She walked up to her pumpkin-shaped carriage and nearly sat inside before she noticed something off about it. The carriage didn't quite sparkle like it used to (she wouldn't have seen the carriage were it not for the street lamps.) In fact, if she looked closely enough, she noticed a slightly orange tint to the finish and a rotten smell.
Adjusting her wings and digging in her pockets for dust, she charged up to the driver to give him a piece of her mind. How dare he let her beloved carriage, the chariot she had spent so much time and energy and magic on, go to waste! The words nearly flew out of her mouth--and then her throat swallowed them when she saw his face. Sticking out of the side of his nose were whiskers. As the driver stared at her with beady eyes, his nose twitched. And before, she had made him so handsome, she would have married him if she didn't know he had been a mouse before she came along.
Hair began to stand up on her once hairless arms. Swallowing, she narrowed her eyes and tested out her wand. Nothing. She tried winking one eye or twitching her nose. Rolling her eyes, she even clicked her heels together and stared wide-eyed at the shriveling carriage as she heard shattering glass around her feet. In desperation she flung out the last of her dust.
For some reason, lately her supply had dwindled, even in the light of a full moon. She always had faith that her dust would return in full measure every month, like it always had so she didn't think much of it when she slowly had to conserve more and more for each pet project. Why should she? All the other fairy god mothers had wonderful glass slippers, flying abilities, sparkling carriages, and athletic drivers. A nagging voice told her that the others created for others, to begin with, but she ignored it.
She half expected a tiny mouse to appear once the dust landed on the ground, even a dove. Instead, to the increasing sweat droplets traveling down her backbone, she found a small, folded note. Swallowing, she picked it up and opened it.
The note had nothing scrawled on it, nothing, blank. She pinched her eyes shut, as if it would drown out the soft voice that read the unwritten words out loud.
If you are reading this note, then you already have a suspicion that the last of your magic has run out. We regret to inform you that you are correct. Like every fairy god mother before you who has lost the last of her magic, you from this point on will suffer the consequences of your actions. We gave you your first dust and taught you how to use it in hopes that you would use it for the good of others, and at one time, we assumed you did. To our dismay, as we watched you this past year, we noticed a lack of proper distribution of your gifts. Today we shall take your magic back to where it belongs.
Though you may be the last of our kind, we've decided to proceed with this painful procedure in hopes of finding a worthy candidate one day. Once this note is finished in its reading, your skin will wrinkle, your hair will crinkle and lose its color, your sparkling eyes will turn dull, and your bones will stick out in odd places, and any attempt to fix these perfectly natural problems will not work. Enjoy the remainder of your life, for it will be short.
Signed, the Authorities.
She opened her eyes in time to find not a note in her hands, but a small pile of ash. At her feet sat a rotten pumpkin. Faintly she could hear a small pack of mice scurrying into the bushes.
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