Jon flitted about the room, growing increasingly frantic as the stone failed to turn up in any of the areas she searched. Keep it together, she told herself, maybe Mom or Mikey took it or something. Even if they made an accidental wish or two, damage control shouldn't bee too hard, right?
With this in mind, she flew downstairs, trying to hold off the panic that was setting in, as she looked for her mother. Zooming into the kitchen, she saw someone entirely unfamiliar sitting at the table; a girl of about twelve, with long red hair, wings in place of her arms, with her hands positioned like a bat's claws, and the lower body of a bird. She was naked, a torn shirt and skirt laying discarded on the floor next to her chair. Not that there was much to cover; her privates were pretty well obscured by a patch of downy feathers, and her breasts were only just beginning to bud. But it was the face that struck Jon; this girl seemed familiar...
"MIKEY!?" she yelped. The young harpy-girl sullenly nodded.
"Oh God, Mike," Jon said, "I'm so sorry it happened to you, too. But...I'm looking for something, a stone I left on my bedstand. You haven't seen it, have you?"
Mikey's eyes went wide. "It...it was real?" she said, her voice nearly a whisper. Jon felt a lump rising in her throat. "It's real, Mikey. Where is it? Please, I really need to know."
Mikey began to sob anew. "I...I found it," she said, "and...and I...I accidentally wished that I'd just change and g-get it over w-with, and I...I d-did, and I got upset and wished I'd never f-found it, and it...it disap-peared...oh God, Jon, I d-didn't know it was m-magic! I'm s-sorry!"
She broke down, crying. Jon could only stare, speechless, as the horror of realization washed over her. The stone was gone. There was no way to change back now. She was going to be like this, a tiny pixie-girl, for the rest of her life.
