The Forgetting Spell

“And that . . . she’s . . .”

  “Schizophrenic. You can say it out loud, it’s just a word. Unless—ohhh. Do you need me to sound it out for you?”

  Darya listened with growing astonishment. “Um . . . so earlier, in the cafeteria . . . what happened to unicorns pooping rainbows?”

  “Nothing. Just, underneath the rainbow poop is the other poop. The poop poop.” Tally held out her upturned palms. “We can ignore it if you want. I’m good at pretending. It’s just, I had this crazy thought that maybe you were different.”

  Darya’s mouth fell open. This crazy thought? Did Tally just say this crazy thought?

  Tally hit her forehead.

  “Wrong word, my bad. But since it’s out there, yeah, that’s one of the things I heard—that your mom went crazy.” She pretended to weigh two different measures. “But schizophrenic . . . crazy . . . what’s the difference? Who gets to choose, and based on what? Aren’t we all crazy, at least a little?”

  “You are!” Darya blurted.

  Tally laughed. “Okay. Fine. But it is better talking about it like this, isn’t it? I can see it on your face.”

  Darya almost patted her cheeks to see—or feel—what it was that she was unintentionally revealing, because it made her feel ashamed. Tally made her feel ashamed, and then angry. Just hours ago, she’d come around to the opinion Tally was a friend!

  Then, with an amazing swiftness, a new emotion pushed the others out. Instead of lashing out at Tally’s laughter, Darya laughed back.

  “You truly aren’t normal, Tally. You do know that, right?”

  “Normal’s overrated. And again, who’s to say?”

  Darya considered the not-normal girl in front of her. Tally waited her out, and Darya sensed that she was summing her up, or testing her. To Darya’s surprise, she realized it was a test she wanted to pass.

  “Let’s hear the rest, then,” she said. “What other rumors did you hear about my mom?”

  Tally’s eyes changed. Not much else did—she didn’t smile—but her eyes grew warmer, or maybe more open.

  “Top runner, she left your dad for another man,” Tally said. “Coming in at a very close second? She stopped taking her meds, went bonkers, and ran off ‘with the fairies’—not my expression.”

  “My mother would have never left my father for another man or ‘run off with the fairies’!” Darya said hotly. She felt light-headed and scared and exhilarated all at the same time, because maybe Tally was right. Maybe it was better to say these things out loud and be done with them.

  “You’re new here, so . . . whatever,” she went on. “But you’re an idiot if you believe everything people say.”

  “Which is why I’m here. I followed you from school because I don’t believe everything people say.”

  Darya held still. The walls of the library seemed to breathe, expanding and contracting.

  “Oh,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Tally replied.

  Could it really be this easy, Darya wondered? Was Tally responsible for the lightness she felt, or had Darya done the unburdening herself? Or was it the two of them together, the two of them plus something undefinably other?

  Tally gestured at the yearbook in Darya’s lap. “Is it from when your mom was a kid?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Looks old.”

  Darya hesitated, then opened the yearbook to the tennis club page. “She wasn’t a kid, but she was our age, yeah. That’s her in the middle.”

  Tally leaned in. “She’s pretty.”

  Darya flipped to another page. She watched as Tally peered at the caption.

  “She won . . . what’s the Academic Olympiad?”

  “Some sort of school contest.”

  “She looks happy.”

  “But look at this one,” Darya said. She thumbed through the pages.

  “Not happy anymore,” Tally murmured. “How come?”

  “No clue,” Darya said.

  The photo showed Mama sitting alone on a bench, her expression desolate. The words beneath said, “A Moment for Reflection (Klara Kovrov, Grade Seven).”

  “I bet someone thought he was so artsy, snapping that shot,” Tally said.

  “She changed that year, that’s what my aunts say.” She flipped back to the earlier photos. “These were from before her Wishing Day.” She tapped the one of Mama on the bench. “This one was taken after. The pictures are chronological; I’ve checked the dates.”

  Tally grunted. “Do you know what she wished for?”

  “Nope.”

  “Do your aunts? Does your dad?”

  “Nobody talks about it.”

