Tree of Wishes

Three Wives' Tales: A Cypress Perspective

Edward Garron, or Eddie as he preferred to be called, was a man of many talents, which turned out to be more valuable than I could have ever hoped. For one thing, with his assistance I was able to optimize organizing both personal and business-related paperwork. Whether it was rerecording and reshelving ancient archives of visitors dating back centuries, or reviewing spreadsheets and stocks on the computer, he seemed to follow everything I told him without an issue. He often came up with suggestions to improve on things as well, some I wouldn't have considered on my own.

This help, however, came at a price. A man doesn't become this efficient without a multitude of learning along the way, yet this thirst for knowledge had the side effect of making him particularly nosy. I would answer some questions, such as the specifics of my powers and how I run my company from home, but there were a few that were off-limits. The main secret I refused to share was why I gave up my grandmother's clock in the first place. If a topic like that came up, I would dodge it and change the subject as soon as possible. This didn't deter Eddie, and he very much enjoyed nagging on my shoulder until he got bored and gave up.

"Come ooon," he would say in a mocking voice. "It can't be that bad. You can trust me~!"

Fed up with this one day, I sternly said, "I hope this isn't an attempt to get close to me. I'm celibate, you know."

This seemed to catch his interest. "Oh, really? Not that I'd be into an old geezer like you, but I would've thought with your powers you'd be enjoyin' the best parts of youth with random folks."

I sighed and rubbed my temples. "No, I'm not the type. I've only has three wives in my lifetime, and after my third wife died, I decided I would never marry again."

Eddie scuttled around to face across from me and rested his chin in his hands with his elbows on the table, gazing at me like an eager child waiting for a bedtime story. "Do tell. I'm gonna need to know who gets all this dough if you get hit by a truck or somethin', so I'll stop asking 'bout your tragic past or whatever in exchange."

"Deal," I replied without hesitation, relieved to have that matter settled.

My first marriage is easiest to start off with because it was the shortest. Her name was Seraphina. I would often see her perform in the town square when I came down to run errands. Her dark, curly, brown hair, trailing past her shoulders, would bob to and fro as she danced to the rhythm of the music. It was always someone different with a different instrument, perhaps a flute one day and a drum the next, yet it never made the performance any less spectacular. When she would gaze at the audience with those sapphire eyes and blow a kiss from those ruby lips, it would ignite a flame in my heart each time.

I eventually gathered the courage to ask her out on a date, even going as far as dressing up in my nicest suit and presenting her with a bouquet of flowers. She laughed and thought it was funny how a sophisticated man like myself would be interested in her and accepted. We spent some time together, fell in love, and did everything one would expect out of an old-fashioned romance. I was nervous to propose, but I did assure her that I wouldn't be restricting her passion for dancing because it was part of the wild, free spirit of hers that I fell in love with. Despite everyone's disapproval of a gentleman marrying a 'dirty gypsy girl', she accepted, and that was all that mattered.

Unfortunately, I made the fatal mistake of not informing her of my powers until the day after she moved in with me. She had already known about the tree, and had chosen to respect it from a distance, yet I could tell from her grimace that she wasn't happy about learning this at that moment. We had our first fight as a married couple, simply contained to yelling back and forth at each other, and I swore I would never keep a secret like that from her ever again.