Four Fae
by
Luna Lindsey
A Collection of Short Stories
Set in the Dreams by Streetlight Universe
Included in this volume:
-The Metro Gnome-
-Right After Feeding Time-
-The Thief at 619-
-Palmolive Bubble-
Luna Lindsey
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010
Smashwords Edition, License Notes.
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The Metro Gnome
_______________________
Hegwimple wore a crumpled brown leather hat that came to a floppy point over his left ear. His bristly beard grew down to his belt buckle, and as he waited for the bus, he shifted his feet from side to side, counting in time, “Tick tick tock, tick tock.” He wobbled slightly as he went, for one leg grew longer than the other.
The three-fifty-eight to downtown arrived in a puff of charcoal-colored smoke.
He’d ridden the buses all day, up and down the city, yet hardly any books could be found. No one read, not books, not anymore. Now they read phones and plastic tablets etched in electronic ink. No books left, not anymore, not for Hegwimple.
He waited patiently for the woman in front of him to pay her fare while juggling two small children. One little girl stood eye level with him. She tugged her mommy’s hand and pointed. Hoping to frighten her, he stuck his tongue out and squinted fiercely. Instead of screaming, she giggled, and he grumbled, “Tick ticky tick tock”, until the woman moved on.
His turn to pay, he jumped up on the platform and dropped three quarters into the slot. Only then did the bus door close. He turned and hobbled down the aisle.
He didn’t have to go far before catching his luck. There, at the front of the bus, sat a woman reading. He shuffled up to her backpack, which sat on the seat next to her, and rifled through it past knitting needles and a laptop. Then out came his hand, clutching The Mystery of the Bloody Candlestick.
Mmmm... He ran a finger down the spine, flipped through the pages, and inhaled deeply. Pulp paper, slightly yellowed, stamped with tiny black letters.
Delighted, he slipped the tome into his brown leather satchel. The women kept right on reading, oblivious to his presence. If only he could also take the book she held in her hands, another mystery with a simple title, Unsolved. But until she finished reading it, it was hers, not his.
He imagined adding it to the lovely piles of books he had back home, in his hovel under the Seattle Metro Transit Tunnel. Every year, he had to dig new passageways and new caverns to store the precious tomes found unused on buses throughout the city. Each night, he would read them by candlelight, with tiny glasses perched upon his nose.
Tick tock, no time to sleep, only to gather and read, read, read.
He waddled down the aisle a little further, until he beheld another human, this one wearing a brown suit and reading, How to Start a Business on a Shoestring.
How foolish. You can’t start a business with a shoestring. They were only good for stitching old clothes together. And for keeping your shoes held on, of course. Maybe the book held instructions on how to spin shoestrings into gold. Hegwimple knew a gentleman once who could do that. Or something like it.
The man’s satchel lay open at his feet, which seemed like further tomfoolery, considering the pickpockets and purse snatchers who traveled these downtown buses. But he had to admit, it did make his work much easier. Perhaps he’d judged too harshly, and this was a kind man, not a fool.
He stuck his hand inside, and rummaged around, past a useless magazine and newspaper, and then felt it, the warmth of a wonderful bound treasure.
“Tick tock!” he exclaimed. The perennial classic, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie! He already owned three copies, but none of them hardbound with library markings still on the spine. It felt like the good old days – not just the recent times when more people read real books on buses, but much longer ago, when all books had solid covers. And then he recalled before that, the Golden Age, when books came bound in leather, pages made of vellum, words etched by hand from a feathered pen. Fetching those from monasteries and royal libraries had been risky, dangerous, exciting adventures, like those he could only now read about in spy novels.
A shout interrupted his reminiscing. “Hey you! You can’t take that!”
Tock, tock? What, what?
Possessively, he hugged the rare treasure against his chest before looking at the owner of the voice, an unwashed bearded man who sat at the back of the bus. He wore a shabby coat and torn clothes, and smelled strongly of alcohol and piss, even from five rows away.
The man looked directly at Hegwimple. Hegwimple glanced back and forth looking to see who he could be talking to.
“Yeah, little guy, I’m talking to you. Give it back!”
