by Jon Etter
“Yes!” the Jolly Reaper shouted, punching the air. “Finally, a vacation!”
“Not you,” the Grim Reaper said. “You’re going back to the office to clean the break room. You’re still in trouble.”
“Donkleberries.” The Jolly Reaper kicked a bit of loose gravel.
“’Ey, Grimmy! You bring back the little Sprootshade’s mom; you give the reapers the day off.” Ginch winked at her. “Maybe you’re no so grim after all.”
The Grim Reaper looked down at him. “Maybe not. See you next week, Ginch.”
“You see me next week?” Ginch gave her a puzzled look. “Oh, it’s-a the joke! Ha ha! That’s-a the good one!”
The Grim Reaper said nothing.
Ginch turned to the Professor. “It’s-a the joke.” The Professor shrugged. “’Ey Grimmy, it’s-a the joke, right?”
The Grim Reaper flew into the sky. Her fellow reapers all followed.
“C’mon! It’s-a the joke, right? Right? Fatcha-cootamatchca, Death!”
When the reapers all vanished, the clouds above lightened and dissipated. The bright sun blazed in a clear blue sky. The sickly grasses grew lush and green. Leaves sprouted on the barren trees and flowers bloomed in the fields. But Shade saw none of this. All she saw was her dear mother’s face.
“Let’s go home, Little Acorn,” her mother said.
“Yeah, Mom,” Shade said, wiping tears, now shed in joy rather than sorrow, from her eyes. “Let’s go home.”
In which Shade returns once more to Pleasant Hollow …
“Are you sure you won’t stay for a while longer?” Shade asked her mother as the two walked to the edge of the Merry Forest. “It’s only been a couple months. Plus, winter will be here before you know it, and—”
“My Little Acorn, after spending forty, fifty seasons in a cage, a couple months cooped up in one place—even a place as wonderful as the Grand Library—is plenty.” Nia looked up at the leaves, which had begun to change from verdant summer green to the vibrant yellows, oranges, and reds of autumn, and smiled. “Besides, while B.A.R.F. is drafting a constitution for the new commonwealth, some of the holdout nobles are causing trouble, packs of red-capped goons are roving around, monsters are out monstering like always, and we’re still trying to figure out where Perchta disappeared to. I’d love to get my hands on her—”
“Mom.”
“So that we can lock her up and make her stand trial for her crimes,” she reassured Shade. Nia smiled at her daughter, then wrapped an arm around Shade’s waist and hugged her to her side. “Are you sure you won’t come with us? Having Elfame’s greatest warrior along for the ride sure would help us keep the peace.”
Shade shook her head. “I’m no warrior, Mom. I’m just a librarian.”
“Well, let’s see. In the past year, you’ve foiled two plots to overthrow the Seelie and Sluagh courts and then successfully overthrew them both yourself, defeated the most vicious warrior in Elfame a couple times, saved the Grand Library, freed a bunch of prisoners, and stopped a war that would have killed St. Figgymigg knows how many lives. Am I forgetting anything?”
Well, I did also track down those lost books of Alexandria that Dad always wanted to find,” a blushing Shade added. “And I saved a human baby one time. And that Questing Beast who helped us out. And—”
Nia tossed her head back and laughed. “You sure don’t sound like your average librarian.”
“The Grand Library’s not your average library,” Shade replied as they reached the forest’s edge.
Sitting there on a stump gazing out over the grassy plains was Sir Justinian. He rose and smiled as they approached. “What say you, my lady Shade? Has your mother persuaded you to answer the call to adventure or are we to remain merely a trio of knights errant rather than a courageous quartet?”
“I’ll pass, but I appreciate the offer,” Shade said. “Take care of Mom for me, will you?”
The good knight knelt down and hugged Shade. “I rather think she’ll be the one taking care of the two of us. Speaking of which, Grouse! Good Sir Grouse! Fetch the horses if you please!”
“I don’t please, Sir Bossypants,” Grouse fired back as he led over two horses and a fairy war pony. “And why am I still taking orders from you? I’m a knight just like you now.”
