The Korrigan's Gift

I grew up in a small coastal town that was sleepy ten months out of the year, except for July and August when it seemed like every city-dweller in the country would come flooding in to take refuge on our little piece of the Atlantic coast. They would stay at one of two big resorts located right by the marina and boisterously take over every inch of the local beaches with their lounge chairs, party music, and barbecues. At the time, my family lived in a dingy little shoebox right above the railway that would rattle vigorously for a few seconds once every four minutes when a cargo train would pass by. I had a normal, quiet childhood. During the week, I went to school and play with my friends. On the weekends between mid-September and mid-May, weather permitting, my parents took me to the then-deserted grey-sanded beach, a mere fifteen walk from our home.

This is where I had my first encounters with the korrigans. The korrigans are a small, generally benign type of elf who interfere with people’s lives for fun. They play tricks on the people they dislike but do occasionally take certain people under their wing if they like them enough. As I ran alongside the dunes in the middle of winter, I came across occasional small coins hidden by the korrigans under seashells and rocks. Each time I would cry out with excitement and run back to my parents to share my latest finding. They shared my enthusiasm, though more moderately, and then exchanged amused glances. For my birthday one year, they gifted me a small black notebook I cherished. It served a double purpose: to calculate my total beach findings and to correspond with the korrigans. Even though I was still too young to write myself, I sat down ceremoniously once a week with my mother or father at the kitchen table, where I'd dictate my letter to the surreptitious magical creatures. Sometimes it was just to check-in and to ask them about their weeks. Other times the conversation was a bit more elaborate and I would ask them what they thought of humans and the way we live. To my absolute delight, the korrigans consistently responded. It would take them a few hours, sometimes a few days, but I would always go back to the notebook to find a heartfelt letter, which I then begged my parents to read to me. This little routine went on for a long time. When I went to my favorite beach, I swore I could see them, rushing past me, blending into the dunes. I could hear them laugh too, in screeching sounds resembling the cries of the seagulls that scoured the beach year-round.

On a particularly windy day, I came across a big rock as I ran on the usual path. This one was too heavy to push for my little hands, so I started to dig around the rock to free it from the sand. Under it, there was a wooden box, and when I opened it, I found stacks of bills up to its brim. In a mix of euphoria and confusion, I ran back to my parents, yelling.

"I found a treasure!"

They continued their conversation, much to my frustration. I tugged on their coats, pressing them to move forward.

"Yeah-yeah-yeah, that’s great! Go back to your treasure; we’ll come to see it in a minute."

Their faces stayed stern while I ran back and forth along the path that had led me to the box. When my parents did catch up to me, I showed them the box’s content. They examined it, furtively looking over their shoulders as they started taking out a couple of bills to get a closer look. For the first time, their reaction to the gift isn’t an amused glance.

I had just started to learn numbers at school, so when we got home, I carefully studied my notebook to check my latest beach findings, written in my mother’s careful cursive:

Saturday, February 1st: 0.19$

Sunday, February 2st: 0.75$

Saturday, February 8th: 0,63$

Sunday, February 9th: 0.96$

Saturday, 15th February: 20,000.00$

"Mommy, what’s 2-0-0-0-0-dot-0-0?"

"That’s twenty thousand dollars, honey!"

That night, I was so excited I could barely sleep. And from the whispers in the room next to mine, I knew I wasn’t the only one writing to the korrigans anymore.