To Nick a Knack,
First find a feary—
any of the Folk will do.
Bind the powers of the moon,
sun, and dust of starlight too.
Wait a mite with milk in hand,
And a needle for blood’s bright band.
Find a shadow, sew it shut.
Make the first, a shallow cut.
Wait to see what follows then,
For it shall find each of your ken.
For this Knack, you’ll surely pay,
For that it is the Folk’s only way.
Time froze as Mira’s gaze zeroed in on a boy-shaped patch of shadow in the center of her room. He looked to be only slightly shorter than she was, and he stood squarely in the center of the rag rug Nana had tied for her the year before.
She narrowed her eyes, but anything more detailed than boy-shaped swam strangely through her vision. Like she was trying to read a book underwater with the sun shining directly overhead.
“Who are you?” she squeaked, trying to calculate how fast she could get down to the kitchen. Her mom would know what to do, and even if she didn’t, at least Mira wouldn’t be alone in the craziness that was intent on intruding in her life.
The boy-shaped shadow paused as though deep in thought. “I’m really not quite sure,” he said apologetically.
Mira swallowed the squeal that shot up from her chest and into her throat. She backed up as quickly as she could, earning a few more scrapes.
“Your fear tastes of cinnamon,” the owner of the eyes said with a voice that reminded her of a fuzzy blanket that had had most of its color washed out. It grinned at her as though it very much liked the taste of cinnamon.
Without a word, Mira grabbed the strap of her bag and scrambled to her feet. The creature was fast, so she would have to be faster.
Her heart setting the pace, Mira ran up the sidewalk to her front door. She’d fished her key out of her pocket as she ran, and jammed it into the lock the second she reached it. She wrenched the key out, and was inside, the door slammed and locked again before she’d taken another breath.
A Scrap of Paper in an Abandoned ShoeDear Toadwart,
It is the unfortunate truth that I was the one who recommended you for this mission. This being the case, it is my duty to see that you are fit for the part.
You will, in the future, remember that we are here to act as guides, should the girl need us, to usher her into her position.
This being said, you will refrain from doing anything that would act to frighten her away. To this end, you will cease all talk of blood—no matter how relevant—and clean yourself up. You may be an imp, but you will be a well-groomed, soft-mannered imp who will in no way do anything, say anything, or portend anything that will jeopardize this mission.
Should you fail to meet your obligations—well, I could go into the details of the punishment awaiting you, but I will trust that you are sufficiently motivated on your own end.
I will be watching.
Bodkins
© 2014 by Danyelle Leafty. All rights reserved. Originally published in Curiosities of the Moon.
This is why minions are minions. They haven’t the head for eloquent threats, although they understand them perfectly well. 😈
Come back next Wednesday to see if something can be salvaged from all this Pink Lemonade mess. After all, a person only becomes eleventy once in their lifetime. Usually. 😉
If this is your first visit here, be sure to read the first installment of this episode. And be sure to come back tomorrow to learn a few more secrets about the UnderWhere.
Mira blinked into a slow eternity as her brain tried to make sense of what she had just heard. “Were you speaking to me?” she asked, as politely as she could. She glanced around, making sure this wasn’t some boyish prank. But her street was strangely empty, save for herself and the talking hairless cat.
It made a sound of exasperated annoyance. “Do you see anyone else around?”
Mira shook her head, wondering for a moment if her brain was rattling about inside her skull. Was she dreaming? Hallucinating? Suffering from a concussion?
First the old lady, and now this thing, whatever it was.
The creature tugged on its ears that were round and decidedly not cat-shaped. “Great Barnaby’s toads!” If it weren’t clinging so tightly to the branch, it might have been dancing in place with impatience. “Don’t you know anything?”