Follow the Gnome

We drove up the snowy, winding road towards the cozy A-frame cabin.

The scene was idyllic - the situation inside the car, considerably less so.

My best friend, Isaac, newly engaged to Jennifer (who goes by “Jenny-Sue”...I can’t make this up) had planned this weekend getaway, inviting me - a huge mistake on their part, as I am surly, unkempt, and enjoy road trip fart contests fueled by questionable gas station food choices (room-temp, day-old egg salad on a hot dog bun, anyone?) - and Skye, Jenny-Sue’s best friend.

“Y’all are our PEOPLE that day, right?” Jenny-Sue had said, speaking in all caps to emphasize certain words. “You’re Isaac’s best man, and Skye is my maid of honor, so we’re doing this trip so you two can meet and bond, GOT IT?”

The car doors opened, and everyone and all four of us poured out, driven by a heinous stink cloud I’d just unleashed as we pulled into view of the cabin.

Jenny-Sue was livid, and I assumed Skye would be too - when I looked over, her face was flushed and pink, tears streaming down her face, and what I assumed to be chokes of rage at my unholy toot were, in fact, laughter.

I expected Skye to hate me. My tangle of dark hair, my slouched posture, my vintage tees and skinny jeans, my inability to not engage my best friend in a fart contest, though we were now solidly in our late 20s.

Skye, on the other hand, should have a permanent ring light following her around. An “influencer,” her bottled sunshine personality and thousand-watt smile, which assumed had to be faked for her videos (not that I watched them for over an hour the previous day), seemed to come from some sort of genuine place - a place I had never found myself.

She made makeup tutorial videos online, “Sky High Makeup with Skye,” and thanks to her 8.2 million followers, was way more comfortable financially than I was as a waiter/used book store owner/failed novelist.

I thought she’d hate me, but here she was, giving me a high-five (a Skye-five?) as we walked up the stairs to the A-Frame.

Kindness catches me off guard, especially from beautiful people, and I looked at my hand quizzically after she did it as if there might be an answer there I’d understand.

We get inside, and Isaac and Jenny-Sue, after a hasty dropping of luggage, grab their packs and immediately set off to the mountain to go skiing.

I unpack my laptop, take the lid off my coffee, and get ready to settle into a writing session, expecting Skye to go with them.

Instead, she unpacks her own laptop, parks herself on the couch, and waves a cheery goodbye to them, which was far better than the goodbye grunt I managed.

We both tapped away at the keys for a bit in the quiet of the cabin, and I furiously tried to think of a topic of conversation - anything - to break the peace when a slow grinding crunch came from the fireplace.

We looked at each other across the short space.

“Did you just hear…” but she never got a chance to finish the question, as with another resounding thunk, something heavy shifted behind the fireplace, and it rotated, revealing a hidden door - one that, given the dimensions of the house should have led outside to the craggy, snowy slope outside. But it didn’t.

Instead, it leads into some kind of chamber, torch-lit, with some kind of bioluminescent glyphs on the walls.

And there, standing in the newly revealed passage, was a gnome.

Standing three feet tall, with a red, pointed, cone-shaped hat, a ruddy face, and a neatly trimmed white beard, he surveyed the two of us with dark eyes that glinted like black glass, until they came to rest on Skye.

He sprinted to her, knelt before the ratty old couch, and said in a gruff little voice, “your majesty, at last, you must come quick! Illusoara is in danger again, you must return at once!”

Skye stood, and I was stunned at the sudden shift in her posture, regal, shoulders back, commanding.

“We must go at once - lead on, dear Thundlesqueak.”

She turned to me and said, “when I was a girl, I found a door to a secret world and became a ruler there for a time. No big deal. You’ve probably read a bunch of stories like it. Care to join?”

I did. I did care to join. The gnome gave me a disapproving once over and sighed, resigning himself immediately to my joining.

I shit you not, Sky took a quick selfie with Thundlesqueak, and then we were off, him leading the way down the mysterious passage, the glowing runes on the cave walls humming a mysterious and easy tune, the fireplace door sliding shut behind us with a thud and resounding stone click, leaving behind our laptops and an empty room.