Meeting the Mittles

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. It was this dim flickering candle that caught Lucy’s eye. She pulled her notebook from her pocket and checked to see if there were any campers in the area. No campers in the park at all this weekend. Lucy patted her gun, safely on her side. Feeling a tiny bit safer she headed toward the light.

It looked too small to be a campfire even as she got closer. Lucy had walked right up on the candle before realizing there was a cabin in front of her. Finding a stray cabin was normal in woods this size. Usually, rangers would come across shacks of different kinds used for temporary camping, but this was a decent sized cabin. She wondered how on earth she didn’t notice it sooner.

Lucy called out, and like she figured nobody answered. This was just a nicer abandoned place than she was used to seeing. She did find it odd that a candle was burning and there was nobody around. Perhaps they are scared or hurt she thought, so Lucy began searching for signs of life as well as yelling out every few minutes.

After an hour searching outside and looking in as much as she could from the window Lucy pushed the cabin door open. It seemed brighter inside than outside, which was weird since there was still only one candle burning in the window. The cabin was empty and that made it easy to search. Lucy still could not find anyone or a sign that someone else had been there recently.

It was much later than she had planned by the time she was done checking around the cabin. The darkness was serious on top of the mountain range. One wrong step and that would be it for her. As much as she didn’t want to sleep outside, she decided it was safer than trying to walk down at night. Lucy bundled herself up in her jacket and curled up in the corner of the cabin.

The trees were calm, and Lucy was happy. She loved hearing the wildlife, it was why she took this job to begin with. All the sounds Lucy had been hearing were normal up to this point, she knew that because she could name every sound. But in the last hour or so she could hear something strange. It almost sounded like someone walking with a cane while dragging something.

For the life of her she could not figure this sound out and it was steadily getting closer. There was no place for her to hide from an animal or another person, so she pulled her gun out. Shockingly, her gun did not make her feel any safer, but the sound of two things now moving around made her feel more terrified. Lucy gasped! The candle had just lit up.

Even with the candle lit Lucy could not see anything moving but she could still hear it. She was wondering if whatever it is knew she was there. Did it see her? Hear her gasp? Or worse, an animal tracking her? As all these thoughts race through her mind she sneezed.

“Bess u” the sound in the dark said. Lucy froze with fear. It wasn’t an animal. She was in real danger and scared. Still frozen with fear, Lucy heard, “It a big. No tink it broke. No go.”

Finally able to move her eyes down, Lucy was speechless. It was a person looking creature about three inches tall. “What...?” Lucy tried to ask but her words were lost to the sight before her.

As she starred in pure shock at the little person in front of her, she noticed another one come out from a crack in the wall. Soon there were two little people, both with large sacks in front of her. The second one looked at her and spoke. “I is Pine. He Pebb. We are Mittles, traders of the trees. U a big. Go go.”

Lucy took a breath and just went for what felt natural. “I am Lucy. I am a human. I can’t go.”

Angerly Pine said, “I trade. U go go. No trade if broke.”

“It is too dark for me to see my way down the mountain. I can go sit outside if that helps.” Lucy offered.

The Mittles whispered for a few long minutes. Pebb looked at her, “Ucy no go. Be rock in garden.” The confused look on her face must have been recognizable because Pebb followed up with, “Ucy no go. No move. No chatt. Be rock in garden.”

Lucy nodded and got ready to see new things. To say she saw new things is underrated. Lucy found a whole new world in the forest. Morning came fast and Lucy was sad. As she got ready to leave, she pulled a cotton ball and a safety pin from her pocket and placed them on the floor.

“Wait” cried the Mittles together. “Us?” they asked pointing to the items.

“Yes. I would like to come next week and trade with you. Is that alright?” she asked smiling.

“Trader Ucy of big, we trade after go go.” And with that they were gone. Disappeared through the wood, at least until next week when trading day came. Lucy started calling the cabin Mittles trading post and it was all thanks to candle.