Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater....
Had a wife and couldn't keep her...
Put her in a pumpkin shell...
And there he kept her very well...
...or did he?
Samantha (or Sam for short) was enjoying her Halloween in Ireland with her Great Aunt Ella (or just Aunt Ella) very much.
Decorations were all over, witches rode on broomsticks and glowing red eyes loomed out of the darkness of windows. All in all it was turning out to be a jolly good time, except for one thing.
Aunt Ella kept complaining that her pumpkins were being eaten to pieces by mice and there were only two left. So Sam went out and brought the bigger one in that night, and would have gone to bed had she not heard the voice.
"…good fer' naught, smug, self serving, son-of-a-"
"Hello?" Sam interrupted, hoping the voice wasn't talking about her.
"Hello?" The voice asked, it sounded slightly muffled. "Peter, Peter O'Riley, ye' get yer' scrawny arse over here and let me out, ye' hear?"
"I am sorry ma'am, but I'm no 'Peter O'Riley', I'm Samantha, Samantha Simmons from America, if you could tell me where you are perhaps I could help?" Sam waited, I'm talking to voices she thought to herself.
"Oh dear, Samantha Simmons from across the Ocean ye' don' say? Oh, I am sorry dear, my toung gets the better of me sometimes. Could ye' please let me out of this pumpkin 'ere?
"Pumpkin? How ever can you fit into a pumpkin?" There was silence for a moment, and Sam waited to see if she had insulted the voice in some way when it spoke again.
"Samantha, ye' wouldn't be a human, would ye'?"
Sam hesitated, what else would I be? "Yes, I'm human. What are you, ma'am if you don't mind me asking?"
"I'm an Elf youngling, and my poor lungs need some fresh air. Could ye'…carefully…take the top off this pumpkin?"
Sam, after hearing that the voice was an Elf, and indeed coming from the pumpkin immediately wondered what she should do, remembering all the stories she had heard about Faeries and Elves. But her better judgement lost and she carefully cut the top of the pumpkin off, letting in light a little at a time, so as not to hurt the elf-woman's eyes.
And truly it was an elf. A woman of about five inches, slim, wearing a leaf green dress (with smears of pumpkin juice on it) stared at her with bright green eyes. The Elfin woman cocked her head to one side so her bright red hair shifted and Sam caught a glimpse of odd, swept up ears.
"Hello there Samantha Simmons," the woman said. She looked about thirty, with a smallish nose, high cheekbones, and a very stubborn chin. The Elf-woman placed her hands on her hips in a matter-of-fact gesture and said "yer' mouth is open, youngling." Sam promptly closed it.
"I…I've never seen…I've never seen an…an…"
"Elf?" Sam nodded. "Well now ye' have. Are I as ye' expected me to be?"
Sam studied the Elf-woman with twelve-year-old eyes and shook her head. "No ma'am, I expected you to be a few shades taller, to be truthful." The Elf-woman laughed, "I'm short fer' my kind. Now, ye' can'na tell no one 'bou seein' me, ye' hear?"
Sam nodded, "yes ma'am, or no ma'am…or…I got it, I won't tell anyone…can I tell my bird?" The Elf-woman nodded.
"Now that you are here, do you mind me asking, why were you in that pumpkin?"
The Elf-woman, who had been looking calmly at Sam a moment ago, seemed to blaze with anger. "Tha' low down, dirty, mule headed, stubborn, scrawny, drunken idiot!" Sam stared. "Tha' stupid Peter O'Riley, why I ever married him…oh wait, yes, me Da picked 'im for me. Tol' 'im I didn't wanna' marry the cheetin' scum but did'e listen? Na! Stupid ale guzzler was probably out with 'im at the bar with that wench Wendy Wizzleton, she' lives in a shoe ye' know? Probably inherited it from 'er grand mother! Whole lot of whores they all are! Takin' honest, loyal ladies' men-folk away! Hah! I'll give Mr. Peter I'm-Too-Good-For-Molly Wentworth-O'Riley a piece of my mind, I will!"
