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My Dearest Miranda

My Dearest Miranda

By Jn Sharma Published 2 years ago 9 min read
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My Dearest Miranda
Photo by Jim Romero on Unsplash

I have to apologize for the contempt for not responding to your last letter immediately. I hope you will forgive me when I explain.

Living in an isolated rural house is often a test for anyone born and raised in urban life. I am still confused as to explain why Horace suddenly insisted on leaving the country to write poetry. For the most part, I adapted, but if I had known how bad the fey attack was each spring, well, no amount of pleading on Horace's side would have enticed me to move.

Such pests are easily handled in a sophisticated environment. Girls can get an occasional pixie in the house or an unusual brownie in the pantry during the worst of the year. One simply calls the local killer and never considers the matter.

Oh, if only it were that easy when someone was trying to get to the country. As soon as the weather started to warm up, we had pixies sitting in all the cupboards and a cupboard on the second floor. A bunch of them even sat between my underwear on my chest and underwear.

Horace spent more than an hour convincing Annie, a domestic worker who had brought him to town, to try to get them out of the linen closet. I have to admit, having the monsters yell at her and slap her on the arm was scary for a poor girl. He firmly refused to approach them until Horace took him to his classroom in one of his private conversations. After a while alone, he dropped dead. I don’t know what I would have done if he didn’t have so much ability to deal with the staff.

Once Horace had shown her way, Annie mastered the trick of grabbing a pixie by the ankle and throwing it into a bucket. He did the job with goodwill and everything went well for a while. I allowed myself to hope that the problem would be solved soon.

My hopes were dashed when one of them bit him. Dipping a pixie tooth into a person's arm is really painful, but I think the girl did that with a scream. He continued for a long time after Horace removed the bad thing from him.

That was the end of Annie's attempts to eliminate the pixie. I'm sure I saw the pixie sticking out her tongue when she refused to try again. Horace confirms what I was thinking.

The brownies in the lower part of the house were even worse. Cook was unconscious for the best two days. Finding brownies - or worse - leaving them in her pantry was more than a poor woman could bear. She cried more than once.

A box of flour, a tin of tea, allspice jars; everything was full of brownies. I did not know they ate too much. Cook absolutely refuses to sort out the pieces and pieces of brownies left behind. Despite the cost, I supported her decision to clean the kitchen when she went to Horace at the end of that horrible first day. One shudders to think of what he might miss even the most cautious eye.

Cook was working as hard as he could with limited resources. Keeping track of all the food scraps was a huge burden for him. Horace, a lovable man, volunteered to help her and spent a lot of time under the stairs. The food was somewhat delayed, but one could complain under the circumstances.

Cook's point came the second night during dinner. He placed the French onion soup in front of Horace and lifted the lid of the soup. Miranda, Cook's scream startled me so much that it made my heart beat faster. Floating brownie down between slices of melted cheese and onions was more than caring.

Cook ran away from the restaurant and I was sure he would pack up and go back to town. No civilized person could find fault with him for doing so. Luckily for us, Horace was able to persuade him to stay. Her beauty is active now and at times. One wonders if the huge salary increase and the secret time he spent with Horace in his research influenced his decision. One wonders...

I will not bother you with the story of the goblins in my petunia beds. You can imagine how devastating that must have been, though, of the world's tunnels and small dunes. It's horrible as it all sounds, I haven't told you the worst of the story.

There was a troll in the garden below.

Horace criticizes himself. When we first took over the house last fall he got a contract with some local staff to renovate the lower gardens. The buildings have been largely neglected and have grown tremendously.

One of the things the workers tried to fix was a small bridge across a stream that flowed through our garden into the neighboring area. I expressed my doubts when I first discovered the existence of this bridge, but Harold assured me that I would not be afraid.

She was not sanguine when the kitchen maid, Betsy, exited the kitchen garden at Cook. I don't think I've ever heard anyone scream like that. What about all the crying and fainting and going on, none of us had any idea what he was saying.

As usual, Horace took over. He needed a lot of time alone with Betsy to calm him down and get the whole story, but he persevered. That person has the patience of a saint.

