“No. I’m fine. Kiss the stone. It’s okay, Abbi. Lick it.” I pushed her gently toward it with my good hand.
I was sweating, but shivered at every shift in the wind. Shock.
“You need to kiss it too,” Abbi said. “You need luck. And a wish. Franny said wishing is allowed because it’s magic.” She held onto my good elbow and guided me over to the pedestal.
The relief of seeing her unharmed made me too tired to resist. “You need luck for you and Lula,” she said. “And maybe you need a doctor too.”
“I don’t need—”
“Luck, first.”
I quickly scanned the engraving on the polished top of the pedestal, where a plaque containing the slice of the stone was displayed.
“You do it first,” Abbi said. Hado was on her shoulder, a shadow half-hidden in her hair, with glinting eyes and sharp claws.
I placed the fingertips of my good hand on the side of the plaque.
Luck was automatic, given for the price of a kiss, but wishing was something I’d lost the knack for years ago.
Wishes weren’t the same as deals with gods. They didn’t have loopholes or prices. Until they were granted. And those loopholes and prices changed depending on who was doing the granting.
I had no idea what a stone might demand. Big wish or little? Big price or small?
I formed the idea. Then I kissed the stone, taking what luck it would give, and repeated the wish once, twice, three times.
“My turn!” Abbi tippy-toed again, smooched (licked) the stone noisily, then mouthed her wish.
If my lip-reading skills were any good, it had something to do with cookies.
“That’s it,” I said. “Let’s get back to the motel. Franny, this is where we part ways.”
“Are you sure you don’t need help wrapping your wrist?”
“I do not. Let’s go now, Abbi.”
Abbi had crouched down and was staring at little pebbles at the base of the pedestal. She popped back up and took my hand.
“Don’t forget to come see us at the bar,” Franny said. “Free appetizer and, of course, the ice cream. Did I mention the ice cream?”
We were walking toward the hotel, but her voice wasn’t getting any fainter.
“She’s following us, isn’t she?” I asked Abbi.
“She likes me.”
“You?”
“I like her too.”
I sighed.
“She gave me three scoops of ice cream. Three. You only ever let me have two.” Her voice was petulant, but she squeezed my arm. She was worried. Probably worried about me.
I was worried too. Not about my wrist. There was a vampire in town, one who broke my wrist then ran off, and I didn’t know where Lula was.
I glanced behind me. Franny spotted my glare and suddenly became interested in a brambly old rose growing on the corner of a fence.
We walked a little faster.