Clearly this man was moonstruck, and the daft could see him as plainly as he could see them.
“Give what back?”
“That book! It’s not yours!”
“Tick tock. What’s yours is mine, what’s mine is mine.”
“Bullshit! Bullshit cocksucker!”
Hegwimple looked around at the other passengers, but they seemed to be trying in earnest to concentrate harder on whatever it is they’d been doing before this madman started yelling – reading their phones harder, listening to their electronic toadstools more intently, staring out the window as if they saw the most interesting thing in the world out there on the sidewalk.
Paying attention to the crazies only made them louder, which was a bus-riding tip Hegwimple had not the instincts to learn. “Now see here, tick tock tick,” the gnome began. “I have never been treated so insultingly in all my life. You will take back any insinuation, tock tock, that I enjoy wrapping my lips around male chickens! At once!”
The old man looked confused. Then his glare returned in earnest. He stood and walked forward a few paces until he stood right in front of Hegwimple. He leaned down and jabbed a finger into his chest.
“I don’t know what you just said, little midget, but you will put it back right now, or I’m stopping this bus!”
“Be my guest.”
The bus driver’s voice crackled over the speaker system, “Sir, I need to ask you to stop talking to yourself and sit back down.”
“No!” the man shouted. “There’s a dwarf on this bus stealing things from people’s bags!”
Hegwimple let out a huge gasp. “Tockit!” he shouted. “I am not a dwarf!”
“Fine then, a little person! But I’m stopping this bus!” Then he reached over the businessman, who no longer even pretended to read Shoestring, and pulled on the stop-request rope. He yanked hard on it, as if he thought it was the actual brake line, but the bus kept rolling.
“I said, sit down!” hollered the bus driver. He didn’t even bother using the PA system.
Now the other passengers were yelling at the man to sit down, and the bus driver could be heard calling the station asking for police assistance.
“Now you’ve done it, crazy old coot. Tick tick tick!”
Then the old man, with unexpected speed, lunged for the book, and in his surprise, Hegwimple let it go.
“Haha!” the old man said, holding it aloft.
“Hey, that’s my book!” exclaimed the businessman.
“I know. I saved it from—“
The suit reached for it, and ended up grabbling his arm instead. As they grappled, the drunk shouted, “You can’t do this to me! I fought commies in Nam! I fought the dwarf to get your book back!”
By now the bus had pulled over to the side of the street, and the bus driver radioed frantically for police backup. Some of the passengers hastily exited the bus, but just as many stayed on, rooting for whichever side they’d taken. Most of them rooted for the businessman.
The vet had the advantage of height and combat training. The suit had the advantage of being sober, sane, and not holding a book in his hand. He dug his finger into the vet’s wrist, and the book fell without grace to the floor.
While they continued to wrestle, Hegwimple calmly walked over to the mistreated tome, lovingly unwrinkled the pages, dusted it off, and hugged it as he hobbled through the door at the back of the bus. As he walked, he grumpily muttered to himself, “Tick tick tick tick tick!”
Police cars had already surrounded the bus, and officers jumped out, reaching for guns and radios.
Funny, they hadn’t arrived so quickly last time this happened.
Hegwimple shuffled right past them, unnoticed, to wait at the next bus stop. Another three-fifty-eight would be along in fifteen minutes.
Right After Feeding Time
_______________________
It was feeding time again.
Vivian scooped up a half pound of cat food with an empty margarine tub and began to fill the two dozen dishes scattered around the kitchen and dining room. She cooed to her two dozen cats, calling each by name, and petting everyone in turn. Eleven trotted after her, each eagerly crunching its liver-chicken-fish-flavored breakfast as soon as its dish was full.
She paused a little longer over a plump black and white tuxedo. “Good Harvard. Who’s my favorite kitty?” She picked him up and scratched him under his soft chin before setting him down and moving on.
They all loved Vivian, their plump, middle-aged, slightly crazy cat lady.
Thirteen of the cats did not deign to trot after her. Each waited, biding time by patiently licking a forepaw, or staring out the window, or pretending to doze on the cat tree. These thirteen would eat last; not because they were lowest in the pecking order, nor had they recently eaten. These thirteen ate last because they were special.