The poor girl was returning home with a basket full of carrots. Betsy was just a short distance from the bridge when she saw a neighbor's cat, Wiggins, sitting on the planks playing with a dead pixie. He was about to cross a bridge when the troll pulled up, dragging Wiggins up and down his house.

Of course, by the time Horace was able to get the story out to Betsy, it was too late for poor Wiggins.

I asked to be the bearer of bad news, but Horace took up the sad task of reporting the matter to Wiggins. In fact, I was relieved to leave the task of telling him in his hands. Mrs. Evans and Horace have been sticking close to each other for months since we moved here. She is a lovely girl, who died at the age of twenty-five. Horace visits her and does small chores for her at least twice a week, a kind of thing that only a man can do.

When Horace returned home Widow Evans was still in her arms. I could not tell you who was most upset: Betsy after seeing this tragic event, Horace when she saw that it might be that the maid was eaten instead of a cat, or our neighbor by the sudden death of the beloved Wiggins. Both young women spent a long time crying on Horace's shoulder. The sounds from his study were very stressful.

Hopefully, I will never again see the popularity of such a trying night. A lovely man, Horace insisted on feeding him dinner before taking the widow Evans home and seeing her comfort. Several hours passed before his nerves became calm enough to tolerate being alone. Horace was so tired when he returned home that he called me good night and left immediately.

Right now I'm sure you're wondering how things ever got out of hand. Horace has contacted the local wizard when the first pixie appeared, yet the local man seems to have completely ignored the summons. Such tragic neglect of work is not uncommon in the city. I bet Mr. Quentin R. Foxglove, a licensed extermination agent, will not take a week off from any type of customer competition. Horace was forced to send several men to escort Mr. Foxglove to our door.

When he was forced to fulfill his obligation, he was able to evict the pixies and brownies from the house without much difficulty. After Mr. Foxglove uttered the traditional words and followed the usual signs of annoyance at the doors, the ugly little monsters could not move fast enough.

The troll was a different story. None of the spells Mr. Foxglove tried seemed to have no effect at all. Horace and I saw all the sad work. The man went through a whole series of failed spells, cast rituals, and control charms. At one point Mr. Foxglove became very frustrated, trying to shrink which went awry.

Horace's precious orchids are now a fond memory. Fortunately, none of the farmers were in the heat at the time.

The troll was sitting on a rock just below the bridge, scratching various bite sites and staring at Mr. Foxglove under his green eyebrows, apparently motionless and undisturbed by the witch's efforts. Horace says that Mr. The foxglove he kept muttering was something about disease-resistant strains. The man was clearly confused about what to do.

I'm sure you would not be surprised to learn that Horace came up with a solution to our problem. After careful consideration of the situation, he concluded that without the bridge, there would be no troll. He pointed this out to Mr. Foxglove. Horace then suggested that burning the bridge might be the most effective way to solve the problem.

One would think that a magician would be grateful for such a simple solution. One could be a mistake.

Mr. Foxglove needed several attempts before the bridge caught fire. Horace insists I'm wrong, but I'm sure I saw the cart shrug its shoulders before stepping back into the smoky spot under the bridge. The fire reduced the wood and the metal into fine ashes. There is no sign of that beast going anywhere.

Horace was very happy for him.

As you can imagine, it took me a few days to recover enough to be able to write to you. Supervising the virgins while placing the house in rights fell to me. Horace hid in his study to work on the poem of Widow Evans. "Ode To Stolen Moments" he calls it. He feels it is very little he can do to try to compensate for the loss of his beloved pet.

Horace has taken steps to ensure that this week's events are not repeated. He has brought deadly witches from the city to make sure that all the work is done properly in this regard. One of the killers, a healthy young woman named Felicity, is considering her request to stay here in the area to the fullest.

Personally, I was impressed by a tall, rope-bound witch named Jasper. The most talented young man I always say, Miranda.

Horace promised me that someone would stay before the harpy moved in the summer. I told Horace how wonderful it would be to have a young man like Jasper come and live in this place. I must say that he did not seem to be very interested in the idea.

But one will see. One will see.

I look forward to your next letter. I want to hear all the details of the spring fashion shows.

Until then I continue to be your loving sister,

Celia

Fable
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