WISHES
by
Duckling
Chapter 1
The Chapters
"It’s
freezing down here. Can’t we just leave, already?” Seventeen-year-old
Joe Hardy groused for the fifth time in as many minutes to his companions.
The
tall blond boy, his older brother Frank and his girlfriend Vanessa were
huddled in a dark, dank cellar of an old abandoned house watching
Frank’s girlfriend, Callie Shaw, attempt to polish a grimy metal oil
lamp. She had found it in a booth at the annual Magician’s Bazaar and
bought it on impulse, certain that it was an authentic magic oil lamp,
complete with genie. The brown-eyed blonde had spent the remainder of the
evening attempting to persuade the others of this fact as she laid out her
arguments. The bazaar was part of a Magic and Myth Convention held every
October at the
“Joe,”
dark-haired Frank Hardy cautioned, mouthing a silent rebuke. Like his
year-younger brother, Frank was skeptical that any lamp could house a
genie, let alone this particular one. But he was content to let Callie
have her fun. He again wondered how it was that his brilliant girlfriend,
with her cool, logical mind, could so readily believe in such nonsense.
While not actually drawn to the occult, she was fascinated by any display
of magic.
Tall,
blonde Vanessa Bender glanced up at her boyfriend and frowned at him. She
too was cold, but there was no reason for him to be rude; they’d let
Callie have her way and once she realized her lamp was nothing more than
that, there would still be plenty of time left to grab a bite to eat and
catch a movie.
Callie
glared over at her boyfriend’s brother as she continued to polish the
lamp. “I wish you would just disappear, like forever,” Callie snapped,
unthinkingly.
As
soon as the words left her mouth, the girl gave a sharp little cry and
dropped the lamp, which glowed orange with a searing heat. The flashlight
that had been providing Callie with the light she needed mysteriously went
out as a strange moaning sounded from somewhere deep within the walls. The
teens shrank back in horror as a bluish flame leapt out from the lamp,
encircled the hapless Joe in dazzling swirls and suddenly flared up,
before sputtering out completely, leaving the teens in complete darkness.
“As
you wish,” the air seemed to whisper.
Callie,
Vanessa and Frank stared open-mouthed at the spot where only seconds ago
Joe Hardy had been.
“Joe!”
Frank spluttered. “Joe!” Frank scrambled frantically to find the
flashlight, and finding it, beamed it wildly round the cellar, desperate
for some sign of his brother.
But Joe Hardy was gone. There was nothing, not even a footprint on the dust-coated floor, to suggest that anyone had been standing in the spot where the blond boy had been.
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Disclaimer
The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. The authors have just borrowed them for an adventure or two. The authors promise to put the boys back when they are done with them. The authors do claim copyright to the original characters in this story. Please do not borrow original characters without express permission of the authors.