Stabbed 3x for punctuation

  It is early morning as mist gathers in the hollow places where stone meets thyme. Fresh dew clings to the rosemary, beading on its needle-thin leaves like tears not yet offered a handkerchief. A spiderweb stretches between two wooden stakes near the front of the cottage, silvered with moisture, unmoved by the slight breeze that has started to roll in. There is a hush to this morning, not silence, but a sacred kind of quiet. The kind that settles before a story begins, or just after someone says, “there, that’s enough.”

  Eileen settles into it like an old chair long used, already shaped to her weight. She lowers herself onto a flat stone that leans ever so slightly to the left, a stone she has decided never to move, though she thinks Audry probably could, given enough time to grow. Around her, half-swallowed by thyme and soil, a circle of other stones forms a loose ring, irregular and easy to miss if you’re in a hurry, which is never really a problem for Eileen.

  She closes her eyes, not tightly. Just enough to remind the world that she’s choosing not to look for a while. “Let’s just sit,” she says to the children seated beside her, her voice soft as steam off cider. “It’s important, every morning, to take a few minutes for yourself. Some see it as reflection, some for focus, and some just to be here. Though the real goal, my dear, is completely up to either of you.”

  Fenn lies in the thyme, half-curled, his tail flicking in the lazy rhythm of a creature not asleep, but not quite awake either. One ear twists toward Eileen whenever she murmurs, the other toward the edge of the garden. The rest of his body is utterly still, the kind of stillness that feels old. Not born of discipline, but of place. Like a fox-shaped stone that remembers how to breathe.

  A little ways off, Audry and Ollan try to mimic Eileen the best they can. Audry manages to sit cross-legged with her chin tucked down, but she fidgets with a knotted bit of string hidden in the open space between her legs. Ollan tries harder, eyes clenched shut, hands gripping his knees, humming something under his breath without realizing it. The same tune Eileen hummed yesterday when she pulled them from the well.

  The wind lifts now, gentle and thin. It brushes through mint leaves and hums through the dried beans hanging from the eaves. Eileen breathes in and smiles. The scent is part lemon, part loam, with a bit of morning earth and damp wood mixed in. Her ribs creak gently as she inhales.

  Eileen would never call this meditating. She would laugh at the idea. “I’m too old to empty my mind,” she once told her old friend Ed. “But I can let it rest for a bit.” She thinks of nothing and everything at once. Her thoughts scatter like seeds... of Daniel, the old laundry pole, and whether the bees liked the extra rosemary she planted this year. Slowly, the thoughts begin to drift less so that she can hold a single one instead. And the air begins to shift as such.

  The wind flickers, like heat rising from a stove or the glint of sugar in tea. Tiny motes respond a moment later, mostly white and barely visible, drifting between the dew-laden leaves of rosemary. They do not glow, exactly, but shimmer. They pay no mind to Eileen.

  Audry sees one first. Her eyes open as if she sensed the change before she knew she had. A single mote flutters just beyond her knees. She leans closer, drawn by the rhythm of her hands still working the hidden knot. She stills, not from fear, but awe. The mote pauses, then rises higher, as if listening.

  “They’re watching,” she whispers, not sure who she means to tell. “They’re... really small,” she adds, like it surprises her to say it out loud.

  Ollan opens his eyes and sees two. One is blue, the other white, twirling around the handle of the watering can like dancers. He reaches out, almost touching one, then pulls back. Instead, he opens the top of the can like Eileen showed him once. The blue mote bobing in what feels like approval, and he giggles.

  Fenn does not open his eyes at the sound, but his ears twitch slightly. The wind around him moves differently. It does not disturb the mist, only parts it gently, as if something invisible is making space just for him.

  Eileen continues in her singular thought as if nothing is happening at all. Breathing in. Breathing out. She repeats the rhythm ten more times before she speaks the thought aloud.

  Something stirs in her, low and bright. A warmth beneath the sternum. The kind of feeling that comes right before dough begins to rise. Expectant and sacred in the most ordinary of ways.

  “May we let this moment be ours, and no one else’s.”

  The goblin children nod, solemn in the way only the very young or the very tired can be. Fenn gives a small yip and rolls to his side with a grunt, then trots off toward the porch. His tail is held high like a flag, signaling the return to ordinary time.

