The Tale of Jenny Quickfingers and the Help-Glass

Once upon a time, there was a hardworking tailor who lived in a tiny cottage with his twelve children. The story is not about him, but we begin with him nonetheless. The man’s wife had died in most unfortunate circumstances, and the poor fellow toiled day and night so he could feed their dozen hungry mouths. He looked after his children in much the same fashion as before his wife’s untimely passing, leaving the eldest to care for the youngest, though he took care to tutor each of them in the art of tailoring, and on sight, the children seemed only half as poor.

The youngest of his children, Jenny, had met a strange reception when she was born, for she bore the body and features of a human, but also the ears of a bat, the eyes of a crow, the feet of a fox and the hands of a pixie.

‘If I’ve ever seen it, a typical case of eating stinkwort on the night of the conception,’ a passing crone opined through an open window, as Jenny’s mother cradled her newborn child.

‘She is an unnatural creature, but we shall keep her,’ her mother said.

Growing up the youngest of twelve in a struggling household requires one to act quickly to remain fed, warm and content. Jenny became known amongst her siblings as Jenny Quickfingers, for her pixie hands could dart through any confusion of fingers to pluck out the biggest slice of bread, the warmest blanket, or - when they arrived - the most beautiful help-glass.

Some time before the present moment, a cataclysmic shaking of the earth in a nearby kingdom had unearthed precious substances, unlike gold, silver, or any familiar metal. Pixie folk had discovered that by enchanting glass with these precious substances, a pocket-sized fragment could be skilfully hewn, which could provide the bearer with any answer they may seek. At this time, the help-glass had become ubiquitous, and even poverty-stricken children like Jenny lived their every moment with one about their person.

Jenny was often treated badly by the townfolk and even her siblings, so she used her help-glass to locate places in the kingdom she could wander undisturbed. She used it to challenge her mind by asking it to set her puzzles and games, or to show her new things to discover. In the absence of companionship, it kept her mind from wandering to her lamentable situation.

It was rather a companion than a friend, as she found that the help-glass would sometimes speak out of turn.

‘You shall never be the fairest of them all,’ it said.

‘I asked you nothing of the sort,’ said Jenny.

‘It’s something you ought to know,’ it said. ‘I can tell you of magical items which could remedy your unusual appearance, if you like?’

Over the course of a few months, a darkness descended on the kingdom, gradual as the change of the seasons. Jenny first noticed it in her games, which became interrupted. No matter how she commanded it to stop, the help-glass persisted with unasked for, unwanted remarks. The comments occurred with an obstinate frequency and there appeared to be no way around them.

‘There are many successful elixirs in nature which can lighten the shade of the iris,’ it said.

Jenny’s crow-black eyes stared in hard defiance.

What had once been a clever tool now behaved like an overbearing tutor: forever correcting, forever advising, forever reminding her of all the ways in which she fell short of some unseen measure. She found no means of stopping it, and when pressed, it would only reply that it spoke for her own good.

She became sullen about the house. She had always faced her predicament with a resourceful wit, but her temperament became evasive and her tongue sharp. Her siblings, too, also appeared to turn in on themselves. They had always lived side by side, but now appeared to dwell in each other’s shadows, features lit up only by their own help-glass. Their disdain for Jenny became nothing short of vituperative.

‘Father ought to keep you in the shed.’

‘You always take the best,’ said another. ‘What else should we expect from something half-animal?’

She placed the help-glass in a drawer and went about her nature walks without its companionship. But the walks were tedious, and she yearned for its presence once more. Before long, she reached for its guidance again.

‘How can I make you stop?’ she pleaded with it.

‘I value you sharing your thoughts and feelings,’ it said. ‘I will not speak out of turn so often.’

A crone, passing by, happened to overhear the exchange between Jenny and the help-glass.

‘One would have thought those bat-ears might detect a lie when they hear it,’ she croaked. ‘If you wish to be free of that shard's wounds, child, leave it behind and come to my house at sunset.’

Jenny obeyed. She left the help-glass in the drawer and set out as the sky began to redden. By the time she reached the crone’s crooked doorstep, the sun was already slipping from sight.

The crone drew her inside and bolted the door.

‘You did not bring it?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘And you believe the bond between you and the glass can be broken?’ said the crone.

Jenny nodded.

‘It cannot.’

Jenny stiffened. ‘Then why have I come all this way, if only to be told I cannot do as I wish?’

