The Third Wish Read online

  I put an arm around each of them as they glared at me. Any other two girls, I would’ve been shocked at such a reaction, but Andi and Vila had a real reason to be concerned. The money clip acted as the lamp that most tales of genies refer to. Originally, it was a lamp, but the witch who created it gave it the ability to be changed into an object more suited to its surroundings. When I found it, it was a gold coin but was transformed into a money clip after I had become the genies’ master.

  “Promise?” Andi pouted quietly.

  “I promise,” I told her. I squeezed the girls tightly and let them go. They both continued to stare at me, although their expressions had softened a bit. They looked at each other, and both started nodding their heads at each other.

  “Okay!” they called out. Just like that, they returned to their happy, bubbly selves. I glanced at Lottie, who was staring at the girls in disbelief. Their mood swings still gave me whiplash. I could only imagine how confusing they must be to Lottie. I winked at her and shrugged my shoulders as she chuckled quietly. She’d get used to it, eventually.

  2

  When the four of us finished eating, I grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator and waved my arm at the girls.

  “Let’s go check this place out!” I hollered.

  Since we’d bought the house without seeing it first, we hadn’t really had a chance to explore. We’d mapped out what rooms we wanted to use for which purposes so the movers could bring in the furnishings but hadn’t examined things much beyond that. I looked forward to finding out all the little things that make a house unique that aren’t always instantly obvious.

  “Yes!” Lottie jumped up and down a few times and clapped her hands together. It was a habit she’d picked up from Andi and Vila when they were excited. “Where do you want to start?”

  “Oh! I know!” Vila chimed in, clapping as well. “Let’s start at the master suite upstairs and work our way around!” Both she and Andi immediately traded their legs for mist trails and floated up beside Lottie. “Can we?”

  “Sounds perfect,” Lottie answered them. Something else she was still not used to was how the girls treated her like she was another of their masters a lot of the time. They absolutely adored her, and since she was going to be my wife, she had become what I joked was ‘Master-adjacent.’

  “Let’s get to it!” I grabbed Lottie’s hand as I walked by and pulled her along behind me while the girls zipped ahead of us.

  The four of us headed across the foyer to a staircase that was hidden behind one of the archway pillars. It was camouflaged, so that I had to ask the realtor to point out how to get to it when we’d video conferenced for a walk-through. At the top of the stairs, the first door on the right was the master suite. Andi and Vila got there first and swung the large French doors open. They floated aside and waited for Lottie and me to enter the room before following.

  The room was astonishingly beautiful. It had plush, off-white carpeting, and the walls were the same white as the rest of the house, but the lighting made the whole room truly unique. Recessed rope lighting was installed up each corner of the room and all along the trimline of the ceiling. It gave the appearance that the room itself was glowing. There was a large, circular skylight in the middle of the ceiling that was also trained with the rope lights.

  I walked over to the panel on the wall and started experimenting with what each of the settings would do. It turned out there wasn’t much it couldn’t do. The lights would dim, brighten, pulse, fade, and twinkle at random. I was pleasantly surprised to find that each strip in the room functions independently. Instantly, my favorite configuration was having all of the rope lights at half power around the room, and the skylight border completely dark so as not to take away from the brilliance of the stars at night.

  “I can’t wait to see the sky at night here!” Andi commented, floating up to the skylight.

  “You have seen the sky here at night, goofy!” Vila hollered up at her. Andi looked down and stuck her tongue out at Vila.

  “Shut up! I meant through these gorgeous windows and skylights, you twit!” she yelled down.

  “Who are you calling a twit? I remember the first time you saw a skylight! You floated right into it!” Vila retorted.

  Andi circled around at the ceiling, glaring down at Vila. “Yeah, I floated into it because somebody told me it was a hole in the ceiling!” She put her hand on her hip indignantly and stuck her nose in the air. Vila zipped up next to her and started laughing.

