Link: The Wisher's Paradox Title Page and Description

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Stirring slightly, Christina was in the wonderful middle ground between dreaming and waking, still not fully conscious, but no longer asleep. God, that was a beautiful dream! she mused sleepily. It all felt so real!

"Walt!" Ruth shouted from just beyond the door. "Time to get up!"

Hearing the name she'd fallen asleep to, Christina sighed frustratedly. Still, she put a smile on her face and sat up. Could be worse! She might have...

Pausing mid-thought, Christina immediately knew something was wrong. Her boy's pajamas sat on her body like a circus tent. She couldn't even find her hands as they were lost somewhere up the sleeves. Shaking her head to clear it, she shrieked when tangles of blonde curls flew into her face and mouth. Spitting to try and dislodge the wayward strands from her teeth, she tried wiping them away with the sleeves of her gray PJs.

Hearing a mild "Eep!" from her child's room, Ruth did a double take at the closed door when she realized it was the voice of a girl. Knocking, Ruth tried to decide if she should just barge in or give Walt a moment, possibly to keep her from seeing something very embarrassing involving him and a girl.

"Walt!?" she patiently yelled through the door. "Walt, I'm coming in!"

When her mother walked in the door, Christina was still trying to get the hair out of her face and pull the sleeves of her pajamas up until her hands were free. "M... Mother?" Even as the word escaped her lips, she couldn't recognize it as her own voice.

Seeing a girl in Walt's bed, wearing the very same pajamas that her son had worn to bed the night before, Ruth's mind went straight to the first place a parent's thoughts would go in such circumstance. It didn't involve angels.

Ruth screamed.

Still shaving in the bathroom, the sound of his wife's voice raised in fear and shock made him drop the electric razor, its head shattering as it crashed into the porcelain sink. Ignoring his ruined appliance, David ran for his child's bedroom to find out what had terrified his wife so much that she'd sounded as though she'd discovered a body, and hoping that he was wrong in that estimation. "What!? Ruth! What's wrong?"

Even as her father rushed in to stand next to her mother, Christina had finally freed her hands from her oversized sleeves and saw the tiny fingers and hands that only ten hours earlier had been meaty and strong. Now they felt like toothpicks as she tried to use them to get the hair out of her eyes and mouth as she turned to see the shocked expressions of her parents.

"Walt!" Ruth finally managed to shout as she couldn't take her eyes off the intruder in her home. "Walt, get out here right now!" Tearing her eyes away from the girl, Ruth began scouring the room for where her child might be hiding. "WALTER DEVON COCORAN! You get out here this instant and explain yourself!"

Slowly catching up to what was going on, David was stunned at the sight of an eleven-year-old girl in his child's bed and wearing the nightclothes 'he' had worn to bed, appearing to him as though she'd just managed to get the top on before he came in. "Oh God!" It was all he could say before turning to look away and provide the girl some sense of modesty.

Losing her patience, Ruth began tearing through Christina's room, flinging open closet doors, looking under the bed, and even opening dresser drawers, as ridiculous as that seemed to be later. "Walter! Come out, damn you!" Ruth considered herself a modern woman and good and patient mother. She could accept that Christina had sneaked a pre-teen girl into her room overnight, and even that the two might well have had sex, but her child was now hiding and trying to pretend it had never happened, which was making her more and more angry by the second.

Even as her parents lost their minds, Christina lost hers and she could only stare in stunned shock at her tiny hands. "D... d... Daddy!?" she finally managed to eke out as terror gripped her throat.

Clearing his throat, David furrowed his brow and addressed the strange girl. "You... your daddy isn't here, young lady. You're in our son's house... in his bedroom... in his bed."

Sure now that Walt was nowhere in the room, Ruth ran out to search the rest of the house. "Walt!" she screamed. "Wherever you are, you get your fanny out here and explain why there's a girl in your bed!"

Hearing her mother scrambling around the house looking for her, Christina slowly looked over at her father, her eyes wide in fear. "Daddy?"

Crossing his arms, David shook his head. "No. I'm Walt's father, David. Do you wear glasses? Where did you put them before you... um..." The man couldn't bring himself to say 'before you climbed into bed with Walt.' It was too big a shock, given his child's innocent nature.

