Let’s get the really uncomfortable things out of the way first. I’m Charlotte Skrimm, pale, pudgy, and an NPR nerd. And if you’re thinking NPR is some kind of 80s boy band, it’s much worse than that. National Public Radio: This American Life, All Things Considered, Fresh Air. Yup, all that and not much more.

  I spend a lot of time in my bedroom talking about “big things” to all my NPR imaginary friends: Ira Glass, Nina Totenberg, Lakshmi Singh, Audie Cornish, Terry Gross, Michele Norris, Peter Sagal.

  No wonder my parents, both very nice, caring people--as far as educated, white, middle class adults tend to see things--decided that stretching me socially by trucking me off to Happy Camp (still not kidding) before I started high school in the fall would be a good thing.

  In all fairness, I can’t fault them for failing to foresee that I would nearly destroy the world. Which I don’t, at this writing, want to imply is completely saved. Not completely.

  I hope that’s enough exposition for you because I want to get to the good stuff as soon as possible. Ice cream. A table full of rapidly softening tubs of vanilla ice cream with grainy chocolate sauce and sticky bowls of candy sprinkles. The memory still gives me chills. Ice cream brain freeze chills.

  That’s how I literally bumped into Syl. In the midst of a brain freeze, after my second Super Sundae at the Happy Camp (believing me yet?) ice cream social, I accidentally headbutted her, so she hexed me.

  She was polite about it. Even asked my name and told me how important that was so her hex was directed at the proper offending party. My brain, being mostly frozen at that moment, thought I was making a friend, so I smiled and did as Syl asked. Another of my pathetically pedestrian tendencies: I’m generally compliant.

  Not until late that night did I begin to reassess our encounter. I woke up in my bunk with a pain like little pitchforks belly stabbing me. Now, I’m not a stranger to indigestion or cramps, but this was a bit more “Holy guacamole!” than I was used to.

  I flung off my crusty Happy Camp (I think you’re with me now or Stockholm Syndrome is setting in) blanket expecting to see my guts doing some TikTok flash variation of The Floss. The pain instantly vanished, and everything seemed peachy (and I’m one fleshy peach) until my crusty blanket started to riffle and bulge as if little critters were now trapped under it.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Let’s remind ourselves, for an NPR-lovin’ suburban girl on her first extended time away from home in the middle of an old growth forest, it was perfectly respectable for me to harbor nightmares of otherwise benign, furry woodland creatures digging their sharp little teeth and claws into peachy old Charlotte Skrimm.

  But, it wasn’t rabid chipmunks, bats, or bunnies trying to get a taste of me. (Note. This is where my reliability as a narrator puts its rusty metal to the pedal. And I won’t blame the shrooms. You shouldn’t either. The shrooms had nothing to do with this. They come later and are completely innocent of the charges TimTim leveled against our wondrous mycelium underlords.)

  Out from my crusty blanket stumbled three impish figures with sharp sticks. A few inches tall, they were a cross between garden gnomes and salamanders and glowed dimly like cheap cartoons, leaving a ragged blue phosphorescence as they moved. And they were marching towards my ample belly with their pointy sticks.

  If I’d screamed and woken up the other Happy Campers, I wonder how differently things would have turned out. I suppose I’ll have to wait for the fanfiction (unlikely!) to get that answer.

  In any case, I didn’t make a peep. My mind froze again, though not with a delicious glob of ice cream satisfaction. Paradoxically, this brain freeze crystallized into icy clarity around the hex Syl had put on me when we bonked heads: Make the dum dum pay in her tum tum.

  I haven’t told you nearly enough about Syl yet. That’s coming. At this point, I didn’t even know her name, so I don’t want to give you a poor impression of her hexing skills. They are really quite good. I know this first of her many hexes placed on me sounds rather juvenile, but let me assure you a hex’s spoken words are purely stylistic.

  Qpid, for example, is a poet. His hexing is always fresh, compact and lyrical. Yet, as beautiful and terrifying-sounding as his phrasing may be, Qpid’s hexes are not nearly as consistently effective as Syl’s. That’s because the essence of a hex is emotional. It is the feeling behind it, not the spoken words. If I’d fully appreciated that, maybe, I wouldn’t have put earth in such undeathly peril.

  You’ve likely noticed, I posit quite a few what ifs in my storytelling (not to mention way too many parenthetical remarks). Probably not the best narrative devices, but part of why I’m penning this tale is to work through some peculiar issues. Especially the preternatural and the supernatural ones.

  Syl is preternatural.

  Shades are supernatural.

  Imps with pointy sticks are just a pain.