Stella gazed at her face in the mirror. She was green again. For real this time.

Her mum stepped back to check her handiwork. “What do you think?”

“I look like a goblin,” Stella replied quietly.

Her mum sighed heavily. “You’re right, it’s terrible. I give up. We’ll try again after dinner.” She waved the makeup brush then set it on the counter and went off to ready dinner.

Grandma poked her head around the corner of the bathroom door the moment she was gone. She slithered in with a smile on her face. “I hear you got the lead part? Congratulations.”

“Just Elephaba,” Stella replied, still studying her own face. Why didn’t it look right? Why couldn’t she have been picked for Glinda? Then, her mum would be happy.

“Oh, but Elephie is the best part,” Grandma told her.

“Mum says Glinda would have been better.”

“Uugh, that spoilt child, no. Elephaba is the best one. She’s the fighter you know. She doesn’t let anyone tell her what to do or what she wants. Tell me child what is it you want?” Her grandma placed both hands on Stella’s shoulders and leaned in close, looking over Stella’s shoulder at the pair of them in the mirror. It was a strange sight to behold.

Stella thought about it. What did she want?

She wanted her mum to be happy and proud of her. She wanted to go home to her own bed, even though she loved her grandma, she felt that trying to please two people was just too difficult. Every step she took seemed to be the wrong one for someone. She wanted her dad to make money again. To pick her up and spin her round like he sometimes did on the days when his projects went well. She wanted him to take her for a drive in the car again, to watch the world move by and not have to be a part of it. She wanted to disappear into the forest and to dance with the birds and the trees without anyone watching or judging. But none of that she could explain to grandma, so she picked the thing that was closest. “I want to go and play in the forest.”

Grandma sighed. Then she stood up and smiled, “Well, it’s still light out yet and dinner is awhile away, why don’t you run along then, but maybe put some old clothes on first, hmm?”

Stella nodded and ran off to get changed. She didn’t really have any old clothes as such. Her mum never let anything get old, but she picked something that would be less likely to show the dirt at least and which was easier to clean.

When she reached the back door she met her mum, just coming back in from outside with a basket in her hands.

“Make sure you’re back before it gets dark,” her mum warned. “Or I’ll turn you into a pumpkin.” That was all she said before she disappeared into the kitchen.

Stella nodded sweetly and then dashed out the door the moment her mum was out of sight. She didn’t stop running until she was through the garden gate. Then she paused and looked back at the house. The windows glowed warmly, sleepily. The air was cooler tonight. It pricked at her skin like sewing needles. It sent thrills down into her, setting her alive with energy. The forest called.

Knowing her face was still green suddenly made it all the better. Out here it was normal, natural, feral. Feeling like one of the forest’s creatures Stella took off at a run again.

She ran until it hurt, and then she ran some more. Pain pushed her forward, reminded her she was alive.

The future of the forest didn’t look much different than the now. The colours changed slower. The leaves shifted about and the branches swayed but overall everything remained the same. Trees were constant, fixed, and familiar, but so intricately detailed that she could find newness in them if she desired. She ran her hands along the bark, felt its roughness, each knot and swirl. All marks of time passing. The forest had been here a long time and it would be here for a long time yet. Stella felt a strange kinship among the trees. Out here she was the fast one, but they slowed her down. They made her calm.

She reached the fairy rings again. But something was wrong. The rings were incomplete. Where before there had been many mushrooms, now there were only a few. It might have made sense, given she had just seen her mum returning to the house with a basket, if the mushrooms that had been picked had been the edible ones. But it was both circles that were broken, not just the one. Surely her mum wouldn’t make that mistake?

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Stella ran as fast as she could back toward the house.

In the kitchen her mum was just taking some pies out of the oven. Each one was just big enough for a single person and each one was lovingly decorated with a tiny pastry heart on top.

Her mum looked up at she entered and handed her a plate with a single pie on it.

“Take this one to Grandma, and this one”—she handed her a second one—“Put this one at my seat. Your father won’t be joining us tonight. He has a meeting with some investors. Now, take those to the table and don’t mix them up.”

Stella didn’t move. She looked down worriedly at the pies. “Mum...”

“What are you dawdling for, girl? Get a move on. Hurry up, before the food gets cold.”

“Mum, which mushrooms did you use?”

Stella met her mum’s cold blue eyes. There was a new look there now, one she had never seen before. She wasn’t sure what it meant.

