Image by Erik Schereder

The Wishing Map is a full-length fantasy that is being posted episodically at this site. To read the previous episode, click here. To read the entire novel, begin here.

Knowing they might never return, in order to complete their mission, Zack and Gina agreed to return to Ismara.

Ten minutes after Momandad called good-night from the hallway Zack opened the door to his sister’s room and slipped inside. He was wearing the strange hauberk Aunt Aloysia had given him, and over that his faded Green Lantern hoodie. He also had a backpack full of essentials like twine, flashlight, and a bag of Jolly Ranchers.

“We’re only going for a few hours,” Gina snided as she dug through her chest of drawers.

“What if it takes a month?”

“Hello? You think maybe someone might miss us?”

“That’s twelve hours.”

“What?”

“If we spend a month in Ismara, twelve hours goes by here.”

“Holy…you’re right!” Gina pushed her desk chair over to the closet, climbed up onto it, and pulled down her old Disney Princesses backpack—maybe if she thought of their journey as a G-rated movie, it would end up as harmless as one, though without the stirring score. She stuffed the very un-Disney-like crystal scarf Aunt Aloysia had given her into her pants pocket.

They positioned themselves over the glowing blue circle near Kellansend Bay in Sur Kellan, and joined hands.

“I’m kind of freaking out here,” admitted Gina.

“Me too. I thought I wanted to go back, but not—”

“Like this?”

“Yeah.”

“I mean we might—”

“Never come home.”

“I was going to say die, actually.” They stood in silence for several minutes before Gina whispered, “I didn’t think I’d miss Middleton, but…” They stared out the window at the placid Kleemuk Hills, the kindly crescent that had watched over them since their births. And then Gina whispered,

“We want—”

“Wish,” Zack corrected.

“Right. We wish…”

“That we were there,” they finished together.

Just as the cool blue light began to spiral up and encircle them, Zack said, “Wait! How do we find it?”

“Find what?”

There was a loud WHOOM, and they were sucked into the Map. They panicked at first. Still, they’d done this before, and after a few minutes they began to relax and actually play in the air. Gina “flew” her hands the way you do when you stick them out a car window, then bent and twisted her body in various directions. Zack did a Goofy swan dive and a series of cartoonish runs. They swam, they pirouetted, they leapfrogged, they played badminton. In short…

They did everything except prepare to land. Then they looked down and saw the double moon.

“Wait. How can the moon be below us?” Zack shouted.

“We must be falling up!”

They looked up, or rather in the direction that should have been up, and there was the double moon, faithfully hanging in the sky above them. Then they looked down again, and there was the double moon below them.

“Oh, crud, it’s…” Zack exclaimed as they hit the water hard.

Really hard.

φ

Thoughts: Have you ever been hopelessly unprepared for what was about to happen to you?

To read the next episode, click here.