth talking with him.”

I nodded. The reckoning had arrived.

I
made up a tray of tea and leftover turkey, with a little bread on the side, and I added enough plates to serve three. Then I carried it out to a dim booth in the back of the tavern, laid out the places and the food, and slid onto the bench next to Ayler.

“Warm Wintermoon to you both,” I said in a subdued voice.

Ayler glanced over at me, a smile on his dreamy face. “Leona tells me your secret has been discovered.”

I nodded. I was watching Leona. She was leaning against the back of the booth, her auburn hair a bright color in the dim light. She was not smiling, but she did not seem to be angry. “I suppose I should say I'm sorry I lied to you,” I said straight out. “And I am. I was not so much concealing secrets from
you
as concealing myself from the world. I did not know what to expect when I came to Wodenderry. By the time I realized I could safely be myself with you, the lie had already been told. I was not sure how to then present the truth.”

She nodded. “I understand that, Kellen, I truly do. But how much I wish you had trusted me! I would never have turned you away, no matter who you were or what strange tale you had to tell.”

“I hoped so,” I said. “I am very glad to hear that it's true.”

“And I know I should be angry, but somehow I'm not,” she said. “In fact, mostly I'm amazed at how you could maintain such a deception! If I suddenly took the notion to dress as a man, I would be tripped up a dozen times a day. I would forget how to speak or how to walk or even how to refer to myself, but you never made those mistakes.”

I laughed a little. “I have been practicing for this role for much of my life, I suppose,” I said. “You told me once that your mother wasn't interested in her daughter after her son was born. It was much the same in my household, but worse. My mother wanted a boy so badly she pretended that's what I was. She dressed me as a boy—she treated me as one. Not until I was fourteen did I wear skirts or style my hair. I'm more used to a boy's mannerisms than a girl's.”

Now Leona looked shocked. “Kellen, I'm so sorry. That's dreadful.”

I shrugged. “I have learned some useful lessons, and I like the freedom that I've been granted,” I said. “It has not been so bad.”

Ayler stirred and spoke. “But isn't there more to your story, Kellen?” he asked. “It was not just that your mother wanted a boy, it was that she believed she'd had one.”

That tale had been all over Thrush Hollow, so I was not surprised he knew it. “Yes. She was traveling near Tambleham when her labor pains came on, and she had the baby at a roadside inn. Fortunately there was a midwife there who helped her through my birth. My mother always swore she stayed conscious long enough to see her baby, and he was a boy. Then she fainted, and was feverish for days. And by the time she was well and my father had brought her home, I was a boy no longer. She kept watching me, waiting for me to change back.” I smiled. “But I never did.”

Leona was staring at me. “Tambleham…” she said, her voice a whisper. “My brother was born in Tambleham.”

“Is that right?” I said, since she seemed to think this was somehow significant. At least we had gotten off the topic of me and my charade. “You said your family moved around all the time, though, didn't you?”

Leona had her hand to her throat as if to force in breath or push back a scream. “Yes, we—every few years, we—but my aunt lived in Tambleham, and my mother wanted to be near her while she was pregnant with Phillip. My aunt was a midwife, you see.”

I nodded. “Good to have family around at a time like that.”

Leona shifted in her seat, showing some agitation. Even in the low light, I could see that her face had grown very pale. “I was ten when he was born,” she continued. “I remember my mother screaming and crying.”

“I've been present at a birthing or two,” I said. “There's always some screaming.”

Leona shook her head. “No, you don't understand. She was crying
after
the baby was born. She was sobbing and sobbing, and nothing my aunt said would calm her down. I was in the other room with my hands over my ears, but I heard her say, ‘I don't want her! Don't give her to me!' I know she said that. I know she said
her
.”

For a long moment, neither Ayler nor I moved or spoke. “What happened then?” I asked in a very small voice.

“My aunt came out and told me to go over to the neighbor's. She said I should spend the night, and maybe even the next day or two. My father was gone for a few days, and there was no one to take care of me. She said she would come for me when my mother was feeling better.”

“And?”

Leona shrugged. “So I did. Two days later, my aunt brought me home. My mother was lying in bed, nursing the baby. She looked so happy. She said, ‘Leona, come in and meet your brother Phillip.' And I thought that was strange. Because I remembered what she had said before: ‘I don't want
her
.' But then I thought I must have heard her wrong, or that my mother had misunderstood when my aunt first tried to give her the baby. I thought the baby must have been a boy all along.”

“But maybe he wasn't,” I said, and I could not bring my voice above a whisper.

“Maybe he wasn't,” she echoed in a voice as quiet as mine. “When is your birthday, Kellen? Right before autumn, if I remember right.”

“Exactly two months after Summermoon. I turned sixteen this year.”

She was silent a moment. “Phillip's birthday. Phillip's age.”

