Molly was a good doll. She loved it when Samantha brushed her long hair and fed her chocolate and crickets. She watched from the closet when other girls came over to play, and if they were naughty or said anything mean about Samantha, Molly would come out of the closet and open her mouth up wide wide wide and gobble them right up!

decorative sculpted tree; lacquered rosewood, jade The lucky mandarin tree had been in the family for seven generations, each orange thought to contain the spirits of their ancestors. It would grant a boon at a time of need when an orange was plucked from it and broken open; a great grandmother had been spared the ravages of a deadly flu, an uncle's house was saved from a wildfire, twins who had fallen down a well were rescued. Mei Ling as concerned, though, that her son's irresponsible use of the tree'a tank of gas when he was late for karaoke, a rare set of armor on his online role playing game, a fresh box of his favorite strawberry toaster pastries when he discovered there were only blueberry, cinnamon, and cherry left in the pantry—may not have been what the ancestors had in mind.

Miss Maureen, the orphanage nurse, was the only tooth fairy the children ever knew. She would give them a penny when she had to pull a rotten tooth, but she sometimes got a little too excited and took an extra one out for her collection.

When Ole Mister Crooks came round the yard singin’ Stones an’ Bones, the good kids knew to run on home. Me and Shauney and Peck weren't the good kids. Stones an' Bones was easy: you threw your stone into a round hoop on the ground, an' if you got closest to the marker Mister Crooks laid down, he would reach inside his jacket and pull out a shiny white bone for you, said you could keep it and call on him if you ever needed something. Lotta times, though, Mister Crooks ended up closest to the mark, an' he wanted something for it. Peck had to give him his pinky finger and promise when Mister Crooks called, Peck would do what he asked. Silly stuff, like poisoning the flowers in the church yard, or maybe pouring some pitch on the cross on the altar. After I lost two fingers and

A seed from ancient megaflora found in thawed permafrost near Vladivostok, Russia. Other samples found within the fossilized remains of a large grazing mammal suggests the plant’s seed evolved to germinate and sprout from within an animal’s digestive tract rather than passing through after being consumed in fruit.

Dessert plate for the Opening Reception of the 138th Most Illustrious Congress of the Illuminati Menu for the Opening Reception of the 138th Most Illustrious Congress of the Illuminati

Since the moment he capsized on the island the pig was his nemesis. In a violent storm on his third night, the pig crashed through his makeshift shelter, so he slept in the freezing rain. It pilfered the fruits he harvested from the forest, and uprooted the potato garden he tended. Its incessant nocturnal squealing left him exhausted each morning. So on the night when he finally succumbed to fever from an infection'a cut on his foot caused by the trap of broken shells he had laid around his camp'and crawled out to the beach to gaze at the vast black sky, he was surprised when the pig came and silently laid down beside him. He was comforted as he felt the pig's breath slow to match his own as he finally drifted off to sleep.

Lucien Hargroves burned the skin off of his index finger on his first attempt and nearly incinerated his hand on the second, but the third time he was able to channel the image of fire in his mind into a thin jet of flame that erupted from tip of his wand, setting his library curtains on fire. He would have extinguished them, but the mental strain of pyromancy rendered him unconscious. He perished in the resulting inferno, as the fire department was unable to stop the magical flames engulfing his home. Fortunately, the fire was contained to an exactly 100-foot radius around the wand, which was the only thing investigators found remaining in the pile of ash.

Mom and dad were trying and she appreciated it, but Julia Krymotzk knew a pair of four-century-old vampires had no business trying to decorate a college girl's dorm room. She was a two-century-old young adult, and it was time she made decisions for herself. Also, the bat was very cringe, especially with some of her therianthropically non-conforming dorm mates.

Benita Gualdez fell ill in the spring, was bedridden for weeks, but her mood was lightened by the sound of a robin outside her window. The robin sang to her each day as she was confined to her room, watching her friends play and the world turn without her, as spring turned to summer and summer to fall. Her strength gradually returned, until the morning she took a tentative step out into the crisp autumn air. The robin lay on her doorstep, stiff and silent, and she always wondered after that if it had given the last of its strength to her.