Now in shock that her own father didn't know her, Christina began to cry. "Oh, Daddy!" She tried to say more, but the wracking sobs kept her from being even slightly coherent.

Seeing the poor girl reduced to tears and wanting her father, David was torn. He wanted to comfort this strange girl who obviously was something special to his child, but at the same time he knew it would be inappropriate to even get within arm's reach of her. Examining the room that his wife had just torn apart searching for Christina, David started looking himself, this time for the girl's clothes that he determined she must have worn to come into their home. It must have been her that I heard last night. he told himself.

Meanwhile, Ruth was at her wit's end where else to look for her wayward child. Reduced to near hysterics, she forced herself to calm down and lower her voice as she walked around the house and talked to the walls.

"Walt? It's Mother. It's OK, sweetheart! I promise I'm not going to hit you or spank you! We just want to talk to you, OK? Please come out! You can always talk to us about anything! You know that! We're not mad! We're just... we're frightened for you! That poor girl you left alone in your room is frightened, too! Walt! This is no way for a... a man to behave! Walter!"

Hearing his wife getting nowhere, and not having any luck in finding the girl's lost clothing, David moved to the door. "Ruth! Honey? Would you come here, please?" As soon as she was near enough, David lowered his voice. "Let's switch. Maybe I can find Walt and you can find the young lady's clothes? I can't even talk to her without her breaking into hysterics and wanting her father!" As he was about to leave, he paused and added, "Oh, I think she wears glasses. She thought I was her father."

Nodding in understanding, Ruth entered Christina's room cautiously while David left to search the house. Seeing the girl sobbing uncontrollably on her child's bed, there was something almost familiar about it, reminding her of times when Christina was young and would wake up with a nightmare. Her instinct to help a hurt child overcame her discomfort with the idea that this girl had slept with her son and she approached the wailing girl.

"Shhh! It's alright, dear!" she soothed, moving close enough to rest a hand on her shoulder, not wanting to scare the girl more. "We're not mad, dear! You don't have to be scared! No one's going to hurt you, OK? Shhh!"

Hearing her mother's soothing voice made Christina need to feel the woman's embrace. "Oh, Mother!" she cried as she turned and latched onto her like a life preserver, sobbing as she tried to bring her emotions under control. Why is it so hard to stop crying? she wondered.

Having the strange girl call her 'Mother', and then cling to her as though she were, unnerved Ruth. After a moment she wrapped her arms around the girl and tried to calm her. "It's alright, dear! You're safe, OK? Do you think you can calm down enough to tell me your name?"

Pulling back slightly, she regarded her mother through tear-stained eyes. "It... it's me, Mother! Christina!" she burbled between sobs, unaware of her own faux pas.

Pulling the girl into a supportive embrace, Ruth furrowed her brow in confusion. "A... Alright. Your name's Christina. I'm Ruth, Walt's mother. David is my husband and Walt's father. He said you might need your glasses. Do you know where they are?" She glanced around the ruined room briefly, hoping to spot them without releasing the girl to resume her wailing.

Confused, Christina pulled away again and tried to compose herself. "I... I know who you are, Mother! I don't need glasses! I never have before!"

"Why do you keep calling me Mother? I'm not your mother, sweetie! I'm Walt's mother! You're confused! It's OK! It's understandable! You... you were scared and surprised! Take a good look at me, OK Christina?"

Hearing her secret name spoken aloud finally made her realize that her parents had no way of knowing who Christina even was, let alone that she was also Walter. Thinking of all the stories she'd read where a girl like her gets magically changed to have a girl's body, the whole world had always changed so that she was instantly accepted as one as though it had always been so. Isn't that what the angel said would happen? she wondered. Yeah! She said, 'you will have a girl's body, which will grow into a woman's body as though it had always been yours.' Looking into her mother's eyes, her sad and scared expression dissolved into a giddy smile. "I... I'm a girl!"

Seeing the stranger happily state the obvious in such a simple way made her back away slowly, thinking the girl must be slightly crazed. "Um... of course you're a girl, Christina. What's your last name?"