I said the words with a sense of wonder, still not believing they could be true. “Maybe
I
was the baby born to your mother late that summer. Maybe my own mother was right all along. Maybe she did give birth to a baby boy. If your aunt was midwife to both women, and my father was gone and so was yours, what would have prevented her from switching the children? Who would know any different? Who could offer proof?”

Now both of Leona's hands were on her cheeks. “Then—Kellen—but—does this mean you are my sister? That Phillip is not my brother after all? That you are—that you—but this is marvelous if it is true! Terrible and wonderful at the same time!”

My heart was so full that for a moment I could not speak. I could not help thinking of all the sad, wasted years of my mother's life, yearning for a child that she knew she had misplaced. Of the casual cruelty of two women who had conspired to swap infants, not caring what tragedies and tangles they set in motion. Of my own life, colored by attempts to be something I was not, bounded by my mother's disappointment and unease.

All of that swept away by my profound joy at suddenly, so unexpectedly, coming face-to-face with a sister who could love me no matter what shape I took.

“We will have to find a Truth-Teller,” I said, my voice shaky. “Perhaps that disagreeable Eleda will come back in. She can let us know if we are in fact sisters, or if we have made up this wild story out of our own imaginations.”

“No, it is entirely true,” Ayler said in his soft voice. “Your aunt told me the tale fifteen years ago when I passed through Tambleham on my travels.”

Now we both stared at him and he gave us back his abstracted smile. “You
knew
?” Leona demanded. “All this time, you
knew
? And you never told me, you never told Kellen—”

“It was a secret,” he said apologetically. “The words would not cross my lips.”

“Then how is it you can tell us the story now?” I said, pouncing a little.

He spread his hands; his smile widened. “I didn't tell you a thing,” he replied. “You guessed it for yourselves.”

“But you brought me here,” I insisted. “You introduced me to Leona, knowing she was my sister. You must have thought—you must have hoped—”

“I am glad the story unfolded as it did,” he admitted. “And perhaps I helped along its unraveling. But I told no secrets. I betrayed no confidences. How could I? I am a Safe-Keeper.”

“I can't believe I have a sister,” I said. “You have no idea how long I have wished and wished and
wished
for someone in my family to love me for who I am.”

“And I for a sibling I could love!” Leona replied. Then she stopped short. “But that means—Phillip! What shall I tell him? He doesn't care much for me, but I'm all he has.”

“He has my mother,” I said. “Living in Thrush Hollow all these years, waiting for him to appear. Seeing him will be
her
dream come true.”

“Still, it will be strange for him,” Leona said. “To suddenly find out he has a different name, a different life—”

I laughed out loud. “Something tells me Phillip will be happy enough to trade his life for mine,” I said. “He has just inherited five hundred gold pieces, after all.”

Leona's eyes widened. “That's right! Your father's legacy! But will you really give up the money to Phillip?”

I shrugged. “The man I called my father left the money to his ‘only living child.' Any Truth-Teller could tell you that's Phillip, not me. I suppose we could call Raymond in and have him argue the case for me, and probably win me at least half the money, but—Phillip has lost so much lately. I think I would like to see him win something. I even wished it for him earlier this afternoon.”

“So many wishes come true all at once!” Leona said, exhaling a long sigh of breath. “And we haven't even burned the wreath yet!”

“Wintermoon magic operates by its own logic,” Ayler said. “But I would say you had both cherished some powerful dreams.”

Leona smiled at me. “Time to think up some new ones, then,” she said.

“Not quite yet,” I said, smiling back at my sister. “I'm still getting used to these.”

Chase and Ayler started the bonfire while Gryffin sat there with the wreath across his lap. Sallie snuck over from her parents' house just before we threw the greenery into the fire—because, as she said, she wanted to see her particular wishes turn to smoke across the moon. She goggled when she saw me, wearing one of Leona's dresses and boldly holding Gryffin's hand, and then she laughed and cried when we told her the story.

“There will never be another Wintermoon like this one!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms first around me, then around Leona. By this time, she had gotten into the spirit of it, so she hugged Chase and Gryffin and Ayler while she was at it. I thought I saw Ayler hold the embrace a little longer than she had expected, and I thought I saw her smile up at him with an expression of happy surprise.

“I have had plenty of bountiful Wintermoons before this one,” I murmured in Gryffin's ear. “I am not ready to say this is my finest Wintermoon ever.”

He laughed and kissed me lightly on the mouth. “Then that will be my wish,” he replied. “That every Wintermoon be better than the last.”

Not a realistic wish, as anyone could have told him—but I would not be the one to say so. Why limit your dreams, after all? Why not hope for the grandest and the best? I watched Chase throw the wreath into the bonfire, and I saw the flames scrawl secrets on the sky, and I closed my eyes and knew no end of dreaming.