LITTLE THINGS - Chapter 3 (Patreon)

Mr. Wood stepped inside his home and shut the door behind him. He closed all his windows and drew his curtains shut. Then, as an afterthought, he doused every candle as quickly as he could. Soon, the only light in his home was the sliver of fading sunlight under his front door.

It wasn’t dark enough. He could still see it as though it was an inch from his face.

“Please, please please please,” he mumbled to the empty air. “I know it’s slow, but there’s only so much I can do.”

The darkness took on a red tinge. A dim light, just barely enough to define the edges of the room, shone from somewhere Mr. Wood couldn’t see. He started sweating.

“I promised! I promised I’d help, we all did! You aren’t giving us enough time--”

It was so, so hot.

“No, I’m sorry! Please! There’s still more I can do! I promise, you won’t face any resistance when you attack, I just--I just need more time! Please!”

The heat diminished, but did not vanish entirely.

“Yes! Thank you! I, I promise! When the time comes, you’ll face minimal--no, I mean, no resistance at all!”

Mr. Wood’s eyes watered, like smoke was billowing in his eyes. Then the heat faded entirely and the red light went with it. The house felt freezing in comparison.

Like a puppet with its strings cut, Mr. Wood fell to the floor with a gasp. He curled into a ball and took the time he needed to compose himself.

Ten minutes later, and he was calm and composed once more. He stood on shaky legs and cradled his head in one hand.

“Think, man, think. How can I get all the soldiers away from the wall? Oh, I need to think of something…”

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Amy stared at the goblin in shock. The goblin stared at her in surprise.

He was wearing gray garments sewn together from random scraps; they looked less like they were gray on purpose and more like whatever color they had once been had faded over time. Over that the goblin wore a hooded mantle made of fur from some unidentifiable animal. It was impossible to tell if it was brown naturally or if it was just that dirty. A simple rope belt held up his pants.

As she took it in, bloodshot yellow eyes did the same to her. After what felt like a couple minutes of staring at each other, it slowly took another bite of the spud in its hand.

“Gk!” Amy said, pointing at it. “Goblin!”

The goblin pointed back at her. “Elf!”

He eyed the knife in her hands, still covered in drying blood from the rabbit. Him looking at it reminded her she had it. She took a step forward.

The goblin threw what was left of the potato at her head and charged at her while she was reacting to that. She swiped with the knife, more out of panic than conscious decision, only for the goblin to catch her hand. It tried to force the knife out of her hand, starting a tug-of-war that had them knocking against the shelves of the pantry.

They hit the wall and a jar of jam fell down onto the little monster’s head, knocking him to the ground. But his grip was like iron and he brought her down with him. The goblin was barely half Amy’s size, but he was heavier than his wiry frame suggested and, and stronger too.

“Give!”

“No! Let go!”

“Need it!”

“I need it!”

“Stupid little elf! Give!”

“Get your own.”

“Trying!”

Amelia rolled, bringing leg up to pin the goblin between her knee and floor. He struggled, and in a surprising feat of flexibility he brought his feet up to grip her waist and push her off of himself.

“I’m not letting you have a weapon!”

“Bloody thief!”

Amy gaped at him. “I’m the thief? You’re the one stealing our food!”

“You stole my arrow! I needed that!”

“I didn’t steal anythi--” Amy blinked. “Wait, what?”

She remembered why that weird arrow had bothered her. The way it was cobbled together was just like how Mr. Fletcher told her goblins did with all their stuff. Chicken feather, poorly-carved stick, and scavenged arrowhead because they couldn’t work metal on their own.

“That was yours?!”

“Yeah.” He gave one more massive tug and finally successfully pulled it from her grasp.

Amelia backed away, back to the wall and ready to flee through the door the instant it made a move. But she had to ask. “I didn’t steal it, I found it under a bush!”

“Yeah. Put it there,” the goblin growled.

“Why would you put it under a random bush in the middle of the woods?”

“So no one finds it,” he said, talking like she was slow.