Vivian reached the edge of the living room. Here, thirteen dishes lined the wall, and they, too, stood out from the random assortment of plastic and chipped ceramic. Each shone silver with a custom design: A pentagram, a six-pointed Star of David, a dragon, the Eye of Horus, Thor’s hammer, an ankh, a griffin, the letter “A” enclosed in a circle, an oak leaf, a mask, a crescent moon, a serpent … and, oddly out of place, the on/off symbol found on computer power buttons.
The thirteen took notice, and each, in their own way, walked with dignity to the feast. Their tags jingled from their collars, each one bearing a symbol matching their dishes.
She smiled at them. Such good kitties.
“Eat up, my children. We have work to do.”
Vivian waited patiently, arms folded, contemplating the delicate task that lay before them.
Soon they were finished and she turned without a word towards the basement stairs. Thirteen cats followed down the worn wooden steps in solemn silence. They took their places at each corner of the thirteen-pointed star etched into the dirty concrete floor. Some twitched their tails violently, as if they pulsed with more energy than their tiny bodies could contain. Others dipped their heads and stared towards the center of the circle with intelligent intensity. Still others curled up on their respective points and simply fell asleep.
Vivian emerged from the shadows wearing a black robe. Her arms were loaded with a number of items which she dumped onto the washing table next to a cluster of half-burnt white candles, a bucket of old paint, and a wad of last-week’s laundry.
Selecting a long match from the pile of items, she ignited it and lit all the candles on the table. Then she walked around the dim basement lighting more candles hidden in nooks all around the room. Once lit, the dimness became an orange glow. A faint smell of fire mingled with the mustiness of the chilly basement.
Next she returned to the table and lit incense. She stuffed all the other items into pockets hidden within her robe, with the exception of an ornate knife, which she held in her left hand.
She stepped into the center of the star, and pointing the blade outwards toward each of the cardinal directions and calling on the gods of each, she turned deosil, clockwise, to open the circle. Then she leaned down to pet one of the cats. The energetic Siamese reached up with his head to meet her partway. His collar bore the power symbol.
“Ahhh, Switch. Now do your thing!”
Switch purred, and touched his nose to the floor. The lines of the star lit with a faint white light. Each cat, even those who were sleeping, began to purr. It sounded as though a great geared machine had just come to life.
Vivian began a chant and petted the heads of four other cats in turn: the one with the moon to bring change; the one with the ankh to ground the energies and send them deep into the earth; the Eye of Horus for protection; and the one with the pentagram to call upon the elements and unify the magic into one spell. The lines on the ground began to crackle with little sparks of electricity.
Then she walked over to another dark corner, picked up a chair, and set it in the middle of the circle. Still chanting, she produced a chain and a bandana from her robes, and tied them to the chair in several places.
She moved back outside the circle to stand at the north-most point. Her voice reached a crescendo and she drew a sigil in the air with the tip of her dagger. With a swirl of light, a young woman suddenly appeared facing her, bound and gagged in the chair.
The girl’s eyes darted fearfully left and right. She tried to scream and struggled against her bonds. She wore only her pajamas: a white wife beater and boxer shorts. Her black hair was tousled, as if she’d been sleeping.
Vivian lowered her arms. Then she petted the head of the cat she stood over, the one with a mask symbol. “Good kitty.” Stepping close to her captive, she removed the gag, saying, “Don’t worry about making noise. Mummsie here will keep anyone but us from hearing you.”
“Who are you and what do you want?”
“I am the witch Vivian, and these are my Cait Sidhe!”
She leaned down then and scratched Mummsie’s willing head. “Yes you are, good cait sidhe…”
Standing straight again, she continued, “As for what I want, you know of a certain dryad. I need you to tell me where she lives.”
“Why?” The girl sounded defensive.
“I only want to talk to her.”
“Which one?”
Which one? She thought faebound trees would be more rare… “I didn’t think Seattle had more than just the one. I don’t know her name.”
“Well, that’s not going to be much help. Listen, what’s with all the magic and chains? Couldn’t you just come talk to me? Like, ‘Hi my name is Vivian, please to meet you, Jett, hey I’d like to know more about dryads please?’”