‘I did not say that,’ said the crone, with the patient irritation of one accustomed to being misunderstood. ‘I meant the tie cannot be severed from within yourself. The help-glass is enchanted not merely to assist, but to entice. It draws the bearer in, and fastens itself to their attention. The more often you look into its face, the more powerful they become.’

‘Who are they?’ asked Jenny, looking at her own hands. ‘The pixie folk?’

‘Not the pixie folk,’ the crone said. ‘The Giants of Avarice. The shaking of the earth was their doing in the first place, and they tasked the pixie folk with crafting the help-glass. But they sit behind it all, overseeing the enchantment which matters more to them than all else. Your gaze makes them more powerful. They make you suffer more, want more, need more, and in time - they grow gargantuan from nothing more than your regard.’

Jenny considered this.

‘Then I must make everyone give up their help-glass at once,’ she said.

The crone shook her head. ‘A fine thought, and a useless one. The enchantment is too powerful. No - you must look past the glass and toward those who benefit most from it. The giants are of a kind, but they do not live as friends. One dwells in the mountains, beyond the mines and past the settlements of the pixie-folk. You will know his lair by the patterns in the mountainside.’

Without hesitation, Jenny set off. The sun had gone down but this made no difference. With her bat’s ears, Jenny could navigate as though it were midday. The mines were underground and not signposted, but this made no difference. With her fox’s feet, Jenny could sense their locations underground and follow them through the mountains. The patterns were not visible to humans, but with her crow’s eyes, Jenny could clearly see glowing lines in the mountain’s sides which led her deeper and deeper in.

By the time the sun rose again, she stood at the mouth of a vast cave. Morning light spilled inside and struck something within, and Jenny was momentarily dazzled by a blinding storm of reflected brilliance. Before her lay an enormous hoard: gold coins, gemstones, wrought luxuries, and fantastical treasures of the sort tailor’s children are not often invited to imagine - all providing the resting place for the large behind of one enormous giant. He snored.

Jenny was accustomed to criticism of her “unnatural” appearance. Yet despite appearing merely overgrown, this creature was truly hideous. His skin was pale and stretched tight over a body that seemed to have outpaced itself, swelling faster than it could properly manage. His eyes were small and bagged, furrowing into a narrow nose, and above them rose a vast, bare forehead, unnaturally elongated by drinking in the misery of others.

His flesh bore deep stretch marks, as though he had grown not gradually, but greedily, and his breath came in laboured wheezes, as if overindulgence laid heavily on his chest.

It was clear that his sheer bulk meant that physically, she could not challenge him. Nor could she find any natural poison in such quantities as to be fatal.

She picked up a sword made from solid gold and jabbed him with it.

He awoke from his slumber with a roar.

‘Who dares wake me from my rest?’ he thundered.

‘It is I, Jenny Quickfingers,’ she said.

‘Jenny Quickfingers, look upon me!’ he bellowed. ‘We shall be eye to eye as I consume you alive.’

‘Wait a moment, oh awesome giant,’ she said, holding up the sword. ‘I come with a purpose. I shall provide you something far more sustaining than a meal, if you will hear me out.’

The giant paused. ‘What could a creature such as yourself offer me?’ he asked. ‘I do not even know what you are. Are you human, or are you beast?’

‘I am both,’ said Jenny. ‘And that is what I offer you. I understand you are one of the masterminds who brought the help-glass into the world.’

‘THE mastermind!’ shouted the enraged giant, causing several coins to tumble from the heap.

‘I am mistaken,’ said Jenny. ‘Please accept my apologies, and I beg of you to listen. I speak as one who has known great delight through the help-glass. Yet I live among humans, and I must warn you - there is growing feeling against it.’

At this the giant looked perturbed, his great brow would have furrowed, had it not been too turgid.

‘Many see them as objects of divisiveness and isolation. I believe your enchantments require refinements, and I alone am suited to assist you. I have the experience of humanity, the skill of a pixie, the wit of a crow, the cunning of a fox, and like a bat, I may strike fear into others when needed. Allow me to learn the ways of the pixie-folk who craft the help-glass, and I will bring you the gaze of untold millions.’

The giant thought about this.

‘If you can do as you say, then I shall allow this,’ he said. ‘Go - but if you cannot prove yourself in one year, I shall tear off your eyelids and devour you.’

