Page 50

I read the foreword for the first time in my life and then the rhyme that follows:

For the well to undo

Prior woe for you

A gift you must bring

A coin offering

For only one will you get

To prevent your regret

These woods are the bridge

To all that you wish

Your hurts we will stitch

But should you break faith

Beware the wraiths

Until you are ready for me

To diminish

I think I understand why neither my wish nor Kiara’s worked. It had nothing to do with the coins or showing the well the proper reverence. Kiara wasn’t the one to do the hexing, so she can’t be the one to undo it.

It’s that simple. The same words etched onto the well are here in the book, spelling it out.

Even if others had found the well, they wouldn’t have been able to use it unless they knew how. You can only undo your own regret, not someone else’s. You can only undo something that you chose to do, that you caused to happen.

It’s why Shane knew he could undo his infidelity and why my dad talked Tayla’s mom out of the trip to the wishing well to wish away Tayla’s dad’s illness.

You couldn’t simply wish something away because you wanted it gone, no matter how worthy the wish.

Shane’s regret was a result of his own actions, whereas neither Tayla’s mom nor dad had done anything to cause his diagnosis.

But someone in the past made the mistake of thinking more than one wish was possible, tried to cheat the wishing well, didn’t think twice about exploiting the forest. Henry Prior was a man so undeniably flawed that he would have plenty to regret, plenty to undo.

“Have you read this?” I ask the others. “What do you make of it?”

“I interpret it as one wish per charm,” says Evan. “But no clue about ‘breaking faith.’?”

“Well,” I say. “See this part about wraiths? I think it means them .” I jut my chin in the direction we came.

“People who perish in these woods are stuck here forever because the forest’s magic is punishing all humans because…

well, I guess because Henry Prior tried to cheat the well into undoing all his regrets so he could have the life he wanted, even though he read this warning.

Those guys, they got lost and never made it out.

Their bodies don’t seem to need food, but for everything else, they need to steal in order to make living bearable.

If the wishing well can undo their mistake in coming here, in leaving their friend for dead, they might be saved.

But they don’t truly regret it, do they?

They’ll probably just wish to not be dead anymore, so the magic won’t work. ”

If the foreword is accurate, then Henry Prior—the man who had the foresight to conceal the wishing well’s location and shroud it in mystery—was the one to abuse its power first. All of this leads back to his actions. His greed.

And I am his descendant.

I look down into the depths of the well. I am guilty twice over.

I can choose to undo what I did to my father…or Kiara.

But only one. And only once.

For only one will you get to prevent your regret.

“Nova?” says Keiffer. “What are you thinking?”

In my mind, I answer: I’m thinking that I came here to save her without anyone finding out I was the reason she needed to be saved.

I’m thinking that I am my dad’s only hope, whether he’s alive or dead.

I came here thinking I could save them both.

Making a choice between them was never a possibility I’d considered.

Before.

I see now that I am in another one of those moments that will forever be split into a Before and an After. That this crack in my heart will never be healed. That forgiveness isn’t on the table.

The wishing didn’t work because in order to undo something, first I would have to admit what had been done . The thing I need to do is the very last thing I want to do.

Dad’s face flashes before my eyes.

Radhika’s words echo in my memory: The wishing well can undo any curse. Upon his discovery of the wishing well, Henry Prior founded the town of Prior’s End, where everything prior could be undone if one only asked for it.

I am Henry Prior’s descendant, and I will not make his mistakes.

“I wish that the curse of bad luck I caused Kiara is ended because she’s a good person and never deserved it,” I say softly.

Someone gasps. I don’t know who.

“You did what?” Tayla looks stricken, betrayed. “You? It wasn’t Aurora?”

“I—”

What can I say? What words can possibly redeem me?

“I didn’t think it would actually happen.

I was just trying to expose Aurora for a fraud.

I was going to entrap her into giving me a ludicrous fortune so Mom would finally see that Aurora’s advice about declaring Dad dead was wrong, too.

But then Kiara walked in, and I was just having a bit of fun.

They were just words. I didn’t think they had any actual power.

” A half truth. It tastes like ash in my mouth.

“Fun,” Tayla says flatly.

“Guys, I think my ankle is actually…” Kiara tests it, twisting it back and forth. “It’s better.”

“Nova, you had all this time to tell us,” Radhika says, sounding hurt. “Literally. You could have opened your mouth and—”

“Come on, guys. No one would have trusted her after that,” says Evan. They’re defending me, even though I don’t deserve it.

Tayla takes a step closer to Kiara as if to underscore she’s always on Kiara’s side and I’m not. “Yeah, and? That’s what happens when you’re untrustworthy.”

“She told us now,” says Keiffer. “When it really mattered. Just…let that be an end to it.”

“Why is no one else mad about this?” Tayla’s cheeks are red. “Why am I the only one?”

“Will all of you shut the fuck up and listen to me?” Kiara’s voice sails over the rest of us. “I said my ankle is feeling better ! I think everything that was caused by my bad luck is fixing itself.” She takes a deep breath and hobbles over to me. “Nova…”

I wait for her to lay into me. Really let me have it.