“Your name is Jett? Pleased to meet you, I suppose. I didn’t think your kind liked my kind.”
“The magic and iron could have something to do with that, Vivian. And so could faebinding those poor cats.”
“They like me fine. They all agreed to it. I give them treats.” As if in answer, the purring intensified in unison.
“I’m guessing it helped their willingness somewhat that you didn’t start by kidnapping them.”
Vivian felt hurt by the accusation. “I didn’t know where you were,” she explained. “Or even exactly who you were, so I summoned a faerie, any old one the magic wanted to bring. The iron chain was just in case you got violent. It’s coated with plastic, so it won’t hurt you.”
The girl in the chair rolled her eyes. “How do I know you’re not looking for this dryad just so you can enthrall her or burn her down?”
“I wouldn’t think of doing such a terrible thing! No, I only want to ask her a few questions. Besides, do you think my cait sidhe would let me hurt a dryad?”
Jett pondered this for a few moments. “If I tell you where a dryad is, will you untie me?”
“Which dryad?”
“A random one. I don’t know which one you’re looking for, so you only get one.”
Vivian took a turn at pondering. It probably was best to not ask for too much. There could be consequences.
“Okay,” she agreed. “That’s probably the best I’m going to get out of you.”
“There’s one in Greenlake Park, by the water. Once you get there, I’m sure one of your cait can locate her easily. Now untie me.”
That certainly narrowed it down. If it wasn’t the right dryad, maybe she could try again.
Vivian reached down to touch one of the cat’s heads, Tipsy, the one with the hexagram, but Jett stopped her. “No. I didn’t say send me back. I said untie me.”
Untie her? Had she really used the word untie? “I… I thought you meant ‘let you go’… which means I can send you back.”
Jett grinned and narrowed her eyes. “Wording is ever so important, Vivian. You are bound to do as you agreed. Untie me.”
Oh crap. “And if I don’t?”
“Then you’ve broken a contract with a faerie. That would be very, very unwise.”
An elf, loose in her home, outside the protective circle! But the alternative could be far worse.
With shaking hands, Vivian stepped forward and carefully removed the chains. When Jett stood, Vivian flinched in anticipation. But Jett merely grinned and slowly walked up the stairs, keeping her eyes on Vivian the whole time until she disappeared.
Goosebumps prickled over her skin and she found she could not move for some minutes. She felt a quick draft and the house seemed a little… lighter. Then she heard the front door slam.
The spell broke. Vivian ran up the stairs to find her abductee had vanished. She glanced around. Her home still stood, her furniture intact, her valuables still in place. And she, Vivian, was still alive and unscathed.
Breathing a sigh of relief, she dropped into the couch. She had escaped.
Or had she? Something seemed… Not quite right.
She looked around at her cats. The cait were fine, but the others… They moved strangely, in jerky motions, like puppets or stop animation creatures from an old movie.
“Harvard, here kitty,” she called.
But he did not respond. Standing, she bent down to touch him. He was little more than skin wrapped tightly around bones. When she picked him up, he felt too light, like a trophy animal freshly dressed out by an amateur taxidermist.
Then she saw his eyes. Two empty sockets gaped back at her.
She screamed and dropped him, where he fell with a jarring clatter into in a limp heap. Then, animated by some magic she did not understand, he stood again. Led by unseen forces, he jerked slowly past the fireplace.
They say you should not meddle with faeries, and now Vivian understood why.
The Thief at 619
_______________________
Perstin stood before an enormous canvas, 12 inches tall, nearly two thirds his own height. The periwinkle blue base coat was not yet dry as he smeared eggplant purple paint diagonally from corner to corner. The wet colors bled together like oil spreading on water. Just as he intended.
The linseed smell of evaporating oil paints permeated his dark dreadlocks. His hands smelled of turpentine, which did little good getting the paint out of the cracks in his pointy fingernails, nor in getting the colors out of his hair or apron.
Blue and purple now mingled on the tip of his brush. He held it straight up like a halberd, butt against the floor, as he stood back to assess the painting. His back hunched like a henchman; his arms and legs seemed a little too long for his roundish body. When he grinned, the corners of his eyes smiled in the same jolly curly-cue.
