Mop and Gnal stood at the top of the attic steps, listening to the raised voices below.

“You got her grounded,” Gnal hissed. “Way to go.”

“I-I didn’t mean to,” Mop stammered. “It’s not fair. Lil Gramma’s innocent. She didn’t TP stupid Mark’s house, I did.”

Gnal’s tail twitched behind her with a life of its own. The ridge of gray fur along her back was raised and her triangular ears laid flat against her head. “Obviously, I know that. They don’t. As far as they’re concerned, you don’t exist.”

“How do we fix this?” Mop was a jittery mess. Her clawed hands were a blur of nervous activity, wringing, fluttering, pawing at her face. It was similar to the time she’d gotten halfway through a case of energy drinks before realizing spicy juice wasn’t a thing. At least she wasn’t climbing the walls yet.

An idea went off in Mop’s head. A bad one, judging from the way her pupils shrank to tiny slivers. “I know! I’ll go down there and introduce myself. Explain what happened. Prove Lil Gramma’s innocence once and for all.”

Gnal curled around Mop’s leg, preventing the goblin from taking a single step. “No, you won’t. Goblins don’t exist in this dimension.”

“Why not?”

“Something to do with mold resistance, I think?”

“Alright, smarty pants, you do it then!” Mop tried, unsuccessfully, to shake the stubborn cat from her leg. Gnal clung to her like lint to velcro. “You’re still in that darn cat skin for some reason. Use it!”

“Cats can’t talk.”

Mop threw her spindly arms out at her sides and glared at the ceiling. “It’s like you’re not even trying to help!”

Gnal winced at Mop’s volume. Her theatrics went unnoticed thanks to the commotion going on below, fortunately. Fortunate for those below, at least. Not Gnal, who was only now realizing how sensitive a cat’s sense of hearing was. She considered covering her ears, but she’d have to release Mop to do so. In the grand scheme of cosmic order, hearing loss seemed inconsequential compared to Earth’s first goblin sighting.

Hearing loss took time, evidently, as Gnal heard Gemma’s shrill scream clear as a bell. “It’s like you’re not even trying to understand!”

Mop fell silent and flared her ears, tuning back in to the heated conversation downstairs. Gnal mimicked her actions. Alas, she didn’t catch the response. Only what was said next, a scream from Gemma, that went something along the lines of: “That’s it! I can’t take it anymore. I’m leaving!”

The front door slammed. The old house shook. Silence descended. The household was eerily quiet for the rest of the evening, save for the faint, muffled sobs coming from the sitting room.

Gemma returned some days later, but the hurt remained. Tension hung thick like ash in the air, clouding minds and hearts alike. The teenager spent most of her evenings upstairs, lamenting her woes to the strange gray cat in the attic. Caught in a whirlwind of emotion, Gemma was unaware of the goblin stewing silently in the corner, growing more bitter with each passing day.

----------------------------------------

The rest of the visit passed in an unpleasant, uneventful haze. Gnal returned home feeling heavier than when she’d left.

The work week came and went. Although Mop hadn’t spoken more than a handful of words to her on shift, she still showed up on Gnal’s doorstep, bag in hand, ready to do it all over again. The old house was quiet when they arrived. Gnal’s particles thrummed happily as they shifted, realigning themselves into their newest, favorite shape. She didn’t know what it was about the cat form that was so darn pleasing, but something about it felt so right. It was the only skin that slipped on as snuggly as a well-fitted glove.

Gnal padded down the attic stairs with Mop slinking behind her, using the shadows to disguise her movements. She found Thelma and Ursula in the sitting room. The latter was in the rocker by the hearth. The rocking chair’s wooden frame creaked and groaned in protest, insisting rocking was supposed to be a leisurely activity, not one of wrath. At the rate Ursula had it going, it was only a matter of time before the chair took off at top speed out the door.

Thelma paced alongside the wall, wringing her hands. She paused every now and then to glance longingly out the window with sad, wistful eyes. “I don’t understand,” she said. “She said she would be here.”

“Bah!” Ursula replied.

“Should we try calling again?”

Ursula’s weathered hands gripped the arms of the rocker so tight, her nails dug into the polished wood. The poor rocker kicked and bucked beneath her, preparing to launch the old woman into orbit. Ursula didn’t notice. “If she didn’t answer the first three times, she’d not going to now.”

“But–”

“She’s out with her friends, Thelma. Face it, we’re old news. The girl’s grown now. She can do what she wants, and what she wants is to be anywhere but here.”

Thelma dropped her hands and sighed, still gazing out the window as the sun set further in the west. “It’s just, we haven’t seen her since Christmas. I was hoping this visit meant we’d get to spend quality time together, like we used to.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Welcome to the college years,” Ursula muttered. “Soon she’ll have a job, a life, a serious relationship, and we won’t exist to her at all.”

“Ursula, stop. Don’t say things like that.”

“It’s true.”

“You’re part of the reason she’s not here, you know. You two have always butted heads.”

“Harrumph.”

The front door opened and closed softly. “Hey, it’s me,” a young woman’s voice called from the foyer.

A set of confident footsteps strode down the hallway towards them. Mop tucked herself under a side table in the nick of time. Gnal wasn’t nearly as lucky. She found herself scooped up in a familiar set of arms, bearing many bright, unfamiliar tattoos. “You again?” Gemma said, quirking an eyebrow at the cat as she stepped into the sitting room. “One of these days I’m going to figure out where you’re coming from.”

