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the seedhead, the spider, and the ogre

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Sure, she’d gone to seed. It happens. Still, she began to feel a little used, pulled in different directions by the weight of his web. She never signed up for helping him catch his prey. She liked bugs – they pollinated her for goodness sake! The day he decided to move into her seedhead without permission she put her foot down. Well, her metaphorical foot. More of a root, really.

It may have been overkill, but she called in a favor from the local ogre. He obliged by crashing through the undergrowth, colliding with the web, and carrying it away, stuck to his hairy ogre arm.

The spider peeked out from where he napped in the seedhead, grumbling. He should have taken the hint, but he was a bit thick, even for a spider, so he cast out a sticky thread and let the wind carry it where it willed.

The ogre, watching all of this and grinding his teeth in frustration, thundered back, plucked the seedhead from the stalk and shook the spider out. Terrified, the spider ran away. The ogre grinned and turned to his friend, realizing too late he had picked her and now she was gone.

“Oh,” he said. He felt bad but ogres don’t dwell on such things. After all, she’d be back next spring.

 

 

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the enchantment of the fireweed cloak

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“Winter will arrive sooner than you know,” said the old queen with a sniff. “I have no desire to be cold. I hear you are the tailor of the warmest cloaks in all the land.”

The bespectacled little man nodded, too afraid to speak.

“I want your warmest cloak, and I want it tomorrow.”

“I’m afraid that isn’t possible, you grace. You see, my cloaks, they aren’t the usual kind. They’re bewitched by the elves who help me to make them. They will only be as warm as the wearer’s need, and you, my grace, have no need. ‘Tis best reserved for the poorest of peasants, for I am afraid you will freeze.” He cringed and waited to be hauled off to some dingy dungeon.

“Nonsense! You will make me a cloak at once. I command it.”

The little man nodded with sorrow and returned to his shop. With the help of his elves he collected the wool of fireweed seeds and washed it in dewdrops. They carded it on the back of an obliging porcupine, and had it spun by spiders in exchange for a cozy corner in the workshop over winter. As the little man slept the elves wove it into a lengthy cloak of shimmering snow.

“Fit for a queen, but made for a pauper.” With a heavy heart he delivered the cloak to the queen.

The lady commended its workmanship, admired the richness and the softness of the cloth, and paid him well for his efforts. Still he returned to his home with his head hanging low. It did the queen little good to admire her fancy cloak, come winter the conditions of the cloak’s enchantment would hold sway.

Sure enough, as winter snows began to blow, she shivered in her beautiful cloak, but her vanity would not allow her to wear another. There were fires to be warmed by, and spiced wine for drinking, after all. Until, of course, her carriage lost a wheel one dark, cold night, and she waited for rescue alone with her pride as the coachmen went ahead for help.

The bespectacled little man hung his head and cried as he heard that the queen had frozen to death in the night, and her sons now fought for her crown.

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the birth of the Spaghetti Yeti

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The toymaker stitched his face before anything else. “It’s easier this way,” she says. “The toy can have some say how she or he turns out, so I get fewer complaints from the finished beasties.”

In the corner a one-eyed stuffie grumbled about the size of his belly. “Doesn’t matter how little I eat, she’s stuffed me too full!”

“See?” she asks me, and turns back to her monster-in-progress.

“I’m the Spaghetti Yeti!” the monster says, as soon as she’s finished sewing the two misshapen teeth onto his mouth.

“Pleased to meet you,” she says to the Spaghetti Yeti, and they lower their voices, discussing important life decisions like fabric selection and how many arms he would like to have.

“Wool, three, and I’d like to belong to a little boy named Clifford,” he says.

“Can you make all that happen?” I ask the toymaker.

“Oh, it’s not so hard,” she says with a wink. “I was a fairy godmother before I retired, and I conveniently forgot to turn in my wand. Happens more often than you’d think.”

“Then why not use it to fix ME!” grumbled the one-eyed stuffie with the belly.

The toymaker rolled her eyes. “Terrible manners, just terrible.”

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the guild of forbidden fables

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She is the guardian of this forest. She carries its stories in her belly where she will not forget them. Ask her of the tree who walked away, the stream that went to college, and the ogre who wove a cloak of fireweed wool. She will bring them up for you.

Run screaming in fear of her slithering scales and you’ll be none the richer for her stories. Show her disrespect and she’ll introduce you to her fangs. Tell her stories, on the other hand, and she’ll invite you to join her guild of forbidden fables, of which she claims to be treasurer. To enter the secret libraries of the guild, you must first step through her unhinged jaw and descend a spiral staircase deep into her belly. Be prepared, for she will be offended if you hesitate.

You will be rewarded for your bravery. Within you’ll find all the stories never told. The stories have grown lonely to be read within this secret place. They will spoil any reader with mugs of hot, delicious drinks, comfy pillows, and rainy windows to ease their reading. Take heed, for you may never wish to leave again.

