by Elizabeth Demeter
The Invitation
Hilary usually didn’t shop in places that smelled like a mix of old cloves and dead ambition. But it was raining, her phone was dead, and the small shop at the corner of Larch and Vine was the only store open on the block. Inside, the shelves sagged under jars of mysterious powders, faded doilies, and an unexpectedly large number of left-foot socks. Hilary, in her early thirties, had bright brown eyes and a curious interest in unusual things.
Behind the counter sat a woman who looked like she could have stepped out of a Gothic novel or a cursed portrait: tall, lean, with heavy black eyebrows that always seemed skeptical.
“I’m Ratka,” she said in a voice like a haunted cello.
Hilary smiled politely. “Hi. I was looking for—”
“You’re not from here.”
Hilary hesitated. “No . . . I’m only visiting.”
Ratka leaned forward. “You should come to lunch at my house.”
“I—I mean, I don’t even know you.”
“Perfect time to start,” Ratka said, plucking a piece of lint from the air.
Back home, Jack listened to the story with the same expression he’d had when they found a chicken bone in their vegan pad Thai.
“She invited you to lunch. Just like that?”
“She said I had ‘an edible aura. I think it was a compliment.”
“Hilary.”
“I already said yes. It’s an adventure.”
“You said the same thing about the Ouija bar crawl. You had ghost bruises for a week.”
The next day, with a bottle of wine and vague optimism, Hilary and Jack drove out of the city looking for Ratka’s house. However, Google Maps let them down halfway there, and so did the road. Eventually, they reached what seemed like the ruins of a medieval asylum.
“I think we’re here,” Hilary said.
“I think we’re about to have trouble,” Jack replied.
They pushed open the heavy iron gate with a loud groan. Ratka appeared instantly, dressed in black from neck to toe, like a Victorian widow leading a cult on weekends.
“You are lucky,” she said. “Five minutes earlier, the dogs were outside.”
“Dogs?” Jack asked.
“I want to introduce you to them.”
The cages were industrial-grade, with bars thicker than Jack’s wrist. Inside were two massive Tibetan Mastiffs. They had no visible ears, their fur was tangled like dreadlocks dipped in tar, and their yellow eyes sparkled with perpetual disdain. Each weighed about 150 pounds.
“They can eat people,” Ratka said cheerfully.
“Why are they in cages?” Jack asked.
“They get . . . excited around new smells.”
“Right,” Jack said. “Like us.”
Inside, the kitchen was dimly lit, cozy, and filled with a strong aroma. A third Mastiff rested on the floor, chewing a long, pale bone that wasn’t from a rotisserie chicken.
Hilary leaned in. “That looks strange.”
Ratka chuckled. “Oh, you! It’s a deer bone. I think. It came in the mail.”
“I don’t even know how to process that sentence,” Jack whispered.
To “help,” Ratka led the dog into another room. It followed her quietly, like a cloud. When she returned, she found Hilary standing in front of a heavy wooden door.
“Would you like to see the house?”
“Sure,” Hilary said, because her curiosity was more substantial than her survival instincts.
The living room was vast and empty, with no furniture or art. Only eight naked Barbie dolls were arranged in a perfect circle on the floor, as if mid-seance. One was missing a leg, and the third dog was chewing on it in the corner.
“They’re my collection,” Ratka said. “Each one represents an emotional wound.”
Jack turned to Hilary, silently expressing his regret for every decision that had led to this point.
“Lunch is ready,” Ratka announced.
The kitchen table was set for four: plates, glasses, and a small bowl of ominously steaming patties.
“Who’s the fourth for?” Hilary asked.
“My husband,” Ratka said.
“When does he get home?”
“He won’t.”
“. . . Right.”
Only the patties were available for lunch, and that was it. They emitted a faint aroma of cinnamon and vengeance. Jack prodded them with his fork. They wobbled ominously.
Hilary, ever the brave one, took a bite.
“This is . . . delicious?”
“I use secret ingredients,” Ratka said.
Jack whispered, “She means something illegal, right?” He did not taste the patties.
“I heard that,” Ratka said, smiling.
When they finally got up to leave, Hilary politely thanked her for lunch, trying not to step on any emotional landmines or fragile Barbies.
Ratka walked them to the gate and then leaned close to Hilary. Her breath was cool and had a clove scent.
“Next time,” she whispered, “come alone.”
