The Third Wish

by Simon Archer

  “Hey! Y’all alive down there?” Jack's voice came drifting down the passageway.

  “Yeah, we’re good!” I hollered back to him. “We’re coming out!” Lottie let go of my neck, and I looked to Vila. “About that legs thing…?”

  “Shake your butt just a little bit,” she told me. I stared at her in disbelief.

  “What? Really?” I asked, praying that she wasn’t serious.

  “She’s serious,” Andi piped in. “Doesn’t have to be dramatic, just a little wiggle is all.”

  “Watch,” Vila said. She wiggled her backside, and her legs appeared, replacing her mist trail.

  “How have I never noticed you two shaking your asses to do that before?” I nearly yelled.

  “Not very observant, I guess,” Andi commented, shrugging her shoulders.

  “Geez, thanks!” I retorted. “Okay, here it goes.” I gave a tiny shimmy with my backside, expecting my legs to appear, which they did not.

  “Mine are broken!” I muttered.

  “Try a bigger shimmy!” Andi said forcefully. I took a deep breath and wiggled my butt back and forth. Nothing happened… nothing except Andi, Vila, and Lottie dying with laughter.

  “You three little shits!” I yelled. “I can’t believe you! Here a guy is trying to adjust to life as an entirely different kind of being, and you all are playing jokes!”

  The girls were laughing so hard that they couldn’t respond right away. When they finally caught their breath, Vila glanced up first.

  “Think about your legs,” she said. “That’s all you have to do.” Then she went back to laughing. A split second before I was going to do as she instructed, Andi piped up.

  “You may want to do yourself a favor, and think about your legs with pants on,” she giggled. I rolled my eyes at her and pictured myself standing in the passageway with pants, socks, and shoes on, and then it was so.

  25

  Jack met us as we climbed out of the hole that led down to the cave. Lorraine was standing with him. Both had furrowed brows and deep concern in their eyes. They stepped aside to let us out and let out a huge sigh when all four of us were standing on the beach with them.

  “The lightning and wind stopped out here, and we didn’t know if it was because you stopped Tobin, or he accomplished his task,” Jack told us, a question in his tone.

  “We stopped him. The wall is up, and good controls the stones,” I told him. Lorraine craned her neck to look behind us.

  “Where is he?” she asked, noticing that Tobin hadn’t exited with us.

  “Vila sent him home with a few less memories than he expected to have from today,” I chuckled.

  “Speaking of home, we need to get you there,” Andi said, glancing up at me.

  The six of us started walking without another word. The sky over the ocean was clear, and without any sign of magical weather-tampering, it could’ve been any other day. I breathed in the salty air and held it in my lungs. It seemed more refreshing than usual, and I didn’t know if that was because I’d stopped evil from controlling magic, or if my new genie status had something to do with it. Questions started flooding my mind, ones I hadn’t had time to think about before I’d made my wish. I opened my mouth to ask one, but before the words came out, Andi put her hand on my arm.

  “We’ll get your questions answered soon enough. For now, just enjoy the walk,” she whispered. I took another deep breath and lifted my face towards the sun. It was brighter than normal but didn’t hurt my eyes to look at. The swooshing of the ocean water pounded in my ears but somehow didn’t drown out other sounds like our feet crunching on the sand as we walked, or the seagulls squawking down the beach.

  When we reached the house, we stopped in the foyer and let out a collective sigh of relief. A thought floated through my mind, and I started chuckling to myself. The more I thought about it, the more I laughed. I looked over at Vila and Jack and laughed even harder.

  “Can you imagine what that all would’ve looked like if we hadn’t had our magic cupcakes this morning!” I shouted, laughing harder with each word. “The hungover twins battling evil with a nasty nauseousness and the pounding of headaches!” I was laughing so hard I could barely get the words out when it occurred to me that perhaps I was finding my own joke a little funnier than it actually was. In fact, I wasn’t sure why it was funny at all, but I couldn’t stop laughing.

