Three Wishes

I caught the movement out of the corner of my eye. A glass cylinder rolled from the shelf. I grabbed at the falling object and actually caught it. Superior reaction speed was not a skill I normally possessed.

I studied what I’d saved. It was a fountain pen comprised of two strands of twisted clear glass. The design was unusual, one of the strands had to be the ink reservoir but I couldn’t see a mechanism for filling it. I looked at the price label, gasped and placed the pen back on the shelf.

The signs regarding breakages made me happy I’d caught the pen. Despite the fact it seemed to have moved of its own volition, I was sure that even Soulforge’s eccentric proprietor, Emily, wouldn’t have believed me if it had smashed.

I headed for the exit and sneezed. I loved the Gothic ornaments, but could do without the incense sticks. Their cloying scents aggravated my nose.

“Bless you Sarah.”

I browsed regularly enough that Emily knew my name. The shop was close to the hospital and a nice place to take a break between visits. My other haunt, Natterjacks Café, was opposite. Being fair, fat and forty I had no business eating so many muffins.

I waved farewell to Emily.

“I saw you catch that pen.” She called. The road system of wrinkles on her face deepened with her smile. “Nice reflexes.”

“Thanks.”

She had fantastic eyesight for somebody her age, unless she knew exactly where she placed all her stock.

Shuffling out from behind the counter, Emily grasped my forearm with a skeletal hand, her grip belying her frail appearance.

She dragged me back down the aisle and thrust the pen at me.

“It chose you.”

“I couldn’t, it’s too expensive.” I complained as she propelled me out of the shop. “But...”

She closed the door, flicked the latch and flipped the sign to ‘closed’ behind me.

It was a generous gift if oddly given. I stared at it thinking, ‘For such an expensive pen there’s no protection for the nib.’ Then I dropped it into my huge bucket bag.

-xXx-

It was just after midnight when my mobile rang. I grabbed my bag from beneath my bed and rummaged inside.

“Ouch!”

Something sharp had stabbed the palm of my hand. I ignored the sting and retrieved my phone - just in time to read the caller id before the ring tone stopped.

“No. No.”

My insides twisted. Calling this late, it had to be bad news. I fumbled with the phone, absently sucking at my palm.

“Come on. Pick up.”

“Sarah...”

I couldn’t understand any more of what mum said through her sobbing. Unfortunately, I didn’t need to.

“You at the hospital?”

“They said get everybody here.”

Dad had been in hospital for a week. It was his second major heart attack and he was in the ICU. The prognosis was poor and I’d dreaded this call.

After what felt like eternity, but was only fifteen minutes, I reached the hospital and parked outside Soulforge, an easy spot to park at that hour. I ran as much as I could, which didn’t happen often and left my legs feeling like rubber.

Mum held dad’s limp, pale hand. Her face was as grey as his was, except for the red rimmed eyes and the blotches she always got when she cried.
Dad was non-responsive so I could pretend he wasn’t in pain.

I didn’t need medical training to see the heart monitor pattern was wrong and the corresponding beeps irregular.

“Hey.” I pulled a chair next to her and put my arm around her shoulders.

I opened my bag and gingerly looked for one of the pocket packs of tissues. I handed them to her and looked back into the bags depths.

The tissues had been next to Emily’s pen, which was warm. Pulling it out of my bag, I was surprised to see one of the strands of glass was crimson. I held it up to the light; the crimson was a liquid.

I was still clutching the pen when I fell asleep. I knew I was dreaming because it glowed a sickly yellow and whispered with a sibilant blend of many voices; old and young, male and female.

“Make you first wish Mistress.”

“What do you mean?”

“For your offering, we grant three wishes.”

“You mean like a genie?” I laughed.

“Not genie. We are Djinn.” It hissed

“What did I give you?”

“It cannot be retracted.”

The coldness of that statement terrified me.

“How does it work?”

“The pen is a mighty tool.”

“Anything?”

I imagined my dad healthy and my mum happy.

“We cannot raise the dead, wish soon.”

Dawn arrived and dad hadn’t deteriorated any further. I heaved myself out of the orange plastic chair and went to fetch coffee from Natterjacks. Mum and I hated what the vending machine dispensed; it tasted like plastic.

Emily stood beside my car when I came out of the cafe.

“What you doing here at this time?”

“My dad.” I answered. “What’re you doing up so early?”

“Waiting for you.” She began to sob. “I have to warn you, the pen’s not what it seems.”

I stood my coffee on top of my car and gave her a hug.

“Emily, I wish ...”

“No!” She screamed. “Never wish, never write and whatever you do never get blood on that pen.”

This was odd, even for Emily.

“I have to get back.”

Emily wrung her hands. “The whisperers are false.” She called after me as I hurried away.

The sight of mum made my heart constrict. She sat on an uncomfortable chair, leaning against dad’s white blanket. Unspeaking, just holding his hand and crying.

“Why don’t you go and have a fag while I sit with him?”

Mum didn’t reply, just picked up her bag and left. Smoking breaks were the only time she willingly left dad’s bedside.

I took her place and my dad’s hand. I’d run out of things to tell him. Nothing new happened while I sat there.

“Hi dad, mum’s just gone for a fag so you’re stuck with me for a minute.”

Nothing. I didn’t expect there to be, but I hoped.

“I was given a pen yesterday. It should have been really expensive but I caught it so Emily gave it me.”

