I Wish

Okay, so you know that there are unspoken rules in the world. Little things that no one ever talks about that we know to be true. You know, if you borrow something more than three times, you need your own. If someone only has one of something, don’t ask for it. That kind of thing. In a world that hadn’t reached modern yet, there had been plenty of others like that. A little more mystical in nature, a little more consequences for forgetting them than rudeness, but as time had marched on here, we ended up. Something my Grammy used to tell me often when I was little was beware of wishes. Didn’t even like to hear the word out loud. You will get in far more trouble for using the W word than you ever would for cursing. Sometimes she’d break out in a blue streak that made anything you had said seem cute. Honestly adorable, and she took great personal joy from any and all reaction someone would give to that. Just… no wishing though, under any circumstances. “Don’t ever say wish Sienna. Not once, not ever, my girl, because if you do that, then you need to be prepared. If you say the W word, then anything can answer,” she told me in her whispery voice, with long white hair that used to hang long past her shoulders. I missed her. We didn’t look much like each other, if you ignored our eyes. They were the exact same size and shape, only hers were a bright green and mine were mostly a chocolate brown with green splodgy bits in random places. Grammy had died years ago and, given that there were oxygen tanks involved before that happened, I’m glad she wasn’t able to live long enough to have to deal with the pandemic. Previously existing respiratory conditions, check. Advanced age, double check. Also, we lived in Melbourne. My parents' idea when all of this stuff came out with the virus was to move. Not out of state, or anything that would have made sense but into a two-story house with a massive yard just east of civilization. I’m not kidding. There was a rainforest ten minutes from our house, not even, and on the other side of that forest, if you drove for twenty minutes you’d come to the nearest town. A place called Angel Bay. It took an hour to walk the circular track from beginning to end, and that rainforest was the only thing about this place that I enjoyed. It wasn’t like there was anything else to do, or anyone to visit. I lived with my mum, my dad and my two little brothers. Jeremy is almost twelve, and Mark is nine. Our house has four bedrooms. The boys shared one, my mum and dad had the master, and I had one to myself, and the last was what we refer to as solitary. It makes it sound like a prison. Really, it was the house that was the prison, because it didn’t matter if we were in lockdown or not. It wasn’t like there was anywhere to go. We couldn’t even get UberEats this far out. We were in lockdown recently, and it wasn’t uncommon, but it was very much living in each other’s pockets without physical contact with anyone else 24/7. Solitary was good though. Mandatory family bonding activity means that we had built it together. Pulling out all the furniture, we painted all the walls a blue-green colour, put in thick rugs that you could bury your toes in, and couches piled with pillows and blankets. This place was built with comfort in mind. Well no, that’s a lie. This place was built with the idea that all of us were in a confined space, and we’d need somewhere to go individually to keep from killing each other. This room really had everything. Tv, multiple gaming consoles, books, music, DVD’s, everything from Netflix to Disney+ to Stan to sss Prime. I’d put money on my parents sitting here and binge watching something dorky while we were all asleep. They liked to pretend that they were cool like that. I’d been in here a couple of hours already, and literally every fifteen minutes one of those pain in the ass little brothers of mine would come and bang on the door. Bang-bang-bang! “Sienna! You’ve been in there forever. I want to play Minecraft, can you get out?” Jeremy demanded, jiggling the door. I blew out a frustrated sigh that had my bangs blowing up comically. “Jeremy!” my mother yelled from downstairs. There was a pause where he considered whether or not it was worth it or not before he ultimately decided not to push his luck. Points to him, over Minecraft? That was ballsy to even hesitate on. “But she’s taking forever!” he whined, stomping away. I was glad she didn’t try to make us share anymore, because if I had to listen to the music from that stupid game quietly in the background, I was going to scream. It wasn’t loud or even what most people would consider annoying, but the lullaby song that played almost constantly at all times of the day? There was a reason I was all but climbing the walls. Nothing ever changed, every day was just subtle variations of the same thing. “I wish something interesting would happen,” I murmured, heaving myself to my feet. If I had been feeling more inclined to question things, the wind-chime rush of tinkling, almost whispers would have made me stop dead in my tracks. So unbelievably unnatural, I would have been compelled to go and find the source. As it was, I had a brief flash of memory. Grammy was standing by the window of her old house. I stopped for a second and shook my head. It was weird, but I didn’t think any more about it. I was too busy being frustrated that I’d have to find a new place to hide. “Are you going outside, hon?” mum asked as I passed her, a full basket of laundry perched on her hip. Like she’d actually fold that. That sounded bad. She’d been happy to fold it but dad had a set way of doing things. It was hard for her to want to fold when she knew her hubby was going to take each piece she’d already done and redo it. Back to her question, I hadn’t been planning on anything, but now that she’d suggested it, I jumped on the idea. Better than sitting around inside at any rate. “Yeah,” I answered her with a nod, “The sun looks nice. It’s rare not for it to either be too hot or too cold to sit outside.” I moved through the open living room – kitchen, and out the glass sliding door. Out the back was a decent sized patch of grass, a couple of fruit trees and a mess of garden beds that we’d all agreed would look lovely if fixed up. None of us had been desperate enough to resort to that yet. As I stood on the steps and looked out at the nature that backed onto the property, I felt a shiver go through me, which was odd considering it wasn’t cold. Uneasily, I found myself looking around before stepping barefoot on the grass. It felt softer than my mum’s expensive satin sheets and any worry I had melted out of my head like soft serve left on the top of the slippery-dip in summer. A small pleased hum escaped my throat and I took a couple more steps forward. Something… something wasn’t right. I… my legs itched. My muscles tense like I was both doing my best to leave very quickly, and stay right exactly where I am. The longer I stood there in the bright sunlight the more I could almost hear it. Humming? Laughing? I wasn’t sure, maybe a party, but I couldn’t… couldn’t tell if it was a group of people or just one. Was it singing? I thought foggily. I lifted my foot to take another step. “Sienna, lunch is ready,” Dad called cheerfully, poking his head out the door with a spatula in hand. I jumped a foot in the air, and just about choked out my own inhale. That was a happy tone he was using, so why did it feel so sharp? I blinked. “Wha? Why? You scared the crap out of me,” I scolded, trying to catch my breath, “Seriously. Heart attack.” I moved my hand from my chest, where I probably looked like an i***t. The soft sounds of music slip away the longer I stand there with my own racing heartbeat in my ears. “Do you not want pancakes?” he asked in return, “Because I could tell your brothers that there are extra pancakes.” I laughed, knowing exactly how that was going to go. “You might deprive me of pancakes, but we all know if there are extra pancakes that mum's going to get to them long before anyone else does, so you won’t be getting them either,” I said with a shrug, amused. Nice try. “I could argue that but I’d be lying. I might as well let you have them if I can’t get any extra out of the deal,” Dad teased, as if he hadn’t been the one to mix up the exact amount of batter he’d intended on. “If the chef wants extra pancakes, then the chef needs to make extra pancakes,” I said, waving logic around like a flag. Speaking without thinking. “Hey, I make a perfectly respectable number of pancakes, it’s not my fault you monsters all take after your mother and devour them all,” he complained with an offended gasp, “I’m wounded, and probably going to starve.” My dad was what you’d call a drama-llama, and proceeded to act all distressed over this as we walked inside. Just before the door, I stopped and turned to look behind me. It didn’t look any different than normal, so why it felt so wrong to leave was baffling. Still though, pancakes, I told myself with a nod and followed dad inside because he was right. Those monsters would eat them all with zero remorse.