  That changed when I looked at the five faces staring open-mouthed at me. My laughter ceased immediately when I realized I was looking down at all five of them. I slowly shifted my gaze toward my feet, which weren’t there. I was floating ten feet off the floor, a flowing red and purple mist trailing behind me. My heart leapt with a mixture of fear and wonder.

  “How did it—?”

  “Shh!” Andi said forcefully. She stepped into the middle of the room and put both her hands out to her sides. Vila joined her and put her hands up, palms facing the ceiling. They each closed their eyes and mouthed words I couldn’t make out. A bright blue flash jolted through the room and created a bubble around us, then disappeared. The girls lowered their arms and looked at me.

  “Okay, you’re good,” Andi said.

  “Good? Was I bad before?” I chuckled. I had no idea why I was chuckling, but the more I did, the more quickly the chuckle turned to laughter again. After a hearty laugh, I returned my attention to Andi, remembering that I’d asked her a question. She was patiently waiting for me.

  “You weren’t back before,” she started. “You were visible. We took care of it.”

  “How sweet of you, thank you!” I replied. My mist trail caught my eye, and I turned my head to look more closely at it. My entire body turned when I did. I reached out to find out what the mist felt like, and my body turned again, keeping my mist trail just out of reach. The further I reached, the faster I turned. I finally stopped when I felt myself getting dizzy. I shook my head and took a moment to focus on Vila.

  “How do you catch that thing?” I asked. Both she and Andi were shaking their heads and smiling.

  “You don’t,” Vila replied. “You can continue to try if you’d like, though. In all my centuries, I’ve never seen a genie try to catch its tail! It’s rather amusing!” A quick flash of what I must’ve looked like to them flashed through my mind, and I joined in their laughter.

  “Question,” Jack piped up. Five sets of eyes turned his way. His face was pale and expressionless. “What the hell happened to you?”

  “Oh, shit!” I said involuntarily. Jack hadn’t been in the cave when I’d made the wish. Neither he nor Lorraine knew that I had become a genie before I accidentally started floating right before their eyes. I looked at Vila. “Get me down from here!”

  “Get yourself down,” she replied calmly.

  A swift rush of irritation coursed through me at her refusal to help, and I involuntarily started moving straight for her. She crossed her arms and glared at me while I gained speed heading in her direction.

  “Exactly what do you think rushing me will do?” she sniped sarcastically.

  “I have no idea! I’m not doing it!” I hollered as I flew through the air.

  “Sure you are,” Andi chimed in. “Now, take a breath and think!”

  I sucked in a chest full of air and closed my eyes. I saw myself standing in front of Jack. When I opened my eyes, I was directly in front of him, my mist trail traded in for legs.

  “Whoa,” I called out. “This all feels like a light switch that someone keeps flipping on and off!” Jack cleared his throat loudly, and I returned my attention to him. “So… I used my last wish in the cave, I wished for them to make me a genie.”

  “Why?” he asked, still expressionless.

  Without realizing it, I had become accustomed to Jack being the easy-going one when it came to magic. I wasn’t so sure he was going to remain as receptive as he’d been in the past, judging by the complete lack of emotion he was showing.

  “Tobin was trying to reconstruct the wall so that evil could
control the lightning stones. He had all the power of all the souls trapped in the book for centuries helping him do it,” I started, working out the simplest explanation in my mind. “At first, I couldn’t figure out why Andi and Vila’s magic wasn’t working, but then it hit me. I had knocked the wall down the day Lottie and I found the cave, making me the one magically connected to the cave. I’m the one whose job it became to protect the cave. That is why I felt so compelled to move here to be near it, and I just hadn’t realized it.”

  “That is all well and good, but what does any of it have to do with you deciding to be a genie?” Jack interjected.

  “There was no way I could overcome the amount of power that Tobin had in the book. I wished for the one thing I knew was more powerful, and that was to be a genie,” I answered him. He blinked a couple of times and tilted his head.

  “Why not just wish for the power to put the wall back up, instead of changing your entire being?” Jack asked the question I had silently asked myself in the cave before making my wish.

