Chapter 19

The Daughters of Charis

People call them Nymphs, because they are beautiful and forever young looking. They are gifted with the ability to read the hearts of those around them, and, if they will, charm people with the touch of love. Some of these daughters have been accused of wanton seduction for profit, but mostly they live quiet lives as watchers over particular woodlands, mountains, streams or other locations. It is possible for them to shape shift, especially to escape uninvited attention from a suitor they have attracted.

They are said to be fond of wine, fine clothing, and music.

Dictionary of the Peoples of the Sunlit Lands , by Mellt Purslaine of the Alder Branches

The next day, Gan was still finishing her moving in, dressed in her heavy apron, work sleeves and a cap to keep things out of her hair. She had dragged the old hermit’s kitchen table outside to give it a good look, and clean the years of grime off it. A touch of domestic magic had peeled back layers and layers of soot and grime, leaving the good oak wood clean and warm. She took a bottle of walnut oil and began rubbing it into the wood.

“If you just took off all the old stuff,” Rosebud said, why are you smearing more stuff on it?”

“To protect it from pixie dust, among other things,” Gan replied. “Don’t touch it yet, Moxie. The oil needs to sink in first, and you might get stuck on it while it’s happening.”

“Oooh,” said the pixie, bounding away.

“What’s for lunch,” asked Seamus.

“”You’re hungry already? You just ate breakfast,” Gilly said, pulling his hair a little. “Greedy man.”

“I just wanted to know if there was going to bread. Or pie.” He crossed his arms and frowned at Gilly. “Are you saying I’m a pig?”

“Oink, oink,” Dahlia said, floating by.

“Oh, there’ll be bread. There will be bread at every meal,” Gan said

There was a general cheer from the assembled pixies.

“See, I told you so!” Redbud said to Rufus, sticking out her tongue.

This made Gan chuckle as she put a little more oil on her cloth. She resumed her wiping.

Arne landed on her shoulder. “We’ve got company coming.”

Gan looked up. “Eh, I wonder who that is.” She gave the table a final wipe, drew a sigil in the air, and the oil hardened into a solid, dependable finish. She tossed the cloth into a bowl on the ground. “Well, whoever it is, I can’t get this put away before she gets here, so she’ll have to put up with me in my work things.”

“It’s Leila!” Gilly said, dashing off to circle the woman that was coming up the path.

“Who’s Leila?” Gan asked the pixies.

“She lives in Cullin’s forest,” Rosebud said. “She’s nice.”

“She’s way nicer than Cullin,’ Seamus said, nodding. “And she likes pixies.”

“She’s a nymph. She can charm people,” Moxie said, looking at Arne. “Especially men.”

“I wish I had hair like hers,” Cowslip sighed.

“She’s good to tell your troubles to, especially men troubles,” Dahlia said.

“Sounds like you have some experience with that,” Gan said, sympathetically.

Dahlia nodded, and started sinking, then caught herself right above the table.

“It’s all right. The table’s safe now. “

Dahlia let herself sink to the surface, and sat there cross legged. “Stupid Topper.”

“Oh, I don’t think I’ve met him yet.” Gan folded her cloth and put it on the oil bottle.

“Be glad,” the little despondent woman said. “He’s not worth it.”

“It’ll be better tomorrow, little Dahlia,” Leila said.

“Are you sure?” She looked at the beautiful woman who had joined the little group with eyes that weren’t quite believing.

“Oh yes,” Leila said, nodding. “No other pixie has his heart. He’s just stupid.”

That seemed to cheer the little pixie, and she took to wing. “Topper is just stupid. Topper is just stupid. Topper is just stupid,” she sang, her tears turning into laughter as she flew into the trees.

“Well, that improved her frame of mind,” Gan said. “So you’re Leila?

The willowy, golden-haired woman smiled. “Yes I am. And you must be the wonderful lady who gave the pixies pie and bread yesterday. Word came to the forest last night. You made quite an impression.”

“And bread this morning, too!” Rosebud said.

“And soup!” Seamus added. “Mistress Gan makes the best soup.”

Leila laughed. It was a musical sound, part of her nature as a nymph, but still Gan felt herself warming to the woman. And she liked how the pixies liked her, too.

“If you give me a minute, I’ll move the table back into the kitchen, and we can have a nice cup of tea.”

