The William P. McGivern Fantasy MEGAPACK™: 25 Classic Fantasy Stories from the Pulps

Adopted Son of the Stars

First published in Fantastic Adventures, March 1941.

Wilbur Wunch trudged wearily homeward through the wet, dismal night. His shoes squished at each tired step, and his narrow shoulders hunched against the penetrating dampness.

It was gloomy, depressing weather, and its lowering gloom settled like a somber pall over Wilbur’s slightly frayed soul.

He looked up at the rolling, leaden sky and thought of his cheerless spouse, Wilhelmina. He thought of her first because there was something in the ominous banks of dull, gray clouds that reminded him of Wilhelmina’s grim, frowning visage and secondly because the heavens always reminded him of Wilhelmina’s favorite hobby — astrology.

Astrology! How he hated even the word.

It was his wife’s second favorite topic. Her first was a sort of continuous rambling recrimination against Wilbur for not making more money. When she was not berating him for his lack of money-making ability she was casting horoscopes, visiting astrologists and mooning over the stars and their orbits.

Wilbur sighed. For an envious moment he thought wistfully of the delights of a bachelor existence.

His musings centered on one Joe Blodget, an unmarried young devil with a low-slung car, a bachelor apartment, and hosts of friends.

Joe Blodget had a much better job than himself. He had a much better existence. He had much more fun. He enjoyed life to the full and did whatever he wanted to do.

It wasn’t fair, he thought darkly, that one human being should be so happy and another human being be so miserable. He could be like Joe Blodget, if—

He derailed that particular train of thought with a jerk and hurried on homeward. Wilhelmina would be waiting for him to peel the potatoes for supper, and if he wasn’t there on the dot there’d be an eruption to make Vesuvius pale into insignificance. With a frantic glance at his watch, he broke into a trot...

He stumbled up the steps of his modest bungalow with twenty seconds to spare. He let himself in quietly, but before he could take off his damp brown overcoat or kick off his muddy rubbers, his wife’s shrill voice cut through the stillness of the house like a knife.

“Wilbur! Is that you?”

She asked or rather bawled the same question every night. Once Wilbur had answered: “No, it’s Santa Claus!” but he had never tried it again.

He answered now: “Yes, my dear,” as he shrugged out of his coat and scuffed off his rubbers with a resigned, hangdog listlessness.

“Wilbur,” his wife’s voice conveyed a note of suspicious cordiality, “come into the front room at once. There’s someone here I’m just dying to have you meet.”

Wilbur struggled against a sputtering, growing feeling of outrage. It was supper time, but that didn’t bother Wilhelmina, oh no. Her friends could lounge around the house from morning till night, and that was just fine. He didn’t count. His friends were treated as if they had the mange.

“Coming, my dear,” he said in a resigned voice.

He forced a weak smile over his features, then marched through the hall into the front room and into the presence of his wife and another sour-looking female lounging complacently in his armchair.

His wife stood up, and he wondered for the four-hundred-fifty-fifth time what he had ever seen in her. She was a tall, thin creature with a strong hatchet face that seemed to be waiting to chop at something. She wore her black hair pulled into a tight knot at the back of her leathery neck, and her gray lips were usually pressed tightly together. Now they were parted slightly in a poor facsimile of a welcoming smile.

“Wilbur,” she said sharply, “I want you to meet Miss Elvira Chittling. Miss Chittling, my husband.”

Wilbur nodded and tried to look as if it were a great privilege. Miss Chittling was a huge, lumpy woman with a dull, bovine expression and coarse yellow hair that drooped discouragingly about her sloping shoulders.

She was looking at him appraisingly, he noticed.

“What house?” she asked suddenly.

“H-house,” floundered Wilbur, “what do you mean?”

“I mean, what house were you influenced by,” she repeated in a slightly exasperated voice. “What stellar combinations guide your destiny? Sagittarius, Capricorn, Scorpio—”

“I’m sorry, Elvira.” His wife was acidly apologetic. “My husband knows nothing of astrology. He refused to take lessons with me, refused to avail himself of the guidance of the stars — and look at him! Barely able to keep soul and body together. And as for me,” she stared heavenward like a martyr, “only they know what I’ve been through.”

Wilbur sighed despairingly.

“Who are they?” he asked.

