Mana Mirror: Chapter Fifty-Six (Patreon)

By the time we arrived home, we’d decided that it’d be best to just describe Dusk as a small folk spirit that I’d picked up and would take care of. It was… Mostly true, after all, and easier than going into the details.

I didn’t always agree with Ed on every decision, but I couldn’t deny – he was a good big brother for sure.

But when we entered the kitchen to meet Dad, I paused, my step stuttering. Dusk let out her rustling-leaves sound of curiosity, and Ed bumped into my back.

“What is it?” he asked.

I pointed to the top shelves of the kitchen. Dad had never used them, always saying that they were too far up to be reasonable. They’d lain barren as long as I could remember.

Or so I thought. Now, though, I could see another small village built inside the shelving, tiny houses, with small folk moving throughout.

Dusk let out a grass-whistle, and I stared at her.

“You want to eat them?” I asked.

She let out a burbling-creek, and I relaxed.

“You know, having something inside your astral space doesn’t mean that you ate them.”

They pouted and whacked the side of my head at that.

“Hey!” I protested, and they giggled. Ed giggled too, and so I elbowed his gut a little bit.

“Okay, but what IS it?” Ed asked.

“Do you not see the brownies?” I asked Ed.

“You can see them?” dad asked, emerging from the shop, dusting flour off his apron. “I admit, with neither of your legacies or manas being sight related, I didn’t… Oh, who’s this?”

“This is Dusk,” I said. “Say hello, Dusk!”

Dusk let out a mix of sounds that I couldn’t place and waved their hand.

“No wonder you can see the small folk,” dad said with a chuckle. “Is it your familiar?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” I said with a nod. She kind of was one, after all. We were linked, and she was a spirit. Besides, lots of mages just used the word familiar to describe a creature they were companions with, bound or otherwise.

“I still can’t see what you all can see,” Ed complained.

“Here, I’ll see if I can get you some brownie milk, and Malachi, I’ll introduce you to Siùcair.”

He got out some step stools for us both, and had Ed wait back inside the house itself. I couldn’t help but laugh at him, even if I did feel just a tiiiiinnnnnyyyyy bit bad for him.

As he got out the step stools, though, I had to ask.

“How’d you get to know the brownies? Dusk and the other small folk are helping me see them, but… You don’t have a vision legacy either, and you’re a first gate physical mage.”

“Your mother,” he said. “She had a way with the small folk. Found them in our first apartment together, and we brought them with us when we moved here. You said you got some more?”

“Yeah, just for the garden,” I said. “They shouldn’t interfere at all with our life or anything. Mostly they were just forest folk who wanted to see the city and stuff.”

My dad had always been laid back – to the point some called him hands off, and a few called him negligent – but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit nervous he’d object.

“Alright,” he said, shrugging. “Just so long as they don’t make a mess. They’re people too, though, not pets.”

“I know,” I said. “Thanks.”

He nodded, then stepped up, with me standing next to him.

“Siùcair!” he called. “Siùcair?”

A few moments later, an elderly old woman brownie stepped out of one of the houses, putting on some tiny spectacles and squinting at him. She smiled broadly.

“Oh, hello, Baker! And hello, little Baker! I see you’ve found yourself a mark by a pixie.”

“Yes ma’am,” I said, nodding. “I just wanted to introduce myself, and Dusk.”

Dusk made her babbling-creek sound and bowed her head, then hopped onto the counter and made several more nature sounds.

“Oh yes dear, very nice, very nice,” Siùcair said, patting her shoulder. Dusk wandered away to explore the village, the other small folk emerging from seemingly nowhere as she did, and I eyed her.

“I can grab her, and the others too, if they’re too much trouble,” I said.

“No, no, not at all. It’ll be good for us to get some socialization in. We mostly speak with the Cobbs down at Gulliver’s Shoe Emporium these days.”

"Oh," was all I could say in response. In truth, I didn't know WHAT to say, other than that.

"Elder," my father said. "I'd like to ask and see if you're willing to reveal yourself to my eldest son. Now that my youngest has told him, there's… Not much of a secret left."

The wrinkly old brownie looked at my father then let out a low, weary sigh.

"Oh, very well, I suppose that's fine. But I want an extra half-dozen eggs for the trouble."

Dad nodded his agreement, and extended a finger to shake the tiny brownie's hand.

"Bring him in, then," Siùcair said. I hopped off my stool and fetched Ed, who had to give a sample of mana to the small folk, then gazed in wonder at the village.

Then he turned on my dad.

"How long have you known they've been here?! Do they help in the bakery?"

"Oh yes, we do!" Siùcair said proudly. "We help restock the custards and creams late at night, usually while your dad prepares the doughs to rest."

Huh. I'd just always assumed that my father's experience, and his use of force hands, allowed him to prepare so much in one night. But with a small army of brownies…

"We do ask that you don't tell too many others about us," Siùcair said. "We like our privacy, and while meeting new people is nice, we're not the most chatty of folk."