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the terrible infestation of a unicorn’s horn

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He left the solitude of his cliff-side home to attend a family reunion against his better judgement. Unicorns are solitary by nature not just because they are introverts at heart, but because meeting in groups can be dangerous. Why, there were germs, viruses, poachers, and narwhals on the hunt for replacement horns to think about!

A week after the reunion his worst fears came true: an infestation of horn-eating beetles. They burrowed into his alicorn, carving out homes, laying eggs, and tickling him in places impossible to scratch! Legend has it the only way to cure such an infestation is to stab a virgin through the heart, but that just sounded rather medieval, foolish, and messy to him.

Still, he tried all the other silly-sounding remedies: ogre snot, troll spittle, and even dragon urine. Then he found a shaman and asked for help. The shaman smudged him with sage thrice a day for a week and soon the beetles moved on.

His alicorn still bore the signs of an abandoned beetle village and the caverns they left behind made an eerie, mournful hum as the wind blew through them. Soon rumors that his cliff was haunted spread throughout the land. The mailman grew too afraid to deliver the unicorn’s mail and he never had to worry about family reunions again.

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the long-lost friends we find in dreams

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Deep in her dreaming, she found the forest she once knew as a child. The pixies who told her stories, the goblins that played hide-and-go-seek in the gullies, even the mean old witch who lived in the hollow tree – they were all still there.

“Of course we’re still here,” said the pixies. “This is our home. You’re the one who left!”

“You abandoned us for your growing up, didn’t you?” The witch’s voice still sounded as hoarse and bitter as she remembered. “Didn’t you ever realize that growing up and friends like us are not mutually exclusive?”

She sat down on a fallen tree as the realization washed over her. “I never did.”

“At least you’re here now,” said the goblins, hugging her knees. “We’ve missed you so.”

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how does a witch get revenge on a wizard?

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She adjusted her hat and cloak, shooing away a slug who wanted a nibble. It was not the first time that lazy, no-account wizard she called a husband turned her to fungus to avoid losing an argument. In fact, she should probably be thankful he didn’t turn her into his own toenail fungus this time. Ugh, the memory still made her shudder.

She whispered a few rhymes and turned back into her usual form – short, squat, and rather dumpy. The epitome of attractiveness for someone in her third century. Her nose had lost its customary wart, but she could pick up a new one in town later. Or not. It gave her an idea for her revenge.

She crept up on her husband, tapped him with her wand, and turned him into a hairy wart she stuck on the end of her nose. Then she spent hours sniffing skunk cabbage, just to drive his allergies wild.

As for him, he passed the time planning his counter-revenge, and pretended not to have a small glow of pride and love for her cunning. After all, this is what he married her for. Romance might last a century or two, but pranks are forever.

 

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beasts of the shore

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The beasts fall into shadow in the distance, biding their time till the fog returns and they can rise from their slumber. The wait is never long.

A foghorn sounds in the distance as the first tendrils of fog smudge the horizon. The beasts blink sleep from their eyes and watch as the mist cloaks them in its shroud. One by one they vanish.

Then, and only then, do they rise from their beds and march into the water, scouring the ocean floor for treasure and bits of salted seaweed. Their bellies full, they lounge upon the currents, tugging at riptides, and tickling stray whales.

The fog hovers along the shore, waiting for them grow tired and return to their beds. When all are asleep it rolls out once more, leaving the land as it was.

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the goblin feast that wrecked a career or three

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Before him lay the finest sort of goblin feast: a pocketful of chanterelles in a bed of sweetfern. He drooled with delight, but he hesitated. It could be a trap. After all, who left feasts just sitting around, waiting for random goblins?

His stomach rumbled its displeasure. “Quiet, you.” He peeked under every leaf, checked beneath every stone, and even looked behind the farthest tree. Nothing and no one. He slurped up his drool. Well, maybe just one tiny nibble on the smallest of the chanterelles…

On the other side of a state-of-the-art, suspended blind, a grad student put his face in his hands. “No one’s ever going to believe this.”

A second one groaned. “Our careers are over.”

“Mom was right, I should’ve been a writer,” said a third. “Maybe there’s still time.”

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the enchanted pathway of a stymied hermit

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The hermit didn’t like visitors. What hermit does? Yet still they trooped to his house, knocking on his door and disturbing his solitude. Would you like to buy some cookies? Have you seen my lost dog? What’s that dragon doing on your doorstep? Argh! Why couldn’t they just leave him alone?

In the end he hired a sorceress to help him. He paid her with a dozen shed snake skins, a half-pound of spider webbing, and the husk of a shriveled potato. In return for these treasures, she bewitched the path which led to his house. Anyone who traveled upon it would be led into an eerie mist and wind up at their own doorstep instead.

However, it didn’t work out quite as well as the hermit hoped. The enchantment also worked on him, so that every time he stepped onto the path to venture out, he wound up back at his doorstep. This went on for about a month. He pulled at his hair and hollered for the sorceress, but she couldn’t hear him and she wouldn’t have been able to reach him if she did.

At last he realized he could just leave his house another way and avoid all that trouble. Of course, he soon trampled another path and the occasional straggler made their way to his door…