The Third Wish

by Simon Archer

  “I… umm… no,” I replied, at a loss for words.

  “Andi and I created a memory when we made this world for you,” Vila said, sitting with Gisele on one of my couches. “They are visiting that memory so they could meet you.”

  “You’ve had our girls for so long, we were hoping to meet you eventually,” Moira added. “Thank you for taking such good care of them.”

  “Ma’am, they are the ones who take care of me, I think,” I replied humbly. “I would still be riding that old bike outside for a living if I hadn’t met them.”

  “How are you enjoying being a genie?” Gisele asked, ignoring my statement.

  “It feels like I’m not myself, but more myself than I’ve ever been, if that makes any sense at all,” I tried to explain.

  “It does,” Gisele replied, nodding her head. “When I started all this, it was only supposed to be temporary. It was supposed to last just long enough to get Servilia to another time where she wouldn’t be in danger of being enslaved again. It sure has taken on a life of its own, hasn’t it?” She glanced around the house and smiled.

  “I can see why the girls love it in here. It is literally anything and everything one could want,” I told Gisele.

  “Ah, yes. You can thank Servilia for that. She just did for Andolyn, and you, what I did for her.” Gisele smiled at Vila and patted her hand. She slowly stood up and walked over to Moira. “We have to go now.”

  “You’ve only been here for a handful of minutes!” I said, nearly whining.

  “The girls didn’t take too long making this place, so the memory isn’t a long one,” Moira informed me. “Don’t worry, though. We’ll meet again.” I don’t know what got into me, but I ran to Moira and threw my arms around her, hugging her tight.

  “Your daughter is such an amazing woman,” I whispered in her ear.

  “I know,” she responded with a chuckle when I let her go. I turned to Gisele, who had gotten off the couch and was standing next to me. I leaned down and hugged her, as well.

  “I’m sure you know the power you created in Vila. You did an amazing job instilling the hope you have inside her,” I told her. To my surprise, Gisele hugged me back. She whispered a few words in my ear, then let go. She took a step back and put her finger to her lips, gesturing to keep her words a secret.

  “Yes,” she said, pulling her finger away from her mouth. “I do know, and I couldn’t be more proud.” She smiled at Vila, and the two of them hugged. Moira hugged Andi again as well, and before anyone could pull away, the two women faded into nothingness. Andi and Vila stood in place with huge smiles on their faces.

  “I can say, out of all the things I’ve never expected, meeting them was at the top of the list,” I told the girls.

  “You’ll learn not to count anything out as far as possibilities go, now that you are a genie,” Andi replied.

  “I’m beginning to see that,” I whispered, looking around my beautiful log house.

  “We should probably be going,” Vila piped up. “There’s no telling how long we’ve been in here. Time doesn’t exactly work the same in here.” My eyes widened, and I looked at my watch. The hands were spinning around the dial at an accelerated rate.

  “Could we have been here for years, or something?” I asked, alarmed.

  “No, not years yet,” Andi laughed. “Several hours, though, at least.” It seemed like we’d just gotten there.

  “Gisele didn’t want time between masters to seem like an eternity, so she threw in a last-minute time adjustment,” Vila explained.

  “Okay, so how do we get out?” I remembered that I didn’t even know how I got in.

  “This is a onetime deal, Bennett. We need you to keep that in mind. Any time after this, if you come here, your master must let you out,” Vila stated very seriously.

  “Got it, just like I have to let you out when you come here,” I said.

  “Except you are no longer our master,” Andi pointed out. “Lottie is.”

  I smiled at the thought of Lottie being the one who held the lamp.

  “Instead of me capturing her in ‘holy matrimony,’ she’s ended up catching me in ‘holy mastery,’” I joked.

  The girls rolled their eyes at the corniness of my joke, and I just shrugged. Andi raised her hand in the air and snapped her fingers just as I blinked. When my eyes were open again, I was back in my bedroom. The light coming through the skylight was dimming, indicating that it was early evening.

  “You weren’t kidding about time flying in there,” I commented as I sat up against my rubber headboard. I made a mental note to fix that but decided I didn’t want to take the chance of making a disaster of it just then.

  “Nope!” Andi hopped off the edge of the bed where she’d been sitting and turned her legs into mist. “Let’s go!”

  Vila hopped up next to her and did the same.

  “Exactly where are we going? And why are you two so excited about it?” I was getting extremely excited myself, even though I had no idea why. It was as though their energy was contagious.

  “You have a lot to learn, Mister! You also have a wedding in a matter of days! It’s time to officially start your training!” Andi bounced up and down, clapping her hands with anticipation.