Hilary nodded slowly.
Jack locked the doors as they drove away and muttered, “Next time, we change our names.”
Hilary didn’t answer. She was still thinking about the taste of that patty. And how Ratka’s eyes looked when she said “Next time.”
The Package
Two days went by. Jack refused to talk about Ratka. Every time her name was mentioned, he shivered.
Hilary, on the other hand, couldn’t stop thinking about her.
The way Ratka’s house felt like a haunted opera set.
The Barbie dolls were arranged like a tiny, plastic coven.
The dogs.
The fourth place at the table.
And, most of all, that patty. It had been . . . disturbingly good. Spiced, juicy, a little sweet. Like if a fever dream and curry had a love child.
“I think I want the recipe,” Hilary said one morning, stirring her tea.
Jack dropped his toast.
The package arrived the following afternoon.
It arrived in a box wrapped in deep red twine, with no return address. Jack refused to open it, instead poking it with a broom and declaring it “mildly cursed.”
Hilary opened it.
Inside, nestled in black tissue paper, was:
A sealed jar of what looked like homemade chutney.
A small leather-bound booklet with no title.
A note on heavy cream paper that read:
“Dear Hilary,
You left your aura behind.
Thought you might want it back.
Try this on toast.
Come again soon.
—R.”
Jack left for the night, saying he’d stay at his friend Derek’s place—the one with the dog that couldn’t bark and only sneezed.
Hilary stayed. Of course, she stayed.
That night, she had a dream about the house.
In the dream, she was walking through Ratka’s Garden, which she hadn’t seen before. It was full of thorny vines and small statues of faceless people. One of the mastiffs walked beside her, silent and obedient.
In the center of the garden stood a gazebo made entirely of animal bones.
Inside sat Ratka, drinking tea and reading a book called “Coping with Guests Who Snoop.”
“You left your aura in the soup,” Ratka said.
Hilary tried to respond, but her mouth was full of doll hair.
She woke up sweaty and starving.
She decided to return.
“Only for a quick visit, maybe to thank her, maybe to ask about the chutney, or maybe because her life felt dull, clean, and too real, while Ratka’s world had the feel of a fevered fairy tale. She left a note for Jack: “Back by sunset. Probably not eaten.”
She followed the unmarked road again, carrying a flashlight, a kitchen knife in her bag (just in case), and a tin of biscuits as a peace offering.
When she arrived, the gate was already open.
Ratka was waiting, dressed in a robe made of something that resembled silk, but probably wasn’t.
“You came alone,” she said, smiling.
“As you asked.”
Ratka opened the gate wider. “Did you enjoy the chutney?”
“I haven’t tried it yet.”
“Oh.” Ratka looked faintly disappointed. “Then let me make you lunch.”
The third dog trotted out to greet her, wearing a tiny hat.
“You gave your dog a beret?”
“He likes French cinema.”
Inside, things had changed.
The kitchen was identical, but now the Barbies were all lined up on a small shelf above the stove. They wore tiny paper hats made from old receipts.
“Why are they up there?”
“They asked for a better view,” Ratka said.
Hilary tried not to look at the bone the dog was chewing. It had a gold ring on it.
“You redecorated,” Hilary said.
“Sometimes the house needs . . . fresh energy.”
They sat at the table again. This time, it was set for three.
Hilary stared at the third plate. The third plate sat untouched.
Finally, Hilary asked, “Where’s your husband?”
Ratka smiled. “You’re sitting in him.”
Hilary choked slightly.
“I’m kidding,” Ratka said. “He’s in the garden.”
There was a sound outside: slow scraping and the unmistakable creak of the bone gazebo.
Ratka stood. “Would you like to see it?”
Hilary stared at her. “See . . . your husband?”
“No. The garden. You’ll love it. But first, eat a piece of cake.”
She pushed a plate across the table toward Hilary. A single piece of cake sat on it—dark, glossy, and suspiciously sparkly.
Hilary squinted. “Is it supposed to shimmer like that?”
“It’s a family recipe,” Ratka said, hands folded neatly under her chin. “A very old family. Go on, dear. One bite won’t hurt.”
Hilary had never turned down cake in her life, and she wasn’t about to start now—not even in the house of a woman who kept cobwebs on purpose and whose dogs looked like they’d eaten the last guest.
She picked up the fork and took a bite.
