Clemency Pogue Read online

  The broom came down with a final swat and rested in the patch of snow it had flattened. The grandmother panted, smiling slightly, and looked at Clem. She said something in Russian.

  “Thanks,” Clem said.

  A shooting star fell through the sky above; Clemency jumped as if she were going to be attacked. She realized what happened and sighed, almost chuckled.

  The grandmother cautiously raised the edge of the broom, looking for the corpse of the fairy. She raised it more and more, and then removed it altogether—the beaten snow was empty. She looked at the broom; it, too, was empty.

  “Hmh?” she said, in the nonsurprise of the elderly.

  She slung the broom over her shoulder and held a hand out to Clem, an outstretched hand that said, Come, I will make hot chocolate.

  Clemency got to her feet and took a step toward the old woman. She smelled smoke. The faint, acrid smell of smoke from straw. Clemency paused. Rising against the starry night, a faint line of smoke rose from the business end of the broom.

  Clemency pointed.

  The grandmother turned her head, and just as her eyes converged on the thin line of gray rising into the black, the broom combusted. It burst into a great ball of flame that roared like a starved bear.

  The fairy, hiding among the husks, had waited with her wand touched to a fiber until it caught flame.

  The grandmother shrieked, and raised the broom and struck it against the ground, hoping to beat out the flames. The flames flared out against the beaten snow with a great whoosh, and a tiny, angry speck emerged from the tongues of fire.

  The fairy swooped upward and hovered an inch from Clemency’s nose. With crossed eyes, Clem could just barely see the terrible little creature nod toward the grandmother, wrinkle its nose, and wink. The fairy was saying, Watch what I do to the old lady, because you’re next.

  Clemency swung at the fairy. It easily dodged her hand and flitted toward the grandmother. A whale’s length away, the earth exploded in a cookies-and-cream geyser of dirt and snow.

  The old woman shrieked again and hopped backward, dropping the broom. The broom brushed against Clem’s pants and she sidestepped frantically, brushing the flames from her cuff.

  Chaphesmeeso walked out of the falling shower of earth and snow, something dark in his hand, about the size of a scoop of ice cream.

  “Well done, hobgoblin!” cried out Clem.

  The grandmother shrieked a third time and began to hop from foot to foot, slapping at her behind. A Russian victory dance? thought Clem, and then realized that the old woman was being stung by the fairy.

  Clem stepped forward to try to help her, but the old woman knocked her down as she bounded toward the burning broom. She fished it from the snow, the straw end still ablaze, and swiveled with the broom outstretched, swinging at the vile little dot hovering in the air.

  Clemency had to flatten herself against the snow not to be struck by the burning cleaning implement. She could feel the heat as it passed within inches of her head. Clemency scrambled backward like a crab, getting out of broom range.

  “Give me the stone!” she shouted at the hobgoblin.

  Chaphesmeeso was frozen where he stood, staring in horror at the old woman with her burning broom. He pointed a trembling finger.

  “Fire,” he said softly. “Fire.”

  “The stickystone, Chaphe, quick!” Clem called out.

  “Fire.” Chaphesmeeso’s eyebrows huddled at the top of his head in fear, like bashful caterpillars kissing. His rabbit’s ears drooped.

  The old woman shrieked again and slapped her collarbone. She took off across the snowy field at a gallop, swinging the broom blindly behind her as she went, shrieking every five or six steps at another sting.

  “The stickystone, drad nastit!” Clemency called out. “Now, Chaphesmeeso!”

  The hobgoblin was watching the flames race across the snow, the old woman and her aggressor lit by a flickering orb of orange light.

  “Chaphesmeeso, throw me the stone!” At a direct command, the hobgoblin’s gaze flicked over to the girl. He nodded once, drew back his arm, and threw her the magnet. It struck the ground well out of Clem’s ability to catch it.

  “Bang up job, hobgoblin,” Clemency muttered.

  But the hobgoblin did not hear her. He dropped to the ground, burrowing into the snow to get away from the distant flames.

  Clemency ran to where the stone had disappeared into the shin-deep snow.

  The old woman yelled in frustration and pain. Clemency could see that she had fled a third of the way to the cottage and dropped the broom, swatting at her body in a fury as the fairy attacked her again and again. Clem could see the tiny red dot swoop and sting, pull back and pause; swoop and sting, pull back and pause; over and again. The old woman stumbled toward her home, shrieking and swatting, the broom’s flickering orange light casting her shadow for miles over the flat, white plain.

