Everyday Charms Can't Fix Every Problem

I keep waiting for the sense of accomplishment to hit when I open my store in the mornings. Every time I flip the sign coated in glow worm silk that says ‘open’ and feel the magic humming around me, I expect a wave of contentment to follow.

Instead the same restlessness that wraps around my bones pulses as I unlock the heavy wooden door and prop it open. The shelves of charmed objects greet me, so many magical things in one place create a heavy cloud of different melodies. It is here, in a small hollow, nestled inside a still growing tree, where I keep my life's work. Charms.

“Good morning to you too, ever,” I mumble to the tree as I lean against the stone work table I dragged into the back of the hollow years ago. My shoes get deposited under a hidden ledge, I can’t keep them on for long when there is a soft bed of moss covering the wood. My mug full of coffee goes to the table as I pull out the same object I was working on yesterday, a small pendant meant to feed on thermal energy. 

Sparks jump when I touch the silver, tingling cold seeps into my fingers for a split second before it recedes. The restless beast that holds onto me grumbles unhappily at the temporary effect. I allow myself to perch on my stool and drag a worn leather journal out of my bag, a quill waiting for me as I flip to the page I was writing on last night when midnight hit and Ever, the pestering oak, groaned so loudly around me I had been forced to give up for the day.

My fingers trace the elegant drawing of fire leeching into ice, scribbled words around it depict how the heat could fuel a spell on its own. No need for recharging the charm once I got it working. “Do you think it could work?” I ask the empty store around me. Ever is listening, they always listen. Mostly to show their displeasure, but it keeps me company all the same.

When no response comes other than a breeze of fresh air through the open front door, I just roll my eyes and get back to work. I am not ready for this to become yet another failed charm that sits in a corner of my tiny loft up in Ever’s boughs. 

A few hours of sparking progress leave me with fingers that look almost blue and my hair messily up above my head to keep my mind from losing it. The 6 necklaces I wear around my neck are facing backwards, the chains tight against my skin. I can’t risk this unruly charm messing with the few I depend on.

“Hello?” A small voice interrupts my work and I flinch. 

I shouldn't be scared of customers, I remind myself. My head lifts and I see a small gnome hovering in the doorway. The look of unease and the hesitance in their voice makes more sense as I take in the long beard they have braided back and the short cropped hair under a peaked cap.

“Hi, welcome to Everyday Charm. I am Polly, and the tree here is Ever. They love visitors, I promise,” the assurance I offer doesn’t let the gnome relax fully, but I see her stepping a little more into the store. “What brings you in today?”

For the first time since she entered, the gnome looks away from the wooden shelves and settles her gaze onto me. “I…well I been havin’ some issues with me lungs. Mines meant to be me home but the dust has been making breathing hard.”

Hesitance rolls off of her in a soft wind, hitting me with an empathetic pang. “Do you mind if I do a bit of magic to see what I can feel? I am an empath,” I grab the bracelet I keep around my wrist and pull the magic out of it. The dampening of my senses is always a little disorienting, but when a customer is here I sometimes get dizzy at the change. I keep my senses pulled tight to my chest until she nods, my fingers gripping the stone work table in front of me.

When she does nod, it's accompanied by a slight shuffle of her weight from one boot to the other, a pulse of shame hitting me in the collarbone. 

I take a deep breath as I stand up, stepping around the table so I can kneel down in front of her. My knees fall into the moss easily, my skirt filling the space between us as I let go of the restraints on my magic. It's an innate thing, most fae have a form of magic that feels like breathing to them in addition to their grasp on magic. Mine, despite my constant wishes otherwise, was like a sixth sense for others. I could feel their emotions from across the room, sometimes I struggled to tell where theirs started and mine ended. With practice and proximity, I could hone that into a sense of their physical sensations as well. So as I exhale, my eyes flutter closed and I let my mind wander into the nervous gnome.

“You have worked in the mines how long?” I ask gently as my magic wiggles through her skin. I feel calloused fingers, an ache in her back she probably doesn’t notice anymore, some old lines along bones long since healed.

