A Patchwork Fantasy Snippet full of neighbourly niceties.
In which a stairwell is thoroughly defeated.
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Transcript
[Soft, mysterious music]
Laura: Hi, you can call me Laura. This is Patchwork Fairy Tales and you’ve just stumbled upon a Patchwork Fantasy Snippet. If you want to read as well as listen, check out the transcript linked in the description.
[Music fades]
The girl in apartment 484 could teleport, Lea was very aware of that.
It wasn’t the most notable fact about her. She was also friendly, helpful, funny, bad at feeding herself proper meals at proper times, and usually dressed like she ought to be at a concert with a lot of loud guitars. But the fact was that she was, among all those other things, also capable of teleportation.
Compared to the magical talents Lea was generally familiar with, this was a shockingly rare one. It was a precarious gift, capable of drawing a lot of attention, and Lea had decided early on that the most respectful way to handle it would be not to draw more attention to it.
Her son did not share this vision.
Even the slightest sound behind the door across the hall was enough to get him storming out of their own front door.
“Chris!!”
Lea was just in time to see her son bounding towards a vaguely people-shaped blur of messy hair and a leather jacket. There was a loud “oof” caused by Sammy’s inevitable collision, and then a far to kind and patient: “Hi, kid!”
“Good morning, Chris,” Lea smiled.
“Morning,” Chris grinned back. “And shana tova!”
“Thank you,” she said warmly, looking Chris up and down with all the scrutiny of fondness. Chris looked tired. She always looked tired when Lea met her this early in the morning. “Long day at work?”
She shook her head. “Long day of other stuff.”
Under her arm, Sammy’s eyes gleamed. “So you’re going down?”
Chris smiled down on him with a lopsided grin. “Yeah I’m going down.”
“Can I ride?” he begged. “Please?”
Lea appreciated the quick glance in her direction very much, but she really didn’t have the heart to say no. Besides, by now Sammy was so used to Chris’ magic that he barely even got dizzy anymore. So she gave a short nod of agreement and left it at that.
“Sure,” Chris chuckled. “Hop on.” And with a jump and a hoist Sammy was clinging onto her back, his arms wrapped tight around her neck. “Hold tight,” she reminded him ominously. She really didn’t need to do that anymore, but it made it more exciting.
For a second Lea felt the air around her suddenly grow thin and then Chris and Sammy flickered out of sight as Chris teleported the two of them down the stairs, a couple of steps at the time. Sammy was almost screaming with laughter, his voice popping in and out of hearing as they disappeared and appeared over and over while descending the apartment stairs. Lea calmly walked down behind them, smiling to herself.
On the ground floor Chris stood still, breathing the wisps of magic out of her lungs and let Sammy slide safely back onto his own two feet.
“One more time?” Sammy asked with big, innocent eyes.
“Not now, darling,” Lea said amusedly. “We have to get you to school.”
“I’ll teleport you to the roof sometime when your mom isn’t looking,” Chris whispered loudly.
Sammy beamed.
“You will do no such thing,” Lea scolded, battling down her smile as Sammy cheerfully took her hand.
“I will do no such thing,” Chris repeated dutifully.
Lea decided not to notice the wink she gave Sammy behind her back.
[Soft, mysterious music returns]
Laura: Thank you for listening, I hope you liked this snippet of patchwork fantasy. Transcripts, easy streaming, and all the information about this podcast and all my other creations can be found on laurasimons.com.
There’s another tale to tell some other day, but until then: remember to guard your name, and be safe.
[Music fades]
Copyright Laura Simons, please do not copy my stories without my permission, lest you insult the fae.