There are holes in the earth that no one dug. They open quietly under old bushes, lined with stones that glow from within, and they lead somewhere no map has ever gone. Most nights nothing comes out of them. On some nights something does.
He came up through the smoke on all fours, the way he always comes, ears first, then the bald skull, then the long fingers. He is old, older than the house above him, and his face has been creased by centuries of looking down instead of up. He does not care about the moon. He cares about what glitters below it.
Around the mouth of his well lie the things that fell out of other people's pockets, other people's chests, other people's dreams: a scatter of gold coins, a handful of rough crystals that have never met a jeweller's wheel. He bends over them, and his claws hover above the stones, not quite touching, the way a man's hand hovers over a fire on a cold night.
That is the goblin's secret. He does not love the treasure. He loves the moment before he takes it, when every stone is still possible and none of them has yet disappointed him. Once a crystal is in his hand, it is only a crystal. So he waits, and he hovers, and he keeps the darkness in his soul turning slowly, like a stone held up to the light, to see how many colours it can show.
By morning the hole will be closed and the smoke gone, and only a few coins in the grass will say that he was here.
(Fine Art Photography. Created in April 2024.)