She lets out a shaky breath. I have been told this particular magic can tickle, but found it is less overwhelming when someone is not expecting it. “Been a few decades. I was born to the Kelp Mountain, you see, even when I don’t have a pick in my hand, I still be in the rock.”

My magic reaches her lungs and I feel it, how they seem frayed. The small tunnels through which air travels feel thicker than they should, I have to send a strand of magic into myself to check. While I may not be a gnome, I do know we share the same anatomy of organs just at different dimensions. My lungs have clearer airways, they flutter at a slight touch but don’t seem to contract the way hers try to. I use my magic to keep her airways open as I explore. 

“I think…there is swelling, your lungs are struggling to filter between the air and the dust.” I explain as I check through everything. I can feel how her body is struggling even now to expand the balloon-like organs fully. My magic goes up to her mind to see if the lower air has impacted her, and I find a pulsing ache. In the corners I see familiar dots of blackness that chase my own vision enough.

“But I am a gnome, we live to mine, can’t just avoid dust,” she grumbles and I feel her shame build. This time it is not a weight on my collarbone, but a stone that falls deeper inside my chest.

I let my magic recede, my hand finding my dampening bracelet as I wrap the magic back around it. While the charm is unable to fully stop my wandering senses, it helps filter out the overwhelm of feelings the same way lungs are meant to filter out oxygen from the air, or in a gnomes case, oxygen and nitrogen because the tricky little things can survive off both. 

“I am not saying you need to avoid dust, just that your breathing is hard because your lungs aren’t filtering it as well as they should. I have a charm I think can help, made it for a young dryad who was allergic to pollen. Just need a bit of that dust from your mine to adjust the spell.” I offer. As I stand up, my eyes search the shelves. All the charms hold bits of my magic, which makes it easier to sort through the objects for the small ring I had made a year ago. I grab it and show it to the gnome. “It works best if you wear it everyday, so if you have a piece of jewelry you never take off I can recast the charm entirely, or you can take this. It can be worn on a chain around your neck or on a finger if it fits.”

“This is dwarf crafted,” she marvels as she holds the ring between her fingers. She studies the metal, its silver and steel, carved to look like a winding vine that never ends.

I nod my agreement as I grab my leather journal, already searching the pages for the charm I had bound to the ring. It's a bit of repelling magic, filtering the air around a person before it reaches their lungs. “Yes, most of my charms are bound into dwarven crafted metal. I found it holds magic best, and is light enough to be worn everyday.”

“I…I could wear this, sure..and I should have some dust on me boots if you need it.” She slips the ring onto her thumb and it fits snugly at the base. The ring was originally made for a boy of 15 to wear on his ring finger, but gnomes have different proportions. 

“Wonderful. I want to explain a few things before you agree to the charm. Right now the ring you wear acts as a filter to the air the same way your lungs are meant to. It is picking out the pollen most, because I originally cast it that way, but I will alter it to focus on repelling dust instead.” I accept back the ring as I sit down on the moss in front of her and lay out my journal. On the open page is a drawing of lungs, and a similar ring. I always make 2 of a new charm so I can keep one for future clients. “This is what lungs look like. They are full of tunnels, just like a mine, but yours feels…narrow. The tunnels are closing around themselves tight when anything too big gets in. I don’t have anything that can help widen them, although I can try to design a new charm. I expect it's a swelling issue. With this charm here, the tunnels in your lungs will still be narrow, and you may still have trouble breathing. All this will do is lessen the work your lungs have to do. Is that alright?”

“Yes, miss, I reckon a few spells of short breath are better than what I been dealin’ with.” she nods as she studies the picture. Next to it is a drawing of the young boys passageways I had felt, those had been red and irritated by pollen, his problem had been an allergy. But this gnome’s lungs didn’t feel red or irritated, just swollen and frayed. Like an overworked muscle if I had to guess. The gnome carefully sits down across from me and offers me the bottom of her boot. “There should be plenty of dust and rock bits here for you.”

