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“Ow!”
Sabrina stumbled back from the little light she had assumed was a firefly, rubbing her cheek in irritation. Now that she looked closer, she saw the tiny features of a person.
A pixie.
She’d thought that Puck would have taken all his pixies with him, but clearly, he left Bitey here behind.
She kept walking into the forest, but the pixie caught up and bit the tip of her nose next.
“Ugh! I'll make you regret that!”
Sabrina couldn’t hear if the pixie said anything back. She could sometimes hear if they laughed or booed, but their voices were as tiny as they were. She’d need enhanced fairy hearing to understand words.
The pixie reared in for another bite, and she stumbled back.
“I don’t have to deal with this. I’m going home.”
Not for long, though.
She rifled through the recycling until she found a good option: an old spaghetti sauce jar. Large, washed clean, the label peeled off, and with a screw-on lid.
She popped the lid off and carried it in the palm of her hand discreetly, tucking the jar in a tote bag.
Setting back out into the woods, it didn’t take long for Bitey to rejoin her. As they honed in on her face again, Sabrina swiftly withdrew the jar from her bag and caught the pixie, relying on her old experiences catching fireflies to guide her.
The little thing banged fists on the sides of the jar.
“Nope. We’re learning lessons.”
She returned home. Her current mission could be set aside for tonight. She needed to do some research.
Sabrina walked around her room, collecting various small trinkets. A loose die from a board game, a penny, a hair tie. Entertainments, as the book called it. She had plucked a flower off the bouquet that sat on the dining room table already, so food was sorted as well.
She set her pile upon the windowsill alongside the jar containing Bitey. She then retreated to her desk, where she tore off a post-it and wrote out a small calendar. She labeled it with a doodle of a sun with an arrow pointing to a crescent moon and then below it the numbers one through fourteen.
She stuck the paper to the window in front of the jar, a bit higher up so the pixie could still see outside.
She carefully opened the jar with one hand swiftly going flat over the opening. Bitey tried to escape, throwing themself against her and adding a couple bites for good measure. Sabrina winced but powered through it, stuffing all her collected items into the jar through her fingers and sealing it tight once more.
She crouched and tapped on the post-it, feeling not too dissimilarly from when she had to explain Basil’s time outs to him.
“You’re in here for two weeks. Here’s your calendar. You’ll be fed and have stuff to do, but you’d better rethink your actions while you’re in there.”
With her lecture delivered, she left to get ready for bed.
Sabrina crossed off the calendar days every morning, dropping in a new flower daily and occasionally a small toy as she found them. The pixie went from aggressive to pouting to a begrudging acceptance, eventually stuffing discarded flowers and trinkets into the spaces between her fingers for removal.
On the last day, Sabrina opened her window at nightfall and crawled out onto the roof with the jar in hand, closing the window behind her. She was giving Bitey no opportunities to get inside.
She popped off the lid of the jar.
“I hope we’ve learned our lesson.”
The pixie fluttered out and paused close enough to her face that she could make out their little facial expressions, blowing a raspberry.
Immaturely, Sabrina blew one back.
The pixie looked taken aback for a moment but then turned and zipped away.
Sabrina shook her head and climbed back into her room after it disappeared.
“Hey!” Basil cried out in complaint.
Sabrina paused from pulling weeds, her assigned chore today, to check in on him.
He was attempting to stand small sticks upright in his mud pies, but pixies kept knocking them over.
She put her hands on her hips and stood in front of him.
“Does one of you need to get jarred?”
The pixies scattered.
Daphne spluttered and swiped at the glowing lights dancing around her. “I think one just almost got in my mouth.”
Sabrina caught up from where she’d fallen behind. She’d been yanking her sword out of a tree after missing her swing on the wayward troll she was tracking with Daphne. Sucker was fast, it darted away once her sword was stuck. Daphne gave chase, but she’d clearly run into pixie trouble.
“Scram.” Sabrina ordered, putting her sword back in her sheath.
The pixies darted away again upon her arrival.
“Those guys listen to you?”
Sabrina shrugged. “Listen’s a strong word. They know I follow through on threats, though.”
Sabrina stood shading her eyes with one hand, looking up into the tree.
“I didn't mean to throw it that high,” Red said. "I didn't even know I could. Do you have any ideas for getting it down?"
Sabrina could try climbing the tree, but the frisbee was up in the delicate branches. It would be a sketchy climb. She tried to think of other options, looking around for inspiration.
A few hovering lights in the distance caught her eye.
She whistled sharply to draw their attention and pointed up.
“I’ll give you mango juice if you knock that down for us.”
The pixies huddled, clearly discussing the offered trade.
After a moment, they ascended into the tree, pulling branches away from the frisbee and allowing it to fall to the ground.
Sabrina turned towards the house. “Thanks. Give me a minute, I have to grab the juice from inside.”
Sabrina walked through the woods, cooling off after an argument with her dad. He was really getting on her nerves these days.
The little lights surprised her, pixies racing to surround her and flying laps.
“What? What’s going on?” she asked them.
A few darted ahead and then doubled back. One tugged slightly on a strand of her hair, another on her sleeve.
Sabrina figured she might as well follow them. They seemed frantic as they tried to guide her somewhere, and she wondered if maybe they’d found something wrong.
She walked deeper and deeper into the woods upon their command as they kept up the nervous energy.
Shortly before her next step, though, instinct tugged her mind to pay more attention to her surroundings.
Just up ahead, directly on the path the pixies were pulling her down, grew a perfect circle of mushrooms.
Sabrina stopped.
“Guys, I’m not getting in your ring.”
The pixies stopped their frenetic choreography, pausing before arranging into the shape of a frowny face.
The volume of Sabrina’s laugh surprised even herself, and her knees went weak. She sat on the ground, hands on her abs as they began to ache with the incessant laughter.
Puck listened to the story his minions told him with a glare and crossed arms.
“None of you have any loyalty at all.”