Gwendy's Magic Feather

47

WHEN GWENDY IS TEN years old, her family spends a week in upstate New York visiting with one of Mr. Peterson’s first cousins. It’s July and the cousin (Gwendy can no longer remember his name nor the names of his wife or three children; as best as she can recall, they never saw them again except at the occasional wedding or funeral) has a summer home on a lake, so there’s plenty to do. Canoeing, swimming, fishing, jumping off tire swings, even water skiing. There’s also a small town nearby with a mini golf course and water slide for the tourists.

Gwendy looks forward to the trip all summer long. She starts saving her money as soon as the school year ends, stashing away the quarters she makes from helping her father clean the garage and dusting the house from top to bottom for her mother. By the time she packs her own suitcase and climbs into the back seat for the seven-hour drive, she’s managed to save almost fifteen dollars in loose change. Her plan is to hold onto most of the money until the final two days of the trip, and then splurge on herself. Candy, comics, ice cream, maybe even a pocket transistor radio with an earphone if she has enough left over.

But it doesn’t work out that way.

Within minutes of their arrival, Mr. and Mrs. Peterson disappear into the cabin for a “grand tour” and Gwendy finds herself standing by the car surrounded by a group of local kids, including the cousin’s three children, who are all spending the summer at the lake. The boys are shirtless and tan and look wild with their messy hair and sugar-spiked eyes. The girls are long-legged and aloof and mostly older.

Nervous and not knowing what else to say, Gwendy eventually unzips her suitcase and shows the kids her plastic marble bag filled with quarters. Most of them are indifferent, and a few even laugh at her. But one of the older boys doesn’t laugh; he seems interested, and maybe even impressed. He waits until the other kids all run off, whooping and hollering into the back yard, and then he approaches Gwendy.

“Hey, kid,” he says, looking around. “I got something you might be interested in.”

“What?” Gwendy asks, even more nervous now that she’s alone with a boy—a cute, older boy.

He reaches into the back pocket of his cut-off jean shorts and when his hand swims back into view, it’s holding something small and fluffy and white.

“A feather?” Gwendy asks, confused.

A look of disgust comes onto the older boy’s face. “Not just any old feather. It’s a magic feather.”

Gwendy feels her heart flutter. “Magic?”

“That’s right. It once belonged to an Indian chief who used to live around here. He was also a medicine man, a very powerful one.”

Gwendy swallows. “What does it do?”

“It does… magic stuff,” he says. “You know, like bringing you good luck and making you smarter. Stuff like that.”

“Can I hold it?” Gwendy asks almost breathlessly.

“Sure, but I’m getting kinda tired of taking care of it. I’ve had it for a few years now. You interested in taking it off my hands?”

“You want to give it to me?”

“Not give,” he says. “Sell.”

Gwendy doesn’t miss a beat. “How much?”

The boy lifts a dirty finger to his lips, thinking. “I guess ten dollars is a fair enough price.”

Gwendy’s shoulders sag a little. “I don’t know… that’s a lot of money.”

“Not for a magic feather it ain’t.” He starts to put the feather back in his pocket. “No biggie, I’ll just sell it to someone else.”

“Wait,” Gwendy blurts. “I didn’t say no.”

He looks down his nose at her. “You didn’t say yes either.”

Gwendy glances at the plastic bag filled with quarters and then looks at the feather again.

“Tell you what,” the boy says. “You’re new around here, so I’ll cut you a deal. How’s nine dollars sound?”

Gwendy feels as if she’s just won the grand prize at the spinning wheel booth at the Castle Rock Fourth of July carnival. “Deal,” she says at once, and starts counting out nine dollars in quarters.