by Kevin Hearne
“I’m going to stay in the house for weeks without opening the curtains, and I’m going to obsessively sweep the front porch and waaatch the neighbors through the closed windows and listen to the weather reports all day and never ever traaavel again!” Her mother kissed her on the cheek, and it felt very final and strange.
Agape watched, silent and oddly empty, as her parents gathered their belongings and stuffed them into their familiar packs. Her mother shed her camouflage sweater, tossed it in the fire, and brandished a caftan in a floral print bright enough to flag a bull. As she slipped it on, she grinned more brightly than Agape had ever seen. Following her example, Agape’s father tossed his own camo jacket into a corner of the cottage, where a flurry of ensorceled brooms swept it under the bed. He, too, had been keeping secrets, as he pulled a white turtleneck and a brown corduroy jacket from his pack.
“Oh, thaaat feels better. I feel more like myself than ever.”
Agape could only shake her head. “It’s like I don’t even know you guys. I thought you loved traaaveling.”
“I loved it when we had that caaaravan wagon,” her mother said. “But camping out, seeing new things, meeting new people? Ugh. I waaant to know every intimate detail about aaall my neighbors and sometimes get their mail and read it before returning it.”
“You can join a book club. Subscribe to magazines.” Agape’s father drew her mother in for a nuzzle. “And play bridge. And do something with turquoise. We can go to town haaall meetings and shake our fists. Be a part of the raaabble and get roused.”
“Bliss,” her mother agreed.
Agape felt like one big shrug. “So whaaat do I do now?”
Her parents gave her a pitying smile, and her mother chucked Agape’s chin.
“You take care of Piini Automaatti. Just like we did. You know the drill. Don’t stay anywhere for more than three days. Keep your campsite camouflaged. Always give a fake name when renting a room. Beware of water haaazards. Don’t taaalk to strangers. Don’t make friends—they’ll just betray and abaaandon you. Trust no one. Haaave a child at some point, raise them like we did you, then in twenty years you caaan retire, just like us!”
Before, rebellion had felt exciting and dangerous, but now Agape looked into her future and saw…ye gods. Caftans and corduroy? But no. She loved traveling, always had, and that wouldn’t change. She loved sleeping on a bed of leaves, loved seeing new trails, loved bathing in streams, loved trading bits of cheese to fairies to light her lanterns. The only difference was that now she was the one plotting the course. They could go anywhere, she and Piini. This was what she’d wanted, wasn’t it?
Looking back at the tarnished gold man, still and silent, she was filled with hope and the tiniest bit of anxiety. She was the Vartija now, and that job came with certain dangers. She would be hunted, from now until the title passed on.
“Write us, laaambykins!” her father called. “I hear the new Pellican Postale Service is faaantastic!”
Agape had been frozen, lost in thought, but her parents were already at the door, packs on their backs, pointing to a postcard leaning against the mantel and showing palm trees.
“Good luck, daaarling!” her mother called. “We’ll aaalways love you! The guest room is utterly open for you as long as you don’t stay longer thaaan two days!”
And then the door slammed. And they were gone.
Agape turned in the sudden silence, her heart an aching chasm. “They’re gone. For good. I guess it’s just you aaand me, Piini.”
Before the metal man could respond, the door slammed open, bouncing off the wall and making Agape bleat in surprise.
It was her father, his pack stuck full of arrows.
“It’s the drubs,” he gasped. “They finally found us.”
“Few gnomes appreciate how stonking big the culinary accoutrements must be to feed the taller folk. More than one gnome has mistaken an oven for cozy guest quarters, only to discover that it’s a box of deadly fire.”
—SONNI SOMNAMBULIST, in How I Survived Twenty-one Terrible Places to Sleep
Dawn broke winsomely, and Kirsi skipped along, certain that something lovely was just around the corner. The few trees she’d seen by the creek were quickly left behind as the path led her through golden fields filled with bright songbirds and into a little wood—well, actually, a very large wood, for Kirsi was comparatively smöl. When a snug cottage with a gently puffing smokestack appeared, Kirsi’s steps quickened. Whoever lived in the cottage had to know where this path went and if it was, in fact, a good way to go.
