Stella was wrong. There was no shouting. What came next was far worse, a sharp comment followed by silence, coated in a thick layer of disappointment.

Stella had run out the door to hug her dad, but her mum had stepped between them, grabbed her by the shoulders, and looked her up and down.

“My gods, Stella! What have you done to your clothes? Are you two years old? Are you regressing? My, my, how embarrassing. Go and clean up at once and then come back out and redo that greeting properly.” She turned to her husband and in a less shrieky voice remarked, “I don’t know what’s wrong with that girl.”

“Mmm,” he replied, but he wasn’t focused on Stella. He was looking past her to the doorway.

Stella slunk back into the shadows as her grandma joined them outside. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to go and clean up when she had no other clothes to wear.

“Mum,” her dad acknowledged to Grandma in a stern, almost proper tone.

Grandma smiled and replied warmly, “Frankie, It’s good to see you, how have you been?”

“Yeah, alright. Financing took a little bit of a downturn on the latest project but we’re not completely out of options yet. The bank’s holding the house hostage until I pay. We’ll just be here a few days. It’s nothing to worry about, really.”

Grandma smiled again, but this time it was more strained. “Mmm, I’m sure. Well, you’re welcome to stay as long as you want.” Her eyes shifted over to Stella’s mum and in a tone of a completely different temperature she said brusquely, “Beatrice.”

Stella’s mum replied, in much the same tone, “Ginger.”

Greetings done, the adults all trooped back into the house. Stella stood to the side and let them all pass.

As her mum stepped over the threshold, she heard her whisper to her dad, “Your mother has plenty of money stashed away. Why don’t you ask her for a loan?”

He whispered back, “She doesn’t have as much as you think. Most of it is tied up in this house. And for the last time, I’m not asking her for anything. I can get out of this myself.”

No one talked to Stella during dinner.

“So, what was this venture of yours that’s not going well?” inquired Grandma of her son.

“Well, it was a specially designed structure for containing snacks for telekinetic children which absorbs kinetic energy on impact.” Frank waved his hands enthusiastically.

“It’s a fancy cookie jar,” explained Beatrice.

“Well, yes,” agreed Frank, now a little deflated. “You see-”

Beatrice interrupted again. “There was a death. Some woman’s child bashed its own head open trying to get to the cookies. Which is exactly why parents shouldn’t be feeding their children such sugary snacks in the first place. If it doesn’t kill them now, well it sure will later.” She gave Ginger a pointed look.

Frank gave his wife a similar look and then turned back to his mother. “Anyway, it hasn’t been quite as popular as we’d quite have hoped.” He glanced at Beatrice, waiting to see if she would have more to add. When she didn’t say anything he resumed his meal.

They were almost finished eating when the phone rang.

Stella sat up straight and looked at the adults. She still wasn’t sure who was calling. It was probably the phone call she’d foreseen earlier, and she wanted to know who it was, but to her confusion, no one answered it.

It rang, and rang, and rang.

Her mum suddenly slapped the table.

“For goodness sakes, Stella, stop staring off into space and eat your food.”

The phone stopped ringing.

Grandma Ginger looked at Beatrice pointedly but said nothing.

Beatrice sighed and replied with a dismissive flick of the wrist, “It’s her visions again. The child still hasn’t learned to control them.” Food finished she got up from the table and started to clear her plate away.

Grandma replied thoughtfully, “Well you could always have her powers bound if it’s a problem.”

“None of my children shall ever have their magic bound! I can’t believe you’d even suggest such nonsense.” Beatrice spun on her heels and headed toward the kitchen.

“Children? What children? I see only one child.” Grandma snorted. It was well known that both she and her son had wanted there to be more children.

But Frank silently shook his head in warning. There had been many attempts and many miscarriages. Only Stella had survived past birth.

Stella didn’t like how they talked about her like she wasn’t there. She was glad when she was finally allowed to leave the table to get ready for bed, although she kept this thought well hidden.

