[A new element joins the whirlwind around Micah Callaghan. We took quite deliberate charge of this wish, and executed it in absolutely exacting detail; of course, the effect is diminished by how many other wishes are at work here, and even this much will can only have so much longevity in a place like the hotel, which wears on intention like water on stone. Also, one can only help so much when certain wishers don’t laugh at our
puns.
Nightfall is a time for evil men to do evil deeds, so nightfall is when it starts.
Treedom. There’s no real harm, and no real pain, but the victim of the curse can feel it happening. Limbs nearest the ground begin to warp and spread, a painless and disturbing sensation of flesh stretching with growing speed.
Next there’s a seizing of muscles, the inability to move, excruciatingly abrupt--but again without pain. Suddenly, no movement is possible.
The senses go next. Touch first, then sight, and the others one by one. Terrifying, certainly, but not harm, in the strictest sense of the word.
Lastly, conscious thought slows to a horrific crawl. The simple understanding that something is wrong could take hours.
No rest is possible for a tree growing all night; if there is no soil and no water, he is starving and thirsty; if there is fire, he can fear; and always there’s a longing for light and morning--which eventually, of course, will come. And at sunrise, it all goes away again: breathing skin and bright mind once more.
Until nightfall, when it starts again.
The wish grantor sends a little twig sharpened into a point, a paper heart speared along its length, and nothing else.]
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