Genie and the Sandman

by Julie Parker

About ten minutes later I stood on the landing. This one was even squeakier then Logan’s, and every measured step I took had to be soft and carefully planned. Faint shuffling sounded below, like a newspaper being hastily read, leading me to believe I wasn’t alone. The stairs seemed endlessly long when I peered down upon the gloomy first floor. My gaze swept the landing once more as I was trying to decide if I should take my chances in one of the other rooms or if I should attempt to descend below. I’d left the window in my prison open wide. I’d also closed and relocked the bedroom door from the outside. If I was gone when the men came looking for me, I hoped they would assume I had taken my chances on the roof and escaped into the forest. If I hid out until they left to search for me, I could leave through the front door.

  Deciding this was the better idea, I crept to the farthest doorway, assuming it was another bedroom. I was surprised when I tried the lock and it wouldn’t budge. I pulled my little tools out of my pocket and went to work. It seemed I was getting quite efficient, because moments later I got it open. I stepped inside and shut the door, leaning against it while my eyes became adjusted to the dim light. There was only one window in this room as far as I could make out; a heavy curtain hung across it, hindering the daylight. I couldn’t hear any sounds from below and I began to relax.

  Until, I heard a voice.

  Raspy and frightening, from across the room it came, freezing me to the spot. “Hello,” it said. “Is anybody there?”

  I almost jumped right out of my skin. Suddenly every scary movie I’d ever watched in my entire life flashed before my eyes, ending with visions of hideous Sir Gregor in his monster form. I held my breath, expecting something terrible to leap across the room and rip into me, thinking I was lunch.

  Finally I found my voice. “Who’s there?” It took everything inside of me not to open the door and barrel downstairs, fed or no fed.

  “Are you here to save me?” The voice was barely a whisper, though tinged with a trace of hope. My ears strained, trying to put a face to the voice. It almost sounded child-like this time, and therefore, not so frightening. I took a few steps forward, now being able to make out a slumped dark shape against the wall beneath the window.

  “Are you hurt?” I asked, getting closer until I was near enough to crouch down.

  “No, just thirsty.” That explained the raspy voice. “And I want my mom….” The voice broke off with a sob.

  “There now,” I soothed, reaching out to touch the shape. It was a blanket, I realized as soon as I lay my hand on it. A blanket, covering the shivering form of a little child. I could see her clearly now that my eyes had finally adjusted to the dim light. “Everything will be all right.”

  “No,” she suddenly squeaked. Her blank gaze became animated and darted toward the doorway. “He’s coming.”

  I couldn’t hear anything. I crept back toward the bedroom door and fiddled with the lock until it clicked back into place. I put my ear against the door and listened.

  “He put the paper down, and now he’s coming up the stairs.”

  “How do you know? I can’t hear anything,” I whispered back.

  She cowered more deeply into the folds of her blanket. I went back over to sit down beside her and put a comforting arm around her tiny shape.

  “I can hear stuff,” she revealed. “Stuff nobody else can.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Ever since I almost fell into a well a couple of years ago. I dropped my coin in before I could wish, and I kinda fell over the side trying to get it back. I remember hearing my mom yelling, “Be careful!” She grabbed me just in time. When she pulled me out she said, “I wish you’d listen.” And now I do. To everything.”

  Chapter Eight

  So it was the well that had brought us together, here in this place, against our will. The feds must have figured out that sometimes wishes made at the well were fulfilled. The two of us were proof. Why they’d brought us to this house in the middle of nowhere was still a mystery, but it appeared something far more sinister was going on than what I’d initially believed. They hadn’t been after me because I was profiting from selling wishes to the town of Trent. Not entirely. They were after the secret of the well.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t know much about how it all worked. A coin had to be dropped in, and there was the whole “get water on you” deal. Maybe there had to be a full moon that day as well? I wasn’t sure. There could have been a hundred variables at play those times wishes happened, for indeed, I knew it wasn’t always the case.