  “The stones are how the magic spreads across Earth,” I told him. “If I had only wished for enough magic to put the wall back up, I would not have any power or wishes to protect them from the next evil that tries to take control of them.”

  “But you locked the spellbook inside the cave, doesn’t that mean evil can’t get out to be used again?” Lottie asked, suddenly. Jack nodded his head in agreement with her question.

  “No, unfortunately, it does not. The book will disintegrate in the cave. It will take a very long time, but it will eventually return to the earth and spread through the ground. Luckily, it will lose the power of the souls inside it, as they are released as it decomposes. However, if history repeats itself as it always has, an evil man will find the tree that grows from the book, and the cycle will begin to repeat itself. I will be here to protect the stones when that happens.” The words flowed out of me, making my destiny a reality in my mind. I hadn’t verbalized it before and doing so made it more real. I was meant to protect the earth’s magic.

  “That book seems like a real pain in the ass,” Jack piped up. He looked me square in the eyes for several long moments. Awkwardness built until I was nearly squirming. Then, he slowly grinned and nodded his head. “Now that you are a freakin’ genie, I get a lifetime supply of those hangover muffins whenever I want!” He shifted his gaze to Vila. “Can you teach him how to make those?”

  “Yes, sir. Right away!” she laughed. Relief flooded my veins as Jack returned to his accepting, nothing-bothers-him-self.

  “Also,” Jack started. “I fully expect you to continue working at 14Tech. None of this ‘I’m a magical genie so I can retire and do whatever I want’ bullshit. Got it?” The mocking voice he used had the entire room busting up.

  “I will not quit my day job, don’t worry,” I laughed. Just then, Lottie looped her arm around mine and laid her head on my shoulder.

  “I’m glad I won’t have to worry about you lazing around the house all day, in that case,” she sighed dramatically.

  “Hey, now!” Andi whined. “You all make it sound like you think genies just waste their days away being lazy and undriven!”

  “Oh, I know better than that!” I replied. “And you don’t let the humans in your life do so either!”

  “I don’t know about you all, but I could go for a nice cup of coffee out by the ocean right about now,” Lottie suggested. An overwhelming tension grew in my chest, I involuntarily clapped my hands, and there was a loud crash in the kitchen.

  “What the hell was that?” Lorraine blurted out. The six of us ran to the kitchen. Andi and Vila started laughing and pointing to the floor by one of the counters. The entire coffee pot lay shattered in pieces, along with a broken cup.

  “I’m going to assume I did that,” I muttered, glancing around the faces surrounding me.

  “You are correct,” Vila chuckled.

  “Why did I destroy a coffee pot, exactly?” I asked her.

  “Because you wanted to give your master what she wanted,” Andi added as she started to clean up the broken glass and plastic on the floor. I had completely forgotten that Lottie was technically my master, and the girls’ master, now.

  “You don’t break coffee pots when I want coffee,” I pointed out to them.

  “We aren’t ten-minute old genies, either,” Vila retorted. “You’ll get the hang of controlling the urge to do everything instantly. It’ll just take a little time.”

  “What do we do about coffee in the mean-time?” I was at a loss and still wanted Lottie to have the coffee she desired. Andi raised her hand in the air and snapped her fingers. A new coffee pot appeared, full of freshly brewed coffee.

  “You have got to teach me how to do that!” I called out excitedly. “I’m going to try to get a cup of coffee one more time, though. I’ll never learn unless I practice, right?” I held my hand out and envisioned a coffee cup, and suddenly I was holding it.

  “Nice work, Anders,” Jack laughed. “You can hold a cup!” I rolled my eyes at him and looked back at the new coffee pot.

  “Now for the coffee!” My progress excited me. I envisioned fresh coffee pouring from the pot and instantly felt hot liquid pouring down my face. I dropped the cup I was holding to brush coffee away from my eyes as it flowed over my head.

  “One out of two isn’t bad,” Andi laughed.

  “How do I stop it?” I yelled. The moment stopping it crossed my mind, the coffee stopped pouring. I looked at the broken cup on the floor and then over to Lottie. I shrugged my coffee-soaked shoulders and grinned. “Maybe I’ll just pour you a cup. You may actually get one that way.”

