Calvin cleared his throat lightly, and the sprite whipped her head around.
“I have brought you a tribute, and solved your riddle,” he said in a formal tone of voice. “I can only hope that this has been sufficient to please you.”
“Hmm?” said the sprite, glancing back at the birch in apparent admiration, before snapping back to attention. “Oh. The curse that I placed upon your head. I suppose that you would like it lifted?”
Calvin’s eye twitched ever so slightly, but he showed remarkable restraint as he lowered his head respectfully. “If you would be so kind, I would greatly appreciate it.”
“Then so it shall be.” The sprite raised her hand toward the sky, palm up, like a conductor telling their orchestra to play louder. A soft, silver glow grew slowly in her palm – before, suddenly, exploding in a blinding flash of light.
Trying to blink her vision back into focus, Diana heard the sprite’s offhand comment of, “It is complete.”
Is that it?thought Diana, her heart racing.Did it really work? Is Calvin free?
Looking up at him, she saw wonder in his face… and also a hint of fear. It obviously wouldn’t be a good idea to question the sprite’s abilities or goodwill, but Diana wasn’t going to believe that the curse had been lifted until she saw proof, and she knew that Calvin would feel the same way.
A flicker of light caught her attention, and she glanced down to see the Fitbit that Calvin had apparently put on this morning out of habit. Its screen was coming to life, and, while Diana hadnever used a Fitbit herself, she thought that it looked like it was working as it should.
“Look!” she gasped, and Calvin brought his wrist up in front of his eyes, his face full of wonder.
“Quick – here,” she said, pulling her phone out of her pocket and touching it to his arm before he could protest. The phone screen stared calmly back at her, displaying the date and time as it always did, seemingly judging her for holding it against someone else’s arm for no apparent reason.
“Is that it?” she asked. “Are you uncursed?”
“I guess so,” Calvin said, a wide, beautiful smile spreading across his face. He turned toward the sprite. “Thank you so much.”
“Yes, thank you,” Diana echoed, hoping that everything else that had been broken was now also working again. “We really appreciate it.”
“It was a mere trifle of my power,” the sprite sniffed, but Diana thought that she could detect something else in the sprite’s demeanor. Something…sad.
If I didn’t know better,she thought incredulously,I’d say that she’s lonely.
Well, it probablywaspretty lonely, being an antisocial being in the middle of nowhere who couldn’t travel beyond a certain radius and who had a tendency to drop curses on the heads of those who did happen to pass by. Diana wasn’t sure she was feelingtoosympathetic.
On the other hand… who knew how long the sprite had been here, all by herself?
Her curiosity was starting to get the better of her, and she just couldn’t help herself.
“What’s it like?” she asked, and the sprite’s head snapped around. Calvin also turned to look at her, obviously wondering what she was trying to get at.
That was a bit of an inane question.
She took a deep breath and tried again. “Being out here all by yourself, I mean. Doesn’t it get… I don’t know… lonely?”
The sprite huffed. “We sprites are solitary creatures. We are above such human concepts as… asloneliness.” She paused, then added, almost as an afterthought, “Once, I was worshipped as a deity. But now…”
She laughed, a bitter sound.
Diana felt her eyebrows going up in surprise… but, she supposed, it made sense. The sprite’s appearance and powers were pretty impressive – Diana herself was a bit in awe of her, and she knew exactly what she was and how to placate her. Unchecked, the sprite would be a force to be reckoned with.
“For some time, even though humans no longer worshiped me, they still brought me tributes. There was a blacksmith’s daughter, once, who was a worthy opponent in solving my riddles. But they are all long dead and gone, and the path to my domicile has grown over.”
She seemed to deflate, her regal bearing turning into a defeated slouch. “I have not seen a single soul for many, many moons,” she said. “Not until this oaf here sullied my waters.”
Diana bit back a biting remark. She was finally starting to feel like she was getting somewhere with the sprite.
“Even my object has faded, with no one to care for it,” the sprite went on, gesturing at an item nestled against one of the mossy rocks.
Diana crouched down to have a look, and saw that it was a sculpted, polished, pale green stone, perhaps jade. It had been carved into the shape of a woman with leaves for hair – and, while it was beautiful, it had obviously been exposed to the elements for centuries. Diana thought that the aging process had probably made it even more stunning than it was to begin with, but she could see why it might agitate the sprite.