She made a sigil in the air, and the table began to glow with a magical light. With a slight shudder at first, it lifted up, rotated itself through the doorway and back into its place in the kitchen. The glow faded as they walked in.

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“I’d heard you were an expert at Domestic magic,” Leila said. “I can do a little of it, just like everybody else, start the fire, use it as an extra hand sometimes, but that was impressive. And with no touchstone or wand or anything.”

“It’s certainly easier than trying to find a couple of able bodies to move furniture,” Gan said. “Far more practical.” Leila grinned, and let Gan lead her into the house.

Gan pulled out her good teapot, and set out a plate of cookies.

“Sugar cookies!” Leila beamed. “My favorite! There’s a baker at Goblin Market I buy mine from. I have my talents, but alas, baking is not one of them.”

“Well,” Gan said, smiling. “Try one of these. Tell me what you think.”

As Gan poured the tea, Leila took and broke the cookie, and took a bite of it. Her face lit up. “O my, that’s wonderful. Did I taste a touch of cardamon?”

Gan nodded. “And ginger. But not too much.”

Gilly flew around Leila’s golden hair and landed on the top of her head. “I told you she was wonderful.”

Moxie landed by Gan’s elbow. “Can I have some?”

She nodded and broke off a piece, and handed one to Gilly, too.

“I take it you’re not affected by pixie dust,” Leila said.

“Not in the least,” Gan said. “It can’t glamour me or intoxicate me or even make me sneeze. Which will probably make life here much easier.”

Leila laughed. “I suspect so!” She looked around the room. You’ve only been here two days?

“That’s right,” Gan said.

“But this can’t be the same place the old hermit lived in. It looks so different! And it feels...feels…”

“Like home,” Gilly said. “The best home ever.”

“I am impressed,” the nymph said.

“So, tell me about Cullin,” Gan said. “I grew up near here, but I moved away after the Great Fire. I was only a girl when that happened. I had met him a few times when my mother invited him to dinner, but it was my parents who knew him. They always told me he took his guardianship duties very seriously. But I suspect you know him much better.”

Leila sighed, and took a bite of her cookie, “I was afraid you were going to ask me that.”

Gan chuckled. “You don’t have to tell me anything you’re uncomfortable with. I’m just being new neighbor nosy.”

“He doesn’t like pixies,” Seamus declared. “Any cookies left?”

Gan broke a couple of cookies into chunks and put it on the table. “Everybody can have a piece,” she said.

Moxie got to the cookie crumbs first. Seamus gave her a little shove.

“There’s plenty for all,” Gilly said, grabbing a piece. Arne grabbed her chunk. “Hey!”

“Now, now,” Gan said, pulling the tea kettle off the fire and deftly pouring the boiling water into her teapot. “Like Gilly says, there’s plenty for all.”

Leila looked at the pixies with amusement. “It’s not fair to say he doesn’t like pixies, Seamus,” she said after each of the pixies got their cookies. “Does he let you fly in the forest?”

“Well...” the pixie said.

“Does he throw mud at you?” the nymph asked.

“I got splashed once, “ Hilby, a freckled redhead pixie said. “The smell took a month to get off.”

“But you weren’t the target.”

“Nope, it was a peddler.”

Gan poured the tea into fine china cups while admiring how Leila was leading the pixies along.

Leila accepted the offered cup. “I think he sees you pixies like he does the wood wives. Just there, with as much right to be there as a butterfly or dragonfly.”

“You mean,” Gilly said, “he doesn’t even see us?” She frowned. “He ought to see us. We’re all beautiful!” She lifted from the table and did a pirouette, sprinkling light-catching pixie dust behind her. It gave her an ethereal radiance for a moment, before fading.

“Show off,” mumbled Rosebud.

“Oh, he sees you well enough,” Leila said, holding out her hand. “That was quite lovely.” Gilly landed on the nymph’s palm and took a bow before dashing off. “He might even admire something you’re doing. But he’s focused on other things.”

“Like protecting the forest from people and things that can harm it,” Gan said. She took the moment to get a cookie for herself.

“Exactly,” Leila said. She broke a cookie in half, and dipped it in her tea. In her hands, it looked like an exquisitely gracious move. “After the Great Fire, he grew increasingly protective, maybe even suspicious of all people who didn’t live in the forest. The fire wasn’t natural; some charcoal burners, I believe, lost control of their burn, and it spread like mad. After that, he kept an extra sharp eye out on everybody who went down the King’s Highway through the forest. He would mud or scare anybody who he even thought might trespass. Piter the peddler, poor man, got more than his fair share of hazing, so much that the magistrate down at Waterford by Glint sends a man once a month down the road to remind him of the right of travelers to pass unmolested.”

