Chapter 1

Monica Belmont was on the screen when I switched on the TV. Maybe I just wasn't watching that much television these days or maybe her popularity had gone downhill when she did her interview of me, the one that turned into an inquisition before I ended it so dramatically. Dramatically for me, her producer, her cameraman and Monica herself. The footage of her store bought tits falling out of her Mexican peasant blouse never made it on the air or the Internet. She just didn't seem as forceful today. Maybe she'd lost some of her self-worshiping confidence.

I turned off the TV and thought about it. Should I feel guilty if she was less confident after our encounter? No, I shouldn't. I'd gone through the motions of doing a stand up interview. There were things I didn't want her and half of Montana to know. Things that would disrupt my family, to say the least. More than likely, I'd end up being a permanent ward of the State, not Montana but that unresponsive entity known as The Government, housed someplace no one would ever find me, something to experiment on until dead. No, popping out her titties when she started turning the screws was nothing to feel guilty about.

Vicky came into the living room.

"Is Bev here?" she asked me.

"No. I think she's still in the dining room doing her homework."

"Maybe you should fix her the way you did yourself," she told me.

"I keep telling you. I've asked and she says what God gave her is good enough."

"Well, what about me? How about making things easier for me?"

"Knock it off, Vick. You've never had to work hard for a grade in your life."

"That doesn't mean I don't have to work some. It would be nice to be able to kick back and never do any homework."

"You think that's how it is with me?"

"No. It's just ... I've got better things to do with my time than homework."

"Talk to your teachers. It's not my problem."

She pretended to stomp out of the living room but I knew she wasn't really mad. Hell, if I made it so she just got straight As without having to do anything, she'd go nuts. She'd never admit that to anyone other than Bev, of course. And Bev would take any admission like that to the grave.

A minute later she stuck her head around the corner. "1492."

"Come on, Sis. Columbus."

"All right. 1066"

"Norman Conquest."

"1215."

"Magna Carta.

"See ya." She disappeared.

I had an old uncle whose favorite expression was "Wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one gets filled first."

I'm the only person I knew whose hand would get full of wishes.

It was a hell of a responsibility. Talk about temptation. So far, there was nothing I'd wished for that I hadn't gotten since my three and a half month survival trek. I hadn't tried flying or instant relocation from one place to another. They seemed more like things to do in a life or death situation than things to play around with.

I dug my toes into the fur on the floor. It was from the mountain sheep I killed the day I woke from my three and a half month hibernation. The day I discovered that wishes really could come true. I had Disney all beat to hell in that department.

That the rug was on the floor and not being worn by me as a poncho was a compromise I never thought I would make. Hell, I was one step away from breaking up with Bev when she wanted to put that and its matching head, complete with a pair of magnificent curved horns, out in the barn. She finally convinced me that even though we were in Montana, we were civilized enough that we didn't wear skins. It did make a hell of a rug to lie on and watch TV from and the head looked regal, like it belonged, up above the fireplace, where we'd hung it. Actually, that rug in front of the fireplace was great for a lot more than watching TV, if you know what I mean.

My biggest reality check so far had come when I was looking for a parking place near the cinema multiplex on a Saturday. The new Harry Potter was out and a couple of other movies were supposed to make the big bucks that weekend. The parking lot was packed. I came upon a Ford Excursion that was parked at an angle, the section from about the middle of the back door to the tail end sticking over the line. The back part of the car was a little over a foot into the first space I'd found after driving around for almost ten minutes. I lost it. Some jackass has to show how elite he or she is by driving this monstrosity that gets somewhere between two and four miles to the gallon and then has the gall to take up two parking spaces with the abomination. I pointed at the line dividing the two spaces, lining up my finger on the edge that was inside his parking place, then just raised my finger on that plane. While doing that, I wished that any part of the Expedition that was not on the space the majority of the car was in would get sliced off.

It didn't make any noise but I imagined the sound of a buzz saw cutting through the metal. It was actually pretty spectacular. The rear left tire was half missing yet the remaining part stayed firm enough to keep the car up. There was a neat slice from floor to roof, all the way to the middle of the rear door. A tiny part of the rear seat was shaved off and the back section was wide open.

I started to turn into the space to park and Bev looked at me.

"Val!"

"What? They deserved it. I bet they don't park over the line like that again."

"Put it back. Now."

I backed out and reluctantly wished it was back the way it had been, only this time there was a scrape just in front of the rear taillight from bottom to top.

