Prompted Fiction

#18 - Sugar Plum (Week 7 No.1)

The carved, wooden box was heavy in my hands, and I looked up at Uncle Andrew curiously.

"It's a present, Lottie," he said, tucking his hands back into the pockets of his oversize wool coat. "Not for Christmas, though. For your birthday."

"My birthday was back in October!"

"I know, I know, and I'm sorry I missed it. Your mother let me know that she was furious, sparing no regard for the fact that I was still in the Carpathians, researching revenant folklore, and -"

My mother held up a hand. "Stop digging that hole, Andrew. You haven't hit bottom yet."

Uncle Andrew looked sheepish. 'You're my very favourite sister, you do know that, Anneliese?" He said.

"I'm your only sister," My mother pointed out. I giggled.

They were clearly on the verge of one of their usual sibling "debates", so I took my little box and did my best to disappear. Specifically, I made my way up to my bedroom and shut the door.

I sat cross-legged on the bed and turned the box over in my hands. It wasn't like anything I'd seen before. It was definitely old, and it was definitely wood. The carvings on it were cool. Really cool, actually. The lid and all four sides each had their own scene, while the bottom was plain, smooth wood. On the front, a knight with a lance facing off against a fat mouse with a rapier. On the left and right sides were snowy, winter scenes of a well-treed countryside. The lid was carved to show a quiet, old-fashioned scene, somebody's living room with a fireplace and comfy chairs. The best scene, oddly, was the one on the back; this one showed two armies, mice and toy soldiers, facing off with cannons and bayonets. They were shown just moments from engaging, glaring at each other fiercely. Just at the base of this picture, where it didn't interfere with the image, there was a round hole lined in brass, from which a brass handle protruded.

I took the handle, and found that it turned. There was a little bit of resistance, and the creaking noise of a spring being wound. I figured this was one of those music boxes that had a little model ballerina that danced when you opened the lid. I turned the box back the way it was supposed to face, and lifted the lid.

As the lid came up, there was an explosion of bright, pinkish light, at the same moment as the room filled with music. It wasn't the tiny, tinny noise I'd expect from a little music box. Instead, the music had the expansive, eerie glee of an insane carnival. By the time the light began to fade, I had dropped the box and kicked it to the end of the bed.

As the light faded it coalesced, into a single pink-gold sphere, the colours flowing and running across its surface like drowned watercolour paints. It floated, bobbing slightly, directly over the open box. While I stared, the sphere tightened, tightened, and then winked out. In its place, a tiny humanoid figure hovered. She was fat woman, swathed in gold cloth, delicate as cobwebs. She had a pile of sliver-white hair and a very pink, smooth face. She held a dainty, gold baton, no larger than toothpick, in her left hand.

In a voice like a thousand, tiny, discordant bells, she asked, "And who are you?"

I admit that I didn't answer right away. I was too busy staring.

"Who," she repeated, her voice somehow dark despite its high pitch, "are you?"

"Lottie," I said.

"Is that your real name?"

"Yes! Well, it's short for Charlotte, but -"

"Charlotte? Not Marie or Clara?"

"No, no, it's Charlotte, really!"

The small woman floated closer to me, using no noticeable means of propulsion. I pulled back, but she made it to within centimetres of my nose before she stopped. She stared into my eyes for a long time, but not long enough for me to decide what colour her eyes were. The colour was alternately warm and cold, changeable as water.