Prisma Glitterdust's Arc

Chapter 5 of 9

The pool had worked too well. Prisma stood at the schoolroom door and watched a gray cloud hang over the still water. Gnats. Thousands of them. They had multiplied all week, and now they drifted off the pool and into the room. Her six students swatted the air. The small troll rubbed her eyes. Two others slapped at their necks and gave up on the lesson entirely. No one could sit still to learn. Prosma clapped for attention. A gnat flew into her mouth. She coughed and lost the room. Mossback slept by the pool through all of it. Mushrooms rose and fell on his broad back. He judged a good night by how much new growth he found, and the gnats never woke him. "Mossback." Prisma shook his shoulder. "The gnats are ruining my lessons. We made too much still water." He opened one eye. "Water's fine." "It is not fine. My students can't think." "Drain it and the kittens leave." He shut the eye. "No pool, no lessons. You wanted the pool." "I wanted kittens, not a swarm." Her voice rose. "You sleep while my school falls apart." "I sleep because the water's good." He rolled over, careful of the mushrooms. "Move the swarm. Don't kill the water." Prosma stopped. Move the swarm. She looked at the gnats, then at the open windows. The gnats gathered where the water sat. If she moved the water, the gnats would follow. She grabbed a wide clay bowl from her kitchen. She filled it from the pool and carried it, dripping, to the far window. She set it on the sill, half outside, half in. Then she pinched dead gnats from the frosting of her old cakes and dropped them in the bowl. Bait. The swarm did not move. Prisma waited. Her students watched, still swatting. Mossback grunted from the floor. "Gnats like the dark. Shade it." Prosma draped a cloth over the bowl. The gnats found the shade. Slowly the cloud thinned near the pool and thickened at the window. Within an hour most of the swarm hovered over the bowl, half in the sunlight, ready to drift out. Then came the flutter. Not kittens. A cluster of tiny striped pups swept through the window, fat and fuzzy, wings buzzing like small bells. They dove at the gnats over the bowl and ate them in the air. The children forgot their itching and pointed. "Sit still," Prisma said quickly. "Stillness. Hands open." Six trolls went quiet. A striped pup landed on the small troll's palm and licked her thumb. She did not cry out. She held her breath and smiled. Prosma looked at Mossback. He watched the pool, calm and undrained. "The water stays," she said. "Told you." He shut his eyes. The schoolroom was still again. But the bait bowl needed feeding, and Prisma did not yet know what she would do when the pups grew bored.