THE MAGIC WHEEL
Durabella was dutiful, kind, and never smiled. She roamed the fields far from her little cottage. She gathered herbs and bumbleberries for to make and bake a pie for the miller’s wife, who was ailing. When her apron’s pockets bulged with treasure, she turned to make her way home. So it was then on cresting a hill that she noticed the old wooden wheel leaning against a pair of spindly trees.
‘Strange,’ she said. ‘That wasn’t there before. Was it?’
She approached the wheel which was fair as tall as she was. The spokes were gray with age. The thin metal rim of the wheel was rusted. The hub, cracked almost ragged, seemed to Durabella as if it would give up and fall away to dust at the slightest touch. She touched it.
Nothing leaned against the pair of spindly trees. Scattered around them were bumbleberries and twigs, twists, and leaves of herbs. Durabella roamed the star world, smiling.
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