Sonja Nitschke

Anyway, despite the embarrassment, I think there’s a certain amount of honesty in posting the old drafts as I go along making notes of what needs to be changed in order to work. So below the cut is part 2:

“Well, give it back. Please.”

The little grey thing rolled its large white, almost bulbous eyes towards the ceiling, nibbled its finger, and paused for precisely fifteen seconds. “No can do. It’d go against my morals, immorals rather. Actually, amorals would be more correct, since we aren’t really bothered with the whole good vs. evil quandary.”

“We?” asked Nikki, distantly wishing she had a strong mug of coffee in her hands right now. Two teaspoons of sugar and plenty of cream, thank you.

“You know, us gremlins.” The gremlin swung on a small red wire to Nikki’s knee, and bowed so low that its nose tickled her skin. She noticed that the gremlin had a thin tail that curled a little at the tip.

“Us gremlins,” she repeated. Weren’t they some sort of folk lore invention? Precisely meaning that they did not exist. She wondered if she was going into hysterics again, and then thought that her wondering must be proof she wasn’t. She held out her hand, and it hopped into her palm.

“A gaggle of geese, a murder of crows, a kidnapping of gremlins.” It grinned.

“But, I’ve never seen any of you before,” Nikki said.

“Well, duh.” It rolled its eyes. “That would destroy the point.”

“The point?”

The gremlin, however, didn’t deem to elaborate. “After all the stories disappeared, it’s been a mite dull,” it said. “So I thought I’d take a jaunt to the computer, as it was also feeling rather lonely.”

“What do you know about the books?” Nikki asked.

“Aren’t you going to introduce yourself?” the gremlin asked, rather severely Nikki thought.

“What?’

“Well, I believe our exchange of words has sufficiently evolved to become a Conversation. I really despise not knowing to whom I am talking. I know that you’re a human, of course,” it went on, waving its hand in dismissal, “but that’s such a vague and nebulous term.” It looked at her expectantly and propped its chin in its hands.

“Oh, I’m Nikki. I thought you’d know that if you’ve been here.”

It snorted. “As if I’d pay attention to such details. I’m Jubrin.”

“Pleased to meet you. Now about this Story disappearing business?”

“Oh that, well I can assure you that we gremlins had nothing whatsoever to do with it.”

“Would that be against your amorals?” Nikki asked.

Jubrin shrugged. “Not really. We just happen to have a great fondness for stories so we would really have no reason to do something so preposterous and outrageous.”

“Well, could you please give the net back so that I can check to see if there’s anything to be done about it all.”

“Why?” asked Jubrin.

“Because!”

“Well, it hasn’t happened before.”

Nikki pursed her lips at him, in a remarkable resemblance to Gretta. “How do you know?”

The gremlin shrugged. “I’m immortal.”

“Oh.” Nikki deflated.

“However,” said Jubrin, “He might know something about it.”

“Who’s he?” she asked.

“Capital H, love. And He’s in the basement.”

Nikki frowned. “But we don’t have a basement.”

Jubrin grinned again, showing its pointed teeth. “Of course you do. All libraries have a basement. Just, sometimes, they don’t know it.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” said Nikki, secretly thinking the gremlin was quite nutty. Possibly of the hazelnut variety, for it was a very sweet thing besides its rather unsettling teeth.

“Good, that is quite plausibly the wisest thing you’ll ever do.”

It scurried up her shoulder as she stood to her feet and said, “So where’s this basement of yours?”

“In the Science Fiction section, by the ladies’ lavatories,” said Jubrin.

The bookshelves that had once been towers of colour and text stood pale and bland, staring as she passed with empty eyes. Nikki shivered and walked faster until she reached the door that said Women’s in white text with a stick figure in a triangle underneath it, and beneath that a jumble of raised dots. Beside that door, was another door. It was a little smaller, and made of several planks of wood. It had a gold polished handle which Nikki was sure made the plain silver toned handle of the restroom’s pale with envy.

“I don’t recall that ever being here before,” said Nikki slowly.

“Of course not,” said Jubrin. “It’s not as if it has a sign that jumps up and down shouting, ‘Hey look at me look at meeee! I go down to the Very Dark and Mysterious Basement of Dooooooooom!”

The gremlin’s naturally high pitched voice strangled a little as he tried to lower it to the appropriate baritone quality of dread and, quite possibly, lurking danger.

“Is it really quite dangerous?” asked Nikki, not quite sure she wanted to turn the door handle.

“I haven’t the faintest,” Jubrin said. “Go on, try it. It should be unlocked, I don’t see a key hole, do you?”

Nikki sighed and touched the handle. It was pleasantly warm, like a cup after it had been filled with freshly brewed coffee. Or hot chocolate on a winter’s day, with a peppermint stick in it.

She turned the handle and saw a winding silver staircase that slithered down into murky darkness.

Jubrin tugged her ear lobe. “Well, go on.” And then it flicked her neck with its tail. It stung a little, just enough to be uncomfortable, but not to hurt really.

“Very funny,” she said, rubbing the spot with her fingers.

“Really? I hadn’t thought so.”

Nikki rolled her eyes, wondering if the gremlin was too small to understand the concept of sarcasm. The steps of the stairs were ornamented with paintings so beautiful she hesitated to step upon them. The first step showed a green land with tall trees and a castle all of gold with diamonds upon the rooftops.

The second step showed a gloriously beautiful lady with very long, yellow hair looking out the window of the tower. Her eyes were sad, and she had her chin cupped in her hand.

“Rapunzel, no doubt,” Jubrin whispered in her ear. “And she wasn’t as sad as this painting makes her out to be, she had such fun up there from prying eyes with her prince.”

