The WishKeeper (The Paragonia Chronicles)

by Timm, Maximilian

  “Stop it!”

  “And what about dear old Dad? Do you think he’ll grant your wishes? He gave up on you years ago. You’re what? Nothing more than a liability.”

  “Go away!” she gasped through gushing tears and sprinted through the forest, pushing against the storm. It was useless as Erebus swirled a tornado of snow and ice around her, knocking her to the ground. The wind howled and Shea gave up, falling and hugging the little Wish in her arms.

  “How did you expect to escape? Through a gate? Even if they weren’t being blown apart by your foolishness, you’re not a WishKeeper, Shea. And you never will be,” he said as he leaned closer.

  “I am a WishKeeper! I can grant this!” she screamed.

  “Then let me help you prove them wrong, Shea. You can be the WishKeeper you’ve always wished to be.”

  Erebus pulled back and held out both of his hands, palms up. Images slowly materialized above them, flickering to life. Shea looked at the images, swiveling her head back and forth. What was this magic? What was he doing?

  The visions formed and Shea suddenly knew what he was presenting her. Two options. Above one palm was a ghostly image of Grayson and Miranda hugging, kissing, as happy as she had ever seen two WishMakers. Above his other palm was a bright blue and pink image of Shea - flying. Her wings were perfect, beautiful. Wind rushed against her ecstatic face. Two separate versions of happiness - Grayson and Miranda on the left, and her own on the right.

  “No,” Shea choked. “It’s not real and it’s not…”

  “Oh, it’s possible,” Erebus cut in. “But both are not. It’s one or the other, my little Shea. Your mother made a choice once. And you remember how that turned out.”

  The image of Shea flying quickly changed to her as a little fairy crying in bed. She was lying on her stomach, both of her shredded wings protruding from her back, ugly, charred, skeletal. The little fairy girl crying uncontrollably in her bed, alone, hugging her pillow.

  “Do you think everything will change, Shea? That suddenly you will be accepted by your worthless peers and allowed into the Keeper force? That Paragonia will be saved and all will be well again. Whose Paragonia are you saving? The world you live in will still be bereft of any hope to fly again. It won’t be the Paragonia you loved to see from above. Your one and only wish to fly will still never be granted and you will forever be chained to the ground.”

  Shea tried to keep her eyes on the image of Grayson and Miranda. She tried to hold on to the image of her family’s WishMakers living a life of love, happiness and fulfillment, but what about her own life? Every wish she had ever had, every dream she had at night that kept her perfect wings in tact, never came true. They were never going to come true…and it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that she was the only fairy affected by that blast ten years ago, and it wasn’t fair she was the only one who had to carry the visible burden of weakness. The symbol of a dying Paragonia. Every time her fellow WishKeepers would look at her, they saw the hopelessness of their vanishing freedom. They saw their future and how dim it truly was.

  A black hand reached out from Erebus’ shadowed cloak and extended toward Shea. The images above his palms whisked away in the winter wind and she pulled the wish in close, not giving in. He can’t have it! As horrible as it was to be an example of such a dismal future, she had to hold onto hope. She had to hold on to the only possibility of ever living a life not in fear, but in love. Even if it meant she could never fly again.

  Stretching closer and closer, his scrawny, skeleton-like foggy hand caressed Shea’s head, but didn’t reach for the wish. For a moment she thought Erebus understood how difficult of a choice this was for her. How impossible it was to exchange her world’s last hope for her ability to fly. Oh, to fly again. To feel the freedom of weightlessness. To snag your breath upon the branches of your beautiful world that stretched out so openly beneath you, waiting for you to explore, to see, to love it as unconditionally as it loved you. Oh, to fly again.

  Her thoughts rattled back and forth as she stared into the darkness of Erebus’ eyes. Could he grant my wish? Could he really do such a thing? I wish…

  As if listening and answering her question, he slid his icy fingers along her broken wings and a slow, pulsating light emanated from them.

  “A wish for a wish,” Erebus whispered.