“The fire was hard on a lot of us,” Gan said.

“Indeed. And he’s very old. He was here long before I was born.”

Gan nodded. “Or my parents.”

“New things can set him off-balance for a little while.” Leila sipped her tea.

Gan nodded. “He certainly was surprised when I made him sit down for dinner.”

“It had been a long time since anybody had done that. The old hermit certainly didn’t. He was scared to death of Cullin.”

“He was scared of me, too,” Bu said. “But look how little I am! Cullin’s much bigger.”

“People get frightened by all sorts of things,” Gan said. “Sometimes it doesn’t matter how big a thing is.”

Moxie eyed the last piece of cookie, then shook her head, eating the one in her hand. “Tree Shepherd didn’t say much while he ate.”

“The raven said enough for both of them,” Seamus said. “I thought he was going to eat me.”

“Morvran? No, he wouldn’t eat you,” Leila said “But I wouldn’t tease him too much if I were you, Seamus. There are worse fates for those who get on Morvran’s bad side.”

“Oh?”

“He might talk you to death.”

The two women talked a while longer. Leila found out that Gan liked a good novel, too, and after making a promise to exchange books , she headed back to her forest home.

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Umber Madrona put down his clipboard, and headed to the lunch room at the back of the Dragon Web offices. He found an empty corner at the back, somewhat hidden from the main area, snuggled between a cabinet where people stored their supplies and the wall. There was a tiny window that looked out to the wooded land that surrounded the station, but the young dragonkin man intentionally turned his back to it. He did not like the look of the land surrounding Goblin Market. It was too different from the land where he grew up – too soft, too damp, too green. Looking out of the window reminded him of all the differences, and how disappointed he was in his work here.

He pulled out a book, laid out his lunch and settled down to read.

“Hi,” a woman’s voice said. “Do you mind if I sit here, too?”

He looked up and saw a pale blue Dragonkin woman standing in front of him. Her ruff was slightly darker than the rest of her skin, perfectly normal, and she looked at him expectantly.

“Sure. Go ahead,” he said, nodding.

She gracefully sat down and laid out her lunch – soup, a salad, some sort of cake. “So you’re the new person at DIC? I’m Lana. Been here about a year now. It’s sure a lot different than Sunderland.”

“You work at the ticket counter?” Umber said, laying his book down. “I’m Umber by the way. I’m from Harani.”

“I bet all of this feels weird to you,” she said, taking a bite of her salad. “I know it did for me for almost a year.”

“It’s so different. How...did you ever get used to it?”

“I don’t know if used to it is the right phrase,” Lana said. “Tolerate it may be more honest. Goblin Market’s not the worst small town in An Lar. And it’s only a short hop to Waterford by Glint, where there are more people and things to do. And to the north, there’s a really nice place with some wonderful craggy rocks and no trees! I go up there a lot on my days off. It means a lot to me just to see rock from time to time.”

“You need to tell me how to get there,” Umber said, munching on his meat roll. “It feels like forever since I saw anything but trees and grass.”

Lana nodded. “And,” she said, pointing at his novel, “there’s a really good bookstore in town. If he doesn’t have what you want to read, he’ll order it in. I’ve bought a lot from him. You’re reading one of Rockbottom’s detective novels? I love them.”

He nodded. “I’ve read all of them. This is his latest. I’ll loan it to you when I’m done if you’d like?”

Her ruff blushed a pleasant dark blue. “Oh! Yes I would. I’ve been waiting for that book for months!”

They both finished their lunch with a little more chitchat, then Umber headed back to his office with the first good feeling he’d had since coming to work at Goblin Market.

As he opened the door to the office, he said, “Maybe I can make it through my first assignment in one piece after all.”

As he walked in, Thornfield Witstone, his spikes glowing with displeasure, blocked his entrance.

“Umber, you fool, what in the melted ruins of Dragonhame did you tell Mayor Turbot’s wife? I’ve got the Dragon Web director and everyone that matters breathing down my neck now, and I don’t like it one bit!”

Umber swallowed. Or maybe he wouldn’t.