Chapter Text
There is, they say, a shop that wanders the world.
The store claims no street as its own. As ever changing as time, its only permanence is in the memories of those who find it.
When the heart grows desperate enough, a crooked little door is said to appear. On a road you have walked thousands of times, in a field where a store has no business being, or perhaps you may find a room in your house has been mysteriously occupied by such a place.
It’s door is marked with no signs and the windows are always shuttered. Inside awaits the Wishing store.
The shelves hold exactly what you desire in your most desperate need: a cure, a token, a lost person returned. You need not search for it—it will find you. The only question is the price.
Ah, the price.
Some claimed the shopkeeper dealt in gold, galleons, sickles, or pounds depending on who asked. Others insisted it demanded rarities: the last feather from a dying phoenix, occamy eggs, a wand surrendered willingly.
The darker tales claimed that the storekeeper asked for something less tangible: the sound of your laughter, the memory of your first kiss, the years you had not yet lived. And the most absurd, or perhaps the most truthful, said the price was nothing less than your soul.
Yet despite the warnings, people still found themselves walking into the store, for if you are desperate enough, any price can feel like a bargain.
Whether the shop is real or not… Well, that depends on whether you believe in doors that open only when you need them most.
***
Inside a crooked little shop, a small boy swept the floor. His black hair stuck out in untidy clumps, and the broom he held reached well past the top of his head. The boy dragged his broom with his tiny hands, taking care not to miss the corners.
Most people would say four was too young for chores, but the boy didn’t know that. No one was around to tell him he was too small, too young, or that children should be out having fun instead of working. He simply did so, because the Wishing Store needed him to.
“You cannot take without giving, Harry,” the Store told him. “Nothing here is free. Not for you. Not for anyone.”
Every wish had a price.
Every toy he wanted, meal he ate, and pillow he laid on had a price.
So he paid. In the dust he removed from the shelves, in the polish rubbed into lanterns, and in the opening of the small crooked door for visitors.
The Store gave him various things in return for his work, soft animals to hug, tiny knights to guard his bed, meals and fluffy blankets. His favorite was a golden ball with wings that zipped away the moment his fingers brushed it.
Life inside the store was pretty bland, but it was all Harry knew.
Now and then, strangers passed through the crooked door. They were customers, and Harry helped fetch what they needed, carrying relics and potion bottles to the counter with solemn care, mindful not to drop them with his small hands.
He liked when the strangers came. Most didn’t speak to him much, too preoccupied with their own troubles to bother with a small child, but he didn’t mind. Life in the store was lonely for him, so any visitors were welcome.
By the time he turned five the store started giving him lessons. How to scratch a quill on paper to draw letters, how to form the letters into words. What numbers were and how to count.
The lessons gave him access to the world in the form of stories. He was able to read about the things he couldn’t see; oceans, valleys, stars, the sun. Grand adventures of knights, wizards, fairies and kings.
His favorite was a story about a man named Merlin, a king named Arthur, and a dragon.
As the years flowed by, Harry’s grew from the height of the second shelf to the third.
“Harry.”
He was lying on the floor with his hands behind his head watching the golden ball idly float above him when the store spoke.
“Come to the counter please.”
He dragged himself to his feet and padded over to the store's front counter to see a large metal contraption sitting there.
“What’s this?” He asked the store.
“A typewriter. Now that you are proficient with your studies you can type customers wishes into it. The corresponding cost will be printed out. You will ask them if they still want their wish fulfilled.”
Harry raised his brows, “There will be a choice?”
Usually the store took as soon as the wish was made. Choices weren't a luxury the visitors were provided, though most of them had their mind made up long before.
“Yes.”
Harry nodded and pressed one of the keys. A crisp clicking sound echoed through the quiet store. Excited, he pressed a few more keys and watched as letters stamped themselves into the paper above.
“You may also type your own wishes into the typewriter to see the price.”
“Really?” Harry’s eyes widened. He could make wishes too, but even for him, who lived in the store, doing so was a gamble.
Once he had asked the store for the sword excalibur, just like the one in his favorite story. He had not known this was a costly wish, until a warning voice rang in his head, but it was already too late. His body moved on its own, dusting, sweeping, and cleaning for what felt like years. Even when his body succumbed to exhaustion, his eyes closing and head falling forward, he continued to move.
But if he could just see the price without going through with it?
He quickly typed a wish into the typewriter and waited eagerly as the keys began typing out the price on their own, filling in the price on the line below where he typed his wish.
I wish for a cat.
Wisher: Store Clerk (Harry)
Cost: Assist 5 customers in getting their wishes fulfilled.
Current Balance: 35 wishes.