“What are you saying, girl?”

Stella hesitated.

Those cool eyes looked at her, waiting for her answer.

“Do you think I’d pick the wrong mushrooms?” her mum asked in an offended tone, one neatly trimmed eyebrow raised.

There was something else in her voice, a warning. A challenge?

Still Stella hesitated. Had she been wrong? Maybe she’d just imagined there being less mushrooms. Perhaps it had simply been a vision of the future?

Something in her mum’s demenour relaxed and she smiled sweetly at Stella. “Hurry along. Your grandma’s waiting.”

Stella nodded and slowly turned. Step by step she walked toward the dining room, the wheels in her mind spinning. Was she confused? Why would her mum pretend she’d picked the right mushrooms if she hadn’t? Stella was so lost in thought that she didn’t register which plate her mum had said to take to which seat until she was nearly at the table. Had it been the left one or the right one?

She slowed her steps and looked ahead. And there she saw death. A choking, suffering, horrible death. Her mum or her grandma. And it all depended on where she put the plate.

In her mind the plates shifted. Left, right, right, left, back and forth they moved so fast until she wasn’t sure if she had swapped the hands they were in for real or not. Or she could drop it?

But it didn’t change anything. She would be dragged away and locked in her room with no food for the night, and no prince to save her, but someone would still end up dead. There were more pies in the kitchen. And her mum would be very disappointed.

From where she was seated comfortably at the head of the table, her grandma turned to smile at her. She looked at the pies in Stella’s hands. She expected one to be set down before her. She would be disappointed if Stella dropped one.

Stella didn’t know how things would play out if she left the room but she knew for certain that was the worst of all the options. There were two placements in front of her and two pies. She had to choose. Left or right?

But Stella could not remember, and upon hearing her mum enter the room behind her, she simply placed them as they were.

Stella took her own seat and watched with ever-increasing dread as a third pie was placed in front of her own seat. She buried her thoughts deep and focused her fore mind on the pretty lace patterns that decorated the edge of the tablecloth.

“Ooh, smells delicious,” her grandma remarked as she picked up a fork.

Stella thought of gingerbread, as the future licked at the edges of her vision. She resisted its pull.

Across the table her mum fixed her with a pointed look. Cold. Expectant. Threatening. Knowing.

But how much exactly did she know?

In Stella’s front mind, it was her grandma’s plate that had the poison. In her second mind, she didn’t know whose it was. It could have been her mum’s, and truthfully she wasn’t sure which one was worse. All her attention was focused on keeping her two mind’s separate and the future at bay. But the future could not be ignored forever. Eventually everything arrived at the present.

Stella watched as both woman gobbled up the food in front of them, one forkful at a time. Stella found she could not touch her own. Was it poisoned too? For her it didn’t matter, even though right now she wished it did, and she wished it was. There was no escape in her pie however, only her mind could grant her that. She pulled back in further than she ever had before, until she was no longer in but out, up above and looking down. She watched as her own hand picked up her fork and began to eat the food too. She didn’t feel like she was the one doing it. She knew she was though. Her mum hadn’t been able to exert that kind of control since she’d discovered her second mind, and now it seemed she had discovered more. This place, so distant, so much further away from the present. For the first time, she was sure she had found somewhere her mum could not reach her. But here, the future was closer than ever.

And so she returned to the dinner table more scared of the future than she was of the now. But a new door had been opened and she didn’t think she could close it. She also knew for certain now whose fate she had sealed tonight.

Half way through her pie, her grandma paused to cough. She cleared her throat and then she kept eating. A few more bites, then she paused again. Another cough, stronger this time. Grandma tried to take a deep breath but the air got stuck in her throat. A look of confusion marred her face. Another failed breath. She tried to speak but it came out like a squeak.

She looked to Stella for help, but Stella was frozen, too afraid to make a move. Her mum watched too, equally unmoving, but for an entirely different reason.

Grandma slid from her chair and finally fell to the floor, and there she lay, so still and strangely peaceful looking that she might simply have been sleeping.

Stella’s mum picked up her fork and returned to her eating.

Stella couldn’t bring herself to do the same. Her own pie was not poisoned, but it didn’t matter; she knew she would vomit it back up later anyway.

Her mum finally looked up and commented in her usual voice, “Eat your food Stella, before it gets cold. That’s a good girl.”

All Stella could reply was, “Yes, mum.”