Oh. That certainly hadn’t been in any of the books she had read on the subject. “Were you acquainted with her?”

“Quite personally.”

During this conversation, Nikki had forgotten to look at the other paintings, so when she again diverted her attention to them, she found that she no longer knew what number of step she was on.

The current one beneath her black and white converses showed a city in burning smoking piles of rubble with women crying into their aprons and men brandishing their swords and clanging spears against their shields.

After that, the picture showed a magnificent green dragon with luminescent wings and bright red eyes staring at a fair maiden strumming a harp.

The next and final step simply had a dragon sleeping comfortably on a pile of golden coins, precious stones, and the like. Scrolls and parchments covered in small writing that looked more like squiggles towered behind him. His stomach looked slightly rounder than the former painting, his bright red eyes were closed, and a waft of blue-grey smoke drifted from his nostrils.

“Oh dear,” said Jubrin, licking its finger with a sliver of tongue.

The room they were in now was vast and thick with green tinted shadows. At her feet, Nikki could see dusty coins still valiantly striving to glint seductively in the green glow of the monstrous dragon that was now before them.

“I forgot that He happens to have a sweet tooth for dimply delightful maidens,” Jubrin whispered in her ear. “But you’re not beautiful, not even exactly pretty, so I’m sure that’s in your favour.”

“Gee thanks,” Nikki said. Naturally, she found no comfort in these words, but, on second thought, she supposed it was better to have your pride wounded than contemplating about how more beautiful you were than anybody else in the stomach of a dragon.

The dragon’s eyes opened. They were orange now, orange and grey like dying embers instead of bright red. A thin forked tongue flicked between his jagged fangs as a small flare of fire sparked in the air.

“I wake,” He rumbled.

Nikki wondered if that was a momentous thing for dragons instead of one of daily routine.

“I see that,” said Jubrin cautiously.

The dragon clawed a silver coin absently. “A thief has come in the night. Do you know how long it has been, Gremlin, since such a thing has happened? Since anyone has dared to trespass against my lair? I am the Keeper, no one ought to have even thought about trespassing here.”

“Well, isn’t that why you’re supposed to be a Keeper?” asked Nikki.

“Usually a dragon’s fearsome reputation is enough to do the trick,” said Jubrin absently. “And this one certainly ate plenty of damsels to warrant a really terrifying one.”

“All the scrolls, all the stories, gone. All the tales, all the legends, all the myths,” said the dragon. A hot tear steamed down his scaly cheek.

“Well, where ought we to look?” said Jubrin. “I really don’t think anybody from this reality would have been powerful enough to take all the Stories, do you?”

The dragon shook his head.

“What do you mean, all the Stories?” Nikki demanded. “Does that mean that all the books in my bookshelves are gone? That the books in that nice little store with the coffee café are gone?”

“Every scrap of fiction,” said the gremlin, smirking a little. “Really quite amazing, even the gremlins couldn’t do that to all the machinery if we wanted to.”

“You are a little people, with little talents, and little doings,” the dragon boomed.

The gremlin nodded. “Quite right. Sometimes we forget.”

“But, what are we going to do!” said Nikki. “I want my books back. And I will get them back, whether if you help me or not. But I’d much rather have your help than not,” she added hastily.

“Actually,” said the Dragon, almost mildly, “you couldn’t do a damn thing without us.”

Nikki felt small, and wished she hadn’t been quite so vehement.

“I would try the Mirror Lands first,” said the dragon, with another plume of fire that lit several candles that Nikki hadn’t noticed at first.

Beside the flickering candles was a tall mirror. There was no ornament upon it. It looked like something one could find cheaply at the local convenience store.

“Ask. Remember to rhyme. It likes it when you rhyme.”

Jubrin hopped into the palm of Nikki’s hand as she walked towards the mirror. It showed the two of them — Nikki with her pale cheeks and the small little grey thing with pointed ears and teeth in her hand.

“Hold my tail, if you would,” said the Gremlin.

Nikki took it carefully between her thumb and forefinger. “Isn’t He coming?” she asked.

“No, He can’t, even if He wanted to. Getting a mite old, even for a dragon you know?”

“But why?”

“He’s a Keeper. He must stay. It his…his fate, if you will.” Jubrin turned, and pointed at the dragon’s scaled legs. “See?”

Shackles were clasped around his limbs. They seemed iridescent in the green glow of his scales, and the chains were fine and wrought of silver that shone strangely bright in the gloom.

“Why won’t he break them?” she asked.

“No dragon could break those chains. No Anything actually, unless I’m far off the mark.”

The dragon growled and Nikki looked away from him, and back towards the mirror.

Jubrin coughed, then reached out with both his small hands and pressed his palms against the smooth surface. “Mirror mirror in my hand, please take us to your fair fair land.”

The Mirror sniffed. “Technically I’m not in your hand and using the same word twice in one sentence is, frankly, poor writing.”

“Well I had wanted to say ‘in the dragon’s lair’ but for the life of me I couldn’t think of a good phrase that rhymed with it. And really, you mustn’t be so finicky about the rhymes.”

“Poppycock.”

The surface of the mirror began to glow with a pulsing silver light. “I’d close my eyes if I were you,” Jubrin said. “And don’t let go of my tail. I’m not sure what would happen to you if you got caught between worlds, but I’m sure it’d be quite unpleasant.”

“Ok.” Nikki closed her eyes and tightened her grip, hoping she wasn’t hurting him. She vaguely realized that she had stopped referring to the gremlin as it, and wondered if it really was a he, or an it, or maybe a she. But it was hard to tell since it didn’t have any body parts. She’d have to remember to ask whenever they got to wherever they were going.

“You can open your eyes now,” said Jubrin.