Flash Fiction Friday: "Flashes of Inspiration" No. 20

Remember this prompt? The story I wrote for it comes in two parts...

#20 "Gybralltyr" (Part 2)

<<<< Read Part 1 First!!

In the middle of reading the letter I had found in the safety deposit box, something creaked, and my eyes detected movement in my periphery. I dropped Mom’s letter and stared hard at the place where something moved. The dusty lenses made the shadows swirl around. I took off the glasses and rubbed my eyes. The room instantly returned to normal. I shook my head.

“I must be hungry,” I muttered to myself, heading for the fridge of many casseroles. It was now well after dark, and I still hadn’t had dinner.

I picked one with a lot of cheese piled on top, but by the time I heated it and took my first bite, I tasted a confusing array of flavors that didn’t go well together at all. Maybe I wasn’t as good at identifying casseroles as I thought. I had hoped it would contain some kind of chicken, but I certainly didn’t taste anything remotely resembling meat! I shoveled in a few more bites, just to avoid going to bed on an empty stomach, washed it all down with water (which also tasted funny), and headed to my room, taking the contents of the safety deposit box with me. I left them on the dresser while I crawled into bed with Treasure Island. I slipped the glasses on my face and prepared to read myself to sleep.

Not two sentences in, and my eyes began skipping around the page. The words I read seemed to switch in order. I gave up after the third attempt to successfully read a single paragraph.

Skitter-skitter-skitter.

There it was again! I froze and stared hard at the wall in front of me. The trellis pattern on my wallpaper seemed to twist and unwind itself. I tried to blink my vision back to normal, but it kept warping and moving. What did the letter have to say about this? Was it another effect of the pixie dust?

I leaned over to my dresser to reach it. Just beyond the letter, my birth certificate lay on the dresser—and now it was glowing! It seemed to reflect the light of a moonbeam streaming right through my window. Why did this happen?

“Nyellagorbakuvanerrenmikonfannigalemotrewanigiddazimich-AAAAH!”

A high-pitched squeal nearly caused me to jump out of my pj’s, as a bright light flew straight at my face. The impact knocked the glasses off my nose, as I frantically swatted whatever it was away. I hated bugs.

As soon as the glasses dropped, the zooming light disappeared, though I could still hear that annoying whine. I glanced at my dresser. All was dark, and everything looked normal.

Well, almost.

I watched in terror as the letter from my Mom began moving of its own accord, lifting at the edge and shaking around. As I sat, clutching the bedsheets to my chest, my glasses floated up from my lap and hovered in front of my face! Breathless with fright, I grabbed my glasses and put them on my face, to keep them from floating away altogether.

Right in front of me, where the glasses had been, hovered a flying, glowing figure—a pixie! I screamed and swatted at it. My fingers connected with the tiny body—it was real!

The tiny creature zipped back and forth in crazy whorls and curlicues, gesturing wildly and still yammering on, but I could not figure out why it looked so bothered. It flew to hover over the birth certificate (which was glowing again), and it picked the thing up and made as if to fly away with it!

“Hey! That’s mine!” I yelled, leaping out of bed. My foot caught in the covers, and I flailed awkwardly. My finger caught on the edge of the paper and I felt it bite in deep. I got my balance and checked my hand. Blood smeared around a tiny paper cut on the ball of my finger.

At any rate, the pixie dropped the certificate and landed on it. I could see the red sheen on the edge that had cut me. Now that she landed, she wasn’t glowing, and her movements were less indistinct. She blathered at me in her strange language, pointing at the vial of dust and pointing at her head.

“What do you want?” I said, picking up the vial and opening it. “Do you want me to return the dust to you?” I tilted it over her head, ready to pour it.

She fluttered her wings and ducked out of the way, jabbering insensible again. She kept pointing from the vial to me. When at last she actually bounced against the vial and then buzzed around my ear, I made the connection: maybe putting the pixie dust in my ears would help me understand her language, just like I could read Mom’s letter through the dust on my glasses.

I tipped a bit of dust on my finger and swiped the insides of my ears with it.

Immediately, the jabber became clear.

“Mellapukkanagirinamal... Understand, your highness?” The pixie took off in erratic loops again. “TOO LATE!” she shrieked, and zoomed off to another corner. I tried to follow her path, but when I turned around, a stranger stood in the middle of my room.

“Greetings, Miss Nyella,” he rumbled in a cool, bass voice. His skin had a reddish tint to it, and the coal-black hair on his chin stuck straight out like a brush, while his sleek coif lay carefully styled against his head.

“Who are you?” I fumbled with the birth certificate in my hand.

