Words Like Coins Read Free

you know so much about pecksies? I thought they were rare and kept to wild places.” She set a bowlful of steaming porridge in front of Jami.
    Jami took up her spoon and stirred the boiled grain thoughtfully. “When I was little, there were lots of pecksies near our house. My father’s land was between a spur of the forest and a sunny little stream, so they had to cross our field to get to water. My mother knew how to use them, so we had them in the house, too. She never realized the danger.”
    Mirrifen poured water from the kettle over the tea herbs in the pot. “How do you ‘use’ a pecksie?”
    “Oh, it’s easy enough. She had to be tricky to snare them, because they know how it works. If a pecksie accepts a favor from you, the pecksie has to do what you ask it. They’re bound. Once you have one pecksie, the rest of its clan come around. And a clever woman can trick them into bondage as well.”
    “I see,” Mirrifen said softly. The pecksie’s rueful words carried a deeper meaning now.
    Jami was caught up in her telling. “There’s a lot they can’t do, because they’re small. They can’t sweep, and one almost drowned in our washing tub. But they can fetch eggs and dust, tend the fire, do the sewing, bring vegetables from the garden, weed, and keep rats away. And if you treat them well, they’re good natured about it—or so we thought.” Jami scowled, remembering. “Perhaps all that time they were hiding their resentment. Is there tea yet?”
    Mirrifen poured for both of them. “What happened?”
    “They killed my little brothers.” Jami’s calm voice thickened.
    “How?” Mirrifen asked in horror when her silence stretched.
    Jami took a breath. “Oh, smothered them, I suppose.” Tears clouded her voice. “They were only babies. My mother told the pecksies to watch the baby at night, not to rouse him and to rock him if he woke. So my mother could get some sleep.” 
    Mirrifen nodded.
    “Well, one morning, Grag was dead in his cradle. Just dead. Well, everyone knows such things do happen. We mourned him and buried him. Two years later, Mother had another boy. Dwin. He was a fine fat boy. One night she told the pecksies to watch him sleep and call her if he woke. Before dawn, she woke up to all the pecksies standing in a ring around his cradle, squeaking and crying in that horrid way they have. My mother snatched Dwin up, but it was too late. He was dead.”
    Mirrifen felt cold. She dared not let Jami know that she’d brought an injured pecksie into the house. She had to get rid of it fast. “What did your mother do?”
    “She didn’t hesitate. All those pecksies had eaten our food and taken favors, so she could command them all. ‘Go away!’ she shouted at them. ‘All of you! Go away forever!’ And they went. I watched them stream out of the house, wailing and squeaking as they walked down the road and off into the distance.”
    “That’s all she did?” Mirrifen held her teacup firmly in her trembling hands.
    “That’s all she needed do,” Jami said vindictively. “It meant death for all of them. She knew that. Words bind pecksies. I once heard an old pecksie say that you should spend words like coins. You can’t just say, ‘wash the dishes’ or they’ll wash the dishes all day long. You have to say, ‘wash the dirty dishes until they’re clean, wipe the dishes until they’re dry, and then put them in the cupboard.’ They do exactly what you say. So when my mother told them ‘Go away!’ they had to go and keep going. Forever. Because no one ever gets to ‘away’, do they? They had to keep walking until they dropped dead in their tracks. My mother knew that. She had learned it from her mother.”
    A chill squeezed Mirrifen’s heart. “And after that?”
    “After that, my parents never let a pecksie into the house again. We got cats to keep the rats down. And my parents had three more children, all girls, to my father’s sorrow, but they survived because there were