"So, your husband locked you in a pumpkin?"
Molly Wentworth-O'Riley nodded her head firmly. "Said it was family tradition, had ta' lock me in and that 'ed 'keep me well.' How do ya' suppose 'ed manage to pull off'a stunt like tha'? I'm jus' lucky its 'alloween time an' the pumpkins aren'na being lef' ta' rot."
"Is he coming back tonight?" Sam asked the fuming Molly. Molly shook her head and stamped a bare foot on the wooden tabletop in Aunt Ella's kitchen.
"Won't be comin' till t'morrow, it is 'tis All Hallows Eve, t'morrow night, aye lass? Aye, he'll come."
"Where will you go if you leave?"
"Home."
"Do you know where that is?" The Elf-woman looked at Sam skeptically, "An' Elf always knows where it's home is. Didn' ye' know that?" Sam shook her head.
"Well!" Exclaimed the tiny woman. "I never thought tha' we Elves would'da been fer'gotten!"
Samantha quickly amended her head shake, "oh, no Mrs., Mrs., Wentworth-O'Riley." Boy that's a mouthful Sam thought grimly. The tiny woman shook her head, "O'Riley'll do lass." Sam nodded to show she understood.
"We humans haven't forgotten you Elves Mrs. O'Riley. We just lost a lot of history about you Elves."
Mrs. O'Riley nodded her head, "well then' I'll jus' hafta' teach ye' what I know, unless ye'd rather I didn't?" Mrs. O'Riley looked slightly hopeful and Sam nodded, "I'd love to be taught about Elves, and from an Elf, none the less."
Mrs. O'Riley looked happy and Sam invited her to stay in her room till Peter O'Riley came to claim his wife from the pumpkin shell. Sam made up a bed of a pillow she had made just that day, and a small blanket of woven wool that she had made on a loom two days earlier to serve as a comforter.
Mrs. O'Riley slept in a doll house in an empty room (there was hardly any furniture) and Sam placed a warm bowl of water in one of the rooms along with a few cotton squares to use as towels.
She gave Mrs. O'Riley her choice of Barbie doll clothes and left the items in the rather large 'living room' of the house, then excused herself, and politely closed the front of the house so the only ways to look in were the doors or windows.
Creeping downstairs to the kitchen, Samantha took a bottle cap full of water, another full of milk and put them on a plate. To that she added some of the pumpkin insides, (just incase nothing else on the plate pleased her). She also included cheddar and some yellowish cheese, sliced the tip off of a carrot and carefully diced it so the elfin woman could hold and eat it. Mentally she reviewed what was in the garden and decided to include some of the tiny, perennial alpine strawberries and a few crumbs of bread.
She took the whole plate upstairs and set it on the roof quietly explaining that there was a door hatch in the attic that let her get on to the roof and that there was food there. She put some of her Barbie dishes and some of her dollhouse dishes on the plate as well and turned on the lava lamp that had belonged to her mother when she was a young girl and visited Great Aunt Ella. It glowed with blue light. She quickly changed in the closet into her sun and moon pajamas.
Samantha quietly knocked on the front door and was rewarded with a grinning Mrs. O'Riley in a tan pants suit. "Ye' say the food is on top of the house, do ye?" Sam nodded. "Well then, I'll be right up." Sam grinned and nodded again as the door quietly shut. It was a moment till the woman appeared on the roof, "well!" She exclaimed at the dish of food, which, compared to the woman, looked like a lot now that Sam thought about it. "I won't starve, thas' for sure." The woman said. She sat down and picked up one of the mugs, dipping it into the water and drinking it, then trying the milk. "Hmmm…milk tastes different, we get our milk from mice or rabbits typically. Our blankets are made of deer, rabbit, or chipmunk 'air. All of it was shed, we don'na kill our animals. We heal em, then send 'em back out. Course' we almost never live in these human areas. But the birds are nice, aye they are. Some give us feathers and we can go out, disguised as birds and pick up seed for dinner."
