Introduction: I’m sure everyone has come across a story or two about someone finding that bottle or lamp that after the appropriate action releases a genie who will grant a certain number of wishes for the lucky person who happens to find it. Quite frequently, the person finding the genie doesn’t read the ‘fine print’ and the results are frequently not what the person making the wishes desired. The greedy and the dishonest seem to get the worst of it. In the case of this story, I guess we’ll just have to wait and find out.

Time flies when you’re having fun. Our two lovers have been married for 10 years; 10 very happy years, I might add. Now we are back in the town where Sandy’s adventure began. Rick had some business there, and the entire family came along. They were seeing America. Then Maxie showed up.

This work is copyrighted by the author and any publication or distribution without the written consent of the author is strictly prohibited. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of the characters to persons living or dead is coincidental.

Chapter 6

Then there was that day we were back in the city where I lived prior to my wonderful transformation. Rick had some business there, and we decided it would be nice to take some time off so that the children could see some of the country. Yes, we had three by this time: little Rebecca who wasn’t so little at eight, Rick Jr. at four and a half, and Margaret who at eight months was still on the boob. You may be wondering, as was I, how could this be. I didn’t look any different from what I did when I first started working for EM Industries. According to the paper work, I was 55. I should be thinking about menopause, and that was obviously not happening. There was Rick, who at 45 didn’t have a grey hair on his head. I’d go to the doctor for checkups, and he never batted an eye about my age. He just commented about what great shape I was in. Rick had begun to wonder, too.

Rick and I had talked about it several years before, and I had no choice but to tell him about Becky’s and my transformations. I figured he’d have me committed. He just sat there nodding his head. I realized then that he knew more than I was aware of.

Rick opened up to me, “Back when I was working on my doctorate, I would take occasional breaks just to get away from things. I’d been divorced for almost a year at that point. I liked to fish, and on this particular day, I found a beautiful cottonwood tree shading the lower part of Cache Creek. I had a folding table and chair. I didn’t really care if I caught anything or not. I thought I’d take a look at a news article on my lap top about the new Facility Manager of the Mars settlement. Of course that person was you. I’d seen a couple of other articles about you. I’d opened the article, and there was your picture. I was a lost cause.

“Your academic accomplishments astounded me. Your papers on terraforming and the advantages of certain plants over others were eye openers. You just made my goals even clearer. That’s when I heard footsteps from an approaching hiker. There really wasn’t any reason for anyone to be walking out there. It was 41 degrees in the shade. I turned to see a very attractive woman standing behind me. She was looking over my shoulder at your picture.”

“She certainly is beautiful, isn’t she,” the visitor said.

“Yeah, I think I’m in love,” I said.

“I can certainly see why a man would say that. But there’s more, isn’t there?” she said.

“Yeah, she’s smart. She amazes me. I wish I had a chance with her; but that will never be.”

“Don’t be too sure,” she replied. “Just keep working the way you have been. You never can tell.”

“I turned to look at your picture, then I turned back to say something to her. She was nowhere to be seen.

“Four years later when you interviewed me for the job, I was a nervous wreck. How I stayed calm during your interviews, was beyond my comprehension. Then, you took me to dinner at one of the best restaurants in San Francisco. Thankfully, better senses prevailed. I wanted to make love to you then, but that would never do. I knew I might have a chance if I just played it cool. Thankfully, I did.”

“We do have a bit of an enigma, don’t we,” I said. “We are both aware magic is involved. It’s also fairly obvious our lives are being directed to a certain degree. I certainly have no complaints, though.”

As I said, that conversation took place several years ago. Rick never had a problem with it. We were very happy, and we saw no reason to question what happened, and now we were back where it all started for Becky and me.

“You’re checking out that facility in the morning. Are you doing anything in the afternoon?”

“No, I thought we might do a little tourist stuff. There are some very important historic sites around here. Then I thought we could have dinner at that very nice restaurant in the River Market. Did you have something in mind?”

“Yes. I think you and I and Rebecca need to take a little walk. I’ll get a sitter for a couple of hours. The hotel has a service available. I’ll send them a request.

“Right now, I’m going to feed Margie, then put her down for the night. Then you and I are going to take care of this itch I have.

After lunch the next day, and feeding little Margaret, we got ready to walk the main street in the small city. We probably wouldn’t walk more than 20 blocks. As it turned out, we walked only four. Rick Jr. insisted on accompanying us, and we decided it would be okay. We’d put him down for a nap with the sitter when we returned. I began to realize that both Rebecca and Rick Jr. needed to burn off some excess energy.

