Karyn thought a bit, and eventually nodded. "Fair enough, but if you're taking the stone, I want some to make some basic protection wishes first."
"Protection wishes? What do you mean?"
"I mean, you have the stone and all, so you should be safe enough should you draw the ire of the mysterious vans, but if they come after me or my family for some reason, I won't have that, right? So maybe we should make some quick wishes to limit what they can do if they do come around."
Jon considered this. "What did you have in mind?"
Karyn hesitated again, this time to think what precisely she needed a little harder. "A wish to deal with any memory changes from now on would be nice. Your mom in a cheerleading outfit would be hilarious!" Karyn joked, grinning wide at her own imagination.
Jon didn't laugh. "I find a cheerleader in my mom's outfit less appealing, but I see your point. What else?"
"A wish to be awake and alerted when a van comes around would come in handy too, of course. Oh, and a way to find me if I suddenly disappear. And a way to find the rock if it disappears, for that matter. A way to safely pursue the vans-"
"Let's not get carried away," Jon interrupted. "A few of those should be good enough to keep you safe for now, and we still need to write in those failsafes you were mentioning. In fact, we should probably write out these wishes and go over the wording before I make them official."
"Right, right, good idea." Karyn produced a piece of notebook paper and a pencil from her bag. After a few minutes of drafting, they had down:
| O | |
|---|---|
| I wish that if any of the following 5 wishes cannot be granted due to contradiction of a previous wish, the offending language or phrasing in the wish would be indicated on this paper. | |
| I wish the following 4 wishes cannot be voided by future changes of name, language, or other future semantic change, meaning they will still function as intended semantically and not written literally at the time of the wish. | |
| I wish that from now until Karyn declares this wish void, she will always know the location of this wishing stone at that time. | |
| O | I wish that from now until Karyn declares this wish void, should the organization responsible for last night's replacement of my mother, Linda Madison with Sarah McMillan come near to her or the building she is in at that time, she will be alerted to their presence and awoken if asleep or unconscious, via sudden realization of that fact. |
| I wish that from now until Karyn declares this wish void, her memories cannot be erased or altered by any means except normal forgetfulness and function of mind, especially not by magical or advanced technological means, and further, should memories be added by means outside of normal function of mind such as magic or advanced technology, Karyn will be able to discern which memories were gained naturally and which were added by said unnatural means. | |
| O | I wish that I had a piece of chewing gum in my possession with the following property: unless Karyn declares this wish void before it is chewed, whosoever chews the gum will know her location until the gum in their mouth loses its flavor. |
"The gum thing still feels a little stupid," Jon commented once they were finished.
"Hey, you're a good friend and everything, Jon-boy, but anything except a short, one time, emergency use thing like gum would still be creepy to wish for."
"I know, I know, it just feels a little inelegant, is all. Anyway, I think we've got everything covered. You ready, Karyn?"
"Ready. And hurry, school starts soon."
Jon grabbed the stone in one hand, the paper in another, and took a deep breath.
