The dragon flies to her house and eats her family so that no matter how much food the farm produces it will always be enough.

Realizing that the dragon only wants to trick her, the woman wishes that everything in the world would go back to the way it was before she left her house that morning.

Card chose to publish "Middle Woman" under the name Byron Walley because his short story "A Plague of Butterflies" was also appearing in the book Dragons of Darkness under his real name.

In addition to the text versions of the story, "Middle Woman" is also available as an audio download in the March 2006 issue of Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show.

The story was read by Mary Robinette Kowal and recorded at Willamette Radio Workshop.