  The grandmother did not realize what she was doing. But Clemency, from her vantage, could see that she was leading the wicked fairy back into her home. Once it had finished with the old woman, leaving her polka-dotted with pain, the fairy would turn its attention to the little girl.

  Clemency did not intend to let that happen. She searched frantically for the stickystone, came up only with a handful of snow. In frustration she formed it into a ball and threw it at the tiny dot antagonizing the grandmother.

  Hardships reveal a person’s talents. Clemency threw snowballs like Spaniards lick stamps: with deadly accuracy.

  The snowball caught the fairy in a pause, imbibing her in its mass and carrying her to the ground. Clemency let out a whoop of satisfaction and leaped into the air.

  The fairy struggled out of the snow and shook it from her wings. She rose into the air and saw the source of the snowball.

  Clemency fell back to the ground, feeling about for the stickystone. She fumbled blindly, finding only the dirt below and stray twigs dried and frozen by winter.

  The fairy ignored the panting old woman cowering over her, and buzzed toward the girl who had killed her in the first place. All the old vengeance and rage came back.

  Clemency looked up and saw the fairy on its way. She rose, forming another snowball, and let it fly. The fairy was ready and feigned right, the snowball only brushing her leg, spinning the fairy in the air. Clem let fly another immediately, and it struck the fairy while she was disoriented, knocking her back, but not to the ground.

  The fairy’s rage grew, pushing the tip of her wand to white hot and past it, the intense non-color glare of a light bulb. She began again toward Clemency, more slowly, more angrily.

  Clemency felt about in the snow: no stickystone. She gathered another snowball and launched it. It flew straight and true at the fairy, sure as a comet. The fairy stopped in midair and waited; at the precise moment she thrashed about with her metal wand in a blurred intricate pattern of sizzling heat.

  The snowball turned from snow to water to mist instantaneously. The white ball just disappeared into steam with a fizzle, the moisture collecting on the fairy’s face and wings and freezing into tiny glimmering crystals.

  Clemency felt around her. Nothing there, like the stickystone had melted into the earth. The fairy was advancing. Clemency stood and threw another snowball, missing completely.

  She threw another and the fairy did not even stop, but vaporized it with her wand in midflight. Two more snowballs met similar fates. Clemency had only moments before the fairy was on her.

  She dropped to her hands and knees, intent now on the stickystone, knowing snowballs would do her no good. The ground was empty, tauntingly void of magnet. She spun, searching a wider swath of snow, frantically feeling about. She could hear the buzz of the angry fairy approaching, could almost hear the hiss of the tip of its searing hot wand as it cut the night air.

  And then her foot struck something heavy and round, about the size of a cat’s head. Clemency spun and pulled the stone from the ground. It was dark and too heavy and
almost perfectly round. Clemency picked it up, stumbling to her feet, pulling a fistful of snow with the magnet.

  The fairy was almost on her. Clemency balled the snow around the stickystone, packed it tight, and pulled back her arm. Her eyes narrowed on the white-hot dot of the wand, she tensed the muscles in her arm, and catapulted it forward.

  The fairy grinned at the futility of the little girl’s gesture. She reared back and executed the whirring parry with her wand. The snow vaporized instantaneously, revealing the magnet underneath, which pulled the wand to it like a frog retracting its fly-laden tongue. The fairy, pulled by her wand, smacked against the round rock, and was held tight while it fell to the snowy ground.

  Clemency leaped again in triumph and ran to where the stone had dug a trench in the snow with its landing. She could hear the fairy buzzing angrily, saw the glow of its wand coming from the trench.

  Clemency stooped down over it and picked up the stickystone. The fairy was attached, pulling angrily at its wand, stuck to the stone like the stem of an apple, her wings a furious buzz.

  Clemency brought the stone close to her face and whipped the magnifying glass from her back pocket. The fairy buzzed and raged, inches from Clemency’s face. She could feel the intense heat of its wand through the stone and in the air around the tiny creature. Clem slid the lens between her eye and the fairy and focused on the tiny creature’s knuckles. There she could see, spelled out across the digits:

  T I N K A S I N G E

  Clemency’s eyes widened. She dropped the glass into the snow and held the stickystone out before her. She drew in a breath and:

  “I don’t believe in Tinkasinge,” she said, barely more than a whisper.

  Tinkasinge let go of her wand and shot back in the air, staring fiercely at Clem. She crossed her arms in front of her face as if she could block her coming demise, but it was useless. She did a tiny pirouette in the air, croaked, and fell dead as a gossamer-winged doorknob into the snow.