I knew I was rambling but it was speech.

“Last night, I dreamt there were Djinn inside it and I get three wishes.

Emily warned me the pen wasn’t what it seemed but the Djinn could fix everything. Am I crazy for wanting to try it?”

Dad didn’t answer. If it weren’t for the slight rise and fall of his chest and the irregular beep of the monitoring machine, he might be dead already.

“Dad, wake up.” I begged. “Not just for me - for mum too.”

Tears slid from beneath my lashes and rolled down my nose and cheeks. My chest constricted and I couldn’t swallow past the lump in my throat. I wanted to run away screaming, but I couldn’t leave until mum came back. She’d never forgive me if I left him alone when one of us could be there.

One of the nurses asked me to step outside of the bay. She closed the curtain behind me just as mum came back.

“The nurse is in there.” I called as I fled. “I’m popping to the loo.”

I hid in the cubicle and wondered if I’d gone mad. The pen had pricked my hand. If the Djinn had really spoken to me, the offering was my blood - the ink. All I needed to do was write my wish down.

If I were insane, nothing would happen. If not, then everything could be all right again.

I wouldn’t wish for my parents to live forever. People’s bodies wear out. Neither could die leaving the other behind. I pulled my diary and the pen out of my bag and wrote: I wish my parents were both as healthy as the day they were born.

I instantly felt foolish. There was no such thing as magic. Then I heard the Djinn laughing. It was a discordant, cruel noise.

“What a kind and thoughtful wish Mistress. Don’t you wish for something for yourself?”

Without realising I was doing it I wrote: I wish I were half my weight.

‘I really am crazy, sitting on the loo hearing voices and making wishes’ I thought.

I’d hidden long enough so I returned to dad’s bedside. A crowd of clinicians had gathered around it but I couldn’t see my parents.

In the bed, half smothered by dad’s pyjamas and attached to the heart monitor was a baby. On the chair by the bed were my mum’s clothes and the doctor held a second baby.

“Where are my parents?”

I knew, but I needed to hear somebody say it.

“We don’t know.” Cried a nurse, “Where did the babies come from?”

“I asked for them to be as healthy, not as young.” I screamed.

I ran from the hospital and found myself at Soulforge. Emily sat knitting behind the counter despite the early hour.

I flung the door open making the door chimes ring violently.

“I made two wishes and now my parents are babies and I don’t know what to do?”

She looked up from her knitting. I was relieved that the shop was empty of customers.

“I warned you.”

“But it’s your fault.” I yelled. “You gave me a cursed pen.”

“It isn’t like that.”

She pointed to a second chair. Weak kneed, I sank into it. I wanted to scream at her, but I needed Emily’s help.

“The Djinn twisted what I’d wished for. So, I refused to make my third wish. For this past fifty years I’ve had cancer but the pen wouldn’t let me die.”

“What happened?”

“The Djinn have always forced their ‘owner’ to wish for death. The Djinn take and torture the souls. Suffering is what sustains them.”

“Why didn’t you destroy it?”

“I tried, but once it belongs to somebody the pen is unbreakable. The Djinn are trapped inside but they are immortal.”

“You’re still alive. What did you wish for?”

“The pen to belong to somebody who could destroy it.”

“Could not would?”

“You have the possibility.”

“Then we have Djinn running amok?”

“No they die, and the trapped souls are freed.”

“You said the souls sustained the Djinn.”

“The soul is immortal. It can be tortured forever.”

“Nice. How long did you research this?”

“A century, I made the wish fifty years ago”

I had no idea what to do. I should return to the hospital and try to get my parents, but as my second wish hadn’t yet been granted they were probably safer without me. I had visions of food poisoning to cause dramatic weight loss.

I was exhausted; perhaps my outlook would improve if I could think straight. Driving home I fought to stay alert but I couldn’t help becoming distracted by my fears.

I rounded a bend to meet a lorry head on. I had nowhere to go.

The airbag exploded forcing me back in my seat. Then the dashboard crumpled with an awful crunching noise and the pain began. First pressure, then burning and tearing as it ripped through me - tearing me in half.

For a moment I thought, ‘I’m supposed to live until I make my last wish.’ I realised with horror that this was the fulfilment of my second.
I screamed until my throat wouldn’t work. Finally, I passed out.

I awoke again in agony in my hospital bed. I knew they were gone, but I could still feel my legs being pulped and ripped off. My vocal chords were ruined.

A nurse arrived carrying a syringe. She administered the painkiller, which only dulled the pain to bearable levels. It had been months since the accident and my condition remained the same. I should be dead.

“Do you want anything?”

I nodded. Paper waited on the table and she pushed a pencil into my hand.

'My bag?' I wrote

“Something in particular?” She asked as she opened the bedside cabinet and pulled it out.

'Red pen.'

She placed it in reach and left.

The pain was already returning. I picked up the pen. The Djinn were waiting.

“Do you wish the pain to stop?”

I didn’t answer. Very slowly, as that was all I could manage I wrote: I wish I had never caught this pen when it fell from the shelf at Soulforge.

I caught the movement out of the corner of my eye. A glass cylinder rolled from the shelf. I grabbed at the falling object and missed. Superior reaction speed was not a skill I possessed. I closed my eyes and cringed as I imagined the breakage costs and the fountain pen shattered as it hit the floor.