“Yes, but you are merely a youth knight who has just begun his life of service, whereas we two are veteran knights. As such, you’ll be tending to the horses, cooking the meals, cleaning the pots—”
“And basically doing everything else I’ve been doing for years.” Grouse sighed and frowned. “So what the donkle good was getting knighted anyway?”
“Everyone now has to call you ‘Sir’!” Justinian grinned. “’Tis grand, isn’t it?”
Grouse frowned at him a moment and then shook his head and turned to Shade. He raised his arms up hesitantly. “Are we going to … ? Do you want … ?”
Shade waved a hand. “No, that’s okay. I’m not usually much of a hugger either.”
“Oh, thank the sighs of St. Eeyore.” He put his arms down and relaxed. “You know, out of everyone I’ve met while squiring for Sir Blabsalot du Lack-of-Impulse-Control, you’re the one I’ve disliked the least.”
“Grouse, that’s really sweet of you to say,” Shade replied, genuinely touched.
“It really is,” he agreed as he climbed into the saddle. “So are we doing this?”
“We are, my prized protégé. We are.” Justinian enthusiastically mounted his own steed.
Shade and her mother hugged each other tight. “Now, be careful out there, pop by one of the branches of the library whenever you get the chance, and remember: you promised to come and celebrate the Feast of St. Grahame here with me and the library staff.”
“Of course I remember, Little Acorn. You have the mead, the captain’s biscuits, and sardines ready, and we’ll bring the sausage,” Nia assured her.
“And one of my uncle’s finest cheeses,” Justinian added.
“I love you, Mom.”
“I love you, Shade.”
Shade watched her mother, Justinian, and Grouse ride until they disappeared from sight. She wiped her eyes and took a deep breath, savoring the crisp autumn air. As she walked back through the forest, she listened to the rustling of the leaves and the tweets of the birds and the chirping of crickets and thought with amazement of how just a year before she had left the forest for the first time in her entire life with no home, no family, no friends, and nothing but one single (slightly singed) book to keep her company.
And now? She lived in the most wondrous library anyone could ever dream of filled with enough books to fill hundreds of lifetimes. She had scores of friends in every corner of Elfame. Most important of all, she had a mother, alive and well and loving her with her whole heart.
Arriving at the edge of Pleasant Hollow, her childhood home, she stopped and took a moment to consider it. Much was the same as it had been when she stormed off after her home and books burned, but so much of it was new. New tree houses for sprites had been built, and for the first time in the history of Pleasant Hollow, huts and cottages and burrows had appeared housing all manner of non-sprite fairies. The new center of the village, where so many trees had burned just this past spring due to Chieftainess Sungleem Flutterglide’s wrongheaded and spiteful attempt to get rid of the Grand Library, had been transformed into a bustling marketplace.
But the biggest change by far was not to the physical aspects of the village but within the souls of its inhabitants. The flightiness, self-absorption, and carelessness that had always driven Shade mad had to a large degree been replaced with reason and kindness. Sprites who once rolled their eyes at Shade’s love of books had since become some of the Grand Library’s most regular and devoted patrons. And while Shade did still receive the occasional frown from some of the more stodgy residents, most greeted her with waves and smiles, both of which she received from the husky young sprite with gray skin and wings who came bounding over to her. �
��Hey, Shade! I was just looking for you in the library but they said you’d stepped out.”
“Hey, Ash.” He was one of Shade’s favorite patrons. Not a day had gone by since she had first planted the library tree in Pleasant Hollow that didn’t include a visit from Ash. “Yeah, I was on the edge of the forest. What’s up?”
“Most of the village is gathered in the marketplace. We need to talk to you.”
Shade sighed. “What’s Chieftainess Flutterbutt want to chew me out about this time?”
“Nothing. In fact, she’s not even there. She refused to attend.”
“She did? Okay, what exactly is going on?”
“Just come and see,” Ash said, grabbing Shade’s hand and tugging her along.
