Eden's Wish

by M. Tara Crowl

  Copyright © 2015 by M. Tara Crowl

  Cover design by Whitney Manger, Rachna Batra

  Cover art © 2015 by Erwin Madrid

  Hand lettering by Sarah Pierson

  Designed by Whitney Manger

  All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Hyperion, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Hyperion, 125 West End Avenue, New York, New York 10023.

  ISBN 978-1-4847-1955-8

  Visit www.disneybooks.com

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  About the Author

  For Adelyn Belle

  On the night when he found the lamp, Darryl Dolan was in a rotten mood.

  He’d lost a hundred dollars on a game of pool. Even worse, he’d lost it to a scrawny teenager with thick-framed glasses and peach fuzz.

  The kid’s friends had egged him on: “Take him, Timmy! Show the old man what you’ve got!” No one named Timmy ever won a game of pool, Darryl’s mate Clyde had said to him confidentially, and Darryl couldn’t argue. So he’d raised the stakes from fifty dollars to a hundred. But things didn’t go as planned. Darryl pocketed solids with the force of a bulldozer, while Timmy tapped his striped balls feebly. Yet somehow, Timmy managed to end a five-shot streak by sinking the eight ball and winning the game.

  It was no surprise, really. Unfortunate things were always happening to Darryl. The truth was, he was very, very unlucky.

  But that night, something unusual happened: in an instant, Darryl’s luck changed.

  As he walked home, a metallic glint caught his eye and drew it to an antique-looking oil lamp. It was wedged between the branches of an overgrown shrub. Without a thought, he reached in and plucked it out.

  It was slightly larger than his hand, with a round base and a long spout for pouring. It was old and tarnished—not as flashy a find as he might have liked. Still, with a bit of polishing, it could probably be pawned.

  Back in the dirty laundry–scented comfort of his apartment, he located the stained cloth meant for drying dishes in the kitchen. He shoved a plate of crusty remains from Tuesday’s breakfast off the couch, sat, and took the cloth to the lamp.

  Quick and hot as a bullet, a cracking flash of light knocked the sense right out of Darryl and sent his brain spinning.

  He’d never experienced anything like it. Surely, he was dying. This was death.

  But when he came to, he was still on the couch. He blinked three times to restore reality.

  The first thing he saw was the girl.

  She wore a thick white cotton nightgown that tried to reach her wrists and ankles but faltered, exposing skinny shins and forearms. Three thin pink ribbons encircled her waist. Around one wrist was a thick gold cuff bracelet.

  The girl’s hair fell to her waist in tangles and sleep-rumpled waves. As he watched, she took in her surroundings: the plaid flannel couch sprinkled with sandwich crumbs, the faded dartboard on the wall. Her eyes traveled over Darryl, judging his faded black T-shirt, thinning hair, and stubborn potbelly. Her lips formed a pout. She crossed her arms and faced him.

  “The legends are true—you get three wishes.” She spoke rat-a-tat fast and her tone was matter-of-fact. “But there are rules. These are the rules:

  “One: Every person has a lifetime limit of three wishes. If by some miracle a mortal happens to find the lamp more than once, the rub won’t work. You can’t wish for more wishes, and you can’t wish for this rule (or any others) to change. That’s why they’re called the rules.

  “Two: You can’t change anything from the past. All wishes have to be for the present or the future. So you can’t bring a dead person back to life, erase a war, or take back something stupid you said.

  “Three: Wording counts. Don’t assume you’ll get what you want—you’ll get what you ask for.”

  “Wishes?” Darryl frowned. “Are those before the afterlife or in heaven itself? Once I get there, assuming—well, you know. It’s all up to you, I suppose.”

  “Heaven? What are you talking about?” The girl’s eyes glittered.

  “Well, you’re the angel who decides, I suppose? Or will that be another one?”

  “Angel? Have you ever heard of an angel coming out of a lamp?”

  Darryl paused. Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t recall anything happening that would have killed him. “But…then what are you?”

  The girl huffed. “I’m a genie, dummy! Lamp, three wishes—how much more do you need?”

  Darryl had no answer. She let out an exasperated sigh and spoke slowly, as if to a child: “My name is Eden, and your wish is my command.”

  In a moment of clarity, Darryl noted that her hair was precisely the color of banana pudding.

  “What’s this?” She’d appeared at the wall to his left and was examining his weathered dartboard. She touched the soft cork with her finger.

  “Dartboard?” Darryl’s voice was high and hoarse. He looked on helplessly as she poked the tan and black stripes fanning out from the middle, the red and green bands cutting through them, the winking green iris, and the tough red bull’s-eye.

  “What are these numbers for?”

  “Uh—scoring, of course.” He cleared his throat. “Now, you say I have three wishes—”

  “You got it, buddy.” Eden’s fingers locked on one of the darts. It was lodged on the outer edge of the board from Darryl and Clyde’s last game. Must have been Clyde’s shot, Darryl thought.

  With a tug she removed the dart and tested the point on her finger. She turned to Darryl with delight. “Sharp!”

  “A bit dangerous, really.” Darryl scooted down the couch. “So, for my first wish.”

  Eden took a few steps back, reared back, and hurled the dart. Ignoring its intended target, it curved to the left and embedded itself in the wall so close to Darryl’s head, the breeze tickled the skin under his hair.

  “Hey!” he cried, leaping up. “You throw the darts into the board, you hear me?”

  But she’d already retrieved a second dart and was rearing back again. This one zoomed skyward and burrowed into the ceiling’s surface.

  “Oops!” She giggled, covering her mouth with her hand.

  “You. Have. Horrible aim!” Darryl plucked the third dart from the board before she could reach it. He folded his hand over it. “No more darts for you.”

  She set her bare feet wider, crossed her arms, and stuck out her lip. “One more dart, then we’ll start the wishes.”

  “Wishes, then dart.”

  Her pout grew fiercer.

  Would he lose the wishes if he didn’t do what she ordered? Being an unlucky man, Darryl didn’t want to take the chance. He groaned and extended his open hand. Glee flashed on her face as she snatched the dart. She dipped one knee low and wound up like a pitcher on the mound.

  “Now just one second—” Darryl started, but it was too late. The moment it escaped her grip, the dart made a beeline for
the window to the right. When it hit, the brittle pane of glass burst into a thousand pieces that danced across the living room floor.

  Darryl’s hands balled into fists. But she was grinning like a child in her first snowfall.

  “Spectacular,” she breathed.

  “You listen to me!” Darryl seethed. “Enough funny stuff. You give me my wishes and then you GET OUT!”

  Jolted from her reverie, Eden slouched and rolled her eyes. “Whatever. It’s not like I want to hang out in this dump anyway.”

  Darryl set his shoulders and lifted his chin. “Are you ready for my first wish?”

  “Born ready.”

  He cleared his throat importantly. “I wish to win…the lotto.”

  To his surprise, she laughed. “That,” she said, “is exactly what I thought you might say.” She held out a thin arm and snapped her fingers. When she did, her bracelet gave a quick pulse of light. A piece of paper, smaller than a postcard, floated down from the heavens. It sailed gently, one way and then the other.

  “I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” Grasping the card, he yanked it into sight. It was an unscratched lottery scratch card.

  “A coin! Have you got a coin?” Eden held up her hands to show they were empty. He sucked in a ragged breath and scrambled to the kitchen, fumbling through the junk drawer. “Crap—where’s it—got to be—I swear—ah!” There, under the masses of aspirin, pens, and bottle openers, was a ten-cent coin. Now where had he left that ticket? He sprinted back to the living room, retrieved it from the coffee table, and attacked the scratch section with the coin, digging madly for the promised treasure.

  The silver latex flaked off in clumpy bits until the number underneath was revealed.

