“Wash the dishes, check; sweep the guest room, check; lock away the cursed grimoire, check.”

Today was a special occasion, and Darcy was excited. Opuna was coming to her house to visit! Friends like Opuna were rare, but visits to her home were rarer; non-existent, actually. Living in a swamp mostly populated by fire-breathing alligators had its benefits, but it was a pain that every time she hosted book club the other members RSVP’d no.

But Opuna wasn’t daunted by the dangerous terrain. Why, she’d written for weeks about how nothing would stop her from seeing Darcy’s newest invention in person! Darcy was so thrilled that she offered to fly to the nearest town and pick Opuna up on the old broomstick.

Nonsense, Opuna had replied. And miss the journey? No, I’ll find a way. We’ll just pack plenty of supplies.

She always had been odd with pronouns that way. Darcy assumed it was a quirk of whatever spell Opuna used for writing; her friend had alluded to not having typical hands before.

Darcy peered down at her to-do list. “Prime the Impossible Machine, check; bake scones, check; brew extra –“

Something tugged on one of the threads in her mind, and she immediately perked up. That was the guard-spell fifty yards out from her front deck. Usually it triggered when one of the alligators wandered too close, but this time…

She grinned and made a twisting motion in midair, sucking her to-do list through a tidy little portal spell and onto her desk. Then she went out to see just how her friend had navigated the swamp.

The world outside was murky and uncertain, as usual. Darcy snapped her fingers and several globes of light rose from beneath the water, illuminating a small figure on a raft.

“Opuna!” she called, waving vigorously. “Over here!”

The figure paused and lifted her paddle to wave it back at her. Opuna was… well, Darcy couldn’t quite tell what Opuna was. She had seen her share of exotic species, but never a one-foot-tall neon-green blob with tiny nubs for arms and no legs whatsoever.

When the raft reached her deck Opuna looped one of her nub-arms around the neck of a large sack, then scuttled up to Darcy much faster than she would have thought possible. Did she have tiny feet under all that goop?

“Darcy,” her friend said in a whispery, high-pitched voice. Some of the goop shifted so she could see a mouth and two slit-pupiled eyes. “It is good to finally see you.”

“And you!” she replied, motioning for Opuna to step inside. “Though I must admit, I thought you would be taller. No offense meant.”

“I was,” Opuna said. “The trip was quite harrowing. We had a few accidents.”

“Oh?” Darcy glanced back at the raft, then blinked; it was covered in scorch-marks. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Not all of us were,” Opuna said cheerfully as she disappeared inside.

Darcy smiled. Just another crazy Opuna-ism.

~

They spent several hours eating scones and chatting. Darcy enjoyed the diversion of playing host, and she thought Opuna was perfectly charming as a guest.

“Fresh pot of tea is done,” she said as she carried two mugs into the sitting room. “With extra cinnamon, just as you –“

Opuna was twice as large as she’d been before.

Darcy stared at her friend. “Umm,” she said. “Why are you bigger?”

“Hmmmm?” Opuna replied as she leaned over her tea and blew on it. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Darcy opened her mouth, then closed it. Was she actually sure that her friend had doubled in size? Maybe it was just her imagination.

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Opuna sucked all the tea out of her mug in one steady slurp. Then she bounced upright. “Delicious! Now we know this is terribly hasty, but you must excuse me; I am so very curious. Will you show us your inventions?”

“Of course!” Darcy replied brightly as she set down her own mug. “I’ll give you the full tour.”

She demonstrated the automatic tidy-upper, the portal potty, and the flimjabit; her friend was suitably impressed by all of them. But nothing compared to the wonder that shone in Opuna’s eyes when she demonstrated the Impossible Machine.

“It’s quite simple,” Darcy said as she twisted her hand and summoned an apple from the kitchen. “You put an object in and press the button, and it enchants the item for you.” She slid the apple through the device’s opening, then pressed the big red button. The machine briefly flashed a color somewhere between purple and orange, made an off-key beeping noise, and burped out a puff of smoke. Once it had finished she fetched the apple back out. “See?” she said, gesturing towards the fruit’s glimmering aura. “Enchanted!”

