Story, cubed

A story created with Rory's Story Cubes:

I waited until the moon rose.

Then there was enough light to find my way through the swamp to the hut of the witchy woman, so that I could ask her to tell my future.

When I got to the hut I knocked on the door but there was no answer. I tried the door. It was locked. The moon went behind a cloud and I could barely see a foot in front of me. Then I remembered the cellphone in my pocket. I took it out and turned it on.

By the screen’s light I could see the witchy woman standing near me. I jumped in fright and dropped my phone.

“You want to know your future?” the witchy woman said. One of her eyes had a red pupil that glowed in the dark. “You want to know if your life is going to turn out a comedy, or a tragedy, or something else entirely?”

I swallowed hard and nodded.

By the dim moonlight just coming out from behind the clouds, I saw the witchy woman cup her hand around her mouth and whisper a word. Then she held out her cupped hand toward me, as if she was carrying something in it.

“Hold out your hand,” she said. I did as she asked, and she placed whatever was in her hand in mine and closed my fingers around it.

“Here’s your answer,” she said. “Wait until you get home to open it. And never come back here again.”

I turned and hurried away, stumbling in the near-dark. When the moon went behind clouds again, I tripped over something and fell forward. I opened my hand to break my fall, and I heard the witchy woman’s prophecy drift away on the wind so quickly that I could only catch a few words before they faded: “... once you've bitten the apple ...”

Panic swept over me. I got up and ran. I stumbled and fell again, and again. I had no idea where I was. After a while I saw a light in the distance. Some farmhouse, I thought. I ran toward it. Then I realized it was the witchy woman’s hut. I had been running in circles.

She had told me never to come back, so I didn’t dare knock on the door. But I couldn’t help looking in the window. The witchy woman was sitting at a table on which stood a burning candle. She had a single die in the palm of her hand. She rolled it across the table. I couldn’t see what number it landed on, but it seemed to please the witchy woman. She smiled, then she blew out the candle. 

All I could see now was her red eye. It turned and looked right at me.

I ran.