"Va a a a l l l!"

I fixed the scrape.

"So, am I just supposed to drive off and let them get away with this shit? Maybe park a mile away and walk to the movie?"

"No. Just see how you can accomplish the same thing without destroying anything."

I thought about it and couldn't come up with anything.

"I'm stumped," I said.

"Yeah, I bet if I threatened to cut you off, you'd become un-stumped."

"No," I said, I really mean it. I can't think of anything."

"You doofus. OK, Vicky, get out of the car." Vicky opened the passenger door and got out. Bev slid out after her.

Before closing the door, Bev said, "Make your truck a little smaller so it will fit. Go in at an angle, the same angle as the SUV, about an inch away from it. They won't be able to get in on the driver's side and that will make them think the next time they want to be inconsiderate like this."

It made sense so I just wished I was parked next to it with the whole passenger side of the truck an inch away from them. There was no flash or anything. One second my truck was in the drive, the next I was parked close enough I couldn't get my hand between the two Fords.

I got out, made sure I wasn't infringing on the space the other side of me and put my arms around my ladies' waists as we walked toward the multiplex.

"Isn't that better?" Bev asked me.

"I guess. I don't know if what I did will do any good. I know for sure losing a tenth of his car would have made an impression on the fool."

"Val, it's OK to try to teach the guy a lesson. Lord knows I was pissed off when I saw the way that jackass was parked after driving around as long as we did. But what you did was mean and vicious and destructive. Some guy does something inconsiderate and you destroy a thirty to forty thousand dollar vehicle? That's no better than those ecological assholes who think it's OK to set fire to a dozen Hummers at a dealership."

"Fuck. I guess I wasn't looking at it like that. Damn it! It's tough being able to do pretty much anything that comes to mind."

"I know it is, Honey. That's what I'm here for." She jumped up and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

"Did you get his license?" Bev asked me. "Will you remember that car if you see it again?"

"Sure."

"OK. If you see it parked like that again, you have my permission to turn it upside down. Gently, I don't want you hurting anything. You can leave the same amount over the line."

"I could do that," I said.

After I paid for the tickets and we were lined up to give them to the usher at the turnstile, Vicky leaned close to me and said, "I thought what you did was cool."

As I watched Harry Potter flying around on his broom I thought about how neat it would be to do something like that. How would I explain that when Homeland Security came around?

You know, I think part of the problem is I didn't have a role model. I'd read some stories and there was a classification called "Mind Control" that was similar to what I was capable of. Most of them were guys who ended up with multiple wives, concubines and girlfriends, living in mansions on huge estates or having a community of able individuals who still depended on or worshiped the hero. And there was usually somebody evil, someone who wasn't quite as powerful but had enough power to fuck things up.

The only other model I could think of was God. The one in the Old Testament. The one who got pissed and turned people into salt, made it rain a month and a half, threw people inside fish, made everything bad that could happen to them happen, just to test them. "Hey, do me a favor? Kill your kid to show me that you love me." I bet he'd have no problem cutting the tail off that fucking Excursion.

Bev may have been joking when she said that was why she was here, but I seriously wondered if someone or something had put her in place to keep an eye on me; to keep me out of trouble.

We'd had lots of discussions about it and had never come to a conclusion as to where I got my powers. I firmly believed that drinking the water from the pond in that special cave was what gave me the ability to wish for things to happen. I also believed that it healed my foot from the gangrene that had developed because of frostbite and the hole in the back of my leg that was completely infected and oozing pus.

It had been pointed out to me by my father that I had not seen the magic pond yet when a lightning flash lit up the cave so I could find it and get out of the wild. Who's to say it wasn't a coincidence, something I had nothing to do with? Or maybe, since I was practically dying out there on the muddy mountain in the rain and had just slid downhill thirty or forty feet, just maybe finding a dry place to stay was taking up the attention of a majority of my brain cells and I was able to draw from that power in the pond, whatever it was. Sort of an introductory offer — one wish free.

Even I wasn't fool enough to think that the pond happened to grow and by chance the chemicals and molecules and nutrients and whatever was required to make my wishes come true developed over time and just happened to be where I was when I needed something like that water if I was going to live until the next day. That's as stupid as saying the oceans boiled and bubbled until they happened to come up with the solution to creating life.

Benevolent space men, God, hell, even the devil were answers I'd thought about. Chance was way down at the bottom of the list, just above Barack Obama and George W Bush as far as I was concerned.