It's a Kind of Magic

Although Bertha Young was thirty she still had moments like this when she wanted to run instead of walk, to take dancing steps on and off the pavement, to bowl a hoop, to throw something up in the air and catch it again, or to stand still and laugh at ---nothing--- at nothing, simply.
One day Bertha was sitting there laughing at absolutely nothing, like she usually did. She glanced out her window and noticed her pear tree was nothing but sticks. Many times she looked out there over the years, but this time she got furious. She kept praying for her once lovely pear tree to return to its once perfect state. After a year of praying, this time she gave up, and decided to consult a witch.
She traveled down the street whistling on her way to down town Salem. She had always fancied magic but had never pursued it. This time she felt like she had no other choice. She stopped at a well known magic store and entered through the black wooden door. She went up to the front desk and asked the clerk what would make her dead pear tree full of life again. The clerk told her all the ingredients, and cautioned her that this is a fairly new and relatively untested spell, and to be careful with it. Bertha barely paid attention to this warning and proceeded to walk out the door.
When she got home, she lit some long curvy candles and sat around a boiling cauldron. She threw in her ingredients while chanting “ Monkeys tails and puppy dogs spleens, make my pair tree grow by any means.” She immediately dashed to the window and looked outside to see if it worked, but alas, all she saw was the blackish purple of the night. She went straight to bed with a disappointed demeanor.
At 1:25 AM she heard a crashing noise outside her door, she jumped up to see what’s the matter, and she saw nothing. Just then a man in a white mask came up behind her and strangled her with razor wire. She wriggled around until the last ounce of breath left her soul. The man stole all her valuables and then returned to dispose of the body. He grabbed a shovel from the shed out back and commenced digging a grave right under a dead looking pear tree. After an hour or two of digging, he got Bertha, and dragged her into her final resting place. He took the shovel and filled the hole with dirt.
The next day the clerk from the magic store came to Bertha’s home to see if her crazy spell actually worked. She walked by the tree expecting death and hopelessness, but the pear tree was as lovely as ever and as full of flower and as still.