“The stars,” his wife said, in the voice of one who has learned not to look for intelligence in her listeners. “The stars that guide our destiny know the suffering I’ve seen.”

She bowed her head, and Miss Chittling bowed her head, and Wilbur thought forlornly of his delayed supper.

“Will you excuse me,” he said timidly, “you two girls probably have some er — er — stars stuff to talk over, so I’ll just step—”

“Mr. Wunch,” the lumpy Miss Chittling’s voice disorganized his retreat, “have you ever been cast?”

“You mean thrown?” Wilbur offered blankly.

“I mean,” Miss Chittling gathered volume and dignity, “have you ever had your horoscope cast?”

“Well, no,” Wilbur admitted.

Miss Chittling surveyed him through narrowed lids and then beckoned imperatively.

“Come here,” she said softly. “Your time has come. The time for the stars to make known to you their will and desires has arrived. Sit beside me.”

“But,” Wilbur protested feelingly, “I don’t care what the stars have in store for me. I want my supper.”

“Wilbur!”

Wilbur flinched at the lash of his wife’s tone. When her voice developed that particular edge, it was no time to quibble.

“All, right,” he said wearily. With a last wistful look in the direction of the kitchen, he seated himself before the hefty figure of Miss Chittling.

She opened a leather portfolio and pulled out a number of sheets of heavy paper with intricate designs and circles drawn upon them. Wilbur noticed a clock-wise arrangement on the largest sheet of paper. It was crisscrossed by a half-dozen lines, and in each division of the circle there was the picture of some animal. Bulls, goats, and other animals that Wilbur couldn’t get a good look at.

“Astrology,” he mumbled.

He noticed that his wife and Miss Chittling looked up rather sharply at him, so he laughed weakly. “Heh, heh. Astrology, great stuff. Fine hobby.”

“Astrology,” Miss Chittling informed him sternly, “is no hobby.[11] Mr. Wunch, I want you to answer some questions for me. First the date of your birth.”

Wilbur told her. He also confided rather reluctantly a number of other things which Miss Chittling digested in somber silence.

“Hmmm.” She pursed her lips and frowned. “Very interesting, very interesting.” Her fingers ran up and down the various charts like plump rabbits chasing one another, finally stopped in one of the divisions of the largest circle. The one with animals, Wilbur noticed.

Miss Chittling then proceeded to take down some figures on a piece of scratch paper, then closed her eyes and leaned back in the chair.

Wilbur watched her furtively. Her lips were moving, and he could hear her breath whistling through her uneven teeth. She seemed to be mumbling some strange words that made no sense at all to Wilbur. It might be, Wilbur thought, that there was something to this astrology business after all. Maybe—

“Incredible!” Miss Chittling’s shout blasted through his furtive thoughts.

“It’s incredible, simply incredible,” Miss Chittling repeated again with less volume but considerably more feeling. “In all my years of astrological research I have never encountered a more remarkable phenomenon.”

“Elvira,” Wilhelmina Wunch snapped out the word, “what is it? What is so remarkable about Wilbur’s horoscope?”

Wilbur squirmed uneasily. Maybe he had been tried and found wanting by some unfriendly star.

“It is one of those things,” Miss Chittling informed the world in general and Wilhelmina Wunch in particular, “that occurs but once in millions of years.” She turned to Wilbur. “You are very fortunate, Mr. Wunch, that you have the benefit of this information.”

“Am I?” Wilbur asked without enthusiasm.

“Mr. Wunch,” Miss Chittling said, “amazing things are in store for you. A galaxy of stellar bodies have centered their influence on you, and you will be most susceptible to their effect tomorrow as the sun sets.”

Wilbur tried to appear properly impressed.

“Gosh,” he said. This sounded rather inadequate so he added, “Gee.”

“It is not a light matter,” Miss Chittling informed him sternly. “You must plan now to take advantage of the friendly influence of these myriad stars that have, for some reason, interested themselves in your welfare.”

“That right nice of them,” Wilbur said politely, “but—”

“Oh, Elvira!” his wife cried, “are things really that favorable?”

“I have said,” Miss Chittling replied majestically, “that I have never seen anything like it.”

“Well,” Wilbur said cautiously, “this has been a lot of fun, but I’m kind of hungry now, so I think—”

“You stupid, miserable fool,” his wife blazed at him. “Is that all you can think about? Don’t you realize your own good fortune?”

