Three Wishes (10 page)

“You might find a new novel to entertain you,” Estrella said.

“What?” I asked, distracted, then, “Oh, yes.”

“Come along, Estie,” Francesca said from the doorway, urging her little sister to hurry, rather than linger here with me.

I turned toward the older girl, just a few years younger than I.
About the age of a freshman,
I judged. “What are the chores you must do?”

“I must see to some correspondence for Mamá while she oversees the kitchen and discusses the supper menu with Cook. Estrella is to make her bed and refold her clothes in her trunk that got rumpled when she undressed last night, then she will play with Álvaro for a while to give Adalia some rest.” She turned to her sister, and they exchanged a few words I couldn’t hear. Apparently in agreement, she turned back to me. “We should be back with you in no longer than an hour or two. Do you need anything else to be comfortable in our absence?”

“No,” I said, swallowing a desire to beg them to let me do something to help. Anything. But my first offer had been turned down—I sensed that Francesca would frown upon a second. And there was the safe…when else might I have the chance to check it out? “I’ll see you soon. Thank you.”

They left, and alone again, I moved over to the window, observing how thick the walls of this place were. Deep enough to hold in the heat through the damp of winter…or keep it out during the hottest summer day.

I saw a group of men and women trudging down the road toward the vineyard, half of them carrying hoes over their shoulders. Off to do some weeding, apparently. And then Javier and his friends came into view, reaching for their horses’ reins, tied to the posts out front.

It was the baby’s squawk that alerted me to Adalia’s presence, and I turned in surprise. She stood beside me, looking out at the men too. “Do you fancy him?” she asked me soberly.

I blinked rapidly, trying to come up with a suitable answer. “You mean Javier?”

“Of course,” she said, giving me a quizzical look. “Or was it Rafael who caught your eye?”

“None of them!” I sputtered. “I was simply looking out the window and they came into view.”

“Mm-hmm,” she said, moving to the settee and setting Álvaro down beside the table. He stood there, slapping the wood with his pudgy, open palm, then shifted down the edge, big, brown eyes focused on a delicate pitcher at the end. “Uh-uh,” she clucked, smoothly lifting it out of harm’s way, placing it on the mantel above the fireplace. She fished a leather disc out of her pocket, which she handed to him. The toddler immediately thrust it into his drooling mouth, gnawing at it. Some sort of primitive teether, I assumed.

I sat down across from her. “It must be difficult for you, caring for Álvaro by yourself.”

Her sad eyes met mine, and she tilted her head to the side. “It makes me miss Dante all the more,” she said quietly, eyes darting toward the open door to the hallway as if afraid she might be overheard. “While he wouldn’t have been much good at caring for the child, he would have been grand at loving him alongside me.” She cast a wistful gaze at Álvaro, as he took out the damp leather disc and rammed it against the table.

I nodded. How many times had I caught myself over the last two days, thinking I needed to share this or that with Abuela? Wondering if she could help me think through this crazy situation, and help me get back home, only to remember that she was gone. Farther from me than ever, never to return, even if I did get back to my own time.

“At least you have the Venturas. They seem to love you both.” I’d watched the children make faces and kiss the baby every chance they had.

“That’s true,” she said, “but without Dante…” I felt the grief in her then, like a yawning chasm. Perhaps Dante had been her bridge to this family, and without him, she felt somewhat alone, even surrounded by them all. But wasn’t that a choice? Couldn’t an adopted member of the family feel as much a part of them as blood kin?

Adalia seemed to remember herself, as if she felt she’d said too much, and abruptly shut her mouth. “Never mind me. I just wanted to tell you, Zara, warn you…” Again, her words trailed off, as if she wondered if she should say anything at all.

I frowned. “Warn me of what?”

“The Venturas can be very charming. Javier even more than my husband was,” she said softly. “Guard your heart, if you wish to leave this place. Because it may surprise you how quickly you find yourself marooned here in the villa, with little hope of escape.”

I stared at her. Did she know? Know the truth of how I got here? “Believe me, I don’t have any intention of staying.”

