Your Wish Is His Command Read Online Free PDF Page B

she wanted it to?
    At least she could manage Invisibility, and
did so, standing at the top of the staircase and gripping the
railing so it wouldn’t fall apart. Luckily for everyone attending
Peter’s weekly gathering, the structure seemed sound—despite the
stair-mangling efforts of the bear she’d accidentally
conjured.
    Vana winced. A bear.
    Thankfully, Mr. Hornberger had chased it out
before it could do any more damage, but she shouldn’t have tried to
repair the steps, let alone varnish them. Especially with the way
her magic worked. Or rather, didn’t work.
    “ I know you’re here, Vana,” Peter
called loud enough for everyone at the luncheon to hear. Not the
best idea. Peter still hadn’t grasped the concept of secrecy when
it came to having a genie—anymore than she’d grasped the concept of
being one.
    “ And don’t try fixing it again.
I’ll take care of it mysel—agghh!” Peter threw his hands in the air
as the remaining spindle disintegrated and another stair tread
caved in.
    “ Oh, dear, Peter’s tippled too much
again, hasn’t he?” Mrs. Otto waddled out from the dining room with
Mrs. Ertel following her, dressed in her Sunday best and tsk-tsking
behind her gloved hands. “I’m sure it’s understandable, Bertha.
After all, a bear! Can you imagine? Quite the
spectacle.”
    Just one in a long line of them. Vana had the
feeling that the townspeople’s appearances at Peter’s gatherings
had more to do with her and her magic than the food he served. Not
that anyone ever saw her; no one had but Peter. Which was half the
problem. Peter was what the locals liked to call eccentric. He’d
made money in shipping and imports before she’d entered his life
(obviously, or she would have lost it all for him), and he’d
invested it heavily in the town, but not necessarily in things
people wanted him to invest in.
    But that was Peter. He’d erected a big statue
to his grandmother, the sternest-looking woman to walk the earth.
Considering that Vana had lived for more than a few centuries, she
ought to know.
    He’d paved the path to the home for unwed
mothers with cobblestones, saying it’d prevent falls when the path
iced over in the winter. The church ladies disagreed and
periodically took up a collection to have the stones removed. But
each time, Peter would have them put back in place. After all, he
did own the property; he could do what he wanted with the path. It
became an unending cycle until the women eventually gave
up.
    No, Peter Harrison had been an oddity long
before Vana had come along, but her special brand of ineptitude
helped put the icing on Peter’s cake of eccentricity.
    Peter never seemed to mind, and that, more
than the fact that he possessed her bottle, made Vana happy to be
his genie.
    “ Jonas, why don’t you send Mrs.
Hamm to get your father?” one of the church ladies asked Peter’s
son kindly. “I think he might want to take a nap.”
    Sleep it off, she meant. Everyone thought
Peter liked his whiskey, but the truth was that Peter couldn’t
stand the stuff. He did, however, like a special blend of chilled
tea that Vana could manage to magick up correctly.
    She would pour the tea into empty whiskey
bottles to encourage the locals’ belief that Peter liked his drink.
That it had all started after the death of his wife (which, also
not so coincidentally, coincided with the round-the-world trip
during which he’d come across a certain bottle) lent credence to
the story.
    Everyone knew how distraught Peter had been,
so what else could Vana do? Let them think he was full-blown crazy
with his talk of genies and magic? He might own the town, but he’d
also built that nice hospital at the far end, and there was a wing
there with his name on it. She was half worried they’d send poor
Peter there, and then where would she be? Where would the children
and Eirik and all the rest be?
    The children. Vana shook her head. The
children had been dancing in the study earlier, which