  For a moment Darryl Dolan forgot how to speak. Then he remembered—and exploded.

  “FIVE FLIPPIN’ DOLLARS???”

  The words died unheard in the empty room. The girl had disappeared.

  Frantically Darryl surveyed the apartment, but she was gone. Not in the living room, not in the kitchen, not in the hallway that led to his bedroom. But then he looked through the hole in the wall where the window had been, and saw a small white-clad figure on the sidewalk. The girl stood motionless, nightgown swishing in the winter wind. Her face was turned toward the moon.

  He stuck his head through the hole. “Get back in here!” he hissed. Reluctantly the girl climbed back through the window hole, one willowy leg at a time.

  He held up the scratch card for her to see. “WHAT KIND OF RUBBISH GENIE ARE YOU ANYWAY??”

  Was that a mischievous smile playing on her lips? “Okay, look,” she said. “I told you earlier. Wording counts.”

  “WHAT?”

  “Rule number three. ‘Wording counts. Don’t assume you’ll get what you want—you’ll get what you ask for.’” She shrugged. “If you wanted to win the big-time lotto, you should have said so.”

  A current of despair washed over Darryl. It was like he was back at school, outsmarted by a test’s trick question. Here he was, forty years old, and nothing had changed. His shoulders slumped forward. “All my life, an unlucky man.”

  “Say what?”

  “Nothing.”

  Eden scrutinized him. “What’s your name?”

  “Darryl.”

  “Well, Darryl, why don’t you think about something you like? Something that makes you really happy. Can you think of something like that?”

  A sense of epiphany came over Darryl. “Yes.”

  “Good. Now put into words precisely what the wish is. If it’s money you want, seeing as JUST wishing to win the lottery didn’t get you the results you had in mind, if you were to say the amount you wanted to win—”

  “I wish for an unlimited lifetime supply of hot chips.” The words came in a rapid stream.

  Eden’s pale eyebrows jumped to attention. “Hot chips?”

  “Yeah.”

  Her eyes rolled upward as if searching for something deep in her brain. “We’re in Australia, right?”

  “Wagga Wagga, Australia, if you want to be exact.”

  “So when you say hot chips, you mean fried potatoes?”

  “Hot chips. Like the ones at the pub.”

  Eden let out a low whistle and smiled. “Here we go,” she said as she raised a hand for her second snap.

  The glorious smell of hot grease thickened the air. It seeped through Darryl’s nostrils and into his consciousness like a savory sedative. His eyes closed as a stream of pleasant feelings worked its way through his brain. He’d never been warmer, safer, or more content. Though he was standing up, he started to slip into a slow, gorgeous sleep. He’d just eat a few first…

  But then Darryl realized that he couldn’t move his arms.

  Startled from his semi-sedated state, he realized why the smell was so overpowering. He was packed in a room of hot chips, from the bottom of his feet to the base of his neck! Every inch of the apartment was absolutely stuffed with them!

  “Help!” he shrieked. Again he tried to move his limbs, but it was no good; they were packed in tight. “Help!!”

  A few feet in front of him, the iridescent sheen of oil gleamed and a patch of chips rippled. Like a steaming sea monster, Eden surfaced with a sputter. Her hair was plastered to her head in greasy clumps, but her face shone with joy.

  “How’s this for a lifetime supply?” Her arms shot out of the pit, sending hot chips flying. “Hey, do you know how to backstroke?” Kicking her legs to the surface, she lay back and wheeled her arms wildly.

  “This isn’t funny!” Darryl wailed. “I didn’t want them all at once!”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so?” Cheerfully she popped a chip in her mouth and chewed. Darryl’s head dropped in defeat, and for a moment, she looked almost sorry. “It’s going to be fine, Darryl. Look, we’ll share the wealth with the neighbors. If we can just push some of them out of that open window—”

  “The window you broke!”

  “Yes, the window I broke!” The pitch of her voice rose, and Darryl shrank away. “Aren’t you happy it’s broken now? How else would we get out of here?”

  “Can’t you fix it?”

  “The window?”

  “THE SITUATION!”

  “You have a wish left. You fix it!”

  Darryl thought very hard for a moment. “Fine!” he said in a burst of inspiration. “I wish for a mansion to fit all these chips!”

  Eden winked. “Coming right up!” She held her hand high above the hot mass of chips and snapped for the third time.

  Darryl’s apartment gave a momentous shudder. Slowly, the walls began to push outward. They grew taller, lifting the ceiling. A grand spiral staircase plunked down in the entryway. Windows planted like seeds in the walls and blossomed to enormous proportions.

  The apartment was swelling to two, three, four times its original size. And yet, the level of chips wasn’t going down. On the contrary, they were multiplying. They churned furiously between the walls, and Darryl fought for air as he churned along with them.

  Across the massive mixing bowl, he spotted Eden. Like him, she was treading chips to keep afloat. Unlike him, she was shrieking with happiness.

  “What’s gone wrong now?” Darryl moaned. “I thought they would fit in a mansion!”

  “You asked for an unlimited lifetime supply!!” she shouted. “No matter how big the house is, the chips will fill it! Isn’t it fantastic?”

  And with that, the churning and shaking halted; the mansion was complete. Her wishes granted, the genie vanished.

  Darryl took in the scene. He was a solitary goldfish in a tank full of thick-cut fried potatoes. Really, it was fitting. The first stroke of luck in his life, and it had taken the unluckiest turn you could imagine.

  He extracted a chip and ate it. It was delicious. And in that, at least, he was fortunate; he’d be eating them for quite some time.

  “Sit,” Xavier commanded.

  She snapped her eyes closed and concentrated, burying precious stolen m
oments from Earth in her mind: cool air raising goose bumps on her skin; that inky-black night sky, infinite enough to drown in. She bottled them and stored them in her memory with the others. These moments were her salvation; thanks to them, she was able to endure endless hours in the lamp.

  “Look at me, Eden. Look at me and sit.”

  She opened her eyes. “We’ve got to get a dartboard.” She exhaled and collapsed on the stiff-backed chair.

  She was back in the lamp, of course. When a granting ended, she always wound up here. She had no choice in the matter.

  The lamp’s study was her reentry point. The study was a cavern of rare and ancient books stacked on shelves that rose to the ceiling. The rest of the lamp had three levels, but the study wasn’t divided into stories; its floor was the ground floor, and its ceiling was at the top of the third floor. It was a skyscraper of a room tucked at the edge of the lamp.

  The study was the lamp’s only room that she was forbidden to enter unless invited. It was also Xavier’s favorite room. He spent lots of time there, and kept it in impeccable order.

  As was their custom, Xavier and Goldie were sitting at their desks: grand, ornately carved pieces made of walnut. Unlike the one Eden sat in, their chairs were plush and covered with leather. Xavier’s was forest green; Goldie’s was crimson.

  Behind them was a towering set of drawers that curved with the belly of the lamp. Between the two desks, a regal telescope balanced on three slender legs.

  In the dimly lit air, particles of dust floated like tiny fragments of knowledge. The volumes were pushed tightly against one another, with not an inch of shelf space to spare.

  They needed to breathe, Eden thought. She knew the feeling.

  Xavier set his elbows on his desk and peered at her through his eyeglasses like she was a specimen under a microscope. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with dark hair that he slicked back and parted on one side. Once, on a granting in Mumbai, the wisher’s wife had been watching a movie on a rabbit-eared television. Eden had gaped at the man on-screen; surely it was him. The resemblance was uncanny. Though the actor’s skin was more tanned than a lamp dweller’s could ever be, the amused eyes, thin mustache, and self-assured swagger were nearly identical. In the wisher’s dialect she’d breathlessly asked who he was. “Rhett Butler,” the woman had answered. “Haven’t you ever seen Gone with the Wind?”