The Wishing Book

The smell of rain and dirt quickly saturated the way home. The rubbery bottoms of my Converses were starting to slip off the slick thin metal of my bike peddles. I can’t remember which way I needed to go. Was it take a left past the maple or before it? I hate first days of school! I couldn’t have just asked for a ride home from that dude who offered? He and I knew it was going to rain. Whatever, I know it’s somewhere up these hills. Maybe I can take a short-cut.

The tall Oregon trees began to hum as the winds started to pick up a little stronger. I took out my phone again to see if I could finally get a better service. Beads of water annoyingly dripped from my helmet onto the 4” screen. Nothing. Stupid west coast service. Had trouble getting to school, what made me think getting back was going to be better. Wait I think I know that hill, yeah that was the one next to the entrance to my neighborhood. I just have to cross this ravine. And climb up.

The butt part of my jeans mopped up the wet surface of my bike’s leathery seat as I slid off my bike to climb up the rocky ravine. Every other step got caught in between the slimy jagged edges of rocks. As I reached the mid-way from the ravine, I noticed what looked like a dark black stone protruding from its gray surrounding. Curious about the oddity, I dropped my bike to look at it closer. It wasn’t a stone, but a slick charcoal colored book. Strangely the pages and every part of the book was kept from any damage the elements could produce. As I started opening the book, a giant rushing sound exhaled in the distance. The dam was opening!

I quickly yet clumsily slid back to my bike as the distant sound came louder and louder. The bike was stuck. The flat end of the handle bar was fixed deeply between two large rocks. I frantically tried again, yanking the support beams back and forth. It was too late. Hearing the static white noise visually spit out three hundred yards away, I had no choice but to abandon my bike and run up the steep hill. The rushing water bit at my knees as I pulled my body out of the grasp of the waves. My bike was completely buried by the water.

What am I going to say to Mom? Luckily, when I finally got home, she wasn’t there. I rushed upstairs trying not to get the carpet too wet, threw the book on my bed and got changed into fresh clothes, throwing the clumpy mess into the clothes bin. The weather was still furious, as if it wanted more than just my bike. Worst of all was that my back pack was slightly open and all of my books were soaked. Best day ever.

When I finally felt dry enough to plan what I was going to tell Mom about my bike, I glanced down at the culprit on my bed. The book was eerily staring back at me. Whose book was this? Why was it in a ravine? Why was it so dry despite all the weather? I slowly picked the latch off of the leathery cover. A dark feeling came in my room as I did. I looked at the cover page. In dark crimson the book introduced itself as “The Wishing Book”. Wishing Book? Sounded like someone’s diary of desires they wanted in life. I curiously flipped through the pages. As I got to the end of the book money started to drop from the pages. Hundred-dollar bills dropped like butterflies down each of the pages until I got to the end where a thicker wad of cash plummeted onto the bed. It was over twenty thousand cash in total. My heart dropped. I lost focus of the book and pick up the scattered bills examining if they were real. Some of the bills had specks of red splattered on the edges. Blood? Someone had to have been missing this book. I stood up and peered out my bedroom window out to the cold mess of my street. I had a feeling like I was going to see someone out there looking for their book. No one. Just a thin blanket of water covering the empty street. I went back to the book which laid, pages exposed, on the bed. I looked at the pages. There was only three words on each of the pages: I Wish For. The words were written the exact same way almost as if they were stenciled in. Underneath the words were simple pictures of things. Boats. Cars. Cash. Women. Rings. Muscles. Super Powers.

Even the pictures matched in style. Only three pages were left blank and at the end of the book was a drawing of large black pupil-less eyes. Specks of what looked like dried blood were glued to the bottom of the eyes as if they were crying.

Suddenly the front door downstairs swung open, welcoming the cold chill and tempest sounds. The shudders of my mom removing her jacket startled my nerves again. My bike was the gift Mom gave to persuade me to come to this neck of the woods ‘white’ state of Oregon. I know she worked hard being a single mom to get me that. Maybe I could show her the money to ease her a bit? Nah, coming from the projects in Brooklyn, she’d never accept strange money. Especially if she saw the blood. I can’t show her nothing till I figure out where it came from.

“Louis, Louis are you home mijo!?” I hate when my mom repeats my name so quickly in a row like that.

