“He never thought he would, either,” Gram said. “One day, he had a fight with the mayor, and it suddenly seemed to make ever so much sense just to wish himself mayor. Another day, when the egg lady’s chickens stopped laying due to cold, rather than wait for warmer weather along with everyone else, he wished up his own eggs, and started to sell those, too. Afore you know it, the chicken lady was out of business. Soon, the man wasn’t just the mayor, he was the boss of the whole town. He sold the best of everything, because he didn’t have to fashion it or grow it or even give it much more than a thought—he only had to wish it up. And people loved him.”
Gram crinkled her eyes. “And they hated him. Resented him. You know what that means?”
I nodded.
“Even his wife and kids started to resent him because they thought he should fetch them the skill to grant wishes, too. Why do you think he didn’t?” Gram asked.
“So he’d be the only boss?” I replied.
“I think so.” She was quiet for a time. “In the end, he died suddenly, and the whole town was ruined because nobody remembered how to grow crops or raise chickens or hammer iron. People went hungry or had to move away to cities where they could buy things other people still knew how to make. Fenn became a ghost town. And the man, his name was cursed for all time.”
I considered Gram’s story. “It doesn’t have to turn out that way.”
She gave me a fierce look. “Maybe not, but you heed this, Gen Sweet. Them what breaks that rule pays a price. Unless you promise to never, ever fetch your own wishes—or talk other people into asking for things you want for yourself—I won’t teach you diddly. You understand?”
I understood.
“But what good does it do to grant other people’s wishes when we’re starving?” I demanded.
“Good given away always comes back to you, Gen. Don’t you know that by now?” she asked.
“So, you’re saying that if I do good things, I’ll get good things?”
“Yes, but that’s not why you do them—”
“Gram!” I whisper-hollered. “We got to do something! Spend winter in this house? With hardly any food and no heat? We could die!”
Gram gave a little nod. “I guess we could.”
I could feel my eyes bulging. “Well, then?”
She folded her hands in her lap and seemed to be thinking hard.
“All right. Let’s see if we can nudge the Lord just a little,” she agreed. “Never hurts to do a good deed, anyway.”
2
With Humbler Clothes
WE PASSED PA, WHO’D FALLEN ASLEEP SITTING up on an apple crate on the front porch. He reeked of drink, and I wondered, not for the first or the fortieth time, how he’d paid for it.
Gram waved me on into the woods, her slippers making a hush-hush sound as she shuffled over the ground, a bed of fallen and decaying leaves. The air smelled of night and damp and good woods—sort of musty and peaceful, if a smell can be peaceful, which I think it can.
She led me to a clearing, a spot not too far from Squirrel Tail Creek, a place where I’d sometimes come to watch the critters come and go. In the city, I hear all you’ve got are stray cats and dogs and pigeons, but in Sass, we have bear and deer and coyote, plus the cows and horses, if you count them, though they’re not wild.
Gram took two nested plastic cups from the pocket of her robe and gave me one.
“Now, to grant a wish, you’ve got to draw the magic from the stars,” Gram said. “For that, you’ll need a cup and a good, solid whistle.”
“Like a pennywhistle?”
She waved a hand. “Not unless it’s so cold your lips don’t work right. No, all’s you have to do is blow, loud and clear.” She pursed her lips and let out an impressive trill.
“I didn’t know you could do that.” I laughed.
“It’s in the blood.” She smiled. “You try.”
Let me tell you, there are some champion whistlers at school—you mostly hear it in the grades where the girls are wearing bras—but me, I’ve always been more of a screamer if I wanted to get someone’s attention. Still, I gave it my best try.
It must have been all right, because Gram nodded. “Good. Now, all’s you have to do is whistle like that and hold out your cup this way.”
Gram held her cup in both hands and lifted it up to the sky. She trilled again.
I couldn’t help feeling she did look like an angel, just then, in her long white bathrobe, her white hair falling loose around her shoulders, every part of her—even her teeth, ’cause she smiled—glowing in the starlight.
“Y’all come now. Come on,” she crooned, and whistled again.
I was about to register my opinion that this was all starting to feel a little foolish, when the light of one of the brighter stars seemed to shine a little brighter still. I looked at it, really concentrating on it, and tried to make out if I was seeing things. After a time, though, there was no denying it. The beams that radiated from that star turned more liquid than light and began to pour down from the sky. Something very like quicksilver, it fell in soft rivulets that poured right into Gram’s cup, just as if she held it under the faucet of heaven.
Gram waited for the last of the silver to dribble into her cup, then held it out for me to look. If you can imagine silver water that smells like carnations, that’s pretty much how it seemed to me.
“Pure starlight,” Gram said reverently.
“Do you drink it?” I asked.
“My ma did,” she replied. “And all the words she spoke for the next day turned true. But me, I use it to water seeds.”
Gram reached into her pocket and pulled out a bit of lint. “Just today, Roxanne Fuller was telling me she wished she had enough gas in her car to go visit her grandkids. ‘One tank’d do it, to get me there and back,’ she said. Now, just because someone wants something doesn’t mean you belt out a whistle and fetch it right up. You got to take care. But Roxie’s my best friend, and when a friend says a thing like that, all sad and desperate, what can you do but lend a hand?”
She took the lint between her finger and thumb and rolled it into a tight ball. “One full tank of gas for Roxanne Fuller.”
Then, with a spoon she pulled from her pocket, she dug a little hole and planted her seed. Once she’d covered it with earth, she poured the starlight over it, much in the way a person would water a plant.
“Grow,” she told it. “Grow.”
Gram put the cup and spoon back in her pocket, brushed off her hands, and said, “That’s all there is to it.”
“And now Missus Fuller has a full tank of gas?” I asked.