The Wishmakers
Page 21
Chasm clapped his broad hands together. “So, who’s the lucky Wishmaker?”
Jathon, several feet behind the new genie, had fallen to his knees. Tina stood alone to face him, and from her place on the rope bridge, I thought she seemed to cower.
“Well, well, well!” he said, opening his fists as if to flex his fingers for the first time in centuries. “I’m Chasm. You can call me Kaz.” He reached out like he wanted to shake her hand.
Tina was stunned for a moment, but she finally went to accept her new genie’s handshake. “I’m Ti—”
“Heigh-ho! Don’t care,” he said, pulling his hand away and pretending to smooth the hair he didn’t have. “Make your wish, little sister. Anything you want in all the world. No quest. No consequence.” He sang this last part. “No strings att-att-attached!”
As genies went, this dude was pretty weird. Ridge had some odd things about him, but this was a new level. Chasm seemed to think he was a contestant on a reality show.
Tina nodded, clutching the crimson jar in both hands now that the lid had turned to smoke. She cleared her throat, squaring her shoulders as she faced the tattooed genie. I knew exactly what she was going to say. I thought of that hospital room and the woman I’d seen lying pain stricken in her bed. I couldn’t imagine what Tina was feeling.
“I wish,” she said, “with all my heart. I wish you would heal my mother.”
“Let’s hear that magic word,” Chasm said, cupping a hand to his ear.
“Bazang,” Tina whispered.
Chasm waved a large hand over the deep abyss before him. “G-g-g-granted!” he sang. “Your mother is now healthier than a veggie platter!”
On the bridge, I saw the glimmer of a hopeful smile spread across Tina’s lips. “Mamá,” she whispered.
“Now let’s get down to business.” Chasm put his hands on his hips. “Your free wish is spent. And now, our partnership truly begins.”
Tina took a deep breath. “Does the Universe have another quest for me?”
Chasm shook his bald head. “Oh, don’t be a naive turkey on Thanksgiving. The Universe has little say in what I do next.” He stepped toward Tina. “Okay! Your second wish will be to lose your voice.” The thick leather band on his wrist suddenly opened up, an hourglass appearing just like the ones Tina and I wore.
I didn’t know why he was wearing it. And instead of white, Chasm’s hourglass was full of blood-red sand.
“What?” cried Tina. “No! I didn’t wish for that!”
“Hey, now! You haven’t even heard the consequence. Let me explain. Okay! If you wish to have no voice,” said Chasm, “then your mouth will always be agape.”
“No!” Tina shouted. “I didn’t make that wish! I don’t accept! You can’t do this!”
“Oh, very well,” said Chasm. And he sang the magic word. “Baz-a-a-ang!”
Tina suddenly fell silent. Her lips were still moving, but no sound came out of her mouth. The moment she realized what had happened, her hand went to her throat. She attempted to shout something again, and then tears began rolling down her face. Her jaw hung slack, mouth agape, just as Chasm had explained.
The Undiscovered Genie turned, dusting his hands as the red sand hourglass snapped out of sight.
“The Universe created genies so you could wish,” he said to his audience of me, Thackary, and Jathon. “Your genies allow you to choose and to act. To be the Wishmaker. But what is a Wishmaker who cannot make her own choices?” Chasm looked back at Tina. “She’s a little dancing puppet.”
“Whoa, Ace,” Ridge’s voice whispered from inside his jar. “This guy’s freaking me out.”
“You can’t do this!” I shouted, finding my voice for the first time since Chasm’s arrival. “The Universe has rules! This isn’t how a genie works!”
“Oh, but I am something altogether different,” Chasm explained. “I am both genie and Wishmaker. I am the consequence that the Universe had to accept when it created the other genies. Dear Tina received what she wanted. Her mother is alive. And now the girl is mine.”
“But the wish was supposed to be free!” I screamed. “Tina wasn’t supposed to have a consequence.”
“Healing her mother was free,” answered Chasm.
“But it wasn’t!” I cried. “You’ve enslaved her!”
“She was enslaved the moment she chose to open my jar,” said the muscular genie.
It could have been me.
I had been standing on the rope bridge with the jar in my hand. I had my hand on the lid! If Thackary Anderthon hadn’t used my own trinket against me, I would have opened Chasm’s jar. I had been only seconds away from being in Tina’s position. I would have been his slave.
Thackary’s voice hissed out from behind me. “Take me!” he shouted at Chasm. “I would gladly be your slave if you would take away my curses.”
