Over in Mena’s auntie’s vegetable patch—a neat four-square bed of radishes—a moving scarecrow talked animatedly to a crow who was absent mindedly chewing on a radish. The scarecrow’s head was a tan sack, pulled tightly over her straw body. Stitched onto the sack were eyes with thick eyelashes and red yarn stretched into moving lips. A burst of straw stuck out of her head, looking much like a singular pigtail. The scarecrow gabbled loudly to the crow, ignoring Mena as she gathered her mushrooms.

“Since Mena bewitched me,” she said in a bubbly voice. “I’ve been a strong independent scarecrow with a mind of my own. I no longer need to guard this vegetable patch. I’m a master of my own destiny.”

“Hm, interesting,” the crow nodded, and smiled, continuing to chew on the radish. He had an orange and white bowtie fashioned around his neck.

“Um, don’t you guys care I fell down a hill?” Mena shouted to the pair, annoyed that Straw-Woman was telling the same story again.

Straw-Woman continued to babble to the crow, until Mena raised her voice and added, “After being chased by some freakish green witches?”

“Oh hey, Mena,” Straw-Woman said in a friendly voice. “I was just telling my friend here, about my glorious liberation from scarecrow servitude. What was that about green witches?”

Mena loved the fact she created a living scarecrow (to get out of guarding the vegetable patch herself) but Straw-Woman was as good at listening as she was protecting her auntie’s crops. “Green witches were chasing me in the forest!” she yelled to the scarecrow, her eyes as wide as her auntie’s china plates. “And they want my aunt for some reason!”

“Oh no!” said Straw-Woman, energetically bouncing around on her pole, startling the crow. “You should tell your auntie that right away!”

The crow flew away as Straw-Woman began to dance frantically with her arms up in the air. “Hurry, hurry!”

Mena narrowed her eyes before rolling them. “Thanks for your sudden concern.”

Mena dashed up the red porch steps leading to a small two-story cabin. Rainbow smoke was billowing out of the chimney; her auntie was brewing something. Mena stepped into the foyer. It split into two directions with a staircase leading to Mena’s room and a hallway lined with paintings and vases depicting Grizabella’s favorite animal—a black kitten.

She proceeded through the hall where a woman in her late forties stood by a cobalt wooden stove. A large cauldron was placed on top of it, boiling and bubbling. Auntie Grizabella had aged well for a witch (who were normally prone to terrible skin conditions in their old age) with long, brunette curls occasionally interrupted by strands of gray, a long, but elegantly curved nose and brown eyes that betrayed intelligence every way they turned. She wore an apron over her dark robe, emblazoned, yet again, with kittens. She frowned as she turned to face her niece, but this was merely how her face looked—Mena’s auntie had what Mena called, “Permanent-Resting-Witch-Face.” Her cool brown eyes widened when she saw Mena sporting a basket full of supposed magicaps.

“Excellent,” she said, grabbing the basket out of Mena’s hands. “Good job finding so many of them, Mena.”

Before Mena could utter a word about the green witches or the mushrooms, Grizabella dumped them into the cauldron. For a second, the cauldron simmered, Mena was silent as her aunt watched the brew with anticipation. There was a loud sound that resembled the gurgling of a nauseous stomach and thick brown clouds filled the room, choking both witches.

“Purify the fog and filthy air,” Grizabella gasped; and suddenly, the clouds vanished. Mena swallowed hard as her aunt reappeared with an even-more-severe face than usual.

“Mena…” Grizabella started. “Those weren’t magicaps were they? They smelled a lot more like mire shrooms.”

“I could only find one magicap!” Mena protested. “Plus, there were some green witches who…”

Auntie Grizebella’s cross look changed to a curious expression. “Green witches? What do you mean?”

Mena tried as hard as she could to make her tiny frame seem as menacing and as wide as Bubbel. She hunched her back and lifting her arms over her head, making claws with them. “I was strolling along, minding my own business, when suddenly these old crones on brooms were all, ‘I’ll get you my pretties! and fired a bunch of spells at me while cackling madly.”

Mena raised her voice to make a high-pitched cackle too. “It was like something out of the storybooks you used to read to me! It was totally weird. What was that all about?”

Grizabella placed her hand to her pointed chin and closed her eyes. Mena waited for an answer. She knew a wizened witch like her auntie would know what to do.

“Nothing you have to worry about,” she said at last.

