author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Notes from the author:

The first writing prompt for this piece was “aromatic horseshoe,” another random phrase courtesy of Watchout4Snakes. Things could have gotten very scatalogical (as in, what did the horse step in to make its shoe so stinky?) if it weren’t accompanied by The Moon, the tarot card indicating mysticism, instinct, dreams, and nightmares. Among other things.

The two Tarot decks I typically have closest to hand are Rider-Waite and Vertigo. I’ve come to think of them as the Puritan and the Pagan decks, respectively. Consider The Moon. Waite’s Pictorial Key to the Tarot gives it the divinatory meaning of “hidden enemies, danger, calumny, darkness, terror, deception, occult forces, error.” Error, no doubt, because “the card represents life of the imagination apart from life of the spirit.” The dog and wolf are our fearful animal natures, and the lobster crawling ashore is “the nameless and hideous tendency which is lower than the savage beast.” Contrast with Rachel Pollack’s more generous interpretation of “instinct, wildness, whatever is mysterious or primal” (though she still attributes to the lobster a “disturbing energy”). The road through the Moon’s realm is frightening, unknown, inaccessible to pure intellect, potentially dangerous, a road to tread with caution--but not necessarily a road into evil or in error.

The horseshoe well and truly stank. It stank like a young and badly balanced compost pile. It stank like a three-day corpse. It stank like the Devil’s own outhouse. It stank.

“Nodwick,” said the witch, “what on the good green earth or under it have you done to this horseshoe?”

“Nasty iron.” The brownie grimaced. “Nodwick fix!”

“‘Fix’? Fix how?” The witch had a terrifying thought: “It is still iron, isn’t it? Tell me you didn’t somehow make it not iron.”

The brownie rubbed its hands together as though to cleanse them of some taint. It had very small palms, and very, very long fingers. “Still iron,” it said firmly. “Hurt less now.”

The witch sighed. The brownie meant the horseshoe was now “fixed” so that one of its kind could touch it without pain. Well, and it had been a little cruel of her to set Nodwick to fetching her a piece of true iron, especially one forged into this shape. But she’d needed it, and she hadn’t nearly enough time to fetch it herself. Tide would turn too soon. Besides, she’d been interested to see how Nodwick would manage. Apparently it had created some invisible barrier between the iron and its own Otherish flesh. Invisible, but not, sadly, unsmellable.

And, worse, whatever Nodwick had done to the iron, it would protect more than just its own brownie self. “I need the iron to hurt just as much as it can, Nodwick dear. Not all of your kind are as amiable as you, nor as respectful toward the treaty between our people. You must get me another horseshoe, just as quick as you can--”

“No, no! This one good.” Nodwick took the witch’s hand and tugged on it. The brownie reminded her of a dog she’d once known, a big sheep-herder who’d had the alarming habit of grabbing children’s hands in a gummy, no-nonsense grip when he wanted something. “This one good iron. You wash. You see.”

The witch reclaimed her hand with another put-upon sigh. She handed the abused piece of equine footwear back to the brownie. “I don’t have time, Nodwick.” Or the expertise, she thought, but didn’t say so aloud. “I need you to wash it while I make the final preparations. Don’t give me that look,” she said, seeing the brownie’s eyes widen in horror. “Use the tongs, the ones with the wooden handles, and the rubber scrub-brush. When you’re done, when you’ve got the horseshoe back to normal, meet me at the shore. You know the place.” The brownie nodded at this, then scampered off across the yard. She called after it, “And next time I send you to fetch me a thing, make any necessary alterations to yourself, not to it, you hear? There’s such a thing as gloves!”

The place they would meet was known as Wendstone Beach, between the Crown Pier and the Lesser Pier. The village was also named Wendstone, or at least so it was labeled on the maps. But no one who did not need a map to find it called it that. To them, inhabitants of the village or of those nearby, it was Two Moon Harbor, after the second moon that shone down upon them at irregular intervals....

This has been an excerpt from the Friday Fictionette for February 19, 2016. Subscribers can download the full-length fictionette (1095 words) from Patreon in PDF or MP3 format depending on their pledge tier.

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