Blueberry Shroomy's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

The lamp burned low by the back step. Blueberry Shroomy sat with her knees pulled up and the empty jar between her feet. The night was cold. She had not slept the night before, or the one before that. Her eyes stung. She pressed her thumbs against them and made herself count the rows she could see in the lamplight. One. Two. Three. The dragging did not come. That was worse. It meant the creature was waiting for her to fail. She stood and walked a slow circle around the blue cap of her cottage. The salt-ash line at the front door was clean and thin. The shuttered window was nailed tight. The back step had nothing across it but her lamp and her body. She sat back down. Her chin dropped once. She jerked upright and slapped her own cheek. Something moved in the rows. Not a drag this time. A small, quick rustle, low to the ground. She lifted the lamp. A round shape stepped out between two bushes on stubby legs. A berry with leaves for a crown and a thin brown stem for a leg. It blinked up at her with wet dark eyes and made a soft chirp. She did not move. It was not the thing that had bruised her berries. It was too small, too bright, too alive. It waddled to the edge of her lamp's ring and sat down in the dirt as if it had come to keep her company. It chirped again and pointed one tiny leaf toward the dark row behind it. Blueberry Shroomy turned her head. The evil sprite was already on the step. It had come around the side of the house while she watched the sprout. Deep blue skin, yellow eyes, a mouth full of small teeth. It stood on the wood plank inches from her lamp. No salt-ash between them. It had won the step. She did not scream. She reached into her lap and lifted the empty clay jar. She swung it hard. The jar struck the sprite across the face and shattered. The creature shrieked and fell backward off the step into the dirt. The sprout chirped and stamped its little leg. Blueberry Shroomy grabbed the lamp and threw it. Oil splashed across the sprite's chest and caught. The creature rolled, howled, and bolted into the rows, a small fire running low through her bushes. She stood in the dark. Two blueberry bushes were burning. The sprout tugged at her hem with a leaf. She ran for the water barrel. By the time she beat the fire out with a wet sack, four rows were scorched black. The sprite was gone. The sprout sat by the back step where she had sat, watching her, waiting. She had kept the creature out of her house. She had lost part of her field to do it.