A/N: This story is a third inspired by the short excerpt from the prequel J. K. Rowling is NOT writing, which reminded me that such short pieces are both allowable and enjoyable, a third inspired by the fire pit in my backyard, and a third by the fact that in the hands of a Harry Potter fan, myself included, any straight, short stick becomes a wand (and if it long, becomes a sword. Yay, swords!). Though I'd not thought about it before, it might also need a nod to Beedle the Bard; there's something in this of Babbity-Rabbity and Her Babbling Stump. Enjoy!
Yours forever, Tsona
"No! Please!" Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington said from between the viselike grips of the two guards as they dragged him along the forest carriageway from his own isolated manor-house to the main village. "It was a mistake! A simple mistake! I was trying to fix her tooth, just like she asked! I didn't mean to give her a tusk! If Lady Grieve would just let me see her once more..."
He tried digging the heels of his boots into the soft ground. They gouged deep scars into the road, but did not slow his captors. He tried to slump his body, make it as weighty as possible, but he may as well have been an empty sack between the two men.
"Look, Nick," one of them, a good friend of Nick's, said. "I'm sorry. But what would you have us do? Lady Grieve looks like half a bull elephant. The evidence is right there in her mouth and, from what anyone can make out between her piteous moans, sharp squeals, and sobs, you're the culprit. She's an honest woman. Now she's without any chance of ever finding a suitor. You've destroyed all the promise for her life. We can't do naught but fulfill her wishes, poor woman. And then there's that passage: 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live...'"
"But-- if she's only let me-- I have my wand right here, here in my pocket. I could set her straight. I've been studying how," Nick bawled.
He tried to maneuver his hand inside his flapping jacquard jacket. His fingers were stiff, all his blood having been caught above the closed fists of his guards. His fingers found the wooden handle, but only loosely. He had only just gotten the tip beyond his pocket when they lost their grip.
"My wand!"
The wooden stick lay in innocently in the middle of the road.
"My wand! Please, understand: I've got to go back for it! If someone else were to come across it--"
But his pleas did no more to slow the march toward his doom than his struggles. He peered back over his shoulder, now utterly helpless, his fingers feeling horribly lifeless knowing they'd never see their wooden extension again, as they left the woods for the fields and a crowd gathered near the village's edge roared their approval at his capture.
--
John Carpenter was a poor man and always had been. But he had a large family to provide for, as was often the way. He had spent all day in his shop near the town's center, working on a small, mechanical toy. Perhaps he would be able to sell, perhaps one of his children would become too attached to the trinket and he would cave to their pleas to take it home. With envy, he watched the people come in and out of the shop of his across-the-street-neighbor, Nathan Wright. People bought from Nathan Wright. Wagons were often in need of a new wheel, or axle, or yolk. The pompous rich who lived near the village always hankered after the latest fashion-- gigs, four-in-hands, or curricle-- or else wanted a grander style carriage than the one they already owned. Nathan Wright was not poor. Nathan Wright had men working for him. Nathan Wright had servants even.
John Carpenter had watched too the parade, the mob led by the sobbing Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, whose manor was just to the west of the town. He was shouting some inane babble about teeth, but all John Carpenter could think as he saw the nobleman dragged on toward the church and its basement cell was that it was one less rich nobleman to purchase a clarence from Nathan Wright.
He came home to his small cottage on the town's western edge, not far from the woods that separated Mimsy Manor from the village. He came home to his youngest-- Eliza-- crying loudly in the arms of her tired-looking sister, Catherine. Mary was at her mother's side, tugging on her patched and fraying apron with its soup and sauce and mash stains and whining that Paul, who was snickering in the corner, had stolen her dolly and would not tell her where he had hidden it. Her mother, Susan, was trying to make dinner, to sweep, and to mediate a return of the doll all at once.
"Paul Carpenter! Give Mary back her dolly this instant or you'll have this broom's battered twigs in your ears! Oh! Daddy's home!"
All the children looked up at John, who tried to smile, but thought he might have failed.
Mary ran to him and snatched at his patched britches to tell him her sorry tale, tears leaking from her dark eyes.
"How was work, dear?" Susan managed to sweep her way across the hard-packed earthen floor to peck him once on the cheek. She didn't wait for an answer, though John opened his mouth to reply. "Dear, I need some more wood for this fire. Tinder and kindling. The logs are too big, I can't get them to light without anything to hold the flame, and how am I to stew a few carrots and leeks without a fire, I ask? And sundown's coming."
