Saturday, November 7, 2020

Wilhelmina was having her recurring dream, the one where she was waiting for Frankie.

This time, she sat on the low wall outside the library. Her head was too heavy; her neck hurt. The giant maple stood tall and strong behind her, wearing its knitted tube dress, branches full of birds, and Wilhelmina was waiting for Frankie.

Wait,she told her sleeping brain, knowing how this always went. Let me stay asleep. Let Frankie arrive, please, please, before you wake me up, please let Frankie arrive. No! Stop! She was waking up, as usual. Frankie was close, but it was too late.

"Wilhelmina, dear?" said Frankie.

Wilhelmina's eyes shot to the voice, to the blurry creature standing before her. Was it Frankie? Or was it a giant bird? The creature came into focus. Oh! It was Frankie! Frankie with a body that had heft and health, and long white hair in a crown of braids, and a radiance that came from her smile, and she had wings. They were soft and gray and voluminous. She wore a gown that seemed to be made of flowers and vines. She had lilies wound into her hair.

"Frankie," said Wilhelmina, dazzled. "You came!"

"Of course I came," said Frankie.

"What do you mean, ‘of course'?" said Wilhelmina. "I've been waiting for you in my dreams for years!"

"I've been here every time," said Frankie. "This is the first time you've let me in."

"What?" said Wilhelmina. "But I could never find you!"

"You weren't ready," said Frankie. "You know why."

"No!" said Wilhelmina. "I don't know why!"

With a small humphing noise, Frankie came to sit beside Wilhelmina, tucking her enormous wings awkwardly behind her. "Bit unwieldy," she said, struggling with the one on the left.

"Don't they fold in?" said Wilhelmina. "Albatross wings have hinges."

"That would be a nice feature," said Frankie. "Could you arrange it, dear? It's your dream."

"What?" said Wilhelmina in alarm. "But what do you mean? Aren't you real?"

"I'm real in the same way that magic is real," said Frankie.

"Huh?"

"People think it's easy," said Frankie. "Wave a wand and your problems are solved, the pain goes away, voilà. That's not what magic is. You have to pay attention. You have to do the hard, mucky work. But it is real, Wilhelmina." A ruminative expression crossed her face. "Maybe that's why you can't touch the magic unless you let reality in."

"Wow, Frankie," said Wilhelmina. "That really clears things up." Then she began to laugh. As her laughter grew deeper, her head suddenly began to feel less weighty, her neck freed from its burden.

"Look, Wilhelmina," said Frankie, who was leaning back, gazing in wonderment at the top of Wilhelmina's head. "Your helm is made of stars!"

"What?" cried Wilhelmina, reaching up to touch her head. It felt strange on her fingers up there, like sunshine. A great splitting sound resonated from somewhere deep inside her. Looking down, she saw cracks forming all across her body, and light shining through.

"Frankie!" she cried, grabbing for Frankie's hand. "Frankie! I'm scared!"

"Oh, Wilhelmina," said Frankie, holding her hand tight. "I know you are, but really, there's no need to be scared. It's wonderful! You're finally starting to crack open."

"What?" cried Wilhelmina. "That sounds dangerous!"

"Yes, there are risks, of course, dear," said Frankie. "But aren't you a little bit curious about all that light?"

On the day Wilhelmina stepped into her own, she woke to the feeling that it was summer. She was a child in her bedroom in the Pennsylvania house and sunlight was streaming through her window. The aunts, all three of them, were downstairs. She could smell French toast. That meant it was probably Saturday, because sometimes on the Saturday after Esther made challah, Aunt Margaret made challah French toast. She was warm, too warm. She kicked her blankets away and Delia's voice said, "You are such a weird sleeper. If you ever get married, you're going to break your spouse's leg."

Wilhelmina sat up in her Massachusetts bedroom and groaned.

"It's so stupid that the election was on Tuesday and we still don't know who won," said Delia.

Wilhelmina groped for her glasses. Delia came into view across the room, sitting in bed with her legs crossed, Theo's laptop in her lap. Wilhelmina pulled out her nightguard.

"Hacking the Minuteman library system?" she said.

"Here are the states where that centipede is suing because he can't accept he lost," said Delia. "Okay? Are you ready?"

"That's offensive to centipedes," said Wilhelmina, "but go ahead."

"Pennsylvania. Michigan. Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, and Wisconsin," said Delia, reading the laptop screen. "He has no evidence. He just doesn't like being a loser. And all these protests are happening, with all these people who are, like, waving guns. And they believe him! And all these other people who should be like, Hello, he's making it all up, aren't saying anything at all! I don't get it, Wilhelmina! What is wrong with everyone?"

She lifted Theo's laptop and plopped it back down in her lap for emphasis. She seemed quite upset.

"I know," said Wilhelmina. "It's mind-boggling."

"But what's wrong with them?" Delia cried again.

"I don't know, Delia."

"I've decided I'm Cordelia."

"What?"

"Cordelia. I mean, it's my name. So I want people to call me it."