Instead, she cups my face in her hands and stares into my eyes. It goes on forever, and I hope she can see my genuine regret, and maybe she does because she releases me with a firm nod, as though she’s come to a conclusion she suspected all along.

Maybe she’s remembering what I told her about my dad, how the last things I’d ever said to him were hurtful and how I hadn’t meant them and they’d come true anyway.

“She didn’t have to say anything,” Kiara says.

“She could have kept silent, but she saved me. She spoke up, even when it meant we’d hate her for it.

And she was right! You are condemning her, Tayla!

Even if she never got us here in time to undo the bad luck, she’s more than redeemed herself just by going with us to the end. ”

“Kiara,” Tayla starts to say.

“No,” Kiara says sharply. “This is the end of the matter. Yes, this has all sucked ass, but none of us are allowed to beat Nova up over a mistake that she has more than made up for. I’m the one who was affected, and I’m saying it doesn’t matter.”

“So let’s just draw a line under it and leave it here,” says Keiffer, looking relieved.

“Wait,” says Evan. They point at the full moon. “I mean, as long as it’s still at full power…?”

“There’s nothing I want to undo,” says Radhika. Keiffer nods his agreement.

I can’t bring myself to turn away. To turn my back on my last chance to get Dad back.

I made the right choice. I know that. Mom is ready to move on, and even though she will always love him, she’s made her peace with never having answers.

I don’t know if he’s dead or alive, but Kiara is warm flesh and blood, and she needed me. She is the Now.

Even if she never speaks to me again after this, after the magnanimity of her forgiveness wears off, it will still have been the right choice to make.

Maybe I could still try to make another wish. Henry Prior had done it, allegedly. Why not me? Part of me wants to try. To my shame, a pretty big part of me.

I yearn for Dad’s voice now. To give me one last lesson.

But I don’t need it. I don’t need him to tell me what to do. I know what he would want.

When he speaks, it’s with my voice: Don’t mess with nature, Nova. Leave things be.

“Nova?” Kiara touches my arm. It’s soft as a butterfly wing, there and gone again.

I know they’re all watching me. I can feel their eyes.

Wondering what else I’ve done that I need to undo.

I have to do this. I have to let him go.

With a soft cry, I turn away.

“Nova.” Kiara takes my hand in hers. Her face softens with understanding.

Holding my hand in hers, she turns to face the well and closes her eyes.

“I wish,” she says quietly, “that the wishing well undoes itself and whatever tether is holding those lost souls here, that they find the right path to wherever it is they need to be. All of them.” She hesitates, opening her eyes to look at me.

“Even if it means undoing the wish you just gave me.”

“No!” yelps Tayla.

“It’s okay,” says Kiara. She’s telling Tayla, but her eyes stay on me. They’re surprisingly gentle. More gentle than I think I deserve. “It’s okay. I know what I’m doing.”

The ground beneath us shakes. Her hand squeezes mine. And while we all watch, the wishing well collapses in on itself in a raucous crash. It looks so small now. Not magical at all. Just a ruin of rock.

To think that searching for it all these years caused all this pain.

All those missing people. All those looted backpacks.

I’ll never know if the ghosts stole from Shane and Jules, too.

If among those blue backpacks is one with a folded picture of me and Mom and Dad together, a tube of Carmex, a radio that matches mine.

Do I even want to know?

“Remember what the inscription says.” Kiara points to a dull gray stone with the word diminish .

“?‘Beware the wraiths until you’re ready for me to diminish.’ The woods will forever be haunted by them—the ones who cause harm to survive and the innocents who found their final resting place here—until the well is destroyed. ”

“They’re killers. They didn’t deserve to find pea—” I start to say.

Kiara smiles and places a finger to my lips. “I said ‘wherever it is they need to be.’ That’s not for us to decide.”

I stare at her a moment longer, nodding.

Tayla surprises me by asking, somewhat begrudgingly, “Do you want to go back to the glade? See if you find anything that belonged to—well, see if any of us recognize anything.”

I can’t bring myself to answer. The others wait me out, hold space for me to come to a conclusion. I know without being told that they’ll abide by whatever I decide.

You were right, Dad. Trust your team. Your partners are your best rescuers in case of any injury, misfortune, or calamity.

Thank you for teaching me everything you probably hoped I would never need to know.

Thank you for making sure I knew anyway.

You probably didn’t think the Fellowship of the Fling would be a thing, I know, but as unexpected a journey as this was, I did find you again. And I’ll learn how to be okay again.

I was wrong in thinking it was the forest bringing me closer to you.

It was never your voice or your old gear that I needed.

Your words have always been with me, protecting me.

The memories I didn’t let myself remember for all these years because they hurt too much…

well, they still hurt, but now I feel your love in every single one.

Your presence is in every lesson. In every bird.

I may not remember your voice, but you’ve never spoken to me as clearly as you have here, in this place you loved so much.

I hope you find the peace Kiara wished for. I hope I hope I hope—

“I can’t go back to the glade. Not now,” I say. I swallow hard. Once, twice. “I don’t think I could bear it if…I don’t want to know. Not for definite. Not right now. First, um, I think there’s something I need to tell Aurora.”

“Okay,” Kiara says simply. “Let’s go home.”

She doesn’t let go of my hand as she pulls me away.

The others fall in line behind us.