Instead of Three Wishes by Megan Whalen Turner Page A

through the middle of a city, but then I realized that it was a picture of Venice, where there are canals instead of streets. There was a bridge so steep that it had steps going up one side and coming down the other. There were people and shops all along the sides of the canal, and thin black boats, like canoes, crisscrossed the water. The boats were called gondolas, and I thought that the bridge must be the Rialto. I hadread about it in my geography lessons. There were bright flags hanging from the bridge and the eaves of all of the buildings, and you could tell the sun was shining and the flags were blowing in the wind. When Olga came in, I asked her what the puzzle was.
    â€œThere is something hidden there, in Canaletto’s painting,” explained Olga. “It was put there by a very unpleasant man.”
    â€œYou mean Canaletto?”
    â€œNo, not the artist, another man, who then hid the painting. So what I’ve been searching for has been doubly hidden.”
    â€œWhy did he hide it?”
    â€œHe knew that it was very precious to me. He hoped that I would marry him in order to get it back.”
    â€œWouldn’t you?”
    â€œNo, even if I’d married him, he would have kept it and kept it and kept it, and I would never have been free. He thought I was helpless and had no choice, but I am not powerless, and I have a few friends. They helped me make a home on this island, and the people here pay me for what I can do.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œOh.” Olga shrugged. “Foretell them the weather, find their fish, sometimes call their boats home when they are lost. Simple things.”
    I wasn’t sure if she was joking or not. I asked, “What happened to the unpleasant man?”
    â€œHe was injured while hunting narwhals. The wound turned septic, and he died.”
    â€œGood,” I said. If Olga said the man was bad, I believed her.
    Olga lifted the picture behind the chair and sighed, “I just wish he had told me about the picture before he went off hunting narwhals.”
    â€œWe leave tomorrow,” I said to Olga as I stepped through her front doorway.
    â€œSo soon?” Olga asked vaguely. She was sitting in the dark of the afternoon in front of the Canaletto. She had her comb in her lap, but her hair was bound back in its bun. She sat on a small three-legged stool. The picture was propped on an easel, and all around were art books opened and closed right side up and upside down. Olga looked discouraged.
    After a moment, she collected herself and asked if I would like a few cookies before starting a new puzzle. I said yes and followed her into the kitchen, where she burned herself twice boiling water for tea. We were supposed to work on a new jigsaw that afternoon, but I asked if she would like to go for a walk on the beach instead. Or maybe I should go home? I hated to lose my last day with her, but maybe she would prefer to be alone.
    Olga put out one hand to my head and rubbed a thumb across my eyebrows. “It is that painting,” she explained. “I have tried so many things without success. It makes me not very good company.”
    â€œCan’t I help?” I asked, seeing a way to avoid spending my last afternoon by myself.
    â€œI was going to ask you,” said Olga, “but now you are going home, and I think it is too soon.” She turned back to the tea.
    â€œIt isn’t too soon,” I said, not having any idea really of what she was talking about. “Let me try.”
    Olga thought while she poured the tea into cups. She handed one cup to me and took the other and a handful of cookies. “All right,” she said. “We will try.” She walked out of the kitchen and back toward the living room. With my tea and my own handful of cookies, I followed her.
    Olga sat down on her three-legged stool, her bulk overflowing its sides, and waved for me to join her. The two of us faced the