The Call
(Based on a true story.)
“Hi, Nana,” I said, answering the phone.
“Hey, kiddo! How are you doing?” she replied.
“Just waiting for my next class, Nana. I-”
Before I finished my sentence, she interrupted, “I’ve got to go, kiddo. Just wanted to say I love you. Tell your mom and dad I miss them!”
I thought it was odd but didn’t give it much thought.
An hour later, I went home and found my parents in the living room.
My mother’s face was swollen, from crying I presumed.
She said, “Honey, we found out Nana passed away last night.”
By: Amy Tan
Psychic Story
I was in bed late one night and, for some reason, I could not fall asleep. And you need to know that I have a deep fear of spiders, I mean really deep.
So I was lying in my bed when a frightening thought popped into my head. “A spider is going to fall from the ceiling.”
I frantically got up, turned on my lights, and started observing the ceiling, but saw nothing.
Then I heard my mother scream and my father asked, “What is wrong?”
She replied, “A spider just fell from the ceiling!
I sat there in shock.
By: Jessica Gray
The Worst Birthday
She wakes with a grin. After all, it is her sixteenth birthday.
She freezes when she sees the spider.
She gets out of bed carefully, then goes to get her father. She doesn’t want to kill it, but she doesn’t want to touch it either.
Her parents are still asleep, so she yanks the covers off them — it is, after all, her birthday — and yells “Wake up!”
But something is wrong.
Their faces are melting, collapsing in on themselves. She stumbles backwards, trips, hits her head and — bolts awake, gasping.
She sighs, reassuring herself.
Then she sees the spider.
By: E. Cady Strech
The Sorcerer’s Ship
There was once a sorcerer so powerful that many became his students, wanting his abilities.
One day the sorcerer needed to leave and instructed his students to watch a covered bowl without disturbing it.
The students’ curiosity got the better of them, and lifting the cover they saw a miniature, very life-like ship. One student dipped his hands in the water, making the boat capsize. He quickly righted it, but the sorcerer appeared immediately, soaking wet and shocking all the students.
“You disobeyed my commands,” he said. “My journey ended early and my boat got destroyed because you lacked discipline.”
By: Catherine Frerker
The Magical Candle
Another day the sorcerer had to leave again. He lit a candle and told his students to watch it throughout the night, not allowing it to go out.
The first watch came and went, but during the second watch the students were all too sleepy to stay awake—all of them fell asleep.
One woke up and noticed that the candle was out, so he hurried to relight it. The new flame lit up the face of the sorcerer who was already back in the room.
Everyone woke in fright.
“Because this blew out, I walked fifteen miles in the dark.”
By: Catherine Frerker
Pick a Card
“Pick a card, any card,” the magician offers.
We draw one, eight of clubs, and tuck it back into the deck.
Magician walks away.
Eights of clubs begin showing up everywhere in our lives: on TV, in the glovebox, handed to us by strangers.
The trick won’t stop!
By: Jeff Provine
Magic Hat
“This,” the spirit said, “is a magic hat. It will provide whatever you need.”
I waved my fingers, said the incantation, and reached inside. “It’s empty.”
The spirit sighed. “Let’s have a quick conversation about ‘needs’ versus ‘wants.'”
By: Jeff Provine
Tortoise and the Breadfruit
The king showed Tortoise a magic breadfruit-tree. “Every morning, the tree produces breadfruit. Harvest only once each day, not twice.”
Tortoise gathered breadfruit each morning, and his family ate happily.
Tortoise’s son asked where the food came from, but Tortoise wouldn’t say. So the son poked a hole in Tortoise’s sack and filled it with ashes. After Tortoise returned with breadfruit, the greedy son followed the trail of ashes. But when he reached for a breadfruit, a thorn-bush sprang up and swallowed the tree.
When Tortoise came the next morning, there was no tree.
Just a thorn-bush.
No more magic.
By: L.K.G.
Henry Mills, The New Author
Henry Mills sat in his room thinking over how he had just become the Author, keeper and teller of all stories. He couldn’t believe it.
Of course, he came from a fairy-tale family, but he never thought he would have any magical abilities or anything. He trembled a bit as he felt the weight of the responsibility.
He then wondered how he could use his newfound power for good. He thought and then was reminded of all the reformed fairy tale villains. Henry smiled softly to himself. He picked up his magic quill and ink, and got to work writing.
By: Lauren Sardono
Once Upon a Time: Beginning and Ending
It begins and ends with hope.
By: Lauren Sardono
Hope
A young woman woke at dawn and began gathering dew from the leaves, flowers, and grass in her garden. She put them into a small glass vial in preparation for the day’s work.
She wore a white silk dress with gold embroidery and had long, braided hair.
She travelled first to a woman hoping to be pregnant, and, smiling, sprinkled some of the dew on her.
Next she went to a man who had been sick for many years and secretly left him a few drops.
Finally, she sprinkled some on a family hoping to travel to a new country.
By: Catherine Frerker
Ease
A man carrying a laurel branch and dressed in an expensive suit entered a house.
The mother and daughter loudly argued in the kitchen. The man stood in the doorway and moved his hands like he was giving a presentation, but he made no sound. The pair lost their anger and reconciled.
The man moved to the house next door, where he made the same gestures over a man stressed out about his job.
He ended his day at a church, and made the arm motions behind the silent worshipers.
Each place he made an impact his presence went unnoticed.
By: Catherine Frerker
Fairy Rings
Be careful where you step, child. The smell of stress draws them in.
A circle by the buses, a circle by the dorms, the fair folk know where to lay their traps.
The days of stealing babes from cribs have passed, and now it is time for a new sort of changeling.
By: Rachael Sitton
Power
Just another normal day.
Going to work, Simu had no idea what was about to happen to him.
While driving along, he suddenly stopped when a black notebook was thrown onto his front windshield. He got out of the car, confused, and grabbed the strange-looking notebook.
“COMMAND NOTE” were the words he read on the cover.
When he opened the notebook and continued reading, his eyes widened.
“Rule #1 of Command Note: The name of the person you write down in this notebook shall obey one single command of the user’s choice.”
Power.
That was all Simu could think of.
By: S.K.
Midnight Shift
“Do you ever wonder about things?”
“We work the late shift; there’s not much else to do.”
“Yeah, but why are we combing over old dead websites with these gadgets?”
“Somebody has to do it.”
“You say that like it’s just a fact of life.”
“Well, yeah. Do you not remember the alternative, before we knew better? Some solar flare wakes the dormant ghosts on the internet, combining all the fragments of souls that we used to leave lying around so carelessly. Humanity barely recovered.”
“It just feels weird, as if we’re defacing gravestones.”
“…is that something you’ve done before?”
By: Chris Trulock
Argument for Humanity
“Humanity is nothing but pestilence, betrayal, senescence, and heartbreak,” the evil wizard said. “Give me one good reason why it shouldn’t be destroyed.”
“I can’t deny all of those things,” I said slowly. “But it’s also a baby kicking his mother in the womb, dinner with two reunited friends, a bride on her wedding day, a father reading to his kids before bed, crying when an acceptance letter arrives in the mail, family laughing together during movie night, a chorus of songs during holiday celebrations, and soldiers returning home safe from war. They deserve to live.”
Maybe we survive this.
By: Kenzie R. Hanna