  Baleck had told Logan and me that Lord Nelson had returned to the well for years and years, wishing on every full moon, until finally one fateful night, he received his just rewards. His only son had become the most feared and powerful man in the land, but he had also become a monster. I hoped Lord Nelson had learned his lesson and would never again attempt to make a wish come true.

  It was strange. Even though each world I’d entered was different, one thing remained the same…the well. It was always there, stingily granting wishes to innocent unsuspecting victims, usually with dire consequences. Baleck had called my gift a curse. I hadn’t thought so at the time, but now I wasn’t completely convinced. Having the remarkable ability to heal had caused me to become coveted and hunted like an animal. It had put unsavory ideas of financial gain into the twisted minds of tyrants.

  “What’s your name?” I asked the trembling child.

  “Pauly. P.A.U.L.Y,” she spelled out. “After my dad, not like the parrot, and no, I don’t wanna cracker, but I do wanna drink.”

  I smiled. “My name is Payton. I’m happy to meet you, Pauly. Now, if you want a drink, all you have to do is wish. I’ve also been to the well, and I too have a gift.” More like a curse, but I didn’t want to say it out loud.

  “You do?”

  “Yes. I can grant wishes, just like a genie.”

  Pauly’s eyes suddenly bulged and her head snapped toward the door. “He’s upstairs.”

  Her words were so softly spoken I almost failed to hear them. But soon, the unmistakable sound of a heavy tread on a squeaky landing came to my ears. “Shhh….” I held her closer and we both waited in anticipation.

  “What the h—?!” came the expected yell.

  No doubt he had unlocked my door and found the open window, and assumed I’d escaped, just as I’d planned. We heard the hard, rapid footsteps stomping down the stairs, and then the slam of the front door. Quickly I turned and focused on Pauly. “We don’t have much time. You have to wish now. Wish for us to be safe.”

  Pauly looked about to panic, but she wiggled up onto her knees before me. “I…I wish….”

  “You can do it.”

  “I wish…the bad men can’t get us.”

  As much as I wanted to say, “No, that’s not gonna work,” my body was no longer mine to command. Pauly watched in awe as my hands came up and clapped before my face. Then I said, “I wish the bad men can’t get us.” My head gave a nod.

  The next thing I knew, we were on the roof of the old house.

  When Pauly saw where we landed she immediately screamed at the top of her lungs. She leaped at me and clung so hard she nearly knocked me off balance. “This isn’t what I meant,” she cried.

  “How did you get up there?” demanded a deep voice from below.

  We both looked down, and to our dismay saw the angry fed glaring up at us. He ran around the other side of the house, out of view, and I suspected he was looking for a way onto the roof. I pried myself out of Pauly’s death grip.

  “You need to wish again. This time wish that—”

  “I wish the bad man can’t see us!”

  Darn it all! Again, I acted out the genie stuff and repeated the words. And to my great dismay, Pauly suddenly disappeared right before my eyes. I felt frantic, but I feared to call out to her.

  “Payton?” I heard an urgent whisper. I felt the pressure of little hands against me and breathed a sigh of relief. Pauly was still here, she was just invisib
le.

  “Where are you, Payton?”

  I looked down at myself then, and to my shock and horror realized that I too was invisible.

  Plus we were still on the roof.

  Fantastic.

  I put out my hands and latched onto Pauly, holding her tight. “It’s okay. I’m still here. We’re just both invisible.”

  “Neat.”

  “Shh….” I could hear scraping sounds against the side of the rooftop. Moments later a ladder appeared, and then the head of our captor popped up, looking in our direction. Pauly trembled but kept silent. Part of me feared she would bolt and we’d find ourselves in even more trouble. The state of the roof wasn’t much sturdier then the one outside the bedroom window had been. I had to hope it would hold our weight.

  “Where are you?” yelled the man. He climbed fully onto the roof and swung his head around searching. When he failed to see us, he cautiously stepped around the perimeter of the roof, looking toward the ground. He then got back onto the ladder and climbed down again. The front door slammed, and I assumed he’d gone back inside to search for us.

  “He thinks we got out the window and climbed onto the roof,” I said.

  “He left the ladder,” Pauly pointed out.

  Holding her invisible hand, I guided her toward the edge of the roof. “I’ll get on the ladder first and start down. You get on after me, all right?”

  I could hear her gulp. “Okay.”

  It took us about five agonizing minutes to ease our way down to the ground. Once we were at the bottom, I took Pauly’s hand into mine again.

  “What are we gonna do, Payton?”

  I shrugged. “We’re going to walk right out of here.”

  “It’s a long walk home.” I could hear the hesitation in her voice.

  She was right. Even if we were invisible we weren’t immune to hunger and thirst. It was probably about two or three o’clock. I was tired from our ordeal and starving, so I could just imagine how my little friend was faring.

  “Okay, Pauly. Change of plans.” We heard the front door open. We turned and watched as the fed ran back out and darted off into the woods. I led Pauly toward the door.

  I felt a little tug at my hand. “I thought we were leaving.”

  “I want to get us a drink and something to eat. Hopefully, those guys have some supplies inside.”

  “Can’t I just get us outta here with a w—?”

  “No,” I snapped, more harshly then I intended. “I’m sorry, Pauly.” We walked into the kitchen. I seated her at the table and then bent down before the cooler on the floor and lifted the lid. I passed her a bottle of water and took one for myself. As I drank, I watched Pauly’s suspended bottle tilt down. Water poured out, only to disappear into thin air. I suppose I looked just as weird drinking mine.

  “You only get three wishes,” I finally said.

  “Only three?” She put her half empty bottle on the table.

  I sat down in a chair across from her. “Yes. And you need to be very specific about your next wish.”

  “Like how?”

  I pondered for a moment. “I need to think of something to get us out of this mess. But I also don’t want the fed’s to ever come looking for you again.”

  “What about you?”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be leaving soon and they won’t ever find me.”

  “I’m gonna miss you, Payton.”

  She couldn’t see it but I smiled at her anyway. “I’ll miss you too.”

  At that moment the fed came back into the house. Feeling suddenly brave, and more than a little annoyed, I got up, strode down the hall to the entranceway, and tossed my water bottle at his feet. It was time for some payback. The shocked expression on his face was priceless. Pauly’s water landed at his feet next. The fed backed into the large room off to the right. We followed him.

  I could feel the brush of Pauly’s hand against mine. I leaned down and whispered to her, “Let’s scare him.”

  “Okay,” she whispered, then giggled. “Woo…whoo…,” came next in a ghostly voice.

  The man looked all around him, trying to locate where the sound was coming from. “Who’s there?”

  I snuck up behind him and made some scary noises of my own. “You killed us,” I chimed out in a ghostly voice.

  “You killed us,” sang out Pauly.

  “We fell off the roof and died. And now we’re gonna haunt you…forever….”

  “Forever,” Pauly echoed.

  Guided by the ghostly noises Pauly continued to make, I made my way back over to her. For added scare effect, I floated a few items past the fed, keeping out of reach of his swinging arms.

  That’s when we heard the front door slam again.

  With all the noise we’d been making, even Pauly’s super ears had failed to notice the other fed driving up. He took one look at his white-faced partner and froze.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “The kids…they got onto the roof somehow...and…must of fell off.” He turned his fearful gaze on the other man. “They’re…haunting me.”

  “What? Are you nuts, man? Maybe you fell off the roof and hit your stupid head.”

  “Wooo…,” Pauly said. She picked a dusty old pillow off the three-legged couch and tossed it at the disbeliever.

  “This is our house now,” I groaned. “Leave, or join us…forever.”

  “Forever.”

