Jon could barely focus, but he looked down at his little chubby body, wet and smelly. It wasn't hard to guess just where he was--he had just been born. As an infant. Again. Someone tried to clean his body off and he cried out, almost instinctively.
Jon managed to look at various things in the room as he was being moved around by the adults and he saw that his mother was there and in a hospital gown, lying down but still partly awake. The date on the wall calendar was the same as the date he was born. The wish had indeed worked, all too well; Jon had gone back where he had come from.
It wasn't at all a surprise when he heard his mother's voice announce that she had named the baby 'Jon'.
At least he was still male, and he didn't have tits, any more than babies normally do. Which did make sense. The stone couldn't reverse wishes, but they could get reversed by outside events. You can wish someone's hair long, but it could still get cut. Well, he had been wished to have tits, but outside events--being given a new body--had made him lose them again.
So the tits wish was gone. But he was literally back where he had come from, and the rock must be too.
But where was it? If the rock had gone back to ancient times, it would have been found just like before and Grandpa would have it. If the rock had just been sent back to where it was at Jon's birth, Grandpa would have it.
Either way, Grandpa had it. Jon just needed to get to it.
Jon tried to speak. Only a burble sound came out of his mouth. He could hear adults saying "aww, that's cute", but he didn't seem able to make any real words. Would he have to wait until he was two, just so that his body would be developed enough to speak?
Or did he have to? The stone was Incan, yet wishes in English worked. Maybe the stone didn't care about the exact words. Maybe if he was trying to speak, and he knew what words he had meant to say, it would be enough--maybe he could make wishes by doing his best to talk, even if it sounds like nonsense to anyone else.
Life as a baby is boring, especially to non-babies who became babies by magic, and consists of a lot of feeding, crawling, being moved around, and staring into space. But it was only a week later when the opportunity came about. Jon's grandfather had left the stone on a desk. Jon was in a playpen, but the desk was right next to it and he could hit the side of the playpen, vibrating the desk. He still couldn't easily focus his eyes to be sure, but it looked like the stone might have moved.
With patience that no real baby could have managed, Jon managed to hit the desk through the playpen enough times for the rock to fall in. He touched it and made his wish, hoping that the stone would understand what he was trying to say....
