The last box thumped onto the bed of the rental truck. James Pine removed his glasses and wiped the sweat from his eyes with his shirtsleeve, latched the door, and slid the padlock home. He turned and faced the now empty house
Its vacant, curtainless, windows stared back like sightless eyes. He ran his fingers through his thinning blond hair and sighed, “ Well I guess that’s the last of it, did you find anything else, Jeanie?”
His wife stumbled tiredly toward the truck, her bedraggled hair, pulled back into a long, brown, pony tail, hung limply out of the back of her bandana, “That’s it. Roger is taking a last look.”
It was strange how different the house felt. Its once warm and inviting rooms seemed cold, almost sterile. As if removing the furnishings had somehow erased the house’s soul. He could feel the change, the new owner’s personality was invading, even before their first box was carried through the door.
Roger had just finished the final walk through, gathering bits of his life that had somehow escaped the packing process. He carried two books, a pair of sneakers, and some long forgotten action figures that had been MIA since sometime before his tenth birthday, when he’d sworn them off in favor of gaming.
Any other day he would have readily agreed to his mother’s suggestion to discard them. Somehow, today was different. Somehow, if he could hold onto these bits of plastic, the memories they carried would help him cope.
His father had opted for the double cab so Roger had an entire seat to himself. He climbed up and made himself comfortable. It was going to be a long trip.
It was the first week of August now. Roger had been counting down the days on a calendar. He had had time to prepare for the move. He’d spent the summer gaming with friends, roaming the nearby woods on camping expeditions, and taking every moment he could to spend facechatting and sharing to his pictogram account, two things he wouldn’t be able to do much in his new home.
He’d also started a MeTube account to share his story. He’d been glad to hear he’d be able to keep that up, through the internet network at the town library. If he kept his video’s short, anyway.
The whole thing had come out of the blue. Life was good. His dad worked as a mid-level manager at a local bank and his mom sold real-estate. Roger loved his life. He should have know that wouldn’t last. On the last day of school his father had made the announcement. A bank in his father's hometown had made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. They were going home.
“That sucks, dad,” he’d said, when James Pine revealed the news that there was no reliable internet service in Wishful.
“What, is the place stuck in a time warp or something? Pretty sure this is child abuse,” he said.
“Yeah, I know it’s rough, but I had a pretty good life there as a kid,” his dad told him.
“Right. But that was like 1980 BT,” Roger fumed.
“BT?” his mother had asked.
Roger sighed, “Before Technology mom, seriously.”
“Well, I’m happy to be going home, son. It wouldn’t hurt you to at least try to show a little enthusiasm. This is a big career move for me,” James Pine had told him.
Only, it wasn’t home, as far as Roger was concerned. This was where he belonged. This was his hometown. He turned away from the window as two of his best friends rolled up beside the truck on their bikes. He could feel the lump rising in his throat and knew that tears would follow if he acknowledged their presence.
The phone in his pocket buzzed. He pulled it out. There was a picture of the face he’d miss most, his best friend, and possibly girl friend, Hillary, in a thumb’s up selfie, with a big smile! “Write Soon!” the text across the image read.
They’d agreed to write to each other, as Roger’s mom had suggested.
“This is how we used to keep up with friends when I was your age,” she said.
“Why? Didn’t you have phones?”
His dad laughed. “Yeah, when our parents would let us use them.”
He wiped his eyes and stuffed the phone back in his pocket. Roger had already cried more in the last two months than he ever thought possible. The last thing he wanted was for his friend’s last memory of him to be of his face wet with tears. They kept up for almost a block before James finally found second gear and the big truck lumbered up to speed.
His father had insisted on the do-it-yourself move. The money from their moving allowance could be better used in buying more furniture for the new house. It was nearly twice the size of the one they were now leaving behind. It had been built in 1910 and had four bedrooms.
From the pictures his dad had brought home, Roger had selected a large attic room with an entrance from a round turret with a spiral staircase. The biggest selling point was when his father mentioned that they would have to haul his furniture up through a big double window. How cool was that?
He’d take what he could get. Maybe they’d get there and hate living in the past so much they’d move back right away. It was the best he could hope for, but if he had to move, dragging his furniture in through the window was at least something he’d never done before.
The combination of the hard days of packing, the emotional exhaustion, and the road noise, found Roger and he nodded off. Jeanie Pine reached over the seat and covered him with a blanket. She smiled to herself as she saw the action figures clutched tightly in his hand.
Roger had always been a vivid dreamer, but lately his dreams had seemed to take on a life of their own. He had been dreaming of Wishful, his father’s hometown. He knew that his dreams were partly fueled by the ‘Pictorial History of Wishful’ his father had borrowed form the Wishful public library. The book's images of Victorian architecture, broad leafy green trees, and brick paved streets set the backdrop, but there was more.
In his dreams the town of Wishful seemed to be in need of help. He dreamed of a dragon lurking on a hill overlooking the town. Its leathery wings stretched in flight as it circled hungrily over the tiny town.
It always ended the same, just as it seemed the town would be consumed, Roger extinguished the dragon’s fire. He saw himself standing beside a hidden fountain tossing in coins, as jets of water from the fountain engulfed the dragon, rendering his flames useless. It was all pretty stupid, in his opinion.
The next morning Roger awoke in a darkened motel room. His parents were trying to dress, silently, in the dark, “where are we?” Roger asked.
His mother flipped on a light, “We stopped for the night. We decided it would be easier than trying to move beds in the dark, and we didn’t want to sleep on the floor.”