She liked the guest rooms at her grandma’s house. They were cozy. Her mum hated them, all covered in lace, mismatched teddy bears, and fragile ornaments shaped like strange things.

“Oh, your mother’s a right goblin,” spoke a soft voice at the bedroom door.

Stella looked to find her grandma there. "I thought I was your little goblin, grandma?"

"Oh you are. Different kind of goblin my dear. Different kind of goblin. Now, would you like a bedtime story before your mother comes in and kicks me out?”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Stella nodded eagerly. She loved her grandma’s stories.

“What’s the ballet you’re doing? Some adaption of a musical?”

Stella nodded. “Wicked.”

“Wicked? Hmm.” Grandma took a seat on the edge of the bed. “Do you know the story? Did you know in the original the witch was wicked and her sister got a house dropped on her? And then the witch was defeated by a young girl in red shoes.”

“Like my shoes?”

“Yes, that’s right. Magic red shoes and a little grey dog, named Toto.”

“How did she defeat the wicked witch in that story, grandma?”

Before her grandma could answer, her mum poked her head around the corner of the door.

“Well, it’s nice to see you in bed on time, but what is your grandma doing keeping you awake?” The voice she spoke in was sweet, like sorbitol, the stuff she sometimes put in her coffee. It was the same tone she used when she spoke to all the other kid’s parents. Stella knew it well. So did her grandma.

Grandma got to her feet slowly and stiffly.

Her mum’s foot started softly tapping on the carpet, which only seemed to slow grandma down even more. But even, old Ginger, had her limits. Eventually, she said, “Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the goblins bite.” With a wink to Stella, she left the room.

Stella’s mind was immediately filled with an image of her mum with green skin and long pointy ears. She giggled without meaning to. Then she saw the expression on her mum’s face and felt the icy fingers in her mind, prying, looking, tearing things apart.

Thought found and read, her mum’s demeanour relaxed. She smiled as she sat on Stella’s bed, but Stella was familiar with that smile too. It was just like her tone from earlier. Fake.

“So she thinks I’m a goblin does she? What was she talking to you about before I came in?”

Stella didn’t try to hide it. There would have been no point. “Grandma was just telling me a story, about the witch whose sister got a house dropped on her.”

To Stella’s surprise her mum laughed. “Oh what a wicked witch. I’d like to drop a house on her sometimes you know. She fills your head with such fantasies, and your belly with fattening foods.” She poked Stella in the belly in what was perhaps intended to be playful but which made Stella feel horribly self-conscious.

Suddenly a crooked smile came across her mum’s face and she murmured once more and in an entirely different tone, “Oh, I’d sure like to drop a house on her... one big out in the country house...” Her eyes got a sort of shiny, glazed look as she stared off at something Stella could not see.

“Mum?”

“Oh, don’t worry your pretty little head, we’ll be out of this place and back on our feet in no time. Mummy will make sure of it. You’ll see. You just worry about that audition coming up. Make sure you don’t get your lefts and rights mixed up. I know you’ll do fine. You are my daughter after all, so you have the right genes at least. The rest is up to you.”

“Yes mum.” Stella nodded like the good little girl she was.

Her mum beamed. “I’m so very proud of you.”

Stella’s heart swelled. Her mum seemed happy and pleased for real now. If only she knew what she had done to cause it so she might cause it again.

Her mum would have stayed longer but right then the phone rang. For real this time.

Her mum sighed. “Who could possibly be calling at this hour?”

Stella still didn’t know so she didn’t answer.

She waited for the door to shut and the lock to click as it always did when her mum left for the night, but it never came.

Her mum had even left the door open a crack. A small slither of light painted a line on the floor. Stella lay her head on her pillow and watched it for awhile. She imagined she could see things in the dust.

Swirls of colours pulled their way across her vision, giving way to another scene. Her at the audition, dancing her way across the floor like a dandelion caught on the wind. Perfect and fluid, just like her teacher wanted. But then a second vision took her by surprise, a tumble, a fall. Clapping and cheers. Laughing and jeers. Stares. Silence. Disappointment. A commendation.