It was . . . strange. Sweet, yes, but also somehow tasted like warm socks, lightning, and déjà vu. Her vision wobbled slightly. The spoon curled into a spiral before straightening itself with a polite cough.
“Um,” she said. “Is this gluten-free?”
“Not,” Ratka chirped. “It’s fate-infused.”
Hilary put the fork down. “I think my eyebrows tingled.”
A teacup hovered an inch above the table, gently spinning. Ratka grinned.
“Well done. You’re one of us now.”
Hilary blinked. “Sorry, what?”
“Congratulations. You’ve inherited minor telekinesis, some weather control, and the ability to talk to crows. It’s all in the frosting.”
Hilary looked at the cake, then at her hands, which were now glowing faintly pink and emitting the occasional spark.
“I thought I’d at least get a wand or something.”
“Oh no, we do cake. Wands are so Victorian.”
Outside, the wind began to swirl. A nearby tree bowed respectfully. The ferret in the tutu nodded solemnly.
Hilary exhaled. “Well, crap. I guess I’m magical now.”
Ratka leaned back, smug. “Welcome to the club. We meet on Tuesdays.”
There was something in her tone that was equal parts invitation and dare.
Hilary hesitated, looking at the dog in the beret, the empty third plate, and her half-eaten cake.
Then she stood up.
“Sure,” she said. “Show me the garden.”
The Garden of Unfinished Stories
The sky darkened as Ratka opened the back door. It wasn’t quite evening yet, but the clouds were thick and moody, like they knew something ominous was about to happen and wanted dramatic lighting for it.
“Mind your step,” Ratka warned Hilary.
The garden was vast and enclosed by tall, crumbling hedges. Everything inside looked half-alive and ghostly. Vines with black thorns wrapped around decaying statues, flowers bloomed in shapes that vaguely resembled faces, and somewhere in the distance, a wind chime tinkled a tune that suspiciously sounded like Für Elise but was missing three notes.
“What . . . is this place?” Hilary asked, stepping carefully over a row of what might have been cabbage or cursed skulls wearing wigs.
“I call it the Garden of Unfinished Stories,” Ratka said. “Each plant belongs to someone who came here. Most of them never came back.”
Hilary blinked. “You’re joking.”
Ratka said nothing.
They reached the bone gazebo. It was beautiful in the most horrifying way, made entirely of whitened bones, some animal, some not. A delicate arch of rib cages, columns of femurs, and tiny finger bones woven together into an almost lace-like trim.
Under it sat a dusty tea set, a deck of tarot cards, and a single empty chair.
Ratka motioned for Hilary to sit. “I’d like to read to you.”
“Oh. I don’t usually—”
“Sit, Hilary.”
She sat.
Ratka shuffled the cards with fingers that moved too fast and too gracefully, like a magician or a pianist with secrets to hide. She dealt three cards face down.
“The past, the present, the future.”
She turned the first card—the Lovers.
“Ah,” Ratka said. “You’ve known love. Not always wisely. But deeply.”
Hilary didn’t respond.
The second card: The Tower.
“Disruption. Chaos. Collapse.” Ratka smiled. “Fun, right?”
The third card: The Dog, which Hillary didn’t remember in any standard deck.
“It’s not in the Rider-Waite,” Hilary said slowly.
“I made a few changes,” Ratka said.
“Let’s walk,” Ratka said, standing abruptly.
They strolled through the garden. The plants whispered—literally. Hilary heard her name in the rustle of leaves. Something hissed, “Run.” Something else murmured, “Stay.”
They passed a tree with strange bark. Names were carved into it, spiraling upward.
“Past guests,” Ratka said. “I only add the names of people I like.”
Hilary found her name, already there, at eye level.
Her knees almost buckled.
“I haven’t been back here,” she whispered.
“Time is more flexible here,” Ratka said. “You’ll see.”
They rounded a corner and arrived at a small fountain. Instead of water, it brimmed with buttons—red, blue, and bone-colored. Some were worn smooth, while others were ornate. They floated gently, as if stirred by a dream.
“My husband,” Ratka said, gazing fondly at the fountain. “He always collected buttons.”
Hilary said nothing. Somewhere nearby, Gristle sneezed.
Then she saw something half-buried in the dirt.
A shoe.
Jack’s shoe.
