Free Instead of Three Wishes by Megan Whalen Turner

stepped back. At the top of the door was an address, and when I saw it, I knew that we had found what we were looking for. The address was 5478-B. Venice had certainly never contained an address like that.
    I turned the knob and pushed open the door. Celeste, Antonio, Caroline, and Rannuccio came behind me, but when they reached the doorway, they found they could go no further.
    â€œThis is not the painting,” said Antonio.
    I went in alone.
    I climbed the stairway. I turned once, then again. My friends were out of sight. There was a landing at the top of the stairs, and on the left a door. There seemed to be no lock. I tried the knob, and when it turned, I found a dim room filled with hunting trophies and dust. There were bookcases on the walls and above them the mounted heads of various animals. There were antelope and ibex and bongo. Above the empty fireplace was a huge sad-looking buffalo with its hair fallen out in patches. Here and there on the bookshelves were stuffed rabbits and gophers and birds. The windows were dirty. The roomsmelled musty and sad. I wrinkled my nose and looked around for Olga’s coat. There was a table in front of the fireplace. It was empty except for a layer of dust and a rolled bundle wrapped in twine. I picked up the bundle and felt the softness of the fur. It was dark brown, and each individual hair was tipped with silver. I tugged at one end of the bundle until I saw the stitching in the collar, and then I was sure. It was Olga’s coat. I tucked it under one arm, and I turned to go.
    â€œWhat could you possibly want with that old thing?”
    Sitting in a wing chair at the far end of the room was a harlequin dressed in turquoise and yellow and blue and red. He had no face, only a white porcelain carnival mask with ribbons hanging from its sides. Their bright colors were obscured by the same fine gray powder that coated everything in the room.
    â€œWell?” he asked me.
    â€œI’m taking it back to its owner,” I said, and hurried toward the door.
    â€œWhy bother?” asked the harlequin, and lounged further back in his chair. He didn’t seem anxious to stop me. I stopped myself.
    â€œWhy do her a favor?” he asked. “What has she done for you?”
    I opened my mouth to answer, but the harlequin dismissed all my answers with a wave of his hand.
    â€œBig deal. Some tea, cookies, a bunch of second-rate puzzles. She hasn’t changed anything, you know.” He leaned forward and planted hiselbows on his knees. “If you go back, everything will be just the same. You’ll get on the ferry tomorrow and go home to your dull life and your dull governess, and you still won’t have any friends. You won’t have anything to do all day but stick together boring puzzles and spend every afternoon with your mother at dull tea parties with dull ladies. Why would you go back to that? Why bother?”
    What else could I do?
    â€œStay here,” he suggested. “She can’t make you climb back through the frame. She can’t fit through to come after you herself. You have friends here, why not stay?” He was very persuasive. I wavered, thinking of the splendid day I had spent with my friends.
    â€œNo one will miss you,” the harlequin pointed out. “No one will even notice that you are gone.”
    Olga would notice.
    â€œOnly because she wants the coat,” the harlequin said. “That’s all she cares about. She doesn’t care about you.”
    But I knew that wasn’t true. I was important. Olga had said so. She had said I was more important even than the coat.
    The harlequin went on. “Stay,” he said. “You’ll never grow old,” he said. “You can stay here forever and nothing will change.”
    It might have been a persuasive argument for an adult, but I wanted to grow up. I wanted to be old enough to tell my mother, no, I wouldn’t go to her horrible teas. I thought