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Humid, summer winds off Lake Erie tugged on the fresh, mowed stubble of the witch’s groomed lawn. Moonlight sparkled in every drop of dew. Morgan crawled on his belly through Mrs. Grael’s front yard. Cold water soaked his black t-shirt and made his thighs itch inside his wet, black jeans. The smell of freshly cut grass tickled his nose until he had to pinch it so he wouldn’t sneeze. From the cover of a mountain cherry bush, he peered at the tall windows set on either side of the front door of the witch’s white bungalow. The windows were dark, the house quiet. He wondered at himself. He wasn’t a kid anymore. He was a forty-two year old real estate agent with a dying wife and a little girl. If the police caught him skulking around in the night, they wouldn’t slap his wrists and inform his parents. They’d drop him in jail and let him call a lawyer. He looked down Gaylord Avenue’s long, gradual hill. At the far end, where Gaylord connected to the busier state route 39, he saw the lighted windows of his own brick house where Linda waited for him to bring home a magic toad. Once full of life and love, she was now pale and in pain. He grew up with her, married her, and now stood by helplessly while doctors said he had no choice but to watch her die. He had choices. Not many, but a few. He crawled toward the concrete walk in front of Mrs. Grael’s tulip and azalea beds. The toads were in the window well just behind the azaleas. He’d discovered them when he was six. He’d lived only three houses down Gaylord then, next to the Will’s bright red split-level ranch. He’d run away after his mother had slapped his hand when he reached for the icing on his sister’s birthday cake. Crying, and too scared to run far, he hid in Mrs. Grael’s garden. He crouched low over the wrought iron grate covering her window well, a corrugated steel half-pipe set vertically into the dirt to protect her basement windows. “Come join us,” the toads whispered. “Bring spiders.” When he was six, talking toads seemed less important than scaring his mother. “Shhh...” “Well, young man,” Mrs. Grael had said. He looked up from shushing the toads and gasped. She was old when he was six. She was no more than sixty now, so he was sure her apparent age when he was little was the result of fear and imagination. “Come to steal my magic toads, have you?” She had reached over her azaleas and taken hold of his t-shirt. He had to leap to clear the bushes without falling under her vicious pull. “No, ma’am,” he’d stammered. “I don’t want your toads. I’m hiding.” Her thick gray eyebrows rose, and her parchment forehead crinkled. “From something scarier than me?”
 Now, skulking toward the toads, Morgan shivered at the thought of the old woman’s grip when he was six. He pulled himself forward across the concrete walk and into the flowerbed. So far, so good, he thought. Stealing toads was stupid, but they had run out of hope. He loved Linda. No one could cure her. Their money was gone. They’d tried acupuncture, smoke healing, incense therapy, and a hypnotist who claimed the machine in his basement killed cancer. As childish as magic toads might be, he had to try everything. He didn’t want to live in a world without her. Behind the azaleas, he found the black grate. He cupped his hands over the grate and looked into the dark confines of the deep window well. Moonlight made a shadowy collage among the leaves, gravel, sticks and spider webs. “Toads?” he whispered. “Are you there?” Only the quiet breeze from the lake answered him. A lightning bug looking for a date flickered over his shoulder. He glanced up. Mrs. Grael stood on the concrete step of her porch -- her hands on her hips, her half-glasses perched on the bridge of her long nose. Morgan thought she was wearing the same blue garden dress she’d worn when she caught him as a child. “Morgan, are you at my toads again?” she asked. Morgan felt like he was six again, small and foolish. He tried to shrink into the shadows and maybe slip through the grating bars over the window well. “Come out of there, Morgan. It’s cold and wet, and you won’t do your Linda any good if you catch pneumonia.” Linda’s name brought him to himself. He gathered in his long legs and stood. To his relief, he was still as tall as Mrs. Grael, even when she was standing on the steps.