I glanced back at him, disbelief on my face. Here I was, thanking my lucky stars that I had narrowly missed Tina’s fate, and Thackary was bemoaning the fact that he wasn’t Chasm’s puppet. How demented was he?
“I like that attitude, skinny britches,” Chasm snapped and pointed at Thackary. “Soon. Soon I will find a way to bring more puny human beings under my control. But for right now, I’m a bicycle built for two. The girl will have to suffice.”
“Hang on, Tina!” I shouted. “He only has you for seven days. You can fight him!”
Chasm’s laughter resonated through the cavern. “Seven days?” he mocked. “Those are the rules of a common genie. This girl is my servant until the end of her piddly little life. Together, we will wish for marvels, and she will accept the consequences until they are too much for her tiny human form to bear.”
This bit of news caused Tina to collapse to her knees, silent sobs coming from her open mouth.
“Now,” Chasm said, turning back to Tina. “For your next trick . . . you wish for a way out of this cave. Much too damp and dark for my taste.” The hourglass on his wrist emerged. “In exchange for a way out, your right foot will be replaced with a roller skate.” He waved his hand at her. “Don’t you worry. Won’t hurt a bit.” Then he sang the command. “Baz-a-a-ang!”
Tina stooped over, suddenly clutching at her right foot. At the same time, a terrible tremor began to pass through the cave. I covered my head as stalactites shook free from the ceiling, falling like deadly spears. Across the rope bridge, on the far wall of the cavern, a huge crack had opened, with daylight spilling through.
Chasm strode onto the rope bridge, scooping the weeping form of Tina over his shoulder as he passed. I saw her foot, now replaced with a bright red roller skate.
“That’s our cue,” Chasm said. “It’s time to see this world of yours.” He inhaled deeply through his nose, as if smelling the potential that the world had to offer. Then, in several bounding steps, he was across the bridge. Tina’s museum gift bag slipped from her arm, falling at the threshold. Daylight reflected on Chasm’s shaved head as he climbed through the exit, a silently screaming Tina draped over one shoulder.
“You fool, boy!” Thackary’s voice pealed through the crumbling cavern. At first I thought he was speaking to me, but then I saw that he had strode past. The man stood over Jathon, berating his injured son for letting Tina open the jar. “You have failed me! What have ye done?”
Thackary seized Jathon by the neck and pulled him to his feet. For a terrible moment, I thought he might toss his son into the abyss. Instead, he dragged him across the rope bridge, shielding his balding head from bits of crumbling rock.
I stood there, the last one to flee this terrible place. But I wasn’t alone. Ridge’s voice echoed out of his jar. “Ace! Ace! It sounds bad out there!”
I reached into the museum bag and withdrew the familiar peanut butter jar. The curator had forbidden our genies from coming out of their jars until the Undiscovered Genie had departed the cave. Chasm was gone. He had taken Tina. Thackary and Jathon had escaped, and the entire cave was about to crash down on my head.
“Ridge, get out of the jar.”
My genie appeared beside me, his hands instinctively going up to cover his head as debris rained down. “Yikes, Ace! We’ve got to get out of here!”
I knelt on the cold stone, my hands shaking at the turn of events. “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We lost.”
“But the quests . . .” said Ridge. “I thought Tina fulfilled them all.”
I shrugged. “We completed the quests,” I said. “We saved the world. No zombie pets, no lemonade flood, no raining pianos. But I think we’ve released something even worse!”
“You don’t know that,” Ridge said. “We can stop Chasm.”
I shook my head. “You didn’t see him!” I cried. “He’s going to use Tina to . . .” I didn’t know what he was going to do. Enslave the human race? That’s what Chasm had hinted. “We can’t stop him, Ridge.”
“Chasm took Tina,” said Ridge. “Don’t let him take you, too.”
“What do you mean?” I looked up at my genie friend.
“Chasm took away Tina’s ability to choose, but he didn’t take yours.” Ridge extended his hand. “Get up, Ace. Let’s get out of here.”
I reached out and took the genie’s hand. The determined grip of my friend seemed to send a surge of energy through me. Ridge hoisted me to my feet and pushed me forward in the direction of the rope bridge. As I ran, I set the peanut butter jar back into the museum bag on my shoulder.
With every step, I grew more determined. Ridge was right. Chasm had defeated Tina, but he hadn’t defeated me. As long as I had the power to wish, there was hope.