Pushing open the picturesquely crooked gate took quite a bit of effort. It was a very large gate, and Kirsi began to wonder what sort of person the gate belonged to. Not a gnome, but also most likely not a halfling. Anything bigger than a halfling was, to her, Quite Big, which encompassed dwarves, elves, humans, trolls, and giants. She had no way of knowing what sort of Quite Big person might live here, but she had to assume they were kind: Many attractive candy motifs were worked into the cottage’s design with a gnomeric flair. The siding resembled chocolate bark, the windowsills were striped red and white like the peppermints in old people’s pockets, and the shingles resembled flattened cinnamon buns.
She could smell something lovely dancing on the air now—that sort of baking that involves eating lots of dough and licking frosting off the spoon. She skipped up the path, careful not to leave wet, smeary footprints on cobblestones that glimmered in pastel candy colors. The door had to be six times as tall as she was, but she was a gnome, and gnomes were proud things, so she was not afraid to rap her knuckles against it. She knocked three sharp knocks and waited, smiling. The door swung open to reveal a hideous old woman with a twisted cane, her back bent and her nose equally bent and also burdened with bulbous, hairy warts. The woman’s scraggly black hair struggled over a spotted pate, her wispy black clothes giving off a dangerously heavy odor of mothballs and cold porridge with a slight undercurrent of old blood and cat urine.
Looking around, the old woman scowled. “Darned sales-elves,” she muttered. “Think they can get away with anything, what with their luminous hair and shapely buttocks. Well, if I ever catch them—”
“Greetings from down here!” Kirsi called.
When the old woman looked down, Kirsi gave her best curtsy and waved. Instantly, the old woman’s face went through several changes, from irritation to craftiness to something resembling a smile that somehow failed, possibly because she didn’t have quite enough teeth and the ones she did have were rather pointy.
“Oh, hello, dear!” she crooned, bending over as much as her back would allow. “How nice to have a wee visitor! It’s been a long time since a gnome braved my gate. What brings you to my abode?”
“Oh, I’m lost,” Kirsi said. “I’m headed for Bruding. Would you happen to know the way? I wish I still had some nice mushrooms to offer you, but…well…I fell in the creek.” She held out her basket to show the mushy mushroom mush in the bottom.
The woman laughed. “That’s all right, dear. I only eat sweet things. I’ve been baking today. Would you like a little treat to help fatten you up?”
Like all gnomes, Kirsi was always hoping to get a little rounder, and she nodded, pleased. “That would be lovely, thanks. I only wish there was something I could do to return the favor.”
“That’s right, that’s right. You gnomes are such polite and honorable creatures. I could most certainly use a little help around the house, and I think you’re just the right size. But first, please come eat until you’re perfectly stuffed.”
Kirsi skipped inside, and the old woman led her to a gnome-sized table and chairs, where she laid out a delicious repast of sugary treats, from macarons to macaroons and tarts to tartlets. As Kirsi ate, the old woman clucked at her, complimented her fine cap, and encouraged her to keep nibbling. It was lovely to feel full again, and Kirsi soon dabbe
d the crumbs away from her beard with her handkerchief and stood.
“Thank you. That was delicious. I’m ready to help you now.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to eat some more, dear?”
“Oh, no. I’m very full.”
“But wouldn’t you like to be just a little more full?”
Kirsi shook her head and burped. “I ate some hair earlier and don’t want it to come back up on me. I’m good.”
“Very well, then. First of all, there seems to be something wrong with my oven. Something stuck in the back, preventing proper heating and ventilation. I can’t imagine what it is. Could you just crawl in there and see?” She swung the oven door open and bowed.
With a professional nod, Kirsi removed her peaked hat and inspected the oven, which was rather large and still a bit warm from baking. She pulled over the gnome-sized chair and clambered up onto the oven door. Peering inside, she squinted.