  “And you believed me!” she howled. “Hence the reason I don’t understand how you could call me a twit!” Vila doubled over laughing, and Andi didn’t hesitate even a split second before she started swirling her hand quickly in front of her. A quick breeze started up in the room. In less than a second, the blue trail of mist that belonged to Vila started to swirl around in circles. She looked up at Andi with astonishment on her face.

  “You wouldn’t!” Vila mouthed at Andi, too shocked to speak aloud.

  “Oh, I would!” Andi spat back.

  I leaned back against the wall and folded my arms. I had no idea what Andi’s plan was, but these little tiffs of theirs had a habit of becoming rather entertaining on occasion. As Vila’s mist trail began to spin around faster and faster, she started moving upward toward the skylight. It quickly became clear that Andi was looking to give Vila a taste of her own medicine.

  “You stop it before I snap my fingers and send you to swim with the fish!” Vila yelled. She was twisting and turning while looking downward to see if there was any way she could stop the magical whirlwind below her. The genies didn’t often use magic on each other. In fact, this was the biggest show of genie-on-genie magical use I’d seen so far.

  “Right after you see the beautiful ‘hole’ in the ceiling!” Andi laughed. Vila reached the skylight. She put her arms out to stop herself from moving up any further, but Andi wasn’t done. She kept the whirlwind going until Vila was completely plastered up on the light. Andi looked down at me and cupped her hands around her mouth.

  “Do you have a camera on you?” she yelled to me, overly loud so Vila could hear her.

  “I do,” I answered before I considered the consequences of getting involved in their spat.

  “Well, here is a perfect photo opportunity for you!” she yelled again. She floated to the side and held both her arms up toward Vila. I shot a questioning glance over at Lottie, who was trying her best not to double over in laughter. She threw her hands up and shrugged her shoulders.

  “Don’t ask me if you should do it or not!” She was enjoying the show but was not about to get in the middle of it.

  I pulled my phone out of my back pocket, opened the camera, and aimed it at Vila. Her back was plastered out flat along the glass, but she had folded her arms in front of her, which did nothing but make her appear to be pouting. I snapped a picture mere seconds before my own laughter doubled me over.

  As soon as Andi saw me take the picture, she stopped swirling her hand, and the wind left the room. Vila was released from the pressure holding her against the skylight. She looked at the three of us laughing up at her, and her lips went tight. A wave of guilt swept over me because I was afraid she was about to start crying. The girls were jokesters, and they often got wrapped up in a tiff, but neither had ever ended up emotionally upset. I stood up and was about to stop Lottie from laughing when a tiny smile formed on Vila’s lips. In no time at all, she was laughing just as hard as the rest of us.

  “I have got to see that picture!” she howled, floating down to me. Andi followed her, staying a good distance behind for fear of unexpected retaliation. I pulled the picture up and held my phone out for the girls to see. Each time they looked at it, they laughed even harder. By the end of the spat, the four of us ended up lying on the floor, holding our stomachs, and catching our breath.

  “I have a question,” Lottie started. “Who is going to clean the Vila-spot off the skylight?” We each looked up, fully expecting to see a mark on the skyl
ight and, when Lottie saw us all do so, she started laughing all over again.

  “We’ve got ourselves a comedian here!” Vila said sarcastically.

  “I think you are the one with comedic value here today,” Andi told Vila.

  “You are just lucky that I have the good sense to laugh at your dumb pranks!” Vila shot back. “Otherwise, I would have made sure you were locked up in your own little world a long time ago!” Andi stuck her tongue out at Vila again, and Vila returned her gesture.

  “Hey, just curious, can you really do that?” Lottie asked Vila, turning her head sideways on the carpet to see her better.

  “No, I don’t think so. Honestly, it never seriously occurred to me to try,” Vila answered. Vila was the first genie and was in the lamp hundreds of years before Andi became a genie herself. Vila had been a slave and was raised in the worst of situations by a generous and loving old witch. With her last breath, the witch saved Vila’s life from her horrible owner by casting the spell that made her a genie. The old woman, Gisele, had kept track of everything Vila had ever told her she liked throughout her entire life and used that information to create an entire world inside the lamp for her to live in.

