Treasured

A sharp shout echoed off the canyon walls.

“Relax, honey. Just a bug.” John brushed the creature off Andrea’s neck. “Must have dropped down from the trees.” He laughed, and she punched the arm nearest to her. “Ow!” He rubbed the arm, but couldn’t help another chuckle.

“Not funny!” Andrea stepped out from under the trees’ branches and onto the sunny, dusty path. She dumped her backpack on the ground. “Can we stop?” she asked. “My stomach’s grumbled halfway up the range. We can’t keep up on an empty belly.”

“Just a couple more hours to the—” He stopped at her glare. “Me too,” he corrected what he was about to say. “Let’s eat.” He turned toward the row of boulders that blocked the edge of the trees, shrugged off the backpack he toted, and stretched. “Good to get away for a few days, yes?”

“Hm.”

He turned suddenly, grabbed Andrea and swung her around.

“John!” she protested. “We were just—”

“Nope,” he beamed. “Won’t put you down before you say you’re glad to be here.”

Reluctantly, she laughed. “Okay, okay! The country tour was a fun plan on your part.” He put her down and smooched her forehead. When she started to turn away, he added more pressure on her arms and she stopped her endeavor to get away. Andrea looked down at John’s chest, her hand curled on the sky-blue top he wore, and John smoothed a brown curl back from the edge of her face.

“Sorry to be away so much,” he murmured. “We knew after my advancement at my job—” At her scowl, he waved a hand. “Forget that. We can talk about that later. Let’s just enjoy ourselves.” Her mouth moved hardly at all, and she refused to glance up. “Hey.” He pulled her face upward at one touch under her jaw and waggled eyebrows to try to coax a reluctant laugh from her. “Just for myself, when’s the last workout that made me feel so … exuberant?” He leered playfully at her.

But the joke wasn’t funny enough to get a laugh, as he’d hoped. She just looked up at John, her blue-grey eyes thoughtful. The day-to-day of what should have been newlywed joy had become tense lately, although he’d just completed a huge case and could cut back somewhat at work. Such as today, when they could spend more enjoyable hours together and leave other problems for later. He’d worked so hard to take care of the future for the two of them, and now he would have more moments to focus on her.

He turned toward the trees and headed under the cool shade. “Why don’t you unpack lunch? Need to take a fast break.”

“Okay.” The crackle of paper bags followed John under the shade as he stepped around the closely spaced trees to look for an acceptable spot. When the shush of the oaks’ leaves drowned out the rustle of food that Andrea unpacked, he stopped.

Farther away from the pathway, the trees were larger and spaced apart, so that whole areas of decayed leaves and mossy ground seemed set ablaze from the noonday sun. A short bush called John’s name, and he unhooked the snaps on worn pants and relaxed.

“Hey!” the bush yelled, spun around, and shook off drops of wetness. John’s breath huffed out from a wordless shout as he jumped, then promptly buttoned up and took several steps back as he sorted matters.

For a second, he saw double—a savagely angry bush that hopped up and down, and a small, gnarled man who wrung out the clothes he wore. A cloud of dust motes sparkled around John, and the two forms resolved to one—a runty man who wore a dappled green ensemble, unfortunately wet.

“Why don’t ye watch where ye do that?” the old man squealed. “Honest folk can’t have a rest these days...” The last few words were muffled as the man turned away from John to face the trees.

“Sorry,” John stammered. “Um…” The small man paced around the earth where the plant had been, no taller than the bush John thought he was. “How’d you do that?”

“Are ye daft? Do you have even a lone thought that rattles around that fat head of yers?” the short man snapped back. “Well, hurry up, haven’t got all day.”

“What?”

“Ye’ve caught me red-handed. Well… wet-membered, so to speak. Demand treasure from me.”

John’s face must have reflected how confused he felt, because the damp man began to hurl out unfathomable sentences from some other language, but they had the guttural sound of cuss words. Eventually, the words became an understandable Scots’ brogue. “The boys back home would laugh themselves to death. What, have ye never seen a leprechaun, ye eejat? Ye caught me, so ye’re supposed to demand my treasure.”

“What?” John repeated.

The green-clad man glared at wet hands, then bent over to rub them dry on a patch of ground as he spoke. “Ask me for my treasure.”

He felt that he was almost back to a boy stuck at grade school who had to parrot the rote lesson. Meekly, John asked: “Um… your treasure?”