Mrs. O'Riley picked up one of the tiny strawberries, a little smaller than her head. "Course, when humans have gardens that are filled with our favorites, lilac, strawberries, lily of the valley, then we canna' help but come. We'd be starin' at a feast and not goin'? Na! We'd go," she took a bite of the strawberry, swallowed politely, then "these strawberries are quite good, ye' grow em' under the ash tree in the back, don' ye?"
Sam nodded, "I grew the first few plants under an ash in my back yard, so I brought one of the plants with me. I had to hide it on the plane in a plastic box in my jacket, since they wanted to x-ray my backpack."
Mrs. O'Riley nodded, then looked closely into Samantha's face, "ye'd best go to sleep now." Sam nodded, "I'm leaving the lamp on-" she pointed to the blobs in the lava lamp, "-it throws off some light, in case you'd like to stay awake eating." Mrs. O'Riley nodded, then made a shooing gesture with her hands and Sam crawled into bed and fell asleep almost immediately.
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The next day was Halloween, and Great Aunt Ella praised Samantha for bringing in the last pumpkin and putting it in the fridge. Though she did wonder why the top was cut off, and there was a strand of red hair on the counter top (Sam's was black) along with tiny prints that looked like feet, but she didn't press the issue.
Mrs. O'Riley talked to Sam almost all day, either in the backyard when she was working, or in the house while she was working, or during her time off (excusing her when she needed to use the bathroom of course). Till late into the evening, then into the night.
Around 11:00 (after Aunt Ella had gone to sleep), Mrs. O'Riley and Samantha went outside into the cold air to wait till Mr. O'Riley came back to the pumpkin. They didn't have to wait long.
"Molly! Molly I didn't mean it! Ye' know how my Da is! Molly! Blast it girl, where are ye?"
"Right here ye' low down, dirty rotten cheat!"
A tiny seven or so inch man, with bright red hair and dark green eyes moved towards Mrs. O'Riley, not noticing Samantha sitting silent by a tree. "Ye' thought ye' could jus' lock me in a pumpkin, is that it?"
"Now, Molly…" the tiny man began, but Mrs. O'Riley cut him off. "Nay, ye' drunken, ale guzzler, ye' are going to work off yer' debt." She marched forward and much to the surprise of Samantha and Mr. O'Riley, Molly reached up, gripped his ear and tugged his head down to her level, making for a funny sight, but Samantha couldn't hold back her giggle.
Mrs. O'Riley turned towards her and nodded politely to Samantha. Her dress had been washed in the tiny bowl that had been used as a bath and it was a bright, leaf color again, though, it looked as if it was turning the color of the ash tree Sam was sitting under. "Youngling, donna you forget what I taught ye', hear?" Sam nodded, "I won't forget ma'am. And you sir," Sam turned on Mr. O'Riley, "putting Mrs. O'Riley in a pumpkin shell is not a very loving thing to do, I say you should be a lot more kind to her, as she is your wife." Mr. O'Riley gaped at her. Mrs. O'Riley looked smugly, at her husband and nodded. Samantha reached forward and handed the tiny brown pants suit to Mrs. O'Riley, who smiled her appreciation then turned back to scolding her husband.
"So! Ye' thought ye' could leave me in a pumpkin and no one'd be the wiser? Eh? Some husband ye' turned out to be, got goaded by yer brothers, ye did! Family honor, ha! Family Tradition? None of my sisters-in-law got thrown into a pumpkin! How dare ye-" her voice broke off as a tiny pop emanated from her and both Mr. and Mrs. Riley disappeared into the thin, cold air.
Sam stared at where the elves had been and then looked into the night sky wondering, 'is this what its always like to be an elf or just if you are married to the grandson of Peter, Peter the Pumpkin Eater?'She sighed and thought about the Elf lore she had been taught, she crawled up, scratched a rune of friendship into the ground and went inside to write it all down.