The WishKeeper (The Paragonia Chronicles) (3 page)

She felt bad for the hopeful recruits, for their relentless hope and optimism. They were idiots for believing that a wish could be granted. Every day she was reminded of how dismal their fulfillment situation was - not one wish had been granted in almost a year and she saw firsthand what happened to wishes when they went unfulfilled.

As she placed her wand into the Time and Attendance slot outside the main gate, Leroy, the same ancient guard that had been stationed at the stable gate for the past century or so, would always greet her the same way: a wink without looking at her, a click of his teeth, the tip of a non-existent hat and a line of, “Evenstar to the rescue.” Shea hated that fairy.

She finally felt like she was awake enough to function outside of her thoughts and when Shea spoke to Leroy for the first time in ten years, she thought he was going to faint.

“I’m not here to rescue anything and can you please just call me Shea!” she yelled, not giving Leroy a chance to start his greeting.

The anger from her recent argument with her father and the sudden remembering of her mother’s birthday was still thick in her throat. She immediately felt a little guilty for snapping at him, but when he stared at her, Shea quickly realized that there was a very good chance he had never before noticed that her wings were broken. His look darted back and forth between her eyes and wings, and he was suddenly completely incapable of even a stuttered word. Shea felt a rush of disappointment flow through her. This might have been the only fairy in all of Paragonia who didn’t know her wings were the way they were. She felt like cursing out loud, but simply left the stunned fairy at the gate and went inside.

“Evenstar! You’re back. Good to have ya,” a curly haired, dopey looking Nursery Hand called out. He had a bright blue, puppy dog-like wish tugging on a spell that connected to the end of his wand. The wish’s tongue was wagging with excited breaths, and bulging eyes that were tightly shut, concentrating on the unintended game of tug-of-war. An Athletic Wish, one of the more annoying wishes to manage, though Shea always had a silent love for the Athletes. She liked how much they enjoyed showing off, but more so how difficult a time the Hands had while trying to keep them in their pens. Shea never had a problem with them.

“I’m not back, Rufus. And stop pulling so hard on him. He just wants to play,” Shea replied as she walked through the main gate. Rufus relaxed his grip a bit and the Athlete stopped tugging.

“Sure looks like you’re back,” Rufus said.

“I’m not!”

“Shea. Shea Evenstar, miss. Miss Shea,” Tully always greeted everyone three times before starting his obsessively compulsive conversations. Shea called him Three Times Tully as a friendly joke, but since he never understood why she called him that, the joke just simply became a name.

“I know my orders today, Three Times. No need for roll call, thanks.” Tully was the Nursery supervisor and Shea never blamed him for being constantly nervous. Security Posts were to be manned and operated throughout the Nursery, and Roll Call was necessary to ensure that each Nursery Hand understood his or her responsibilities every day. Shea felt that Roll Call was virtually pointless, seeing as though so few wishes were in need of tending in the first place. Still, it wasn’t easy managing the wishes, much less the Keepers that came and went on a daily basis, and Shea was at least relatively willing to be patient with Tully. On a day where moronic recruits were going to be shuffling in and out, Tully’s anxiety was expected to be at an all time high.

“Yes, you know your post orders, I appreciate that Miss Shea, but your post orders have…”

“Damn. They’re early,” Shea spotted a group of roughly ten young fairies flying toward the Nursery. They each had bright, excited wishes attached to wrangling spells, as if they’d caught a balloon with a rope. It was always clear which recruit had wrangled a Money Wish. They were rarely able to stay in rank. A few recruits were tossed, pulled and whipped in every direction as they tried handling their Monies. Impossibly rude and having no regard for the wishing process, Money Wishes had a green glow and a pointed, cone shape - ugly as trolls, Shea thought. Even though the wishes didn’t speak - they squeaked more than anything - the Monies had a way with their squeaking that was immediately annoying.

“But, uh, Miss Shea, your post orders,” Tully tried to continue.

“Only ten this year. The Keeper force is really kickin’ ass, eh Tully? Rufus!” Shea called out. “You’ve got some Athletes coming your way. A couple Ladders too. I’ll handle the Purities.”

“You always handle the Purities,” Rufus grumbled and tied up the Athlete he’d been struggling with.

“Relax. I’ll take the Monies too.”