The left one, which has the scratch he got while hiking in Banff. She helped patch the blister it caused and recognized it instantly.
She reached out; her hands were trembling.
Ratka put a hand on hers. “Don’t.”
“Why is Jack’s shoe here?”
“Never mind that,” Ratka said. “He’s perfectly fine. At Derek’s.”
“How do you know that?”
Ratka didn’t answer.
They stood silently for a moment, Hilary’s fingers brushing the laces of something that might be her boyfriend’s last known footwear.
“Why did you invite me here, Ratka?”
Ratka tilted her head. “Because you don’t belong in the ordinary world. You’re wasting your time on branches and budgeting apps. You’re supposed to be strange and different—and glorious.”
Hilary stepped back.
“Do you want to see what your life could be,” Ratka said softly, “if you stopped pretending you were happy there?”
Behind them, a chorus of low growls began. The two caged mastiffs stood by the house, watching and waiting. Their ears, what was left of them, were twitching.
“I think I should go,” Hilary said.
Ratka didn’t try to stop her.
“Of course,” she said. “But next time, you won’t want to. Come on Tuesday.”
As Hilary walked to her car, the wind whispered something unintelligible. She didn’t look back.
But she heard the gate slowly closing behind her.
And one word, clear as a bell, drifted across the garden wall.
“Soon.”
Hilary got home before sunset. She parked the car, shut off the engine, and sat silently for a full minute, gripping the steering wheel as if it were the last familiar thing in her life.
Her phone buzzed. It was a text from Jack.
“Are you alive? Derek made lentils.”
She didn’t answer.
The apartment was just as she had left it initially.
But something felt . . . different. Not in a big way, not like furniture was floating or walls were bleeding opera music. Just subtly. Like a dream that had mixed into her waking life.
The pictures on the walls weren’t straight.
Her favorite mug had lost its handle.
The butter in the fridge was facing the wrong way.
She opened it and stared.
Then, she closed it again.
Then opened it.
Still wrong.
“I’m losing my mind,” she whispered. “It’s only butter.”
But the apartment smelled different too—like cloves, burnt wood, and something floral, decayed, and sweet.
She finally texted Jack:
“Home. Safe. Ratka didn’t turn me into a pie.”
Jack:
“Good. Talk to you later.”
Hilary put down the phone and turned on the kettle. It screamed.
Not in the usual tea-kettle way, but in a way that sounded a little too human.
She turned it off and backed away.
“Okay,” she said to the kettle. “You need to calm down.”
It stopped hissing, but not before it softly whispered, “Stay with her.”
Hilary left the kitchen.
Three days passed. Jack came home with a new backpack and a newfound interest in hiking away from the phone reception.
“You, okay?” he asked her. “You seem . . . I don’t know. Spookier than usual.”
Hilary shrugged. “I’m fine. Only tired.”
“You smell like burnt lavender and . . . cloves?”
She nodded. “That’s how I am now.”
Jack didn’t question it. He’d learned to stop questioning things that involved women, dogs, or mysterious chutney.
Later that week, the package came.
Another one.
This time it was shaped like a hatbox. Inside:
A velvet ribbon.
A folded note.
A Barbie head—only the head—wearing a tiny monocle.
The note read:
“You left your curiosity behind.
I’ve been keeping it warm.
Come soon. The dogs miss you.
P.S. The third plate is still set.”
Jack read the note over her shoulder.
“Right,” he said, grabbing his coat. “I’m going to Derek’s again.”
“Why?”
“Because the Barbie head winked at me, and I’m not emotionally prepared for that.”
Hilary stared at the note long after he left.
She no longer knew who she was.
All she knew was this: the chutney was gone. She’d eaten the last of it that morning, spread on toast. It tasted like secrets.
And now, more than anything—
She wanted to go back.
Not for answers.
Not for fear.
But because she was beginning to suspect that she belonged there.
That garden, the dogs, the strange laughter echoing behind doors with no knobs—was like home.
She picked up the velvet ribbon and tied it in her hair.
In the mirror, her reflection blinked after she did.
Then she smiled.
It was raining on Tuesday when Hilary returned to Ratka’s house.
Not the soft, poetic rain, but heavy, splattering rain that sounded like a bucket of marbles dumped onto a tin roof.
She wore the velvet ribbon in her hair. The wind kept trying to take it, but it clung to her like a loyal parasite.
