Jon Gibson was pacing up and down his bedroom at the same time as his sister and her friend arrived home. Karyn had had a minor panic attack as the consequences of her impulsive wish settled into place on her.
"I'm going to stand out," she had kept repeating. "I just wanted a little bit of attention. These are going to put a spotlight on me wherever I go!" Karyn had even taken a picture of herself with her phone to examine it. "People are going to straight-up think I'm Sarah when I walk into a room. That's not what I want."
Twenty minutes she'd just let the words pour out of her mouth. New words each time, but cycling over and over on the same themes. Karyn wanted people to think she was pretty. She didn't want people to think she was Sarah McMillan.
But an idea struck him. He couldn't change Karyn. But what if looking like Sarah McMillan wasn't so special? What if it didn't make a girl stand out so much?
Part of Jon wanted to run this by Karyn before he did it. But another part of him was saying that if he told Karyn, then it wouldn't have the intended affect. If she knew that the changes he was going to make were because of a wish, she'd still feel her same anxieties. But if he wished alone in his room, where only he heard the wish and only he would remember it, then Karyn would think everything was normal. And she might even be okay with her own wish.
Jon stopped pacing. And he took a breath. And he picked up the stone from its place on his nightstand. Right at the same moment as the doorknob to the front of his house was turning.
"I wish that lots of girls in school had long, blonde hair."
Two black-haired goths opened the front door of the Gibson home, and then two blonde goths stepped through the threshold.
Zoe and Athena stared at each other for a second.
"You're blonde!"
"You're blonde, too!"
Then the black jewel on Zoe's bracelet pulsed, and a wave ran up her arm and across her body, and a moment later her hair was back to its regular black dyed color.
And the pink jewel on Athena's amulet pulsed, and a wave expanded out from her collarbone, down her chest and up her neck, and it left her exactly the same.
"Of course I'm blonde," Athena squinted as she shook her head at Zoe. "I've always been blonde. But your bracelet worked! Your hair changed color for a second, and then it changed back!"
Zoe knew something was wrong, but she didn't have the magical knowledge or skill that Athena did, and she didn't know how to articulate it. And as she struggled to put her thoughts together, her brother made a second wish from inside his bedroom.
"I wish that lots of girls in school had big boobs," Jon intoned, once again echoing Karyn's earlier wish.
Zoe was about to say something when she felt a pinching in her chest that brought her attention downward. "My boobs!" she cried articulately.
Athena winced in time with Zoe, as the two girls found their busts both expanding within their bras by two to three cup sizes. "Definitely magic," Athena declared. "But why did it try to change your hair, and why is it giving both of us bigger boobs?"
Matching pulses emanated from Zoe's bracelet and Athena's amulet. And a panicking Zoe was mollified as her chest shrank back down to a familiar shape.
"It's so strange how the magic is trying to affect you, but not me," new obliviously-new blonde observed. "For a moment, you were almost as busty as I am. But your bracelet is clearly working."
"And your amulet isn't!" Zoe finally managed.
"What?"
"Athena, you've been changing alongside me," Zoe gasped, "but when I change back, you just forget you were ever different. I don't think your amulet's working."
Athena considered Zoe's words for a moment. But they didn't make sense. If her amulet wasn't working, then she shouldn't have been able to notice any changes in Zoe. Maybe the magic was affecting Zoe's memory?
And the more Athena considered, the more another thought began building in the back of her head: are there any boys nearby?
That thought felt wrong somehow. Athena wasn't a prude by any means, but she was far from boy-crazy. She could focus on one problem at a time without being distracted by her libido. And in that moment, her focus needed to be on pinpointing the source of the two waves of magic that had certainly affected Zoe, and possibly herself, as well.
Upstairs. Zoe's brother's bedroom. That's where the magic was. A picture of Jon began to form in Athena's head, and a sly smile began to form on her lips. He wasn't the hottest guy in school, but Athena wouldn't turn down an excuse to look at Jon.
Where had that thought come from? Athena looked up the stairs, trying to focus herself again, and wrapped a hand around her amulet. If she could ground herself, root herself in the truth she had stored in that magical item, she could know what was true.
The jewel glowed. And Athena's mind cleared. Her smile slid into a grin as she made her way up the stairs.
She was going to seduce Zoe's brother.