He smiled with shiny yellow teeth. “Someone who’s waited a long time to meet the daughter of Lord Stevan and Lady Pierelle.” He gave an elegant, flourishing bow. “Malveleth, at your service.” He gestured a clawed hand toward the door of my bedroom. “This is my associate, Kessh.”

I followed his gesture, only to see a furry creature the size of an ottoman, with gigantic eyes and a tiny beak. It’s face almost looked like an owl, except that it sat on four clawed feet, not wings or talons. So that was the thing I saw displacing the shadows without my glasses!

“Yes,” Malveleth answered my mind as if I had remarked aloud. “I’m afraid Kessh needs more practice in the art of discretion. He can be too eager. Dreadfully sorry, we didn’t mean to frighten you!”

Kessh blinked his wide eyes and clacked his beak, but there was absolutely no part of me that wanted to reach out and pet him.

“Why are you here?” I asked Malveleth. “Where do you come from?”

The red-faced man tilted his head, regarding me with deep-black eyes. “Well,” he responded slowly, “we are from a place called Everrealm, and I guess you can say we are collectors, of sorts.”

“Collectors?” I glanced between them. “Does this have to do with the things my parents left me?” I glanced back at the coins, the vial, and the letter.

Malveleth grinned again. “Exactly! You see, those are things from Everrealm, and we have been commissioned to bring them back there.”

Instinctively I pulled back from him. Was it because he looked so freaky with his red skin and all-white suit? “You want to take this stuff?” I squeaked. “But it’s mine!”

Malveleth chuckled. “Oh, my dear, I realize you just picked up those things from the bank vault today, but honestly—what use do you have for these things?” He slid a few paces closer to me. “The pixie dust, you’ve already used; I can tell you right now that the gold is basically useless in your world. And that certificate you’re holding?” He waved his hand. “Well, what good is an official document from a place no one knows exists?”

The longer I listened, the more I felt uncomfortable in my own skin. “What will you do with them?”

Malveleth shrugged. “Personally, I have no use for them either. I will simply travel back to the Everrealm, deliver these things to my client, and you can go on and live the rest of your life completely as normal, free of worry or fear.”

What was I getting myself into? “And if I refuse?”

Behind me, Kessh warbled, halfway between a yowl and a chirrup.

Malveleth’s suave demeanor hardened a little. “Then we’ll just take you with us, all the same—and trust me, you won’t like it where we have to go.” He held out his hands, a debonair smolder perking his lips. “So, my dear Nyella, what do you choose? Your birthright, or your life?”

A piercing whine heralded the return of the pixie, and this time, she brought reinforcements. A whole swarm of pixies raced circles around my head, and I heard the voice from before screaming as she went. “Don’t trust Malveleth! Take the things and run!”

I stared at the red man, as Kessh unleashed an angry snarl and attacked the tiny creatures. I locked eyes with Malveleth and very deliberately snatched up the coins and the vial. When I reached for Mom’s letter, his hand slammed on it first, cracking the surface of my dresser.

“I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this,” he murmured. “But so be it.”

I smelled rotten eggs just before his hand burst into flame, igniting and consuming the paper, and spreading to the wooden dresser.

“NOO!” I screamed, jumping away as the entire bedroom wall burst into flames.

“This way, highness!” shrieked a pixie. They kept Kessh and Malveleth at bay as they guided me out of my blazing house and into my front yard.

A powerful whinny cut through the night. Right there at the curb stood a small, round carriage, pulled by two creatures that I thought were horses, but as I watched, each unfurled a pair of wide, grey wings.

“WHAT?” I hollered. Just how crazy was this night going to get?

Malveleth was calling, “Ny-elllll-la!” in a creepy singsong voice, but when I tried to open the carriage door, it wouldn’t budge.

The squat man holding the reins reached a gloved hand down. “That’ll be three gold pieces, luv,” he grunted.

I dug the coins out of my pocket and all but threw them at him. “Here!”

He took the coins, and the door popped open on its own. “Where shall I take you, lady?” croaked the man.

I knew it wasn’t Everrealm—but perhaps I could try the place mentioned by my birth certificate and the now-obsolete letter from my mother. “Take me to Gybralltyr!” I said, and the carriage closed and lifted away.

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Did you enjoy this story? See below for more "Flashes of Inspiration"!

BONUS FEATURE:

#10: "Avelyn's Masquerade"/ "The Stabbing" (with links to #1-#9) --> #11: "The Hallway" --> #12: "The Park" --> 

#13: "Vicious Little Predator/ "A Real Fixer-Upper" --> #14: "Four Little Words" -->  #15: "Gybralltyr" (*Linked above!) --> #16: "Nice Beds" --> #17: "The Legacy of Heroes" --> #18: "Angel in the Woods" --> #19: "I Am The Storm"