Do you know how hard it is to find 'A Well-Timed Enchantment' by Vivan Vande Velde fanfiction? Extremely, it seems. So, I asked myself in a fit of rage "Why don't you write one, good old Pash?"

And do you know how I replied? "Because it's absurd! (as was the book's end!). . . By Joe, I'll do it!"

Thus, out of great boredom and an unwavering love for the book, I crafted a short oneshot that --- if wanted --- might evolve into a full-fledged fanfiction. Who knows? (EDIT: Who knows is right. It's no oneshot anymore!)

So, in loving admiration of the characters, Oliver and Deanna, and not the foot-stomping, page-tearing, cry-like-your-dog-bit-you-in-the-buttocks ending, I present to you I Wish.

Enjoy!

(Italics are quotes from the book, and belong strictly to Vivian Vande Velde)

I Wish
Chapter 1
Once Upon an Epilogue

She looked at the well.

She looked at Oliver.

She smiled.

Then again, she thought, what could she do but cross her fingers and hope for the best?

She leaned over the well and wished.

Wishing, it turned out, could have its downtime.

The well, having gurgled and burped after her words echoed into its belly, began to boil. It boiled angrily and, from the depths of the darkness, came the shimmering light of clear, fluorescent water. Deanna edged away. Oliver hissed and spat, scurrying further and further from the enchanted well.

Deanna finally admitted he had more sense than she. At least he knew trouble when it bubbled up from a well.

Water dribbled from the rim of the ancient well. Oliver screeched a yowl and turned, and high-tailed it through the grassy farmland. Deanna, about to follow, stopped herself at the first sounds of that strange music, and further away, the black cat stopped as well.

"Are humans so hard-headed?"

Deanna spun to the well, and to the hip elf who leaned against the overflowing well, his clothes somehow --- beyond all logic --- weren't wet. Anger suddenly burst through her veins, and a twinge of boiling hate. "You!"

"Who else?" he asked. He picked at his orange shirt, the logo now a snide Nike check. "And about that wish . . ."

"What about it?" she demanded, headstrong.

"It's odd," he remarked.

"Odd or not," she rebuked, "I wished it."

"But does he?" the elf trailed his eyes to the black dot in the background, the cat who had paused halfway through the fields only to stop and watch them with green gleaming eyes.

For a moment, they both watched the cat quietly, and then with impatience, the elf cupped his hands over his mouth to form a megaphone and shouted, "Eh, cat? Is it what you want?"

To answer, the black cat swished his tail and sat down, facing them, prodding them with thoughtful green eyes.

"Guess not," the elf shrugged. "Too bad, girl, he has to wish it too, you know. You can't wish for other people. That wouldn't be right." And, without a word, he hopped onto the bubbling well again and swung his legs over.

"No --- wait!" she grabbed him by the forearm and squeezed tightly, determined with all her might not to let the same thing happened again. This time, she wouldn't be tongue-stuck and stupid. This time he would listen to her. Him and the other elf, wherever he may be. "I won't let you! He told me he didn't want to . . ." she gulped, afraid her words weren't convincing enough as that scene played thoughtlessly through her mind over and over. That one moment that would haunt her forever if she didn't help Oliver.

"Oliver," she said, shaking him. "What is it?" And, oh how this hurt: "You're a cat."

"I know that," he rested his chin on his arms.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No, I don't want to talk about it." But then, very softly, he said, "I don't want to go back."

"To Chalon?"

"To being a cat."

She closed her eyes tightly and dug her nails into the elf's forearm until he, in turn, yelped. "He told me didn't want to be a cat again," she finally sputtered out. "He said so himself."

The elf yanked his arm away and rubbed the fingernail indentions sourly. "Is he here to say it now?"

Deanna turned back to the cat, who had stood again and was slowly inching towards them, ears bent to his head, tail low and alert. "No."

"Then there we are. Too bad, so sad." And with that, he swooped his legs over the well's side and disappeared.

"No!" she cried and attempted to jump in herself, but Oliver latched onto her ankle and tripped her halfway over the well. She fell back to the dusty earth with a loud thud, and a screaming yowl from Oliver. She had landed on his tail. "No . . ."

Seemed like crossing fingers and hoping for the best wasn't the brightest alternative.

It actually seemed to mock her.

"Do you think I can go back after this? Be happy with what I was: rubbing against people's legs for attention, coughing up hairballs, eating mice in the barn? After this? Or won't I even remember? Will it be as though I never existed?"

That, in another form, was what the fair folk had predicted for her. She shook her head. "I don't know."

"I wish we'd never found it. I wish we could have stayed like this forever."

And for the first time since he had said those words, she wished the exact same. That they could have stayed like that forever.

She sat up and, upon finding Oliver, picked him up and tucked him close to her chest. "I wish . . ."

And he, for the first time since she had saved him from the neighbor's dog, he began to purr. It was low and deep, and singsong, as if he hummed to calm her coming tears. If only, it were as if he was saying. If only.

Yes, indeed. If only.

As he nuzzled her hand, his purr loud and warming, she stroked his head and wondered, absently, if he even remembered being human. If he remembered watching a joust, being the crush of Lady Marguerite, learning swordsmanship from Sir Henri. If he remembered getting sick after eating mice in the gardens, and tasting his first humans foods. If he remembered Algernon's tower room, or Baylen's plan to capture their watch. And, secretly, she wondered if he remembered her as an idiot, as a friend, or as something a little more.

"I'm so sorry," she told him in a whisper, and hugged him tightly. "I love you, too."

Oliver flickered his green eyes upon her, that unreadable deepness swirling inside. Just once, like now, she'd like to know what went on behind those eyes. Just once.

"You know . . ."

Deanna shot head up to find the two elves leaning over the well, dry as a whistle despite the water dribbling onto poor Deanna from their movements, and inevitable poor Oliver. He hissed and clawed to get away.

" . . . it'd be interesting though, to see how the human race would find a cat in human clothes." The one in shimmering silver snapped his fingers.

Shall I continue?