"Just One Wish" by Chelsa L. Dagley

Ever since her premature birth, my sister has been different from other kids. I can’t help but think of Josie as a four year old, because that is what she is; on the inside. If she didn’t speak - and you didn’t know her - she could almost pull off being her real age: thirteen. But, her differences don’t matter to me, she is my little Josie, my sweet sis, and I will take care of her for the rest of my life. What most people don’t realize when they meet her is that she isn’t just different, she’s special. And I say that word with my voice lowered. Years later, I would be asking myself if there was a reason why she had been born the way she had; and I would be nodding to myself.

I still remember the time when our lives were still normal. Before he came. I remember sitting on our sunny porch one normal day, my skin thirstily soaking in the bright sun, watching little Josie play in the garden. She was on her stomach, tiny hands holding her chin, speaking politely to a snail who was slowly creeping it’s way toward her elbow.

“Jacob.” I remember her calling out to me, her voice still wavering with a child‘s uncertainty of speech. Bright green eyes were fixed on me, and a slight wind was blowing through her blonde hair, “Come say hi to George.”

“Oh, is that his name?” I said, laughing as I slowly got up and walked over to her. I bent down and looked straight at the snail, keeping my face serious, “Hellooo George,” I said, drawing out the first word and making my voice low. I remember her giggle, it was like the tinkling of wind chimes.

When the dreams started I figured that they were just the imagination of a four-year-old. I was wrong, but of course I didn’t realize this for quite sometime. One day she told me that she had dreamt of a beautiful creature. It had red fur and black, feathered wings. It looked a lot like the deer that often roamed our backyard, that he even sported the huge antlers, but that the feet and tail were very different. The tail was long and wiry, and the feet had three, long, flexible toes.

She said that in her dream this animal flew through a dark sky that never became day. I had said then that it must be very sorrowful for him, to never see the light. But, she shook her head and widened her eyes at me, saying that he didn’t like the light, that it hurt him. That is why she is worried, because up ahead of him in the dream is a wall of light.

She said that the creature stops and looks at it curiously, and that is where the dream ends. My poor Josie was horrified that the creature might go into the light. If it does, she said, it will die.

Being a young adult, I dismissed the dream, rather cruelly I admit, as her imagination. But, one morning I awoke with an ache. It felt as if a blacksmith’s hammer had landed hard onto my stomach. I hurried to my sister’s room and found a bed with rumpled blankets, but no Josie. I ran all over the house, beginning to get scared, but she was nowhere to be found. Eventually I ran out to Skolen’s Road in a haze of fear, frantically searching. Running down the dirt road towards town, I kept yelling out for her.

Suddenly, I heard wailing. “Josie!” I called. The bawling got louder and I followed it, knowing it was her. Other boys’ voices came to my ears, and I felt that ache again.

What I came upon froze me to the bone. How people could be so cruel to a teenage girl that was only four years old I didn’t know. I came into the clearing to find two boys holding her down, and she was undressed. A third boy was above her, just taking off his pants. I wanted to kill every one of them.

I would, I promised myself, but not now. I needed to get Josie out of this situation and home. They hadn’t seen me yet so I snuck into the trees. One of the boys yelled out, “Holy ****!” when he saw me jump out and land on the boy above Josie. I was small, but I dug my fingers into his eyes, not realizing that I had blinded him for life.

Jumping off his shoulders, I used my feet to kick him to the ground, and used the momentum to jump on a boy holding Josie’s arm. This time I tore out his hair. He was able to throw me off, but all three of them ran away. I later heard rumors of a demon in the woods, one that could leap a hundred feet into the air and had six inch long claws that could tear through flesh like butter. After that, not many people came to Skolen’s Road.

I tenderly picked Josie up, and took her home. I gave her a bath, and in doing so found that they hadn’t done anything to her yet, and I had gotten there just in time.

After she was calmed down a bit and dressed in some comfortable clothes, I asked her why she had been out alone. She told me that she had had another dream. This time the creature had overcome its fear of the light and had gone in. Josie had woken up screaming, the creatures pain filling every pore in her body.

She had gotten up and left the house to find the creature and help it, but the boys had jumped out of the trees to surround her. They dragged her into the trees where they proceeded to rip off her clothes. She didn’t understand why they had done that, and so she had closed her eyes and wished me to come and hurt the baddies, which is exactly what I did.

She said that she was very thankful of me, and asked if I would go with her to help her friend. I didn’t want to make her unhappy after what had happened and so I took her out, letting her lead me. We walked up Skolen’s Road, a bit past the part where I had found her. She turned left onto a little path that led into the dark woods, and eventually came to a cave. Her hand was cold and shaking. I tried my best to be calm but something about the way she was acting made me scared. She led me into the cave and we walked for quite a ways through the damp smelly corridors.

At one point we came to a fork, and when I let go of her hand for a second, one of the corridors in the fork disappeared. I grabbed a hold again, scared, and walked with her into the corridor that wasn’t really there. I expected to run into a wall, but didn’t.

Suddenly, I realized that this cave should be pitch black, that we should be blind because their was no obvious light-source. I looked to Josie’s hand and saw that her skin was softly lit from an inner light. When I paused she looked back to me, her glowing blue eyes wide and unrecognizable.

“Brother, why stop? We save night bird.” Her voice soothed me, and I once more followed her. I wondered at the new nickname for the creature of her dreams for awhile, when I had to shade my eyes from a sudden brightening of the corridor. When my eyes adjusted I uncovered them and looked upon a wall of pure light.

Josie strode forward, but I grabbed her arm to stop her. When it had no effect, I found myself being pulled in, unwilling to let go. I had thought that it would be painful, like the night bird in her dream, but it wasn’t painful at all, and I started to look curiously around. There wasn’t much to see, we were in a vast space of light. We walked on light, and breathed light. There was nothing but this white, glowing, and a bit warm, light.

In fact, at one point I got so calm that I let go of Josie’s hand. When I did, pain began to rise up my toes and into my legs, until it had enveloped my body and I was screaming...everything was fading into a blackness until all was pain. I felt a small hand grab mine, pulling me from the darkness and the bone shattering agony. I saw my mother’s face come into view and say, “Brother, hold hand.” Of course, this was Josie. She sounded impatient. “Don’t worry,” she said, a smile breaking out onto her face, “Almost there.” Almost where? I asked myself.

We walked a few more steps, when she stopped. She reached out her hand and set it on a wall. Until now I had no idea that it was a wall, it looked like everything else did, if she hadn’t stopped I would have walked right into it. Ever so slowly she forced her hand into the wall. For a moment she just stood there pushing on a seemingly impenetrable wall, her little tongue sticking out in effort.. But finally, her hand began to sink through. Inch by inch, her arm was enveloped. Josie felt around for something for a minute, and then stopped suddenly.

She started to bring her hand back out, but it wasn’t empty. In it she held a horn. That horn was attached to the head of a deer, which was a deep red. Slowly the rest of the night bird’s body came through, a little at a time. I was able to see every inch of the beautiful creature. Its raven black wings, it’s tripod-toed feet, and finally it’s thin wiry tail, whipping about in irritation, but not at Josie of course.

When it was completely through the wall, it fell to the ground. Josie kept her other hand on it, knowing that it was the only thing keeping it from feeling the pain of this place. The night bird looked up at her with huge velvety golden eyes and said in a deep voice, “I thank you. For this, I will give you one wish.”