"Never give a goblin a cookie."

Grandma stood next to my bed, rocking back and forth in her chair like she always did every night. She always had stories to tell me, but they were almost always about goblins. Sure, sometimes she would tell stories about knights, princesses, and dragons, but somewhere in the story, a goblin would appear.

She had goblin fever, or at least that's what the townspeople whispered when we went to the market.

"You can never trust those little buggers," she said as she adjusted her reading glasses. "They're shapeshifters, you know. Can take the form of anything they want to trick you."

"Yes, Grandma," I said, pulling my red wool covers a little higher up my chest.

The candlelight flickered as she pushed her reading glasses up her nose with one finger. In her hands, she held an ancient book, the leather long rotten and the pages crisply light brown. A musty odor that reminded me of dust and cobwebs puffed out of the book as she opened it.

"You remember the rules for goblins, don't you?" Grandma asked, licking one finger and turning the page.

"I do."

"Then tell me one."

"Don't—Don't give a goblin a cookie!"

Thwap.

She tapped me on the forehead with the back of her hand. "Don't just repeat the one I told you. Give me a different one."

"Ow," I rubbed at my forehead and quickly searched around the room to find something to jog my memory. "Uh—You can't feed them after midnight."

Thwap.

"Never feed a goblin!" Grandma said. "Not a cookie. Not a steak. Not a single thing. Have you listened to anything I've ever told you, child?"

"I know," I said, rubbing at my forehead again.

"I'm just going to have to read you the rules again so you don't forget!"

Conveniently, she already had the book she needed open. I squinted my eyes at her. I had the sneaking suspicion she had planned this all along. She pulled back one additional page before starting at the top.

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"The first rule of goblins is…"

I listened to her talk and tried to pay attention, but the problem was goblins weren't real. I had never seen a goblin in my entire life. I had looked between cupboards, underneath beds, and even between the clean linens after they were washed.

Not a single goblin was there, ever to be found.

"She's a nutter, a right old bat," was something I heard often in town when my grandma left me in the care of others. "She thinks there's goblins around every corner. Poor kid has to deal with that all the time."

"If only the parents were involved."

"The parents are dead, long gone. That's why I would hate to separate them. She's senile, but she means well."

I snapped back to attention from my thoughts, shaking my head to clear them away. Grandma paused in her reading, looking me over with a slight frown. I had interrupted her reading of the rules and could only hope she didn't start from the beginning again.

"Your eyes getting heavy?" Grandma asked. "Feel like you're going to yawn?"

"No, Grandma," I said, shaking my head.

"You look like you're lying to me," Grandma said, raising a long, hairy eyebrow in my direction. Her eye stretched wider like a dinner plate.

"I'm not, Grandma, I promise."

Ding. Dong.

From the hall, the old grandfather clock struck the hour. Grandma jumped in her chair, nearly dropping her book to the ground. It took her a good few moments to recover, readjusting her posture in her seat and taking a stronger hold on the book.

"Maybe it's a sign," she whispered. "I'm up too late, and so are you. We best both get to bed soon. If you stay up too late, you will find yourself a goblin's toy."

Going to bed too late and getting up too early were just two of the things that might call a goblin in the home, according to Grandma. I knew she was wrong because there were plenty of times I stayed up late, and goblins never appeared. That was because goblins didn't exist.

Like all the people in the market always said, Grandma just wasn't quite right in the head.

"Alright, another time, another place, nothing will be lost for one night's sleep," Grandma said as she closed the book. "What do you think? Do you want me to keep going?"

"You could," I yawned. "I could stay up all night listening to your stories."

"Liar," Grandma chuckled, shaking her head. "Remember—"

"Lying with call goblins to the house," I said, shaking my head.

Grandma smiled at me, patting me on the head one last time. "You're getting to that age where you don't want to listen to old people anymore. That's the problem with young people. They ignore what their elders say and then go off and get taken by goblins."

"I won't get taken by goblins," I whispered, but she gave me a sad smile in return.

"Here, have a cookie for listening and get a good night's sleep," Grandma said, rising up from her chair with the cracking of old bones before setting the book down on the seat. "Don't let the goblins bite tonight!"

She reached into her pocket and produced a cookie before handing it to me with a smile. It didn't make up for all the strikes to my noggin, but I took it. I wasn't about to make my grandmother cry because I didn't accept her cookie. She patted down my hair and then ruffled it before turning to walk away. She only paused once, listening to the silence room on the way out.

She blew out the candle at the door, leaving me in almost complete darkness. Only a single crack let in candlelight from the hallway outside my room. I took a few bites of the large cookie she had left behind before I sat it down on the bedside table next to my bed.

I would eat the rest in the morning after a good night's sleep.