  Anything we could lay our hands on we tossed at them, until we finally drove them from the house. We watched from the window, giggling like a couple of schoolgirls, as they jumped into the car and tore down the road as fast as they could go. Once they were out of sight, I walked back into the middle of the room and put the pillow back onto the couch. That’s when I noticed the cell phone on the floor. One of them must have dropped it in their haste to leave.

  “Pauly, look at this.” I picked up the phone and showed it to her.

  “I can call my mom.” Then she made a wailing noise. “But she won’t see me. She’ll think I’m a ghost just like those men did.”

  “No. You’re going to have to make a final wish. I want you to wish that people can see you again. Not me…just you.”

  “Don’t you want people to see you too, Payton?”

  Not yet; I had a plan. “Soon. Don’t worry, I can get someone else to wish me back. Let’s just worry about you right now.”

  “Okay, if you want. Then I wish that people can see me again.”

  After doing the genie thing, Pauly soon appeared before me. “I can see you.”

  “I still can’t see you.”

  I waved the cell phone before her. “What’s your phone number? I want you to call your mom to come and get you. Just don’t mention me though, okay?”

  She looked in my direction curiously. “You wanna go and scare some more people first?”

  If she could have seen my wicked smile she probably would have run for cover. “Yeah. You could say that.”

  Chapter Nine

  We jogged out to the main road after I buried the cell phone in the forest. Pauly kept out of sight, just in case the fed’s got brave and returned to the old house, except in the end, they didn’t and we were picked up safely.

  Pauly’s mom unknowingly drove me back into town with them. She was so happy to see her daughter, and so full of questions that I wasn’t worried Pauly would slip up and reveal my ghostly presence. For a little kid, Pauly played it cool. She mentioned she’d had help escaping, but that her companion had to leave in a hurry and walked home.

  Though I was still slightly concerned about the fed’s—if that’s what they really were—figuring things out and coming after us again, I felt better when I heard Pauly’s mom say she planned on packing them up and taking them home as soon as possible. I suppose their summerhouse was in Trent, like my family’s. They probably wouldn’t be in any hurry to return to it in the future after this.

  I made my escape once we reached Pauly’s cottage. She saw
the back door of the car ease open and quietly close again when she turned back on her way inside the cottage. She waved. I waved back, although she couldn’t see me.

  Her cottage was closer to town than mine, and about ten minutes later I entered Trent. My hunger was so fierce by this point I was tempted to secretly invade the pizza joint, but I forced my discomfort aside and headed straight to Logan’s house. We’d only been in this new world for a few days, and apart for less than that, but I missed him. A lot. I’d seen him briefly that morning, and again a little later, but it wasn’t much. It was now late afternoon…close to the dinner hour, according to my hollering stomach. I went around the house and peered in the window. When I saw the coast was clear, I snuck in the back door. No one was in the kitchen, but there was a casserole cooling on the stovetop. I couldn’t resist digging into the noodles, veggies, chicken, and creamy sauce with a spoon. There was a lot in the dish, so my small helping wouldn’t be overly obvious.

  Logan’s mom and dad were in the living room. His dad’s eyes were glued to the TV set, and his mom’s nose was buried in a newspaper, probably waiting for dinner to cool. I suddenly felt like Goldilocks, breaking into their home and eating their food.

  Not worrying about the squeaky floor or the even squeakier stairs, I strolled right past them. Logan’s bedroom was my destination. Since I hadn’t seen him sitting at his mommy’s feet, I figured he was probably up there.

  When I reached his door I eased it open and peeked inside. He was lying back on his mattress staring up at the ceiling, and took no notice of me slipping into his room and closing the door. Slowly I crept toward him, hoping if he couldn’t see me, I wouldn’t be sent flying back to my cottage. Every step I took I feared would be my last, but soon I was standing at the foot of his bed.

  The loud growling of my stomach got his attention. Apparently, I’d failed to appease my appetite.

  Logan sat up, a curious look on his face. “Payton? Is that you?”

  I was dumbfounded. How could he possibly know from my growling gut that I was with him? I was invisible, for heaven’s sake. “Yeah, it’s me.”