  “Coffee is coffee, babe. It doesn’t matter if it is manually poured or magically poured!” Lottie replied. Andi and Vila went about pouring all of us a cup of coffee, and we started heading out to the beach yard. I stopped at the doorway and looked out.

  “Are you coming?” Andi asked, pausing to look back.

  “Does the bubble thing you put around the house work out there too?” I didn’t want to risk being seen if I accidentally traded my legs for mist again.

  “It covers the whole beach. We didn’t want to take chances,” Andi informed me. “Now, come out and relax.” I let out a deep breath and followed her. I sat down and laid back in a lounger between Lottie and Vila.

  “We should probably go over the whole ‘Master’ thing, Lottie,” Vila said, rolling her head sideways on her lounger to look over.

  “I just need to not lose the clip, right?” Lottie replied.

  “That is part of it,” Vila told her. “Don’t forget the part where you get three wishes.” Lottie’s eyes grew wide.

  “I completely forgot about that part!” she said, sounding shocked at herself.

  “What are you going to wish for?” Lorraine asked, clapping her hands excitedly.

  “I have no idea!” Lottie replied. “My life kicks ass as is. I don’t know what I’d wish for that could make it better!”

  “Let me speak from experience,” I interjected. “You don’t have to rush the wish process.” I winked at Andi and Vila.

  “You most certainly do not,” Vila agreed. “Also, if you’d like, we can extend the same ability to preview your wishes.” Lottie rolled her head back and looked up at the sky, taking in what they were telling her.

  “I’ll take the wish previews,” she replied. “I’m not going to need any for quite some time, though. I have a magical fiancé to help through learning how to… be…, a wedding to plan, and a business to nurture. I’m busy enough without worrying about wishing for stuff. Right now I just wish I could—”

  “No, no, no!” Andi, Vila, and I yelled, cutting her off.

  “One more thing to add to your list: don’t use the term ‘I wish,’ unless you mean it!” Andi explained, laughing.

  “Oh, wow,” Lottie laughed at her own near-mishap. She looked over at Vila. “Can I share my wishes?”

  “No, doesn’t work that way,” Vila
answered. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because Jack and Lorraine here have been through so much of this with us, it only seems fair they could have a wish!” Lottie replied.

  “That’s sweet of you, Lottie,” Lorraine gushed. “Jack and I have everything we could ever need already, though. It’s perfectly okay.”

  “Still, it would be fun,” I added, looking at Andi. “Any workaround?”

  “No workarounds,” Jack jumped in the conversation. “I might end up losing my mind and accidentally wishing to be a genie or some random shit!” He instantly started laughing.

  “Shut up, jackass!” I retorted. “I didn’t want you to have a wish, anyway!”

  “You can’t pour a cup of coffee without making a mess. What makes you think I’d trust you to make a wish come true without dire consequences?” Jack joked. What he’d said struck a chord, though.

  “He has a point,” I said to Vila. “How in the world would I make a wish come true?” Vila pointed to the money clip that Lottie was still holding in her hand.

  “You practice inside your own little world,” she answered.

  “I have one of those?” I hadn’t considered having a world inside the clip. My mind had been too preoccupied with the simpler things, like walking versus floating.

  “Of course, you do,” Andi answered me. “We left it pretty blank so you can build it however you’d like.”

  “Can people come to visit it?” I asked. Andi and Vila chuckled.

  “Let’s just get it built first, and then we’ll worry about visitors,” Vila replied.

  “Now?” I asked, anxious to see the world they had given me.

  “No, not now,” Andi answered. “You need to relax and learn a few things first.”

  “But you got to see your world right away!” I protested.

  “I did not wish to be a genie, and Vila made my world for me,” Andi answered quickly, then glanced over at Vila. “And, she made it very well, might I add.” She mouthed ‘thank you’ to Vila and went back to looking at the clear blue sky. A wave of exhaustion passed through me suddenly that I wasn’t expecting. I couldn’t remember a time I’d ever seen either of the girls tired.