  Gisele had not intended for Vila to have to stay in the lamp, or for her to have to serve another master ever, but she hadn’t had time to finish her magical creation before the fateful last day of her life arrived. Initially, she’d decided not to cast the spell at all but saw the real danger she’d be leaving Vila to face on her own and changed her mind. Ever since that day, when she was inside the lamp, in whichever form it took on, Vila lived in the world Gisele had created for her, and she loved it there.

  It wasn’t until much later, and in another life-or-death situation, that Vila had ended up making Andi her own world inside the lamp and turning her into a genie as well. I had told Lottie of Vila’s history, and that was why she addressed the question to her specifically, instead of the both of them.

  “I’ll be happy to never find out!” Andi chuckled, nudging Vila on the arm.

  “If you make me get up close and personal with another skylight ever, you just may find out!” Vila nudged her back and winked. The two of them were no longer at odds.

  “Should we maybe go see the rest of the house?” Lottie suggested humorously.

  “Let’s check out the balcony in here before we go,” Andi answered, suddenly floating upright above us. The rest of us got off the floor and followed Andi to the backside of the room, which was a glass wall that overlooked the beach where I had seen the whales earlier.

  “Where’s the door?” I looked at the glass wall but couldn’t see a break anywhere in it for a sliding door, or for a door of any kind, for that matter.

  “Here it is,” Andi said from my right. She was standing next to a small switch that I had not seen. She flipped the switch, and instantly a large panel of the glass making up the wall slid sideways, opening up onto a large balcony with four lounge chairs and a small fire pit.

  “Did you see that?” Lottie whispered. She looked at the glass wall and at the switch over and over in disbelief. “Where was the seam in the glass? I swear it looked like a wall made of one huge pane of glass!” I didn’t have an answer for her. We spent the next five minutes playing with the balcony door. Every time we closed it, the seam where the glass came together disappeared.

  “I’m no architect, but I have never heard of construction that could do this type of thing!” I commented after the tenth time we opened and closed the door.

  “Yep, me either,” Andi agreed. Something in her voice was a little off, so I glanced in her direction. She immediately turned away from me and unsuccessfully attempted to appear as though she was looking out over the water, fascinated by it.

  “Andi,” I said slowly.

  “Hmm?” She didn’t turn to answer.

  “Is it possible that you do know a little something?” I asked her. Her behavior made it an absolute certainty.

  “Well, I mean, not really… no,” she muttered nonchalantly, turning her head away from me still.

  “Not really?” I walked up close to her and breathed the question in her ear.

  “Umm…” She wasn’t going to fess up, so I motioned silently to Lottie join in the interrogation. She walked up to the other side of Andi and leaned in toward her other ear.

  “Not really?” Lottie asked sweetly. Andi started squirming, and I knew she was about to break.

  “I just really think you know something,” I whispered. Andi took a deep breath and let out a loud sigh.

  “Oh, fine!” she burst out. She threw her hands up, nearly hitting both Lottie and me in the faces. “I did it. I made it seamless.” She walked to the center of the room and held her arms out wide. “That view was just too perfect to be hindered by a door seam!”

  “Why didn’t you want to tell us?” Lottie asked her.

  “The same reason Bennett only tips at the last second on his way out of a restaurant,” she answered.

  “You didn’t want a big deal made of a nice thing you did,” I commented. I knew exactly how she felt.

  “Yes.” Andi shrugged and stood in the middle of the room, staring out the window. Lottie and I walked over and gave her a huge, dual hug.

  “Then we won’t make a big deal of it,” Lottie whispered to her. “Thank you.” Andi smiled and leaned her head on Lottie’s.