Shade found the village square packed with sprites and gnomes and goblins and other fairies. Almost all of Pleasant Hollow was assembled there, although Chieftainess Flutterglide and the council of elders were conspicuously absent.
“’Ey look, everybody! The little Sprootshade’s here!” Ginch cried, pointing a half-eaten sausage her way from his spot near the small wooden stage Ash was leading her to. Next to him, the Professor smiled and raised a mug of mead in salute.
“What’s going on here?” Shade asked them as she walked up the steps to the stage.
“We’re having the midmorning snack,” Ginch explained as the Professor shoved a couple hard-boiled eggs in his mouth and nodded.
“That’s not what I—”
“Get on up here, young lady,” commanded a very old sprite waiting for her on stage, her golden face wrinkled and puckered like the apple-head dolls your Grandma Ruth always places on the mantel around Christmastime. It was Goldfinch Clearwater, Pleasant Hollow’s oldest resident and only sprite to ever be kicked off the council of elders for what Chieftainess Flutterglide and the other elders dubbed “excessive contrariness.” “We haven’t got all day.”
“Actually, we do,” Ash observed. “The whole village decided to take the day off in honor of the occasion.”
“Questioning your elders, eh?” Clearwater squinted at Ash, her mouth puckered. “Good! Keep it up!”
“Okay, what exactly is going on?” Shade asked, looking around at the crowd, who all smiled and looked at her expectantly.
“Well, as we all know, great changes are going on in Elfame. Great changes,” Clearwater said, raising her voice so that all could hear. “And Pleasant Hollow must change as well. In point of fact, we already have—quite a bit actually—and largely thanks to you, Shade. Because of that, from now on our chieftainess will be chosen by the people and not by accident of birth. What’s more, they will also serve as our representative in the new Commonwealth of Fairies. For too long we’ve sought to hide away from the rest of Elfame here in our little village. But isolation is no real choice—the rest of the world will inevitably find its way here, so it is our duty to make that world the finest one possible.
“And so, in the interests of making both Pleasant Hollow and all of Elfame the best that they can be, we have decided to ask you to be our chieftainess.”
Shade looked incredulously at Clearwater’s beaming face and then out over the crowd. She searched for some sign that this was all some cruel trick, some elaborate joke. But it was real. Everyone looked to her, smiling, eager, expectant. The Professor held up a sign that read, “shade for chieftainess!!!” Shade, who for so much of her life had been a mocked misfit and shunned malcontent, now found herself so admired, so respected by her community that they had actually chosen her to lead them.
And now, dear Reader, if this were a proper fairy story, Shade’s heart would swell with gratitude (which, in point of fact, it did) and she would graciously and joyfully accept their offer without a moment’s hesitation. But, dear Reader, this story … Well, after three long books together, do I really need to finish that statement?
“I’m honored. I really am. And touched. And, to be honest, a little weirded out. Mostly honored and touched though. But … I’m sorry. I’m going to pass.” Shade couldn’t help but see the village’s disappointment and feel a little bad. The Professor sadly lowered his sign. “I’m a librarian. It’s what I’m good at and, more important, it’s what I want to do more than anything. Definitely more than I’d want to be a chieftainess.
“But after seeing how much Pleasant Hollow has changed over the past year, I can honestly say—and St. Figgymigg knows I never thought I would—there are a lot of fairies here who I think would make great chieftainesses. Or chieftains, for that matter. And I believe all of you will choose a good one.”
The crowd looked somewhat cheered by her words, and the Professor held up his sign again, which now read, “SHADE SOMEBODY ELSE FOR CHIEFTAINESS!!!” Shade looked past them to the Grand Library. She thought of how wonderful it was to be inside that library—any library, really, but especially that one. Then she thought of the village of Pleasant Hollow, the place where she was born and was now, she suddenly realized, proud to call home.
“I meant ‘us,’” she added hastily. “All of us will choose a good one. So why don’t we talk about how we’re going to do that.”
And so Shade spent the rest of the day and well into the night in Pleasant Hollow, talking with neighbors and laughing with friends because, yes, a library is a wonderful place, but then again, any place can be a wonderful place as long as people work together to make it so.