There were so many options and so many visions that Stella could not be sure which was the most likely one. It was like she had taken a bag of dice and thrown them all out on the table. Six, five, four, three, two, one, and all were Stella’s future. Trying to see her own path was the hardest of all. She often heard the adults whisper about how most psychics went mad before they hit twenty years of age. That seemed like a very long way off to her, but sometimes she wondered what going mad felt like. How did a person know if they were mad? Would the world look different? Would it be better or worse? Would she even know at all?

At some point she must have fallen asleep because she awoke to the sound of shouting followed by a loud crash. Her parents were arguing.

She listened for awhile but she could only make out the occasional word. Eventually there was silence and moment later she heard her dad storm down the hallway past her room, and then the hallway light flicked off. She knew all the sounds this house made and the way each of its occupants walked. Her dad thudded much louder than the others. Her mum walked with a softer slap slap slap, very fast, only her toes ever touched the floor as if it were dirty. Her grandma slithered and creaked, like a giant snake shifting itself very slowly forward. But as her dad returned to his room, silence claimed the house once more and sleep claimed Stella, at least for a little while.

She awoke again, not too much later. Outside her window, a branch, pushed by the wind, scratched at the glass and somewhere in the house she heard the pitter patter of tiny footsteps.

She sat up straight and pulled her feet up close once she realised that one of them had been dangling over the edge of the bed where anything might grab it. She listened carefully.

There is was again. Somewhere out in the hallway, something was moving. The crack in the door was a dark black now. She could see nothing through it. The light of the moon cast shadows on the back wall, spirals like eyes looked back at her.

Stella wondered if it were real goblins come to eat her, or fairies come to steal her pretty smile. If they took her teeth, would they grow back? A cut would be gone in seconds. Her hair was fixed and stubborn. Her mum hated it. Evey strand, no matter what haircut was given to her, always grew back by morning, always to the same length, and no longer. The hair at the bottom of her head grew further down her back than that at the top of her head. Her ends were never even with one another. Her nails kept their shape. Even when her frustrated mum had cut them so short that her fingers bled, by next morning they’d grown back again. Always to that same perfect length. So it stood to reason that her teeth would do the same, didn’t it? Except she had lost some baby teeth already so maybe they wouldn’t? And she still seemed to grow a little bit each year. How her healing magic worked was a mystery to her just as much as her visions were. She hoped it wasn’t fairies. How would she be able to dance if she couldn’t smile?

There came another tap tap tap, but it sounded no closer.

The more Stella listened, the less it sounded like footsteps at all. She considered getting out of bed to go and investigate, but that meant putting her feet down by that gap between her bed at the floor. Who knew what monsters lay hidden under there?

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Still no closer.

She took a deep breath and smelt something. Something sweet, like baked apples.

Curious, she slipped from the bed, moving quickly across the floor to the door, least some goblin beneath the bed get some grand ideas about grabbing her feet.

She peered up and down the hallway, half expecting the shadows to suddenly move toward her and claim her for themselves. But none of them did. Behind her the tree still scratched at the window, covering any sound she made.

There was a light coming from the kitchen. Stella crept right up to the edge of the doorway and peered around into the brightly lit room. She stepped on something sharp near the door. She winced as she lifted her sore foot. From it she pulled, very slowly a two inch long shard of glass. She braced against the wall and watched as her skin closed itself back together and only the blood was left. Below her, on the floor, lay the remains of a smashed glass vase. Probably one of her parents had thrown it earlier.

The tapping started up again, and she looked into the room and realised that it hadn’t been footsteps at all. It was none other than the gentle pounding of dough with a rolling pin. A key step in the making of an apple pie.

There was nothing she needed to worry about in the kitchen of her grandma’s house.

No fairies. No monsters. Just her mum.