We walked a block to Main, then turned south down Main to take a look at the largely restored area. Much of it looked like the way it did in the early 20th Century. The downtown area was thriving. About halfway down the block I saw a sign I never expected to see: “Square Deal Pawn & Jewelry”. Under that was an additional sign that stated “Rare Coins & Stamps”. That wasn’t right. It couldn’t be. It was 25 years since I’d visited the shop the last time. Maxie didn’t have any offspring as far as I knew. I was sure he’d never married. Well he had several brothers who ran another pawn shop across the river. Maybe some of his family had taken the over the operation.

“Rick, let’s check out that pawn shop. I used to know the owner back before.”

This definitely wasn’t right. There was Maxie sitting on his stool, just like he always did. The shop looked just like it did the day I bought the perfume flask from him.

“That was quite a day wasn’t it, Sandy. I can see things are going well for you.

“Rick, it’s pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard nothing but the best about you.” Maxie said as he turned back to me.

“I don’t fucking believe it,” I said before I could stop myself.

“Mommy,” Rebecca chided, “you told me to never say that word.”

“Your mommy’s a bit surprised, Becca.” I turned to see Sylvia standing in the doorway to a back room.

“Nice to see you again, Rick,” She said turning to Rick. “Things worked out just the way you wanted, didn’t they.”

“Auntie Sylvia,” Becca almost shouted as she, followed by Ricky, Jr rushed to give Sylvia a hug.

Rick, Sr. was as astonished as I was. I turned back to say something to Maxie, but Maxie wasn’t there. Instead there was a rather handsome dark haired man who appeared to be in his early thirties. He might have had some Hispanic heritage. He had the most beautiful brown eyes, and they seemed to have gold flecks in them that caught the light. Rick’s eyes are blue, by the way.

“Folks, let’s go to the office through that door. There are so many things we need to bring you up to date on.”

It was a nice homey place. I would hardly think it was a back room to a pawn shop. There was a lovely fireplace. There wasn’t anything artificial about it. The strange thing was I knew there was a parking deck above the pawn shop. There couldn’t be a chimney going through the parking deck.

Before anything else, I had to find out about this ‘Aunt’ Sylvia thing. Obviously, my two oldest had met Sylvia; but where?

“Okay, I need to know how this beautiful young woman has become ‘Aunt Sylvia’ to my two older children.”

“Becca,” Sylvia said, “you’d better tell your Momma what happened.”

“Mommy, Daddy was mowing the lawn, and Ricky and I were playing. I knocked that pretty bottle off the fireplace. When I picked it up, I pulled the stopper out. Aunt Sylvia came out of a big cloud of smoke. It was kinda scary. She told us not to worry. She said she was our aunt, and we should do our best to help you and Daddy.

“When you and Daddy went out to run, we’d open the bottle, and Aunt Sylvia would come and teach us things. She asked us not to tell you until we met together. That was going to be today, and here we are.”

I looked at the young man who’d appeared to have been Maxie Itzkowitz a few minutes before. “Would you mind telling me what the he- er heck is going on? Obviously, our presence here was expected.”

“We never know how these things will work out for sure. When you first visited this shop many years ago….”

Sylvia interrupted, “May I take the children across the street for an ice cream cone? I think it would be better if they heard this a few years from now.”

“I agree,” the young man said.

Of course the mention of ice cream easily distracted our children from what was going on.

We waited until Sylvia escorted them out of the shop.

“As I was saying a moment ago, when you first entered this shop we were aware that you carried the witch trait. We also knew the inner you. More importantly we knew you and Becky didn’t have long to live.

“By the way, there aren’t any genies in this universe. According to my mentor, His Wisdom, there are some a few universes away, but I haven’t met them yet. Sylvia has been in charge of this project since the beginning, and we decided to let her run with it. She thought up the ‘genie’ approach’ just to see what you would do. If we had any doubts, those went away when you said your first wish was for your wife to regain her health. She performed both your transformations. She’s very good at that.

“I apologize for not introducing myself earlier. I am Donald Brewer. Sylvia is my great granddaughter. She really is an aunt to your children. However, I’ll have to let Myrna show you the family tree. Myrna Mankowitz and her husband, Avery, have been some of the most important people in our family who have helped us straighten out what’s going on. I won’t go into all the details at this time, but I’m sure you are aware of what some of the possibilities are; especially since you’ve experienced some of them.