That was easy.

“No,” said Wilbur, “I don’t.”

Miss Chittling harrumphed herself into the conversation.

“I will try and explain it to you, Mr. Wunch. When one star’s friendly influence is directed toward a person, that person is considered to be extremely fortunate or lucky. That is no doubt the origin of the expression born under a lucky star. But,” Miss Chittling paused to sniff, “there is no such thing as luck, merely stellar intervention in human affairs. But in your case, Mr. Wunch, not one, but millions of stars are interceding on your behalf.”

“What for?” Wilbur asked.

“That, I cannot answer,” Miss Chittling replied with rare modesty, “but I do know, Wilbur Wunch, that tomorrow will be a miraculously fortunate day in your life.”

“That’s fine—”

“If,” Miss Chittling rumbled imperturbably on, “you know how to take advantage of your good fortune.”

“You will help him, won’t you?” Wilhelmina said. “You will be good enough to help him, won’t you, Elvira?”

Wilbur scratched his head.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “If I’m going to be so lucky tomorrow, what do I need any help for?”

Miss Chittling smiled. “Silly boy,” she murmured, “you will be lucky tomorrow, yes. But you need someone to coordinate and concentrate the diffused star-force so that the total effect of its intercession will be felt. I can do this. I can, by special observation and interpretation, combine the loose threads of stellar influence so that your good fortune will be received in one lump, so to speak.”

“How?” asked Wilbur.

“By meteor study,” Miss Chittling declared. “I study the relation of meteorites to star-force to human destiny.”

Wilbur swallowed. “I — guess that’s logical enough,” he offered timorously.

Miss Chittling delved into the portfolio again and came up with a leather bag. The contents she emptied into her lap.

Wilbur saw that they were stones and small rock fragments of various sizes, shapes, and hues. Miss Chittling pawed through them and finally picked out three pieces of slate-gray rock about the size of ice cubes.

“What are those?” Wilbur asked uncertainly.

“Meteor fragments,” Miss Chittling explained. She seemed too busy now to talk further. She had drawn forth from the portfolio a queer contraption of steel and wires that looked somewhat like a combination of a slide-rule and grocery scale. Into a compartment she dropped a meteor fragment, and then she moved an indicator along a calibrated bar until it seemed to catch in a tiny notch. Then she removed the meteor fragment from the compartment and inserted the remaining two.

“I think this is it,” she said, spacing her words very carefully. “I think this is it.”

“Oh, Elvira,” Wilhelmina Wunch said breathlessly, “I hope you’ve found it.” In her excitement Wilhelmina’s face flushed red and white like a barber pole. Her predatory nose was hooked forward like a sharp claw and her thin chest rose and fell like a bellows.

Miss Chittling suddenly slumped against the back of her chair and closed her eyes. “It is over,” she murmured throatily. “I have succeeded. These meteor fragments possess the correct equation to balance the star-forces with human destinies. Each of these fragments,” she raised the stones dramatically above her head, “are tuned to the galaxy of stars that are about to determine your fate. As the sun sets tomorrow, your stars will be in the ascendency. Make known your desires then, and they will be granted. Each stone represents an accumulation of good fortune, and for each stone a wish can be granted.”

“You mean,” Wilbur said unbelievingly, “because of the stones and the stars and everything, my wishes will be granted tomorrow?”

Miss Chittling nodded. She seemed to be spent from her exertions.

“Oh, that’s simply wonderful!” Wilhelmina cried in her crow-like voice. “Think of it! Riches, money, jewels — everything I’ve always wanted.”

The enthusiasm was contagious. “Gee,” Wilbur said happily, “I can get that fishing rod I’ve always wanted.”

“Fishing rod!” Wilhelmina’s voice was close to the cracking point. “That’s all you can think of. I will decide what we’re going to get from your wishes, and don’t you forget it.”

Wilbur felt a shivery premonition crawl up his spine. Wilhelmina, nagging and fretful, was bad enough, but Wilhelmina, grasping and greedy, would be impossible. But the faint fires of revolt had long ago been stamped out in Wilbur’s soul.

“Yes, my dear,” he replied meekly.

Miss Chittling’s plump hand fluttered before his nose. “Six dollars please,” she said, in a voice just above a whisper.