I smile and scrape a nail along one of the grooves of the copper sole. Gnomes wore leather boots with metal on the bottoms so they wore slower. I set the ring in one palm and carefully dig the dirt and dust out of my fingernail, letting it fall over the ring. “Since this is magic, it will need to be repowered over time. The other charm I made like this only needs a refill once a year so far, but it also is being used less often. Only during the heavy pollen season, so whenever your breathing gets worse, come visit me and I can refill the magic again.” I explain. 

When she gives me another nod, I let my focus shift to the ring and I feel the edges of the spell already laid on it. Tinkering with a charm I made is easier, I know the lines of the original spell, I feel the cords of magic that have sunk into the metal.

It takes a few seconds before I can figure out what to change, then I speak under my breath. “The ring is a sieve, let it push away all dust and debris. Act as a second filter to keep the wearer’s lungs from falter.” I feel a small bit of my magic drain as it rewinds and tugs at the charm. It costs much less than casting a new charm, just reworking bits of a braid rather than starting again. I feel the ring soak in the dust and rock around it, while the ring will still repel anything in the air, it will focus on similar particles to the dust. 

“See how it works, if after a week you are still struggling, come back and we can try something else,” I tell the gnome as I open my hand and tilt it so the ring is towards her. 

She places it back onto her thumb, I see the light pulse as it settles into her skin. “Thank you miss. How do I pay?”

I shrug as I close my journal. “I don’t know. What do you have?”

Her eyebrows furrow, and even with a beard covering her mouth, I can guess her lips purse as well. “You don’t have a set price for the magicked items?”

I shake my head, a small smile forming. “I live in a tree that bears fruit, there is a river close enough, and I have no children to worry over. Payments come in whatever form people can afford and that's good enough for me.”

“Well what have you need of then?” She keeps frowning as she stares at me. 

I look around and my eyes find my work table. It's rough stone and has many marks along it from failed charms or unruly magic. “I suppose if you have extra stone in the mine that has no use, I could take a new work table. But otherwise I just need to solve a few puzzles I set myself at.” I tap the journal between us for emphasis. Because it is the complicated charms that I weave that really drive me. I am fae, while not immortal like some, I do eat and drink but find both to be tedious tasks. The restless need to fix is what pulses through me as a demand. 

“I can carve you a fine work table, made of good stone, not something that will easily burn or wear,” she says proudly and I sigh. 

“I don’t need anything fancy, really,” I try protesting but already the gnome is standing and pulling a length of string out of her linen overalls. I see the pride that shades her eyes as she starts to measure the sides of my worktable. She walks all around it, taking note of the roughly carved out grooves behind it with a disapproving ‘tsk.’ I had made it from a boulder with my magic. It might not be pretty or tough stone, but it was durable.

Gnomon pride was already set in place, and I had to resign myself to the eventual loss of my simple work table. 

“I can make you a very fine piece, no worry, I be back in a week with a new table and a report on me lungs,” The gnome announces as she tucks the string back into her overalls and offers me a hand. 

I accept it with a defeated expression and she squeezes my hand tightly, the strength in her hand a sign of respect. “Alright, I will see you then…I…I never caught your name?”

“Name is Pearl,” she says with a wry smile. 

I don’t comment on the strange name, its not my place to question such things even if I know gnomes aren’t fans of water. “I shall see you in a week then, Pearl.”

“See you then miss Polly.” Pearl lets go of my hand and leaves my shop. Her shoulders relax as soon as she is out from the wooden walls. 

I grumble under my breath to Ever, “another pushy client. Why must they insist on such large payments? I didn’t even really fix her problem, just offered a crutch. Unless…do you think I could combine the filter spell with that swelling spell I made for the broken ankle on the giant? I would have to target just one area…and I can’t wrap a piece of jewelry around lungs…”

I keep talking to myself as I flip through the journal, looking for the spell I mentioned. The idea of loosening the grip her lung’s airways seemed to have would be much more effective for the gnome. I just wouldn’t know how to target a charm to one specific organ without being able to attach an object to the organ.

The sound of groaning and falling leaves let me know Ever was displeased, I had found yet another puzzle to add to the neverending list. The restlessness wound tighter around my spine and throbbed its approval at the sudden ideas flooding through my mind.