“I am a wizard, only the second one in the last thousand years. There are many more now. You will meet all of them. Sylvia is a witch; as are you, I might add. We’ll go into that in more detail later. My grandmother, Marissa Lewis, is related to you. I’ll have to get Myrna explain it. Anyway, in your line the witch trait doesn’t always show up right away. You have always had the ability to know when someone was trying to pull the wool over your eyes. You can read minds, and you will get much better at it.

“Rick, you carry the witch trait. We’ve known that for a long time. We hoped you would find a witch or someone who carried the trait so that you could pass it on. There is a problem, though. It won’t work unless there is true love between the partners. Fortunately, your infatuation with Sandy was far more than infatuation. We just needed Sandy to figure it out. It didn’t take any work on our part for you two to fall deeply in love. We didn’t have to do a thing; not that we would have, other than make sure you met.

“By the way, your daughters are magic. Rebecca knows she is, and that you are, too. All your children will pass on the wizard trait. We are so happy we found you.

Of course the direction of our lives changed drastically that day. Rick and I were quite wealthy. There was a huge monetary bonus for working on Mars. Interplanetary travel was still a bit of an unknown for many, and the thought of extra cash was the lure some people needed to go to Mars and the other planets. EM Industries was already looking at Venus. That would be a lot tougher than Mars, but it was doable.

As for Rick and me, we left EM Industries. We had invested wisely, and owned a nice portion of EM Industries, plus a lot of other important concerns. By this time, we knew we had a long life ahead of us. We decided to open up an antique business in West Hartford. It was two doors down from one of the best restaurants in New England. The owner and her wife are delightful. We had moved to the same little hidden community where they lived. It was interesting that it was a bit larger than it appeared from the outside.

That day we found out so much about us, Don told us about the County Humane Society that was west of town. I knew about it. We drove out there and found four of the most delightful little kittens. We donated a considerable sum to the organization. We did not have the kittens fixed. They were perfect passengers on the three day trip back to Hartford. They bonded to the children immediately. A little Calico decided I was hers.

I did have one wish left, although I really knew by that time, that was just a lure to make sure I did what I did. I missed Becky and her family.

“Sylvia, I never used that last wish. I would like to cash it in, if I may.”

“Of course you understand that was all a ploy to get you to do what you did. By the way, you do realize we never increased your IQ. As His Wisdom told you, we can’t mess with your mind. You did everything on your own.”

“I understand; however, you promised three wishes. When Becky and her family visit, Earth’s gravity is really tough on the children. I wish that when they visit that the difference in gravity would no longer be a problem for them.”

“We can do that. Anything else?”

“Well, if you are still granting wishes, I would like to be able to keep the Fabergé perfume bottle.”

Some Final Notes:

The metric system of measurement is really a far better system than the American system used today. There is no consistency among the various systems. I don’t need to explain how it works; however here are some easy conversion factors. When kilometers are given as a distance measurement, just divide the amount by 1.62 to get miles. If dimensions are given in centimeters, divide by 2.54 to get inches. Temperature is a bit more difficult. Multiply the temperature by nine, then divide by five and add 32. For example 41C equals approximately 105 F.

Mars is a planet with a very similar daily cycle as the Earth. Its solar day 24 hours, 39 minutes and 35 seconds. A Martian day (referred to as “sol”) is therefore approximately 40 minutes longer than a day on Earth. Of course a windup watch won’t work there. For convenience, keep all time measurements the same. Hours, minutes, and seconds don’t change. Just add another 39 minutes and 35 seconds to the day. We’ll call that extra time Lagniappe, just something extra. Any good digital watch could handle it. We added it after 12:00 PM. People should be able to adjust to it.

Since Mars is further from the Sun compared to the Earth, a Martian year is longer – it’s 687 days, or 22 times 31 +5. The extra 5 days could be interspersed anyway you wanted. The names of the months aren’t important.

At just 0.376 of the Earth’s gravitation (or 37.6% g), a person who weighs 100 kg on Earth would weigh only 38 kg on Mars. A kilogram is approximately 2.2 pounds.

There will be a test next Monday.

Much in this little vignette was based on a wonderful series of three SF novels by Kim Stanley Robinson. The novels are “Red Mars”, “Green Mars”, and “Blue Mars”. If any of you SF buffs out there haven’t read them, you should.