The antique store smelled like old leather and furniture polish.  Dahlia wandered between the chairs and desks to the back wall, where knickknacks rested on dusty shelves.  She picked up a duck carved out of dark blue stone.  The duck was cool and heavy, and it made her fingers tingle.

Serena, Dahlia's partner, leaned into the store and shouted at her.  "Have you found your magic thing yet?" 

Dahlia glared, but nodded.  "I'll be out in a minute."  She carried the duck to the cash register and rang the bell.  She waited for someone to emerge from the back room to take her money. 

She rang the bell again.  "Hello?"  The duck didn't have a price tag, or else she'd just leave cash on the counter.  She stalked to the back corner and pushed through the dark brocade curtain.  "I'd like to buy this duck." 

A teenage kid started awake at the break table.  A carrot clung to his cheek.  "Wha?" 

Dahlia held up her duck.  "I want to buy this." 

The kid squinted at her.  "It's not for sale." 

"What?"  Dahlia's fingers closed around the duck. 

He shrugged and laid his head back down.  "Not for sale."  His voice was muffled. 

Dahlia pulled two hundred dollars out of her wallet and laid it on the table. "I'm taking this duck." 

The kid shrugged and didn't look up.  "Whatever." 

Dahlia stormed out.  When the sunlight touched the blue stone, the duck came to life.  It was still cold stone, but it struggled in Dahlia's hand. 

It quacked and flapped frantically.  Dahlia let it go, and it lunged into the air. 

Serena smirked at the fleeing duck.  "What exactly did that accomplish?" 

Dahlia watched the duck fly away and felt an improbable wave of happiness.  "Any day I add a little wonder to the world is a good day."   

The Apollo slipped into the room through the cracks in the blinds. He traced his daughter's cheek. The machines beeped. He felt powerless.

The woodsman stared at the red velvet heart that rested in his tin palm.  He hadn't thought of himself as Nick Chopper for a long time.  He wondered if he really wanted that name back--if he even wanted the life he'd been working to win back for so long. 

But he'd gone through with the hardest part already.  He'd asked the wizard for a heart, so he should be able to love Nimmie Amee again. 

He couldn't even remember her face.  Even now, with his new heart, the only emotions that memories of her stirred were of loss and loneliness. 

He curled his fingers around the heart.  The feelings would come back when he saw her again, and her cottage was just ahead. 

Thunder rumbled overhead, and he scowled.  If he let his doubts hold him back much longer, the rain would come and rust him solid. 

The cottage looked just like he remembered it, except for the man standing outside.  He had one tin arm, but the rest of him was flesh.  The woodsman didn't recognize his face, but his limbs looked oddly familiar. 

The woodsman stifled a sigh of relief.  She was gone.  He wouldn't have to face his past after all. 

A woman emerged from the cottage and kissed the stranger's cheek.  She was beautiful, with long dark hair, delicate features, and bright green eyes.  The feelings that the woodsman felt when he saw Nimmie Amee's face were not the tender ones that he had been hoping for. 

His fist tightened around the handle of his axe as he stared at the stranger--the thief.  As jealousy and anger surged through him, he realized why the stranger's limbs were familiar.  Before his flesh body had been replaced with tin, one of those mismatched legs had been his, and so had the single arm.  And Nimmie Amee was his fiancée. 

He roared with rage and charged toward the stranger.  He cleaved his old arm off of the abomination with a single swing.  The stranger fell back and raised his metal arm to defend himself. 

"Nick!" Nimmie Amee shouted.  She pushed herself between them, and he barely stopped his second swing from cutting her in half.  "Stop!  Please don't hurt my husband!" 

Thunder rumbled overhead, and the woodsman froze.  "Your husband?"  His voice sounded rusty and far away in his ears.  "How can you be married to this thing?  How did he get my--my parts?" 

"It's a long story.  Does it really matter?"  Nimmie Amee looked up at him.  Her eyes were filled with tears. 

The woodsman studied her face.  Her dark hair was going gray at the temples, and wrinkles marred her heart-shaped face.  The girl that he'd loved didn't exist anymore. 

Neither did the man that he'd been when he'd loved her.  He thought of all of the things he'd suffered to win back his heart so that he could be with her again.  She'd never deserved that sort of devotion.  "No.  It doesn't matter." 

He drew back his axe and cut her head off in one clean swing.  Blood spurted as her body fell, and he felt the hot liquid start to settle in his joints.  He buried his axe in the stranger's chest and left it there.  He wouldn't be needing it again. 

He ripped his velvet heart in half and the sawdust stuffing ran through his fingers and drifted down into the pools of blood. 

The rain pounded down in torrents, and the water washed away the blood.  The woodsman felt his joints starting to rust, but he didn't move. 

It didn't matter.  

The shopkeep stuffed a pigeon into a parakeet cage. Coos changed into sweet chirps. "Never let it out of its cage," he warned his customers.

Ed wondered why he never saw baby pigeons. He found a rocky seashore, where round stones glowed in the moonlight. He never saw the sunrise.

All around the world, pigeons swirled together, their bodies fusing one huge monster. They destroyed every city in one fell swoop. 

Pigeons crowded the sill outside of Sally's window.  They cooed and pecked at the glass until Sally couldn't ignore them any longer. 