“We have to save Tina,” I said. As the words left my mouth, I’d never been more sure of anything. If it hadn’t been Tina, it could have been me. Or Thackary. Though I don’t think I would have felt so strongly about saving him.
And then it dawned on me.
“The Universe knew,” I said to Ridge as we reached the far side of the rope bridge. “Once knowledge of the Undiscovered Genie came out, the Universe knew that his jar would get opened. It couldn’t stop our choices, Ridge. All it could do was try its best to control the way that the jar was opened.”
I leaped over a crumbled rock formation. “The Universe knew that if Thackary Anderthon opened that jar, we wouldn’t make any attempt to save him from Chasm. Worse, we’d probably think he was getting what he deserved. But not Tina.”
I felt emotion choking my throat. “The Universe knows that we’ll try to save her. It’s the only way to stop Chasm. By letting someone we care about open his jar.” I clenched my fists. “We have to save Tina!” I said again. “The Universe is depending on us, Ridge!”
My genie didn’t answer, so I glanced over my shoulder.
He was gone.
I skidded to a halt, sunlight from the exit spilling down, feeling warm on my neck. Ridge was gone. Our time was finally up. I glanced down at my wrist. The leather band had disappeared, and with it, the hourglass. My hand flew to the museum bag over my shoulder, but it was empty.
The jar, like my genie, had vanished.
I was paralyzed for a moment, feeling more alone than I’d ever felt before (which is saying something, for an orphan who didn’t even know his own name).
At my feet was Tina’s discarded museum bag. Vale was surely gone, too, but I couldn’t help but lift it from the rubble and peek inside.
No little lip balm jar. But there was something else—a folded piece of paper with my name written on the front.
I could finally read again now that my quest was over. And I recognized the sky-blue paper. It was the note Tina had been writing on the airplane. I shouldn’t have taken the time to read it there, with the cave roof coming down at any second. But my trembling fingers unfolded the page and my eyes scanned across the words.
Dear Ace,
If you are reading this, then something probably went wrong in the Cave of the Undiscovered Genie. Even though it goes against all the warnings, I’ve decided to open his jar. If something bad happens to me, I’m relying on you to help.
I’ve created a trinket.
I didn’t dare use something nearby, so I wished it on my mother’s favorite necklace. You need to find her and break the necklace chain. When that happens, Ridge’s jar will come back to you.
Best wishes,
Tina
“Tina, that’s brilliant!” I said aloud, wondering why I hadn’t thought of such an ingenious fail-safe. I couldn’t help but worry about what kind of consequence would accompany such a powerful trinket. But with Chasm, Tina was now in the throes of bad consequences. Amid all the despair, this was at least a glimmer of hope.
Crumpling the letter in my hand, I turned my face toward the sun.
Ridge was gone.
Tina was taken.
And it was up to me to get them back.
Acknowledgments
I came up with the wish/consequence idea more than six years before this book was published. Since then, many people have influenced the story and inspired me to keep going.
Thanks to Chris Schoebinger, Heidi Gordon, Lisa Mangum, and Rob Davis. Also to my parents and siblings who are always so supportive and encouraging. The biggest thanks goes to my wife, Connie, for listening and talking me through every part of this book (and the next).
Thanks to Chris Hernandez for his diligent and thorough editorial skills. And to Jessica Warrick for her fun illustrations.
My agent, Ammi-Joan Paquette, believed in this story from the beginning, and worked tirelessly on its behalf. It was a roller-coaster ride worthy of Super-Fun-Happy Place. Thanks, Joan!
Speaking of Super-Fun-Happy Place . . . thanks to my old band buddy Tristan Wardle for making up that name many years ago. It is now immortalized.
And thanks to you, reader! Being an author is a wish come true for me. I hope you enjoy Ace and Ridge’s next adventure!
About the Author
Photo by Jamie Younker
TYLER WHITESIDES always wished to be an author. Somehow, he accomplished it without the help of a genie and wrote the acclaimed Janitors series. When he’s not writing, Tyler loves eating good food, playing drums, and fishing. He lives in northern Utah with his wife and son. You can visit him online at www.tylerwhitesides.com.
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Copyright
THE WISHMAKERS. Text copyright © 2018 by Tyler Whitesides. Illustrations by Jessica Warrick. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Cover art by Jessica Warrick
Cover design by Jessie Gang
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017949556
Digital Edition February 2018 ISBN: 978-0-062-56833-5
Print ISBN 978-0-06-256831-1 (trade bdg.)
17 18 19 20 21 CG/LSCH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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