Story: Fellyans (part four)

Fellyans

(part four)

“No, no, nothing of the kind. I have sprites in the house, you see, and I beg you won’t make wishes, or pass any injudicious talk of wanting things, that could… Could very well render you a toadstool. They are accident prone.”

An explosion followed these words.

Two figures emerged by the shortest way, where a scattering of stones had replaced a wall. Three sheep followed, glowing purple, rich azure, and green.

“This is what I surmise,” the undersized figure said. “In the dark I’d put the first rock aside, and by mistake picked up another, an unhelpful sort, that queered the spell.”

“Can rocks be helpful and unhelpful?”

“Well, ask!” said Marshhawk. His hand had shot to Alma’s elbow in the nick of time.

“But these must have meant to be helpful, when they were holding up the house. That’s your doing, isn’t it, turning them harm-minded?”

By an upraised palm she lighted her way. A blue flame soon welled over Bede.

“Oh! Here’s someone! And here’s Vincent.”

“Someone,” Vincent said, “stood there allowing me to believe we were all in danger, with never a word to the contrary.”

“When I’ve only been explaining! And when you’d taken yourself well clear, afraid of any spell I could do. If you were Alma, and useful, and insisted on some quibble, I might…”

“Am I talking about you at all! May you glow blue all your life! May you be snatched by an owl and picked clean!”

“Is it the farmer you mean, Vincent? Why, he looks kindly-faced.” Alma smiled at Bede. “We are all hungry.” She could not feel the compunction of a dethroned king, as to begging.

A nightbird cast a moon shadow of outstretched wings, sending a gust of lavender at its landing, and a crunch of practical boots. Marshhawk cowered, but the wings folded into the generous arms of a cardigan, and the creature greeted Bede.

“It all looked so beautiful from my window. I thought a star had crashed onto Jorinda’s cottage. She told me, ‘gracious Finch, go to sleep, or let me at least’. And here the cottage is, afire. But a blue one, fancy!”

“Jorinda. She bakes pies, I thought I’d heard? But her cottage was part down when we stopped, we all swear it. We only wish…”

The fire snuffed out. The luminescence attached to them all fell subdued. One foundation stone began to rock, and Bede said, “You are a boulder now, sheltering the roots of wildflowers. Be content. Finch, think other thoughts.”

“Vincent was King of the Hutterers, some sort of people who live someplace near where there’s a border with the Fells,” Alma, as they walked, was telling them. She remarked aside to Finch: “How I’d like getting my hands on that purple wool!”

“And so you will, acres of it. You’re keen to knit, are you?”

“Oh, I barely know how. I collect scraps and threads and wind them up, and when I have a skein’s worth, I might make a bit of a hat.”

“Oh!” said Finch in her turn, after a silence…of repeating a phrase to herself. The city poor! The very sight of one! And hers to bless as she saw fit…

4

Fellyans

Fellyans (part five)

(2021, Stephanie Foster)