"Oh," said Wilhelmina. "Okay." She tried it out. "Cordelia."

"It's okay if you forget," said Cordelia, "but it's not okay if you say it wrong on purpose."

"Thank you for those clear parameters."

"You should take a chill pill about your own name, and those dashes," said Cordelia. "I mean, who wouldn't want ‘helm' in their name? It's, like, badass."

"I don't feel very badass this morning."

"Maybe that's because you haven't embraced your name," said Cordelia. "Take a chill pill, Wil." She squealed in delight at her own humor. "Take a chill pill, Wil!"

"I'm disowning you," said Wilhelmina.

"Hey, it's Doughnut Saturday. When are you going?"

"Don't I smell French toast?"

"Yes? So? Is French toast doughnuts?"

"No, but they are both delicious breakfast items."

"Whatever," said Cordelia. "It's still Doughnut Saturday. Can't you text James and ask him to bring us some?"

"No," said Wilhelmina, "because he's not our personal delivery service."

"Then you have to go," said Cordelia. "Also, Aunt Margaret has an eye appointment."

Closing her eyes, Wilhelmina sighed. She'd forgotten about Aunt Margaret's Saturday eye appointments. This one was her one-week checkup. "Anything else you require of me?"

"I just want to know when you're getting the doughnuts so I know how much French toast to eat."

"That is an important calculation," said Wilhelmina, checking her phone. A text from James said, Hows 11:30 for Mrs M? "I have a lot to do this morning. Doughnuts'll be on the late side. Eat as much French toast as you want."

Pushing Theo's laptop away, Cordelia jumped out of bed and pattered across to the door with bare feet. "Yay!"

Left alone with her own fluttering heart, Wilhelmina reread last night's text thread with Julie.

I'm here, Wil,Julie had written.

Then she'd added, Maybe we should hang out in the yard every day. Didn't you used to have some old rusty lawn chairs?

Finally, she'd said, I'm sorry, Wil. I mean, for pretending I hadn't guessed what a hard time you were having. That was shitty of me

Everything is forgiven,Wilhelmina had said. I'm sorry too

Morning,Wilhelmina wrote now. While she was hitting send, Bee texted.

Morning elephant

Morning, elephant,she wrote back to Bee. It felt different somehow, not their same old exchange, even though the words hadn't changed. Wilhelmina wasn't taking a single syllable for granted.

Aunt Margaret's eye appointment was at ten. As Wilhelmina emerged from the shower with a towel on her head, she considered the day that lay before her. The appointment, then she and James would bring the keys to Mrs. Mardrosian. And what? Confront her?

"When are they going to call Pennsylvania?" she heard her father moaning somewhere nearby. "When are they going to call Pennsylvania?"

In her room, Wilhelmina went to her closet. There she chose a sundress composed of bright panels of leaf green, fuchsia, and scarlet roses, because it complemented her red glasses and set off her pale skin and dark hair, and also because it fit her perfectly. It gave her a hint of cleavage that pleased her whenever she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and it had a pocket for her phone. She slipped Frankie's owl onto her ear, mussed her hair up artfully, and did her eye makeup. The she put on lipstick, a deep, glimmery red, trying not to think too much about why she was bothering. Lastly, she put on her elephant necklace. Later, she thought to herself, I'll find a new one for Julie. Right? That's the right thing to do?

She found Aunt Margaret sitting quietly in the armchair in the living room, touching her fingers to Frankie's birds on the windowsill. Someone had dismantled Wilhelmina's fort, and placed Frankie's blanket in a neat, folded pile on the sofa.

"Wilhelmina, dear," Aunt Margaret said, tapping Saint Francis's head, "I believe that we should entrust these treasures to you when we go. I can tell they're drawn to you."

"Are you going?" said Wilhelmina.

"Oh, no, not now," said Aunt Margaret. "But of course, we won't be here forever."

Wilhelmina had a moment to be surprised by her own ambivalence at this statement before Aunt Margaret turned and said, "Oh, Wilhelmina! How stunning you are. You look like…someone. I can't quite place it."

In that moment, Wilhelmina remembered the dream she'd had last night. Frankie had arrived in time. With wings! Frankie had held her hand, while she'd cracked open. Wilhelmina felt the warm light all around her, seeping out of her own body.

"Do I?" she said to Aunt Margaret. "Is it you? Don't you think we look alike?"

Her aunt smiled sweetly. "I will accept that compliment, but no, that's not it. May I borrow your glasses?"

Slightly bewildered, Wilhelmina relinquished her glasses, then stood there taking in the fuzzy scene of Aunt Margaret slipping them on over her one good eye and her eye patch, then swinging her head back and forth like the snow goose, studying the room. In fact, Aunt Margaret reached out and nudged the head of the snow goose so it swung back and forth too.

"Lovely," she said, handing the glasses back. "Shall we go?"

Outside, the weather was almost too beautiful to be believed. "High of eighty today," said Aunt Margaret.

