The Cost of Magic

“There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” There’s always somebody who gets stuck with the bill.

List to “The Cost of Magic” and more on the Bedtime Stories for Insomniacs fiction podcast, available on all podcast apps and Audible. Visit BedtimeStories.studio for more information.

Mildred removed the apple pie from the Anything Box sitting on the kitchen counter, savoring the scent of the fresh-baked pastry. “Where do you suppose it comes from?” she asked her husband.

Benny shrugged and gave her an uninterested grunt from the kitchen table as he idly stared at his phone.

“Don’t you ever wonder?” Mildred sliced into the flaky crust with the edge of her pie server, carving out a perfect one-eighth portion and setting it on a waiting plate. “I mean, it has to come from somewhere,” she said, a note of concern creeping into her voice. She set the plate in front of Benny, along with a fork.

He started digging in while doom-scrolling on his phone.

“What difference does it make?” he asked. “It’s free pie — though the damn contraption cost more than my Buick.”

“But we’ve gotten so much more than we paid for it over the last few months alone. How can they do it? I just don’t get it.”

The Anything Box was a fixture in millions of homes. Although it cost nearly twenty-five-thousand dollars, no one with the means was without one.

When it first came on the market, no one took it seriously. Its creator, Milton Milkovich, had introduced the Anything Box on a late-night infomercial. He claimed it could produce anything — yes, anything! — by activating the voice controlled interface and simply reaching inside.

Everyone assumed it was a joke. A stage magician looking to get some publicity. He demonstrated how it could produce a grilled cheese sandwich. A pair of leather shoes. A diamond ring. Even a live chicken.

But a few people actually ordered the device for what Milkovich suggested was the bargain price of only $24,499. They posted unboxing videos on social media sites and were amazed when it delivered a blueberry cheesecake, or a twelve ounce Porterhouse steak, or a bottle of ice-cold beer.

Of course, everyone assumed those videos were a joke as well.

Milton was invited to demonstrate his device on late-night talk shows. Penn and Teller had him on their Fool Us TV program and were not only completely stumped, but ordered two of the Anything Boxes right there on the show!

Gradually, more and more people — the ones who could easily afford it — began buying the devices. And when their friends saw it did exactly what Milkovich claimed it could do, even people who couldn’t afford one maxed out their credit cards to get their hands on an Anything Box.

Restaurants popped up with an Anything Box on every table, skipping kitchens, cooks and waiters. Other enterprising entrepreneurs started selling anything for twenty dollars. Some clever customers asked the device for a gold bar or a bag of uncut diamonds. But the glut of previously precious commodities the Anything Box produced quickly devalued those items.

For some reason, though, asking the box for cash didn’t work. It issued counterfeit bills and coins with images of various pop culture celebrities on their faces rather than those of past presidents.

Grocery stores went out of business, scaled back or went to an Anything Box business model. The new economy also made pharmacies unnecessary. The only businesses that survived were those that sold items too large to fit inside the Anything Box, like cars and furniture.

It had taken Mildred and Benny nearly eight months to get theirs. But, like everyone else who owned one, it changed their lives.

Benny took an early retirement, and Mildred spent more time volunteering, using the Anything Box to help feed those still without access to their own device.

She served herself a slice of pie and joined Benny at the kitchen table. “I just wonder, is all. Do you suppose they have a big warehouse of everything anyone could want, and then zap it into the box when you ask for it?”

“Hm?” Benny asked.

“How it works. The Anything Box.”

“No, that’s ridiculous,” he replied.

“Well, then, how do you think it works?”

“Magic,” Benny answered simply.

“Magic?”

“Magic.”

“There’s no such thing as magic,” Mildred insisted.

Benny nodded toward the Anything box sitting o n the middle of the kitchen counter. “Anything Box, I’d like a glass of Champagne,” he ordered.

The device looked like a plain wooden box. On the top was glued a plain, white, featureless rectangular tile. When you spoke the words, “Anything Box,” followed by your request, the tile would glow and a curtain of white light appeared over the opening.

