Ralph and the Pixie

Deborah considered Theuli as the Elf woman fed the girl some bread soaked in hot broth. ‘I dreamt you were my mother.’

Theuli smiled with pleasure. ‘So now I have three daughters.’

‘Three?’

‘Rani, Deborah and Malina.’

‘What does that make me?’ chuckled Ralph.

Deborah smiled. ‘Then Malina is my sister, which makes you my brother-in-law,’ she said to Ralph.

‘You’re supposed to be asleep,’ said Theuli to Ralph.

‘Yes, Mom.’

‘How do you feel,’ Theuli asked Deborah, seriously.

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I feel sort of . . . empty . . . different somehow...

‘I keep having these dreams, but every time I wake up, they’re gone. The only thing I remember is this . . . sort of sense that . . . well, it’s like I told you before; you remember? that day when Malina and I went with you-’ She stopped, seeing Theuli’s pained remembrance of that day. ‘I’m sorry . . . I shouldn’t have brought that up-’

‘You were saying,’ Theuli said, in a tone both firm and understanding, ‘that . . . I believe the words you used were, that “it was supposed to happen.”’