"Aunt Margaret," said Wilhelmina as they got into the car. "Why do you keep putting on my glasses?"

"Oh!" said Aunt Margaret. "I thought you understood, dear. I like to see the world the way you see it."

"Ah—" said Wilhelmina. "But—" She was flummoxed. "I don't think you see what I see when you put on my glasses, Aunt Margaret. I mean, I see clearly through them. Because of my prescription. Don't you"—this seemed inconceivable—"don't you understand how glasses work?"

"Well, of course I do, in the mundane sense," said Aunt Margaret. "But I meant via my affinity for objects. If I wear your glasses, I can get a sense of—well, you know. What you see."

"What I see," Wilhelmina repeated, pulling the car onto the road. She didn't want to ask, but the compulsion was too great. "And what do I see?"

Aunt Margaret opened her mouth, then closed it again. "It's very hard to express in words," she said. "But the apartment is very small, isn't it? Too small for so much family and an invasion of aunts. And Frankie's blanket shines like chain mail, and the snow goose—well. You keep a lot of memories in the snow goose, don't you?"

Wilhelmina was stunned and confused; then she was angry. "That's private!"

"Oh my!" said Aunt Margaret. "Wilhelmina, I humbly beg your pardon! I thought you understood!"

It was unfathomable to Wilhelmina that Aunt Margaret could think that anyone who lent her their glasses would understand—like, as if it was a normal, knowable thing—that she would be able to see their private thoughts. That wasn't normal. It wasn't normal! Who would think that? As they drove past the man with his Stop the Steal sign, Wilhelmina gritted her teeth and made a strangled sound.

"Yes," said Aunt Margaret. "It's very hard to take, isn't it? This win we're all waiting for today—I fear it'll be a brief reprieve only. That man isn't going to concede. He's going to break everything he can on his way out, Wilhelmina. I'm scared to see what the damage will be."

"Yeah," said Wilhelmina tiredly. "I am too."

"I'm really sorry about your glasses, Wilhelmina. I won't ask again."

"It's okay," said Wilhelmina. "I understand that you—thought I knew."

"How are you coping with all of your pressures, dear?"

Yesterday, that question would've made her cry. Now she just felt a small, inevitable sadness. "Frankie used to ask me that."

"I'm not surprised."

"I haven't been coping very well lately, if I'm being honest."

"I hope you won't mind me saying, Wilhelmina," said Aunt Margaret, "that I've wondered if you'd recently reached a breaking point. Not the bad kind, mind you. The good kind—or maybe that's an unfeeling way to put it. The necessary kind."

Wilhelmina was quiet for a while, driving. Thinking about breaking points. About cracking open, and what happened then. The people on the sidewalks wearing shorts and sandals disoriented her. She'd done this same drive last week in a snowstorm.

In Harvard Square, she pulled into an empty spot down the street from the building that housed Aunt Margaret's eye doctor. "The necessary kind of breaking point?" she finally said.

"Exactly," said Aunt Margaret. "I've wondered if you've been letting some of the hardest truths in. I mean about the world, of course, but also—well," she said. "I've wondered if you've begun to accept that Frankie is dead."

Wilhelmina turned to stare at her aunt. Aunt Margaret looked back at her serenely, short and round, her hair long and white, one eye behind an eye patch.

"I dreamed about her last night," Wilhelmina said.

"Oh, what a gift!" said Aunt Margaret. "Did she have any messages for you?"

Wilhelmina took a breath, then sighed quietly. "She told me that you can't touch the magic unless you let reality in."

"Very true," said Aunt Margaret. "It's hard to let the reality in that according to the count so far, over seventy million people have voted for that horrible man. But unless you do let it in, you can't appreciate what it means that over seventy-four million people have voted against him. Those people are our neighbors in this world too, Wilhelmina."

"But aren't both of those things reality?" said Wilhelmina.

"Yes, of course, dear. But magic is real, after all, you know. Tell me, how did Frankie seem?"

Wilhelmina was becoming annoyed with this conversation. "She was having some trouble with her wings."

Aunt Margaret nodded. "Yes, I can see that wings might be troublesome in ways we wouldn't appreciate, being wingless. I'm sorry to leave abruptly; I've just noticed I'm going to be late. Oh! But Wilhelmina, I've been meaning to mention. You know that our house is your house, don't you? You can go there anytime. With whomever you like." While Wilhelmina was trying to figure out what Aunt Margaret meant by that, exactly, Aunt Margaret added, "Oh! Wilhelmina! I've just realized who you remind me of in that dress. It's the Empress! You know, in the tarot? She's all greens and pinks and roses."

"What?" said Wilhelmina. "No! She's pomegranates, Aunt Margaret!"

Aunt Margaret reached for the door handle with one hand and made a dismissive gesture with the other. "You're her," she said. "I can practically see your crown of stars. Or maybe in your case, it's a helm of stars?" Then she smiled once, incandescently—a true Frankie smile—pushed out of the car, and tottered away.