Finding the road to the house was even more difficult this time. Her GPS quit working, and her phone battery drained from 84% to zero as soon as she passed the broken sign that read.
“PRIVATE PROPERTY: NO TRESPASSING”
She parked by the gate.
The dogs were not outside.
The world was quiet, except for the wind whispering secrets through the trees.
The gate opened before she touched it.
Ratka greeted her at the door, wearing a red silk robe and holding a glass of something purple and thick, like a smoothie.
“Ah,” she said. “I was wondering when the storm would bring you back.”
“It wasn’t the storm,” Hilary said.
Ratka smiled wider. “Of course it wasn’t.”
The house looked . . . cleaner—or maybe emptier. The Barbie dolls were gone from the living room, replaced by a single rocking horse that moved gently, despite no draft.
In the kitchen, the table was set again, with four plates.
“Is he coming this time?” Hilary asked, motioning to the fourth plate.
Ratka didn’t answer.
Instead, she opened a small door at the back of the kitchen, which Hilary could have sworn wasn’t there before.
“Come,” said Ratka. “I want to show you the Room That Remembers You.”
“I don’t remember it,” Hilary said.
“You wouldn’t. But it remembers you.”
The narrow hallway behind the door smelled like forgotten laundry and chalk dust. The wallpaper was covered in names, scrawled in dozens of handwritings, some in ink, some in crayon, and one in what looked suspiciously like lipstick.
Hilary stopped when she saw her name again.
This time, it was carved deeply with a sharp object.
They reached the room at the end.
Ratka opened the door and gestured for her to enter.
Inside, the walls were covered in photos of Hilary, spanning her childhood and teenage years. A blurry photo from a 2015 Halloween party, where she’d dressed as a sad bee, was among them. Another image, taken only a week ago in the gazebo, captured her biting lip.
“I never gave you these,” Hilary said.
“No,” Ratka said. “The house keeps what it likes.”
There was a small desk in the center of the room. On it: a notebook. Open to a page that read:
“Hilary arrives. Hilary eats. Hilary changes. Hilary stays.”
The following line was blank, waiting.
“Did I write this?” Hilary whispered.
Ratka shrugged. “You will. Or you already have. Depending on the room.”
Hilary looked down at her hands. They were shaking.
“I think I’m scared,” she said.
“You should be,” Ratka said gently. “Change is terrifying.”
“But it’s too late, isn’t it?”
Ratka nodded.
Ratka smiled.
“You’re becoming who you are.”
They returned to the kitchen.
Four plates.
Ratka served patties again—this time darker, richer, somehow humming.
Hilary ate.
Jack’s seat remained empty.
“What happened to him?” she asked finally.
Ratka tilted her head. “Oh, he’s fine. Probably. But he didn’t want to become anything new.”
“Will he come back?”
“People who don’t change rarely return here. They vanish into the world. Or Derek’s couch.”
Hilary nodded. The fourth plate began slowly filling itself with what looked like steamed cabbage and a spoonful of raspberry jam.
Ratka raised her glass.
“To transformation,” she said.
Hilary raised hers.
“To surrender.”
They drank.
A large black crow landed on Hilary’s balcony the next morning, tipped his imaginary hat, and said, “Good morrow, Ma’am. I bring news, gossip, and an unopened bag of chips I stole from a kid.”
Hilary blinked. “You can talk?”
“I’m your familiar now,” said the crow. “Name’s Cedrick. I prefer cheddar-flavored snacks and philosophical debates.”
“Do you do laundry?”
“Only if it involves pecking holes in it. I’m excellent at holes.”
Cedrick decided to “help” around Hilary’s house.
“I reorganized your spice rack,” he announced.
“You what?”
He pointed proudly with his beak. “Alphabetical order. Except for the cursed jar. I hid that in your cereal.”
Hilary narrowed her eyes. “Please tell me you didn’t touch the cereal.”
“I didn’t eat the marshmallows out of the enchanted Lucky Charms.”
“Cedrick!”
“Look, it was a Tuesday. I got hungry.”
Then, the cereal box growled softly.
Hilary sighed. “If it starts hissing, you’re sleeping in the shed.”
“I prefer the shed,” Cedrick sniffed. “It has ambiance.”
When she heard a crash from above, Hilary was brushing her teeth with a rosemary sprig (toothpaste no longer worked in the houses, and she’d stopped questioning it).
