"It's like this," said Julie. She had, needless to say, prepared. At least for an hour and a half on the plane, reading the 'diary', which didn't really exist any more than Julie did but which was handy for explaining just what had happened in her life. She described shopping trips, a visit to the lake, a tour of a historic area that Jon had actually visited when he had been there the year before, and anything that she could come up with either from the diary or from her imagination. "... and I found this neat purse at the flea market."
Zoe seemed satisfied and began to tell her own stories of what had happened over spring break, but when she had just gotten around to describing the Death Note fanfic she started writing, the bus arrived. They all boarded with Jon, Karyn, and Julie sitting in the same row of seats, Karyn in the middle.
"We need some privacy," she whispered to Jon.
"Nobody's listening," whispered Jon back.
"No, we really need some privacy." Karyn held out her hand as if grasping an imaginary object.
Jon, puzzled, took several seconds to catch the hint. "Ohh," he said, reaching into his pants pocket for the stone. "I wish the three of us could talk now and nobody else would listen to us, purely by chance. Uhh, I wish nobody else heard that wish, either."
Karyn smiled. "That's good," she said. "Anyway, far be it for me to spoil you two's fun, but I'd suggest that you wish to reverse all the reality changes from turning that branch blue and wish it happened for no reason." Having to be your own sister is overkill when all you're doing is changing the color of a tree branch."
"Sure," replied Jon. "Okay, I wish we'll know if that'll work, and why."
All three of them immediately groaned. "I don't believe it," said Julie. "Of all the...."
"He meant well, but this makes things pretty bad," said Karyn. "I can't believe your grandfather decided to put a protective spell on your family years ago. Once Julie became part of the family--even sort-of part of the family like she was--she automatically came under the protection of the spell. The spell now prevents Julie from being erased from existence."
Jon added, "...and it's a spell he put on us by himself. It doesn't come from the stone, and the stone can't reverse it. Welcome to the family for good, Julie."
"I'm not even going to try to guess what Julie would say about this," said Julie. "It wouldn't make sense for us to talk about this to a real Julie, after all. So let me just say this sucks. I admit the acting is sort of fun but it gets tiring after a while." She took a deep breath and added "Okay, guys. I heard you mention my name. Just what are you talking about?"
"You didn't notice it," said Jon.
She lowered her voice to a whisper and said "Okay, granted, she wouldn't."
Zoe, in the row behind them, cleared her throat and said "But I would."