Wilhelmina watched her go. Aunt Margaret pulled a mask over her face and raised her phone to her ear as she walked, calling the office for permission to enter. Then she turned, gave Wilhelmina a little wave, and disappeared inside.

Something new was falling apart inside Wilhelmina. She could feel it, and as she probed it, she wondered if it might be her understanding of the aunts.

It didn't make her cry. The tears of the last few days had washed Wilhelmina clean, and now she didn't need to cry so much anymore. But it did make her wonder. What was happening today? She had a lifetime of experience dismissing the odd things Aunt Margaret said. Why, today, was it burrowing inside her, that her aunt had put on her glasses, then known something true about her? That she'd called her the Empress, then known about her helm of stars?

"I do wish people would stop talking about my helm," she said out loud, reaching a hand up to the space around her head, feeling for the sunlight she'd felt in the dream. But of course it was warm up there. It was eighty degrees outside.

Wilhelmina sat quietly for a while, thinking. She wondered if, during this year between high school and college that she was unexpectedly spending with her aunts—this year that she'd always intended to spend with them, learning from them, and here they were, and it wasn't like they would be around forever—she was wasting precious time.

Hey,texted James, while she was still waiting in the car for Aunt Margaret. U somewhere w a device?

Yes,she wrote, immediately on high alert, because of the election, the monster. Any number of things that could be going wrong. What's up?

Albatross,he wrote. Laying her egg.

"All is well," said Aunt Margaret cheerfully, climbing back into the car. "Later today, I get to take my eye patch off if I want."

"That's great news," said Wilhelmina.

"You look a bit different, dear," said Aunt Margaret, surveying her one-eyed.

"Not the Empress?"

"Oh no, still the Empress," said Aunt Margaret. "Maybe even more the Empress. You look…in readiness."

"In readiness?" said Wilhelmina. "For what?"

"Well, for anything," said Aunt Margaret, as if it were obvious.

At home, Wilhelmina found Cleo lying on the floor again, taking slow, deep breaths.

"Still haven't called it?" she said.

"That's right, hon," said Cleo. "Rick Santorum." Deep breath. "Pat Toomey." Exhale. "Mitt Romney."

"Republicans telling the truth about his lies?" Wilhelmina guessed.

"Yes, that's right," said Cleo. "There aren't very many of them, but they calm me."

"Will everything be okay here if I meet up with a friend for a bit?"

"Yes, go ahead," said Cleo. "Esther and Delia—Cordelia, I mean—are having a walk, and I'm going to make lunch with Philip soon."

The plan was to meet James outside Mrs. Mardrosian's house. But when Wilhelmina got there and remembered what a big place it was, with at least a dozen windows facing the spot where she stood, she felt exposed. Continuing to the stone wall that separated Mrs. Mardrosian's property from that of her equally giant-housed neighbor, she pretended to be admiring the flowers. Except that Mrs. Mardrosian's flower garden was startling, choked with tall weeds and with some kind of ivy that seemed, now that Wilhelmina was looking more closely, to have a stranglehold on much of the yard. Mrs. Mardrosian's yard needed mowing, and someone needed to get a handle on that ivy. Wilhelmina was pretty sure she remembered this yard being neat, well-kept, and quiet. Orderly—almost a little too orderly. She remembered being amazed by rows of tulips standing precisely to attention, like an army waiting for inspection.

She saw James walking up the long hill while he was still some distance away. She watched him climb, his shoulders straight and his legs bending at his knees in their usual extraordinary fashion, and he watched her watch. He smiled as he reached her.

"You have a gorgeous smile," she said.

"Thanks," he said, his smile growing softer. "I love your dress, Wilhelmina."

He was wearing a T-shirt that said Hickory Run State Park and carrying a small pink box from Alfie Fang's, which tugged at her heart, because she knew it was for Mrs. Mardrosian. He was ready to argue his cause. She couldn't bear for him to lose. "Okay," she said, pulling up her mask. "Let's do this."

It was a while before Mrs. Mardrosian answered the doorbell. First they heard furniture scraping inside, like wood screeching across a floor, then an exclamation of some kind, in a shrill voice, then a crash. Their eyes met in alarm.

The door burst open. Mrs. Mardrosian stood there in a lavender silk bathrobe and slippers, flinching at the sunlight, clasping a struggling white bichon frise to her chest.

"What is it?" she said. The dog was plainly trying to launch itself out of her arms and into the sunny world. "Wilhelmina Hart? Is that you again? Come in, before the dog gets loose."

"We won't come in, Mrs. Mardrosian," said Wilhelmina.

"You've rung my doorbell, haven't you?" said Mrs. Mardrosian. "Come in!"

"We can't come in," Wilhelmina repeated more emphatically, "because of the pandemic. But thank you." She paused, knowing that a considerate neighbor would hand the keys over and go away, so that Mrs. Mardrosian could get back inside and stop struggling with her dog. "Have you met James Fang?" she said.

