The scene is a hospital bed. On the table beside the bed is a picture of a deathly sick little girl in a wheelchair. Beside her kneels a beautiful Cinderella in a blue satin gown, holding her hand, smiling brilliantly for the camera. That isn’t me, I tell myself. That’s a character. In the bed lies Abby, a ventilator protruding from her mouth and taped in place, a dozen wires trailing from her body. A monitor beeps, very slowly. Beside the bed sits her aunt, Christine, leaning her elbows on the mattress beside the wasted body, her hands clasped and head bowed in prayer.
Christine is making a wish: Please God, take me instead.
I grab the tiara off my head so quickly it tangles in my hair. Heart racing, I throw it on the floor, stare at it. A dryness makes my eyes hurt.
Afraid to touch it, I leave it on the floor for a week, giving it wide berth as I move around the apartment in the course of my day. My muscles ache with fear, even as some small sense tells me that the wish hasn’t been granted.
It can’t be granted. It’s a terrible wish. Unless it isn’t. If she’s willing to make that wish, if I have the power to grant it, who am I to deny it?
I haven’t been to an audition in months. Audrey’s stopped asking if I want to go to dinner. Barry, who sometimes plays Prince Charming opposite me, has stopped asking me what’s wrong after I tell him nothing a dozen times. His smile turns fake, and he stops talking to me at all. I only notice as a vague observation.
I only ever feel real when I’m Cinderella. But I still can’t touch the tiara on my apartment floor. I wait for the letter telling me Abby has died. It doesn’t come.
I wish . . .
And I realize how long it’s been since I’ve even done that. I used to have lots of wishes. But I never see myself in the tiara.
For the first time in ages, I sneak into the park after closing and go to the wishing well.
Leaning on the stone wall, my chin bends almost to my chest, and my shoulders slump with the weight of the world.
“I don’t know what to do.” I whisper, but even then my voice echoes. The stone carries it down to the thin layer of water pooling on the concrete at the bottom. The nights are getting cooler. I shiver. I should bring my coat, if I’m going to come out here. I should go back, go home. But what’s the point? I’d see that thing on my floor. I don’t want to see it ever again.
What else do I have? I take stock: what else can I ever do in this world that would measure up to what I’ve accomplished waving my magic wand, making wishes come true?
“What’s wrong?”
I look behind me, assuming someone has snuck up, emerging from shadows. Security, maybe. If I get caught, I’ll be fired. But no one’s there.
“I’m right here.”
The voice comes from the well. Androgynous, a soft contralto, echoing then dissipating. If I hadn’t been sitting right in this spot, I might not have heard it at all.
“Oh my God,” I murmur.
The wishing well chuckles. “Don’t sound so shocked.”
“But—” I close my eyes, shake my head. The well. Talking to me. That’s it, I’m crazy.
“I know who you are. What you’ve been doing. You aren’t really surprised at all.”
It’s right, of course. “If you know all that, then you know what’s wrong.”
“Yes,” it says. It might even sound a little sad.
I lean forward. “You know where it came from, don’t you? You know who gave it to me.”
“Yes.”
“I want to give it back. I have to give it back, find whoever gave it to me, wherever it came from, and give it back.” I grip the wall, urgency firing my nerves. I can solve the mystery. I can be free. “Tell me where that thing came from.”
It remains silent for so long, I start to think I’ve imagined it. The well doesn’t speak, it’s my own addled mind.
Then it says, “It came from me.”
I stare into the shadowed space. “You?”
“It’s the same magic, after all. Granting wishes.”