  “We are going to start with you learning how to perform simple magic so that no more small appliances end up shattered on the floor,” Vila informed me, giggling.

  “Then a few housekeeping items, like keeping your legs on so you don’t float away in front of people who don’t know about magic,” Andi continued, giggling even harder than Vila.

  “I get the definite impression that you two are planning on a lot of laughs during all this,” I said, feigning offense.

  “Awe, don’t get your feelings hurt,” Vila said. “Andi turned a horse into a chicken once.”

  “Hey! You weren’t supposed to remember that!” Andi called out. “You told me to make it fly!”

  “Exactly! I don’t know what you thought because chickens don’t fly!” Vila put her arm around Andi’s shoulders and urged her out of the room, motioning for me to follow.

  I watched them float out into the hallway and took a step to join them. I looked down at my feet and decided that I should start learning more magic by getting into character. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again. I was no longer looking at my legs. Instead, I was floating just like the girls.

  “Success!” I yelled out, even though nobody was there to hear me. Just because I was a genie didn’t mean I couldn’t still celebrate my wins!

  27

  Lottie

  I stood in the bridal tent, looking at myself in the mirror. The past five days had been a blur, and I was almost shocked that everything had come together for the wedding as smoothly as it had. Another thirty minutes and I would be Mrs. Bennett Anders. Butterflies flitted in my stomach at the thought. Granted, five days ago, I didn’t know I would be marrying an immortal, magical being, but what’s a timeline, anyway?

  Lorraine and I had taken care of all the final preparations while Andi and Vila worked day and night to help Bennett get the hang of being a genie. They’d reported that he was an extremely fast learner, but we all made the decision to put a protection spell on the people attending the wedding who weren’t aware that magic existed. That way, if anything went awry to expose magic to them, there wouldn’t be any consequences. I marveled at how simple magic made some things, while it complicated others. There was still one burning question I hadn’t had the courage to ask. I was contemplating the best time to bring it up when the canvas door on the tent opened.

  “Oh, my heavens, you look so beautiful!” Lorraine gushed as she and the girls came in the tent. Her compliment immediately made me blush. I could handle a room full of businessmen under the closest scrutiny, but to stand in a wedding dress was completely out of my league.

  “Thank you,” I replied shyly. I did a little twirl so they could see the rest of the dress now that I had it on.
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br />   “You could be marrying to solidify the alliance between nations in that dress!” Andi said, clasping her hands over her mouth in adoration.

  “What kind of compliment is that?” Vila whacked Andi in the arm which shocked her fellow genie.

  “She’s more beautiful than any princess I’ve seen wed!” Andi clarified as she hit Vila back.

  “Why didn’t you just say that, then?” Vila rolled her eyes. “Lottie, you look amazing.” Andi opened her mouth to protest, but I stepped in then.

  “Ladies,” I said to them before they had a chance to transform their banter into a full-blown tiff. “Thank you.”

  “So, are you ready?” Lorraine asked as she started to adjust the train on my dress.

  “As long as Bennett is,” I replied. My own reply turned into a question in my mind. I looked at the girls. “Is he?”

  “Oh, honey! Yes, of course, he is!” Vila burst out. “You should’ve heard him over there with the boys earlier! Aside from the usual shop talk about how the program is working out, all he could talk about is how he’s counting the minutes until he can call you his wife!”

  “Really?” The idea of hearing him call me his wife made me blush. It was still hard for me to believe that I was about to marry the shy kid I went to high school with. When we’d met again, years later, he could barely speak when he was around me. We’d definitely come a long way.

  “Yes, really!” Andi answered. “Now, it’s time to get you out there! He’s already waiting at the altar for you! I’ll go get your dad!” Andi darted out of the tent without another word. I looked at Vila and opened my mouth to ask her my question, but she was already on her way out of the tent, too.

  “I’ll go cue the music!” Vila called over her shoulder as she left. I turned around to see Lorraine finish straightening my dress and stand up.

  “I’ll go let the boys know you are ready!” She hurried out of the tent, and I was alone once again. I glanced at myself in the mirror one last time and shrugged.

  “I guess I’ll have to just wait and find out,” I said to my reflection. My dad opened the door to the tent and held his arm out for me, and I was on my way.

  The walk down the aisle was the longest I’d ever done. We held the wedding on the beach beside the house, so the decorations were simple but beautiful. Although we didn’t have many guests, we had enough to set up several rows of chairs on each side.

  The chairs had tiny strings of seashells hanging off the back, clinking together like wind chimes. The ocean was calm that day, so the sound of the tide was muted and soothing. All of it may as well not have been there for as much as I noticed it. I focused my full attention on the amazingly handsome man standing at the altar in front of me. He was wearing a black and white tuxedo with tails and didn’t have shoes on. I didn’t either, for that matter. He looked every bit as tall, strong, and handsome as he always did, but that day it was different. He looked majestic.

