Three Wishes (27 page)

From the first, she was considered bohemian. She wore long skirts, vivid crocheted vests, and voluminous blouses. Her hair was long, dark, and wavy, and was held back by a bandanna that covered her forehead. She was always impeccably clean, though as far as anyone in town knew, she had neither hot water nor indoor plumbing. As far as anyone in town knew, she had no electricity, either. She grew her own herbs and vegetables, stripped the best blueberry patches before anyone else could find them, and was thought to eat small animals as they died in the woods. She had no apparent source of income. As for her name, few believed it was real.

Theories had abounded over the years. One theory held that she was an outcast from a commune that had thrived in the seventies in southern Vermont. Another held that she was the daft daughter of a southern billionaire. A third held that she was a witch.

Bree had never believed the last. She had talked with Verity, and while the woman had unusual views and no qualms about sharing them when asked, she seemed harmless. More, she seemed lonely, though when Bree suggested that to others, few agreed. The general consensus was that Verity chose to live as she did. Whether out of fear or respect, the town let her be.

Eliot was one of the few to have ever been to the cottage in the woods. He had described how to get there to Emma, who had told Dotty, who told Jane, who told Bree, who set off in Tom's truck first thing in the morning under the guise of shopping for clothes. She rarely shopped for clothes,
hated
shopping for clothes, and Tom knew it, but he didn't question her. He hadn't said much at all since their talk about setting a wedding date. He had held her, showered with her, made oh-so-sweet love to her. He had fixed her breakfast and eyed her longingly through the eating, but he hadn't said much. Nor had she. She just didn't know what to say.

After stopping at the diner to smuggle food from the back room reserves, she drove to the town line. Once there, she made a U-turn and drove very slowly back until she spotted the twin-trunked birch that was visible only from that direction. Beside it were the faint ruts that marked Verity's road.

The woods were surprisingly dark given the sun above and the snow below. Bree turned on her headlights and jolted along for what seemed an age. The jolting echoed the thud of her heart, which said she had no idea what she was in for. But she didn't stop and turn around. Verity was her last, best, whimsical hope.

When the road finally ended, it was Verity's old orange VW Bug that marked her arrival. The cottage itself was nearly hidden under a cluster of pines.

Uneasy, Bree knocked on the door. She waited several minutes and knocked again. She shifted the bags in her arms and was about to knock a third time, when she saw Verity's startled face at the window. Seconds later, the door opened.

The startled look remained, making Bree wonder when Verity's last visitor had come. Though she was dressed, she wasn't wearing her normal bandanna. Bree hoped she hadn't come at an awkward time.

She held out the bags. “For you.”

Verity looked puzzled.

“It's not much, just soup and stew and some other wintry things. I'd have brought your usual,” she added, with a tentative smile, “only it wouldn't travel well.” Verity's usual was one hot dog, an order of fries, and a Coke. Bree had always thought it a sedate order for someone who was supposedly bizarre, though a perfectly sensible one for someone who normally lived on homegrown goods.

Verity's expression softened. Quietly, she accepted the bags and carried them into the cottage. Bree took a breath for courage and followed, though only enough to close the door. From there, she looked cautiously around. The whole of the place was a single large room, with a kitchen at its far end and a sleeping loft above. The walls were made of exposed logs, the heat was from a wood-burning stove. Baskets of brightly colored yarns were strewed around, a cozy touch. The fragrance that filled the room came from a window garden, where herbs were warmed by a string of sunbeams piercing the pines.

Bree wasn't sure what she had expected—incense smoke, the bodies of little creatures hung to dry, a world of dark corners and eerie sounds—but the cottage held none of that. It was simply furnished, commendably neat, startlingly conventional.

Verity returned to her. In the absence of the bandanna, wisps of gray hair glittered through darker strands. A long shawl covered her blouse and the top of her skirt. She wore thick socks but no shoes.

Bree tucked her hands in her pockets. “I like your place. I didn't know you had lights.” She also saw a refrigerator and a television. “You must have your own generator.”