It did so now.

Benny gestured for Mildred to fetch his Champagne.

She set down her fork, walked over to the Anything Box and reached inside. Her arm disappeared up to the elbow as she reached around blindly and carefully for the requested item. When she pulled it back, she held a Champagne flute and set it down in front of Benny.

“Throw that crap away. I was just making a point.”

“Oh,” Mildred said. She poured the bubbly liquid down the drain and admired the crystal stemware before tossing it into the trash can. She could always get another one. “It has to come from somewhere,” Mildred insisted.

“You worry too much,” Benny replied, shoveling another chunk of pie into his mouth while staring unblinkingly at his phone. “Everyone finally has everything they need. Why can’t you just sit back and enjoy it like the rest of us?”

Mildred sighed.

The Anything Box was a mixed blessing. With easy and unlimited access to food and clothing, unemployment soared. Most people found it unnecessary to work. Certain enterprising Freefers — as they had come to be known — inhabited abandoned office buildings and acquired a communal box to provide them with food, water and anything else they desired.

Eventually, the government had to step in to compensate for the lack of workers. They reinstated the draft for men and women eighteen and older. Everyone was required to serve for two years, backfilling jobs like garbage collection, bus and train drivers and public works projects. At the end of their tenure, they received shared access to an Anything Box and given housing in the public dormitories that many of them had built themselves.

For those who fell between the cracks, people like Mildred were a godsend. Every morning, she would acquire a supply of sack lunches from her Anything Box, pack them up and drive down the street to a park where several families lived. They could have resided in one of the nearby government dormitories. But many families found the environment in the communal living facilities not so family friendly. There were rules, of course, but no one followed them because there weren’t enough people willing to enforce them.

Mildred handed out the sack lunches.

“Thank you, Mildred,” Evelyn, one of the mothers said. “You are a saint.”

“On, no, dear,” Mildred insisted. “Just a good Samaritan. I’m sure you’d do the same if you were in my place.”

The children ate their sandwiches greedily. Evelyn offered large portions of her own to her offspring.

“I’ll bring extras next time,” Mildred promised.

“That’s not necessary. You do so much for us already.”

“It’s no trouble. Really. And it’s free.”

The grateful mother smiled her thanks.

“Free. Hmmph,” an old man grunted. Mildred assumed he was a grandparent in one of the families.

“Excuse me?” Mildred asked.

“There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch,” he explained.

“Well, I think in this case — ”

“It’s stealing, is what it is. You don’t just get turkey sandwiches out of thin air. Someone made it. Someone raised the turkey and the lettuce, and baked the bread.”

Mildred didn’t know what to say.

“No such thing,” the old man repeated. “Those sandwiches belong to someone. And just because you don’t know how you’re doing it doesn’t mean you’re not stealing.”

Mildred sat at the kitchen table staring at the empty Anything Box as the morning sky brightened. She hadn’t slept all night. The words of the old man in the park echoed in her mind.

“There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”

“Anything Box, I’d like a blueberry pie, please.”

The box came to life, the tile on top glowed, and the curtain of light appeared over the box’s opening. Mildred reached inside and pulled out a beautiful blueberry pie with a perfect lattice of narrow strips of crust woven over the top. She didn’t bother to cut out a slice and put it on a plate. Instead, she grabbed a fork and just dug in.

The pie, as always, was delicious. Before she knew it, she had carved a large hole in the middle as she worked her way to the edge.

Then her fork hits something that wasn’t blueberry or crust. Mildred lifted the utensil and found a small plastic bag with what looked like a piece of paper inside of it. She wiped away the blueberry juice to get a better look. Was it a note?

Mildred rinsed off the bag under the sink, then cut it open with her kitchen sheers and removed the paper. She unfolded it and held it under the light.

It was a note. Written in a very precise cursive script.

“Please stop stealing my pies,” it said.

