In the middle of the neighbourhood the tower hunkers: twenty-five feet of crumbling, black-edged grey stone punctuated by shuttered windows - each aperture a different size or shape - rising to a rounded, pointed slate roof with an iron weathervane in the form of a horse, or a crow, depending on which way the wind blows.

In a neglected corner of the park, on a horse-path which ends at a one-way street, the tower stands. The rose bushes at its base don't even begin to bloom until late autumn, so all summer long tinder and thorns guard the splintery, iron-bound oak doors.

This is the abode of the Wish-giver.

The residential streets around the park, lined with orange brick townhomes and ancient trees overhanging the hydro lines, are on their way up in the world. Built a century ago for families of Victorian factory workers, the properties have now been acquired by double-income professionals who blast the coal scum off the facades and plug in double-glazed windows that don't open.

Then they settle down to produce one or two little ones who will be kept busy, as soon as they can walk, with gymnastics and computers and equine discipline.

The advent of a Magical Being into their neighbourhood had been greeted with mixed emotions by the small yuppie families: they'd held their collective breath, as summer turned to autumn, waiting to see if there would be a drop in property values or an increase in wild parties and disruptions of cable service.

When there wasn't, fear was replaced by curiosity. The neighbourhood association sent a four-person welcoming committee to investigate.

Bearing fresh-baked muffins and a list of useful addresses - dry cleaner, auto mechanic, maid service, riding club - the two couples approached the tower through the freely falling snow.

"Look at the roses!" one of them gasped. "How can they be blooming in this weather?"

"I guess if you're a Magical Being, anything's possible," another answered. "What's a Wish-giver do, anyway?"

At that moment the oaken doors had swung open and a misty voice reached the visitors: "What I do is, I give wishes. Oooh - blueberry muffins! My favourite."

The welcoming committee was ushered in to a nicely furnished sitting room; later, they couldn't have said exactly who did the ushering. They never saw their new neighbour.

From behind the blue door beside the piano, a door one assumed would lead to the kitchen, the whispery voice encouraged them to make themselves at home. The four visitors obeyed, settling onto a tweedy sofa and chairs grouped around a braided rug.

They tried not to notice the dreamy quality of the seats, which seemed to suggest that if you stopped believing in upholstery your butt would hit the floor.

"I'd offer you coffee," said the disembodied voice, "but I don't think we have time. Did you have something to ask of me?"

"How do you make a living?" the boldest one, a wiry blonde woman, spoke up.

"Mmm. It's not much of a wish," sighed the Wish-giver, "but you could try this."

An earth-filled terra cotta pot and a crinkly packet of seeds materialized above the piano and drifted over to the one who'd asked the question. A worm poked its pale-pink head out of the dirt, clearly enjoying the ride.

"What?" the blonde woman squeaked, catching the objects as they hovered above her lap.

After a moment's reflection, she addressed the blue door again. "I see your point - I asked you 'how do you make a living', and if I planted the seeds, it would make something living - but that wasn't what I meant..."

"Time's up!" hissed the wind, blowing the front doors ajar.

The two couples stood in unison and backed out into the snow. As the doors banged shut they tried not to notice that the furniture they'd been sitting on had dissolved into thin air.

*

Reports of the visit got around the neighbourhood after that and a few smart guys - sure they could manage better - went to the tower to ask for wishes. They came away with disappointing gifts like kittens and boxes of crayons.

*

There aren't a lot of visitors to the tower these days. People in the neighbourhood, knowing the Wish-giver's habits, prefer the fruits of their own labours to the Wish-giver's capricious gifts.

The odd out-of-towner - usually a malcontent looking for a fast fix who would rather undertake an arduous journey than stay home and do the laundry - enters the tower on occasion, never to be seen again.

At least, not in this dimension. Who knows? Maybe they go on to a better place.

And then there are the visitors no one sees, the ones who knock on the tower doors late at night in the hours when burdens become unbearable. They are already invisible, so they can't disappear.

*

The Wish-giver, while personally amorphous, is quite capable of assuming a physical form or two - sometimes there are more squirrels in the park, sometimes more roses on the rose bush - but the favourite is that of a gorgeous fat woman named Penelope. She can't do anything the Wish-giver can't; like the blueberry muffins, she is purely for pleasure.

Due to her memorable figure, and the overweening curiosity of the locals, Penelope can't be used too often in the neighbourhood. The Wish-giver doesn't need those sorts of questions. She is, however, useful for exploring parts unknown.

Penelope loves riding the trains, especially the long hauls - the ones with dining cars - perogis at lunch on the western run as countless trees and rocks flash by the window, and fish cakes for breakfast on the overnighter to the east coast with the sun coming up along the river.

Penelope also loves horses. Really loves them. In fact, if you go into the tower where the welcoming committee sat on sofas and chairs all those months ago, you won't see anything, but the smell - a harmony of odours running up the scale from earthy to tangy to bilious - will give you a clue.

It's a smell a Being could get used to, for love's sake. Sometimes a passer-by in that shadowed corner of the park will get a whiff, but it's gone too quickly to be identified.

*

The Wish-giver has now been in residence for some time and the neighbourhood around the tower is becoming notable, in the downtown core, for its complete lack of street people. No begging panhandlers, no raggedy-clothed waifs ranting at invisible foes, no winos desperately sleeping it off in cardboard boxes under the railway bridge or stealing naps on the graffitied benches.

As a final oddity, the neighbours notice that among the weekly deliveries from the stationery store, the pet food store and the pharmacy, no groceries are being delivered to the tower. And the Wish-giver never goes out.

"We know this is a Magical Being," people say to one another, "but don't Magical Beings need to eat?"

In this case the answer is, of course, "no". But the Wish-giver doesn't worry about the neighbour families and their concerns - they will be fine. They were never in need of gifts.

And when the kids are in need, as they will be, they'll be taken care of, so the grown-ups' confusion is irrelevant.

*

And then the neighbours awaken one morning to discover that the stable in the park has a big CLOSED sign hanging on the front door. The air around the prison-like building is now as sweet as if no horse had ever been confined there.

The significance of this event is not immediately apparent and later on it will only be the kids who get it. Most of the little ones are wise enough not to waste time trying to explain it to their grown-ups; they know from hard experience that parents are too dense to comprehend deep reality, even when it is spelled out for them.

At this point, anyway, Penelope is preparing for the move. The Wish-giver is going on to another place where there are people and animals so distressed that no ordinary help will do and only an arcane ability to take things literally can liberate them.

The next morning the neighbourhood wakes up to find that the tower has collapsed in the night, its rubble rapidly dissolving into a fragrant silver mist. While the adults gather around, silenced by shock, the children could swear they hear hoof beats fading into the distance as a lone voice calls out, "We don't need your effing change anyway!"

Of course, their parents would never believe them.

~*~

A/N: There's an old saying, "If wishes were horses then beggars would ride". I just thought it would be nice if it were true!

Catch more from eldorado16:

and

...and plenty more!