The Tinkler

Upon a moonless twilight, in a land that never was, a hunched figure crawled through the undergrowth. His eyes caught on a spark in the branches as he scanned the boughs. In the dusk, the best time for tinkling, it takes a while for the day–eyes to adjust. A good tinkler knows that.

He says it to himself sometimes. "Good tinkler knows that."

When the Cumpance is on the prowl, his eyes dart that bit faster, searching the trees with a panic.

"Good tinkler knows that," he muttered. "Got to watch for the sparks. Tinklers know that, they do."

Tonight would be alright. Balmy summer eve. All the tinkles rested on the branches. None of them in the air. That's what would get you in to trouble. When you start seeing sparks in the air, that's when the trouble starts. Never know how the trouble might end once it's started.

The mantra of his years soothed his disquiet as he climbed the limbs of a particularly knobbly fruit tree.

"Good place to look for tinkles in the summer", he reminded himself. "Find yourself a lot of tinkles nesting with apples, you do."

He chuckled, amused by the memory from his boyhood. His mind switched sharply back to the task at hand as he remembered who had told him that. Probably one of the last things his father had said before the Cumpance.

The branch he rested on swayed with his weight. He heard the faint sound of miniature bells, jingling with the motion. The slumber of tinkles in an apple tree is easily disturbed by a tinkler whose tree climbing is haphazard. Not willing to risk it, he jumped from his perch. His bare feet hit the dewy ground and carried him at a run. No apple trees tonight. "Might be good for tinklers, but not worth my tail!" he grimaced between breaths, as he tried to shake the image of his father's body from his mind. "Plums is best. Plums makes them sleepy. Got to wait until the plums have fallen though."

A lifetime's collection of titbits and tales swam through his mind. Some said that the tinkles eat the plums. Some said that they preferred the bruised fruit that lay scattered beneath the shade of the trees. Some said that it made the tinkles sleepy, and the sparks stay in their nests. He knew all these things, as a tradesman knows his tools.

Some said the tinkles talked, but that was just bollocks.

This one would be good. The strange fruit squelched underfoot as he approached. The sweet smell of rotten fruit filled his nostrils. He hefted himself up, scrambling, trying desperately not to shake the tinkles awake. He thought of his son, tinkling on summer evenings, the youth bounding up oaks and ash.

"Getting too old for this." He grumbled. He opened the small sack tied to his belt. "Easier with the boy. He ain't got the knowledge that I got, but I ain't got the legs that he got." He thought again of his son. "His tinkling days is over" he sniffed, not allowing his melancholy to distract him from his precarious position.

He reached out, spreading his weight along the length of the branch, hooking an arm around the rough bark, holding on to the sack with the tips of his fingers. With his other hand, he carefully rustled through the nest. His rough fingers, peeled back the leaves to reveal the spark inside.

The sun had cast its last shadow, but there was still a while before starlight filled the night. The sensible birds were settled. Only the closing calls of the blackbirds pierced the half–light. He might not even need his lamp tonight.

"Still time" he thought. "Might even be time to get two."

Counting your tinkles, as it was known, was a dangerous habit. Stopped the concentration. Led to accidents even. Might get sparks flying, then you'd be in trouble.

Worry buzzed with the night insects in their chorus. His creeping fingers reached in to the nest and picked the tinkle from its stalk. He heard the tell–tale pop, and saw the tinkle's light effervesce briefly before fading. The tinkle would be safely in his bag by the time the light returned, and he'd be quite safe from sparks. He held it between the two longest fingers of his outstretched hand ready to drop it in the sack held open between his palm and the branch.

He'd seen a million tinkles in his time. He wasn't quite sure what a million was, but he'd heard that it was a lot, and assumed that he was old enough to have done a million of something. Being a tinkler, it was only logical that he'd seen a million tinkles. As a youth, when his bones and his back were supple, he'd been fascinated by them. He'd chased them in the fields until they strayed too far from the safety of the village and danced on the edge of the forest. Back then, he'd heeded the warnings about the forest. Now here he was, deep in their lands, stealing them from their beds.

Dangling, dimly lit, this tinkle was no different to any other. A flaxen hue played across its skin, and he could just about make out its little body, wrapped in the translucent shroud of its wings. Summer tinkles were warm to the touch. He loved the smell of the pollen they left on his hands, though it was folly to sniff your hands after handling a tinkle. The dust was worth something too.

His calloused fingers were huge and rugged next to the tiny creature they pinched. He felt a sadness, as he often did, before plunging the tinkle in to his bag. He remembered the stories his father used to tell. Stories from the forest. Stories that the old folk used to tell his father and his grandfather before him. Stories of monsters and witches. Stories of knights who did battle under the light of the blue moon.

He edged back along the branch, once more scanning the canopy for sparks. Always worth checking to see if there was another tinkle in sight. There was probably time for another tonight, but only if it was close by. Always worth checking to see if sparks were flying.

He shifts his weight to balance over the middle of the tree. He dusts his fingers, scraping the last in to the bag. The smell brings a glimpse of his youth: of strawberries, his wife when she was young, the look in her eyes the first time they made love, and the leftover heat of the day radiating from the cobbles as they'd walked home afterward. It was so vivid, just for that moment, that it felt as though he'd been back there. It felt as though he'd lived a million summers, however many a million was.

As soon as it had come, it was gone again. He returned to the dark, shivering slightly. The memory of warmth had left him cold.

"One in the bag." He mutters aloud to himself. Almost as if it had heard him, he felt the tinkle wriggle slightly as he started to tie the knots that would secure it to his belt.

The sun had passed behind the hills and sunk far blow the horizon. The pressed heavy upon him by the time he reached the edge of the forest. Lights in the windows lit the wispy smoke, rising from the hearths below. One of those wisps would be coming from his hearth and, as he trudged homeward, his thoughts were on dinner.

He felt the tinkle in his sack, making the sound that gave it its name. If the little ones were awake when he got home, they would say that they could hear its tiny cries coming from inside, and he would tell them terrible tales of his battles with the Cumpance. It would frighten them witless. He stopped his stories of monsters and peril only when his wife threatened to feed his dinner to the pigs if he didn't hurry up and eat it.

The girl, the eldest now, had already developed her mother's sensibilities, and seemed immune from tales that used to make her hide behind skirts and shriek, half with fear, half with delight, as her father regaled her, and acted the parts of the demons he described. The youngest, a mere babe, had watched the others for long enough to know the act when their father returned from tinkling, even if he did not yet know the script. He was most insistent that he could hear the tinkle speaking, though the others just played along to humour him. He pleaded with his father to set it free. He cried when the others laughed at him and said that tinkles were far too valuable, not to mention dangerous, just to let go.

The cottage was still when he creaked the door open. Surrounded by his family, safe again in his home, the tinkler's heart glowed. He felt the press of his loved ones' bodies more keenly as he bade them a goodnight. The last of the embers seemed somehow more brilliant when he rustled the poker amongst them for the final time before taking the candle to bed. Though he rarely remembered his dreams when he awoke, that night, they would be filled with the bounty of summer, the tinkling of bells, and the playful voices of the tinkles he had not heard since he was young.