"My lips are sealed, except among family," Ed said seriously.

"I promise," I said.

There was no twisting magic, like there had been with the pixie guardian, but Siùcair still nodded gravely.

"Thank you dears. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to have a rest…"

With that, she meandered back into her house, and I looked at Dad.

"I can't blame you for not saying anything, but it's still kind of hard to believe," I said. "Do you have any othe–"

I was interrupted by Dusk, who let out a cheerful babbling-creek sound and hopped onto my head, declaring she'd eaten some brownies, and left a pair of pixies.

"You didn't eat them," I reminded her. She burbled her disagreement, and I laughed, then looked back at my dad. "Do you have any other big secrets?"

"Not really," he said, shrugging. "None I can think of, at least. I think your grandpap and gramma may have a few, but his business is his own."

I stared at dad, suspicious of what exactly he'd meant by that statement. Of my grandparents, both on my father's side were gone – grandma from a malady of the mind, and grandpa from a heart condition.

But on my mother's side, I was fairly sure both were still alive. I'd only met my grandpap a few times – he'd moved all the way out to Aergarde when I was three, and it was a long trip to get out to visit.

My gramma I'd never met, but she was still alive, doing some sort of archeological dig somewhere in Elohi. She sent me and Ed cards each year for our birthdays, and for the Unlit Candle Feast, often with photos. But Elohi wasn't even on the same continent as Mossford, so getting out to see us was even harder.

Truthfully, I'd not thought much about either for a while – probably not since my birthday, when I'd last gotten a card. I'd been closer to my father's side of the family, since they'd been in Mossford.

"What sort of secrets do they have?" I asked, now curious.

"No idea," my father said with a shrug. "They divorced long before I met your mom. They just seemed the type to have secrets. Your gramma once mentioned a sixth gate relic she dug up for Elohi, for example, and that sort of power always has secrets. Come to think of it, she's probably where Ed got his telluric magic."

We chatted for a while longer, as Dusk pulled at my hair and tried to eat it, then she hopped over to my dad and opened her mouth, letting out a wind-whistle.

"She wants your mana," I said with a sigh. "I think it's what she eats."

Dad trickled some of his physical mana into her, and she let out a thankful burble before climbing back onto me.

We had a light dinner of a spinach and mushroom salad, tossed in a lemon-mustard vinaigrette, then I went out back with Dusk. She stared up into her namesake, pointing and burbling happily about it. I smiled and patted her head gently, then focused on the tree, moss, and carnations. A good start to a garden, but only a start.

When I focused on them, Dusk leapt off my shoulder and stared, entranced, then darted up and slapped the tree. The emperor's sapling vanished, and Dusk was off again, collecting the bag of leftover red clover, the carnations, the moss, and even some of my mom's old gardening tools.

With a thought, I summoned the portal to the astral space and entered. Planted along the river was the Emperor's Tree sapling, with the Pointer Moss growing along its northernmost part of the trunk, and somewhat spread through the soil. A bit further from the river, the carnations had been planted as well, and I could see the small folk getting to work with some of the wood and leftover materials that I'd purchased from when I'd initially planned for this to be a garden.

The small folk's number had swelled slightly with brownies, and Dusk studied them with an intensity that I didn't expect.

"What is it?" I asked her.

She let out a series of nature noises, layered and complex. Her meaning was hard to decipher, but I thought the gist of it was that she didn't understand how they were building their homes, so she wanted to watch in order to learn how to do it herself.

Idly, I wondered if that desire had come from the constructive properties of the key, or if her understanding was somehow a limitation on her ability to alter the space? Maybe it was a bit of both?

I headed over to the hamlet and sat down.

"Is there anything I can get for you all?" I asked to the hamlet at large

There was a cry of a half dozen voices at once, then they seemed to quickly organize, and a pixie floated up. This one was very androgynous, with green hair and blue wings.

"If we could get some cream and eggs, please," they said. "That'd be for the best, I think."

I agreed and left the astral plane, returning to leave them the ingredients they'd requested. Dusk played with the small folk for a while before she got bored and tired, and we headed up to bed.

As I took off my shirt, though, I noticed a spot of color on my arm. For a moment, I just thought it was my binder, since I'd picked a slightly more colorful one today, but it was definitely on my arm. I twisted, looking fully in the mirror to examine it.

It was in the same spot as the mark that the pixie had given me, so I assumed that was what it had to be. It resembled an emerald swallowtail butterfly, and the green along its wings shimmered and glowed ever so slightly in the dark.

I rotated my arm, examining it. I'd wanted a tattoo for a while, and while this wasn't exactly what I'd had in mind, it did look nice.

That opened an entire line of discussion on magical tattoos, like Qwin's, but it was already getting late, so I crawled into bed. Dusk spent the night curled on a pillow, like a tiny kitten.