Opuna quivered. “Must you charge the device for every use?” she asked.

“That’s the best part! You prime it once, then it can enchant as many objects as you want until you power it down. It’s an energy conservation breakthrough!”

Her friend bobbed her blobby head eagerly. “May I try?”

Darcy hesitated, then shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”

Opuna extended one long tendril of goop into her bag and pulled out an ordinary boot. Darcy idly wondered why a gelatinous being would need footwear as the shoe was plopped into the machine and the button was pressed. Moments later, Opuna held a boot that sparkled with prismatic energy. Her friend gazed upon the boot with utter delight.

Then her mouth opened wide and she ate the boot in one giant gulp.

“Wha –“ Darcy started to say, but Opuna was already growing. Her body pulsed with unseeable colors and swelled up; when it finished she was the size of Darcy’s cooking cauldron.

“Yes,” her friend said in an eerie tone. Another tendril lashed out, snatched the enchanted apple out of Darcy’s hands, and flung it into Opuna’s mouth. Again she pulsed and grew, now to the size of a sitting chair, and when she spoke her voice was deeper. “Friend Darcy, this will change everything!”

Darcy was starting to get nervous. “That’s a neat trick,” she said hastily as Opuna dumped her sack out onto the floor. Random knick-knacks and garbage spilled out everywhere, and Opuna scooped up several items and tossed them into the Impossible Machine. “Let’s, uh, let’s take a break and talk about how you’re doing that.”

Opuna shoved an enchanted receipt into her mouth and knocked over a chair as she ballooned in size again. “More!”

“Okay, that’s enough!” Darcy snapped. She stomped forward and reached for the green Off button on the back of the machine. But as she moved, Opuna twitched and part of her goop split off of her. The smaller goop scuttled forward and reared up, grabbing Darcy’s hand.

“Do not stop us now, friend,” Opuna boomed between bites of magical items as the second goop echoed the same words in a higher-pitched voice. “Together, we shall be unstoppable.”

Opuna grew large enough that her head hit the ceiling, and Darcy panicked. She darted her fingers forward to shoot a paper-cut spell at little-Opuna, who shrieked and backed off. She took another step towards the machine, but large-Opuna noticed and split off three more piles of goop who rushed forward and latched onto her, holding her back.

Darcy tried everything – her liquidizing cantrip, her harrowing hex, even the sobering mantra she hadn’t used since college. None of it worked. All the while Opuna grew larger and larger as her body spilled out across the workroom.

“YES,” her former friend roared. “WITH THIS POWER WE SHALL CONSUME ALL THE MAGIC IN THE WORLD!”

Opuna turned towards her, and Darcy had a horrible realization. Opuna grew by eating magical objects, and Darcy was the most magical object in the whole swamp.

The little-Opunas started pulling her forward towards the giant pile of goo, and giant-Opuna opened her mouth wider than ever before. Inside of her Darcy could see nothing but darkness.

This was her fault. She had to stop this.

With tears trailing down her face, Darcy closed her eyes and recited a spell. The spell. The one no magician would ever use except as a final resort.

And the world exploded around them.

~

The swamp was silent again.

For a short while there had been light and noise like nothing the swamp-creatures had seen or heard before. Now the witch’s hut was no more. Pieces of detritus speckled the waters where it once stood, and the vibrations from the witch’s spells were still.

An invisible beaver swam out to investigate, confident that his color-changing pelt would keep him safe from harm. The animal dove down into the water and ran his paws over the swampbed, searching for a suitable trophy to bring home to his mate.

A shiny gold coin sparkled at him from beneath the mud. He kicked forward and grabbed it, pleased with his find.

A neon-green tentacle wrapped around his leg.

A gaping mouth smiled wide.