Date of creation: 07/11/2024

Word count: 589

Author’s note: This was my qualifying entry. The prompt was an image, and the word count requirement was 300 to 600 words.

*****

“Not again…”

I sighed and shoved my hands in my pockets, shooting a glare at the molten cubes dotting the icy sidewalk. The neighbors were getting out of hand with their experiments. I didn’t mind them giving sentience to glowing orange blocks of heat, as long as they kept them under control, but the darn things kept escaping, and for some reason, they liked to pester me.

Everybody knew I hated fire. It kind of went with being a snow witch.

A loud cracking, grating sound drew my focus to the closest cube. It was struggling against cold tendrils of white snaking up its sides, squirming and twisting to shatter the icy grip.

“This is why you shouldn’t be here,” I grumbled. I sighed again and straightened my back, lifting my chin to give my order more authority. “Let it go.”

The white shrank back to the ground obediently. It traced a quick path across the brickwork to an ordinary shrub - or what remained of it, anyway. The already bare branches snapped and fell to the ground as the ice took its frustration out on the poor plant. My mother probably turned in her grave. She loved plants.

Which also didn’t do well with me. You know, the snow witch thing.

The cube hopped happily toward me, its top jiggling like gelatin. I scowled at it and glanced toward the cobblestone fence dividing my yard from the neighbor’s.

“Your cubes are here again!” I shouted. “I want them out of here! Now!”

Silence. The cube took another hop closer. Was that - no, it couldn’t be. But the shaky line of yellow emerging from the orange looked suspiciously like a smile.

“I mean it!” I shouted again. “Unless you want your new pets obliterated!”

The smile curved down into a frown, and the orange light dimmed. A pang of guilt stabbed my icy heart. It was hot and stupid and I hated it, but…

“Ugh, fine. Fine!”

I stormed off my porch and past the blistering heat of the herd of cubes toward a distant corner of my yard, where there were no bare branches or ice. Just a pile of smooth gray gardening stones from a long-dead garden.

“Come here,” I snapped back at the cubes. They’d all turned to watch me, and the leader, who was now the furthest from me, burned brighter than ever as it hopped after me.

“Stop. That’s close enough.”

Sweat trickled down the back of my neck from the cube’s proximity. Sweat. On a snow witch!

This was ridiculous.

“You can play here, or…whatever,” I said, my voice faltering. What was it that heat cubes did, anyway? Besides bother me, of course.

Not that I cared.

“Until your owner comes home,” I continued, withdrawing one hand from my pocket and pointing a few feet away from the cubes. Ice shot from my finger to dig a line into the brickwork. “Do not cross this line. Do you understand?”

The lead cube tilted forward and back. A nod?

I stuffed my hand in my pocket again and walked away without another word. My morning newspaper was just a crisp on the front porch, thanks to those things. I slammed the door behind me and glanced back out the window.

They were kind of cute, though. The way they stacked on top of each other and hopped around. Did the neighbor not let them play? Was that it?

I made my morning smoothie and sipped it as I watched. Maybe pet sitting wasn’t so bad.

Pet Sitting

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