She wasn’t going to take that from a goblin. “Well, good job, that definitely worked out.”

He growled. “I need it!”

“What’s so important about a crappy arrow?”

The goblin opened its mouth, but she interrupted it.

“Actually, how did you get here? The town is full of soldiers, there’s no way you got through town!”

Now he really did look like he thought she was stupid. “You’s on the edge of the village. Went around.” He looked at the knife in his hand, testing the weight. “Not hard to find. You’s scent is weird. Stupid elf and stupid human both at once.”

…Something was off. Amelia had never seen a goblin before today outside of picture books, but nothing she had heard about them said they were this talkative. Before she could ask, though, a terrified squeak drew both their attentions to the hole in the wall, where Jaunt had climbed down from his nest and was now freaking out.

The door to the pantry opened and Amelia’s dad walked in with a frown. “Jaunt, you know you’re not supposed to be in here--” He saw the goblin and froze.

The exchange from a few minutes ago repeated itself, with the two of them staring at each other.

Against an adult, however, the goblin was a lot less confident. When Dad blinked, it grabbed the bag of potatoes by the neck and swung it around to throw into the man’s chest.

Her dad jumped over the bag, banging into another shelf and sending another jar tumbling. This one didn’t have a handy skull to break its fall and shattered against the ground, and the smell of pickled garlic filled the room.

The goblin ran out the hole, tripping over the squirrel. But he rolled to his feet without losing momentum and sprinted for safety.

Dad moved to the hole in the wall, unslinging his bow and nocking an arrow, letting it fly in less than a second. Amy struggled to see over his shoulder, but the goblin managed to duck. His hood got pinned to the tree, but he slipped out of it and vanished into the shadows, leaving the fur behind.

They waited a moment, to see if anything happened. Goblins never went anywhere alone. But apparently this one did, because no retaliatory warband charged towards the house and no sling stones pelted the roof. He was gone.

Dad let out a breath and scooped his squirrel off the ground. “I thought I told you to keep an eye out, Jaunty.”

Jaunt made an incredulous sound.

“I don’t know, how did you miss it?”

“Dad?” Amelia asked faintly.

“Yes, Amelia dear,” he answered immediately, giving her his complete attention. “Are you hurt? Did it scratch you? Goblins are filthy, if it broke skin we need to get you to a healer right away, Rosie should still be awake at this hour…” He went on and on, checking her over and making concerned noises over forming bruises from her tussle.

Amy, for her part, was a little dazed, not sure of what all just happened. But she managed to latch on to one concrete fact.

“That little jerk stole my knife.”

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They sat down after that and Amelia explained about the arrow she found.

Dad grimaced. “Goblins. I hate goblins. Awful creatures.” He rolled the arrow in question between his fingers. “Look at this thing. I bet it couldn’t even fly straight.”

“What are we going to do?” Amy asked, concerned.

Llew thought for a second, then stood and grabbed a chair to prop it under the pantry door. “First, I’m going to bar the door here. I’ll need to fix that wall soon. Next, I’m going to go tomorrow to tell Gerry that there might be a goblin camp forming near the border.”

“A whole camp? But it was just one?”

“There’s never just one, Amelia,” he dad insisted. “It’s like rats. Where there’s one, there’s probably a dozen you can’t see.”

“Shouldn’t you tell someone now?” she asked. “Goblins are dangerous, aren’t they?”

Llew snorted. “One goblin isn’t. And even a camp isn’t that bad for a handful of soldiers. But a camp can become a stronghold. They need to be picked off before they take root.”

That stung a little. She was struggling with that single goblin. “...Then why wait tomorrow?” she asked again.

He rustled her hair. “If you think I’m leaving you alone tonight after that little scare, you’ve got another thing coming. It’ll hold until morning.”

A knot of tension she hadn’t properly been aware of eased at that. “Thanks, Dad.”

“Of course, dear. C’mon.” He took a pot down from the kitchen cabinet. “It’s late, but we still need dinner. What are you feeling?”

Amy hummed. “Not potatoes.”