The Wishing Stone

By Tegon Maus

During that last summer, as if in punishment for being happy, Kate was diagnosed with cervical cancer.
The last time we used the wishing stone was at the hospital the morning she died.

On that day, all three of us made a silent wish, certain the others had wished the same. Kate died that afternoon and I never thought about it again. It was the last time I believed in magic, in love or in the existence of God.

Then, after three miserable lonely years, the unthinkable, a second chance... Warwick.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tirgearr Publishing
• Release date: Aug 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311754790

Tegon Maus

Dearheart, my wife of forty five years and I live in Cherry Valley, a little town of 8,200 in Southern California. In that time, I've built a successful remodeling /contracting business. But that's just my day job... everyone that writes, everyone who tells you how to write, all say the same thing... Write about what you know and what I know is me. Well, at least the me I see when I write... a protagonist frequently wedged between a rock and a hard place but manages to work things out at the last minute after all. Like most of us when pushed into a corner it only brings out the best in us and we become the unstoppable force of a reluctant hero. If I have a signature style for creating a character then this is it. I have a Action / Adventure novel called "The Chronicles of Tucker Littlefield," published by Netherworld Books and a Paranormal Fiction story called My Grandfather’s Pants as well as Sci-Fi novel called "Machines of the Little People carried by Tirgearr Publiashing and a number of short stories published by The Short Humor Site.

Book preview

During that last summer, as if in punishment for being happy, Kate was diagnosed with cervical cancer.

The last time we used the wishing stone was at the hospital the morning she died.

On that day, all three of us made a silent wish, certain the others had wished the same. Kate died that afternoon and I never thought about it again. It was the last time I believed in magic, in love or in the existence of God.

Then, after three miserable lonely years, the unthinkable, a second chance . . . Warwick.

THE EVE PROJECT:

THE WISHING STONE

book 2

Tegon Maus

Tirgearr Publishing

Author Copyright 2014 Tegon Maus

Cover Art: Amanda Stephanie

Editor: Troy Lambert

Proofreader: Barbara Whary

A Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away. If you would like to share this book, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please log into the publisher’s website and purchase your own copy.

Thank you for respecting our author’s hard work.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

DEDICATION

To my wife Dearheart for always laughing at all my jokes . . . even after the 200th time, and for reading all my books one sentence at a time, six or eight times in a row, until I could get it right.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A special thanks to Troy Lambert who made my story readable, to Kemberlee Shortland who read it, and to Tirgearr Publishing for publishing it.

THE WISHING STONE

Tegon Maus

Chapter 1

A river stone smoothed with time and endless amounts of water, it was really nothing more than a regular rock. We found it on a camping trip to Deep Creek as kids. No more than four or five inches long and a dull tan with black freckles it looked more like a potato than anything else. Kate took it everywhere. She would close her eyes and stroke it three times before making a wish.

It started just before we returned home. She wished for the folks to stop and get us an ice cream for the ride home and they did.

The following week, she wished for a new notebook for school and the next day it appeared in her room. It didn't happen every time, but it did more often than not, so it became our wishing stone. As we grew older it became the conduit between us. We would take turns holding it, vowing on our very lives to only speak the truth while it was in our possession, talking for hours before making our wish.

Kate was its guardian, swearing to use it only for good and only when the two of us were together. It became a regular ritual between us. We wished for things large and small, all with equal desire they would come true. Once a week, it gave each of us an opportunity to vent our frustrations and express our desire to make things right with the world.

Slowly, as I grew older, my interest began to wane. My wishes became more trivial and I had less and less time to share with her so I concentrated on making her wishes come true. It made me feel good to secretly fulfill her modest desires. The stone had changed from sharing secret dreams to open communication between us.

Eventually, we gained new obligations, leaving little time for the wishing stone. Kate went off to college and I dropped out. We saw each other at least once a month, until our parents died. She looked after me far more than I did her and the wishing stone became a thing of the past. From that moment to her last, we were joined at the hip.

Two years after our parents' death, on New Year’s Eve, it reappeared. I thought it had been lost long before and was surprised by its return. We spent the night talking, endlessly talking, and it made me feel like I was no longer lost in my grief, no longer alone.

At midnight we made our wish. Hers came true eight months later when she met Roger. I am still waiting, nursing a flicker of similar hope.

For the next twenty years, each year on New Year’s Eve, the wishing stone was passed from hand to hand, first to Kate, then Roger, then me.

During her last summer, as if a punishment for being happy, Kate was diagnosed with cervical cancer.

The last time we used the stone was at the hospital the morning she died.

On that day, all three of us made a silent wish, certain the others had wished for the same. Kate died that afternoon and I never thought about the stone again. It was the last time I believed in magic, in love or the existence of God.

* * *

You okay?

I’m fine. I’m always fine.

You know it’s not your fault; the fire could have started . . .

It was me. You know it was me. Hell, I know it was me. It’s always me. I can’t take it anymore.

Don’t worry, Williams will take care of it. Those people will end up with a better car than they started the day with. It’ll be fine, Audry soothed.

Ben, why the hell did you stop? You should have known better, Roger asked, clearly upset with me yet again.

They were broken down in the middle of nowhere. What was I supposed to do? Just leave them stranded? Wave as I went by?

You should have just given them a ride back to town, not tried to fix their car, he admonished.

I thought it was safe. I had no idea my inhibitors were going to fail. You spent three hours fixing them last Saturday. I thought I was good for at least a couple of weeks. I was just cleaning the battery cables.

