Monica sat cross-legged on the playroom floor, surrounded by what could only be described as a war zone of toys. There wasn’t a clear path in sight—just a multicolored carpet of chaos. A few toys still twitched and rolled on their own, the lingering aftereffects of her children’s magic.
Once upon a time, that would’ve freaked her out. Now? She didn’t even blink. That was life with young wizards. Things just… wiggled sometimes.
Baby Tara, nine months old and deeply devoted to the art of mouthing everything in reach, was playing beside her. Across the room, Sophie and James—ages three and four—were, for one miraculous moment, playing peacefully.
The family cat, Lark, lay sprawled on the windowsill, his tail flicking lazily. He looked like the living embodiment of “not my problem.”
Monica had one earbud in, listening to her murder mystery audiobook, half-watching Tara and half-tracking the clues to a fictional cold case. It was her version of self-care—keeping one foot in the world of crime-solving adults while the rest of her lived in a world of sippy cups and stickiness.
Then, inevitably, the peace shattered.
Screaming. Always screaming.
Monica blinked, pulled out her earbud, and sighed the sigh of a woman who knew better than to hope.
“Okay,” she said, standing up. “What’s going on?”
Sophie stood red-faced, voice trembling with righteous fury. “He took my spider!”
Monica knew the spider—bright blue, plastic, and inexplicably beloved.
James, clutching something behind his back like a pint-sized criminal, said immediately, “No, I didn’t.”
Monica crouched down, giving him that look—the one mothers have perfected over millennia. “James,” she said softly but firmly, “I can tell when you’re lying. Imagine if Sophie had a toy you loved and hid it from you. Would that feel fair?”
He squirmed, face tilting dramatically toward the ceiling. “But I wanna play with it!” he pleaded, as though appealing to some cosmic parent in the sky.
And that’s when Sophie had enough of mortal justice.
Her little face scrunched in concentration.
“Oh no,” Monica breathed, already regretting every parenting decision that had led to this exact moment.
A blinding flash filled the room.
When it faded, James stood frozen, eyes wide. Monica’s stomach dropped. She hurried over and turned him around. Nothing looked wrong—except for the large, twitching bulge in the seat of his pants.
“What was that?” Lark asked, blinking sleepily from the windowsill.
Monica didn’t answer. She just stared at the bulge. “Please,” she whispered, “just be poop.”
The bulge moved.
“Nope, not just poop.” Lark commented now wide awake and paying close attention.
James burst out laughing, reached back, and tugged at his waistband.
Out crawled a bright blue spider—identical to the toy, only bigger, furrier, and unsettlingly alive.
Monica’s brain short-circuited. She opened her mouth to scream—but then the spider spoke.
“Did you really have to hide me in your pants?” it drawled, in a deep Southern accent that sounded straight out of Alabama.
James shrieked with delight. “Sorry!” he said between giggles. Lark had also just burst out in high cackles at the situation.
Sophie’s tears vanished. “She talks!” she squealed, scooping up the spider like a long-lost friend.
“Well, hey there, sugar,” said the spider, waving one fuzzy leg as if this were perfectly normal behavior for everyone involved.
Monica sat down right where she was, utterly and completely done.
She watched the happy trio—her two magical children and their new arachnid friend—and muttered, “I did not sign up to live with a talking spider.”
Lark yawned from the window. The spider waved cheerfully. Tara clapped for no discernible reason.
Monica groaned and leaned back against the wall. “Next time,” she called after them, “bring a cash register to life! Maybe she can help pay for all this!”
She then turned to look at lark who had turned toward the window and was laying back down.
“Are you going back to sleep already?” She asked him. He didn’t even turn to look at her. She was going to be now on edge for the rest of the day.
Witch, Please 
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