"What?" Mrs. Mardrosian almost shouted, and then she did fully shout, at the dog. "Bartholomew!" She gripped him around his chest, away from her body, so that his frantic little legs couldn't use her as a launchpad anymore. "Behave, this instant!" Then she spun around and disappeared into the house, the dog held out before her.

Still standing on the front porch, Wilhelmina and James considered each other doubtfully. "Does she think we're going to follow her in?" said Wilhelmina.

"Maybe?"

"I guess we should just stand here and wait for her to figure it out?"

"I guess?"

Wilhelmina moved closer to the open door, peeking into Mrs. Mardrosian's large entranceway. It was a room entire, with long, low windows to left and right and French doors straight ahead, opening to the rest of the house. Old black-and-white photos covered the walls, ornately framed. Most seemed to be family portraits, but one was a photo of men in trousers and rolled-up sleeves, carrying a statue of a saint along a street lined with onlookers. Part of a parade? The saint looked heavy.

Beside Wilhelmina, James let out a sharp breath, then made a small noise of pain.

"James?" she said, spinning to him. "Are you okay?"

On a table beside the French doors stood a giant taxidermied bird, black and white, with a red crest and a long, pale beak. "That's an ivory-billed woodpecker," said James.

"Okay," said Wilhelmina, who could tell this was a very bad thing, though she didn't know why. The bird looked a lot like the pileated woodpecker they'd seen in the forest, except much bigger. "Is that…a favorite bird of yours?"

"It's extinct," he said, "or anyway, there haven't been any verified sightings in forever. They were all murdered, and their habitats destroyed." Then his manner changed. Wilhelmina remembered how James got when he was angry: stiff and quiet. Deliberate in his movements, measured in his speech. "She is flaunting it like a trophy."

"I see," said Wilhelmina. "That's really upsetting, James. But don't forget, we can't assume she knows what it means. I think her son is into taxidermy. So maybe it was a gift, right? She didn't murder the woodpecker herself."

"Someone somewhere paid someone to murder it," he said. "And now, she's proud of it. It's the most beautiful bird, Wilhelmina. It mates for life. The parents build a home together in a cavity in a tree and take turns sitting on the eggs and feeding the babies, just like the albatrosses. This one's a male. You can tell by the red crest, see? Females have a black crest. He was probably murdered a hundred years ago, around the same time all his companions were being murdered all around him, and now she's showing him off to everyone who visits."

"Yeah," said Wilhelmina limply. "I hear you, James. But don't forget that we want something from this woman."

Suddenly, Mrs. Mardrosian came marching toward them from the depths of the house, without her dog. She was still in her bathrobe and slippers. When she stopped in the entranceway, James and Wilhelmina backed up, because she wasn't wearing a mask.

"I put him in his kennel," she said. "He never behaved that way with Levon."

"We're so sorry for disturbing you, Mrs. Mardrosian," said Wilhelmina. "We wouldn't have, if it weren't important. Have you met James Fang?"

"No," she said, and only then seemed to notice the pink box in James's hands. Her eyes flicked to his face. "Fang?" she said, stepping back just a fraction, reaching for the doorframe.

"Yes," said James. "My parents own the doughnut shop."

Mrs. Mardrosian seemed confused then, and a little angry, and very thin and bony in her overlarge bathrobe. "Well, it's nice to meet you," she said sharply. "I should check on my dog."

"Wait just a moment, Mrs. Mardrosian," said Wilhelmina. "We found your keys."

"What?" she said. "What keys?"

"The ones you dropped in the cemetery," said Wilhelmina, as James pulled the keys from his pocket and held them out. "You remember? It was snowing?"

"Of course I remember," said Mrs. Mardrosian, snatching the keys from James and plunking them onto the table, next to the ivory-billed woodpecker. "How kind of you. Thank you. I'm afraid I have to go now."

"James also brought you doughnuts," said Wilhelmina hastily.

"I'm on a diet," she said, moving away. "Excuse me."

"I get the feeling you've guessed why we're visiting, Mrs. Mardrosian," said James.

"Oh, here we go," said Mrs. Mardrosian, with an obvious flash of annoyance. "Yes, I've guessed why you're visiting, and it's unacceptable. Like all of my tenants, you were told to communicate with the management company. Not come to my door! I very specifically instructed them not to supply my address or phone number!"

"But you're our neighbor, Mrs. Mardrosian," said Wilhelmina. "And James and I found your keys."

"That does not give you an invitation to come to my door, interrupting my day, and begging. Talk to the management company!" she said, backing up a step.

"But the management company represents you," said Wilhelmina. "And maybe they haven't explained to you that James's family could go out of business. They could lose the shop they've had for twenty years."

"Wilhelmina Hart!" said Mrs. Mardrosian, in a voice of great offense. "Do you think I don't understand the situation? Maybe you should try walking in my shoes. Imagine what it's like having people like you knocking on my door, expecting me to take the hit for your business losses. Telling me your desperate stories, and trying to make me feel guilty! Do you know that I gave the dentist's office another month's extension—another month!—and still, they want more? Would anyone have treated Levon like this? No one would've walked all over Levon the way you're trying to walk over me! It's not my responsibility to bankroll other people's problems!"

