Besides serving as a plot device, the wishing machine symbolizes The Consequences of Wishes of any kind. Lucy encounters the wishing machine in the shop when she is experiencing emotional turmoil and desperation. Both times, that emotional drive for change creates the magic that allows the wishing machine to work, underscoring that the machine merely manifests one’s desires. As the woman who operates it tells Lucy, “It only works if it’s with all your heart” (314). 

As Lucy learns, however, the mere fact that one wants to do something doesn’t make doing so a good idea. In Chapter 4, she thinks to herself, “I’m so tired of being broke and single and stuck. I wish I could fast-forward to when I know what I’m doing, when I have some semblance of a career, when I’ve met my person” (36). Lucy gets her wish but soon realizes that the “bad” experiences” she has skipped were valuable in their own right. Moreover, her actions have had unintended consequences—e.g., Zoya is now dead. Lucy therefore ultimately reverses her original wish after learning Gratitude and Appreciation for the Present: “Please, I want to go back. I want to live every messy day—the good ones and the ones that suck—where I don’t know what I’m doing, and I don’t know where I’m going or how to get there” (328).