“What the hell have you done?! You’ve destroyed my home!”, the squeaky voice yelped. Niall was frozen. He was looking around for where this odd little voice was coming from. He could hear it. It definitely seemed like the words were directed at him. But he just couldn’t place where it was coming from. Each way he turned he just saw lavender, trees and the thick mystical fog that seemed to circle them. His eyes darted from point to point as he tried desperately to find where to direct his apology.
“Hey! Down here. Look at your feet”, the voice called to him again. He did as instructed and, unbelievably, at his feet was a very small, very angry person. The chains, prisoners, gods, magic, Donn in general and everything else so far had been bizarre, but this may have been the strangest thing so far. At his feet, was a tiny, bearded, red faced, furious little man. He was the closest thing to a leprechaun that Niall had ever seen. His hat and jacket were almost patchwork in design, his tiny brogues were polished to the point that the brown on them shone as much as their gold patterned patches, and he was clearly well fed. Behind the anger at Niall, there was mischief in his eyes, in an endearing way. He seemed like someone that was always fun to be around but could get you in a lot of trouble with some of his antics, if you were around him for long enough. His size and light-hearted attire made it difficult for Niall to take him seriously. He looked like something that would appear on a cereal box or in a kids TV show and would be labelled as ‘definitely not a leprechaun’ for a joke.
“Are you even listening to me? Did you hear what I just said?”, the little man said. Niall had clearly zoned out while the creature was talking to him. “You have to rebuild my home now. That’s the law. You can’t just go around stepping on people’s houses, it’s just plain rude!”
“The law?”, Niall asked. “What law? And where is your home? I can’t see it anywhere.” He looked around for this house that he had, supposedly, destroyed and was now supposed to rebuild but couldn’t find it anywhere.
“Lift your chos, you langer”, the small man begrudgingly prompted. Niall did as he was told and lifted his foot, not appreciating the insult that went with it. Under his foot was a squished pile of sticks that looked pretty similar to the rest of the ground in the forest around them.
“I still don’t see anything. Are you messing with me?” Niall asked.
“The reason you can’t see it is because YOU crushed it! This is is it! This flat pile of sticks is all that’s left of my house! AND IT’S YOUR FAULT!” Berating was the only word for this. The small man was berating Niall now. “Look, I’ll show you.” He waved his hands in a circular motion around one another. Sparks leapt from his palms as he did so and some of the sticks in the pile started to move. ‘Great, more magic”, Niall thought. Transparent phantom sticks, twigs and detritus rose from the ground with the same sparks emanating from the sticks and debris. The phantom materials rose into the shape of a structure. Sticks and twigs were stacked and crossed with clay and soil to make a solid looking little house. It reminded Niall of the wattle and daub that he learned about in history class when they were studying the Neolithic period of the Stone Age. It was pretty cool to be seeing that type of structure being built right before his eyes, albeit magically, instead of just going to a heritage site and seeing a recreation of one. The little house that formed actually looked pretty cozy to live in, as long as you were about 6 inches tall. Then, the trees started looking like they were getting taller, quickly. Soon, Niall was face to face with the tiny man who’s house he had just crushed. He looked at the little man in disbelief. Niall thought that this shouldn’t be too surprising by this point, but it still was. Nothing that had happened had physically changed him, until now, but now something had, and it terrified him. He could feel his body changing through whatever spell this tiny man was casting on him and he didn’t like it. This made it all feel real. It wasn’t a dream anymore, this was really happening to him, he could feel it. There was no one around here to make him feel safe, like Brigid or Lugh, even Donn seemed okay if not just a bit quiet and odd.
“Come in here and look at what you ruined on me,” the now not so tiny man said, beckoning Niall into the phantasmic house while he held the door open. “Get a good look at what you’re going to have to rebuild for me.”
Niall went inside and was amazed at what he saw. This house must’ve have had the same innards as Mary Poppins’ handbag because it seemed to go on forever inside. There were hallways and rooms that couldn’t possibly have fit into the miniature building he had been looking at only a minute ago. The front room he walked into was simple, just a rocking chair with some kind of hide blanket on it and table in front of it, a stove with a kettle boiling, a fireplace in the back of the room and a small wooden dresser. However, looking through to the rest of the house, Niall saw halls and rooms that went in all sorts of directions, like some kind of mansion.
“Why don’t you just rebuild this with the magic you’re using?” Niall asked.
The man looked condescendingly at him and replied, “son, if I could just build a house with magic, don’t you think I would’ve made it bigger and a bit more visible to ludramans like you? This is a vision of my house, not the real thing. I can use magic on the inside but not the outside of the house.”
“Hmm, I-I suppose you’re right. So, how am I supposed to rebuild all of this? I don’t have any magic”, he admitted.
“I don’t know Niall Óg and, quite frankly, that’s not my problem”, the man said, lighting a pipe in his mouth while slotted into his rocking chair.
By Owen Coyne
Taken to the Corner 