Do you wish to redeem previously fulfilled wishes?
Harry widened his eyes. “That's it? I can have a cat right away?”
“That is correct. If you want to complete the transaction type yes into the typewriter.”
Harry eagerly typed yes, and as soon as the last key was pressed the door opened and a white cat wandered in from a seemingly empty field. Harry rushed over in excitement and looked down at the small creature with piercing grey eyes.
His hands shook slightly as he reached for it, and he found its small furry head was both very soft and warm.
A low rumbling sound vibrated against Harry’s palm, and he quickly snatched his hand away, afraid he had done something wrong.
The cat head butted his shin and let out a loud meow that made him jump. The store was usually so quiet, sudden noise was quite jarring.
“What do you want me to do?” he whispered.
The cat curled around his ankles.
Harry chewed as his cheek and bent down, tentatively touching the cat again. The rumbling sound came back, but this time he didn’t stop.
“So you wish for me to pet you.” He mumbled as the cat rubbed its head against his hand. “Wishes have a price you know, but I suppose it's okay this time.”
The cat purred louder, as though it hadn’t heard his warning about wishes and prices. He sat down on the floor and the cat stretched itself into his lap. Harry held still as small paws kneaded his clothes.
By the time the cat curled up and closed its eyes, Harry’s legs were cramping, but he did not dare move. Gently he placed his palm on the cat's back, and felt the steady rise and fall of its breath. He had never been so close to another living creature.
Wetness slid down his cheeks, blurring the image of the white ball in his lap. The tang of salt met his tongue and he wondered if the oceans he read about tasted the same.
Crying was a rarity for a child with no one around to hear its call, but pain had a way of bringing forth tears. An aching pain made familiar to Harry through stories of mothers, warm hands, and kisses to foreheads.
The cat stretched, its warmth pressing through his clothes. The deep ache had his spine curling, body yielding to a pain he didn’t understand. Small tangled limbs ensnared the creature in a cage, wishing it to become something of his own.
***
Harry decided that he liked the cat more than anything else in the whole store. He couldn’t decide on a name, and somehow settled into calling it Cat.
Cat did many things. It slept with him at night, kept him company while he did chores, purred on his lap, yet for whatever reason Cat didn’t seem to understand him. No matter how hard he tried Cat wasn’t able to tell him what it wanted in return, what it wished for.
He tried holding Cat up to the typewriter, willing the creature to type its wish since it didn’t seem capable of telling him. But yet again Cat didn’t understand, climbing onto his shoulders and rubbing its head into his hair.
So he did his best, to fulfill Cat’s wishes in small ways.
It got the softest patch of blanket, it got ear scratches, pets, his golden ball with wings and when it curled against his chest at night, Harry whispered into the soft white fur. “Your warmth for mine.”
***
The days for Cat and Harry ticked idly by.
Stories engulfed him most of the time, boredom staved off through the wonder of worlds far away.
He loved reading of castles, knights, and dragons, but out of all the stories, he loved the ones about magic the most.
Magic reminded him of wishes, but far more wonderful.
One morning after rereading the story of the sorcerer, the king and the dragon, Harry typed “magic powers” into the typewriter. Though to his great confusion it spit out:
Redundant wish: Store clerk is already a wizard, wish is null.
He sucked in a breath as he looked down at the paper. A wizard? Some of the stories used that term, but he wanted to be a sorcerer like Merlin.
“Store why does the type writer say I am a wizard?”
“Because you are a wizard.”
“Is that different from a sorcerer?" He asked in confusion.
“‘Sorcerer’ is just a term used in stories. Wizards are real beings.”
His eyes widened. “Really? So I can use magic?”
“I will teach you when you turn eleven.”
“How old am I now?”
His birthday’s were never celebrated so Harry didn’t actually know how old he was, just that he wasn’t his full size yet, at least in comparison to the adults who occasionally visited the store.
“You are 8.”
Harry pressed his chin to the counter. “What if I wish for it?”
“Then I will teach you, but you will be permanently injured as a result.”
Harry puffed out his small cheeks. Injuries hurt, and he didn’t want to hurt forever.
***
The bell on the crooked door chimed. Harry sat up so fast that the cat went flying off his lap with an angry hiss.
He hurried towards the door and stood on his stool that had been placed behind the counter. He finally had a chance to use the typewriter to help a customer with their wish!
A gloomy-looking man walked in, and Harry gasped at the sight of a vast ocean on the other side of the door. He had read about the ocean in books, and some of the other visitors had spoken of it, but seeing it, if only for a moment—was something else entirely.
The door shut quickly again, much to his disappointment, and Harry turned his attention to the soaking wet man who stood in the store.