• EPILOGUE •
In which your humble narrator makes his peace with the dreadful author …
“Well?” Mr. Etter asked, polishing his little round spectacles, as I concluded my narration. “Let’s have it.”
“Let’s have what?” I asked, quite mystified (as I often am when dealing with that man).
“The usual. How dreadful and improper it all was. How the last book in a fantasy series really needs to have a big final battle. How it would have been much more ‘morally improving’ if Shade had agreed to be chieftainess. Something about Aunt Agnes refusing to knit socks for kids who read this book.”
“Well, of course Aunt Agnes wouldn’t go to the trouble of knitting socks for any child who would dare to read such cheeky dreck as your books. No offense.”
“Some taken, actually.”
“And why any child would choose your books over hand-knit socks is beyond me. I mean, the coziness! Good Lord, man, the coziness! And of course, a more proper tale would have had a battle and Chieftainess Lillyshadow Glitterdemalion and all. That said, I think what you have written is rather in keeping with the rest of the books and not… well, not completely dreadful.”
The old curmudgeon looked rather touched by that. “That’s actually pretty nice of you to say.”
“It truly is,” I agreed. “As we’ve reached the end of our literary journey together, I thought it best to be magnanimous.”
“Good point. This is the final book in the series, after all. You must be relieved.”
“Oh, absolutely. Relieved doesn’t even begin to describe it,” I said. And yet … for some reason, dear Reader, I felt a twinge of sadness at the prospect (although if you ever tell Mr. Etter I admitted that, I shall deny it until I’m blue in the face!). I wonder if people who suffer from irritating rashes sometimes miss them once they’re gone.
“The feeling’s definitely mutual,” he agreed, although I couldn’t help feeling the statement lacked conviction and maybe even contained a touch of melancholy. “Yep, glad that’s all over. Unless …”
I leaned forward at that. “‘Unless’? What do you mean ‘unless’?”
“Our contract does state that you have to be the narrator of all stories I write about Shade.”
“Unfortunately, yes, which is why I have had to slog through all three books.”
“But the contract doesn’t say you have to narrate those three books,” the malevolent old rascal pointed out, a wicked gleam in his eye. “It says all stories I write about Shade. So, if I were to write another one—”
“You wouldn’t!” I gasped.<
br />
“I might. I mean, there are places on our map of Elfame, like the Ghostwoods and Lost Lake, that we never visited.”
“I thought you just made those up so the artist would have something to fill in the blank areas of the map with.”
“Well, I did, but I’ve had a few ideas since then. Plus, I thought it might be fun if Shade, Ginch, and the Professor had an adventure involving pirates.”
“Pirates!” I exclaimed. “Now that would be a truly dreadful tale! Pirates are inherently dreadful, what with the poor hygiene and the keelhauling and the plank-walking—”
“Don’t forget the bad grammar,” Mr. Etter noted.
“As if I could! Quite frankly, I’m appalled. Do you have any other horribly improper ideas for tales that we could tell? I mean, that I’d be forced to tell with you, of course.”
“Of course,” he said with a grin. “I’ll tell you all of them during our weekly canasta game.”
“Very well,” I grumbled. “But no cheating this time.”
“I never cheat,” he replied.
He always cheats.
So, there you have it, dear Reader. I had so looked forward to concluding this dreadful tale with “The End,” but now Mr. Etter has denied me even that comfort. Who knows if this will be the final tale of Shade or the second to last or, for all I know, one of hundreds?
And maybe that wouldn’t be the most dreadful thing in the world, now would it?
Farewell, Dear Reader. At Least for Now …
About Jon Etter
JON ETTER is probably best known for winning the 1987 Prairie Central Junior High Limbo Championship and for starring as E.T. in the 1982 Strawn Elementary School production of E.T. Learns About Christmas. He’s also, less importantly, a writer, teacher, and parent of two children and two cats. Feel free to visit him on the web at www.jonetter.com to see what he’s up to these days.
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