Every time Mrs. Mardrosian said the name "Levon," water flew out of her eyes. She kept glancing over her shoulder too, as if she were hoping for him to emerge from the back of the house and step in. Wilhelmina didn't care. "If it's not your responsibility, then why do you feel guilty about it?" she said, noticing that her cello voice was back.

"How dare you, Wilhelmina," said Mrs. Mardrosian haughtily.

"If the people who have money aren't going to help the people who need money, then who is?"

"Don't tell me how to run my business, young lady!"

"Okay," said James, in a quiet voice. "Wilhelmina, let's go."

"No, James!"

"It's her money," said James. "She gets to decide. She doesn't want to help, and she wants the money she's owed."

"Your dad has cancer!"

"Yeah," said James. "She doesn't want to help with that."

Mrs. Mardrosian emitted a small, protesting breath. "You are trying to guilt me," she said, "into canceling an absolutely enormous debt. It is not my fault that your father has cancer. It does not give you the right to try to manipulate me."

For one sudden moment, James turned glacial again. He directed steady, cold eyes at Mrs. Mardrosian, and he seemed very tall.

Then his shoulders slumped. "Yeah," he said. "I guess I can see how it would look that way to you." He glanced at the woodpecker, then turned to go. "But we're just trying to survive."

Wilhelmina watched him walk down the porch steps, his head hanging. She wasn't ready yet; she had more fight in her. Frustrated, she aimed one last contemptuous glare at Mrs. Mardrosian. Standing beside her extinct woodpecker, the woman looked confused, and stricken, and old. She had a long, brown stain on the lapel of her silk bathrobe, and white roots at the top of her dark hair. She looked like a rich old lady who couldn't get her shit together.

Turning her back, Wilhelmina went to James, who stood in the yard, still holding his doughnut box. He was staring down at it dejectedly.

"Do you have hand sanitizer?" she said.

Nodding mutely, he reached into a pocket, stretched out, and handed her a small tube. Wilhelmina squeezed a generous amount into her palms and rubbed them together.

"You too," she said, passing it back to him. He didn't react or ask why, he just wedged the doughnut box under one arm and used the hand sanitizer, his face like stone.

When he'd returned it to his pocket, Wilhelmina stretched out again. This time, she took his hand.

That woke him up. He blinked at her in surprise, then started blinking a lot more, like he was trying not to cry.

"Thanks," he said, moving as far from her as he could go while still gripping her hand tightly. His hand was warm, and alive, and it fit hers perfectly.

"Yeah," she said. "I'm sorry. Maybe it's my fault, for getting all mad."

"I like you mad," he said. "Your mad voice sounds like you're about to throw lightning. Let's go, okay?"

"Yeah."

"Seven months," Mrs. Mardrosian called after them.

Wilhelmina and James turned slowly on their wide radius, still holding hands. "Huh?" said Wilhelmina.

Mrs. Mardrosian had come out onto her porch and was watching them. Her face was wet with tears and her eyes seemed wild with fury.

"Levon died of the virus," she said. "Seven months ago. I wasn't allowed to go near him. They took him to the hospital, and I never touched him again. No one who loved him was allowed to go near him."

"Oh," said Wilhelmina, who was winded suddenly, remembering her last visit to Frankie. She'd puked on the long drive home, because she'd known what was coming. At least Esther and Aunt Margaret had been with Frankie. She hadn't been alone. "I'm really sorry, Mrs. Mardrosian. That's terrible."

"Yeah, that's really awful," said James.

Mrs. Mardrosian swallowed. Then she nodded, as if she'd decided to accept their sympathy. "Seven months," she said.

James and Wilhelmina glanced at each other. "Yes?" said Wilhelmina.

"I'll give you seven months," said Mrs. Mardrosian.

James's grip on Wilhelmina's hand tightened. "Seven months'—extension?" he said.

"Seven months' rent forgiveness. In memory of Levon."

"Oh," said James, on a great outrush of air. "Thank you, Mrs. Mardrosian. Thank you!"

She seemed distressed by his gratitude, almost frightened of it. "It's probably a terrible idea," she said aggressively. "I'll call the management company when I go inside. The matter is now closed. Have a nice day."

"You too," said James, stepping toward her. But before he could approach, she retreated into the house, firmly shutting the door.

James was in a daze. "Do I—put the doughnuts on her stoop?"

"No," said Wilhelmina. "We leave quickly, before she comes out and changes her mind."

"Okay," he said, letting Wilhelmina pull him down the path to the sidewalk. "Do you want them?"

"What?"

"The doughnuts?"

"Oh. Yes, I'll take them."

"But I didn't bring a bag," he said in confusion. "Isn't it hard for you to carry things without a bag?"

"I live right around the corner, James. I can manage."

"Okay," he said. "I'm sorry I can't walk you home. I have to get back to the shop." James seemed flustered, and kind of out of it. He was holding on to her hand like it was keeping him from dropping into a well. "I guess I should go tell my parents?"