Not the kind of crash that says, “loose shingle” or “rat in the beams.”
This crash says, “Oops, I kicked over the planet again.”
She opened the door to the attic stairwell.
A dusty ladder unfolded with a sigh that sounded like it was trying to escape jury duty.
At the top, someone groaned. “Hold on, I’m decent—ish.”
Hilary climbed slowly.
She found herself face-to-face with a man in goggles, pajama pants, and a bathrobe covered in chicken bones. He was trying to pour soup into a teacup using a funnel made from an old trumpet.
“Oh,” he said. “You’re real this time. Fabulous. I’m Greg.”
“Hilary,” she said, blinking.
“Of course you are,” Greg nodded. “You’ve got the new glow. Did Ratka give you a cake, riddle, or a cursed vegetable?”
“A cake,” Hilary said.
Greg whistled. “Fancy. I got an onion that sings ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ every time I cry.
The onion crooned softly from the corner, “There’s nothing I can doooooo…”
Hilary looked around.
The attic was . . . alive.
Literally.
Books crawled across the floor like turtles. A set of curtains gently billowed in the breeze. A couch in the corner giggled when she looked at it.
“Ratka sent me up here after I made the antique mirror show her doing the Macarena,” Greg said proudly. “She said I needed ‘time to ferment.’ I’ve been here for seven months, or twenty minutes. Hard to say.”
Hilary squinted. “You have powers?”
Greg grinned. “I break things. Chronologically.”
“What does that mean?”
“I made a clock weep once. Actual tears. Then I stepped into a puddle and accidentally erased 1993 from my left foot. See?”
He held up one bare foot. It was fuzzy, pixelated, like a memory in a snow globe.
Hilary sat on a stool made of VHS tapes.
“So, what did you do before this?”
“I was an accountant,” Greg said sadly. “I tried to balance a spreadsheet so hard I cracked open a pocket of nonlinear regret. You?”
“Marketing,” Hilary said.
They both nodded solemnly.
“Anyway,” Greg said brightly. “Want to see something mildly illegal in five dimensions?”
Before she could answer, he opened a drawer and pulled out what looked like a toaster with antennae and one single, blinking eye.
“This is Sheila.”
“Sheila?”
“She plays reruns of possible futures. Sometimes with commercials. Watch.”
He hit a button.
Static. Then—Hilary, much older, on a bread-covered couch, surrounded by dogs that looked like philosophers.
She was knitting something that looked suspiciously like the fabric of reality.
The toaster-TV flickered. Greg smacked it. It changed to an ad:
“Have YOU been cursed by a temporal entity? Ask your dream doctor if Scream tabs are right for you!”
Hilary turned to him.
“Is this what happens to everyone here?”
“Only the interesting ones,” Greg said with a wink. “The boring ones turn into wallpaper. Don’t touch that lamp; it used to be Kevin.”
Hilary stood up. “I need air.”
Greg nodded. “Fair. Don’t forget your sense of self. It tends to wander.”
Back in the courtyard, the sky had turned a deep, rich shade of blue.
Ratka was watering a plant shaped like a typewriter.
“You met Greg?” she asked casually.
“Yeah.”
“I keep him in the attic, so he doesn’t unravel Tuesdays again.”
Hilary sat down next to her. “How many of us are there?”
“Oh,” Ratka said, “I’ve stopped counting. But only a few become permanent residents. It takes a certain kind of brain.”
“What kind?”
Ratka smiled.
“The kind that laughs when time burps.”
That night, Hilary dreamt of Greg ballroom dancing with the onion while clocks clapped politely in the background.
She woke up with a note stuck to her forehead.
“You’re fun. Let’s break a dimension sometimes. —G”
She smiled.
And for the first time since arriving at Ratka’s, Hilary thought:
“Perhaps I’m not only surviving here; maybe I belong.”
It began with a spoon stuck in midair as these things sometimes do.
Hilary had only made tea. Greg had dropped by the kitchen, wearing a blazer over his bathrobe and socks that read, “DO NOT DISTURB” (“I already am”).
The spoon hung between them, spinning slowly.
“You did that,” Hilary said.
“Possibly,” Greg replied. “But it might also be because I sneezed near the teapot and caused a minor pocket of antigravity. Either way, it’s spinning nicely.”