  Eileen stands slowly, brushing her palms on her clothing. She has no intention of rushing. First light food, then necessary chores. For productive mornings always had a rhythm to them and today would be no exception.

  The children walk beside her, bare feet soft on the garden path. The stones are warm in some places and damp in others. Ollan hops once to avoid a slug, saying nothing. Audry trails just behind, twisting the edge of her sleeve. Her eyes still half-full of the motes that came to visit during their not 'Meditation'.

  Until Audry's thoughts turn to desert from last night, out loud she says, “Sugar cookies are better than oatmeal,” as if she has been thinking it the whole way.

  Ollan answers without hesitation, like he has been thinking something similar. “You’re wrong.”

  “Am not. They’re soft and sweet and normal.”

  “Oatmeal cookies are stronger. They’re, like... real cookies.”

  “They taste like paper.”

  “They do not. They’ve got raisins. And cinnamon. And all the stuff on the shelves.”

  Audry wrinkles her nose. “That’s why they’re gross. Too much stuff in them.”

  “That’s why they’re good for you. They have a job.”

  “They’re supposed to be cookies, not soup.”

  Eileen unlatches the front door. She says nothing, but she does smile a little. The kind of smile people give to summer storms that only last five minutes.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Inside, the hearth puffs to life with their presence. Audry washes her hands, muttering. Ollan climbs onto a stool and keeps arguing. “Sugar cookies fall apart. You bite them and they’re just gone.”

  “They taste like someone forgot what cookies are,” Audry replies, flicking water at him with her fingers.

  Ollan flinches, dramatic, though none of the water hits. “You said raisin cookies are the best. That’s the worst one.”

  Audry gasps, one hand on her chest. “Raisin cookies are fancy. They’re for grown-ups.”

  Eileen has been letting the storm run its course while folding a towel. Finally she steps in, voice calm and crisp like the snap of a fresh bedsheet. “Who wants a sandwich?”

  Both children raise their hands at once, still dripping. Eileen gives them a look that says everything, something that only grandmother can pull off.

  She kneels with a soft creak of her knees and dries their hands with the towel she just folded. She smooths their fingers, checks under claws, murmuring to herself, “No crumbs or dirt under there, you both should be very proud.” Ollan pretends not to enjoy it. Audry leans into it like a cat.

  Then Eileen rises and opens the little fridge with a kind of gentle ceremony. “Now,” she says, “you may pick what you’d like on it. But remember. Sandwiches are like spells. The wrong combination can turn on you.”

  Ollan squints into the cold light. “Can I do jam and pickles?”

  “You can and I’ll help you make it,” Eileen replies. “But you will have to eat it.”

  Audry is already pointing. “Cheese please. The soft one. Not the weird crumbly one that smells like, that well.”

  Together they build their sandwiches with chaotic precision. Audry layers butter, jam, and a single olive on one slice “for drama.” The other slice gets greens and three kinds of cheese, stacked like an offering. Eileen smiles at both of them, a glow registering on her face.

  Her own sandwich though is simple and fast, of the same inspiration as the children. Apple slices, a soft smear of mustard, and a pinch of rosemary from the pot by the window. They eat at the long bench, legs swinging, mouths full. The only sounds are chewing and the occasional thoughtful “hmm.”

  A yellow mote drifts through the open window and circles above them once, slow as a blessing. Eileen doesn’t notice. But the children do. They follow it with their eyes as it hovers over the jam jar, touching it briefly before then slipping away into the rafters.

  When the last crumb has been brushed from knees and the broom has done its work, Eileen says softly, “Alright. Let’s get to the chores, and then we’ll go to the lake as a fun trip.”

  Audry doesn’t ask what to do. She just picks up the tin of buttons from the low shelf by the window as the other two depart the cottage. It is where Eileen keeps her thread and old spools and scraps that smell faintly of cedar and thyme. She doesn’t know why she wants to sort them. She only knows that it feels like something that ought to be done, and so she does it.

  She tips the tin out onto a shallow tray and lets the buttons scatter. They clatter softly, like rain on old wood, and the sound makes her shoulders drop just a little. She decides to start with color.

  Two red, five blue and a handful of cloudy whites that look like fog. Those call to her more than the others, so she begins lining them up in rows. But the rows feel too stiff, like something a grown-up might ask for. She frowns and gently pushes the lines away. Then she tries again, letting the shape be a spiral instead. That feels better, like something unfolding in nature instead of being measured.

