Chapter 7: Cold Tea

Wish seventeen sent the whole house to the lake for the weekend.

Cora drove, because she said she liked to.

I sat beside her, because the wish from the first night still stood, and the trunk was full of my mother's casserole dishes.

My parents followed in the truck.

Tiernan's gray sedan came behind them, three cars back, so that the Bureau could keep an eye on a hundred days of wishes.

For the first twenty minutes my sister hummed along to the radio and didn't talk.

I watched the pines go by.

"You're staring at me," Cora said.

"You're humming something sad."

"It's a lullaby. They sang it on the other side." She smiled at the road. "I didn't know I knew it until I got here."

"Where's here?"

"You know what I mean."

I didn't, and I said so.

She slowed for a stop sign and reached behind her seat.

She pulled a steel thermos out of her bag and held it out to me.

"Drink this," she said. "Please."

"What is it?"

"Tea."

"I don't want tea."

"I know. Drink it anyway."

The thermos was warm against my hand.

It smelled of something dry and green that I couldn't name, and my stomach turned over.

"You've been leaving cups on every sill since I came," I said. "Cold ones. Now a hot one. What is it for?"

"For you."

"Why?"

"Because I want you to drink it."

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