The twisted shapes of the wooden animals looked different beneath the moonlight. Hallie could almost sense a mystical aura about the whole affair, sneaking into the old park just to ride on the carousel in the dark.
Her bare feet rushed across the grass towards the contraption. With quick steps she got onto the carousel. Here it looked even more otherworldly, with the wooden menagerie all around her. She took quick, anxious breaths as she searched for the switch that would give the ride power.
All of a sudden, the carousel lit up and began to move on its own, the pipes sounding just like they would in the day. Hallie froze as the machine turned. She looked for someone who might have turned it on, but she saw no one. For a moment, she was dumbstruck with a gnawing uncertainness. But she soon relaxed. She must have struck the lever by accident as she bumbled around.
Hallie jumped on the back of one of the animals, a magnificent gilded elk, with glee. The music played on as she rode around. This was the best. No bumping with other people, no waiting around, no one stealing the animal you wanted, this was the way to ride on a carousel.
The ride continued on and Hallie surrendered herself to the joy she felt. She did not care if someone came out and stopped her now. Everything up until this point made it all worth it.
Something shifted on the ride in front of her. Hallie looked up. She could have sworn that a swan had moved. Now the muscles of a lion beside her seemed to ripple. Hallie rubbed her eyes. The lion bounded forward and she almost fell off of the elk, startled and afraid. All around her, the carousel animals were coming to life, their wooden features animated into fur and feathers.
“Are you all right?” asked a voice.
Hallie looked forward and was once again startled. Where the elk’s head and rack had once been, now there was the upper body of a boy her age, albeit with the elk’s antlers on his head.
“Who...who are you?” Hallie asked, her mind not certain about what was happening.
“My name is Cervi,” the elk boy said. He bounded forward after the other animals. Hallie had to hold onto his waist to keep from falling off. “What is your name?”
“Hallie. What is happening here?”
“We have Awoken, for just a little while. Come, run with me, will you not? Though each Awakening fills me with happiness, the chance to share it with another gives me such great joy.”
Hallie was dumbfounded. How was she supposed to respond to all of this? All of these things were running around, and an elk centaur was basically asking her out on a date. So much, all so fast.
But, wasn’t this magic? She had wanted something magical. And she had indeed found it. Besides, Cervi was good looking enough. For a one night fling, he was perfect.
“Sure,” Hallie said, her face beaming with a smile.
Cervi returned the smile and bounded forward. Hallie smiled as he bore her among all the other magical creatures. Some had gained human torsos like her mount, others remained as they had been. But all were now definitely much alive and experiencing great joy at being able to run around the carousel of their own free will, rather than being bound to the whims of a man by a lever.
The carousel music blared loud in her ears, but she did not care. She was too absorbed in the moment to care. All of this was so much more than she had wished for. It was perfect.
The music began to wind down and the animals began to slow their paces. A sigh of disappointment escaped Hallie’s lips. This was too soon. It couldn’t end now. It had only just begun. But Cervi came to a stop and she knew that it was over.
He turned back to her. “It was nice to have someone new to run with. Thank you, Hallie.”
Hallie nodded and got off of his back. “It was nice. I’m just sad it had to end.”
Cervi smiled. “Don’t worry. You’ll be here next Awakening.”
“There’s a next time?” Hallie’s voice was filled with hope. “When is that?”
But Cervi simply gave her a knowing smile and would not say more. So Hallie turned to leave. It pained her to do so. There was the promise of another opportunity like this though. That held enough magic in itself to keep her until then.
She tried to walk away, but got only a few steps. Then she found that her feet would not leave the ground. They were stuck, almost as if there was glue attached to them.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, worried.
A glow appeared around her waist and warmth spread through her lower body like a flame. She gasped at this new sensation. The glow expanded and altered itself behind her until it resembled the lower half of Cervi’s body. Then it dissipated, and left Hallie with a shock. Instead of human legs, she now had the lower body of a doe.
“A hart is not complete without a hind,” Cervi said with satisfaction.
For a moment Hallie was speechless. Then she felt a chilling cold down in the bottoms of her new legs. She tried to move to alleviate it, but found that she was still stuck, and quite frozen. The chilled feeling spread up. The farther up it went, the more of her body she found unable to move. Then she understood. The cold was wood.
The cold reached her waist and she held her breath, hoping it would stop. But it kept going up. Hallie began to cry out as it crept up. She cried until the wood reached her lungs and she lost the ability to make any noise. All she could do then was silently scream, until even her mouth was overtaken by the chill of becoming wood. Then she was as still as all the other animals, one more fixture for the children to fight over for the right to ride during the day.
I know I tried explaining this to you, but it's like that time only lasted for five minutes.
Happy time needs to last longer.
It really does, and I'm sorry for constantly repeating this. 