“It’s very dark in here. Could I have a light, please?”
“Of course, dear,” the old woman said, bringing Kirsi a lit wax taper.
Swinging the taper from side to side, Kirsi walked deeper into the oven.
“Keep going, dear,” the old woman said. “I think it’s in the very back, whatever it is.”
Kirsi kept walking, her boots skittering over burned sticks and charred black chunks and crunching on brittle bits of something.
“Maybe a little deeper,” the old woman suggested.
Suddenly, the oven door closed, and Kirsi screeched. Even with her candle, the oven had gone quite dark, and it felt quite hot, here at the back. She looked toward the door, hoping the old woman would open it again, which she didn’t do. But not to worry—Kirsi had a job to finish, and a little hot darkness didn’t change that. She held up her taper to light the back of the oven and found what looked like fresh scratch marks. Pulling out a hard crescent that felt oddly like a fingernail, she tossed it on the oven’s floor.
“Weird,” she said, holding the candle up.
Outside the oven, the old woman began to cackle uproariously.
“What?” Kirsi called.
“Oh, nothing, dear,” the old woman responded. “I just read a funny ‘Barfield’ comic. You know, the one about that hilarious talking bear?”
“Yeah, that’s a good one,” Kirsi replied. “Oh, wait.” She picked something up, held it under the candlelight, and laughed as she walked to the oven door and knocked.
“What’s that, dear?” the old woman said. “I can’t hear you.”
“I found the problem. Please open the oven door.”
“What?”
“Please let me out now!”
There was a long pause before the old woman said, “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
Despite the heat making her sweat, Kirsi went cold. A few beats passed before she was able to ask, “Why not?”
The old woman cackled again, longer this time, before answering.
Her voice sounded very, very far away.
“Because I’m soaking my bunions and there’s a cat on my lap and I can’t reach the oven door. Hold on, dearie; this might take some time.”
Kirsi felt sweat trickle down her back as the taper wax dripped over her hand, making her hiss at the pain. Outside, something clanked several times in a distressing manner. The oven seemed to be getting warmer now, and she was just about to start banging on the door when it opened. Kirsi had to blink against the bright light as she held up the candle and the object she’d found.
“Sorry about that.” The old woman pointed down at her feet, which were still in an old washtub surrounded by puddles. “I thought it would take you more time to fix it. Hard to hop over here during my daily Bunion Hour.”
“That’s okay. My granny has Bunion Hour too. But look! Here’s the problem.” Kirsi held up the round, charred mass. “Feels like a skull, maybe?”
The old woman took the object in both hands and considered it, then cracked it open, flecks of carbon sprinkling to the floor. “Oh, that’s not a skull, though this oven has seen more than one brain cooked in its original casing—carbonized sheep bones keep my ink black. No, that’s a cinnamon bun that fell off the baking sheet. I wondered where it had gotten to! I do declare, what a helpful girl you are!” True enough, the thing was charred to a cinder outside but all tan dough inside, with crispy swirls of blackened cinnamon that hinted at the lost possibility of deliciousness.
“Always glad to help,” Kirsi said, stubbing out the candle and hopping down from the oven door to smooth her red hair and demurely replace her hat. “What’s next on your list?”
“Why don’t you eat this shiny red apple first?” the woman said. “You look hungry.”
Kirsi struggled under the weight of the apple, which was the reddest thing she’d ever seen and glistened more than usual. She took a huge bite, finding its flesh sweet and delectable.
“I could do this all day,” she said. “You’re really very generous.”
“It’s rare to have such help in the deep, dark woods. What brings you here, anyway, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Halflings. The drubs, I mean. They’re throwing firebombs into gnomehomes in Pavaasik. I saw my smoosh’s hatch catch fire. I don’t know if he’s alive”—Kirsi’s bottom lip trembled at the thought—“or burnt like that bun in the back of your oven.”
