A/N: Usually, I come up with fic ideas in the shower, but this one was the product of some brainstorming between myself and my wife (known online as Tarma Hartley) as we were driving home from a bar association meeting I'd been attending. Thanks for the help, sweetheart!

~X X X~

A chill, stiff breeze whistled through the dreary autumn night, rustling the fading leaves still clinging to the trees and driving the clouds scudding across the night sky, so that even the tiny sliver of gleaming moon was cloaked from view. Caught by the wind, those leaves that had already fallen to the side yard of the stately manor on Argentine Way leapt up from the ground, swirling like animated things seeking revenge against the one whose feet crisped their brethren underfoot.

It was the kind of night where even an elf of status and respect could shiver at the constantly-shifting shadows and the howling of the wind in the angles of the mansion walls. Gaff had seen amazing things in his service to magicians, first at the Silver Star Tower and then with Lillet Blan as she rose from apprentice to Royal Magician to Mage Consul. Amazing and occasionally fearful things. Devils wrested from the depths of hell, creations of alchemy that were no part of the natural order, and the spirits of the dead called back from beyond the grave.

It was a lot less...comfortable...imagining such things out here, in the night, in the darkness, lurking beyond his vision.

Considerably less comfortable.

"I should have brought a lantern," he muttered under his breath. He wasn't going back to the house for one, though. It wasn't quite dark enough that he couldn't see outlines around him or know where he was going, so if he did go back the "it's too dark" excuse wouldn't work very well and there was a good chance other servants would think he was scared to be out in the night.

Admitting affection had never been easy for the elf, but as for fear—well, short of Lujei Piche or Archmage Calvaros popping up right in front of him, he'd rather have cut off his hand than admitted to that! Besides, he'd told Marté the garden elf he'd go out and find the bucket she'd left by the outside well pump and she was rather cute. An elf didn't only have to think of work, after all.

The pump was just up ahead and Gaff took a couple of quick steps towards it. Suddenly the wind whipped up again, its whistle almost like a scream, and a flying leaf brushed his cheek. Startled, he gave a cry (A yell! A manly yell! Definitely not a squeal like a frightened little girl!) and leapt aside, away from the touch.

Suddenly, the ground seemed to yawn open beneath him and he found himself plunging, falling into the open embrace of the darkness below.

~X X X~

"Just then, Ichabod thought he heard something. A low, dull, rustling sound, like sand crumbling down a dune. His heart in his throat, he turned, and aimed the beam of his dark-lantern in the direction of the noise."

Lillet Blan was a good storyteller. She had a knack for pacing, tone, and voice when she was telling a tale that helped bring it to life for the listener. It didn't seem to matter whether it was something she was telling from memory or, as in the present instance, reading from a book.

Cressidor Blan-Virgine, despite being at the terribly mature age of seven, certainly was a shameless enthusiast for storytime with Mama. Indeed, she was such a fan that she'd specially asked for a story despite that she was having a sleepover with her two best friends, Marcia Tempranillo and Jenny Smithwick. The girls weren't the only ones there for the story, either. Cress's other mother, Amoretta Virgine, was snuggled up on the couch with Lillet, head on her beloved's shoulder while she listened. Cress thought it was kind of embarrassing when her mothers were all lovey-dovey together like that, but it was pretty much a fact of life. Even Grimalkin was curled at the far end of the couch for the event.

The three girls were sitting on the library rug, listening intently, cups of hot mulled cider in their hands while the wind whistled in the chimney and made the fire in the fireplace crackle and pop. Cress was very glad, she decided, that her puppy was a large breed. Shuck the barghest was lying sphinx-fashion behind them, while the girls were leaning up against his side. A warm, fuzzy dog was very reassuring during a scary story!

"The light fell directly upon the grave of the old miser. Ichabod's blood seemed frozen in his veins; he could only stare as the dirt shifted and crumbled, bulging up as if pushed from beneath. As he watched, the soil broke and gave way, and a dead white hand thrust upwards, cracked and broken nails clawing at the air. Another hand crawled into view, and this one dug into the ground, pulling in spasming, jerking movements, and before the terrified clerk's eyes a hideous figure, crusted with grave-earth, ripped itself free from the ground! Only then did sheer panic break the spell that horror had placed on him, and he—"

Before Lillet could describe how Ichabod had screamed, Jenny provided the real thing. A moment later, Cress was gasping and pointing and Marcia squealing and clinging to Shuck's fur. Alerted by the girls' fear, the barghest had leapt to his feet, red eyes ablaze with demonic fire, glaring at the figure that had appeared at the library door behind Lillet. It was all but covered in wet soil as if it, too, had just pulled itself out from where it had been buried in the earth.

Shuck had at once placed his huge, black-furred body between the girls and the thing. His lips curled back from fangs that meant Serious Business, and the rumbling growl from deep in his throat was like rocks being crushed to powder. He might just have been a puppy (if nearly full-grown), but he was definitely not going to let strange things scare Cress and her friends!

"Enough!" Lillet snapped, slamming the book shut with a noise like a thunderclap to make her point. "Shuck, sit. Girls, it's all right, it's just Gaff."

"It is?" Cress blinked. Shuck had sat down at once, wise puppies knowing they'd better obey when the Mage Consul used That Tone. He sniffed experimentally at the word "Gaff" and was surprised to note the scent of the one he thought of as Small Fussy Green Person coming from the mud-caked figure.

"As for you, Gaff, why are you bursting in here like that and scaring people? You knew I was reading the girls a ghost story; you should have known better. And I'd have thought you'd be the last person to track dirt through the house like that."

"I'm covered in dirt because I had to climb out of one of the pits that one dug!" He pointed dramatically at Shuck. "I went out to the well pump to fetch in a bucket Marté had left and the next thing I knew, I was crawling out of a hole!"

Shuck dipped his head with a little mewling sound. This time, though, it was Cress who leapt to his defense.

"But Shuck's allowed to dig in the side yard!" she cried, jumping to her feet and wrapping a protective arm around his back. "That's what you said, isn't it, Mama?"

Lillet nodded.

"It is. If you want to be angry at someone, Gaff, you should be angry at the garden staff. It's their job to fill in holes so no one gets hurt."

"See, Shuck? Mama says you're a good boy!"

The barghest wagged, thumping his tail on the carpet.

"It's very dark out," Amoretta observed curiously. "Why didn't you take a lantern, Gaff?"

The elven majordomo drew himself up with as much hauteur as he could manage while looking like a mole after a tunnel collapse. "Well, I'd like to think I can walk around my own garden without needing a light."

Grimalkin yawned.

"'Tis true, then, that pride goeth before a fall."