 Mrs. Grael’s lemon and spice tea was good. She gave him a towel and an old flannel shirt once owned by her late husband. His jeans were still wet and itchy, but the dry shirt and warm mug were good. Mrs. Grael busied herself at her counters while Morgan watched from a chair at her kitchen table. She opened cupboards and pulled out bottles and bags. She set out a crock-pot and pulled a large three-ring cookbook from the cabinet under her phone nook. “Don’t mind me, Morgan. I’ve never been one to sit still. I cook while I talk. Old habit. Very old.” “Thanks for the tea, Mrs. Grael.” He chuckled nervously. She filled the crock-pot with water from the tap. “I don’t know what I was thinking going out on the porch like that,” she said. “I guess something told me your weren’t a garden variety burglar.” She laughed at her little garden joke. Morgan smiled appreciatively. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” “Course you didn’t, dear.” The feeling of smallness came over him again. For a moment, he was a child. She’d taken him into her kitchen the first time, too. She’d given him hot chocolate and cookies. She even let him sit a while before she called his mother. He smiled. “What were you up to out there, Morgan?” she asked. “It’s silly, Mrs. Grael. I’m sorry. I’ll get my things and go. I’ll bring your shirt back tomorrow.” He stood and folded her towel. Mrs. Grael faced him. Her faded blue eyes held him still. She lifted a dishrag from a hook by her stove and wiped her hands. “I think you owe me some kind of explanation. You did sneak into my yard, climb through my flower beds, and scare me pretty good.” She glanced at the sunflower clock on the wall. “It’s almost three in the morning, Morgan. What’s going on?” Her eyes seemed to push him back into his chair. “It’s silly. Stupid. I’d rather not have to explain.” Mrs. Grael pursed her lips and tilted her chin down in a quick nod. She turned to her pot, picked up a glass jar, and poured a little brown powder into the pot. “Your wife’s sick, I hear,” she said. Morgan nodded. “Yes,” he said. “The cancer has her.” Mrs. Grael wasn’t asking. ”She’s at home, awake and in pain. The doctors can’t help.” She poured a drop of red liquid from a tiny vial into the pot. The smell that filled the kitchen reminded Morgan of hot soup on rainy summer Saturdays. “So you feel helpless, I’m betting,” She said. Morgan’s sense of foolishness melted away, replaced with the tears of a man whose only hope is to believe the illusions of his childhood. “I didn’t know what else to do,” he said. “She needs so much. She needs me to...” “To do something,” Mrs. Grael offered. “Anything,” Morgan said. “I had to do something.” “Of course you did,” she said. “What kind of husband would you be if you didn’t try to help her?” “She couldn’t sleep.” “You told her stories about when you were a kid.” “Yes. Exactly. How’d you know?” “I always liked you, Morgan. After Mr. Grael passed, the kids in this neighborhood always gave me a bad time. They teased me. They called me names. Not you. You had spine and imagination. They called me a witch because I was old and alone. But you were different.” Morgan felt guilty for scaring the little old woman stirring soup in a crock-pot in the middle of the night. Steam misted her half-glasses and clung to loose wisps of gray hair. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Grael,” he said. “I have to admit that I thought you were a witch too.” She looked up from her pot and smiled. “I know, but you didn’t mind, and it wasn’t because I was old and alone. You just didn’t seem to mind the idea that I might be a witch.” She went to the refrigerator and pulled out a black bottle. “That’s a rare thing, Morgan.” “I came to steal one of your toads tonight, Mrs. Grael.” She poured a black ichor from the bottle into the crock-pot. “Because you feel like a little boy: helpless, unable to do anything for Linda. So, you abandoned everything you’ve learned, everything you thought you knew, and you came to me for magic you believed in as a child.” Morgan stared at the busy little woman. Her words didn’t judge. They didn’t belittle him for his foolishness. She said them like men crawled around her yard ever night looking for miracles. “Not every night,” she said. It took him a moment to realize she’d answered his thoughts. “Oh my god,” he whispered. “Shhhh, Morgan. Don’t tell anyone.” She lifted her spoon from the pot and winked at him through the rising steam. Morgan was across the kitchen before she dipped her spoon again. He took her by the shoulders. “The toads?” he asked. “Linda?” “Let me go, Morgan. You’re a big, strong man now, and I’m a little old lady.” He realized he was nearly lifting her off the floor. “I’m sorry,” he stammered, “I’m really sorry.” “Fear and hope do funny things to people,” she said. “The toads?” “I’m still alive, eh?” “You had cancer?” “Have to give credit where credit is due. Mr. Grael figured it out. Because of him, I’m still in this world, and I haven’t changed much since you were a boy. Have I?” “How? What do I need to do?” “Well, Morgan, that’s the rub of it. The universe has a sort of balance to it. Love does most of the work, but it isn’t enough. If you want something, you have to give something up.” “Anything,” he gasped. “Everything to see her healthy again, to see her smile without pain in her eyes.” Mrs. Grael picked up a ladle and dipped up a bowl of hot soup. “Have a little of this, Morgan.” Morgan sipped on the soup while Mrs. Grael put up a thermos full. It was a wonderful concoction of spices and tomato and something he couldn’t quite name. That something reminded him of the musty smell of the shadowy window well. It made him feel small and young and safe and fat.
Morgan sat in the mid-day sun enjoying the warm orange glow behind his closed eyes. He heard footsteps on the concrete. He twisted his head around until he could see the front stoop. Linda stood there. She was beautiful. Her hair was growing back. It was still short, but it shone with dark highlights in the sunlight. Her faded jeans were still a bit baggy, but she was filling them out. She rang the doorbell. Mrs. Grael answered. “My, you are looking better, dear. Much better.” “I feel great,” Linda said. The deep health in her voice filled Morgan with joy. “The doctor says it’s a miracle. He says there’s no trace of the cancer left. Total remission. I told him it was your soup.” “It was love did it, dear. I always said, ‘that Morgan boy, now he understood love.’” Linda winced and began to cry. “Oh, lord, Mrs. Grael. I wish I knew where he went. I wish I could find him.” “I’m sure he’s not far off. That boy never was one to stray too far from home. What you need, dear, is a pet.” Linda stopped crying. “A pet?” “Yes, dear. Oh, not your normal dog or cat. Something different. A special pet that loves you. You come on in and have some tea, dear. We’ll talk. I’ll get you a tissue.” The two women disappeared into the house. Mr. Grael hopped up beside Morgan. “That your wife, boy?” he asked. “Linda,” Morgan said. “Was it worth it?” Mr. Grael asked. Morgan nodded and smiled. He zipped his tongue out and snagged a fat spider from its web at the corner of Mrs. Grael’s basement window. While he swallowed, he looked up through the grate at white clouds skating across the late summer sky. Cool north winds drove them off the lake. He licked his thin, toad lips. Winter’s coming,” he said. He wondered if the fifty-five gallon tank stored in the crawl space at home was still in good shape.
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