The Wishing Bear by Robert L Healy

Nancy and George Carlson are living their dream raising their two boys Kevin and Jamie in a small New Jersey town along the Delaware River. It’s a community where their neighbors are their closest friends and the church plays an important role in the lives of its citizens. They are neither rich nor powerful and intentionally cultivate the quiet life. Two demons have different plans for the Carlson’s. They scheme to compromise the Carlson’s faith and win them over to the Evil One. Their plan is ingenious and devious in its simplicity. They arrange for Kevin, the Carlson’s twelve year old, to obtain a magic talisman, a stuffed bear. The bear has the power to grant Kevin his every wish, anything he wants. All of Kevin’s wildest dreams soon become reality. His relationship with his parents weakens with each wish granted by the bear. The bear soon replaces Kevin’s parents as the most influential personality in his life. Fractures begin to grow and widen in the relationships between Kevin his parents and brother. George and Nancy try to get rid of the bear. Yet after each attempt the bear mysteriously returns. They soon come to the realization that the bear is evil and is by degrees destroying their family. Kevin often gets more than he wishes for. With each wish people, sometimes his closest friends are hurt by the unintended consequences of his wishes. There’s an added catch to the bear’s magic. With each wish the bear seems to age and unbeknownst to Kevin his heart suffers from a mysterious disease that grows progressively worse as the bear grows older. Soon the bear appears to be old and decrepit and Kevin’s heart is as sick as the bear is old. One more wish may be Kevin’s last. Nancy and George begin to lose faith in God as their son turns to the bear and the evil spirits that stand behind it. As Kevin grows increasingly distant from them; Nancy and George ask why God is allowing this evil to afflict them. Are the evil spirits that control the bear more powerful than God? Kevin and the entire family seem to be playing directly into the hands of the demons’ plan. Their only hope is with their pastor Tom Garrison and he is perplexed and uncertain as to what he can do.