“So now what happens?” Berni asked.
“That’s up to you. We supply the—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m supposed to supply the wisdom. I haven’t been exactly wise so far, have I?”
“Oh, well, what does one fatty more or less matter?”
Berni winced. “You’ve made your point. So maybe I was wrong. You said Montgomery loved her. Would she be with him now if she wasn’t bound by the wish?”
“Probably, but who knows? One can’t predict these things.”
Berni looked back at the fog. “I would like to know more about Nellie. Is it possible to see all of her life? From the beginning?”
“Of course.” Pauline waved her hand, and there was a pretty woman in a Victorian bed straining to give birth.
“I’ll leave you,” Pauline said, rising. “I’ll return when it’s nearer Christmas 1896.”
Berni waved her hand absently and stretched out to watch. She’d already learned that time in the Kitchen wasn’t like earth time. The scenes seemed to fly past. Berni saw that from the beginning Nellie was a quiet, solemn, eager-to-please child. Her mother wasn’t well, so Nellie was never allowed to make even the smallest sound; and since her father’s business made little money in its early days, Nellie always had many chores. As a reward for all her obedience, Nellie was pretty much ignored by her parents.
When Nellie was eight her mother gave birth to Terel, then was seriously ill until she died four years later. But Nellie didn’t mind caring for the child. She held the screaming infant and looked at it with love. For the first time ever she was going to have someone who would return her love.
After his wife died, Charles Grayson seemed to have no qualms about leaving his twelve-year-old daughter with the responsibility of caring for the baby. Nellie was a good mother, but she was so starved for affection that she gave the baby anything she wanted, so that Terel grew up believing that Nellie had been put on earth solely to do Terel’s bidding.
In adolescence Nellie began to gain weight. Berni saw the way boys flirted with Nellie, making her blush, and how she looked back at them. Then, at home, Charles would forbid Nellie to go out and leave the toddler alone. Nellie would go to the kitchen and eat.
By the time Berni got to 1896, she really understood Nellie’s life. Nellie had no idea how to fight for what she wanted. All she knew was how to give.
Berni watched as Jace Montgomery came into Nellie’s life, saw the way she blossomed under his love, and Berni smiled warmly. Nellie deserved to have someone love her, deserved to stop being a slave to her father and sister.
Things changed when Nellie started giving her three wishes away, and Berni felt herself grow smaller. She hadn’t meant to hurt Nellie. Heaven help her, Nellie had had enough pain in her life, and she didn’t need any more, but the wishes had increased Nellie’s burdens.
Berni watched Nellie at the Harvest Ball and thought she looked beautiful. A little wide, perhaps, but she was so in love her entire body glowed. After the ball Berni saw what Terel did with Jace, sending the phony telegram, then stealing Jace’s letters to Nellie and hiring some poor woman to write replies to him so he’d think Nellie had answered him.
“You conniving little manipulator,” Berni muttered.
She watched as Jace returned to town, then saw the scene when Terel pretended to be ill. Berni heard Jace ask Nellie to leave with him, and she heard Nellie say she could not leave. “Because of the third wish,” Berni said aloud.
At last she came to Nellie hanging the greenery in the parlor. It was two days since Jace had asked her to leave with him and three days before Christmas.
The scene became covered with fog.
“What shall it be?” Pauline asked. “More wishes?”
“Can I go back to earth and help Nellie?”
“Go back to earth? You want to leave the Kitchen? Leave here for all the nastiness of earth? You know, you didn’t see all of the Feasting room. They have chocolate mountains in there. And it’s not wimpy milk chocolate but that really deep, rich, dark chocolate. You can eat all you want and never gain an ounce.”
Berni hesitated as she imagined chocolate mountains. “No,” she said firmly, “I want to return to earth. Nellie needs a teacher. She’s no match for that sister of hers. She needs some help.”
“But I thought you liked Terel. I believe you said she reminded you of yourself.”
“Terel is exactly like me, and that’s why I need to fight her.”
“Fight her?” Pauline said. “But I thought you wanted to make her into Cinderella.”
“She already thinks she is Cinderella. What right does she have to take everything away from Nellie? Nellie is a hundred times the person she is. Can I go to earth or not?”
“You may go, but the limit is three days, and I warn you, these visits rarely work out.”