“Aha!” the man jumped up and shook a clenched hand at John’s face. “Ye’re after my treasure now, are ye? Well, not so easy to come by for someone such as yerself.”

John’s face grew warm. “Look, who wants your treasure? Not me. You know, all of what happened was a fluke. But really, just want to get back to my honey—”

At the sudden canny look on the small man’s face, John stopped. He remembered vaguely from a folk and mythology class at college that leprechauns were supposed to be temperamental creatures who were charlatans and attempted to cheat humans on any deal they struck. He couldn’t expose Andrea to danger. He had to handle what the leprechaun could dole out alone. “Ah—need to get back to my honest work,” he concluded lamely. An awkward hush hung between them afterward, but John clamped down on a foolhardy urge to say more.

“Before ye leave, ye must answer me correctly,” the leprechaun prodded when John stayed mute.

“Hell, no!” John spun around to go.

“Ye walk away, and ye’ll have regrets for the rest of yer days.”

At the words, John stopped and turned back. The man would perhaps look preposterous from far away, but there was a dangerous gleam from eyes that weren’t so funny now. He stood unmovable as a boulder, and stared at John out of a black pebble gaze. John had seen such looks on the faces of gangsters at court when he came to defend them—the look that dared a defender to explore the consequences of retreat.

The leprechaun leered now when he saw John had paused. “The query ye must answer: what do ye value most? For success, yer answer must be worth more than my treasure. And then, ye can go on yer way.” The small man laughed abruptly and rotated at top speed. The dappled green clothes he wore suddenly looked dry.

“Hold on. No deal. Take your dumb treasure and leave me alone.”

“No answer, ye lose.” The small man took out a pocket watch and tapped the lustrous surface, and the ends of each hand had become sharpened talons. A threat that John couldn’t overlook, and he swallowed loudly. “Only seconds left. Choose.”

“Um.” John scraped the bottom of memory after memory for any useful angles to approach the problem. All he saw was a mental copy of the Lucky Charms cereal character. The youngsters from the ad always wanted to steal the leprechaun’s marshmallows. He doubted marshmallows were the answer, though.

The leprechaun huffed, “Go on, go on, haven’t got all day.”

“Jeez!” He thought hard. “Hold on a moment. What happens to the loser?”

The small man’s black eyes gleamed, but he stayed mute. No help there, that was for sure.

John crossed rubbery arms over a fast-paced heart that warned he wasn’t prepared for the leprechaun’s challenge. “Tell you what. My job garners me lots of money. Too much money to play your game. So, how about you keep your treasure? My treasure’s worth more to me than yours.”

The small man stared. “Are you sure that’s your answer?”

John gave a careless half-wave. “That’s my refusal to answer. There’s zero reward you can grant me that won’t come through from my own hard work.”

The leprechaun laughed. “You are unusual for a man. You want nought! For that answer, you are free to go. We both are.” He swung around once more and a beam from the sun glared off the top of the man’s green hat and became a shower of sparks that fluttered toward John’s face.

John batted at them and the man was gone. The only trace he had been there were the motes that hung throughout the deathly hushed atmosphere, and a sour smell of ozone that flooded John’s nose unpleasantly.

“Thank God that’s over,” he muttered. He turned to locate the way back to the path. He pushed through the bushes and the trees, but they snatched at John’s clothes and head, almost as though they wanted to stop the desperate man. “Andrea!” he called out, and crashed through the branches that clawed and clung. “You’ll never guess what happened.”

Through the trees, he could see the wall of boulders next to the path, but there was no answer from her. “Andrea!” he called out as he ran past the last tree and stumbled upon the glade once more.

Nobody was there. No objects left except one backpack on the ground. He looked down the path, but no one was apparent on the route they had spent the better part of an hour on.

He eyes swept past the pack once more, but then focused on the front pocket. A cream-colored envelope was tucked beneath the flap, just the edge revealed. Both hands shook as he pulled out the paper. The envelope was followed by a cloud of sparkles and smell of ozone. No, he thought, and saw from memory the leprechaun’s powerful leer. No, no, no…

As he angled the envelope, the flap fell open and a small golden band bounced once on the dusty path and rolled to a stop near enough to grab.

He bent down and gathered up Andrea’s cast-off jewelry. The letter began, “Dear John—”