“Oh, my dear, I am so sorry! Those awful drubs! You can be sure that if any of them ever visit me, I’ll cook them up with bay leaves and thyme and bury their greasy bones in the pumpkin patch.”
“I beg your pardon?”
The old woman chuckled and winked at her. “Halflings can be quite tasty if you slow-roast them.”
“You eat them?” Kirsi took a step back. “But you don’t eat gnomes?”
“Oh, no, dear, I would never. Gnomes are too salty and bitter. But don’t let your pretty beard get knotted up about that! It’s not your fault that you taste wretched, now, is it?”
Kirsi wondered briefly if she should be upset to learn that her flesh was revolting but soon decided that it was a net positive.
She helped the old woman with several more tasks, including fetching a pair of red slippers and spinning straw at a spinning wheel, and noticed that neither of them ever asked the other for a name. Normally, introducing oneself was the polite thing to do, but somehow it never came up. After a filling lunch and a delightful conversation about local wild mushrooms and their relative levels of tastiness and poison, the old woman filled Kirsi’s basket with baked treats and tasked her trio of tame flying monkeys to carry Kirsi to the Big Road at the border of Borix, where it was only a short journey farther to Bruding, even with little legs.
It was very fortunate, Kirsi thought, that she’d come across that wee snug cottage.
“For a quick death via blunt-force trauma, find a dwarf on Meadschpringå and suggest they’ll spend the rest of their life working in the mines. Or tell them bees are dumb.”
—KERTTU KETTUNEN, in Ninety-nine Diverting Ways to Be Destroyed in Pell
It was another disappointingly beautiful day in the Misree Hills, confounding all expectations of Båggi Biins. The hopeful young dwarf had come to the most wretched part of Borix to have his mettle tested, his honor besmirched, and his beard soiled—but only under perfect conditions. And all he’d found was a lumpity bumpus toad who appeared to be an exceptionally good listener.
“Much as I would wish otherwise, my friend, I simply cannot return to the high mountain retreats of the Korpås Range and take tea with the wind and stone until I have expunged the violence within my soul—a singular goal, to be sure, since I’m rather certain my soul is of the nonviolent kind. Still, the dwarvelish custom of Meadschpringå dictates that I must seek an outlet for whatever anger might be hiding in my bones before I can settle into the calm, ascetic life of
an adult.” As he said this, he stroked his oiled beard and admired how it fell upon his fine woolen tunic, but not in a proud sort of way that suggested he was better than a toad, for Båggi truly believed everyone his equal or better.
He offered a bit of honeycomb to the toad, and when the toad politely turned his head away, Båggi patted the fellow on his warty head and gobbled the honeycomb himself.
“So here I am. I had thought, by coming to the washed-out north—not that these dismal skies are your fault, ha ha!—that I could achieve my goals somewhat differently than most of my brother and sister dwarfs, whose songs now bear a weight of sadness since they returned home. Their voices deepen, you know, which is considered quite a boon during a cappella competitions. But me? I wish to sing with unburdened conscience, no matter the difficulty of achieving it.”
The toad gave him a soulful and understanding sort of look, and so Båggi pulled his knitting out and settled in, needles clicking.
“Groggit?” the toad said.
Båggi shook his head. “No, my sister’s name is Tåffi, but you’re right—she took a different path. On the first day of her Meadschpringå, Tåffi popped her bunghole—that’s the spout of the cask, you know; people get confused sometimes and think it means something else. She popped it open when the sun reached its zenith, poured a flagon and passed it round, then promptly headed south from Sküterlånd to the Centaur Pastures to pick a fight. She won that fight, slaying a centaur, and as expected—indeed, as intended—it filled her with remorse and she never wished to be violent again. Why, she wouldn’t even pinch a flea! And the sad thing is that for all she is bereft of violence, it’s as if something in her heart broke that day. When my violence leaves me, I want to be a better dwarf than I was before, not a lesser one. I am determined to do some good while I wear my lowland boots, and I simply cannot do that by hunting centaurs or picking slapfights with elves.”