  Tally cut her a swift glance as if to say, See? And therein madness lies.

  “But they think she changed because of her wishes,” she stated. “Is that what I’m supposed to get from this?”

  Darya floundered. She could want to say something, she realized, and still not know how to. Like, no one thought Mama’s wishes had wrapped their spidery tendrils around her and squeezed her into a different shape, if that was what Tally meant. No one thought magic had been involved.

  Except, well, her little sister, Ava, did. And every so often, Aunt Elena said things about believing in a world that was “bigger” than the visible world, and every so often, Darya almost sensed what Aunt Elena meant.

  “They don’t think her wishes changed her,” Darya said at last. “Just that afterward, she changed.”

  “Huh.”

  There was a smudge on the nubbly carpet, and Darya rubbed at it.

  “So something happened when your mom was thirteen,” Tally said. “Something, but we don’t know what, and she didn’t disappear until later, obviously, or you wouldn’t have been born. Not as you, anyway. How old were you when she left?”

  “Five.”

  “Do you remember anything from then?”

  Darya felt the flutter of a thought, like the flap of a bird’s wing. Then it was gone, replaced by darkness and the sliding guilt of relief.

  She closed the yearbook, shoved it back on the shelf, and pushed herself to her feet. She’d shared more with Tally than she’d intended to. She was surprised at how easy it had felt.

  No, not easy. But natural.

  Tally got up, too. “But she’s not dead. No one’s saying she’s dead.”

  “No one’s saying she’s dead,” Darya said softly. And yet how could anyone know?

  Darya was about to ask Tally the same question, only about Tally’s mom, when movement tugged at her attention. Not Ms. McKinley, but an old lady, outside the library, visible through the wide window at the back of the building. She stood half-hidden behind a dogwood tree. She seemed to be beckoning Darya.

  “Tally, there’s someone out there,” Darya whispered.

  “Who? Where?”

  Darya pointed, but it was too late. The old lady had slipped behind the tree. Then, when Tally turned back to Darya, the old lady popped out again. She smiled and waved coquettishly.

  “I’ve got to go,” Darya said.

  “Okay,” Tally said. She kept pace with Darya as Darya headed for the exit. “Hey, thanks for telling me about your mom.”

  “You’re welcome. Next time, tell me about yours.”

  “Not much to tell,” Tally said.

  Darya stopped short, and Tally almost plowed into her.

  “What?” she said.

  She wasn’t sure why she’d trusted Tally the way she had, and yet, she had. Now Tally had to trust her back, or it wouldn’t have meant anything. “It’s only fair,” Darya said.

  “Then yes, sure, whatever. I’m not hiding anything, if that’s what you’re thinking. Didn’t we already cover this?”

  “I thought we did,” Darya said. “Did we?”

  “Omigosh, I’ll tell you now if it’s that big a deal. She . . . doesn’t have a family. My mom.”

  “She has you,” Darya pointed out.

  “Actually, she doesn’t,” Tally responded.

  Dary
a grew hot.

  “I’ve lived with her on and off,” Tally explained with a sigh. “When I was little, she’d tell me stories. Like, about Aborigine babies being stolen from their mothers, and she’d wonder if that’s what happened to her.”

  “Your mom’s black?”

  “She’s almost as pale as you, so no.” Tally looked at Darya funny, and Darya shrugged, though right at this moment, Darya was sure she was more pink than white. When she blushed, she really blushed.

  “She also had stories about Mormon boys being driven to the edges of their towns and kicked out, or babies abandoned at hospitals, or babies abandoned on doorsteps.”

  “Was she any of those things?” Tally arched her brows, and Darya corrected herself. “Okay, not a Mormon boy, obviously. But I guess I’m confused. Does she have a family?”

  “She calls herself an orphan,” Tally said flatly. “That doesn’t mean she is. She’s been in and out of hospitals all her life, and when she was younger, she lived on the streets. She screwed up so many times that even her family gave up on her, that’s what I figure.”

  “Oh.”

  “And honestly, that’s the whole story, boring and predictable.”

  “And sad.”

  Tally nodded, but her gaze had grown unfocused.

