The trio found an empty room, and closed the door. For the second time that day, a weightiness fell on them as Jon withdrew the rock from her pocket. "Are you ready to fixh ush Sharah? For good I mean... No tricks... no deception."
Sarah's blonde hair bobbed as she nodded resolutely. "I..." She looks away and bites her bottom lip. "I'm sorry." She turns her gaze back to them. "I'm so sorry." She spoke her next words slowly, deliberately, and with sorrow. "I... no... You. You didn't deserve this. I was so self centered. I wanted to make good wishes, or at least that's what I told myself. I wanted my mom..." she paused, then shook her head. "That doesn't matter now. We're going to fix this, and then you can do whatever you want."
Karen, strangely enough, was the one to put her arm around Sarah. "If you need a wish, you should have asked. You should have talked to us. We'll still wish it for you." Jon nodded her agreement.
She shook her head in response as silent tear rolled down her face "NO... no... it's true. I wanted it to help with stuff at home. " Her head turns evasively. "But that was just an excuse. I was just selfish. All I saw was myself, and you were obstacles in the way of what I wanted. Let's make it right."
Jon responds with a final caution "Karen... If we make these wishesh, Montanna may never remember ush. We're only friendsh because of Marie. If Marie ish gone..."
Karen offers a sympathetic gaze "Are you having seconds thoughts?"
She grasps the stone a little tighter, and whisper her answer. "I don't... No. No I'm not." She looks up. "That's jusht how this ish. I've had friends that depended on Jon too. I'm just saying that this could be goodbye to Montanna. She may not even remember ush after this."
Karen takes a deep breath and lets it out. Sarah interjects. "I-I'll put in the best word. You can be friends after this too." Her voice becomes soft again. "It's the least I could do..."
Jon nods. "Let'sh take care of Karen first. That shouldn't change too much."
"I wish that Karen had just gone through a short transexual phase when she was younger, that she was 'barely passing' because she was basically just a tomboy, and her getting a boner was just her getting a 'lady boner' like they uh... joke about on blogs..."
Karen laughs. "A lady boner?"
Jon throws up her hands in abandon. "Well, how would you have fixed it?"
She continues to laugh in response. "No no. Whatever works." She turns her attention to Sarah, then nods.
Sarah takes a deep breath, then declares. "Granted!"
...
Only, nothing happens. No burst from the stone. No sudden shift in reality. No correction of Karen's sex. Nothing.
Karen is the first to speak. "It didn't do anything."
Jon stammers. "M-maybe it contradicted Sharah's first wish... Let's see." She pulls out a piece of paper from her messenger bag and skims it.
She puts the stone back in her pocket and reads out. " 'I wish that Karen wash just a barely passhing tranny who getsh boners for boysh at the worsht timesh.' That'sh what I wrote down... Maybe... Maybe I misshed shomething?"
She bears the stone once again. "I wish that I had a sheet of paper with all of our wishesh written verbatim on it!"
Sarah, knot in her throat, utters. "Approved."
Yet once again nothing happened. The trio stare blankly at one another.
"I wish I had a piece of paper in my messhenger back that had all of the wishesh we made written on it."
"granted..."
Nothing.
"I wish I had a piece of paper explaining why it's not working."
"yes..."
Silence.
"I wish I knew why thish ishn't working!"
Sarah doesn't respond at all this time letting the silence linger in the air. "Girls..." Sarah's voice breaks the air. "I don't feel it." She looks between them. "I don't feel the wishes anymore like I used to. They're not scratching at the back of my mind waiting to be granted or denied."
Karen's voice is stern, but even. "Why? What happened? It... It had to happen between now and when..."
Jon interrupts her."... when we fixed Montanna." She looks at Sarah. "You shaid you were never granting another wish after we fixed Montanna... We... We did it. We fixed her..."
Sarah gasped and Karen finished the though. "So, we can't make any more wishes? We can't... change... back?"
a deathly stillness fell on them. Sarah began to weep again, cried her apology, and fled. Jon and Karen merely met each others eyes and hugged. Slowly it sunk in. This is the first hour of their new permanent lives.