  Shea could hear more than his whisper. She could hear the echoes of all of her unfulfilled wishes; every wish she had ever had rang in her ears as the shadow king caressed her ugly wings. Her wings. The echoes stopped and only one wish flooded her mind. Her wings.

  Growing brighter and brighter, Erebus’ spell lifted Shea off the ground and suspended her in air. Her arms were outstretched as her wings exploded with a fantastic purple light. She hung there, clasped in the fulfillment of a wish. Her thick, red blonde hair danced in the freezing wind until an explosion almost as bright as the golden gates poured through the forest. Breath left her lungs and she fell to the ground, gasping. On her knees, she slowly opened her eyes.

  Reaching her hand behind her back, she felt something she hadn’t felt since she was a child. It was something that was always there when she would dream at night, but then would quickly vanish when waking, drenched in sweat. Scared to touch it, she knew they were there.

  Her wings were fixed. Both fluttered in perfect symmetry like a butterfly.

  The wind rushed back in and woke her from her state. She looked up at Erebus. He was smiling, standing over her and the True Love Wish was in his arms.

  “You’re welcome,” he said.

  Shea gasped, realizing what she’d done. “No!”

  With a rush of darkness, Erebus rocketed a wave of fog at Shea and sent her crashing into a tree. She fell, unconscious.

  With a black flash, Erebus was gone.

  32

  Ingredients

  The windows of the little cottage rattled as the wind thrust its natural might against it with another blast. Half a dozen candles flickered throughout the drafty home as Grayson and Miranda sat in awkward silence staring at a self-conscious and nervous Thane. He stood on the coffee table with his hands in his pockets while organizing a few magazines with his feet, lining them up in a neat and orderly pile. The wide-eyed stares from the Makers weren’t making it any easier to begin the lecture he knew was necessary. Each time he looked up with a heave of a concentrated breath ready to explain, all he could muster was an open-mouthed grunt.

  Miranda and Grayson huddled close, staring at him. There was a tiny fairy standing on their coffee table. He was pacing. Sweating. Talking to himself. When he brushed his hand through his thick, wavy hair, a tiny battle of emotions stormed through their shivering bodies. They didn’t know whether to laugh hysterically, or faint.

  Nudging another magazine with his toe, he decided to start slow, though beginning such a conversation could have been better conveyed. “So. Made a wish, huh? Pretty cool.”

  Miranda immediately pushed the blanket off of her and stood. “OK, this is too much.”

  “What wish?” Grayson asked, studying the little fairy.

  “There’s a fairy talking to us and I just came over here to…” Miranda mumbled to herself as she paced to and from the kitchen.

  “What happened to that other fairy and why were her wings broken?” The amount of questions that rattled Grayson’s brain and begged for answers was almost too much for his mouth to handle.

  At this point, Thane was reacting like he was watching a heated ping-pong match. Words were coming at him at such a rapid rate, for a moment he wished Lost Fairies were attacking so he didn’t have to deal with this.

  “Tea pots are exploding. Black fog is covering our house in the middle of winter. Little people with wings…” Miranda continued, barely able to breath.

  “They were fighting over something. One of them was holding some kind of light,” Grayson said, leaning so close to Thane the little fairy backed away thinking he might be blown over by his tackling words.

&nb
sp; “I mean I knew this was going to be a difficult conversation to have, but I just came over to…” Miranda continued.

  Finally taking his glare away from Thane, Grayson’s frustration with Miranda finally surfaced, “Why did you come over here?”

  “I needed to talk to you, not a fairy!”

  “I didn’t think we’d have guests, ya know!”

  “Guests? It’s a fairy!”

  “Well, let’s talk then! Obviously we have a lot to talk about!” Grayson raised his voice for the first time.

  “Hey! Hey! Please! I can explain if you two just shut up for a second!” Thane didn’t like being called a fairy. He felt it was too feminine of a description, but he also knew that if he didn’t cut the two Makers off he might have to use his wand on them. Not a bad thought, really, but he quickly shook off the idea. “How did you two make a True Love Wish if you argue so much?”