  My dad gave me away when we reached the altar, and I stood, facing Bennett, and seeing nothing else in the world. He smiled down at me and squeezed my hands. Suddenly, all the confidence and strength that had left me came rushing back. I was about to make him my husband, and it felt amazing.

  The two of us smiled at each other like we were the only two people in the world while the official started the ceremony. Our eyes never left each other until the man asked for the rings. The one thing that hadn’t gotten done before the wedding was the purchase of the wedding bands. My dad was lending us his for the ceremony, and we’d decided to use my engagement ring for the other one. I slid the band on Bennett’s finger and giggled a little. The ring was gold and couldn’t have looked more out of place on him. He chuckled along with me. Then he pulled out a ring, but it wasn’t my engagement ring.

  “What is that?” I whispered as quietly as I could, shocked.

  “A surprise,” Bennett whispered back. “I wanted you to know that I am yours, wherever you go, whatever you do.”

  “So, you snuck out and bought a ring?” I giggled a little at his nonsense.

  “No, not exactly,” he replied, a mischievous grin on his face. “For me, this ring was a money clip. For you, it’s a sign of me pledging eternity to you.” I watched as he slipped the ring on my hand. It was white gold and had a neat row of diamonds across the top. It was very simple and amazingly beautiful. I looked up at him, not sure I was comprehending what he was telling me.

  “This is the lamp?” I whispered, even more quietly than before.

  “Yes, it is,” he replied happily.

  “It’s beautiful, Bennett!” I forgot to whisper that time, and our attendees started chuckling.

  “That’s not all,” he said after we took a moment to laugh with our crowd. He reached in his pocket, pulled out my engagement ring, and held it up before my eyes. He had used a lightning stone to propose with, and I’d had it mounted in my ring instead of a diamond. It was the most beautiful blue I’d ever seen and represented the adventurous nature our relationship tended to have.

  “Did you have it polished?” It was shining more brightly than it ever had.

  “I did, but there is something you should know about the ring,” he whispered. I stared up at him, not sure if I was in for a good surprise, or just a surprise. I was about to ask him to explain when the official continued the ceremony, apparently not noticing that we were having a conversation.

  “You may now kiss the bride!” the official said loudly, holding his arms out, signaling our guests to stand. Bennett smiled, leaned down, and wrapped his arms around me. Our lips met, and for that kiss, the world melted away. When we pulled apart, he took hold of my left hand and slipped my engagement ring on in front of my wedding band.

  “Do you remember how I told you lightning stones perpetuate magic on earth?” he whispered, his forehead to mine.

  “Yes,” I replied questioningly.

  “This particular stone will make you immortal as long as you wear it,” he said, standing up. I looked at the ring and then back at him as the tears started falling down my face.

  “I didn’t even ask you,” I whispered. “I didn’t ask anyone.” The one question I’d had was how our situation would work out with me aging and eventually dying. I didn’t know how to ask without sounding doubtful, so I just hadn’t, even though it had weighed on me since the moment he’d wished to be a genie.

  “You didn’t have to,” Bennett whispered in my ear as he put his arms around me and picked me up. He swung me around in a circle and set me back down, kissing me again.

  “How did you know?” I was beginning to wonder if he had mind-reading powers as a genie. He turned his head out towards the crowd, and I followed his gaze to where Vila was standing. I looked back at him just as he mouthed ‘Tell Gisele ‘thank you’ for me.’ Vila shot him a small grin and nodded her acknowledgment. He returned his attention to me and flashed that dashing smile of his.

  “So, have you thought about what you’ll wish for?” he asked as he swooped down and picked me up, cradling me in his arms.

  “I haven’t, really. I know what I won’t be wishing for, though…” I turned my face to his and kissed him again. “I won’t be wishing to be a genie! Have you seen how many dishes I’ve had to replace since you sprouted mist?” He rolled his eyes at me, and the two of us laughed.

  “Take your time deciding. I took my time and look how it turned out!” he said as he carried me back down the aisle. When we reached the end, he set me down just as Andi and Vila ran up to us, throwing their arms around the two of us. I gazed up at my new husband and smiled. I felt as though our adventures were just beginning.

  “I know your wishes have ended up having great results for me. Just imagine what could happen now that I have three wishes of my own!”

  Author’s Note

  Hey, if you got here, I just want you to know that you’re awesome! I wrote this book just for someone like you, and if you want another one, it is super important that you leave a review.


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