  “Well . . . that’s awful. I’m really sorry,” Darya said. “But, what you said. Thanks for telling me.”

  “Yeah,” Tally said gruffly. She honed in on Darya and gave a sideways smile. “At any rate, we’re basically twinsies. We can be the Missing Daughters Club.”

  Darya frowned. “Except we’re not missing. Our mothers are.”

  Tally did the measuring-things-with-her-hands motion again. “We’re missing them, they’re missing us . . .” she said.

  It took a moment for Tally’s meaning to kick in. Daughters who missed their mothers. Daughters who were, therefore, in the act of missing their mothers. Daughters Missing Mothers. When the word play clicked into place, Darya felt a flare of pleasure. She did like figuring stuff out.

  Then glumness doused the flame. She had no interest in belonging to such a dysfunctional club, and puzzles were a lot more fun when they didn’t hinge on a not-so-secret sadness.

  I wish I hadn’t wasted my wish on boobs.

  —SUKI KYUNG, AGE THIRTEEN AND FIVE MONTHS

  CHAPTER THREE

  Tally headed back toward the middle school after leaving the library. Darya walked half a block down a side street before looping around and returning to the library playground.

  “Oh, lovely,” the old lady said, appearing from behind the tree. “Such a treat, Darya, dear. It’s been too long, wouldn’t you say?”

  “No, I wouldn’t,” Darya said. “Too long for what, and why were you waving at me? Who are you?”

  “Now, now, chicken,” the old lady said. “You know me, and I know you. Why pretend otherwise?”

  Darya opened her mouth, then shut it. She most certainly did not know her, but she did know of her. Everyone in Willow Hill did.

  She was a wrinkled old lady so ancient that no one could remember a time when she hadn’t been around. She had no house, but she didn’t live in the homeless shelter. She had no job, but she seemed able to take care of her basic needs, and not from begging. And she wore the most ridiculous outfits. Today, for example, she wore overalls, stripy socks, and cowboy boots.

  Some people called her eccentric. Others said she stank of bad magic, and that way back when, her impossible wish had been to live forever. Others joked that actually, that was the wish she made come true herself. Only, Darya had never understood the joke.

  And then there were the birds.

  Everywhere the old lady went, birds followed. Right now, a robin perched on the branch of a nearby dogwood tree. A handful of smaller birds pecked at the grass beneath her. A crow stood on one of the old lady’s boots, staring at Darya with one cold black eye, and . . .

  Darya leaned forward to check, then drew quickly back, because yes. A sparrow had made a nest in the old woman’s tangled hair.

  “You have a bird in your hair,” Darya stated.

  “Can’t pull the wool over your eyes, can I?” the old woman said cheerfully.

  A-a-and I’ll be leaving now, Darya thought, spinning on her heel. She was supposed to be respectful of her elders, but it had been a long day, and enough was enough.

  “Yoo-hoo!” the Bird Lady said. “Come back, you silly goose!”

  Darya kept walking.

  “I have a secret,” the Bird Lady called. “A secret that once belonged to you!”

  Darya halted. She curled her toes inside her combat boots.

  “It concerns your mother. I know you worry about her, pet.”

  Darya’s heart stopped, just for a moment. She slowly turned around.

  “It’s been so hard for you, hasn’t it?” the Bird Lady said, peering at her. “Hard for you, hard for Natasha, hard for Ava . . .” She tutted. “And your father, that poor man. It’s hard for everyone, isn’t it?”

  “You’re being mean,” Darya whispered. “It’s my birthday, and . . . and only happy thoughts are allowed!” Her eyes welled with tears, and the Bird Lady crumpled.

  “Oh, pet,” she said. “Oh, sweet girl. I didn’t mean to upset you. I came here to help you!”

  “Well, guess what? I don’t need your help.”

  “Then why did you ask for it?”

  “I didn’t!”

  “Ah, but you did. You were six years old. Your mother had been gone for . . . let’s see . . . just about a year? You’d had a bad day at school, and . . .” The Bird Lady frowned, and then her eyes blazed triumphantly. “You were wearing a dress with cherries on it!”