“Are you sure?” Mena said, her eyes still wide from the incredulous event. “They mentioned your name! They were looking for you for some reason.”

Grizabella walked across the room to a piece of parchment that was neatly framed on the wall alongside a watercolor painting of a litter of kittens.

“Grizabilla Willow,” she read aloud so clearly Mena could hear every word. “Humbly accepts the Magna Cum Warte for Spectacular Witchcraft, Herbology and Self Defensive Spell Casting. Courtesy of Roy. G Bivion, headmaster of Nightdream Academy.”

With a proud look of hubris and a twirl of her sparkling magical finger, Grizabella asked her niece, “Now do you really think any old forest crones are going to be a match for someone with this pedigree?”

“Well, no,” Mena responded, feeling a bit more relieved despite her aunt’s boasting, or maybe because of it.

“Now how about tomorrow,” Grizabella said, walking over to her and placing an arm on her shoulder. “I teach you a good old fashioned tracking spell. One I learned from the old headmaster himself. Then you won’t have to pull the old mushroom switcheroo on me.”

“Ok,” Mena said, with gleeful nod of her head. She was starting to feel happy she mentioned the green witches so she could get out of any kind of lecture for tricking her aunt.

As soon as Mena reached her room, she pushed her curtains aside and looked outside her arched window. She surveyed the land all the way from her auntie’s vegetable patch to the verdant hill she tumbled down. The witches were nowhere to be seen. She returned to her bed but got the sudden urge to look again five minutes later. Everything was the same, except the crow with the checkered bowtie had returned to snack on more vegetables. He was chased away by Auntie Grizabella with a broomstick, who began lecturing Straw-Woman about the proper way to do her job. Mena realized she couldn’t keep checking the window; it would drive her crazy. She needed a distraction.

Next to her window was a small bookshelf filled with her favorite hobby: Melina Penwell’s entire collection of Love in the Days of Magic. They were the kind of romance novels that featured steamy love affairs between handsome bearded wizards and beautiful (and wart free) witches, and sometimes even steamier affairs between two handsome bearded wizards. Grabbing the thirteenth and latest book, she walked back to her bed, and climbed back on it. Before she began her latest literary excursion, she gazed at a small object on her nightstand.

Beside her fluffy quilted bed was her most prized possession that spoke a million more meaningful words to Mena than Melina Penwell could ever pen: the only image of her parents she had left. With the help of memory magic, her aunt had captured a moment of them sitting by a lake in each other’s arms. Her mom shared her dark, but shining eyes and thick black hair, while her slightly balding, bespectacled father, shared the same brace-faced grin. His dental problems would always make her grin unashamedly when she saw him. She breathed out a sign of relief; in addition to her auntie, she knew they were always looking over her.

A half hour later, someone knocked on her bedroom door. Mena jumped. “W-who’s there! What do you want?”

“I’m bringing you supper,” Grizabella said, softly muffled from behind it. “I figured you’d be more comfortable eating upstairs this evening.” Mena approached the door and peered through the crack. Her aunt holding a tray in her hand filled with steaming food. “Don’t worry, I’m keeping an eye out for those witches too,” she said with a wink.

Thanking her auntie, she rested the tray up on her bed and gazed at what was on her plate. Steam and the smell of spices wafted in the air from a cheese stuffed portabella mushroom. A square goblet of mushroom juice teetered on the tray alongside it. Mena’s auntie wasn’t above taking a passive aggressive shot at her over the magicap incident with the dinner; but despite this, the dinner had been prepared with care, and Mena hadn’t eaten or drank anything since she escaped the witches. With her throat was dry and her stomach rumbling, she dug into the food and gulped down her drink.

The sun sank through the trees, tinting her room gold; and after the cheese stuffed mushroom had filled her and the juice quenched her, she curled up on her bed, reading Penwell’s latest novel for the rest of the evening. It featured the latest developments on a thrilling, slow burning love triangle between Oleander Blassom, a handsome elven mage with flowing, wine-colored hair, (and toned abs) the legendary and charming warlock, Fabius the Famed with his long, tan and magical complexion and the unassuming witch-in-training, Merlina Magnificant, who some readers complained in the newsletters, bore more than a passing resemblance to the author herself. It instantly took her mind off being chased by the green witches; and by the time she snuffed out her candle at night, she felt more at peace with what happened. Looking forward to her auntie’s lesson tomorrow, she closed her eyes and went to sleep.

