The Queen Of All Strange Things

39

The following incident left a huge scar in my life. In other words, I never trusted gnomes (or any fairy related beings... especially gnomes) as much as I trusted them before this particular incident.

Let's skip to the story shall we.

After seeing the note, we quickly packed the things that we might find necessary since this clearly was a sign that bird-man or any other rival that we have, knows where we were at the moment. I even took all of my allowance and savings since we were sure to run out of cash in the future. Andrew debated on whether it was important to save the gnome. Me, being the ignorant and self righteous self back then glared at him and said that we should.

He followed me on the curiosity of the identity our opponent.

By the time we reached the cemetery in the corner of town behind the church, it was very dark. And I forgot to add umbrellas in our list of supplies.

'Some place to call us out to,' said Andrew. The wind speed kept on increasing the more we made our way deeper into the cemetery. I never liked being there since there was this eerie feeling about the dead trees and gloomy gravestones. Some graves had wilted or fresh flowers lying on their bases. There was a very fresh grave where an old lady stood whispering to herself. She left after a while.

'So,' I said. 'Where is the guy two gnome-napped Trevelyan?'

'Maybe we have to go deeper,' said Andrew.

I sighed and kept on following the footpath which crossed the cemetery into where the older graves stood. The graves were bigger than the latter ones and had a lot of statues of angels, children old men, crucifixes and sometimes a creepy old black and white picture of the occupants of the grave.

Then at the end of the cemetery, stood a man... More like a grim reaper to be exact. But he didn't hold a scythe. His black draped cloak fluttered angrily due to the wind. There was this strange green aura around him.

We went closer to him.

'Are... you the undertaker or someone else?'

The reaper bowed down, 'It's an honor to meet her highness.'

I raised an eyebrow. Why must all the guys who want us dead or captured even bother to display us formalities before they attack?

'Where is Trevelyan?'

A Santa cap peaked from behind a tombstone.

'You're alright!' I said. Trevelyan shifted uncomfortably.

'Something is not right,' mumbled Andrew.

'Forgive me for calling your grace to such an unkindly place,' said the reaper. 'But this is my comfort zone.'

'Good,' I said. 'Whatever. Just give the gnome back.'

The reaper turned to Trevelyan, 'What did you use to lure her here?'

Trevelyan fiddles with his fingers, 'I said you captured me.'

'Oh,' said the reaper. 'I see. Very well then. Let's start. A message from the Lord of Sightless. Uh-em. "Surrender or else I will drag you back and it may not be in one piece" But I was advised to bring you in one piece as much as my abilities permit me.'