Rhea’s rude awakening came courtesy of Gus and Tavo, who unleashed a percussive catastrophe like a marching band of cockroaches discovering free jazz. Gus, wearing a comb-and-tissue-paper harmonica-helmet, buzzed a kazoo-like wail, while Tavo thumped a hollow thimble that sounded like a ‘prehistoric tuba meets angry sink drain.’ The head cockroach, in a twist-tie sash, used what might have been a baby tooth as a cymbal.

Rhea groaned, shoving a pillow over her face. “Commentators and now musicians? Really? Wasn’t folklore dodging enough for you two—now you hijack my REM cycles?”

‘Silentium Mixtape-us!’ she incanted, pointing a lazy finger. The spell, intended to produce blessed quiet, instead abruptly shifted the cacophony’s genre. Gus’s wail turned into a surprisingly funky bassline, and Tavo’s thumping adopted a disco beat.

Tavo doffed his bottle-cap hat and squeaked something that sounded suspiciously like ‘Encore, amigas!’ Gus trilled a note so sharp the cat, Gorbaclaventichun, leapt off the foot of the bed with an indignant yowl, his tail a rigid exclamation point of fury.

Rhea sat up, glowering as Gus and Tavo launched into a disco-funk version of ‘If I Had a Broomstick, I’d Sweep the World,’ with a hairpin harp and an apple seed maraca.

‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ she complained. ‘You belong in the Cinderella folktale, terrorising breadcrumbs and pretending shoe polish is moonshine. How did you even get past the bedtime barrier?’

The answer was silence, then Gus attempted a flamboyant, microscopic drum solo on the thimble. Rhea glared at her pointed hat, as if it were complicit. Her private disaster was now a public spectacle.

‘Terrific. Magical cross-contamination. Just what I need.’

She surveyed her spellbook. A new, ominous parchment had appeared on the cover, sealed with a wax stamp shaped like a frowning grasshopper: ‘OFFICIAL CITATION: Four Million Full Moons of Imprisonment for Grave and Grotesque Use of Magic Power on Flora and Fauna, Pursuant to the Edicts of Arboreal Justice, Section 1138. Magic of this magnitude will result in a total suspension of spellcasting abilities and enforced isolation, effective immediately, until sentence is served.’

Rhea’s heart tumbled straight to her boots. ‘Hide, you idiots!’ she hissed at Gus and Tavo. ‘Find a crack, play whatever you want, just don’t let magical law enforcement catch me with a band of cockroach fugitives. I’m not ready for prison. Or worse—de-winging pixies for community service, or losing access to magic for a century.’

Gorbaclaventichun flattened his ears, glaring at everyone as if serving as both parole officer and disappointed parent.

As the full moon still hung in the morning sky, ritual demanded what little dignity remained: go to Grandma Iris for the compulsory, snark-deflating braid. Outside, a line of crickets awaited, each with miniature ear trumpets and spyglasses, arrayed like a surveillance panel. The leader—a beetle-green bureaucrat Rhea mentally dubbed Sergeant Chirps—greeted Rhea with a brisk salute. ‘We have the perimeter secured, Ms Witch. Don’t try any funny business.’

‘Funny business? Every business here is tragic,’ Rhea shot back, brushing past smug antennae.

‘Unauthorised insect ensembles, magical grime, possible cross-story contamination,’ the head cricket recited from a tiny clipboard. He peered at her with wild-eyed intensity. ‘We’ll be watching—and now, listening. Auditory surveillance is now in full effect.’ With that, he produced a tiny, suspiciously waxy listening device.

‘Patience, Rhea,’ she told herself, ‘we do not need another four million moons on our tab.’ She sighed theatrically. ‘Between you, the cat, and Grandma’s magical braids, I don’t stand a chance. But let’s get this over with before the cockroaches start an encore, and the crickets leak my private diary to the Ministry of Witchly Misconduct.’

She marched on, braid-wards, toward the full moon’s tug and another round of Grandma Iris’s unorthodox hair therapy.

The full moon was mostly missing, swallowed by a continent of cloud, so the ravine felt gloomier than usual. Grandma Iris bustled out, carrying her braiding comb and the storybook.

