Bad wishes

Due to an unfortunate typo, wherever he went his pockets were always full of changes.

The poor and dispossessed, the unlucky and unloved followed in his wake, hoping for a boon, a miracle, a sunny day, while the wealthy, the happy and the beautiful stayed well away, left town for the weekend, locked their doors and fastened the chains.

-Spare us some changes guv’nor
asked the homeless as he passed by, and he always obliged.
-Ey guv’nor, why so sad?
-Because I can never be melancholy for long.

And he walked on, for never could he tread the same streets twice.

Sleeping in Rowan trees

I remember the night Sleepwalks-With-Elk came to my tent and whispered to me to dress quietly and bring a blanket.

I heard crunchings and gruntings and glimpsed the silhouette of a large, hunched shape in front of the campfire, before Sleepwalks hurried me along.

I won’t easily forget that night.

In the morning when we clambered down from our trees, aching and stiff with cold, everything was just as we had left it: nothing to suggest what had happened. We broke camp, and continued our search minus one member of our party.

There was no need for a burial.

Jeremy

Jeremy had never been a tidy child, never the sort to clean up after himself unasked, never the sort to do so without complaint.

This time he had excelled himself.

She followed the trail of floury footprints -ground into the plush carpet and scattered over the hearthstones- to the kitchen. He sat amidst a scene of dripping gloopy carnage.

“I made it for you mama”

Ping

Carefully removing the contents of the oven, he turned it out onto a cooling rack.

It was beautiful. She drank in the moist chocolate aroma.

Underneath the domed surface, smooth but beautifully cracked, something moved.