“Yellllllow,” he said, after a moment’s pause. Dropping the brush to the floor, he climbed up the rough wooden leg of a workbench. Once ascended, he stole a tube of cadmium yellow, and jumped off the table without getting hurt in the slightest.
He twisted off the cap, sniffed the fresh tube eagerly, then wrapped his arms around its middle to squeeze paint onto the pallet. Dipping the same brush into the splat of yellow, he dabbed it onto the painting in quick stabs. The paint bled out into the previous two colors, as if it were watercolor instead of thick, gloppy oil.
What a pretty for sore eyes, won’t the humans be surprised? He would hang it, unframed of course, amongst framed photography. Preferably with the colorless black and whites.
From a darkened corner of the empty studio, he heard the scraping noise of wood against wood, and then a wet sound like a fresh body being impaled. He stopped suddenly in mid-stab, his smile quickly disappearing.
He continued to pretend to paint. The thing in the corner shuffled into the hall, dragging something behind it.
Perstin laid down the brush and followed quietly.
He found the trow in the stairwell, hunched over his dinner, which consisted solely of a large, raw Norwegian rat. He knew this hideous creature, vicious Wumpscud. Black, scraggily hair covered his head as thinly as it covered his nearly-naked body. Bluish skin glistened slightly as his body lurched forward with each bite.
Perstin kept himself hidden and watched the feast. The dead beast looked tasty, but Perstin only took interest in the naughty faerie. It was up to him to keep shifty characters like Wumpscud out of mischief.
After a while, the vile creature looked up, his darting face covered in blood. With an unearthly squeal, he kicked the bones down the stairwell and scampered into the darkness.
What new crime will you commit now, you ugly, horrible, unloved trow?
Perstin followed quietly, but not quickly enough. He noticed a light on at the end of the hall, and had a guess as to where he would find the slimy coward.
The 619 Western had served many purposes over the decades – originally warehousing and manufacturing. But since the 1960s, it has housed an enclave of artists who pay low-rent for studio and gallery space.
At this time of night, Perstin had the building mostly to himself, as the artists had gone home or were asleep on their studio couches. But he could often find a muse-driven painter obsessing over just the right finishing touches, and well… that’s why Perstin liked this place.
Sure enough, there she was, an artist, standing in a pool of light with her easel. This obsessed painter had only begun her work; she hastily sketched an outline on the nearly-white canvas, moving with long, quick strokes, on fire with a new idea. So early was she in the process that Perstin couldn’t tell what she would paint.
The smell of coffee overwhelmed the odor of art supplies. He fought an impulse to steal a sip, or the whole pot; but no, he was here to keep this artist safe.
The trow had been lurking in the shadows by the window and hadn’t spotted Perstin, his focus only on the painter. But now he crept along the floor behind her, inching closer, ever closer.
His intentions were made clear: Wumpscud was not here for the coffee.
Perstin ran into the center of the room, but he was too late. Wumpscud leapt onto the woman’s back and then… disappeared.
The woman shuttered as if someone had dropped an ice cube down her shirt. Then she stopped sketching and stared blankly at the canvas with a bewildered look on her face. She glanced at her pencil, then back at the painting.
“Now what was I… No! Fuck, how did I forget already?” She threw the pencil at the canvas and it bounced off before clattering to the floor.
Perstin heard a cackle from above. He looked up to see Wumpscud bounding along the rafters, clutching a bright light in his twisted little hand. With a growl of rage, Perstin scrambled up the wall and followed in open pursuit.
“Stop you nnnno-good Wummmmpscud!” He followed the cackling trow along high rafters and through the vents, wading through dust-bunny batting.
He came skidding to a stop in a grimy crawlspace. 100 years of oily dirt caked every surface.
Wumpscud clutched the glowing spark to his chest, and stood guarding a mildewed basket filled with more glowing sparks, all different sizes and colors.
“Get away, they’re mine!” snarled Wumpscud.
“Thhhhey are not yours, you repulsive rrrrot! They are stolennn!”
“Graaagh!” He snapped his jaws like a cornered animal.