Mildred dropped the paper as if it had suddenly become red hot.

Stealing?

Was it true? Was that how the Anything Box worked? It allowed you to steal what you wanted from someone else? Were the people who didn’t have them the unwitting victims of the Box’s largess?

Mildred picked up the note and turned it over, hoping to find a name, maybe an address. But the only writing was the accusatory command.

Had everything she and Benny requested from the magical appliance actually been stolen like the old man said?

There was only one way she could think to find out.

She got up and retrieved a pen from her junk drawer, and scribbled a question on the back of the note from the pie. “Who are you?”

Then she pronounced clearly, “Anything Box, I’d like a blueberry pie, please.”

The shimmering curtain of light cast its soft glow over the kitchen. Mildred picked up the note and pushed it through the opening. She dropped it on the other side, neglecting to retrieve the pie.

The box went dark.

What next? How would she get an answer? Did the note even make back to the person who originally wrote it?

Benny walked in, yawning. “Anything Box, I’d a cup of coffee, heavy on the sugar and cream.” He never said, “please.”

The Box came to life, and Benny pulled out a steaming mug of coffee. He took his purloined beverage with him to the living room.

Mildred imagined a man somewhere else on the planet, getting ready for work, preparing his morning coffee, only to have someone steal it right out from under his nose.

She thought about how she would get an answer to her question. If she ordered yet another blueberry pie, would the box pilfer it from the same person who made the others? How specific could she be?

“Anything Box,” she began, “I’d like a reply to the question I dropped in earlier.”

The Box glowed invitingly.

Mildred tentatively reached toward the opening, slowly passing her hand through the curtain of light up to the elbow. She felt around inside and came across a hard, thin rectangle and pulled it out.

Once her hand was free of the shimmering membrane, the device went dark and was just any empty wooden box again. She looked at what she had retrieved.

It was a little larger than a typical business card, and thicker, too. And the image on it seemed to be moving. A photo of a bakery, displaying all the typical fare, along with a selection of pies — many of which Mildred recognized.

Superimposed over the shifting perspective on the bakery were the words, “Delila’s Delicacies.” And an address.

The bakery was just down the street.

Mildred approached the storefront nestled between other abandoned shops. It was indeed a bakery, but the name of it was “Cathy’s Cakes,” and it looked nothing like the photo on the card she had tucked away in her purse.

There didn’t appear to be anyone inside, but a sign hanging next to the door announced they were open.

She pulled on the door and stepped inside. A small bell tinkled to announce her arrival.

The smell of fresh baked cakes overwhelmed her. How long had it been since she had baked anything from scratch? Most of the businesses she knew of used Anything Boxes to satisfy their customers. But this establishment appeared to be actually making cakes.

A woman appeared from the back. “Hello. Welcome to Cathy’s Cakes. How can I help you?”

Mildred wanted to turn and walk away. Instead, she smiled and asked timidly, “You make all this from scratch?”

“Yes,” the woman — who Mildred assumed was Cathy — replied. “Anything Box free. Everything I use is sourced from like-minded businesses.”

“Oh, really?”

“There are many people who think this whole idea of something for nothing is going to be the end of us all,” she said.

“Hmm.” Mildred looked away, guiltily. “Do you have any… pies?”

Cathy smiled as she shook her head. “I’m sorry. Just cakes.”

“I like pie,” said a little girl who appeared from behind the baker.

Mildred smiled. “Who’s this?” she asked.

“My daughter,” Cathy replied.

“What’s your name, dear?”

“Delila,” she replied shyly.

Mildred nearly gasped.

“Are you all right?” the baker asked. “You look a little pale.”

“Just hungry, is all. I’ll take two of those cupcakes,” she said, pointing at a collection of red velvet treats topped with towering swirls of frosting.

“Good choice,” Cathy said, as she packed a pair of the cupcakes into a pink box. “That’ll be ten dollars.”

