Jo reached for the phone, typed the passcode, and sighed in relief as the phone accepted the input without any problem. She brought up a screen of the past few text messages, and they were indeed to Karyn's phone number. Then she realized something was odd.
The messages themselves seemed bland and mundane. For all Mikey liked the image of a thug, he didn't seem, at least, to have done much more than vandalize some property. There was one message to Karyn about some graffiti that he had painted and how he had used the stone to escape the police. There was another one about meeting her for lunch somewhere--the message was from yesterday, so the meeting was long over. Then there was another message that at first glance looked normal:
"Good thing I have the stone or the food would have stayed terrible. Bye, Sharon."
The only Sharon that Jon knew of was Karyn's younger sister. She'd be 12 now. She... of course. Mikey had swapped ages with Jon before turning him into a girl. He must have swapped Karyn and Sharon as well--not just ages, a complete swap. If that's true, he hoped that Karyn heard the wish or Mikey let her remember--if she did remember, it might be possible to contact her somehow and test the theory. Jo had thought that Karyn was simply mind-controlled by Mikey, but that theory could easily explain it as well.
As Jo paged through the messages, Mike yelled from behind her "That's mine." He took the phone away from Jo and said "I warned you to keep away from my stuff." Taking the stone out of his pocket, he said "I wish that Jo would make out with the next guy she meets that's at least her age and not related to her."
"Hey!" yelled Jo.
"I said, don't take my stuff. You know I can do much worse."
Jo grumbled. She didn't dare complain any more. But the information she had gotten had been useful. Possibly very useful.
Jack unlocked the door of the old house. Gary half expected some sort of spell but Jack simply used a normal-looking key. They entered and Jack bolted the door from the inside. The interior smelled of dust and maybe a little mold, and was warm from lack of air conditioning. It was also dark, especially considering the boarded-up windows.
"Is the power connected here?" asked Gary. He reached for a light switch. It turned on, answering his question. The house looked like it smelled; obviously nobody had lived there for a while. There was a sofa and some chairs; no TV and no signs of rats or garbage.
"So, a creature for my amusement," said Jack.
"What?" replied Gary.
"What? Oh, that's an old game reference. It's also the password." He indicated a door in the wall that Gary didn't remember seeing a minute ago. If it had just appeared, it had appeared without any fanfare. It was made of some kind of hardwood with a brass handle and seemed completely out of place in the dusty living room.
The room beyond the door was sparsely furnished. There were some chairs and a desk, a wastebasket, a refrigerator, and an empty bookcase. There was also another sofa, green, in a corner where a sofa would be of limited use.
"I know it doesn't look like much," said Jack, "but real magic isn't like you see in the media. Everything there has to look flashy."
"I don't see any books or anything," said Gary.
"That's because I don't come here much. Why would I leave books here?"
"Then what's it for? Why are we here, Dad?"
"Mainly because it's a safe spot that's close to where the stone was used. I was just going to gather some information; the next step depends on the result of that. So far we found out about Jerry, which is something. How about we try to merge you two?"
"I don't know if...."
"You see, Gary, Jerry is around because the stone made you be here, but it couldn't make you disappear from where you were since that was too far away. so you ended up in two places. But now you're not too far away. Any wish made about you has a good chance of making there be only one of you. I'm going to speed up the process and make it work the way we need."
"And what's that?"
"Well, for one thing, your memories of actual events will be much stronger, so you'll have a whole life of Gary and a few years of Jerry. And you should keep your own personality."
"I hope you thought through the ethics of this," said Gary.
"As a matter of fact, I did. When you're combined you'll have both sets of memories--it's just that one set has more real memories than the other. And any difference between Jerry's personality and yours that's not just a result of bad circumstances from the past few years is wish-created anyway, so I don't have a problem with undoing it. There's one big downside, though."
"What is it, Dad?"
"The wish made Jerry because it's supposed to affect you. That wish is still going. So when you and Jerry are combined, you'll be combined into Jerry's life. Nobody will know the name 'Jerry' any more, but they will remember Gary being here and doing whatever 'Jerry' did. I suggest that once I do the magic, you call me or drive here and tell me everything you remember about the past few years."
"So you're going to do this right now?"
"Of course not. You don't want to combine, be disoriented for 10 seconds, and drive off a bridge. We wait until late enough at night that you're likely to be home. There's no way to be certain if you work a long day, but we can increase the odds."
Much of the time before midnight was spent by Jack looking at images in his cell phone. "It's a great substitute for a crystal ball," he explained. He was able to bring up images of Jo, Mike, and their family, but only for a few seconds.
Then it was time. Jack opened the refrigerator, which also contained a freezer. He took out a chunk of ice that was shaped suspiciously like the magic stone. "I wish that Gary and Jerry are combined in the way we planned."
The chunk of ice granted the wish and instantly melted into a handful of water. As it dripped to the floor, Gary was somewhere else. It had been a hard day and he had to drive several drunk passengers... No, that was just the other life the stone had created. That's right, he had come here with Jack and been here at the same time, and now he was both of those. The spell had worked, and he wasn't driving off of a bridge.
Unfortunately, it still wasn't the best possible situation....