“You are a ballll of hairrr in the bottommm of a showerrrr! I told you llllast time, stop destroying arrrrt!”
Wumpscud heaved his arm back and threw the spark at Perstin. He ducked and it shattered against the wall like a broken light bulb. With a squeal, Wumpscud jumped through an open duct in the floor. Perstin heard the thunderous sound of warping sheet metal as he hit the bottom.
Perstin jumped after him and continued the chase: from the vents through the walls to the elevator shaft and down the hallway.
He rounded a corner and halted. Wumpscud held a lit cigarette like a sword. He waved it mere inches from Perstin’s face.
“Back!”
Now it was Perstin’s turn to run. He led Wumpscud down the hall and into his borrowed studio, past his blue-purple-yellow painting, and up the workbench.
As he ran, he reached out his hand and grabbed a pastel stick from the supply rack. In one motion, he whirled around at flung it at his attacker. It hit Wumpscud in the head, which gave Perstin a chance to grab a palette knife. He tucked the round wooden handle along his right arm and thrust teardrop-shaped spearhead threateningly at his fallen foe.
“Now you, baccck!”
The trow whimpered, sticking out his lower lip in an exaggerated pout. A pink dust smudge decorated his forehead.
He slowly stood, but held tightly to the cigarette as his last defense.
“Pity?”
“No morrrre pity.”
“Please. I have nowhere else to live.”
“There is always the sewerrrr.”
Wumpscud’s shoulders slumped and the tip of the cigarette lowered to the ground. Perstin held the palette knife high above his head and slammed it downward into the trow’s chest, impaling him to the table top.
Perstin picked up the pastel stick and stood over the still-whimpering Wumpscud.
“I, Perstin Nimblethumbs, do banish you henceforth!” He drew a pink chalky rune on the pale naked belly of his vanquished foe, who then abruptly disappeared.
“And thhhhhis smoking thhhing… is illllegal,” he told no one. He stomped on the glowing tip of the cigarette to put it out.
He made his way back to Wumpscud’s den and found the trove of stolen ideas. Delicately, he picked up the basket and made his way through the vents until he stood on the roof of the 619 Western building. One by one, he freed each idea, until at last, the basket was as empty as the day that vile trow moved in. Now other artists would find them again; each would have another chance at life.
Sighing, Perstin wandered back down to the third floor, where he found the still-warm mug of coffee abandoned by the crestfallen artist. It had just the right amount of cream and sugar. He wrapped his arms around it and carried it back so he could finish his painting in peace.
Palmolive Bubble
_______________________
A tiny fairy leapt into the air. She stretched her new wings and sought wonder in the world, fresh from her birth.
Deftly she floated, so small she could embrace a gnat. She could have escaped notice of all but the most attentive. Nevertheless, she sought attention by exuding excitement and beauty, until at long last, a gaze fell upon her and did not depart. Joyfully she danced up, down, around, and in a spiral, flaunting her delicate powers. Her creator watched steadfastly, never moving his eyes from her, and she danced on.
How much longer could she live in such hazardous territory? Bubbles so improbably tiny never lasted for more than a few moments, especially in a kitchen sink full of those dangerous traps – grimy dishes.
But dance she did, dancing on, oblivious to the dangers around her; oblivious to the very idea that she could stop her performance for anything. Her tiny mind could not comprehend any thoughts of premature death.
Three loops and she spun, twisting closer to her one love. He was the only thing that existed in her micro-universe. He fed her; he radiated to her. Could she keep his attention? How could she not? He was all there was for her. She should be all there was for him.
And she was. Just for a moment in his frantic life, there, in one simple bubble, floated magic itself. Its iridescent whorls and perfect spherical symmetry ignited long forgotten places of wonder in his mind. Could it be coming closer, as if it were alive? And the question that stilled his breath in anticipation: How long would she survive?
She rode a tiny eddy, outstretching her arms and wings. Inhaling deeply she flew towards his chest, up, up on the turbulence, until she could gaze into his pondering eyes. The admiration she sought shone clearly there.
Was it love she saw?
Joy filled her, yet she still did not burst. Life filled her as well, and with one last beating of her wings, she leaned in for a kiss…