Challenge #04739-L355: Birthday Wish

Visions guided Wraithvine to a village isolated on a forested island just off a wild coast. There ze finds a village where a fortnight before everyone over the age of 13 vanished. The children are distraught, food is running low, and the twelve year old girl who’s birthday is only days away cannot sleep.
What has happened to the adults and can Wraithvine get to the bottom of the mystery in time? --

There was something deeply wrong with this section of the wide ocean. First there were the merfolk and their warped predator false god. Now there was this place.

Wraithvine had followed the trail of smoke and regular puffs of it. Someone at the fire wanted and needed attention.

Desperately so, as it turned out. There was not a single adult on the island. Nobody over the age of thirteen, as Wraithvine discovered. Ze did set foot on the seemingly cursed land without incident, but the signaler had had a conniption about it.

"You could have vanished," she wailed. "And then we'd have nobody."

The tale came out. When she was eleven, everyone over the age of thirteen vanished without a trace. Helpless infants only survived because the oldest gathered together to share what they knew of infant care.

Preserved supplies went first. Farming dwindled to a minimum because they lacked the muscle and endurance to do it all. Hunting and gathering worked to a degree, but things were getting desperate.

"And in two weeks," said Lyala, Wraithvine's new employer, "I turn thirteen."

Ah. So she was afraid that she was next. Which meant that Wraithvine had two weeks to unriddle what had happened to the adults of the island. Which began with opening hir eyes to they leyflow, looking for a disturbance in the local magical fields.

Other means to diagnose what was going on were chronomancy, divination, and wandering around and asking questions.

This was no curse. Nothing amiss in the way magic worked. Divination told hir that it was a wish granted. Chronomancy took hir back to the midnight that the wish had been made. A birthday wish on the midnight that the birthday began.

The witching hour.

People thought birthday wishes were a joke. What they didn't know was that the wish only worked when made at exactly the right time. When the clocks were chiming the hour.

Now ze had a key to find the wishmaker.

Who was still living in a house so much larger than many others. They had proclaimed themselves leader at the age of six, and now they were eight, little had changed. Including his entitled attitude.

"You're too old," said the self-appointed monarch of children, Nimnae. "You should vanish. No old people allowed." They waved their hand as if that would do something, and seemed shocked that it didn't.

Wraithvine brought hir divination out into the view of the many attending Nimnae's 'court'. How the six-year-old was stamping their feet about not getting a cookie with their bedtime milk. And wishing, as the strokes of midnight tolled, that everyone 'too old' would disappear.

"Birthday wishes and the power given by them only last for the year of the wish," said Wraithvine. "You have no power over me. And while you digest that, I ask one question - who has the next birthday?"

"You can't! The clock wound down! Nobody can make a birthday wish any more. I spoiled it for everyone, so there!"

Wraithvine simply smiled and said, "So you believe." Then ze left without asking any kind of permission.

The clock wasn't that difficult to restart, and there were a host of little rebels willing to help Wraithvine get it working again. One such rebel was Lyala herself, listening to the tangled rules of Wish Magic.

"You can't wish for love that doesn't exist," lectured Wraithvine, untangling vines from cogs and gears. "Those who try never have it end well. The same with wishing someone back from the dead. That inevitably ends in a nightmare. And it's impossible to unmake the wish of another. However... one can wish to change another's wish. Careful wording is very key, something that won't and can't be interpreted any other way. You have days to consider, but do not say it out loud before its time."

Lyala nodded, and rarely said a word during the days leading up to her big day. At least she was secure in the knowledge that she would not vanish on the night.

Nimnae didn't know enough about the clock to stop it once it started. All they could do was throw a tantrum and command their remaining forces to try to clog the gears with mud and sticks. All they got was bruises and mud on their faces.

Wraithvine helped Lyalla stay up to the stroke of midnight. Held her hands as she took three deep breaths.

Bong. Bong. "I wish," Bong. "that Nimnae," Bong. "had wished," Bong. "for a," Bong. "cookie instead." Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong.

The magic swirled from her heart like a flower as time and chronology re-ordered itself. A cake manifested on her table, replete with the little tapers counting up to thirteen. Lyalla blew them out, smiling at her returned family.

"You forgot to make a wish," said her grandpa.

"I don't need it this year," she smiled.

Somewhere, she knew, Nimnae was throwing an enormous tantrum. Wraithvine would be working on them very, very soon.

[Photo by Swiss Educational College on Unsplash]

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