“Welcome to the wishing store Sir! What is your wish?” Harry asked in his best grown-up voice.
Brown empty eyes met Harry’s own before they tore themselves away observing the mostly empty front area. The store was never much for decoration.
“Have I… died?” A broken voice, heartbreak and relief muddled together shuddered out of the man.
It was a surprisingly common question, and Harry knew how to answer without the store’s help.
“Nope! Only the living can come here, don’t worry.” He said with his best smile.
The vacant gaze of the man bore down on him, but remained silent.
Harry sighed. Most of the customers wore the same expression as this man. They acted as though he and the store weren’t there, their brain was left in a story far away, leaving their body behind.
The store usually dealt with them in conversations Harry couldn’t hear before they walked out the store once again.
But now they would have to tell him their wish, not the store. So he hopped off his stool and approached the man.
Tentatively, he reached out and grabbed the man's hand. Cat liked it when he petted her head, but the man was too tall for that.
He swayed at the touch, and water dripped onto Harry’s head, trailing down his face and over his mouth before falling to the floor. He stuck his tongue out to taste it.
The sea was as salty as the stories said.
“Sir what is it you wish for?” He tried again.
The man’s throat bobbed. “I wish my boy hadn’t been taken by the sea.”
Harry smiled excitedly and released the man's hand to run back to the typewriter. He pressed the keys one by one, extra careful to get the wish right.
The typewriter clattered, and neat black letters appearing on the paper:
Wishes his boy wasn’t lost to the sea.
Wisher: John Padfur
Cost: John Padfur’s life.
Balance: None.
Proceed?
Harry frowned at the words. In the stories knights would pledge their lives to their kings, and serve them eternally. Did the store expect the man to stay here with him forever?
“Sir the price will be your life. Do you still want your wish fulfilled?”
For a long while the man said nothing, only shaking slightly as seawater dripped onto the floor.
Harry grimaced, thinking of all the mopping he would need to do later, but if the man decided to pledge his life, maybe Harry could tell him to do it.
The man finally nodded in agreement, and the paper vanished from Harry’s hands. He was so excited that the man agreed. He would need to show him how things worked in the store, but he looked forward to having another person to talk to.
Yet when the door swung wide, filling the shop with the sound of crashing waves Harry grew confused. The man was leaving?
A small boat floated in the sea now. Sitting inside was a boy with sandy blond hair.
The boy's face lit up when he saw the soggy man, small hands waving before he tried to climb out of the boat and into the shop, but curiously he couldn’t come in past the doorway.
A choked sob escaped the man's throat and he ran out the door embracing the now confused boy.
“Hey wait—”
The door slammed shut leaving Harry alone once more.
He hopped down from the stool and stared at what was left of the man. A stagnant wet puddle of sea water on the floor.
Sea water that tasted of tears.
“Store.”
“Yes Harry?”
“What does it mean to pay with one's life?”
“The price for a life is a life. The man will die.”
“But he wasn't gone, he hugged the other boy…”
“Once his son is considered to have reached a safe location the man will die.”
Harry made a noise that might have been a laugh, if it hadn’t been squeezed out of him. The stagnant smell of salt water was suffocating, filling his lungs with tears.
“So the boy will be left alone?”
“I have no way of knowing.”
***
Days slipped by again, fuzzy around the edges. The briny tang of the ocean seemed to cling to the store. Harry kept busy with dusting, reading, and waiting for other customers. Yet he thought often of the man who gave his life for his son.
He wondered if he had someone like the man, someone who was willing to die for him. Did he have a father? A mother? Were they gone now too?
Eventually he couldn’t take it anymore and gathered the courage to ask the store.
“Store.”
“Yes Harry.”
“Did umm.” He chewed his lip. “I have a dad too?”
“Yes.”
“And a mother?”
“Yes.”
“Where are they?” he asked after a long pause.
“They died.”
Harry frowned, curling his fingers into Cat’s fur. “Like the man?”
“I am unsure how your father died. But as for your mother… Yes, it was like that man.”
Stale stagnant seawater filled his lungs, the price of his own life suffocating him. Harry tried to picture them, a loving mother and father like ones he read of in books, but his mind only offered blurred shapes. Salt stung his tongue.
He pushed Cat off his lap and after a moment of consideration went over to the typewriter.
Key by key he typed.
I wish for my parents.
Wisher: Store Clerk (Harry)
Cost: Unfullillable.
Balance: 31 wishes.
He pressed his forehead against the counter, the grainy wood biting his skin.
“Why not?” he whispered.
“Wishes are irreversible, your mother has already traded her life for yours.”