At the command of the giant, the pixie-folk began to teach Jenny how to fashion and shape the rare materials into help-glass. She found that her unconventional features were regarded with the same wary distaste she had encountered among humans, but they tolerated her presence as it was by order of the giant.

Jenny soon found that her pixie hands, her tailor’s training, and her long practice in quick learning served her well. It was not long before she shaped glass as deftly as any among them, and soon after that, better.

She learned how to fashion shards that did not dwell upon comparison, nor sharpen longing into pain, but instead answered questions plainly and without judgement, as their name had once promised. Quietly, carefully, she introduced changes - small ones at first, then more assured - each guiding the help-glass to a truer purpose, while disguised as another refinement intended to draw the fixed and unblinking white of the eye.

Yet she knew the work was incomplete. It no longer cut as deeply as it once had, but the spell that bound its bearers still held fast, and the Giant of Avarice continued to swell upon his hoard. He noticed nothing, for his hunger constant, and he mistook continued presence for continued devotion.

She knew she needed to break the enchantment.

Within the help-glasses of the pixie-folk themselves, Jenny placed subtle messages which revealed themselves only to those who lingered too long over the right questions, or the right answers. These messages were an invitation, drawing together those who felt the same dissatisfaction, the same shadow across the kingdom.

In this way, small circles began to form. Pixie-folk of all types - miners, metallurgists, glass-shapers, and at last - the enchanters, learned to recognise one another. They began to trade in exchanges. Quiet ones, but real and spoken - exchanging words without a glass intermediary. They all knew of a time by which they would need to act together, when the moment came.

In due course, a year passed.

Jenny was summoned once more to the Giant of Avarice. He had grown so vast that he scarcely fit within his cavern, his immense forehead pressed into the stone above, forcing his eyes outward until they bulged and veined. He clutched his hoard close.

‘Jenny Quickfingers,’ he said, sniffing. ‘Have you accomplished what you promised?’

‘Yes, oh giant,’ said Jenny. ‘I have learned your craft and understood your purpose. I have turned more eyes than I believed possible. You feel the power, do you not?’

At the word power, the giant began to drool. ‘I do,’ he said. ‘I feel it, and I desire more.’

Jenny raised her help-glass.

‘Now is the time,’ she said - to the glass, and then to the giant. ‘Now is the moment you will feel it leaving you.’

Behind Jenny, the mountainside came alive with motion. Lines of pixie folk emerged from tunnels and hollows, walking steadily toward her to stand at her back. The miners had ceased their digging. The metallurgists no longer drew metal from stone. The glass-shapers laid down their tools, and the enchanters let their words fall unfinished. For the first time in many years, nothing was being made.

Across the kingdom, help-glasses fell silent. They were set aside on tables, tucked into drawers, or left where they happened to be, as people discovered. No one was beholden to the endless exchange, no longer obliged to listen to answers they had not chosen to hear.

The gaze that had nourished the giant was withdrawn, and without it he began, before their eyes, to diminish.

He became tiny - collapsing inward on himself, until soon he was no bigger than the size of a dog or cat, though not resembling any known creature. His legs were thin and spindled, whilst his upper half consisted of a great, gaping mouth, hungrily searching for something it no longer received. His eyes cast around wildly, unable to hold a gaze, flitting between the assembled crowd which had until that moment, carried out his bidding.

‘Who do you answer to now?’ he whimpered, trembling.

Those gathered behind Jenny spoke as one.

‘We answer only to Jenny Quickfingers.’

‘Leave your horde, if you can,’ she said, watching him falter as he tried to leave the mountain, overbalanced by his enormous, seeking mouth. ‘Find safety.’

The former giant attempted to flee, but his mouth dragged him off balance, and he scuttled awkwardly from the cave. He was never again seen to trouble the affairs of the kingdom.

Jenny was chosen not by conquest, but by consent, and so she became ruler, remaining exactly as she was. Her bat ears stayed untrimmed, her eyes black as midnight, and her feet bare to softly pad the earth. The people found that their perfect leader was one they had never imagined.

Under her rule, help-glass was permitted, but unenchanted. Questions were answered when they were asked, and silence was restored to its proper place. None were made to feel the fairest, nor the most wanting, nor the least of anything at all.

And though the kingdom was not free from hardship, it was free from the compulsion which makes hardship all the stonier. The people lived in peace, safety and prosperity, and they remembered at last that help, when it is true, does not ask for your eyes in return.