Rolling her eyes at her mother, the giddy girl giggled. "The same as yours, silly! Cocoran!"

Still backing away, Ruth shook her head. "No! You... you're too young to have married Walt! Playing pretend is fun, but your name is still the same as it was before you met him, dear. What is it?"

Her smile fell as she saw that her mother wasn't getting it. "No, Mother! You don't underst..."

"I'm not your mother, Christina!" Ruth nearly shouted before calming herself once more. "You... you aren't my Walt's wife, so I'm not your mother! I'm only his mother! Where are your clothes?"

"My clothes?" she pondered curiously. "In the closet, of course!"

Moving to look, the woman saw no girl's clothes there at all. "I don't see them. Do... do you?"

Pointing at her shirts that hung in the closet, Christina sighed in exasperation. "There! Those are my clothes, Mother! I'm Walt!"

The stunned expression on Ruth's face was a pale shadow of the stunned feeling in her heart. The poor girl's insane! she told herself.

Even as Christina said the words, David was nearing the bedroom once more. Sure that he must have misheard, he knocked before entering. "Safe to come in, love?"

Nodding absently, Ruth took a moment before she realized he couldn't see her. "Y... yes, David. It's safe... I think."

Frustrated that her mother didn't seem to believe her, Christina was about to get up off the bed when she felt her pajama bottoms and boxer shorts start to fall off her much smaller hips. Grabbing them quickly before she flashed her parents and sent them screaming from the room to call the cops, the girl just sat quickly, suddenly very aware of the changes to her anatomy within the loose boxers. The thought made her giggle once more like a mad girl.

"David? Any luck?" Ruth asked, never taking her eyes of their seemingly insane intruder.

He shook his head ruefully. "No. The doors and windows are all still locked and the chains are still set on all the doors, so if he left the house, she locked up after him... which means he's been gone since before we got up."

"I'm right here, Daddy!" the girl cried petulantly. "I'm Walter! Or at least... I was before last night."

Looking over at his wife, he saw Ruth nod with eyes wide. "That's what she told me once already, David... after telling me at first that her name is Christina... Christina Cocoran of all things!"

Stepping closer to his wife defensively, he looked at the strange girl sternly. "Now see here young lady! Enough is enough! Where has our son gone? When did he leave the house? What's your real name?"

Now scared that her own parents might throw her out with nowhere to go, Christina began to panic. "Mother!? Daddy!? I am Walt! Ask me anything! I can prove I'm your daughter!"

"We don't have a daughter!" David barked. "We have a son! This sick joke has gone on long enough! Where is Walt?"

Now sobbing again, Christina was near to hysterics. "Please! You've got to believe me! I'm Walter! I'm your son! I... I always wanted to be a girl and last night I got my wish! It wasn't supposed to be anything like this! This is supposed to be the happiest day of my life! Now I feel like I'm going to lose everything! Please! Tell me you still love me, Daddy!"

Seeing the girl close to a total breakdown, David stepped away from his wife. "Stay with her, love. I'm going to call the authorities and get it straightened out just who this girl really is!"

"No!" Christina screamed. "Daddy, please! Don't do that! They'll lock me up, thinking I'm crazy!"

"You're not well, dear." Ruth offered sympathetically. "You need help and we need to know where our son is!"

As David left the room to use the phone, Christina tried to get up again and chase after him, but the baggy bottoms of Walt's old pajamas tripped her up and sent her crashing to the floor before Ruth could catch her, sending her back into black unconsciousness.

When at last she regained consciousness, she was looking up at her mother's concerned face as the woman kneeled over her. "Mother?"

"No, Christina. I'm Ruth Cocoran. Are you OK?"

"I... I think so." she replied. "My head hurts."

"You took a nasty tumble, dear." Ruth explained. "Walt's pajamas... um... don't fit you very well."

"I know." she sighed frustratedly. "I thought becoming a girl would be a dream come true, but it's turning into a nightmare! I just want to wake up back in my old body! At least then you'd know it was me and wouldn't send me away!"

Concern still marring her normally lovely features, Ruth looked closely at the girl. "You really do think you're Walt, don't you? This isn't just some game you two are playing at, is it?"