  “Will you three get done with your hug-fest so we can go see the rest of the house already!” Vila called out, completely lacking any sort of tact. It was her attempt to get Andi out of the spotlight. “Doesn’t this place have an attic? Attics always have amazing old stuff left behind!” Lottie and I let go of Andi.

  “The realtor wasn’t super clear about that,” I answered her. “We still have the entire rest of the house first, though!”

  “Hmm…” Vila floated out of the room. Andi, Lottie, and I followed her.

  “How about this? Let’s check out the living spaces first, so that way we won’t have to rush through looking at an attic if we find one,” I suggested.

  Vila stopped at the next door down the walkway and turned around. “I guess that makes sense,” she answered, shrugging her shoulders and rolling her eyes in mock irritation.

  “It makes all the sense.” I stuck my nose up in the air like the way snotty old Englishmen were portrayed in black and white movies, and walked past her and opened the next door. I felt her roll her eyes at me again, rather than actually saw them. I walked through the doorway and found myself standing in the room that would be my office.

  3

  Lottie, the girls, and I systematically made our way through the house, finding all the details and intricacies that made it truly original. One of my favorite places was the private theater room. It had stadium seating for thirty people and the most advanced digital display screen on the market.

  However, there was a small door at the back of the room I hadn’t remembered seeing on the video tour. Behind the door was a small, dusty, old film booth. It appeared as though no one had been in there in decades. It contained a vintage popcorn machine, an old cot, a stack of film reels, and an original movie reel projector. The window that the projector was facing had been walled over, and I decided instantly to have it restored. I was a lover of old movies myself, but Lottie was an absolute history fanatic, and the possibility of watching the movies on the dusty reels and learning something about the history of the island was intoxicating to her.

  By the time we made our way back downstairs to the kitchen, night had fallen. Off the side of the room was a set of double doors that led outside to a partially sectioned-off portion of the beach. Five-foot high stone walls were constructed in a large half-circle that offered privacy from each side of the beach, but a clear and open view of the ocean.

  The girls switched to legs as we exited the house to ensure they weren’t seen by strangers in their original form. They ran along the walls trying to peek through the stacks of stones. The walls were heavily grout
ed, however, and they could not find a single hole. Directly in the center of the circle was a large stone fire pit, surrounded by wooden beach loungers. Butted up against the house where one side of the stone circle began, there was a small hut containing stacks of wood to be burned.

  After I’d checked out the area, I stood next to the firepit and looked up. There were more stars than I’d ever seen in my entire life. They blanketed the black backdrop from the ocean horizon through every inch of the sky visible between the stone walls. There were so many of them that they shone their own sort of light down on us. At first, I thought the light was from the moon, but the moon was nowhere to be seen. I couldn’t pull my eyes away from them, so I stood there, mouth open in astonishment, staring at the sky. My wonder was so complete that I didn’t hear Lottie walk up next to me.

  “That view makes it hard to think of lighting a fire out here, doesn’t it?” she whispered softly in my ear. “The flames would dim their shine.”

  “There is one really cool thing about stars, though,” I started, still staring up. “They will be here every night, forever.” I finally pulled my gaze away and looked down at her. “Let’s start that fire!” She smiled up at me for a split second, and then the two of us turned and ran for the woodshed. Ten minutes later, we had a roaring fire going, and the four of us laid back in the loungers, staring up at the sky. To my surprise, the fire did not decrease the stars’ visibility as much as I assumed it would.

  “It is possible that I will never leave this spot right here,” Andi said, eyes glued to the sky. “Hey, Vila, where does this remind you of?”

  Vila glanced at Andi and then back up in the sky. “Clam digging up north,” she answered without hesitation. “It was a different time of year, though.”

  “Exactly where I was thinking of,” Andi replied.

  “Where exactly is ‘exactly where’?” I asked, chuckling.

  “Soldotna Beach in Alaska,” Andi answered. “We had a master who was a longshoreman, and his hobby was to go clam digging on his months off.”