They watched it for a long time. It shimmered faintly, then vanished with a polite ding.
“I like you,” Hilary said abruptly.
Greg blinked. “Oh. I . . . uh . . .”
“Not in the ‘let’s-hold-hands-on-a-rollercoaster’ way,” Hilary added.
“More in the ‘you make me feel like my molecules are misbehaving in a pleasant way’ sense.”
Greg scratched the back of his neck. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me since my old therapist told me I was ‘a tolerable fever dream.’”
Hilary nodded. “Would you like to go on a date?”
It began with a door that wasn’t there the day before.
Ratka didn’t explain it. She only muttered, “If it opens, don’t put on anything that makes eye contact,” and returned to pouring soup into her radio.
Naturally, Hilary opened it immediately.
Inside: a vast walk-in wardrobe, with velvet-lined walls, chandeliers, and hangers floating midair like curious birds.
In the center stood a mirror with the face of a 1940s film critic.
“Finally,” the mirror sighed. “Someone with eyebrows. Let’s begin.”
Hilary blinked. “Begin what?”
“The emotional tailoring process,” the mirror replied. “Try on an outfit. Any outfit. The wardrobe will show you a what-if version of your life—one you might have lived, yet live, or will briefly become if you aren’t careful.”
Greg leaned in. “Ohhh, I love cursed clothing. I once wore a scarf that made me dream in rhyming couplets for a week.”
Hilary picked a red coat from a floating hanger. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Don’t say that,” Greg and the mirror said in unison.
When Hilary put on the red coat, she was in a glass skyscraper, barking orders into a phone shaped like a miniature jackal.
Greg—now wearing a suit made entirely of memos—ran behind her with a clipboard.
“Your 2:00 is here!” he gasped.
“I don’t do 2:00s,” Hilary snapped. “Move it to somewhere I enjoy being.”
Hilary finally tore off the jacket. “I had no soul! But excellent hair.”
Now they were inside a cottage surrounded by sentient tomato plants and a toaster that recited poetry. Hilary and Greg wore matching pajamas, each embroidered with the phrase “Mildly Dangerous but Huggable.”
“You’re very good at chopping things,” Greg noted, watching her as she diced a carrot, trying to escape.
“I think I have five kids named after minor Greek gods,” Hilary said, reading a note from ‘Hermes Jr.’
The teapot burst into laughter.
They both looked at each other.
“Too wholesome,” they said in unison.
By the night’s end, Greg nervously reached for Hilary’s hand.
“Marry me, Hillary,” he said quietly. “This is me, the real me, wanting this.”
Hilary squeezed his fingers.
“I will”.
Word got out.
Cedrick sent them a love poem and made gagging noises whenever they kissed.
The kettle steamed heart-shaped clouds.
Ratka sent a note that read:
“FINALLY. Don’t mess it up.”
It was a beautiful day for a wedding, featuring magenta skies, a floating chapel made entirely of breadsticks, and a minister who was Cedrick, the crow.
Hilary stood under the archway of caramelized sugar, wearing a gown that shimmered and occasionally sighed with longing. Her veil was made from spider silk harvested by unionized arachnids. Greg, meanwhile, was waiting at the altar in a suit that kept changing colors depending on his mood and nearby Wi-Fi signals. Currently, it was plaid.
The guests were an eclectic bunch: a retired opera singer with a chinchilla on each shoulder, a flamingo wearing pince-nez glasses, Greg’s Uncle Barry, who had been invisible since 1987, and a potato who swore it used to be a man.
“I thought we agreed on a normal wedding,” Hilary whispered to Greg as she reached his side.
Greg blinked. “This is normal. For my family.”
The organist—a blindfolded goat with a minor in jazz improvisation—played a stirring rendition of “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” Meanwhile, the bridesmaids floated six inches off the ground in matching bubble wrap gowns.
“Dearly bewildered,” intoned Cedrick, “we are gathered here today to witness the legal and metaphysical fusion of Greg, the man who once dated a traffic cone, and Hilary, who bravely survived a dinner party hosted by sentient salad tongs.”
“If anyone objects to this union,” Cedrick said, “speak now or forever hold your penguin.”
A penguin in the back coughed, but no one took it seriously.
