Jo stayed on the sofa and, as she often did, she went over in her head, almost as if in a loop, the things she could have done if only she had managed to get the stone even once. First order of business would be to wish Mike unconscious, and then for a list of wishes, and then she'd start figuring out wishes. It all started with the wish for which the sounds were burned into her head, "I wish Jon and I would trade ages." There must be a way to fix that wish. She thought it over and considered "I wish that since I'm not Jon, this cancels Mike's wishes about 'Jon'."
Then Jo realized that that wish was a mistake. Making that wish might fix the age problem, but it would certainly mean she permanently wasn't Jon any more. Not to mention that Mike had used the stone to save "Jon" from injury--she could be dead if she made that wish! Five minutes with the stone and I'd screw up the wish, she thought. How could Mike have lasted years without screwing up any wishes when if she had gotten it she'd probably have screwed up in five minutes? After all, Mike had made himself smart, but he clearly didn't make himself less impulsive.
Or maybe Mike had screwed up the wishes after all. Jo didn't know how many aspects of her current situation were caused by Mike doing just that. Sure, Mikey hadn't admitted any screwups and nothing was obvious. But for all she knew, Mike had turned into a hoodlum because he messed up some wish that limited his options and made 'hoodlum' the best career choice remaining. Mike could have screwed up a wish and either let her think he did it on purpose, or just not tell her--just like she wouldn't remember wishes that benefitted him out of earshot, she wouldn't remember wishes that hurt him either. For that matter, not wishing that Jo can't use the stone was, even if not the result of a bad wish, a stupid decision and certainly not one Jo would have decided in Mike's position.
Mike had, of course, screwed up in several ways. Hundreds of miles away a man began typing something on a touchscreen. The message travelled the long distance through towers and satellite links--well out of the range of the stone--and Jo's phone beeped a somewhat familiar sound.
Jo didn't have many friends, since it was so uncomfortable to act like the girl she was expected to be, and was surprised to receive a text message. The message was from her original dad and read "Talking to my Dad today. Your grandfather--the supposedly dead one. Wants to know how you're doing with his magic stone."
Seriously? she thought. Mike had forgotten about the stone's range, and that mistake had nearly fallen into her hands. Of course, it had taken enough years to get her from age 8 to age 13 for this to happen, so maybe it wasn't exactly convenient. Still, she'd better reply. "Stone stolen by Mike years ago. Changed lots of things. Check the Facebook page for Jo Morgan. Whatever happens you'll still be my Dad." As Jon, she had been around Dad long enough to know him and had never resented him like Mike had. She added a second message, "I don't know what powers Grandpa has. but tell him to do something!"
Jo hoped that something good would come from the first evidence in 5 years that Mike had gotten a wish wrong. But something nagged her in the back of the head....
Then it occurred to her. She knew where Dad was supposed to be. In the new reality, Dad had left after Zoe was born-five years earlier than in the old one. His circumstances were different, and he had only moved 20 miles away. He had hardly ever contacted his old family, but he was still in the local area. Her dad had moved far away, but the stone had created a reality in which he hadn't moved far away after all. How could both versions be true?
Nothing more happened as far as Jo could see. However, some distance away, Jack Madison and his son Gary pushed their way through the airport crowds. "With all that magic, Dad, I don't see why you didn't just teleport," wondered Gary.
"Because," explained the graying older man, "I don't have magic to do everything in existence."
"But the stone is that powerful. You wouldn't give your most powerful magic to a 16 year old, so you have to have something better than what you gave up."
"No, Gary. You see, when I wished to be in suspended animation, I made sure everyone thought I was dead. I was in a bit of a rush and I didn't take enough precautions, so my real will went into effect. Jon really inherited the stone because it was really in my will, not because I got rid of it on purpose. But he can have it. I'm not going to take it away from him after all he's obviously been through, and I do have plenty of other magic even if I can't teleport."
"If he ever gets it back," said Gary.
"Well, that's what we're here for. I can protect myself enough that Mike can't just wish me into nonexistence. But I can't just zap it away from him, either."
"Mike grew up to be a real creep, from the way it sounds. From his social media pages, he must have swapped ages with Jon, so he ended up 16 while Jon became 8. Jon's 13 now, Zoe's 18, and Mike's 21, but Mike's only experienced 13 years. He's a barely-adolescent thinking he's a grown man. And what he did to me...."
"At least you were out of range of that wish. You didn't really leave five years earlier."
"Yeah. How does that work anyway? The stone changes reality. If in the new reality, I didn't move out of the area, and in the old reality I did move out of the area, and the stone only affects the area, does that mean I'm in two places at once? It would certainly explain all those 'computer errors' with my bank account. I even had to get a new Social Security number."
At that point a cab drove by and they hailed it down. But Gary was surprised to see that the driver of the cab appeared to be himself....