“Yeah Ma, it’s crazy out there, right?”

I peered over the top of the stairs down towards her. I had to make sure I could take the conversation away from my ride home.

“Tell me about it, the traffic in Portland was awful, and I nearly got in a reck with this bruja vieja who couldn’t see the nose in front of her face.”

“How was work?”

“Hey Louis, what’s wrong with you? You forget you have a mama?”

I was too nervous about the book, that I forgot it was rude to not give mama a kiss when she got in from work or me from school. I quickly ran down the stairs to do so.

“It was work, mijo, but tell me about your first day!? Did you make any gringo friends? Did you find your classes? Did they feed you good?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t bad, you know not much to say. I just got a lot of homework so I’m going to finish it real quick ok?”

“Ok, Mijo, I’m going to cook up some tortillas con sopa, later for dinner when you’re finished.”

“Ok, gracias mom”

When I got back to my room, I hung the soaked books from my back pack up on my dresser to dry. Eventually I’m going to have to tell Mom about my bike and she is going to be furious no matter how I say it. With all she does for me, I couldn’t let her down. Not now after we just got here. I wish I had my bike back.

Just as I thought those words, the black book on my bed flipped as if by wind to one of the empty pages. And in dark red words, Words started bleeding into the pages. I Wish For: and a picture of a bike started to droop onto the page.

The weather raged in protest. Rain drops shot as if from poorly aligned machine guns. The wind violently banged at the window as if it was trying to get shelter from outside. A hurricane? Why didn’t we get a warning or something? I looked at the book which laid with a demonic silence. It looked like it was grinning at what was going on. The bangs at the window grew louder and stronger until the wind finally won. Glass, wind, and rain ransacked my room, I quickly ran downstairs to check on Mom. Mom still in the kitchen was now praying to La Virgen underneath the small kitchen table. When she saw me, she shot out her hands to come towards her. I joined her underneath the kitchen table. Our small house was now rattling and sound of running water now collided on our house.

“Mama, are you ok?”

My mom was rocking back and forth. Her eyes were clenched shut, chanting words of prayer under her breath in Spanish holding tight to me.

I broke away from my mom a little and turned to look at the front door. Water was beginning to weep at the sides of the door and was now slithering down towards the living room and kitchen. I gently tore away from my mom, who was still rocking and praying, and got out from the table to try get towels to block the water from the door. As I did the kitchen window burst open splashing down water and shattered glass into the kitchen sink. A quick sharp pain on the back of my arm, created by a small piece of glass that struck my arm quickly turned to a thin line of blood down my arm.

My mother was chanting and rocking more intensely. The noise of wind and rain quaked the house. The ceiling of the house was now swelling losing its hold of the roof. The living room window was completely blurred by the pounding rain, but maintained its strength for now. When I got to the bathroom for the towels, the toilet and bathtub was bubbling over water and dirt. The neatly folded towels were bulldozed by my hand as I quickly snatched all of them to blockade the front door.

I quickly rushed to the front door, my new socks now soaking up freshly poured mud water from the tiled entrance. I could hear the swishing sound of water beat up against the door forcing in more and more water. The towels couldn’t do much, but I tried stuffing them in the sides of the door anyway.

When I gave up on the towels, I noticed some smoke coming back from the kitchen. The water had dripped down to the electrical stove that was still heating up the soup. I yelled at Mom, but she was still praying. I splashed my feet running toward her and grabbed her from the kitchen where a small fire had started to form.

“Mom! We need to go upstairs!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. She was still rocking but obediently followed me after looking at the smoke rising. When we went upstairs, we went to my Mom’s room which was hardly affected except for the soft moistness that had seeped from my room across the hall. I shut the door behind us where everything turned black dark and much quieter. My mom resumed her rocking and praying and I just sat and watched the darkness of my mother’s door.

The storm lasted all that after noon and night long and died down to a drizzle by morning. I was half expecting to not wake up after hearing the terrifying wreckage happening outside my Mom’s bedroom door that night. Yet we were safe, I looked at my mom who was exhausted from praying all night long. I didn’t want to wake her. I stepped out of the room. The water had long broken down the door and was set halfway up the stairs. Furniture, glass, mud, tree branches, and my red bike were floating peacefully in what used to be my living room.