“Pay her,” hissed Wilhelmina.

Wilbur’s hand automatically dug into his pocket, but his soul writhed with injustice. He had six dollars — just six dollars — saved aside for the entrance fee in his bowling league. No money, no bowling!

He laid the money in Miss Chittling’s pink palm and watched her fingers close over it like the leaves of some flesh-eating plant.

“Thank you for the donation,” she murmured. “Now I must go. I must rest, rest.”

She handed the three stones to Wilbur and climbed heavily to her feet.

“Use your good fortune wisely,” she said as she started for the door.

Wilbur watched her leave, feeling like the man who bought the Brooklyn bridge at a “sacrifice price.” So absorbed was he that he didn’t feel the tug on his sleeve until it was repeated with sufficient force to jerk him halfway around.

His wife faced him. Her cold, hard features were stamped in a mask of greed and triumph. “Stop wool-gathering, you fool,” she snapped, “and give me those meteor fragments.”

“I should really have gone to work today,” Wilbur Wunch said plaintively the next afternoon. “I’ve never missed a day before. They’ll—”

“Oh, shut up, you miserable little worm!” Wilhelmina paced nervously up and down the length of the living room casting impatient glances at the bright afternoon sun. “Can’t you think of anything but that precious office? Can’t you think about me? You’ve never given me the things I deserved. Money, jewels, position! Other women have them, but not Wilbur Wunch’s wife. I’ve slaved and suffered and scrimped through the years, and now that you have the chance to do something for me, you worry about the office!”

She paused and glanced down at the three stone fragments in her hand. “These will give me the things I’ve always craved. You couldn’t do it, and now that you’ve got the opportunity, you’d think that you’d be happy to make amends.”

Wilbur Wunch sighed. Wilhelmina had been particularly unbearable since the astrologist had predicted that his three wishes would come true. All she had talked about had been the money, the jewels, the servants that she expected. She had made him stay home from work that day to be on hand at sunset, the appointed hour. Wilbur had the very definite suspicion that life would be far from pleasant if Wilhelmina’s desires were granted.

The sun, he noticed, was dropping into the horizon, a flaming red ball on the edge of the world. Wilhelmina turned to him, her thin narrow features set rigidly.

“It’s time,” she said. “I’ll tell you what to wish.”

Wilbur squirmed uncomfortably. He didn’t like the setup. He felt foolish. If Wilhelmina was so interested and so greedy, why shouldn’t she be the one to wish?

“All right,” he said petulantly, “but I don’t see why I had to get lucky all at once. It’s upset my whole day. I’d be a lot happier if I didn’t have anything to do with this.”

“Don’t worry,” Wilhelmina snapped, “you aren’t going to have much to do with this affair. I’m going to arrange that.”

“Why — why, what do you mean?” faltered Wilbur.

“Just this.” Wilhelmina faced him, her hands on her angular hips. “It’s time for you to wish now. The sun is going down. And you’re going to wish just what I tell you. Your first wish will be to wish that I had the wishing power for the remaining two stones. Do you understand me?”

“Why sure,” Wilbur said, “you want the power to make the wishes. That’s all right with me because I never wanted it anyway. That astrologer said I was going to be real happy and lucky today, but I never felt worse in my life. So you’re welcome to it. I wish that you had the power to make the two remaining wishes. There! Does that make you feel any better?”

“I’ll know in a little while,” Wilhelmina cried. She squared her narrow shoulders and threw back her head. “I wish I had one million dollars!” she said loudly.

Wilbur sighed. If Wilhelmina got her wish, it would be a calamity. She would turn into an unbearable, arrogant, over-proud snob. He shuddered contemplating it. What his own life would be like, he hardly dared think about.

In the middle of these unpleasant thoughts, the doorbell rang.

Wilhelmina answered it, and an instant later he heard a shrill, hysterical shriek sounding through the house. He started for the front of the house, but he met Wilhelmina rushing wildly toward him. Her thin face was flushed with fanatical exultance.

“It worked!” she screamed, “it worked!”

“What did?” he asked. He noticed a letter clutched in her hands.

“The stars!” she cried, “the stars have done it. My wish has been granted. A distant relative of mine died and left me his fortune. It amounts to just exactly one million dollars. I’m rich, rich, d’y’hear? RICH!”