John was all too willing for the excuse to get out of the frantic house. "Of course, Susan dear," he said, dipping his head. He turned, pulling his trousers from his daughter's loose grip, and left the house, but the door had not shut in time to block out Mary's cries of, "But my dolly! Paul still has it! Mummy, make him give it back!"
"Paul!"
And the baby continued to cry.
John Carpenter followed the dirt carriageway out towards the woods, keeping his steps slow and plodding to delay the moment he had to return to the house.
He allowed himself to travel some way into the woods, into the cool, emerald shade before bending down to scoop up the first piece of tinder. It was lying helpfully in the middle of the road, a straight bit of wood, very dry and likely to catch well. He took it in his arm and moved on.
--
John Carpenter, obedient to his wife's command, threw some of his collected tinder and kindling atop the logs and collapsed into his spindly chair at the wide kitchen trestle. Immediately, he was besieged by his children as his wife bent down over the fire with a long, lit match.
"Daddy," Mary whined, crawling atop his sprawled legs and curling up in his lap. "Paul still won't tell me where he's hidden my dolly. Make him tell me, Daddy."
John glanced to the side. Paul was determinedly not looking at him, was instead making faces at young Eliza to make the baby laugh. "You know," John told his daughter quietly, laying a callused hand on her back. She was growing larger now and seemed quite unbalanced on his thighs. "Maybe Paul's angry with you. Did you do something to him earlier today?"
"N-no," Mary sobbed. "I only asked him to play with me!"
John shook his head. Mary never "only asked," she asked incessantly. "Just give him some space, Mare. I imagine your dolly will be on your bed by nightfall."
Suddenly, his wife, Susan, screamed. John leapt up, Mary sliding off his legs, and spun to face her. Eliza began to cry and Catherine tried to soothe her with soft coos, but they had no effect.
"What? What?"
"The-- the fire!" Susan gasped, pointing a shaking finger to it.
As John looked one of the tinder bits, just newly blackening beneath the fire's heat, let out a shower of sparks, but not the shower of orange one would expect from a fire. These were unmistakably royal purple. But they seemed harmless enough. "I'm sure it's nothing. Don't--"
But the tinder let out a huge bang like that of a rifle and this time the purple stars shot out of the fireplace and across the room. John leapt back, grabbing Mary, and the stream barely missed him to stirke the leg of his chair. The Carpenters stared, amazed, as the wood of the chair creaked, then the legs stretched themselves. The front ones reached forward like a cat's; Mary screamed and ran behind John's legs, out of the way of the chair. Then the chair turned once in a circle and came to pause as it been. It looked-- actually looked!-- up at John, tilting its seat back a little, and it wagged its back.
"Er..."
The chair scuttled nearer him-- Mary cowered beneath the table-- and bumped against John's leg. John, not sure what else to do, patted it awkwardly on the seat.
"God Above," Susan muttered, crossing herself. The tinder let out another bang and Susan screamed again and leapt in the air. This time the shower of golden sparks shot up with a dreadfully high-pitched scream and exploded. The Carpenters shouted as the glitter fell on their heads, strewing across the table and chairs, the whole of the kitchen and living room.
"Ow!"
"Paul! Paul, are you okay?" his mother asked anxiously, ducking out from beneath her arms.
Paul bent down and came up with one of the golden bits in his hand. He held it up before his eyes, which grew as round as the thing in his hand. "They're coins! Odd coins, but coins nonetheless."
"Gold," Catherine whispered. Her voice was muffled as she bent low to protect the screaming Eliza, still in her arms. "With all this, we must be richer than poor Sir Nicholas himself."
"Don't be ridiculous!" Susan snapped.
John, though, had bent down to retrieve one of the gold pieces. It seemed to have been emblazoned with a relief of an oddly crooked, columned building, but it was clearly gold: solid, cold to the touch. "No, Susan. I think she's right. I think these are real."
"But this is magic! They can't be--"
"Magic?" Mary said from beneath the table. "Like in Cinderella? Like fairy godmother's?" She crawled cautiously out from beneath the table as the last of the coins fell to the hard earth floor with a tiny tinkle. She crept toward the fire.
"No!"
"I wish I knew where my dolly was," Mary said to the tinder. "Please?"
