Wishes by Molly Cochran Page A

more than a trickle. “Are you serious? Why—”
    Just then the walls caved in and ice-cold water poured in on us from all sides.
    I flailed in panic. I can’t swim. The last time I was in a boat, it sank and I nearly drowned. “Artie!” I shouted, spewing water.
    “I think this is a glamour,” she said.
    “A . . .” I wiped my wet hair out of my eyes. “A glamour?” I looked around. The cave walls were intact. My feet were dry. Even my hair, which had been soaking wet a second before, was dry. “That flood . . . It wasn’t real?”
    She shook her head. “The last time I came here, she sent snakes and fire.”
    “Ouch,” I said.
    “The queen doesn’t play fair.”
    Understatement of the year. “Well, that’s something we know about her, at least,” I said, trying to patch up my shaky confidence.
    A curtain of what looked like stars appeared before us. I put my hand out and felt something like dry rain sprinkle over it. “Seems okay,” I said.
    “It is. Just part of the magic here.” Artie pushed me aside and went through first. “If I remember, it’s just a kind of doorway. But better be safe. Wait a few minutes and see if I turn into a troll.” On the other side, she patted herself down. “Am I all right?”
    “Well, you’re not a troll,” I said.
    “Then I guess you’ll be fine.” She reached her hand through the stardust to pull me through.
    “Thanks,” I said. I smiled at her, but the smile froze on my face as I noticed that Artie seemed to wink in and out of my sight as if a strobe light were focused on her.
    “Are you trying to disappear?” I asked.
    “What? No. Why are you staring at me?”
    “Because you’re . . .” Then I saw my own arm flashing with light.
    “That’s—” she began. Then her voice quieted into silence.
    I had to shield my eyes from the light. “What’s happening to us?”
    She flickered in a rush of light and shadow. In another instant, she was gone.
    “Artie!” I rasped. “Come back!” Then I moaned as I watched my own arm disappear, and everything around me fade to black.

    It was as if I’d been asleep and woke up to find myself in dazzling sunlight. Although I hadn’t moved at all from the damp gray cave, I was now in a completely different place, a vast room with golden walls and opulent furnishings, bathed in light from what might have been a hundred candlelit chandeliers. A whole different plane of existence.
    “It’s like the Meadow,” I said.
    “No,” Artie corrected. “It’s like hell.”
    Nothing moved. Guards dressed in full armor stood still as statues, their faces covered by steel visors. On their shoulders rested long double-headed axes, each in exactly the same position, like exhibits in a museum. On one end of the room was a raised platform. A dais, I thought, or a stage, constructed of intricately arranged lengths of wood.
    “Where is she?” I whispered. “The queen.”
    “Shh. She’s looking us over. Deciding how to kill us.”
    “Now, now,” chided a disembodied voice that seemed to come from everywhere at once. “Let’s not be cynical, Artemesia.”
    With that, an almost overpowering fragrance of lilies filled the room, and the area on top of the platform glowed with an unearthly light so bright that it hurt my eyes to look at it.
    “Don’t be scared,” Artie said. “She’s just making an entrance.”
    Finally, after my eyes stopped watering, I could make out a shimmering figure of gold and white in the middle of the fading light, as if it were taking the room’s brilliance within itself. Then in another moment she was standing before us, breathtakingly beautiful.
    Her piercing blue eyes danced with amusement. Her lips curved into the most innocent of smiles. Beneath a diamond tiara, her hair hung down to her waist in golden waves. The hem of her gown covered nearly three feet around her in every direction. In her hand was a crystal wand.
    “This is exactly how you looked on Snyder Avenue,” I