The moon was a sliver of bone in a bruised purple sky, casting long, jagged shadows across my bedroom walls. I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, but I wasn't seeing the glow-in-the-dark stars I’d stuck up there in third grade. I was seeing Karyn.
Specifically, I was seeing the way that oversized, worn-out green jumper had suddenly looked tight—dangerously tight—across her chest. I could still see the image burned into my retinas: the shock on her face, the way she’d instinctively clutched at her bra, and that long, straight curtain of blond hair that had replaced her unruly red curls.
I felt a knot of guilt twisting in my stomach. She hadn't meant to wish for that. It had been a throwaway comment, a moment of insecurity sparked by Sarah McMillan’s presence, and the stone had simply… obeyed. The rules were absolute: once the breath was over, the wish was set. No take-backs. No undoing. I had told her it was scary, and now I was the only one who knew just how right I had been.
But beneath the guilt, there was something else. Something hot and insistent.
I had always thought Karyn was cute—scruffy, quirky, a girl who could talk about comic books and mountain climbing in the same breath. But the new Karyn? The one with the golden hair and the curves that seemed to defy the laws of cotton knitwear? She was breathtaking. The image of her pulling at her sweater, the fabric straining against her new proportions, kept looping in my mind like a corrupted video file.
I rolled onto my side, my gaze drifting to the small dark wooden box sitting on my nightstand. It looked so innocent. Just a piece of wood with a few carvings. But inside was a piece of Incan heresy that could rewrite reality on a whim.
I shouldn't touch it. I’d promised myself I’d hide it from my mom and keep it away from everything for a while. But the silence of the house was deafening, and the longing in my chest was louder. I wondered if Karyn was thinking about me. I wondered if she felt as different as she looked. I wondered if she’d ever look at me—really look at me—as something more than the "Jon-boy" she’d grown up with.
The temptation was a physical thing, a pull in my gut. Just one little wish. Nothing drastic. Nothing that would break the world. Just a little nudge. A bit of confidence for her. A bit of attraction for me.
I reached out and opened the box. The reddish-metallic stone seemed to pulse in the dim light, as if it were breathing. I picked it up, the cool surface grounding me, and closed my eyes. I pictured Karyn—not the scruffy girl in the slacks, but the blond vision from the yard, her eyes wide and her lips parted in surprise.
"I wish," I whispered, my voice shaking slightly, "that Karyn felt completely confident and bold in expressing her physical attraction to me, and that she felt an overwhelming urge to flirt with me tonight."
The sensation hit me instantly. It was that same feeling as before—like a sudden grain of sand in my eye, a momentary blur that forced me to blink. When I opened my eyes, the room was the same, but the air felt charged, as if a storm were rolling in.
I didn't know it then, but the stone had taken my words and run with them. It didn't just give Karyn confidence; it stripped away her inhibitions and amplified her desires, twisting them into something dominant. It didn't just make her want to flirt; it made her predatory. And because the wish specified tonight, the stone had accelerated her resolve, pushing her toward me with a force that surpassed mere friendship.
I barely had time to put the stone back in the box before I heard it: a sharp, insistent knock at my bedroom door.
"Jon? You awake?"
My heart leaped into my throat. It was her voice, but it was different. The usual playful, tomboyish rasp was gone, replaced by a low, honeyed purr that sent a shiver straight down my spine.
"Karyn?" I scrambled off the bed, nearly tripping over a pile of laundry. "How did you—what are you doing here? It's nearly midnight!"
I opened the door, and the breath left my lungs.
She wasn't wearing the green jumper. She was wearing a tight, ribbed white tank top and a pair of denim shorts that looked like they were fighting for their lives. The blond hair was loose, cascading over her shoulders in a shimmering wave. But it was her eyes that stopped me. They weren't just blue anymore; they were electric, burning with a focused, hungry intensity I had never seen in her before.