“So, you carried me in here?” he said.
“Well, you wouldn’t wake up, son,” his father said.
“Did anybody see us?” Roger asked. He sighed,climbed out of bed and pulled on his jeans, “How much further?”
“Well, if we hurry we can still get breakfast here, then we should get into town about noon,” his father said, as he zipped his suitcase, and set it with the others by the door.
The hotel had an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. At least the trip wasn’t a total waste. There was a cute girl at one table and Roger wished he’d looked at himself in the mirror before coming down. He sniffed himself, whoa, well talking to her was definitely out.
He filled his plate with bacon and scrambled eggs, filled a tall glass with orange juice and joined his father at the table, “I can’t believe this breakfast bar is free.”
James Pine chuckled at his son over the edge of the map he was studying, “Not free, son. Included in the cost of the room, but far from free.”
Jeanie Pine had piled her plate high with fruit and was balancing a cereal bowl and a carton of milk on her tray, “Did you sleep okay, Roger?”
“I had that stupid dream again. What do you think it means?” Roger asked, almost choking on a mouthful of eggs.
“I think it means that you have an overactive imagination,” His father said seriously.
“Really? You sure about that?” Roger said, sarcasm dripping from each word. “I thought there was a literal dragon, and a magic fountain. Pretty sure I’m the chosen one that will draw the sword from the stone and release the people of Wishful from their evil…”
James Pine had no sense of humor where Wishful was concerned. “Look! We have been over this before, Roger. I know you think it’s stupid, but it doesn’t matter, there is no fountain anymore. It was destroyed when I was still too young to remember. So, can we drop it? There is no “spell” and no one needs rescuing.”
Roger made the rest of the trip in silence. His father tried to pretend as if nothing had happened, and his mother knew it would be pointless to bring it up. There was something about his connection to Wishful that James Pine had yet to reveal. It would have to come out in its own time.
The morning went by quickly and, at eleven o’clock, they took the exit from the interstate onto route four, headed for Wishful.
The countryside alternated between rolling farms and outcroppings of limestone. The limestone became more common the closer they got to their destination. The truck worked noisily up and over the rocky ridge leading down into the valley. Wishful sat in the bowl of a ring-shaped limestone formation. The road dropped gradually, making two full loops of the canyon on its way down. It looked just as Roger had imagined it would with a round topped mound rising in its center.
Just as they reached the floor of the canyon a large stone sign greeted them, ‘Welcome to Wishful’. A small metal sign on a post next to it was printed in large dark red letters, ‘No wishing within city limits. By order of the town council’.
Roger stared at the sign, unbelieving, “What does that mean?”
James Pine answered, careful not to sound impatient, “It means what it says.”
“Why?” this time it was Jeanie who couldn’t help asking.
James sighed, “I’m not sure but the story goes that there were so many people invading the town to make wishes at the fountain that the council banned it altogether, but that was a long time ago.”
“Does that mean, all wishes?” Roger asked, he couldn’t believe it.
“Let’s just say I never saw a cake with candles until I moved away to college,” James said with a straight face.
Jeanie laughed, “Oh come on, you can’t be serious?” Apparently, he was, he didn’t answer.
The whole town of Wishful looked like one big park. The trees were even bigger and greener than the pictures Roger had seen, if that were possible. A white gazebo bandstand stood on a huge green lawn behind the public library, which looked like something out of Mary Poppins. No wonder they didn’t have internet or cell phones, it would clash with the décor.
The library had two stories with large windows. Short, deep steps rose up to a huge stone porch and two gigantic dark wood doors with brass handles sat squarely under a beautiful, hand painted sign, which read, ‘Wishful Public Library’.
Roger smiled to himself. This was the first glimmer of hope he’d had. Even though he was a child of the internet age, the library in his old hometown had been one of his favorite places but it was nothing like this. He could just imagine all the nooks and crannies there must be to explore in a place like that.
Quaint old shops lined the town-square. There was Ike’s ice cream emporium, the Wishful Thinking Billiard Parlor, and a bakery called ‘ Top of the Morning Café’. The whole place looked like Disney threw up on it.
There was only one good thing about it. Roger’s father had promised that he would be able to have more freedom in a town like Wishful. Crime here was almost unheard of and for a boy of thirteen the streets were perfectly safe. He could come and go on his own. Not that he’d been a prisoner back in St. Louis, but there had been rules.
“Roger, you have to be off the street before dark, unless you’re on the bus, or in a Lyft coming home, got it?” his mother always said.
“Son, find somewhere else to hang out besides that park where you play basketball. There was a story on the news about that corner,” his dad told him.
“Dad, that’s like, literally the only place we can play basketball, what am I supposed to do with my “off screen” time if I can’t play basketball?” he’d asked.
“Not my problem, son, but your safety is.”
Case closed. Well, his life was about to be all “offscreen” time, but at least he could come and go, without them freaking out all the time.
James Pine had a difficult time making the turn from Town-Square into Coin Street. On his third attempt he finally got the truck maneuvered through the impossibly tight curve and they headed back up the ridge three blocks to the corner of Wish and Coin. Roger thought about the irony of those street names as he jumped out of the truck and ran toward the house.
About halfway to the front porch he stopped. A boy about his own age was sitting glumly on the front steps of what he knew from the pictures to be his new home.
He had dark curly hair and an olive complexion. A lightweight, red wheelchair sat empty on the sidewalk in front of him, “Hey,” Roger greeted the boy, “What are you doing on my porch?”
The boy looked up, “Waiting for you.”