  “You keep talking about wishes. And true love?” Grayson calmed a bit as Miranda slowly walked over to the side of the couch awaiting an explanation she knew she probably wouldn’t be able to understand.

  “I’ll try to keep this short, but I really don’t know where to begin,” Thane said as Miranda lowered herself to the couch cushions. She wiped her sweaty palms on her knees and listened.

  “My name’s Thane. I’m a WishKeeper. Well, not yet, but I will be. Maybe. We look after your wishes once you make them. Every wish is powerful, but a True Love Wish is, well, pretty important as you can imagine. Or, maybe you can’t imagine, but just go with me on this.”

  “And we each made one? A True Love Wish?” Grayson asked.

  “Two actually. Which is weird and has never happened before. Your first was made ten years ago.”

  The WishMakers looked at each other. To say they were confused would be an understatement, and even though it was difficult for Miranda to comprehend any of this, something dawned on her.

  “What happened to the first one?” she asked.

  Thane was apprehensive since his kind had never purposely killed a wish before. He wasn’t sure how they would react. “Uh, well. It was destroyed.”

  Miranda leaned against the back of the sofa. Even though all of this was completely ridiculous, she knew she wasn’t hallucinating and that a fairy was standing directly in front of her. If all of what she was hearing and witnessing was actually true, the so-called missing link, the “something” that was missing between her and Grayson, suddenly made sense. It made sense, at least, on a completely and utterly outlandish level.

  “You see, a TLW can’t be made unless both Makers make the same loving wish for the other. Two unconditionally loving wishes combine to create one True Love Wish. It’s very rare and until now, Makers only ever make one in their entire lifetime,” Thane continued. He felt like he was gaining momentum and his little lecture might be easier than expected. “The problem is, your wish is supposed to be granted, but there are others who…” he was cut off, much to his disappointment since he was catching a groove. Grayson and Miranda were no longer looking at him, but instead tearfully looking at each other.

  “I thought you didn’t love me anymore?” Grayson asked his wife.

  She looked back at Thane. “What happens if the wish is destroyed?” Her voice was quivering with equal amounts of excitement and sorrow.

  “Our world grows weaker and…well, it’s simple, really. The wish doesn’t come true.” Even though he personally thought it was simple, he quickly realized the Makers didn’t.

  “And our second wish. It hasn’t been destroyed?” Miranda asked.

  “Not yet,” Thane didn’t mean to be ominous, it was just the truth.

  Grayson softly placed his hand in Miranda’s. He wasn’t listening to Thane anymore. His only concern was for his wife and marriage. They met eyes and Miranda knew what he was asking.

  “Of course I still love you, Gray. That’s why I came over tonight.”

  Thane smiled while he watched the Makers hold hands. He felt most of his work was done here and it was rather successful.

  “But that wasn’t exactly what I wished for,” Miranda continued.

  Both Grayson and Thane looked at her with confused glares.

  “Wait, what?” Thane chirped.

  “What did you wish for?” Grayson asked, hesitant to hear the answer.

  “Evidently we wished for the same thing, so you tell me.”

  Grayson looked at Thane for a little help, but the Keeper-in-training just shrugged his shoulders. This was beyond his realm of support.

  “I just wish you were happy,” Grayson whispered, heartfelt. He knew that his wish was one of selflessness; a wish for happiness with or without him and he understood that the real reason Miranda came over tonight was to discuss the latter.

  Smiling through heavy tears, Miranda nodded. For so many years she knew something was off between them. There was something missing and searching for it became as normal to her as breathing, but suddenly a possibility of discovering what that might be was upon her. Even though she had planned to leave Grayson and wished he would find true happiness without her in his life, a weight was lifted. A weight so heavy the lightness of being was almost uncomfortable.

  Diffident in his approach to break the silence, Thane knew he needed to say something. This was all too depressing. “Look. Your wish is in trouble and even though I have no idea how, it needs to be granted and not just for you two, but for our kind as well. There is…well, it’s a really long story, but someone wants it for himself and that really can’t happen.”