"Yes," said Wilhelmina. "You should go tell your parents."

"But will I see you?" he said. "Want to go for a walk with me later?"

"Yes."

Slowly, almost finger by finger, they let each other's hands go, and stepped back from each other. James pulled his mask away from his face, then smiled a flushed smile at her. "I think I'm free at four," he said, fishing his phone out of his pocket. Something else came out with it: a stone that dropped onto the sidewalk. It was a blue stone, glowing palely where it landed. He reached to pick it up.

"James?" said Wilhelmina. "Where did you get that stone?"

"Oh!" he said. "In Pennsylvania, actually. I've had it forever. My grandmas told me it has protective magic." He flashed her an abashed grin. "You know how my grandmas are."

"Did someone give it to you?" said Wilhelmina.

"Yes," he said. "A girl on a beach."

"A good swimmer?" said Wilhelmina, remembering Aunt Margaret's swimming bag bumping against her body as she swam. Sunlight warming her cold body, and a thermos of Frankie's ham and bean soup, and a snaggle-toothed boy who'd given her a doughnut. The sweetness of that moment. The feeling that everything was right.

"Yes," said James, who was watching her now with a funny expression, his face scrunched up in confusion. "Why?"

"James," she said. "That was me."

After James had gone, Wilhelmina walked up the road a little bit. Not far, because she had the doughnut box, but she wanted to think before heading home. She needed her feet to clomp along the sidewalks of Mrs. Mardrosian's neighbors, while she tried to bring back memories of a boy a long time ago, in a different place. When you stumbled upon memories that way, they were like pebbles glowing on a beach.

Why had she forgotten that boy? Why had it taken her so long to connect him with this boy, with her James? He looked completely different; he was a grown-up now, and, well, he was dishy. His voice was deep, his teeth were even, he was made of light. But if she focused hard on the feeling of him, she had an instinct that he felt the same. James felt just exactly like that long-ago boy. Just like James's grandfather had been familiar, because he felt exactly like that long-ago boy's grandfather. Wilhelmina remembered the beach now, and she also remembered the boulder field. Frankie had talked to Rudy there, while James and his cousins were clambering around on the rocks.

She understood then, the glowing pebble Aunt Margaret had handed her this morning, when she'd made that random remark about the house. Aunt Margaret had meant, You can go to the house with James. Take a break, and disappear from the world for a bit. Give yourself a gift.

Wilhelmina wondered, did James have the sort of life he could get away from for any stretch of time? Did she? What would that be like, to be there together? What would they discover?

"Wait a minute," she said out loud, stopping in her tracks. A new memory was tickling her brain. She shot James a text. Hey! Did you take that fucking teapot?!!?!

He replied with a string of question marks.

Eggshell blue,she responded, with brown spots and a bird on the handle!

How do you know about my grandma's teapot?!!he wrote.

OMG,she responded. I'll tell you later. Teapot thief!

I didn't steal it!

I know,she responded, you're right. It was an unjust slander upon your character. I apologize. But wait till you hear this story

UR cute,he wrote.

In a house nearby, a person opened a window, stuck a trumpet out, and blew a few cheerful notes at the sky.

That was weird,thought Wilhelmina vaguely, still thinking about Pennsylvania. Trying to tug the past closer.

Then, across the street, someone else opened a window and started banging on a pot with a wooden spoon. A person a few doors up the street did the same thing. Wilhelmina stopped, coming to attention.

Down the road, a door slammed. "Vice President Kamala Harris!" someone shouted. "Vice President Kamala Harris!" It was Bee's little sister, Kimmy, running up the sidewalk with Julie's sister, Tina, at her heels, the two of them jumping, shouting, giggling, screeching. "Hi, Wil!" they yelled when they saw her. "Did you hear?"

"I hear!" Wilhelmina called to them, raising a hand and smiling. They turned and ran back the way they'd come, and Wilhelmina decided it was time to direct her own feet home. She wanted to enjoy her family's joy.

Her route brought her past Mrs. Mardrosian's house again. For some reason, at the wall that separated Mrs. Mardrosian's yard from her neighbor's, Wilhelmina stopped. She turned to face the overgrown flower garden. Why? Was it the squawk of a crow? She ran her eyes absently over the weeds and the vines, but no crows appeared. No owls swooped and nothing glowed. She looked down at her own body, then raised a hand to the space above her head. Nothing glowed there either.

Locate the steadiest part of your body,Aunt Margaret had said to her once.

Wilhelmina did: it was her thighs, broad and strong.

Reach down into the earth from that steady place,Aunt Margaret said.

Wilhelmina did, sort of. You couldn't "reach down" with your thighs; it was stupid, but she imagined it as best she could.

Thank the earth for the strength she gives,said Aunt Margaret, then draw her sweet power up into your body. Use it to begin to build a shield. As you build your shield, let the image come to you of what it's made of.