  She places one big button in the middle. Bone-colored, with a chipped edge. A little ugly, if she’s being honest. But she’s been told that about herself before, and she didn’t like it. So she’s certain she won’t let this button get trapped in that kind of story. It belongs in the center, not hidden and she thinks Eileen too would approve of that.

  The rest follow in curves. Loose, then tighter, then loose again. Her fingers move without thinking. She hums softly, not Eileen’s tune exactly, but something near it. Something familiarly adjacent, like remembering a dream you didn’t know you had.

  A flicker catches her eye. A reflection on one of the larger buttons into the ceiling above. She tilts her head to get a better angle on the reflection but does not look up for she feels that to do so would be rude. What she finds in the reflection are motes gathered up there, hovering in stillness. A dozen of them, blue and white, with one brown nestled gently among them in the center. They are quiet, but they are watching.

  Audry decides to just pretends not to notice, while secretly keeping an eye on them. She keeps moving buttons, touching some, flicking others, her eyes shift now and then, just enough to track the way the motes respond. Some hover directly above certain buttons. Others drift away when she moves one they seemed to like. She tries to figure out the rules; Color? Shape? Texture? She cannot tell. The motes aren’t playing a game and if they are the rules are far to complex for her. Rather it feels like they are sensing something that she cannot yet.

  Eventually through trial and error her hand pauses over a small green button. Smooth, flat, with a dull matte finish. The brown mote twitches. Then bobs. Then twitches again. When she lifts the button, it practically jumps.

  She grins, just a little. “My, you’re picky,” she whispers to the button which she brings closer to her lips like a secret.

  Above her, the other motes twirl once in unison, slow and quiet. Then they scatter upward toward the rafters and vanish. Not in a flash, more like a breath released after holding still for a long time.

  Audry sits back and looks at the spiral. It is uneven, some of the buttons are tilted, others have faded thread still clinging to holes. But it feels finished in a way that surprises her. It’s strange how familiar the spiral feels, even if its form is not quite perfect. It feels like the symbol is a thing, a real thing, not just a collection of buttons.

  Inspired she pockets the green button for later, she had a feeling someone could use it.

  Ollan finds himself in front of the watering can mainly because it’s heavy.

  Not heavy like a sword or a rock, but heavy in the way that tells you you're doing a hard job, even if no one told you what that job is. The kind of heavy that feels like it matters or maybe that you matter simply because of how heavy the things is.

  Unfortunately for the garden, due to its weight, he drags it across the ground, half-full and sloshing, the handle gripped in both hands. It bumps into things as he moves, clipping rocks and brushing stems. Once it nudges the edge of a garden bed and he murmurs an apology, quiet and sincere.

  He decides to start with the mint. He loves the scent of it for all of the twenty four hours he's known about Mint. To him it smells like waking up with friends nearby. Like clean pillows and cold air or Eileen’s voice just outside the room he sleeps in. “Alright,” he whispers, crouching low. “You get one drink. Please don’t be greedy.”

  The water glugs out in a crooked arc. Some of it lands on the leaves. Some in the dirt. Some miss the plant entirely. He watches the splash, shrugs, and decides it still counts. It’s all part of the process he thinks maybe heavy jobs don't require care.

  He moves to the next plant and tries again, then again, working his way along the row in slow, clumsy rhythm. He is just about to tip the can a little farther when something flickers into his view. A single blue mote floating slow and lazy, just above the spout.

  It bobs once, then lingers, as if watching his aim. “I don’t mind if you watch,” he tells it sincerly. “I get better every time.”

  He pours again, more carefully this time. The arc is smoother, almost perfect. He narrows his eyes and looks at the mote. “You’re helping?”

  The mote shivers, a soft shimmer in the air, as if it’s laughing but doesn’t want to be heard. The water stops right on time and Ollan sits back on his heels, satisfied with the trade. He wipes his hands on the front of his shirt, then looks around. The plant he just watered does seem a little taller. The scent in the air is sharper too, greener, cleaner. His knees are soaked through, but that’s alright. Eileen probably has more clothes and towels for him somewhere.

  “You’re welcome,” he says, not to the mote, but to the plant. The blue mote hovers a moment longer, then dips once towards the watering can, slow and small like a nod, before then disappearing into the watering can.