That night, Mena dreamed of the place she longed to be more than anywhere else: the Nightdream Academy. Her auntie often recounted the innocent schooldays she spent with her sister in an enormous and wondrous castle filled with aspiring witches and warlocks, but she never once told Mena where it was…except that the location was very unusual. Armed with an over-active imagination, Mena imagined herself soaring over white capped mountains on Straw-Woman, who had been fashioned into a flying broomstick. Despite cries of “I don’t approve of this,” from Straw-Woman, Mena reached the highest peak where a wonderfully strange sight awaited her.

A curious castle perfectly balanced on a peak without wobbling or tilting. It was white with red, yellow and blue spirals swirling across it. The windows were all white with singular dots in the middle, and the drawbridge was a shade of ruby, looking like a pair of eyes and a mouth. The castle had four separate spires, each with a different element transfixed at that top: An orange and red sun, a pale, yellow half-moon, a green planet and a colorful rainbow. The drawbridge lowered, revealing a colorful pink and turquoise void; and ducking down, Mena sped up on her scare-broom and zoomed inside.

Mena found herself in a pure white classroom. There was no ceiling, only a shining blue sky with puffy cumulus clouds. Looking at her classmates, Mena realized they were all living scarecrows. “Pssst, Mena,” Straw-Woman whispered. Mena turned her head and saw her scarecrow companion sitting at the desk next to her. “Scarecrows getting their magic PHDS with their new-found brains?” she asked with a happy expression. “Now this I approve of!”

Mena’s eyes beamed brightly as their teacher walked in. Dressed in a formal robe-dress, with cobweb stockings and a shiny black hat, Grizabella made her way across the room. Her face made-up and her brunette hair neatly tied back, she was about to introduce the class (Strawology 101 was written on the floating board) when she was interrupted by a suave, deep voice. “Pardon me, but am I in the right class?” A wizard with flowing locks of glossy dirty-blond hair, a chiseled cleft chin and a cerulean and dark purple robe entered. “Fabias the Famed?!” Mena exclaimed.

He took one look at Mena, and stepped back, holding his chest. “My my,” he said breathlessly. “I must be in Transfiguration class because the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen has just appeared before me.”

He walked past Grizabella, whose complexion shaded redder than the ripest tomatoes in her garden, until he reached Mena’s desk, leaned on it, and gave his signature pout with his full lips. Mena’s heart jumped into her throat when she saw he was in his boxer briefs. (They were black and covered in small wizard hats.) “That usually happens to me in my bad dreams,” she remarked. “This is a nice change for once.”

Fabias gave a shining white grin and his thick eyebrows wiggled like yellow caterpillars found in the Pembroke Woods. “But this is a lucid dream, baby,” he said. “You control it with your mind.”

Mena put her hands to her blushing cheeks, touching them on her command. “Miraculous magicaps, it is indeed!”

Her eyes glinted mischievously as she smiled. “Someone in my subconscious likes me.”

“Come to me, my love,” Fabias said with his arms outstretched.

“Don’t mind if I do,” she said, equally suave and impressed she wasn’t giggling nervously, lisping loudly or accidentally snorting.

She stood up and took a running jump, leaping into Fabias’ arms. “What shall we do first, my dear?” he said. “Shall we cruise through the skies on my Nightrider Broom, or should we drink magical merlot over a caldera lit dinner?”

“Uhh…” Mena said, her mouth hanging open, revealing her retainer covered teeth. A glare from Grizabella prompted Mena to add, “I don’t think auntie would approve of me drinking, but I’m down for the rest.”

Her response was met with a thumbs up and a goofy, wide grin from her aunt. “I’m ready,” Mena said, looking into her new boyfriend’s eyes. “This lesson can wait!”

“Are you ready for a night of…” Fabias asked as he winsomely gazed back at her. But something wasn’t right, his voice changed to a scratchy, elderly cackle. Fabias threw his head back; and when it returned, it was the green, warty head of Bubbel, her eyes bulging and her mouth cackling madly. “OF AN ENDLESS RAIN OF BLOOD, DEARIE?!”

Darkness surrounded them as Bubbel dropped a screaming Mena into a pit of flames. Before she burned, she sat up immediately in her bed, panting and drenched in sweat. She brushed her matted hair out of the way. It was still dark outside.

She lit the candle on her nightstand with a light tap of her finger and started trying to recollect what had happened. At last, she caught her breath and said to herself, “I’ve never been so excited or terrified in my life.”