For the sake of all things good and ruly, Gnal sincerely hoped not.

“Gemma!” Thelma threw her arms wide and barreled towards her. “Welcome home, love!”

Squirming, Gnal leapt from Gemma’s grasp in time to avoid being crushed to death in Thelma’s overenthusiastic embrace.

“You’re so thin!” Thelma said. “Have you been eating, dear?”

“Yes, Auntie.”

“And what about a jacket? You’re going to catch a cold wearing that.”

“It’s sweltering outside,” Gemma said with a laugh. “I’m fine, Auntie. You don’t have to fuss.”

“Alright, but at least let me make you dinner. Are you still a, ah, what’s it called? A veterinarian?”

“Vegetarian,” Ursula corrected.

“Don’t trouble yourself, Auntie. I only stopped in for a quick shower. A bunch of us are meeting up later. I’ll eat then.” Gemma sauntered over to the rocking chair and planted a kiss on the top of Ursula’s wizened hair.

Ursula patted the side of Gemma's face with her liver-spotted hand. “Go raise hell, Pumpkin Head.”

“But…” Thelma said.

Gemma was already disappearing back down the hallway. “Bye, love you!”

The house fell quiet once more, as it would remain for many years afterwards. Each time Gnal and Mop visited, they saw Gemma less and less, until her visits stopped altogether. Ursula had been right. Their little girl had grown into her own person, with friends, a job, and a life that operated entirely outside of their own. Gnal and Mop still visited at the end of each work week, hoping to catch a glimpse of her in passing. Each time they left disappointed.

The final blow came on the year of Gemma’s twenty-eighth birthday. The house wasn’t just quiet, it was eerily quiet. The kind of quiet only found in abandoned librarian graveyards.

“Gnal, over here,” Mop called from the door to Thelma and Ursula’s bedroom.

Gnal padded over.

“It’s Thelma,” Mop whispered with one large ear pressed against the heavy wood. “She’s crying, I think.”

That in itself wasn't out of the ordinary. Thelma had always been the more sensitive of the two. Mop and Gnal checked the rest of the house and found Ursula in her rocker. The shades were drawn and the room was dark. The old woman sat like a statue in her chair, staring out at nothing. There was a letter held loosely in her fingers.

Ursula sighed, a deep, bone rattling sound, and closed her eyes. Moisture leaked out from below her heavy lashes.

The letter dropped. It drifted soundlessly to the floor and settled there.

Mop and Gnal exchanged knowing glances.

Gnal’s glance said, ‘Not our business. Best keep out of it.’

‘Get to the bottom of it. Good idea,’ Mop’s expression replied. ‘I’ll be back in a tick.’

There wasn’t time to stop her. The little goblin scurried across the room like a shadow caught in the wind. She snatched the letter from the floor and flipped, tumbled, and flung her way back out into the hall again.

“That was completely unnecessary.”

Mop jutted the letter in Gnal’s direction. “Less talky, more read-y.”

“You’re the one who stole it! Read it yourself.”

“Can’t, the writing’s funny. All fancy-like. I can’t tell where one letter ends and the next begins.”

Gnal spread the letter across the floor between her paws and studied the neat human scrawl. It took a few minutes to decipher, but she had the gist of it by the end. She gave Mop the abbreviated version. “It’s from Gemma. It says she got married.”

Mop clasped her hands beneath her chin. “She did? When? Where? Great cosmic dust, Gnal, we missed the wedding!”

“That’s the thing, though,” Gnal said. “They didn’t have a wedding. They eloped.”

“She what?”

“It means Gemma got married without telling anyone.”

“...But…but why?” Mop’s ears drooped.

“I don’t know.”

“Sounds a bit selfish, but alright. I’m sure Lil Gramma had her reasons. She’s coming back soon, right? To introduce her new beau to the family?”

Gnal dreaded saying the next part aloud. It had already broken Thelma and Ursula, surely it would do the same to Mop. “No.”

“No?”

“It says he doesn’t approve of their lifestyle. Gemma won’t be coming back.”

“Approve of what?” Mop demanded. “That they’re witches?”

Gnal's resulting silence only provoked the goblin into saying more. “Is it ‘cause they hold hands when they walk? Or how sometimes, when nobody’s lookin’, Ursula steals a kiss just so she can turn Thelma as bright red as an apple? Is that what this bloke’s got an issue with, huh?”

Gnal ran a padded paw down her face with a sigh. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“If he doesn’t approve of witches, then he’s not going to approve of a goblin fairy godmother either, is he?”

Gnal said nothing.

“And our Lil Gramma’s okay with that?”

Gnal watched as the answer to Mop’s own question slowly sank in. The phases of grief paraded across her face like a chorus line on a stage. The emotions filed in one after another, first denial, then anger, bargaining, and depression. Naturally, instead of landing on acceptance, Mop circled back to anger again. “That tears it!” She snatched the letter from the ground and balled it between her hands. “If she doesn’t want any part in this family, then fine by me! I want nothing to do with her either!”

“She’s young, Mop. She’ll come around–”

“No, I’m done. We’re leaving.” Mop clenched her hands and held them stiffly at her sides as she stomped towards the attic stairs. “And I ain’t ever coming back here again!”