Greg took Hilary’s hand. “Wow, okay, hi everyone. I’m Greg. First, thank you all for coming to witness us saying ‘I do’—even if ‘I do’ sometimes means ‘I accidentally turn the office coffee machine into a toad.’ Hilary, you’ve been my magical, mysterious, and mildly terrifying partner. You’re brave, brilliant, and the only person I know who can make cheese jokes and cast fireballs in the same sentence.
I promise always to have your back, especially when rogue spells attack.
To our friends and family here today, thank you for supporting us through every weird spell, every magical mishap, and every moment that reminds us that love is the most incredible magic of all.
Here’s to Hilary, my favorite chaos partner, and the only person I want to be stuck in a magical disaster with for the rest of my life.”
He raised his glass, a bit shaky but smiling.
“To love, laughter, and adventures that never get boring. “
Hilary smiled. “And I promise to love you, Greg, even if you forget our anniversary and bring me a squirrel instead of flowers.”
Cedrick sneezed. “By the power vested in me by the Bureau of Magical Mishaps and Unexpected Marriages, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss each other, or high-five, or exchange meaningful glances with interpretive dance.”
They kissed. Somewhere, a cloud burst into confetti.
Greg and Hilary danced their first dance to a mashup of whale songs and early 2000s techno, and everything was perfect, most absurdly and delightfully possible.
The guests erupted in cheers, and the flamingo fainted dramatically. As was tradition, the breadstick chapel began to crumble slowly.
Later, at the reception—held inside a hollowed-out dirigible suspended above a forest of whispering trees, Hilary tossed her bouquet, which promptly exploded into butterflies. A surprised janitor, who hadn’t even been invited, caught the bouquet.
The floating hors d’oeuvres sometimes floated away, and a punch bowl transformed anyone who drank from it into a temporary rainbow.
Cedrick loudly criticized the catering.
During the cake cutting, the cake itself tried a teleportation spell, causing Hilary’s hat to disappear and reappear on a startled goblin’s head.
Greg caught the moment on a magically enhanced phone and grinned,
“Welcome to married life.”
At the end of the reception, as guests were busy trying to exit the dirigible without plummeting into the forest below, Ratka approached the newlyweds with a slow, gliding gait, as if someone who had once danced with death found him too boring to call again.
She wore a dark velvet cloak adorned with symbols that seemed to rearrange themselves whenever you looked directly at them. Her Mastiffs flanked her on either side, sporting tiny bow ties and expressions that conveyed, Don’t test us. We’ve eaten ring bearers before.
“Greg. Hilary.” Ratka’s voice was purr wrapped in thunder. “May your love defy all logic and most zoning regulations. I have brought you . . . this.”
She produced a small, lacquered box carved from what appeared to be petrified moonlight. When Hilary opened it, the box made a hmmm sound, as if judging them.
Inside was a single, shimmering object: a Snow Globe of Possible Futures.
Greg blinked. “Is that . . . us riding a unicycle across the Eiffel Tower?”
Ratka nodded solemnly. “It shows your possible futures. Shake it gently and gaze into it, but beware—each vision you see is only one possibility, and some are . . . strange.”
Hilary spun the globe in her hands. Inside, she and Greg floated in zero gravity. With another shake, they ran a bakery that sold only existential pastries, such as the “What-Am-I Danish” and “Void Muffins.”
In another version, they ruled over a kingdom made entirely of soft cheese.
Ratka smiled only slightly. “If you ever lose your way, consult the globe. But never overuse it; it can get moody.”
“Moody?” Greg asked.
As if on cue, the globe turned pitch black, revealing a vision of the couple arguing over IKEA assembly instructions while a squirrel in a judge’s robe presided nearby.
Ratka snapped her fingers, and the globe returned to its peaceful, glittering state. “I figured,” she added, “you probably already had a blender.”
She turned and vanished into a puff of moths.
Greg stared at the globe. “Well . . . at least it didn’t come with instructions.”
“It’s fine,” Hilary said, slipping her arm through his. “We’ll only consult it when we need relationship guidance. Or dinner ideas.”
Greg grinned. “Let’s not shake it after midnight, though. I feel like that’s how portals open.”
The globe shimmered. Somewhere in the tiny snowy swirl, the miniature versions of them held up a sign: “CONGRATULATIONS.”
The bouquet-exploding butterflies returned in a whoosh.
Ratka’s gift, as it turned out, would continue to bring them many strange years ahead.
© 2026 Elizabeth Demeter All rights reserved.
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