The Garden of Wendy the Witch

         To most mortals, the idea of being a witch or a wizard sounds glorious: spells and potions to fix any problem? Nothing could be better! However, for every nice aspect of being magical came an equally powerful nuisance. Most witches and wizards were a bit eccentric for this reason.
         Wendy was no exception to these rules, as she was a full grown witch. She lived by herself in a beautiful (but rundown) house inherited from her grandparents in a quiet neighborhood. Witches and wizards liked to keep quiet lives - it was easier to blend in. The house had come with a garden full of all the right herbs for spells and a finished basement with a three-hundred-year-old cast iron cauldron.
         She had only moved in a month ago, and ever since had been getting the most terrible sleep. There was a noise in the backyard which kept waking her up. It was a terrible screech which sounded like a combination of a cat in heat and a rubber ducky with the flu. Every night she ran outside to try to find the noise, but it always stopped as soon as she went out the back door.
         One evening Wendy was paging through Minda's Book of Spells, looking for a way to fix the deteriorating front steps to her house. She did not find what she was looking for, but instead found a section on strange noises! Quickly glancing through various descriptions, she found the one which fit the sound. What she read surprised her: the awful screeching noise was the ghost of a rabbit.
         The section in the book went on to describe a breed of rabbit which a mad scientist of a wizard had created in the nineteenth century. The rabbits were supposed to be invisible and vicious; they were to be guards for witches' herb gardens. The problem was that the rabbits always turned into ghosts who would be the most terrible pests if you did not befriend them.
         Wendy shook her head in amazement at the new information she had unearthed. The potion listed was very intricate, but promised to make the rabbits friendly to the witch or wizard who used it. Along with the potion, the book said that she must be exceptionally courteous and offer the rabbit a gift. She wanted to waste no time, and immediately began running through her house to find the herbs and a gift.
         It took Wendy about an hour to gather the herbs from the basement storeroom, mince them, and brew them in her cauldron. Minda's Book of Spells then instructed her to drizzle the potion around the perimeter of the garden - the rabbit should appear before her instantly! Sure enough, the ghost rabbit soon appeared with a mouthful of basil.
         "Hello, my name is Wendy and I live in this house," she bowed curtly to the rabbit.
         "I have dwelled in this garden for two centuries - it is my home," the rabbit said in perfect English, after swallowing the basil.
         "It is a very nice garden, I like living with it here."
         "The basil is my favorite," he went to take another bite.
         "I am sure you are aware that I moved into this house one month ago, so you have lived here far longer than I have."
         "Yes, of course I am aware of that. My duty is to guard the garden - I am aware of all that happens here."
         "I have brought you a gift of friendship," Wendy stepped forward and laid a bundle of parsley before the rabbit.
         "Ah, parsley. Not as good as basil, but I will accept your gift graciously."
         "Thank you. I grew it in a window inside the house."
         "Good, good."
         "I have a favor to ask of you."
         "What is that?"
         "Could you please be quiet in the middle of the night?"
         "Yes, I can do that. However, I will not be quiet when you are not sleeping."
         "I try to sleep from ten until the sun comes up, but any other time would be nice."
         The rabbit gave a nod and a wink, and disappeared as quickly as he had appeared. With a blink of confusion, Wendy went back into her house and went to bed. She slept through the night for the first time in her new house. The garden thrived happily ever after, thanks to a two-hundred-year-old ghost of a rabbit.