‘Ah, there you are,’ she said, her glasses catching what little light there was. ‘You’ve been remarkably well-behaved these past two moons. Almost… accepting of your magical grounding. It’s a little unnerving, to be honest. I was expecting at least one attempt to turn the teapot into a sentient, tea-spewing badger by now.’

“I’m turning over a new leaf,” Rhea deadpanned. “It’s boring and non-magical.”

‘A new beef?’ Iris squinted. ‘Cooking again? Last time your steak-summoning spell brought a cow to complain about the paprika.’ She patted Rhea’s head. ‘Never mind. Let’s get this done. No moonlight tonight,’ she tutted. ‘We braid anyway. Once, I did a ritual by lantern after a thunderstorm. The moths glowed for a week.’ She settled behind Rhea, fingers expert as ever. ‘Ready for the story?’

Rhea shrugged. ‘Let’s have it. After a poet and an independent woman twist, I’m ready for anything. Bring on the banjo-playing badgers and tax-reforming turtles.’

Grandma seemed not to hear, cleared her throat, and, with unusually plain delivery, recited the tale from the book:

“Here we go,” Rhea braced herself. “Watch—the owl will demand union rights or claima sovereign roost.’

‘For many nights, a monster haunted the barn of a humble townsfolk, forcing the family to flee. One day, a man of great courage offered to face the creature. Armed with a lamp, he entered the barn and saw it was only a simple owl. But when he called for a ladder to capture it, the servants, terrified by its hooting, were convinced it was a monster that would tear them all to pieces. They ignored his pleas and instead cried, ‘Set fire to it!’ And so they threw torches into the barn, burning the whole house to the ground, and the poor owl with it.’

Rhea nodded, braid nearly finished, the moon almost hidden, waiting for the twist. But Grandma Iris simply tied the final knot, patted her shoulder, and handed her the book.

“Don’t let the clouds bite”, Grandma said, heading inside.

The air in the ravine hung thick and strangely final. Rhea clutched the book, its cover cool, and stared at the empty doorway through which her grandmother had disappeared. The braid felt different—not humming with potential, but inert, like a purpose-tied rope with no magic. The crickets, having documented the event with furious scribbling, packed up their surveillance gear like disgruntled tax auditors who’d found all the receipts and marched away. There was no pop of vanishing parchment, no scent of ozone. Just the damp smell of earth and the oppressive quiet of a story that refused to play along.

Back in her hut, Rhea flopped down beside Gorbaclaventichun, who was perfecting the art of existential feline boredom. Gus and Tavo launched into a mournful dirge that sounded suspiciously like a sea shanty played on a broken music box.

Rhea frowned at her braid, then at the open book. ‘That story… it just stayed the original story. He got scared, and they burned him. The end.’ The owl was as mundane as promised—spooky, misunderstood, and then thoroughly incinerated by morons.

Gorbaclaventichun gave a tired yawn.

“I know, Cat,’ Rhea groaned. Last time the wolf became a poet, Cinderella ditched the prince. Tonight— nothing. Why didn’t the story change? Werey did the magic ge”?’

Tavo thumped out a gloomy beat. Gus attempted a mournful kazoo solo on his comb.

It was time to investigate. She grabbed her notebook, shooed a cockroach off the ink, and began jotting down possibilities, her sarcasm flowing as freely as her ink.

Case File: The Terribly Un-Twisted Tale of the Toasted Owl

Hypothesis the First: Bureaucratic Overreach. Perhaps this specific tale is protected by some ancient, boring bylaw in the Bedtime Canon. Section 4, Paragraph C, sub-clause 12.b: ‘Owls Must Remain Tragic and Flammable.’ Unlikely, but knowing the crickets, not impossible.

Hypothesis the Second: Braiding Malpractice. Did Grandma braid it too tightly? Maybe she tied off the magic so securely that the story couldn’t escape its own ending. A literal plot knot.

Hypothesis the Third: Existential Owl Angst. What if the owl… wanted to burn? Maybe it was tired of being misunderstood. Maybe immolation was a dramatic career change. A bit dark, but you can’t rule out avian melodrama.

Hypothesis the Fourth: A Stubborn Story. One way or another, something is actively resisting change. Either the owl is determined to die, or some other magic outside the story is holding it in place, forcing it to follow its miserable script.

Rhea capped her pen. The last option felt coldly plausible. She set out to find the answer, determined to hunt it down with every scrap of wit and disco-funk cockroach music she had.