"Of course it isn't, Mother!" she nearly cried. "How can I prove it to you?"

"I don't believe you can, Christina." Ruth admitted. "This is the real world. People don't magically change genders overnight! You don't even look like Walt! Your hair and eyes are both wrong! My Walt has brown hair and green eyes. Yours are blonde and blue."

"Just like you." Christina pointed out sadly. "It... it's how I always imagined myself... being as pretty as you, Mother."

Hearing the way she spoke sent an eerie shiver down her spine. Her speech and way of talking sounds so much like Walt! she shivered. She must go to school with him and listened to him for a long time. Her heart went out to the poor girl. "It's alright, Christina. You... you're very pretty. I'll bet Walt really likes you! Do... do you know where he went? Please tell me, dear! You're scaring me!"

Beginning to cry again, Christina closed her eyes and tried to will herself to wake up back in her old body with the love of her parents waiting for her. Then she would tell them her secret right way. Tears fell down the side of her face and into her small ears that looked exactly the same as David's. Then remembering what Lisbeth told her, that her new image was a blend of her mother and father, she tried to calm herself.

"M... Mrs. Cocoran?" she stopped herself from calling her Mother as she sat up. "Will you do something for me?"

"Of course, dear!" the woman offered.

"Look at me really closely. Don't you see it? I look like you and Daddy!"

With a patient sigh, she humored the girl. "Well, now that you mention it, you do look a little like I did at your age... and those ears and nose look so much like your fath... I mean... like Mr. Cocoran's."

Hearing the Freudian slip, Christina sat up in hope. "See? I'm your daughter! I mean... your son! I mean..."

"It's OK dear!" Ruth tried to soothe her once more. "Don't try and sit up, alright? You might have a concussion. Try to lie back and don't talk, OK?"

"But I have to convince you!" she nearly cried. "Before the cops come and haul me away to the loony bin... or wherever it is that they send runaways!"

"You're a runaway?" Ruth caught her out. "Ah! So that's why you're scared of us calling the police! Are you ready to tell me your real name now?"

"No!" she protested. "I mean, no, you don't understand! If the cops come and you turn me over to them, I only have two choices! Tell the truth about who I am and get locked up for people thinking I'm crazy, or tell them nothing and get locked up on suspicion of me being a runaway, which is what they'd have to assume is the reason I won't tell them my name! Please Mother! Don't let them take me away! I love you so much!"

Listening to the girl try to dig her way out of the slip of the tongue, then hearing her words dissolve into wracking sobs once more, Ruth wished there was some way she could help her.

Just then, David came back in. "The police are on their way, along with an ambulance." he said calmly. "Walt's not under arrest or in juvenile hall, so that's a relief, anyway. They're checking hospitals and... um... the morgue."

Suppressing her worst fears, Ruth looked down at the crying girl. "She... she's either utterly convinced that she's Walt, or she's the best con artist ever, David."

"Either way, she's not our problem! Either she needs the police or a doctor."

"My parents hate me!" Christina sobbed. "You both hate me!"

"We don't hate you, Christina!" explained David. "You... you just aren't our son! Do... do you think you're a boy? Inside, I mean? Is that why you want to be our Walt?"

"No, Daddy!" she cried. "I don't think I'm a boy inside. I'm a girl, like I always was, but now I'm a girl outside, too!"

"Our son wasn't a girl inside, Christina." he retorted. "He told us so, many times."

"No I didn't!" she shot back. "I so did not, Daddy! You only ever asked if I thought I was a girl, but I didn't think that! I knew I was stuck being a boy, but inside I kept being Christina a secret so... so..." Near to tears again, she couldn't bring herself to say out loud the reason she'd kept it a secret. So you wouldn't have an ugly daughter! Now it's going to cost me my entire life!

David shook his head. "Sweetie, our son knows that we know he's... different. Delicate. He knows that if he was a girl inside that we'd support him to be himself, or I guess in that case her to be herself. He'd have no reason to keep it hidden from us!"