“And a satellite dish,” Verity said, in her light southern way.

“Ah. Shows how much
we
know.” Bree smiled.

Verity looked around the cottage but said nothing.

Bree cleared her throat. “You're probably wondering why I'm here.”

“You brought food.”

“It's a bribe. I need your advice.”

Verity's brows went up. When they came down, she smiled. “I don't think I'm one to be giving advice.”

But Bree stood her ground. It was Verity or nothing.

Verity must have sensed her resolve. With a glance toward the back of the cottage, she asked, “Would you like some tea?”

Bree's hands were cold, perhaps from the outdoors, more likely from nerves. She rubbed them together. “That would be nice.”

She followed Verity to the kitchen and sat at a scarred wooden table while Verity heated water, warmed a pot, and opened a tin of loose tea leaves. Bree smelled their scent as soon as they hit the air, even more when Verity spooned some into the pot and poured in boiling water. The smell that rose as the tea steeped was raw, rich, and sweet.

Settling in across the table, Verity folded her hands. “What advice do you think I can give?”

Bree had thought long and hard about what words to use. Convinced that her own clumsiness had turned off the woman in the diner and not wanting to do the same here, she had practiced scripts that gently and gradually related the problem. Sitting here, though, with a woman whose home held no pretense, she realized those scripts were misconceived. So, bluntly, she said, “Strange things have happened to me. You're the expert on strange things.”

Verity's mouth twitched at that. “UFOs, CE5s, NDEs, OBEs, ESP. I'm not really an expert. Just an observer.”

“And a believer.”

“Sometimes.”

“Do you believe in near-death and out-of-body experiences?”

“Like the ones you had? Yes.” The word had two syllables.

“Why?”

Politely, Verity asked, “Why not?”

“Because there's no way to prove that they're real. They happen to people in the middle of traumas, and then they're over and done. Most of my friends think I imagined what happened to me.”

Verity rose, took cups and saucers from the cupboard, and set them on the table. They were of fine china, white with delicate green leaves inside a bright gold rim, perfectly matched and unchipped. The stream of tea that filled one, then the other, was a deep shade of bronze. It smelled even richer than before.

Verity settled into her seat. She looked from one cup to the other, seeming to take in the whole picture. Then, sprightly, she raised her head and smiled. In the next instant, her eyes widened. Leaving the table again, she took a package from the bread bin, unwrapped it, cut several slices of whatever it was, and set them on a plate.

“A tea party isn't complete without sweets,” she said, as she set down the plate and returned to her chair. “It's apple cake. The apples are from my own trees.”

Bree wasn't hungry, but she took a piece of cake. Verity's pride was a tangible thing. Bree couldn't bear the thought of hurting her. Not that she needed to lie about the cake. It was moist, sweet, delicious. She told Verity so and took pleasure in her smile, then set to wondering how to return to the subject at hand.

Verity did it for her. After taking a sip of her tea, she said in a voice that was tea-party conversational, “Your friends think you imagined what happened, because they aren't open to the idea of a different dimension.”

Bree blinked. A different dimension. “Am
I?”

“Not the you who was raised by your father and grandparents. But the you who likes to stand in the woods and dream.”

“How . . .?”

“I've seen you. I'm a woods walker, too. I've seen the look on your face.”

There was no point in denying it, not here, not to Verity, not when Bree's curiosity was whetted. “What kind of different dimension?”

“It's an energy channel. One step above man's everyday level of functioning. It consists of pure thought and feeling.”

“Does it take a near death to reach it?”

“No. Psychics do it without. And many people who have near deaths don't reach it. Only the ones with open minds. The ones willing to believe. The others are weighted down by the physical world. They never rise.”

“But I've always been a realist,” Bree argued.

Teacup in hand, Verity sat back with a smug smile.

Okay, Bree reasoned. So she dreamed. But did that make her different from others?

“You believe in positives,” Verity said. “You're an optimist. That's how you survived living with your father all those years. You made a life for yourself at the diner. You looked outward. You saw the glass as half full.” She paused. “Those forest fairies stirred up by the wind?”