Wilhelmina felt very silly standing on the sidewalk outside Mrs. Mardrosian's property, pretending to draw energy from Mother Earth to build herself a shield. But she had an imagination. She could see the shield in her mind's eye, growing in the air before her. It was only a step away. It was shaped like her body. In fact, it was a suit of armor, and as it grew, it became steadily more dazzling. It was made of the light of suns.

With a sense of inevitability, Wilhelmina stepped into her own armor. It was soft and warm, like swimming in a perfect summer pool. As she stood there marveling at the sensation, she felt a helm of starlight descending upon her head, as if placed there by the hands of everyone who loved her.

Okay then,she said to herself. I'm suited up. Now what? What's the point? She turned in circles, but nothing happened. Inside her armor, she was steady, but it wasn't because anything in the world had changed. She could feel malicious things throwing themselves against the glow of her armor. They were like little metal moths that bounced off and then hurled themselves back again, so that she was surrounded by a whirling nimbus of harm. Seventy million votes for the monster. Baseless lawsuits. Liars. Cowards. People who were too scared to cope. People in denial.

But they weren't touching her. She was shielded from their poison. She asked herself, What do I let in?

The answer came quickly: Julie and Bee. And with Julie and Bee came their joy, and also their sadness, their own anxieties, their love for Wilhelmina, and every drop of hurt or anger or awkwardness they felt toward her. Inside her armor, it was very still. She could focus. And so she could find the feeling of her friends.

Wilhelmina turned to Mrs. Mardrosian's flower garden and stepped into the ivy. She pushed her way through a tangle of mostly dead lilies that left watery orange streaks from their stamens on her legs. In a dying patch of purple aster, to the sounds of pot-banging and that trumpet starting up again, she bent down and dug her hands through the leaves and dirt, until she unearthed Julie's necklace.

At home, Esther and Delia—Cordelia—sat on the front stoop together, stretching their bare feet out into the sun and smiling. Esther had glittery purple toenails.

"Wilhelmina!" shouted Cordelia. "Did you hear?"

"Hear what?" said Wilhelmina, because she knew Cordelia wanted to be the one to tell her.

"They called Pennsylvania!" she said. "It's over!"

"Finally!" said Wilhelmina. "That's great news."

"You got doughnuts?" said Cordelia. "Isn't that kind of a small box?"

"More doughnuts can be acquired later," said Wilhelmina, handing her the box.

"Why is it dirty? And why are your legs striped orange? And what are you holding? Oh my god, your hands are filthy. Where have you been, Wilhelmina?"

"Listen, the doughnuts are clean, okay?"

"But where have you been?"

"In a flower garden," said Wilhelmina.

"Whose flower garden?"

"Cordelia," said Esther, who was smiling with her eyes closed, her lined face raised to the sun. "I want to know the answers to these questions too. But right now, I'm sensing that Wilhelmina needs to pay attention."

Wilhelmina was, indeed, trying to pay attention, in a way she remembered paying attention before. A long time ago, it had been uncomplicated. She hadn't wondered about it, or pushed the feeling of it away, or dismissed it when it happened. She'd just woken up in the aunts' house and known where everyone was, and how their feelings were sitting inside them. Or gone to sleep in her apartment and known that Julie was sleeping upstairs, nearby. Or felt the aunts' love in the stones they'd touched, or sensed a kindred spirit in a boy on a beach, or found a hidden piece of Julie, Bee, and herself in a flower garden.

"Bye, guys," she said, then turned and walked around the house to the backyard.

"Why is she so weird?" she heard Cordelia ask. "Pay attention to what?"

"I admire your bottomless curiosity, Cordelia," she heard Esther say.

"Thank you!"

The yard was steep and full of holes, but Wilhelmina made her way to the trees that stood outside Julie's high window. Then she turned around. Julie, who was curled up in her window seat, put her book down. Her window was open. She propped her chin in her hand and her elbow on the sill and leaned out, looking at Wilhelmina hard.

"Wil," she said, "why do you look both super hot and like you've been…wrestling in a flower bed?"

Wilhelmina had wiped the dirt off of the little winged elephant as best she could, and untangled the flower detritus from the chain. She perched the necklace in her palm and held her hand up to Julie, so that Julie could see.

"Because of my heroic quest to find this," she said.

Julie's eyebrows rose. She looked tired, and sad, and a little bit frightened.

"I'm really happy to see that," she said. "But are you a hundred percent sure you want me to have it?"

"A thousand percent sure," Wilhelmina said. "More than anything."

Julie took a long breath, then let it out. Then she did it again. It felt like it lasted forever.

Finally, she spoke. "I was just reading an article about a safe way to hug your pandemic friend," she said. "Interested?"

A tear ran down Wilhelmina's face. "Yes, please."

"Okay. I mean, it basically involves turning my head away and hugging your ass, but hey, I'm into it if you are."

Now Wilhelmina was smiling. "Come down from your perch, elephant?"

Julie was dabbing her face with her sleeve. When she emerged, her smile was beautiful. "I'll be right down, elephant," she said.