The Trouble with Nyssa

** Author’s note – The characters from Scandinavian folklore are Nissa (spelled with an i),  I have written this short story as my own homage to my heritage and muse… and to save you a wiki search on Nissa… I hope you enjoy my lighthearted tale.***

Enrik unable to fit through the cracks in the building’s foundation or gaps in the putty around the windows had been forced to use some magick to gain entry into the residence. Staying invisible as he kept to the shadows, and verifying that he had attracted no one’s notice.  He was pleased to see that nobody screamed or pointed at his brightly colored hair… or even to the abundance of hair that covered his body, people are wont to do when Nissa come out of the shadows.   Enrik had worn his best coat with all its many pockets, and the pants which were made from the lost bits of things he had found in recent years.  He was a strong believer that his collections have a practical purpose regardless of how whimsically the purpose was applied. As a manager, he had a certain reputation to maintain and tried to look his personal best.  Sliding the sleeve of coat up far enough to see the variety of watches ringing his forearm, most of them put the current time slightly before 8 am.  The advance crew of Nissa had worked through the night, and the smaller members of his crew had just slipped into the residence to relieve the night Nissa. It was time to join them.

 He had to let his shadow within the shadow cast from a parked car pull him into one of the storm drains on the street as he gave up solidity.  When he passed by the grating and was firmly in the sewers he let his solidity return to him like the snap of bubble gum. Humming to himself as he passed the stragglers of the night crew in the dark and damp tunnels of the city’s public works.  Staring up at the drainpipe, He realized that he would have to give solidity as well as visibility as he entered the pipe that would take him to the target’s residence. Once in the pipes, he decided to follow the source of the water draining past him in the pipe.

A small wisp of smoky-scented fog danced upward in a nearly invisible column from the drain in the bottom of the sink, curling around the slow trickle from the faucet.  The fog climbed into the shadow of the open cabinet door and disappeared completely while the man stood shaving in front of the central mirrored portion of his medicine cabinet, to his left the door stood ajar casting shadows over part of the sink and cabinets.

Because the Nissa of Enrik’s crew had kept to the shadows, they were invisible to the human man, but Enrik could see them and all their hijinx, he simply could not resolidify until the man was distracted elsewhere.  As a column of smoke he could still see what was happening all around him, including the human shaking his head as he wondered aloud what was happening in the sewers….

Enrik watched the man stopper the sink and fill the basin with water as the man bent forward at the waist and scrubbed the residue of the shaving cream from his face.  It was at this moment that Enrik took shape and slipped into the shadows of the shower curtain while the man busied himself with toweling his face dry before he left the bathroom.  As the footsteps receded, the Nissa stepped from the shadows and became fully visible though never more than two steps from the safety of a shadow, per the latest health and safety regulations….

Now that they had unionized, everything had rules… Enrik still had some doubts of entering into a union with djinn, imps, pixies, or leprechauns… but times had certainly changed.  No one had time for the folk lore or the OldWays… though based on the thoroughness of this pranking, Enrik believed that this human had been a little too loud in his dismissal of the OldWays… Not that it mattered to him, a job was a job, and he did like his job… He was good at this job, and part of that was because he had a good crew.

Some Nissa were small barely bigger than a cricket, the larger members of the crew had not fit through the mail drop slot in the door and had to risk exposure by turning into a vapor and trekking in from the storm drains to join his comrades in mischief, the way he had. Enrik, when visible in solid form, stood nearly as tall as the cupboard containing the sink, not counting the teased heights to his hair. He smiled as he saw two small Nissa (Notscrubben & Mittenmovor) unscrewing the cap on the toothpaste that sat on the lowest shelf of the medicine cabinet. Astra, a ferret-sized Nissa, stood perched on the bottom shelf as she exchanged the rash/bug bite ointment for the toothpaste and placed the toothpaste a shelf higher in the medicine cabinet.