Wishful Thinking Read online

  eBooks are not transferable.

  They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

  577 Mulberry Street, Suite 1520

  Macon GA 31201

  Wishful Thinking

  Copyright © 2008 by Evangeline Anderson

  ISBN: 978-1-60504-242-8

  Edited by Angela James

  Cover by Natalie Winters

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: November 2008

  www.samhainpublishing.com

  Wishful Thinking

  Evangeline Anderson

  Dedication

  To Eve—I couldn’t have made it through this year without you. Love, Sis

  Chapter One

  How do you ditch your fairy godmother?

  Philomena Zara Swann wished she knew. She was turning twenty-five the next day and her two younger sisters had thoughtfully decided to take her to a pre-birthday strategy session at The Garden of Eatin’, a trendy south Tampa bistro that specialized in vegetarian cuisine. They were seated outside despite the late June heat, under a large green umbrella that cast just enough shade to keep the early afternoon sun at bay.

  “So, are you ready for your birthday? Got a wish all picked out?” Cass wrinkled her perfect button nose and her vivid violet eyes sparkled with mischief.

  “Oh, God, I’ve been wracking my brain for days and I still have zilch. I just hope you guys can help.” Phil dropped into a chair across from her sisters with a groan. The idea of making a wish for her twenty-fifth birthday was more than just silly talk. In her family, it was serious business. When you had an actual fairy godmother to grant your birthday wishes, you’d better be prepared with something good to wish for. Or at least something that wouldn’t screw up your life forever.

  Phil looked down at the field-greens-and-strawberry salad her sisters had ordered for her and hoped they could come up with something. Sunday was half over and she would be in no shape to think of a suitable wish while she was busy at work tomorrow.

  “Remember that time you wished that all your Barbie’s clothes would fit you?” Rory, the youngest of the three flipped her long red hair over one shoulder. Its brilliant ruby color clashed with her orange T-shirt but since there was also dog and cat hair on her jeans from volunteering at the local animal shelter, it didn’t really matter.

  “Hush, you’re not even old enough to remember that. You were only four when I made that wish.” Phil frowned at her little sister and reached up to make sure a sudden gust of wind hadn’t disarranged her own hair, gathered at the nape of her neck in a severe bun. It was a long waterfall of platinum blond when she let it down, but she almost never did.

  “Yeah, but I’ve heard about it often enough.” Rory, whose real name was Aurora Tatiana, laughed, her green eyes glowing with glee.

  “Yup, Phil thought it would be cool to wear Barbi’s tutu and live in the big pink dream house Nana bought her.” Cass, short for Cassandra Esmeralda, pushed her tangle of dark curls away from her lily white forehead. As usual, she was dressed from head to toe in black, which emphasized her dramatic coloring. “She just didn’t think about the fact that being twelve inches high for the rest of her days might put a serious crimp in her social life.”

  It was typical of their fairy godmother’s magic that instead of enlarging the Barbie clothes to fit Phil, it had shrunk her down to the size of a plastic bimbo doll instead. Magic tended to be very exact and their godmother was lazy with her application of it, probably because she resented having three fairy goddaughters with hardly a drop of real fairy blood in their veins.

  Their great grandfather had been a full blooded fairy who fell in love with a human woman and then his daughter, the girls’ Nana, had fallen in love with a human man and further diluted the family’s magical blood. By the time their mother, who was only one fourth fairy, had also married a pure human with no fairy or fae blood, there was no getting the bloodline back to full strength. And at this point, being only one-eighth fairy, Phil and her sisters wouldn’t even be allowed into the Realm of the Fae, where the full-blooded fairies and other magical creatures lived, to find a fairy husband. Not that any of them wanted to.

  As far as Phil was concerned, nothing good had ever come of their dubious heritage. She had often thought being one-eighth fairy was like barely belonging to any other minority group—you might get some of the perks but you were bound to get all of the hassles as well.

  “Anyway, she reversed the magic,” she mumbled, looking up at the sunny sky which showed signs of clouding over. If it got much darker, her eyes wouldn’t match the pale blue blouse she had on anymore which would be a shame.

  Eyes that match the sky above

  Hair like gold, the sunbeams love

  Lips that shame the reddest rose

  Beauty will grace her wherever she goes

  Those were the words spoken over her at birth by her fairy godmother. The spell had shaped her appearance and in some ways, her entire life. Not that she had asked to have eyes that changed with the weather and lips so red she had to wear neutral lipstick to hide their true color, Phil thought resentfully. Her hair was long and silky but too light in her opinion. Also it had a tendency to sparkle, as though the sun was shining on it whether she was outside or not. Their fairy godmother’s magic hid the more obvious aspects of itself fairly well—for instance, no one without fairy or fae blood in their veins was able to notice that her eyes changed colors—but Phil kept her sparkly hair up as much as possible just in case.

  Her sisters had received similar gifts at birth—Cass’s verse had gone:

  Skin as pale as fallen snow

  Eyes like dewy violets glow

  Hair as black as coal at night

  She’ll always walk in Beauty’s light

  Of course, having snow white skin, bright purple eyes and hair as black as coal meant Cass looked permanently Goth. But since she was an artist and the dramatic one in the family, it didn’t seem to bother her. In fact, she consistently dressed all in black to play up her pale skin and vivid eyes although Phil didn’t know how she could stand to wear it in the middle of the summer. Despite being the middle sister, she probably had the strongest personality of the three of them, including a quick temper that matched her artistic nature. She was both a painter and a sculptor and her work was just beginning to sell at some of the smaller galleries around town, much to Cass’s relief. She hated the various menial jobs she had to work in order to get enough money for her raw materials.

  Rory, the youngest sister at nineteen, had gotten a verse too.

  Hair from purest rubies spun

  Eyes like emeralds in the sun

  A voice like songbirds in the spring

  Beauty to her form shall cling

  All in all Phil thought her baby sister looked the most normal of the three. Her bright red hair and green eyes were striking without crossing the line into bizarre. Of course, if she tried to sing, all that came out was a warbling, cheeping sound since their fairy godmother’s magic was extremely literal. So joining the chorus was definitely out. Luckily Rory, who was in her first year of college, wanted to be a veterinarian.

  Despite their physical differenc