Week 2 Storytelling: The Unforeseeable Foggy Future

The unforeseeable foggy future

On a rainy day in Brownmote Village, there were three vicious witches stirring up trouble. The first sister, Meg, was the brightest, but she never knew when to stop talking; the middle sister, Patty, always messed up the easiest spells, even turning her own dress into a pumpkin one time; the youngest sister, Serena, was by far the prettiest of them all, which isn’t saying much, and she was also the nicest of them all.

Coloring page of three witches standing over a cauldron. Source: WooJr.com

After stirring up the last of the potion for their latest spell, Patty said the last words, and poof! Three robots appeared. These robots were meant to destroy the garden of Pete, their archenemy, who lived one village over. Instead, the robots were programmed to plant flowers and give compliments. 

This is not what the sisters wanted. Or at least two of the sisters. Meg and Patty were busy arguing about how Patty messed up the spell again, and the two failed to notice Serena talking with the new robots and making friends with them. The robots and Serena shared the same love of daisies and tulips, especially in springtime. Meg and Patty stopped fighting for one moment to yell at Serena to quit talking to the “nice” robots, for it was time to send them back to the pot and do the spell right. 

But Serena stood up abruptly and said, “No.”

Meg and Patty twisted their heads around to look at Serena in disbelief. 

“Did you say no to us? Why on Earth did you say no? Is something wrong with you?” Meg asked.

“Nothing’s wrong with me, Meg. I just don’t think we need to kill these robots. They are nice, and they mean well,” Serena said.

Patty interrupted and shrieked, “Mean well? Mean well? What do you mean they mean well? They aren’t the evil robots we need. We must get back at Pete the vegetable farmer over yonder!”

Serena took two steps toward her sisters, and shouted loud enough for the village and the village over to hear, “I DON’T WANT TO BE EVIL ANYMORE!!!”

In an instant, Meg snapped her fingers to cast an evil spell, but Serena was gone. She had turned good and was not looking back.

Three months later, Serena had found herself a prince to marry. He loved her for being a nice witch. But Roger was not attractive at all. He resembled a wolf. Little did Serena know, though, her two evil sisters could see into the future. They knew she would meet a man and fall madly in love with him. He would be sweet, rich and nice, but he would be ugly. Meg and Patty thought that by turning Roger into a wolf-like creature, Serena would never truly love him. Instead, she would want to marry him for his money. Serena did marry him. 

Shortly after, though, Meg and Patty were watching the couple together, and they became jealous of the relationship and the strong bond, even with Roger being as hideous as he was. Serena and Roger even had a daughter.

So the witches changed their appearance to resemble old ladies who had just come back from the market together. They knocked on Serena’s door. They told her that her husband was not the man for her and had committed awful crimes before he married her. Meg and Patty, still disguised as the old ladies, ordered her to kill Roger before he could hurt anyone else.

Serena was too gullible. She believed them. Then she thanked the kind, old ladies and started plotting.

Meg and Patty looked into the future and could see that Roger would be dead soon, and Serena would be a sad old maid raising her daughter alone. Serves the good witch right for abandoning the other two.

As night fell, dinner was served and their daughter put to bed.

Roger and Serena were in bed for five minutes before Roger began to snore. Serena thought this would be the moment she would kill the man who lied to her and hurt others. So, right as she lifted the knife up to her husband’s breast, he immediately turned into a handsome man — the handsome man he was before. But Serena was already falling forward with the knife in her hand. She stabbed her husband in the chest, killing him in one fell slash. At that moment, she realized the two old ladies had tricked her. They weren’t two old, sweet ladies. They were her evil sisters. They had tricked her into becoming the mean witch she was before.

So to get back at them, she did nothing. This made the sisters even more terribly upset.

The two evil sisters had seen into the future as their sister being a sad, lonely widow raising her daughter by herself and working in the field, but they didn’t think to look into the future for a specific place where the sister had gotten revenge on them, especially in this way.

As the two sisters sat perplexed, they realized that their sister was very smart and deserved to be left alone… for now, at least. Maybe something was in the works. Maybe it wasn’t.

* * *

Author's Note: Above is the original story from Apuleius's Golden Ass, (translated into English by Tony Kline, 2013,) and below it, I have written my own version of it. Originally, the story describes a woman, Psyche, who has been married off to a creature whom she cannot see. Her sisters think she isn't safe. But when they learn she is safe and that her husband treats her well, they devise a plan to get their sister to reveal what her husband truly looks like. They aren’t happy that her sister is happy, either. Psyche's husband has forbidden her to ask about his appearance, too. Well, Psyche takes her sisters' advice, and one night tries to reveal her husband's appearance. Once she does, he flies off and leaves her. I took the story and decided to use three evil witches, one of which turns good. My idea of using witches was based on the characters from the original story with two sisters who were basically evil as well as petty. In addition, I was thinking about the three witches from Hocus Pocus the Halloween movie. It was a favorite of mine growing up, so I decided to use the idea of three witches and a boiling cauldron. For my stories, I always like to incorporate a universal lesson. For this story, the lesson is at the very end and is unexpected. So, the moral of the story is that the good witch doesn’t get revenge in a stereotypical way.

Bibliography: This story is based on Apuleius's Golden Ass, Psyche's Husband Revealed in the Mythology and Folklore UN-textbook.