“Nor did I, when I first visited. And then one thing led to another…”

“Where did you live, before this?” I asked, as a servant came in, swooped up the baby after a nod from Adalia, and wordlessly left the room.

“South of here, in a town called Los Angeles. My family lives there still,” she said wistfully.

I glanced to the doorway myself then. “Could you not return to them?” I asked in a whisper. “If you are so unhappy here?”

“Oh, I am not unhappy, really.” She sighed. “I’m not sure I can be happy anywhere again. Love is like that, you know. True love. When you love a man and you allow him to hold your heart in his hands, and then he dies…he takes a piece of your heart with him. So it’s not that I’m unhappy. It’s only as if I’m not quite
whole
anymore.”

I nodded. “It must hurt a great deal.”

“More than you can imagine.” Her eyes met mine again. “So that is what I wished to tell you. Hold on to your heart, if you wish to leave this place. Because no one is better at wooing a girl than one of the Venturas.”

“You don’t have to tell me that twice,” I said, smiling a little. “Jacinto, with that gap-toothed grin? He had my heart from the start.”

She laughed, surprised, and then covered her mouth as if embarrassed. “Forgive me. I’ve said far too much.” She rose as if to leave. “It’s just that…when I saw Javier look at you yesterday…and then this morning—”

“No, thank you. Thank you for sharing. And Adalia, I think…I think you will find wholeness, in time. I think you might even find love again, after your grieving eases. And maybe in that love, you will find that missing piece of your heart restored. Maybe, maybe you just need a fresh start.”

Her sad eyes blinked in surprise, as if absorbing that thought. She nodded and then bustled away, as if suddenly wanting to flee from me, leaving me to think that it had been my turn to say too much.

I sat there for a time, thinking about what she’d said. I had to leave this place, escape myself. And to do that, I needed to get my gold lamp back. I stood and moved toward the oil painting behind the desk. I’d seen the hinges, and knew it must hide the safe behind it.

But then two servants walked past the door, eying me curiously, and I lost my nerve. Instead, I moved toward the bookcase on the other side of the room, cocking my head sideways to read the gilt-inlaid titles, all in Spanish.
The Count of Monte Cristo. The Inferno. Songs of Robert Burns. Highland Warrior.
I mused over that one. Sounded like a modern Scottish romance, not something from the 1800s. I would’ve laid a bet that Estrella had read that one for sure. She’d likely read everything here…I stepped back and looked over the shelves, wondering about a world in which this was the max of what they could read. What they could buy. What they could lend. We had…what? Thousands of books at our fingertips, between libraries and e-books and used books and Barnes & Noble…

But staring at these precious, honored tomes on the shelves, I felt the weight of their value. It made me appreciate all the more everything I’d read in the past. My breath caught as I wondered if my TBR stack would consist of one preciously obtained book at a time from here on out, rather than the five or six library books I routinely had waiting for me at home.
Library books.
What would the fines be like if I didn’t get back to return them for weeks? Or months? Or…ever?

The thought made me a little sick to my stomach, and I reached out to grab hold of a shelf, forcing myself to breathe.
Of course you’ll get back. Somehow, Zara, you’ll get back. And you’ll go to college. And buy that Kindle you’ve been wanting, and have gobs upon gobs upon gobs of books to read. Stacks
…

But my ears were ringing, as if I were reaching across time for that segment of space, that lost era of my own, and yet couldn’t quite make out the voices that would help me find it again. It felt farther away than ever. As if it was disappearing…a sand castle disintegrating behind me in the waves. I sat down heavily as my vision tunneled, and I knew I was dangerously close to fainting. I leaned over, forcing myself to take deep breaths. I wasn’t the sort of girl to panic. I was Zara Ruiz, a good student, a level-headed girl.
Breathe, girl, breathe
…

“Señorita?” said a tentative voice from the doorway. I straightened, too fast, and had to lean over and force myself to breathe some more. The servant girl—one I recognized from the dining room—rushed over to me, setting down a tray with a teapot and cups beside me on the table. She touched my back. “Are you all right? Should I fetch Doña Elena?”