Bree's eyes went wide.

Verity smiled and shook a gently chiding finger. “Your face doesn't hide much. I've watched you watch them. Some people see drifting leaves. You and I, we see life.”

You and I.
Bree had a startling thought.

But Verity was speaking on, slowly and softly, with only the faintest of drawls. “You believe in a world of possibility. Not everyone does. Your friends don't, which is why they have trouble believing what you experienced. That, and they're jealous.”

Of Tom? Of her diamond ring? “Of what?”

“Of the inner peace you found.”

“What inner peace?” Bree cried. “I am totally confused. My life used to be sensible and predictable. Then the accident happened, and nothing's been the same since.”

“Are things worse?”

“No.” She hadn't meant to complain. Or maybe she had.

“Better?”

“So much so that sometimes I think it's too good to be true.”

Verity studied her for a minute, then nodded. “Thomas Gates.”

Bree sighed. “Oh, yes. Thomas Gates. Most of the time I forget that half the world knows who he is. Then I remember, and I can't believe he loves me.”

“He seems happy.”

“Well, he thinks he is now, but what if he should change his mind?”

“Are you going to throw away what you have on the chance that he will?”

Bree started to speak, then stopped. Put that way, the answer was obvious. It told only half the story, though. “If he had happened to me before all this, I could probably believe it faster. But first there was the accident, then the out-of-body experience, now the wishes. Put Tom in the middle of it, and I don't know what's real and what isn't.”

Verity was frowning. “Wishes?”

Bree hesitated. Then she reminded herself that this was a woman who not only saw forest fairies but had argued more than once in favor of UFOs, psychics, and, yes, a bowling alley in heaven. So she told her about the three wishes, from her first awareness of them, to the fire, to the woman at the diner. She argued both sides, coincidence versus wish. “Do you see why I'm confused? And then there's the part of me that thinks the only reason I'm back here is for the wishes, and that after the third one, the being of light will reclaim me.

“Oh my,” Verity said. “What makes you think that?”

“I don't know. Maybe it was the drugs I was on right after the accident. Maybe it's nothing but a human kind of fear.” Most people feared death, didn't they? It was the most natural thing in the world, wasn't it? “Do you think the wishes are real?”

Verity considered the question. “They could be.”

“Was that my mother who came to the diner?” When Verity shrugged, Bree again had that startling thought. Again she set it aside. “After the third wish, do I die?”

Verity raised both shoulders and kept them up this time.

“Can I risk it?”

The shoulders dropped. “That depends on what the wish is and how much it matters to you.” She thought for a minute. “I probably would.”

“Even if it means death?”

“What if it means life?”

“You mean a happier life?”

“Happier. Safer. Freer. Most people live like this.” She drew a level line with her hand. “Some people live like this.” She drew a higher line. “Having an open mind makes part of the difference. Risk makes the rest.”

In a moment's frustration, Bree scanned the room. It held most every creature comfort. “This doesn't look too risky.”

“Now it isn't. It was when I first came here. I had never lived alone. I had never taken care of myself. I didn't have a generator then, just the clothes on my back.”

Regretful of her outburst, Bree brought the tea to her mouth. She let the nearness of the scent tease her taste buds for a minute, took a sip, and, in the smooth, rich heat, found a temporary balm. More calmly, she asked, “Why did you come?”

Verity smiled. “Not for the UFOs, though I do think this is where they land.”

“What did you leave?”

The smile faded. “A man who swore to kill me if I left.”

Bree gasped.

Verity waved a hand. “It's an old story. Not an uncommon one. It's nowhere near as exotic as the stories people tell about me in town.”

“How many of them are real?”

“Not many. It may be possible to commune with the dead, but I've never done it. I have been followed by strange lights and do believe in UFOs, but I've never come face-to-face with an alien. I have come face-to-face with a bear. I was so frightened that I froze. The bear got bored and walked away. So people say I can control wild beasts with a single look. I let them believe it.”