Free I Wish... by Wren Emerson

of making a good match." Mom didn't so much as flinch while Ramona insulted her supposed powers. "Marla turned out stronger, but it was useless to me. But that's why you are so important, dear. You can step up in your mother's place and carry on our Family's place in the Coven."

    "Coven?" This was a really elaborate delusion.

    "The real power in Desire is the Coven. It’s made up of the Matriarchs of the thirteen most powerful Families in town. Now that Mother is dead, I'm the Matriarch of the Madisons and someday you will take my place."

    Oh great, now I'm guest starring in this mess of crazy. "So I have a power too, you said? Why haven't I seen any evidence of it?"

    "Thistle, you not only have a power, it might very well be the strongest power of all. When we realized that you were so strong, Savannah and I knew we had to remove you from Desire for your own safety."

    "So what is it that I do?"

    Ramona looked a little uncomfortable, which was interesting because I'd never known her to admit wrong doing or shame in my entire life. "Well, we couldn't very well have you using your power untrained, you understand. So we created an aversion so that you'd never accidently use it. As it happens, when you wish for something, it becomes real."

    "Are you kidding me? Now I know you're crazy." I jumped to my feet, unwilling to entertain anymore of this lunacy.

    "Sit back down!" Ramona was on her feet and looking as angry as I'd ever seen her. "I know that we've given you a lot of free reign over the years, but you will respect our traditions now that we're home."

    She waited until I was sitting sullenly on the bench before she continued. "Now as I was saying. We found you, as a toddler who barely knew how to speak, alone in your room one day. You were playing with dolls and you said, 'I wish I had a pony' and suddenly it was true. You had a pony. Because we were close to you, Savannah and I could remember how it had been in the reality before you had a pony and now we remembered a new reality where you had one. Nobody else we spoke to about it seemed to have any memories of the reality that existed before we bought you that pony. Because you see, that's how it happened in this new time line. We'd gone to a farm and bought you a beautiful butterscotch colored pony that we kept in a small barn we'd built on the edge of town on a piece of land we bought specially for it in this new reality."

    Mom nodded, "It didn't take long to figure out that if you had made any wishes when we weren't around we wouldn't have any memories of it being any other way."

    "Things aren't always handled in pretty ways here. You were too young to protect yourself and we knew that if anyone ever figured out what you could do, you'd be seen as a threat to the power structure and most likely killed."

    "Killed? People don't just go around killing people. This isn't the wild west." I wanted to punch holes in their reasoning. Because if I couldn't then I might have to acknowledge the niggling thought in the back of my head that might be the memory of the incident they were talking about.

    "You'd be surprised at what happens here." Mom said.

    Ramona caught my eye. "We had to keep you safe from yourself as much as everyone else. We spent every moment within ear shot of you for the next several years, which was easily accomplished while living in the RV. Anytime we heard you start to say 'I wish', I'd beat you until I was sure you'd never want to say it again."

    I was horrified by this revelation. "You made me believe that it's an obscene thing to say. I've had to leave conversations with nice people because when they said that it made me feel so uncomfortable I couldn't continue talking to them."

    "I didn't have a choice. It's no different than punishing a child who plays with matches. The correct answer isn’t to let them continue playing with them until they manage to set themselves on fire. Maybe the lesson will be learned, but at what cost?"

    "So now