Shea removed a wand from her side, released a deep, annoyed breath and called out, “Purities and Monies over here! Ladders and Athletes, to your left!”

The recruits split up and flew toward various areas of the Nursery. Two groups careened toward Shea, but only Tully was nervous. Shea rolled her eyes as she watched them fly in. Two fairies had Purities wrapped in wrangling spells. They landed perfectly in front of Shea, barely out of breath.

“Went for the easy ones, eh?” Shea said to the two female recruits. They looked at each other, blushing, knowing that they did, in fact, take the easy route.

“Don’t worry. I would have done the same thing,” Shea said, still keeping her eyes on the incoming recruits struggling to bring their Monies.

Purities are pink, peaceful, consistently happy little wishes that always float directly toward their Keeper. They rarely put up a fuss and would rather help a WishKeeper than hinder any part of the wishing process. They represent a Maker’s wish for health, spiritual and family prosperity and so on. Rather boring, Shea thought, but they are quite easy to manage.

Shea lazily waved her wand from left to right, sending yellow sparks in an arch above her. The Monies dashed to the sparks, forcefully pulling their recruits. Not one recruit landed on his feet. It was just another attempt to try and show off. Recruits assumed that wrangling a Money Wish would give them high marks, but the wild and obnoxious wishes usually ended up embarrassing them.

One recruit crashed to the ground and rolled to Shea’s feet. He still had the wish wrangled with a spell, which was somewhat impressive, but Shea didn’t bother addressing him as he quickly stood up and gathered himself.

“Purities inside, through the main hall, to the right and in the Purity Garden.”

The two female recruits walked their happy little Purities into the main hall of the Nursery while the rest of the recruits had their arms yanked and tugged while awaiting orders.

“OK, the rest of you...” CRACK!

The sound of a whip pulled her attention to a tall, muscular young recruit about twice her size. He did it again - CRACK! The recruit whipped his spell like a rope and cracked a wrangling spell, over and over, around the small Money. The wish winced as he did it again.

His nose was sharply pointed and his bright green hair was spiked to a tip at the top of his head. He looked like the typical WishKeeper that was trying too hard, but despite the obvious efforts to look the part, Shea could tell this recruit was probably one of the few that would actually complete the training and move on. He was cocky, strong, and tall - all of the things that just made Shea hate him even more. She wanted to crack a whip at him, slash a bloody cut under his eye, tackle him and ask him how it felt.

The blood drained from her knuckles as she tightened her grip around her wand. It sparked just enough for the recruit to notice. Even though monotonous work involved in the Nursery annoyed every little bit of Shea, she did still love the wishes. Mishandling them was unacceptable. Seeing a WishKeeper treating them with disrespect - punishable.

“What’s up with your wand? Malfunctioning?” the recruit said, shaking his head, purposely taunting. “You should get that checked out.” He knew she didn’t have any authority over him, and loved every bit of it.

“Follow me, please,” she said through a clenched jaw, trying to ignore the self-righteous recruit. She didn’t have any power over him, and her reaction the last time a recruit mishandled his wish dismissed Shea to well-washing duty for a week. On top of not wanting to scrape bird crap off of unused wishing wells, she just wanted her Nursery duties to be over. The sooner the better.

She waved them down a wide, weed-covered path. It wound around the edge of the main hall toward a large pasture that was lined with ivy-covered fences. The Money pens. She took a couple steps, but paused and heaved a frustrated sigh as she noticed a small, skinny little recruit trying to keep up.

“You,” she addressed him, annoyed. “What kind of wish is that?”

“Uh,” he blushed, and looked up at his wish. A bright purple wish was circling his head like a hawk. “A Money?”

“What color are Monies?” she asked.

His little brain was working overtime. “Green.” He quickly noticed his was purple. “Oh…”

“Again; what kind of wish is that?” she asked, rolling her eyes.

His face was blank.

“Ladder Wishes represent?” she asked, impatient, waiting for a reply. Nothing. “Since when am I your Wish Instructor? Come on! Maker career advancement. Home improvement. Education! What’s wrong with you, idiots?” More blank stares, though the muscular, pointed-hair recruit was laughing. She sighed again and continued down the dirt path.