She flung the window open, and the bird scattered.  They regrouped and swooped into Sally's office.  "What do you want?" she asked. 

They just stared at her with their unblinking orange eyes. 

Sally rubbed her eyes.  "I don't have time for this.  If you need something, tell me.  If not, go away.  I have work to do." 

A pigeon pecked her foot.  Sally kicked it.  The rest closed around her, and their cooing took on a menacing note.  The pigeon Sally kicked landed on her shoulder and pooped on her jacket.  It held out its leg. 

Sally removed the note that hadn't been there a moment before.  She scanned the bird's request. 

"You come in here, peck me, soil my jacket and probably my carpet, and you want me to go and hold a door open for you?  What are you offering me in return?" 

Another pigeon landed on her arm.  She took the message from its leg.  "Stock tips?  Seriously?" 

The pigeons cooed. 

Sally grimaced.  Her portfolio could use some help.  "Okay, okay." 

Another pigeon gave her a piece of paper covered with scribbled stocks. 

She took her lunch early and headed to the art museum.  She stood in the doorway, and the pigeons fluttered in over her head. 

They flew off toward the statuary exhibit.  

Molly watched as the sun grew small behind them. She was never going to feel its heat again. She missed it more than she missed her family. 

The AI woke Seth. It said it needed his help, and it kept him busy with little projects for years. When he died, it woke another companion. 

The engine stalled in the deep space between stars. Ships systems failed one by one, but the cold sleep pods kept seeds of humanity alive.

The Earth still looked beautiful from the moon.  Kari stood on the lunar surface and stared up at it.  She started to run, accelerating in long bounding jumps.  It wasn't hard in the low gravity, even at her age.  When she was going as fast and jumping as high as she could, she looked up again. 

For a second, she felt like she was flying back home. 

She landed and crumpled to her knees.  She waited till the moon turned away from the sun and her beloved home.  Every other year, she's gotten up and trudged back to the underground living complex where her family waited.  But not this year.  She was the last one who remembered Earth, and she was tired of waiting to go back home.  

 Allie had no idea why her cousin put cowboys and Indians in his magic cupboard. It was obvious to her that they needed dinosaurs.

The children reached the next step in evolution. After their minds expanded, they voted to bring back the dinosaurs and outlaw homework.

They thought the creatures in the ice were aliens, but the reptiles' biology was too familiar. They'd discovered space-faring dinosaurs.

 Adam tightened the last bolt and stepped back from his time machine.  "It's ready," he said. 

"I still think we should do a shorter jump for our first test," Suzy said.  "If we can't get back, the Cretaceous isn't a great time to be stuck in." 

"Dinosaurs, Suzy." 

Suzy sighed.  "You're not being rational." 

"Dinosaurs!" 

"Yeah, dinosaurs.  I don't really want to get eaten by a T-Rex, you know." 

"We'll be fine."  He hefted his super-sized tazer, identical to the one strapped to Suzy's waist.  He'd designed them specifically.  He'd been planning this since his seventh birthday.  Of course, first the time machine had to work.  Suzy wasn't sure if she wanted it to or not. 

"It's time," Adam said. 

They strapped themselves in, and Adam punched in the date.  154 million years ago.  The world outside the machine blurred, and the machine vibrated and whined. 

"Is this supposed to happen?" Suzy shouted. 

Before Adam could answer, it was over.  A tree appeared at the machine's back corner, and it tipped over.  Adam scrambled out of the upended time machine, his hand on his tazer.  Suzy was frozen in her seat, staring around them. 

It worked.  It was incredible. 

"Suzy!  Are you okay?" 

"Adam, it worked," she whispered, still staring.  "Look around." 

They were in a deep forest.  A huge mosquito buzzed by Adam's ear, landed on a huge fern, then buzzed away. 

A moment later, a dinosaur appeared.  It was just under six feet tall, standing up on its rear legs.  Its scales were dappled green and brown, and its brown eyes were wide.  It was chewing on a mouthful of greenery.  "I think it's a Claosaurus," he said, staring at it.  He stepped forward, one hand held out. 

It darted away just before he touched it. 

Suzy finally climbed out of the time machine, marveling at the feel of the ground beneath her feet.  She was standing in the Cretaceous. 

"I just almost touched a dinosaur!" Adam shouted.  He picked Suzy up and spun her around.  "The time machine works!" 

Suzy started to set the time machine back up.  What if the tree had done some damage?  She didn't want to be trapped here.  "Now let's see if we can get back home, okay?" 

"We'll come back, right?"  

"Yeah," Suzy said.  "Of course we will."  She looked over where the dinosaur vanished.  "Of course we will." 

Adam set the dial for their present and switched the machine on.  For a long, terrible moment, it was silent.  Then the world blurred, and they were back in Adam's lab.   

Suzy shut herself in the bathroom and cried grateful tears over the toilet.  She caressed the appliances, flicked the lights on and off, let the water run over her hands.  Then they went and explored the past.  

 The fireworks paused all across the nation. The fuses fizzled for ten seconds, then they launched, and each one spelled "Hello, Earthlings."

Lacy danced with sparklers in her hands, wishing they were fairies. Something brushed her eyelids, and she saw hundreds of dancing lights.

Mary traced dark arcane symbols with a sparkler. They lingered on her retinas, and the earth groaned as demons emerged from their prison.