Mildred froze. Did she even have any money any more? When was the last time she paid for anything? She rummaged through her purse and found an old, tattered twenty dollar bill.

She handed it over to Cathy, who rang up the purchase and handed Mildred her change along with the box. “I hope you enjoy it. Come again!”

“Thank you,” Mildred said. Then she turned to the little girl. “Nice to meet you, Delila. Are you going to be a baker like your mother?”

She nodded enthusiastically and repeated her earlier declaration. “I like pies.”

Mildred turned around and walked away as quickly as she dared.

As soon as she got home, she sat in front of the Anything Box and wrote out a note with a simple question.

“What year is it?”

Then she said out loud, “I’d like a blueberry pie, please.” Once it activated, she pushed the note through, let it go, and withdrew her hand.

The Box went dark.

Mildred decided she would wait an hour before requesting a reply. Just in case the Delila on the other side was busy and didn’t see her question.

After sixty some odd minutes had passed, she said out loud, “I’d like a reply to my last question.”

The Anything Box again transformed into a portal to another place. And if Mildred was right, another time.

She reached in, not feeling anything. Just empty air.

Then, something grab her hand.

Mildred screamed with surprise.

Her arm was yanked by someone on the other side, pulling the entire limb past the curtain of light to the shoulder. She tried to pull back, but the person on the other side was using two hands to grab her. Mildred’s face was uncomfortably close to the barrier. And she couldn’t stop it from being pulled inside. Her whole body wouldn’t fit through the box, but her head could.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes as her head was drawn through the opening.

“Who are you?” a voiced demanded.

Mildred opened her eyes, then took in a sharp breath. She — or at least her head and arm — where in a whole different place.

She looked around and could see racks of pies and other baked goods.

“I said, who are you?” the voice, coming from a middle-aged woman hanging on tightly to Mildred’s arm, asked once again.

“Mildred Landon,” she answered.

“Why are you stealing my pies?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t know? How are you doing this? You’re just an arm and a head, floating in the air.”

“I’m a whole person. This is all of me that could fit into the Anything Box.”

“The what box?”

“Anything Box. Don’t you have them?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the woman insisted. She let go with one hand and retrieved something from her apron pocket. The note Mildred had sent through earlier. “What does this mean? ‘What year is it?’”

“It’s a question. I have… a theory.”

“A theory about what?”

“About how the Anything Box works. Can you tell me? What year is it?”

“2065,” the woman replied.

“And your name is Delila?”

“Yes.”

“And your mother was Cathy? And she made cakes?”

“How did you know that?”

“Because in my time, that’s what she does. Where I am, it’s only 2025.”

“What are you talking about?”

Mildred collected her thoughts. The whole thing was crazy, but it was the only thing that made sense. “You can let go of my arm. I promise I won’t go anywhere until I answer all of your questions.”

“How are you able to do this?” the baker asked as she relaxed her grip on Mildred’s arm.

“I told you, it’s the Anything Box. It allows us to ask for and get anything we want that’ll fit through the box.”

“Where did you get it?”

“We bought it from the inventor. From a man named Milton Milkovich.”

The name caused Delila to gasp.

“You know who he is?” Mildred asked.

“He is — or was — an inventor and entrepreneur. A trillionaire businessman. He disappeared a couple of years ago.”

“A trillionaire?”

“Yes. It caused a big scandal. It turned out all of his businesses were scams. He even claimed to have invented time travel.”

“Perhaps he actually did.”

“Yes, well, unfortunately for us, ever since he disappeared, so have a lot of other things. At first, it was mostly gold and precious gems and other valuables. Then people started noticing things missing from their homes and businesses. Items disappeared without a trace. People would make dinner, turn their backs for a moment, and it was gone. More than half of my pies vanished into thin air. And I had no idea how.

“Until today.

“When I got your first note, I got curious. How would my pie thief not know who they were stealing from? When I got your second note, I decided to just sit and watch to see if I could see how it was happening. And then your arm appeared, hanging in space.”