At first they all thought it hadn't worked. Susan breathed a sigh of relief. Then, they heard the soft whisper of air and looked toward the hallway in time to see Mary's dolly come shooting out of the entryway. The chair ran toward it, chased it as it flew across the room and landed lightly in her outstretched arms. She hugged it tightly and squealed, "Dolly!" The chair bumped against her, and knocked her to the floor. Her mother screamed, but Mary, overcome with delight, only laughed and let the seat nudge against her face.
The branch spouted another whistling shower, of pink sparks this time. They, like the last blast, exploded in the center of the room, and the Carpenters found themselves this time ducking beneath a rain of dolls of many types: cotton- and wool-stuffed, corn-husk, evena couple porcelin-faced ladies' dolls that surprisingly landed lightly enough on the ground that they didn't break. Mary struggled out from beneath the chair and ran around the room squealing and laughing alternately in delight and scooping as many of the dolls as possible in her arms. The chair bounded after her on its four awkward legs. Paul stood there with his mouth hanging open.
"This is-- this is--" He looked over at the fire. "Can you make me taller?"
Paul shouted, then laughed as his legs and arms stretched beyond the hems of his torn tunic and patched trousers. He was almost instantly taller than Catherine, his senior by four years, and then he was stretching toward his father's height.
"Enough!" his mother screamed, and Paul instantly ceased growing.
"Ah, Mum."
"No! This is dangerous! Dangerous!" She snatched the cauldron with its prepped stew off the hearth, and tipped it over the logs. Steam bellowed thick from the fireplace, covering them all, the sparkling gold coins, and the many dolls, the chair, tangling on their legs.
Susan, grumbling, muttering what sounded very much like the Lord's Prayer beneath her breath, scooped up the offending rod. She handled it with the utmost care, as she crossed the room and deposited it in her husband's outstretched hands. "Get rid of it!" she screeched. "Despose of it! I don't care how!"
She pulled John around and gave him a shove in the small of the back.
As John reached the door, taking the magic tinder in his fist-- it tingled, pleasantly warm-- he heard the children's whines. "But Mummy, it makes dolls!"
"It made us rich!"
"It wasn't doing any harm."
And Susan's answer of, "Catherine, quiet Eliza down! Mary, pick up all these dolls! Get them off my floor! Paul, why not use those extra long arms of yours to work the bellows and try and get this fire lit again! I have a stew to fix again."
The door shut behind John and he took to examining the magic rod. The fire had burnt it halfway through. Something shining and white was just peeping out from inside of it. John peeled away a little of the charred wood till he could see it more clearly as a remarkably unscathed hair. It was truly beautiful, a purer white than he'd seen anywhere, even on the nobles' clothing or the priests' robes.
But he daren't remove it. He grabbed the shovel leaning against the house and went to its corner. There, he dug a shallow hole, putting the rod momentarily on the ground. He faced the door, in case of any of his childern should come searching for it, or worse, his wife should see how close to the house he had chosen to bury the magic stick.
When the hole was barely more than six inches, John Carpenter got to his knees and cradled the rod in his hands. "Little stick, bring our family luck, bring us prosperity. Keep yourself hidden, though so that my wife doesn't see."
The wand instantly went invisible in his hands. He could still feel its weight, but otherwise couldn't have known it was there; it had taken on the texture and color of the grass, of his hands below it, right down the dirtied whorls of his thumbs. John laughed aloud. He waved the stick some through the air, marvelling at how seemlessly, how quickly it took on the appearance of whatever was behind it. "If I'd have known that--"
The door flew open. "John!" Susan shreiked. "What are you doing back already? Where's that cursed tinder?"
"I'm just burying it." He pushed the loose dirt back into the hole with a hand, grinning at his wife.
"So close to the house?"
"Shh. No need to tell the kids. They'll want it."
"Oh!" Susan rolled her eyes and slammed the door.
"Twitchy little thing," John said to the invisible rod still clenched in his hand. "Can you do something about that?" He did not feel the rod do anything, at least no sparks shot from its end. "Well, let's get you inside then."
A/N: So, yes, Nearly Headless Nick was merely here because it seemed to make sense to tie the tale more firmly to Harry Potter and I thought that he might be on 's list of possible main characters-- and was shocked to find otherwise. There was some thought of it being Mr. Roberts of the moory campsite in GoF who found the wand, but I decided I prefered it being Nick's wand so that some poor wizard soul-- er, body at least-- was not left entirely without one. But Mr. Robert's experiences with a firewood wand would be quite different and if I am given good reviews and enough encouragement, I may yet write that tale besides. ;) Thank you! Now, about those reviews... You all know what to do.
Yours forever, Tsona