“I should have wrangled a Death Wish. The crippled Nursery Hand wouldn’t be so disrespectful,” the muscular recruit mumbled with a smirk as he jabbed the Ladder-holding fairy.

Cripple. It made her boney wings tingle every time she heard the word. When she was young, it would make her run away to a secluded corner of the world and cry the anger away, but she had since learned to harness her anger. Anger that rarely resulted in a positive outcome, at least for the fairy that said it.

Her blood boiled as she quickly bounded toward him, wand sparking. Tully yelped and jumped in front of her.

“You may just get your wish, punk!” Shea yelled.

“Miss Shea!” Tully cried. “You’re scaring the recruits, miss. And please, your post orders!”

“Scaring? Yeah,” the cocky recruit didn’t budge, laughing over Shea’s outburst.

“I know my post orders, Tully! Just let me do my job!”

“Your post orders have changed!” a voice called out from behind Shea. Beren was behind her and nothing about his glare was happy.

“General Beren. Sir. General, sir,” Tully said, nervous.

Shea rolled her eyes, and sent a lazy salute to her dad.

“We need all of the GateKeepers reporting to their respective Gates, Shea. There’s one recruit left to cross over, but we’ve lost sight of him. You’re done here.”

“Thank you,” Shea said, already stomping toward the Nursery exit.

“Hey,” her dad called out. He approached her in a low, serious voice. “These recruits just risked their lives for a training session. You have no idea how difficult it is to wrangle a wish.”

“Yeah, they have it so tough. I really feel bad for them,” Shea said. Her snarky remark was not what her ill-tempered father wanted to hear.

“Drop the attitude!” he yelled. “It’s this kind of attitude -“

“Those wishes aren’t even real! They’re training-wishes!” Shea yelled back.

Beren paused, fuming. He released a tension-filled deep breath. “If I ever hear you talk back to a recruit like that again, you’re done and will never leave the house. You understand me?”

“Whatever,” Shea said as she spun and continued her brisk, frustrated walk out of the Nursery. No Keeper ever used her Gate and she was more than happy to leave and spend the rest of her day relaxing. She secretly hoped that the recruit lost on The Other Side wouldn’t come back. One less WishKeeper wannabe to worry about.

4

The Recruit

Thane rushed through a frozen forest, jingling icicles as he flew. Fleeing something, he kept looking back with the hope of evading whatever was chasing him. With a pink Purity Wish in his arms, the athletic Keeper-in-training with his sharp shoulders and tall frame looked a bit awkward holding such a feminine wish, but he didn’t care. He needed to cross over and quick.

Despite Thane’s nervous tendencies, throughout his childhood he was heralded as an up and coming Keeper to watch. He never forgot how proud his parents were when General Beren visited their home in a recruitment effort. The General told his parents that Thane was the youngest fairy ever to be recruited for the Keeper force and that they should expect great things from their son. It was every son’s wish come true to genuinely please his parents - parents who were both top WishKeepers in their own right. It was the second most memorable day of his life. Second only to the day Beren pulled him aside during a vigorous training run to bear the news that his parents were missing in action on The Other Side. He knew what that meant. They weren’t missing. They were dead. He never appreciated the false hope that came with such a claim of ‘missing in action’, but before that day, there was never a moment of hesitation or doubt within Thane. As the years passed, the highly touted recruit quickly sank in the recruitment rankings. Little by little, despite his naturally gifted abilities, he lost confidence. Now, suddenly, here he was gripping a Purity Wish tight in his frozen arms, and lost. It was just a training session. Training-wishes are always placed in pre-planned areas of The Other Side so that instructors can monitor the safe return of any recruit. There was always a safety net. He was always safe.

Not this time.

He hurled himself onto a nearby branch as neon spells zipped over his shoulder. “Oh, just stop following me!” he complained out loud. His assailants flew past him, about a dozen or more flashes of shadow.

Crouching against the tree, Thane got a look at what was tailing him. Lost Fairies. He’d only ever heard stories about them - stories that would keep him up at night when he was young. Well, he wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but the stories still kept him up at night. He’d heard that thoughtless minions of Erebus had helped take over The Other Side. Charred, black, boney wings. They couldn’t fly. They ate small fairies in their sleep. The last part was unconfirmed, but as Thane stared out from his little perch, trying to hold back the shakes, he was beginning to believe every bit of the stories.