“Go on then… make your wish,” the town well said.

“Well, hold on a second. You had a wish of your own. I heard you muttering before,” Mike replied. He was feeling particularly generous.

“Oh. No, you really shouldn’t—”

“I wish for the well’s wish to come true!” Mike declared. He was pleased with himself until someone suddenly pushed him down into the well. When he came to, a voice shouted down to him.

“Thank you, friend! I did try to warn you. Good luck getting someone to wish you out of there! It only took me forty years.”

Author’s Note: To be fair, the well did try to warn him.

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Taxi horns blared as Officer Zapone zipped ahead on her broomstick to follow the running murder suspect to the intersection. The officer muttered an incantation to amplify her voice over the noisy traffic. “Daryl Peters, stop running! You’ve been warned!” she shouted. The suspect halted only to avoid being crushed by a crossing bus. He started turning.

Zapone thought Peters was cooperating when he faced her, but then she saw him raise a spell-gun. “Mano amputata!” she cried. Two hands fell onto the street along with the spell-gun.

Later, reporters would inquire about undue force and the use of Italian.

Author’s Note: Would the broomsticks have sirens, I wonder?

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“Tonight,” Raymond proclaimed to his battalion of dust bunnies, “We will have victory!” His army of grey clumps roared their battle cry in the darkness under Raymond’s bed. But then the thumps interrupted the morale, shaking the floor. Heart thudding, Raymond flicked the flashlight on. The monster’s scaly feet tapped impatiently on the floor beside the bed.

“Forward!” Raymond commanded, ushering the attack.

The dust bunnies stampeded from under the bed against the beast in the dark, making it howl as it crashed backward on the floor. There the little sneeze-inducing warriors feasted until Raymond’s worst nightmare was no more.

Author’s Note: There’s nothing to fear in the dark so long as you haven’t vacuumed.

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“Brianna, you should turn right if you want what’s best for you!”

“If you want to meet the man of your dreams, Bri, you’d better turn left!”

“If you’d rather be the richest woman in the world, turn right!”

I stare at them, my two future selves from alternate universes. The happily married one does not look so different from current me. The rich version of me sports clothes and accessories that have me drooling.

“So I’m to choose between love and wealth?”

I could ask them how and why they’ve come here. Instead, I turn around to go home

Author’s Note: Wouldn’t it be irritating to know what choices lead to which outcomes?

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If Dina could rid herself of one more poison apple, she could go home. She waited for the right moment. Then she yelped as she threw herself to one side of the weedy path. Down she tumbled, honey crisps and granny smiths parading out of the basket all about her.

“Hello?” the fairest maiden called from farther up the forest path. “Is somebody out there?”

“Down here!”

The maiden came running at once. “Goodness! Are you all right?”

Dina grinned. “Oh… yes, thanks. Care for an enchanted apple, my pretty?”

The maiden smiled. Finally, Dina would meet her monthly quota.

Author’s Note: Driven mad by maidens fairer than herself, a wicked enchantress became a serial apple poisoner.

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