Quirk: Read Outside the Lines

Spritely Seasons

Lonely winter trees called to the sprites. The oaks, ashes, maples, and even a few distant conifers missed the action of autumn and yearned for company. The trees were morose since most animals hibernated or absconded for the southern climate. Not to mention how grumpy the beech trees had become at the long stretch of low temperatures. 

The sprites assembled, their voices gusty wind chimes and sang silken songs so old the language had been forgotten, but the tunes remained universal. After the trees shook their limbs in a show of satisfaction, the sprites moved on, plucking some dead leaves from the saplings too young to discard them on their own.

"It's so sad when they lose their shine," the first sprite said. Pine needles had been threaded through the dark curls that flowed beyond gossamer wings and down her back. She didn't notice the cold, impervious to the changes of the seasons.

The second sprite wore pine cone scales as a dress. "I hope this little guy makes it until the spring. He's very sad about the long winter."

"We'll come more often and keep him company," said a third sprite who bounced off a log, somersaulting into the air. "But I'm bored."

"We could poke the hibernating bear." She pulled a pine needle out of her hair and mimicked poking the bear.

"He's too grumpy." The third sprite, now bored with somersaults, started to dive-bomb the others.

"How about the squirrel that lives above the lake? She always has treats," said the second sprite.

The first sprite put the needle back in her hair and pulled another curling, brown leaf off a small tree. "Remember we stole some last week, and she's mad at us."

Then they heard it.

The third sprite looked aghast. "It's that human thing again and her beast."

"She's not so bad," said the first.

"And the beast is fun to play with," added the second. "She never destroys anything, unlike the others who come here."

"Still."

"Still."

"Still."

"Let's have some fun," said the third.

"We could make a prediction."

"Or a promise."

The woman was distracted by the song swirling between the trees. When the leash went taut in her hand as she led the dog, she pulled back in surprise. A small black and white mutt strained, sniffing the downed branch at the edge of the trail where bare trees crowded together in small thickets. Dead leaves clung onto the stem like a drowning swimmer to an overturned vessel.

The woods sprites ducked out of reach of the large creature, not afraid but cautious of being exposed.

A woman, whose brown hair had faded to the color of the sky before the rain, pulled the dog back onto the straight and narrow. Today she had risen early and joined the trail before the last vestige of night had been pulled back like a curtain. Now morning celebrated in pastels. Unless rain or snow turned the heavens steel or slate, early mornings bled gentle colors.

The loop through the woods waited for her today, like yesterday and the day before.

The diminutive sprites followed. Their twiggy appendages blended like the courtly praying mantis as wings shuttled them from rock to tree.

"So much hurly-burly." The diminutive sprite adjusted some of her pine cone scales.

"Something needs to be done," said the first of the three sprites, liquid blue eyes determined.