  A burst of wind howled against the side of the house. It shook as if a sudden earthquake had erupted and wouldn’t stop. Miranda grabbed on to Grayson as the couch shifted and slid across the floor. Thane fell and braced himself along the edge of the coffee table.

  The quaking finally slowed as a rush of bitter wind blew through the room, dousing the flickering candles. Pitch black, the room slowly lit from a source of light emanating from the center of the room. Bigger and bigger it grew until seeping in under the doors and through the windows, Erebus took shape. The light source was shining from his hands and cast an eerie, red glow, silhouetting his deep black cloak and pointed hood. Jumping to the couch and between the two Makers, Thane knew what this was and though he drew his wand, fear clouded his eyes awaiting the inevitable.

  Grayson and Miranda watched in awe as Erebus formed in the middle of their home. Beyond disbelief, they simply watched, paralyzed with fear.

  “WishMakers and a Keeper recruit. This won’t help your ranking, Private Thane. Don’t you know it’s against the rules to fraternize with the help?” Erebus played as Thane eyed the True Love Wish in his hand. “Your dear friend, Shea, agreed to a trade. Very wise, that fairy.”

  “She would never do that. Where is she?” Thane yelled, pointing a shaking wand.

  “Never, shouldn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t. It’s all a waste of time. A WishingKing should never bring Makers to Paragonia, but it’s exactly what I’m going to do anyway.”

  “Thane?” Miranda pleaded, begging for this to be fake or at least an explanation.

  “You’re no king and you don’t need them,” Thane said as his wand sparked with a charge. Even though his initial assignment was to Keep Shea, he had new orders and was ready to do what was necessary to keep the Makers safe, despite the futility.

  Erebus simply smiled and leaned in close. “Oh, I admit. I do need them, master Thane.” His shadowed fog crept around Thane and the Makers. “When you and your little flying friends brought me to your world, you gave me power. The power of a wizard, as some might say. Power that I intend to keep.” There was a silent pause in the room as deafening as the storm outside. “I need them, Thane. I’m a wizard, and wizards need ingredients.”

  A wave of shadow blanketed them. It churned like a whirlpool in a giant cauldron and though Thane fired as many defensive spells as he could, it was overwhelming. The room filled with Erebus’ fog. It spun and, quickly, they vanished.
r />   33

  Drifted

  Elanor’s head pounded as Beren carried her through the forest and flew against a powerful headwind. Her body felt broken and useless in Beren’s arms as he pushed through the storm.

  For Elanor, her inability to help was the most frustrating and when a blast of wind pushed Beren to the ground, she knew he had to find Shea without her. She was only holding him back.

  “We’ll never find her like this. You have to let me go,” she said.

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  “I think I can grapple. I’m OK.”

  “You’re not OK, Ellie,” Beren said watching her grip the bark of a tree. “The blizzard as bad as it is, we’ll only get separated.”

  “It’s not far from where that light blast came from. I’m fine, Beren. Shea is more important right now. Please.”

  He nodded, but more out of a remembrance of how stubborn she is. “If it’s too difficult…”

  “Go. I’ll be fine. I’ll fire a flare to let you know where I am if you’re not back soon,” she waved him off, cutting through his hesitation. He kissed her on the cheek and jogged ahead through the driving snow.

  Once he was out of sight, she leaned against the tree, gasping in pain. Every inch of her screamed in agony, but her determination to find her daughter was stronger - to explain everything to her, to apologize, to beg for forgiveness. For the past decade, each time the curse lifted, her first thought was of Shea. Waves of fear rushed through her as thoughts breezed in of how much Shea must hate her. Of how much she must despise everything she had done. Elanor couldn’t help but be fearful that Shea was thankful her mother was gone. When Shea fired that spell at her moments ago, her nightmares were justified - such a look of hatred and resentment burned from her daughter’s eyes as she pointed that wand. Even if she did find Shea, then what? Would any kind of explanation suffice? Would any amount of an apology be good enough? As Elanor pushed through the pain and searched through the snow-drenched forest around her, her soul begged that she would at least get a chance to see her daughter before the curse crept back in.