It was pitch black but every time he lit a candle the flame flickered and snuffed itself out. Groping his way forward his fingers reached the familiar velvet curtain and slipping through it, by the light of an unusually bright moon he glimpsed an ink black sprite on the desk scribbling in his journal.
The Book of Un-reality was his personal account of all that happened in the shop and he was the only one who had the right to scribe anything on the pure white sheets. Turning into a plume of ink black smoke the sprite wriggled and danced itself across the desktop leaving little sooty footprints on everything it touched. When it’d finally had enough it tilted its head to one side and scrutinised the absolutely bemused man that stood before it.
“Greetings.” Thrumps said cautiously.
“Pppwft.” It spluttered.
“Hmmm my little fellow, we need to do better than that.”
It picked up the pen again and indicated to the page it had been writing on.
“Ahh,” Thrumps said with a smile. “You’re a fire-sprite.” The little creature jumped about with joy smudging the page.
“Wow now.” Thrumps made a grab for it but got nothing but a sooty hand for his trouble. The sprite shook his head.
“Okay, but if you don’t stop all that prancing about, we will be knee deep in grime before we know where we are. Sit down!” He shouted. Surprisingly the sprite did as he was told.
“Better.” Thrumps said wiping his hand on his nightshirt.
“I want you to slowly and gently write down your story so I know what’s happening.”
Carefully the sprite lifted the pen.
Once upon a time in a deep dark forest … Thrumps coughed raised his eyebrows. Giggling the sprite blew the words away and started again.
I seem to have got myself in a bit of a pickle. He began. Thrumps nodded. He didn’t know much about folklore creatures but he was pretty sure this one shouldn’t be in The Emporium.
It all began when I boasted that I could make any child do anything, but I wasn’t expecting the spawn of the devil to turn me into a flame and banish me to live in a candle. It wailed.
“What did you want it to do?” Thrumps asked, now fascinated.
I wanted to leave the glade. It wrote.
I was a fire sprite of the forest and I took my job very seriously. Most people think we are all flames and destruction but that is not true, my job was to make sure that there were no uncontrollable blazes that would cause harm. Then that brat conned me. He shook his fist, Thrumps wiped the scattered soot from his face, smudging it between his fingers.
Kids shouldn’t be allowed to have fire-lighters. It wrote. But this one did and she was bent on causing havoc. When the so-called grown-ups that were supposed to be in charge were not paying attention, she gathered some kindling and made a nasty mess of a little patch of the glade before I could put a stop to it, but … the sprite sobbed I underestimated the horrible creature and it somehow, I’m not really sure how, trapped me with its hand and pulled my wings so hard that I actually cried out. Ohh the shame. It sobbed again.
Thrumps looked bewildered, not quite sure how any of this fitted together yet.
The sprite continued writing.
The brat said she would only let me go it I granted her a wish. Well as you know we can do that, even though we don’t very often and my life depended on it so I had no choice, honest I didn’t.
“Go on …” Thrumps said. “What exactly did you do?”
Well, Brat-features made me promise that I would do anything she asked, and as I’ve said it was a dire situation so I agreed. The sprite paused, gathering his thoughts.
What she wished for was horrible. I was expecting to hand over a pot of gold, or the ability to fly or some other such childish nonsense but no, this evil little non-mortal was way more vindictive than that. Shee wanted me to become an actual flame and burn down The Emporium.
Shock rocketed through Thrumps mind. “Burn down ‘MY’ Emporium?” He asked, even though he knew the answer. The sprite nodded and hung his head.
I’d promised and I can’t go back on it, I mean how can I? It seemed as if it was hoping upon hopes that Thrumps would be able to help him out, without him losing his status within the good folk of the time-honoured traditions of mythology.
“Who is this child?” Thrumps asked.
She’s the spoilt cherub of the High Priestess of the witch’s coven from the last location you visited. Seems like you, well kind of unwittingly upset her when she was refused entrance before you were open, and even though she went crying to the council, they just laughed.
Thrumps threw his hands up in despair.
Everything shuddered and the building landed with a hefty bump right back where he had come from the day previously. He’d never done that before and hadn’t even known he could, but he was so mad that he just kind of thought about it and it happened.
As it turns out he was not quite where he was the day before but he had landed nearby, where the fire sprite had come from. Stepping through the main door the glade looked empty, but then looks can be deceiving whenever fairy-folk are concerned. Something flittered past his eyes and landed delicately on a branch in front of his nose.
“Good morrow to thee,” the Queen of the Fairies bid him. Thrumps doffed his nightcap, feeling a little silly standing there in his fluffy PJ’s and floppy bunny slippers. The fairy smiled sweetly and on the ground below the child responsible for all this sat sulking.
“Take her,” she said.
Thrumps had no idea how to do that, or more to the point if he really wanted the child.
“What am I to do with her?” He asked.
“Return her to her mortal parents.” She said coldly. “She is too much trouble for the likes of us gentle folk.”
“How did you get her?” The child was about to respond but thought better of it.
The fairy frowned. “She is the result of a changeling exchange. Usually we get the better deal and the humans are stuck with the mischief makers of the underworld, but …” she sighed, “it seems we got it wrong this time.”
The girl stood-up scuffing her feet.
“Do I have a choice?” Thrumps asked. The fairy shook her head.
“Not if you do not want The Emporium consigned to a pile of ash.” She said it so coldly that Thrumps shuddered.
“Okay,” he said. “On one condition. If I succeed The Emporium is from this day forward within your protection so that nothing bad, mortal or unworldly can ever happen to it.”
Thrumps thought the fairy queen was just a little too quick to agree, but reckoned that he would have to address that later, as for now he had more than enough to worry about.