"I did it because I was ugly, Daddy! I could never pass as a girl, even if I wore a ball gown and a dozen layers of makeup! It was no use even trying! So I just prayed and tried to be good... and the angel granted my wish!"

"What angel, sweetie?" Ruth asked curiously.

"I don't remember her name." she admitted. "She... she was really pretty and talked without moving her lips. She gave me a choice to accept the gift of becoming a girl or just stay the way I was, and warned me that there might be consequences and there was no going back! I shoulda said no! Being a girl isn't worth losing you two!" Once more the tears overwhelmed her as she finished talking.

Looking into one another's eyes, the two parents could see the hurt and anguish the girl was suffering. After a moment, Ruth shook her head. "You won't lose us, sweetie. We... we aren't your parents. We wish you would tell us where Walt is. We want him back home!"

As if on cue, the doorbell rang and the two looked up at each other hopefully. "Walt?" David yelled as he ran for the door.

Realizing that it couldn't be Walt because she was right in front of their unbelieving eyes, Christina concluded that it was the police. "Mother? Please don't do this to me? Don't send me away! You told me yesterday that you wanted me to focus on my schoolwork! How can I do that if you send me away? Please, Mother! You have to know it's me!"

Hearing the girl refer to a conversation she'd had with Walt when they were alone the evening before was unnerving. How could she possibly know that! Concluding that Walt must have told her, the only rational explanation, she looked sternly at the girl. "Tell me where Walt is! I know he told you those things, so he must be part of this ludicrous joke that's gone on way too long!"

Giving up, Christina just lay back down and closed her eyes before the tears began to flow once more. God? Please help me! Take it back! Please!

As she lay there crying, two police officers and two paramedics came in the room, the latter two beginning to examine her by shining lights in her eyes and taking her blood pressure, temperature, and heart rate. Satisfied that she was in no immediate danger, they told her to just lay back.

Meanwhile, David was explaining in detail the last time he'd seen Walt, the odd feeling that someone had gotten into their home the night before, then the bizarre tale that Christina had been telling them both.

Seeing a lull in the conversation, the lead paramedic took one of the officers aside. "She has a mild concussion. It could explain mild delusions, but someone more qualified would have to attest to that, Officer Martinez."

"Is she safe to move?" he asked bluntly.

"We'll need the stretcher in here, but yeah. She's otherwise healthy as a horse! Top physical shape for her age, I'd say."

"How old?" the senior patrolman asked.

"Hmmm... ten to twelve I'd guess. Probably hasn't reached menarche yet."

"Great!" Christina grumbled. "I get torn away from my parents and now I'm gonna have to look forward to going through that alone!"

"What are your parent's names, Christina." the junior patrolman asked, hoping to catch her out with an honest off-the-cuff answer.

Looking up at him, she shook her dizzy head. "David and Ruth Cocoran. Twelve-twenty-six West Arctic Street." Seeing the irritated look on his face, Christina shrugged and looked at her parents. "What? Did you expect me to lie?"

"I... I wouldn't expect Walt to." Ruth admitted. "He was always honest."

"I still am, Mother." she stated sadly. "I just wish you'd believe me."

Turning to her husband, the confused woman shrugged. "She does sound an awful lot like Walt, David."

Looking at her as though she'd lost her mind, he shook his head. "No, Ruth! That's crazy! That is not our son!" he insisted, pointing at the girl.

"But maybe she's our daughter, David! Maybe we should send these people away and talk to her!"

Holding up his hand to forestall further debate, Officer Martinez settled the argument. "Let's not get hysterical! Until we can positively identify the girl, you two have done all you can. We'll take her to the hospital, then to juvenile services to have her fingerprints and footprint checked against the database for missing and exploited children. We'll find out who she is and get her home! As for your son, we've put out an Amber alert. I bet we find him soon!"

Picked up and placed on the gurney, Christina was catatonic with shock, only vaguely cognizant of her surroundings and what was happening to her. Her mind in a fog, she was barely aware that she'd been put in an ambulance and taken from her home and parents, then poked, prodded, and otherwise treated like a piece of meat. When a doctor tried to use a rape kit on her though, she came out of it as they began undressing her.

Her scream could be heard throughout the emergency room.