  Darya tugged at the collar of her shirt. “No. That’s impossible.”

  “Impossible,” the Bird Lady repeated. “You’re fond of that word, aren’t you?”

  Darya started to say no, that of course she wasn’t, and that the Bird Lady couldn’t possibly know what she was fond of and what she wasn’t. But things were jumbling in her brain.

  The Bird Lady watched Darya keenly. “You asked me for a Forgetting Spell. Do you remember now?”

  “That makes no sense,” Darya said. “How could anyone remember a forgetting spell?”

  “Ah, yes, another impossibility,” the Bird Lady said. “You’re absolutely right—unless you aren’t, that is. Aren’t we supposed to believe at least six impossible things before breakfast?”

  Bits of first grade beat at Darya’s consciousness. Warm ham sandwiches on bread with specks in it, because Aunt Vera didn’t buy the good kind. Dashing around with Steph and Suki on the playground, then stopping. Watching them go on without her. Papa on the phone, again and again, and always the same words. Klara Blok. Brown hair, brown eyes. Yes, yes.

  Papa scrubbing his hands through his hair and making it stick up in tufts. Dark splotches under his eyes. Hopelessness after he hung up, like the gloom of a dead houseplant.

  The crow on the Bird Lady’s boot cawed.

  “Things don’t always turn out the way you expect them to, do they?” the Bird Lady asked.

  “Things never turn out the way they’re supposed to,” Darya said. “Not for me.”

  The Bird Lady laughed gently. “Feeling sorry for yourself will hardly help. If you don’t like your life, maybe you should change it.”

  “I never said I didn’t like my life.”

  She lifted one finger. “And another thing: Forgetting Spells last only so long. You can trap your memories in a jar and twist the lid tight, but eventually they’ll leak out.”

  Darya imagined a cluster of fireflies, which Darya used to catch and trap in empty mason jars. She imagined their fragile bodies butting against the glass. Only, fireflies wouldn’t . . . leak. Fireflies would never leak.

  “Oh, you’d be surprised,” the Bird Lady said. She pinned Darya with her gaze. “And you might want to tell Tally, too. Yes, I do think Tally will come into it.”

  ??
?Tally, as in Tally-the-new-girl? How do you know Tally?!”

  “I don’t. But Darya, dear, things always leak out.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  That evening, Darya sat with her family around the long wooden table: Papa, Aunt Vera, Aunt Elena, Natasha, and Ava. At first there was a flurry of conversation—warm words for Darya, inquiries about everyone’s day, please pass the pepper—and then silence settled over the group.

  Aunt Vera’s fork scraped her plate.

  Ava burped, then giggled.

  Natasha opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something, then closed it. She did this again, and again once more before busying herself with her noodles when Darya looked at her funny.

  Aunt Elena, too, had an air of holding something in. She probably had some goofy game planned for after dinner, because they did that when it was somebody’s birthday. Secretly Darya loved game night, but for the sake of her dignity, she would groan about how dorky it was.

  Darya sighed. Why was nobody talking? She should be allowed to brood—she was a teenager now—but the others could at least try to be lively. It was her birthday, after all!

  Say something, people! she thought. Anyone? Anything?

  She shoveled in mac and cheese, fighting a mounting desire to . . . she didn’t know what. Move. Scream. Flip her plate and fling her dinner everywhere, just to see what happened. At the same time, a separate part of her—distant, yet disapproving—observed her every impulse. Judged her every impulse, and made Darya feel as if she were a Bad Person.

  Oh, just shut up, she told her brain, but her brain didn’t listen. She wondered if other people’s thoughts crashed and bounced about like this, or if she was broken somehow.

  Like . . . what if she was going crazy? Or schizophrenic. What if she was schizophrenic, like Tally’s mom? When did schizophrenia kick in? Did Tally worry that she might have it?

  Except Darya didn’t. She was just feeling sorry for herself—as the Bird Lady had pointed out.

  “Poor, pitiful Darya,” she imagined well-dressed ladies saying over brunch. They’d purse their lips, and when they sipped their tea, they’d lift their pinky fingers to show how fancy they were. “Her mother went away with the fairies, you know.”