“Oh, my. That must have been terrifying,” Mildred said.

“It’s been getting worse,” Delila sighed. “I can hardly keep up. It feels like I have to make three or four things for every one I get to sell. The rest disappear.”

“That’s terrible. I’m so sorry. I must’ve eaten dozens of your pies. I feel like I should pay you back.”

“I’m more concerned about how we stop it.”

“Stop it?” Mildred asked. “Us?”

“Who else? For some reason, across all the millions of times you people in the past have stolen from the future with your Anything Boxes, this is the first time I’ve ever heard of someone getting caught. How does it work on your end?”

“I just ask for what I want and reach in and take it.”

“And what did you ask for this time?”

“An answer to my last question.”

Delila thought for a moment. “And you thought I’d write a note back. But instead, I waited and watched. So the only way you could get your answer was from me.”

“I guess that makes sense.”

“But how does he do it? What does this Anything Box look like?”

“Just a wooden box. With a sort of glowing, rectangular tile on the top.”

Delila thought for a moment. “I wonder…” she said as she pulled out a tube from her pocket. She unrolled it into a transparent rectangle that lit up into a translucent display. “Show me Milton Milkovich’s time battery,” she ordered.

The device changed into a holographic image of a younger Milton Milkovich standing next to a pedestal on which was a simple, white rectangular tile, slightly larger than the one atop Mildred’s Anything Box. Delila held it up so Mildred had a clear view.

“What is it?”

“He claimed it was a battery that was able to extract electricity from another time. Free, unlimited energy. It’s one of the few things he left behind when he disappeared. And you say your Anything Box has one?”

“Yes. But smaller.”

“Maybe that’s what’s linking our two times together.”

“But how?”

“I don’t know. But I do have an idea.”

Delila told Mildred what she needed to do.

“Do you think it will really work?” Mildred asked.

“It’s worth a try. Good luck,” Delila said, then reached out and shook Mildred’s hand.

Mildred smiled. “I’ll do my best, dear.” She pulled back and found herself once again in her kitchen.

The Anything Box darkened.

Mildred took a deep breath and said, clearly and slowly, “I’d like a time battery, please.”

At first, she thought it hadn’t worked. Nothing happened.

Then, the Box flared to life. The curtain of light covering the opening seemed brighter this time.

Mildred tentatively reached inside. Her fingertips touched something smooth and cool. She found the edge and tried to lift it, but it was surprisingly heavy. She reached in with her other hand and got a good grip on the time battery and pulled back with all her might.

At first, it didn’t budge.

Then it started sliding.

She strained, crouching down so she could use her legs for leverage. And with one final effort, the impossibly heavy rectangle slid toward her, emerging from the box. Mildred lost her grip and fell to the ground with a crash.

“What’s going on in there?” Benny shouted from the living room?

Mildred heard him get up and walk into the kitchen.

“What is that?” he asked, eyeing the pure white time battery sitting in front of the lifeless Anything Box. “What did you ask for?”

Mildred stood up and looked at the gleaming rectangle. “I asked for everything to go back to the way it was,” she said.

“Why?” Benny asked. “Life’s never been easier.”

“Yes,” Mildred agreed. “But at what cost to our future?”

“You’re talking crazy, woman.” He turned to the device. “Anything Box, I’d like a big fat cheeseburger with fries and a big ol’ class of sweet tea.”

Nothing happened.

Benny slapped the side of the box. “I said, I want a cheeseburger.”

Still nothing.

“What did you do to it?” he asked Mildred. “You broke it.”

Mildred shrugged.

Benny fumed. “I’m going over to Eddie’s place to use his,” he said as he stormed out the back door.

Mildred had the feeling that Eddie’s box wouldn’t be working either. Nor anyone else’s.

And soon, Milton Milkovich would be making his exit from this time as well.

For more information about the author, his novels, television credits, podcast and more, visit RichHosek.com.