  Chapter 17

  THE GRANDMOTHER TOOK Clemency and Chaphesmeeso into the cottage and made them hot chocolate. She dried Clemency’s clothes in front of the fire and introduced them to her granddaughter.

  They thanked one another, promised to visit, and thanked one another again.

  Clemency yawned mightily. It had been a long day.

  Clemency and Chaphesmeeso said their good-byes. Chaphesmeeso apologized to the child for having frightened her earlier, said he was a hobgoblin and could not help it. The grandmother gave Clemency an unexpected hug, which was a pleasant thing.

  The grandmother and her grandchild waved from the door as Clemency and Chaphesmeeso trudged out into the snow.

  “Take me home,” said Clem.

  Chapter 18

  CHAPHESMEESO’S TUNNEL opened in the forest just outside of the property surrounding Clemency’s home. Here night was only beginning to fall. The sun was well below the horizon, and the sky glowed salmon pink.

  “Well,” said Clemency, “I suppose that’s it, then.”

  “For now,” said the hobgoblin, sounding bored as ever. “Of course, you know, so long as you’ve got me by my moniker, I’m yours to play like a cheap harmonicker.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Is my name ‘Evening Clothes’?” Chaphesmeeso asked.

  “No,” Clemency said.

  “Then you can’t wear it out. Just call me and I’ll pop up; I don’t have a choice in the matter. Though I might show up even if I did. Have a choice, that is.”

  They stood for a moment among the huge ancient trees, uncomfortable, unsure of what to say.

  “Oh, I saved something for you.” Chaphesmeeso pulled a round stickystone from his hat, the one Clemency had used to down Tinkasinge. “A little something to tie a forget-me-knot around. A souvenir of that time you killed Tinkasinge. Or that other time you killed Tinkasinge.”

  “Thanks.” Clemency took the rock. “I think these stickystones could be an important scientific discovery. I’m trying to think of what to call them. It’s like they’ve got a magic net that grabs metal—”

  “No, no, no,” said Chaphesmeeso. “The sticky stone’s just wrapping, scrap it. Look closer.”

  Clemency did. And there, stuck to the dark, dull surface, was a tiny sliver of gleaming silver. Tinkasinge’s wand.

  “The wand!”

  “Suretainly. That’s a powerful splinter, a direct translation between intention and fact.”

  “You mean magic?” Clemency stared. “Could I make magic with this?”

  The hobgoblin touched his nose and winked. “In dreams. Only imaginary creatures have intentions distilled enough to prove the imaginary real. So only as the imagined you in your own imagination can you imagine the imaginary true. Overstand?”

  “I don’t even understand,” said Clemency.

  “Put the wand under your pillow tonight before you sleep. Whatever you dream will wake up with you.”

  Clemency’s eyes widened, her mouth dropped slightly.

  “I?…My dreams will come true?” Clemency asked.

  Chaphesmeeso nodded.

  “What if I have a nightmare?”

  “You’re tough; you can handle it. Anyway, I ought to be off. Nobody likes a hobgoblin when he’s on.” Chaphesmeeso wiped the palms of his hands together. “That was good work today, Clemency.”

  He turned so his back was to Clemency, and leaned forward until the tip of his pointy hat touched the soft moss of the forest floor. He looked up at Clem from between his legs.

  He said, “Luck.” And then he dropped into the earth in a blur of motion.

  “Thank you, Chaphesmeeso,” said Clemency.

  Swish, swish, swish. Her burlap pantlegs rubbed against each other as she walked back to her home.

  That night Clemency began her story during dinner. It lasted through dessert and well after hot chocolate. Her parents listened, and applauded when it was over.

  Snuggled warmly in bed at the tale’s end, Clemency thought how nice it was to be home.

  Epilogue

  THE DEAD FAIRY’S WAND lay beneath her pillow.

  Clemency dreamed of a fat, happy little bumblebee that buzzed from flower to flower like Saint Nick on Christmas Eve. The insides of the flowers were soft and glowed in the midday sun. Pollen stuck to her fuzzy legs in great sweet yellow clumps. She could taste honey, and realized that it was not from having eaten a spoonful, it was simply the taste of her mouth.

  Down the road, whenever Clemency would think of this dream, she would hear a faint pop, and find herself looking through the sectioned black eyes of a fat, happy bumblebee. She wobbled slowly around through the air, from flower to flower, collecting pollen and tasting honey. She was a good bee.

  So I suppose that nothing is invariably bad. I hate to admit it, but there is always a potential for good in the world. I was wrong. Bee sympathizers will get a full refund.

  The End

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue