Fiction River

by Fiction River

  Fiction River: Wishes

  An Original Anthology Magazine

  Edited by Rebecca Moesta

  Series Editors

  Kristine Kathryn Rusch & Dean Wesley Smith

  Contents

  Foreword

  Introduction

  Eric Kent Edstrom

  The Rock of Kansas

  Ron Collins

  Movie Boy and Music Girl

  Brigid Collins

  Upon_a_Starship.pgm

  Alexandra Brandt

  Ellen Double Prime

  Jamie Ferguson

  Twin Wishes

  Robert Jeschonek

  Granted

  Lesley L. Smith

  If Wishes Were Kisses

  T. Thorn Coyle

  A Winged Heart

  Dave Raines

  What Alanna Wished, How, and Why

  Annie Reed

  Blame It on the Ghosts

  Dayle A. Dermatis

  Family, Fair and True

  Leslie Claire Walker

  True

  Bonnie Elizabeth

  How I Became a Fairy Godmother

  Lisa Silverthorne

  Starfish at Ebbtide

  Diana Deverell

  Turquoise Trail

  Dale Hartley Emery

  As Fast as Wishes Travel

  About the Editor

  Fiction River: Year Five

  Fiction River Presents

  Pulphouse Fiction Magazine

  Foreword

  If Wishes Were...

  We all know how stories about wishes should go. We were raised on them.

  A magic fish or a fairy godmother or a face in a mirror gives some random person three wishes. That random person tries to outwit the giver of the wishes, by wishing for more wishes or wishing for the power to grant wishes. Or the wish-granter takes each wish and subverts it somehow, so that no matter what the poor random person wishes for, he never gets it.

  Fairy tales are filled with wishes gone awry. And usually, whoever made the wish is someone who deserved whatever he got.

  I hadn’t realized it until just now, but fairy-tale wish stories can be heartless, vicious things.

  Yet, none of the stories in Fiction River: Wishes fall into the above categories. A few mention the wishes-gone-awry thing. A couple others nod toward the whole wish-for-a-wish. One has a fairy godmother. But none of them focus on that morality play that’s at the center of so much of the Brothers Grimm.

  Instead, Rebecca Moesta has assembled a group of stories with heart, magic, and pathos for this volume. She added the right amount of romance, science fiction, and humor as well. Some of the stories are thought-provoking; others will simply make you smile.

  And because Rebecca edited this volume, none of the stories will leave you unhappy—although one or two might unsettle you a bit.

  Rebecca’s Fiction River anthologies might have the genre label Young Adult, but all these volumes do is prove that the Young Adult is a genre for everyone.

  We sandwiched Wishes between Justice and Pulse Pounders: Countdown for a reason. Sometimes we need a breather from realism and thriller. Sometimes we need two reminders: be careful what you wish for...and wishes often equal hope.

  We all hope that this volume of Fiction River lifts your spirits and reminds you just how magical the universe can be.

  —Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  Lincoln City, OR

  October 14, 2017

  Introduction

  Wish Well

  Star light, star bright,

  First star I see tonight,

  I wish I may, I wish I might,

  Have the wish I wish tonight.

  Have you ever wished on the evening star? Or a falling star? How about on birthday candles or by throwing a coin into a wishing well or fountain? Maybe you’ve blown all the fluff from a dandelion or tugged on a turkey wishbone. Legend has it that genies, leprechauns, and fairies can all grant wishes.

  Around the world, there are countless myths about wishing—and warnings about what might go wrong.

  What we wish says a lot about our state of mind at the moment we make that wish.

  A wish can be pure and innocent.

  I wish it was sunny every day.

  It can be selfish.

  I wish I had gotten that promotion instead of Jason.

  Or generous.

  I wish my favorite teacher would win the lottery.

  Or caring.

  I wish the soup kitchen’s stockpot never ran out of soup.

  A wish can be spiteful.

  I wish Amber’s face would break out in pimples before her date with Ryan.

  A wish can be completely thoughtless.

  I wish that barking dog next door would just run away.

  Or ill-considered.

  I wish every guy on the football team would fall in love with me.

  Or benevolent.

  I wish all the fighting in the world would stop.

  Or downright evil.

  I wish that grumpy Mr. Hallford would get hit by a bus.

  Have you actually had a wish come true? Have you ever been very glad that a wish did not come true? What if grumpy Mr. Hallford really had gotten hit by a bus? What if every guy on the football team really had fallen in love with you in high school? What would the ripple effects have been?

  We all have wishes. Each tale in this book shows teens struggling with issues like young love, self-acceptance, being on the wrong end of someone else’s wish, a handicap, being an outcast, making impossible-seeming choices, or feeling neglected. In each story someone makes a wish—usually with unexpected results.

  In many cases, there’s a right way and a wrong way of wishing. So next time you make a wish, think hard and be careful. You never know what might happen....

  I wish you happy reading!

  —Rebecca Moesta

  Monument, Colorado

  May 31, 2017

  The Rock of Kansas

  Eric Kent Edstrom

  We’re starting with a story about an item that grants wishes. Which, in any other wishes anthology, would mean that the following story would be a fairly standard fantasy with an unsurprising “twist.”

  But this is an Eric Kent Edstrom story, so there’s nothing standard about it. The story’s science fiction, for one thing, and for another...well, you’ll just have to read it.

  Eric’s short fiction has appeared in nine previous volumes of Fiction River, including last year’s YA volume Superpowers. His work ranges from light (Tavern Tales) to dark (Justice) and some indefinable material in between. And he doesn’t just write short fiction. He also writes novels, including several YA series, such as Starside Saga, The Scion Chronicles, and Undermountain Saga. You can find out more at ericedstrom.com—after you read this story, of course.

  The reason I didn’t know the alien thing in Kansas had spoken my name—or even find out I’d been chosen until three weeks later—was simple.

  I was living in a cardboard refrigerator box at the time.

  They make the boxes out of heavy cardboard because fridges are big and heavy. That’s what made it so great, you know what I’m saying? It kept the wind out.

  I modified the hell out of it. Coat hangers jabbed through the top flaps let me close it up and sort of lock it shut from inside. Frickin’ dark in there, and stuffy. I cut a flap window in one side so I could control airflow a little bit. I’d carpeted it with some blankets and a pretty awesome tarp I “found” at a construction site.

  KENMORE ELITE 24.1 Cu. Ft. BOTTOM FREEZER

  Home sweet home.

  I tucked that mofo under an I-94 overpass north of town. The overpass was like a bridge, only there wasn’t water under it, just gravel and litter and homeles
s people. There was this long concrete ramp that climbed up underneath the highway, and a flat area at the top right under the roadway.

  Good drainage. Always put your box where there’s good drainage. Keeps the soggy factor to a minimum. So that’s where I put my box.

  After two months without regular shelter, let me tell you, that box was snug as a room at The Ritz.

  My God, that neighborhood was a hole. It’s over by those huge warehouses where Honeywell and 3M stash all their government spy crap. Warehouses and chain-link fences and all sorts of gray lots filled with broken glass and weeds.

  It was well into November when Agent Rosales showed up in that black sedan with no hubcaps. It’d been ten days straight with the sky as gray as a dirty sponge. It dripped all the damn time. Couldn’t just decide to rain for real. Just drippity-damn-drip.

  You’d think the rain would wash away the stink of sewage and rotting garbage. Maybe the cold would slow up the decay of whatever crap was festering in the cracks and crannies of that place. You’d think the wind would freshen things up. But no. Some places just smell like old cabbage and the smell won’t move an inch in a tornado.

  I had just finished a Styrofoam carton of somebody’s lightly used chicken lo mein when the car crunched into the gravel area under the overpass. I didn’t really pay any attention. It was either a cop or a guy in a BMW looking to buy something illegal. That had nothing to do with me.

  The reception on my non-existent phone and imaginary TV wasn’t so good, so I hadn’t seen or heard the big news. The alien thing in Kansas had spoken.

  I’d heard about it before Mom got killed and Dad went to prison for doing it and I was sent to live with Uncle Don Don and his fist-faced wife who boiled everything to death and called it dinner.

  Don Don didn’t watch the news and he didn’t read the internet. He mostly smoked weed and ate corn chips and watched old TV shows his buddies got from BitTorrent sites. He got checks from somewhere for the purposes of my upkeep and I saw exactly zero point zero cents of that.

  Uncle Don Don went to live with the fishes in Lake Calhoun after a guy with a beard the size of a St. Bernard busted down the front door and beat him over the spine with a crow bar. His fist-faced wife took off that night for Alabama to live with her ex-husband.

  The landlord swung by the next morning in a pretty sweet ’64 Chevy Impala and aimed a gold-plated .38 revolver at my head and told me to get the hell out.

  So I did that.

  Yeah, so I was pretty out of contact with what was happening in the world, the alien thing in Kansas, and stuff like that. My concerns were more immediate. Food. Shelter. Not getting stabbed.

  The driver of that car that had pulled in on the gravel beneath the overpass blasted the horn a few times. A couple people swore at it, I guess. I didn’t think it had anything to do with me.

  Then I heard the click, click, click of somebody in hard shoes coming up the concrete ramp toward my castle.

  “Hey, you up there! Are you Romeo Marcus?” It was a woman’s voice. She sounded pretty Caucasiany to me. Her tongue served up a real hard R. Everybody I know lets their Rs roll loose and easy, especially on a sexy name like Marcus. Everybody called me by my last name because hell if I’d be called Romeo.

  She was a cop. I could just feel cop vibes ringing off her hard shoes as she climbed up to my fort.

  I grabbed Snootie and scooted into the back of the box. Without Snootie, I couldn’t have kept that box as long as I had. I was kinda small for my age, you know what I’m saying?

  Snootie was the shotgun I stole off a dead drug dealer down by the stadium where Gophers play. The dude was just lying there with a hole in his head. And thirty dollars in his jacket pocket. And a “Rolecks” on his wrist. And Snootie.

  I heard scritchy sounds at the flap door. I thought, this chick is seriously crazy to be invading my crib like this. I warned her back. “Go away, chica!” Stuff like that, but I dirtied it up so she would get the point.

  I hadn’t twisted the coat hanger wire very good, because it got tore out when she yanked on the first flap.

  “Romeo Marcus? Are you in there?”

  The second flap opened up and gray light flooded in along with a blast of cold wind. I saw a pant leg. High heels. Can you believe that? She’d climbed up that concrete ramp to my hidey-hole in heels.

  The edge of her raincoat was flapping like a red cape around her calves. She squatted down and peered in, but all I could see was a mess of hair flying around like crazy in the wind.

  I couldn’t really shoot her. I didn’t have any shells.

  I started to hope she’d come to arrest me. Maybe it was because of that incident at Starbucks the other day. Jail would be doing me a favor. Food, heated shelter.

  I went to put Snootie down. She musta thought I was shoving the gun at her or something.

  I didn’t see the pistol in her other hand until it sneezed a little. I felt a sting on my belly. Things got dark real quick.

  “Sorry, Romeo.”

  “Damn,” I said.

  Agent Jill Rosales turned out to be pretty okay. For a cop, anyway. She said she wasn’t a cop, but when you carry a gun, a badge, and your name starts with “agent,” you’re a cop.

  I woke up cuffed to the steel bars of a hospital bed. Nothing in the room but me and the gross baby blue cinderblock walls. Two flickery fluorescent light fixtures hummed on the ceiling, which was made out of those square tiles with a million holes in them. The floor wax and hot dust smell from the vents reminded me of school on the day after Christmas vacation. It sucked.

  I couldn’t see the door, but there was an alcove in one wall.

  The beeps got me to turn my head. I was hooked up with wires to a monitor. I guess it was my pulse beeping at a hundred and fifty miles an hour. I had on a hospital gown with Winnie the Pooh and his idiot friends all over it. Jesus.

  I’m thinking, what the hell? And I’m about ready to start screaming, too, but Rosales came in. She had coins or something in her pants pockets because she jingled when she walked. She had black pants and a white shirt. Crispy and clean. Tumble of hair. Lipstick.

  If circumstances had been different, I might have given her a more favorable review. But all I saw was a badge on her belt and the gun she’d shot me with in a holster along her left side.

  Some obscenities might have come out of my mouth when I saw her. I don’t remember exactly.

  Two dudes came in after her. The gray-headed guy with the bow tie and suspenders carried the hot chocolate. That was Mr. Yarrow. The other one was Colonel Dasher, and he was a prick and a half. Something about his face just made you think “prick.”

  It was obvious the Colonel thought he was in charge of all creation. He got me to shut up just by clamping his jaw a little harder. Made his mouth look like he was hiding somebody’s finger in it. Maybe he was.

  Rosales smiled and patted my hand. I tried to snatch it away, but the cuffs stopped that action. “You shot me.”

  She held up a tiny dart. “With one of these. I thought you were going to shoot me with your shotgun.”

  “What happened to Snootie? I want him back.”

  “Sure, sure. Later. You are a hard man to track down, Romeo.”

  “Call me Marcus.” My dad had called me Romeo.

  “Okay, Marcus. Did you know the Rock of Kansas called your name?”

  This was news to me, so I said no I was not aware of that fact.

  “You see now why you had to be found.”

  Hell yeah, I did. The alien thing from Kansas! I’d won the frickin’ lottery!

  “Mr. Yarrow?” Rosales said.

  Each of the old man’s eyebrows was like a floof of white cat’s tail stuck above his eyes. I wasn’t particularly hygienic at that moment and even I wanted to get after those bad boys with a comb and scissors. He set the mug down on a stainless steel table next to my bed and tilted it so I could see it. Hot chocolate just smells amazing.

  “We’ll free one of
your hands so you can drink.”

  Colonel Prick didn’t like the sound of that, but he didn’t stop Rosales from unlocking my right wrist. I had that mug to my lips in two seconds flat. Burned my tongue, but it was worth it.

  Mr. Yarrow had pulled out a tablet and was showing me a video of the alien thing from Kansas. I guess they called it the Rock because it looked like a rock. “Just want you to hear it for yourself. This is a live feed.”

  He jabbed a button and the sound came on.

  “Romeo Marcus. I summon you. Make your request.” The voice gave me a case of the willies that nearly turned my spine to rubber. It was a very low-pitched, harsh, commanding robot growl. Yeah, I’d heard it before on some documentary or something, but when it’s saying your name, you know something’s up, know what I’m saying?

  The command repeated and repeated. The alien thing just never shuts up once it starts telling you what to do.

  “We’ve been looking for you for twenty-two days,” Agent Rosales said.

  “I’ve been right where you found me.”

  Mr. Yarrow put the tablet on the table and yanked a notebook from his back pocket. He had a nice smile and smelled a bit like pipe smoke. I liked him all right. “Yes. The Rock spoke first on October 30. Pretty much on schedule. It’s not regular down to the day, but was well within the traditional 756-day window. Roughly, every two years. Yours is the ninth name it has called since it crashed to earth approximately 18 years ago.”