She danced around the room, hugging the letter to her bosom, crying and screaming frantically.

Wilbur watched her in silence. It was worse than he had thought it would be. And that was saying a lot. He waited as she calmed down and he saw the greedy cunning creep into her face.

“I suppose,” she said quickly, “that you think you have some claim on this money. I can see it in your face. You think because you gave me the wishes you deserve half of it. Well you don’t, do you hear me? You don’t. It’s mine and I intend to keep every cent of it for myself.”

Wilbur knew his wife too well to be surprised. He only wondered gloomily about the black, unenviable future that stretched before him. He thought of Joe Blodget and sighed wistfully.

“And don’t forget,” Wilhelmina thrust herself into his pleasant dreams, “I still have another wish.” She glared at him scornfully and Wilbur would have sworn that her eyes actually glittered like they’re reported to do in fiction.

“I’ve made up my mind,” she said deliberately, “but before I make my wish, there are a few things I want to tell you. First, I want to tell you how much I despise you. How much your beaten, insignificant, frightened little mind disgusts me. Then I want to tell you that I’ve laughed at you for years and I’ve enjoyed brow-beating you because I knew you never had the courage to talk back. You’re a despicable, revolting little worm, Wilbur Wunch, and I had to tell you that before I leave you for good.”

“Leave me?” Wilbur gasped.

“Do you think I’m fool enough to stay now that I have money?” Wilhelmina demanded. “I’ve got the money I need, and here’s my last wish.” She stood before him a picture of incarnate rage and triumph — thin, bitter, mean, cruel and scornful.

“I wish,” she said spitefully, “that I’d never met you, Wilbur Wunch.” Wilbur opened his mouth, but before he could speak, a blinding flash shot through the room and then all hell seemed to explode in his face.

Before everything went black, he had a kaleidoscopic image of the room whirling dizzily, Wilhelmina’s lean features a mask of fright and amazement, and then the entire flashing picture merged into reeling fathomless blackness...

Wilbur Wunch had braced himself against the incredible, blinding shock that had assailed him. Braced himself, while bunching his hands into tight knots. But then, miraculously, the roaring had faded, the room seemed to be regaining balance. And Wilbur opened his eyes.

Everything was quiet, everything was beautiful, but — the realization struck him with the suddenness and force of blackjack in a dark alley — everything was totally changed!

He was no longer in the modest living room of his home! He was in a strange, luxurious apartment.

Dazedly, semi-hysterically, he looked wildly about. A thousand fears battled for admission to his mind. There was no Wilhelmina in this apartment, and even the clothes he was wearing were not the drab garments that usually concealed his slight frame.

Then, looking down, Wilbur realized for the first time that he clutched a cocktail glass in his hand and that he stood — clad in a red velvet dressing gown — before a duplex, super-tone radio.

Understanding broke on Wilbur like the sun beaming suddenly through gray clouds. He smiled and squared his shoulders and tasted the drink in the glass he held in his hand.

It was delightful. He took another sip, and his smile widened until he was chuckling, then laughing out loud. It was a good, ringing laugh, and it echoed cheerily through the sumptuous apartment.

Wilbur laughed until his sides ached, until he collapsed on the soft sofa, doubled up with the gleeful mirth that coursed through him. He didn’t stop until the tears streamed down his cheeks and he sat up too weak to laugh any more.

It was glorious. And the most glorious part of it was the fact that Wilhelmina had caused this wonderful change.

For her last spiteful wish had been that she had never met him. And what was more important, she had gotten her wish!

For here he was — Wilbur Wunch, Bachelor. Wilbur Wunch, who had never met Wilhelmina Wunch. A free, different Wilbur Wunch, who enjoyed the same delights and advantages that Joe Blodget enjoyed.

But that was not why he laughed until he was weak. It was Wilhelmina and her loss of the million dollars that made him laugh. For if she had never met him, she could never have wished for and never received the money. Oh, it was glorious!

He sank back into the sofa and picked up his glass. Through the high windows of his glorious new apartment he could see a myriad stars winking down at him, friendly and cheerful.

He winked back.

“You said I was going to be lucky,” he chortled, “and buddies, you sure gave me the jackpot.”

Then he started laughing all over again.

That astrology stuff was okay!