You were handling a battery? No wonder, I’m surprised you didn’t blow the whole damn car up and yourself along with it. Ben, I can’t keep putting Band-Aids on your inhibitors and expect them to keep up with your production, at least not here. You know what we have to do. Today proves it, even to you.

I don’t know, I’ll think about it.

I had concerns, perhaps misgivings would be more apt. I knew what he wanted. Still Warwick was on the East coast and I had never been on a train, let alone out of state. Originally there was talk of taking a plane . . . how crazy is that? They could never get me on a plane, never . . . at least not while I was conscious. I couldn't take the chance.

My whole life has been this very dilemma or some form of it over and over. My condition had made me an outcast as long as I could remember.

My body produces an electric charge that, depending on my emotional state, is anything from a tiny static spark to a full out blinding flash of electricity. They call it Bio-Chemical Electrical Discharge or B.C.E.D. for short but I call it a curse. I've never used a camera because my condition ruins the film when I hold it. As a kid, I could never watch television in the same room without destroying the appliance. Music, telephones, cars, computers anything with an unshielded mother board was toast if I touched it or got too close.

I could no longer do my job. Large raw arcs of electricity jumped from my fingertips at the most inopportune times; starting fires and damaging any metal I got too close to. Roger and his brilliant mind formulated a solution tailor made for my situation; a complex architecture of resistors, capacitors and electronics that boggle the ordinary mind, soldered together with elegant symmetry and covering my forearms. He calls them inhibitors. To my disappointment, they failed with frightening regularity leaving me no choice but Warwick. Like I said, I had concerns.

Risking your personal well-being is one thing, he continued, but you could have killed those people today. It’s getting worse and I’m at the end of my ability to help. We both know it. What are you waiting for? What happens when you kill someone or several some ones? What do we do then? You have to decide and decide now. What are you going to do?

* * *

Having lived the total of my life in Southern California I found the towns on the opposite side of the country . . . odd. All the buildings were grouped tightly together, each placed solidly against the next until the last in the row rubbed shoulders with open ground. Suddenly, I was no longer in town, but in an open field. It was very disorienting . . . standing at the edge of this new experience. To my right a town in every sense of the word, ¬stores, people, cars and to my left open ground fields, bushes, trees for as far as the eye could see. It was as if the buildings had sprouted in one place and stopped.

There were no people here. At home, everywhere I looked there were people cutting lawns, washing cars, riding bikes, roller skating, doing something. Here, in this place, there were suddenly no buildings and no people.

In Southern California the buildings were neatly separated with a thin patch of lawn or concrete between them, filling every square foot available for a hundred miles in every direction. Passing from one town to the next was indicated only by the change in the color of the street signs. Open ground, fields or empty lots were the exception. If one existed at all, returning a week later might reveal a new building, surrounded by a parking lot in its place.

Wide, smooth, beautiful roads tied the beach to the mountains and the desert to the snow. Every type of weather, every condition a person could want was little more than an hour away. Everything the world had to offer was available from the outer eastern edge marked by a forest of one hundred and fifty foot tall wind generators straight to the ocean. Gold and purple mountains stretched south to the Mexican border.

I was never homesick before, but this must be what it feels like.

As we drove along, the open fields slowly gave way to more and more trees. They grew straight with deep brown and white trunks and small branches that jutted out like needles on a porcupine's back, each stabbing into the mass of the next.

The leaves blazed in the early morning light, their lush color surreal. Bright yellows, reds, and a hundred shades of gold covered every twig as well as the ground, only the slightest touch of green remained, soon to be converted to carpet for the forest floor.

We had driven for so long I grew drowsy. The tangled mass of trees was relentless, appearing the same when I closed my eyes briefly and then opened them again. I settled into the comfortable jostle of the car, rocking gently with its sway. When next I peered out through sleepy lids, the curtain of trees had parted, replaced by a stone wall.

Ten feet tall or better with a white cap, it ran beside the road, just beyond the first row of trees. It was barely visible at first as I tried to shake off the weight of sleep and focus. Built of large blocks of cut faced, gray stone; it followed the road, weaving in and out of the woods as if racing a little ahead, built moments before our arrival. Shortly, the wall took the place of the trees, now showing over the top of the inside of the wall.

It went on far longer than I thought reasonable. Whatever was on the other side, whatever stood beyond this wall must encompass half the state.

Eventually, the road curved and an opening appeared, spanned by iron gates, as large as the wall itself. To one side, a small building housed two men in uniform.

My mind raced as the first guard approached and the second trained his weapon on the car.

Relax Ben, everything will be alright, Audry soothed.

This rifle appeared smaller, more streamlined, a sleeker model, but it was the gun Roger helped design, I was certain.

Panic washed over me as I relived being shot by this type of weapon. I heard the sizzling sound the pellets of light make as they pass through the air, just as they had the moment before burying themselves in my chest. The inhibitors on my arms jumped to life, trying to suppress the excess electric energy my body generated in time with my racing heart.

It's alright, Audry whispered, placing a warm hand on my leg. My anxiety began to wane. For her, being Roger's sister came with a price, and I was sure being my girlfriend as well must have made her life harder yet.

The car filled with a hum as the left front window slid down. Our driver stuck out a small blue card.

The young man turned to his counterpart, handing it to him. The second shouldered his rifle and returned to the structure.

The remaining windows went down, letting in the cold air as the first pushed his face inside to inspect us.

Ms. Williams, he said.

Williams merely nodded in return and the windows went up again.

I hated her.

Now in her late forties with shoulder length brown hair, she was smart, officious and unfeeling. Although she was reasonably attractive, the way she dressed and moved gave her a police woman vibe. She oversaw all of Roger's work and kept a tight hold on every aspect of his life,