“No! No,” I repeated, softening my tone. The last thing I wanted was the grand old lady coming in here, seeing me as pale as a ghost, when nothing had happened to me at all that I could even explain.
Add it to the list
…

“Here,” she said, pouring a cup of tea. “Sip from this,” she said, placing the cup in my trembling hands.

Obediently I drank some of it and then set it on the table, irritated that my hand shook so much that I could barely center the cup on the saucer.

“Did something happen, Señorita?” she asked, kneeling before me. “Are you ill?”

No, unless you believe getting catapulted across almost two hundred years is a form of illness
…I stared at her helplessly, then forced myself to shake my head. I moved my fingers around the cup, concentrated, and brought it to my lips again, letting the hot liquid remind me that I was alive, that none of this was a dream.

But why? Why had I been sent here? Now?

I focused in on her. “Thank you for your help. I am Zara. What is your name?”

“Maria,” she said. She was clearly native to this land, and it was likely a name imposed by Spanish missionaries, not her own Chumash family.

“Maria,” I repeated. “I am pleased to meet you.”

“Thank you, Señorita.”

“Zara,” I said, leaning back in the chair. “Please call me Zara.”

“Oh, I couldn’t,” she said, quickly rising, rubbing one hand with the other.

I took a deep breath, suddenly too weary to say more. There might be time in the days to come for me to woo Maria…to show her that although I might appear a “lady,” an esteemed visitor to this fine house, I was really no more than a girl who could dice ten onions in ten minutes.

Awkwardly, she curtsied and left me. I leaned to my right, grabbed the first volume that I could lay my fingers on, and opened it.
A Brief History of Alta California.
I blinked. Here was the perfect book for me. The Cliff Notes of early California history, giving me everything that everyone around me would assume I knew or remembered. Except printed on, you know, thick, soft rough-edged paper and bound in a soft leather cover that felt like it had been an animal hide not too long ago…

Hurriedly, I opened the pages, took another quick sip of tea, and began reading. The language was formal, archaic even, but I could follow along well enough. The author began back more than a hundred years ago and clearly thought the Spanish had some divine right to this land. The missionaries came then, led by Father Junípero Serra, establishing their outposts and presidios all the way up the coast. There’d apparently been one up north, in Santa Cruz, that I didn’t remember from my history class, but it had been abandoned in the 1820s…

“What has caught your attention so?” Doña Elena said, striding into the library.

I started and stared at her a moment before finding the words to respond. “A volume on California history,” I said, lifting it up. “I’ve always liked history.”

“Hmm,” she said, bustling over to the table. “An odd choice for a young woman.”

Is it?
I wondered silently.
Then you don’t know the half of it, lady
…

She bent to pour herself a cup of tea and then sat in the other chair beside the table. I stifled a sigh, realizing that it’d be a while before I could check out the safe but also glad that I hadn’t been doing so when my hostess walked in.

She took a sip, staring at me over the rim the whole time. “So you are an educated girl,” she said.

I nodded. Not a college girl, not yet. But educated? In comparison to a few years of tutoring and governess for her girls? “Yes,” I said.

“How many years of schooling have you?” she said, setting down her cup in her saucer. Her thick silver hair was in an immaculate bun, and she held her chin at an angle that told me she was The Boss. I could see that some of Javier’s good looks had come from her, despite the losses she’d suffered that had left her forehead a mass of wrinkles and deep frown lines around her mouth.

“Years of schooling? Uh…almost twelve.”

Her lips clamped together, and her eyes flashed with disbelief. “Twelve?”

I paused. Apparently this was the wrong answer. “My…my abuela was a firm believer in a proper education,” I tried, hoping to reach out to her, bonding one old lady to another. “She sent me to the local school.”

“A school, you say? Where?”

It was my turn to clamp my lips in a thin line. I gestured toward my head. “I don’t remember, Doña Elena.”

“And yet you remember receiving twelve years of tutelage,” she said, squinting at me.

“I do,” I said.

“Even my own Javier only had eight years of tutelage, before heading to university,” she said doubtfully. “Perhaps you’ve dreamed it. Or it’s a part of your head injury?”

“No,” I returned, feeling as if this was a line I had to hold. “I am quite certain. I know quite a bit of literature, math, science. History and language too.”