The Brownie’s New Home

A hush fell over the tiny flat as night descended. Moonlight cascaded in through locked windows. Crickets chirped on the sidewalk below, occasionally drowned out by a passing car. The air in the flat was cool, perfect for snuggling under thick blankets, which the residents did happily as they tottered off to bed to dream of wonders. 

The brownie emerged from the folds of shadows to begin his work. 

He appraised the living room under the dim moonlight shining in through an open sliver between the curtains. Amy, the woman of the house, had managed to clean up the bulk of the mess, but there was still much to be done. Crumbs littered the laminate floor from their chicken nugget dinner. Pillows had been tossed across the room. A few of the children’s toys had wandered far from their toy bins. 

The kitchenette wasn’t looking much better. The young boy, Evan, had thrown a fit during dinner and Amy had to spend most of the evening trying to soothe, bathe him, and put him to bed, and thus hadn’t the time to take care of the dishes. 

The brownie rolled up his tiny sleeves and pulled out a miniature handmade broom from the darkness. He set about sweeping up the crumbs of breading, consolidating them to a center point in the living room. The flat was just as much his own pride and joy as it was to Amy and her children, and he would not permit his home to be dirtied by crumbs. Though the apartment often felt cramped to Amy and her children, to the brownie it was a vast endeavor; but despite his small size, it still posed no match for him.

He’d cleaned much larger houses than this before. When Amy was a young girl, he’d cleaned her parents’ home out in the country—a modest but endearing abode that had been in the family for centuries, much like the brownie. He’d kept a silent, watchful eye on the family as they were born, grew old, and died and their descendants raised families of their own. 

When Amy, an only child, had moved out on her own, the brownie had been faced with a hard decision. Did he stay with the house or with the family? Children had moved out before, but usually one stayed or came back to live with the parents—their spouse and children moving in to support the aging grandparents. At first, the brownie remained with Amy’s parents, looking after them as they became empty nesters. Amy’s mother, a retired nurse, had busied herself in the garden to cope while Amy’s father was kept busy with his work as a salesman. 

But when Amy returned home for a visit and told her parents, weeping, that her husband had just left her and she was pregnant with their second child, the brownie knew he could not remain. He packed up his broom and belongings, stowed away in Amy’s purse, and moved into her flat. 

He’d been able to see right away that he’d made the right decision. Amy’s parents benefited from living in an age where they had many more available accommodations to help them maintain their house. Gone were the days of washboards and fire coals. They had machines now: a washer and dryer, a dishwasher. The hoover had nearly taken the brownie’s job and he’d had half a mind to tear apart the house and leave the family in a rage at the insult. But they’d left him a small honey cake, one of his favorites, and he’d forgiven them. 

But Amy, with a toddler, a lack of free time as the sole breadwinner, and pregnancy fatigue was in far worse shape than her empty-nester parents had been. Her flat was a disaster. The brownie had set to work right away that evening. The next night, Amy must have realized what had happened, because he’d found a bowl of porridge left out for him. 

As the brownie collected the last of the crumbs and tossed them into the waste bin, he noticed a bowl of cream on the counter. He licked his lips and set his broom to the side as he took a moment to enjoy Amy’s continued gratitude. 

After he’d finished his treat, the brownie set about tidying up the kitchenette. He hefted up the dish soap and squirted some into the dirty dishes left in the sink. Then he briefly turned on the water to lather the soap before scrubbing away with a sponge that was nearly as large as he was. Luckily, as a fae, the brownie was not restricted by the laws of physics the same way humans were, and he was able to lift each washed dish from the sink onto the drying rack. 

Next was the kids’ room. The brownie hopped down from the sink and crept across the flat with the silence of shadows and wriggled under the door like a cat. 

A dimly glowing night light illuminated the many toys scattered across the room. He set about putting the dolls back in the dollhouse, the books back on the bookcase, and the stuffed animals in bins at the foot of each child’s bed. He’d had to pay close attention to keep track of which toy belonged to which child. It had taken some time, but after a few years of observation he knew the stuffed horse belonged to Evan, the youngest, the stuffed elephant belonged to Caitlyn, the eldest, and the stuffed snake—which he wrapped around the base of the lamp—belonged to them both. 

Evan had almost caught him once. The boy had refused to go to sleep one night and the brownie had been halfway into the room when he realized the child’s eyes remained wide open. He’d slunk back into the shadows and crept up the side of the crib. Evan had been almost too big for it then. Then the brownie had taken a pinch of fairy dust and sprinkled it over the watchful child until his eyes drooped into a peaceful slumber. 

The girl, meanwhile, currently appeared to be playing with fire. The brownie noticed a makeshift trap on her desk made of a paper box propped open by a toothpick with a cracker underneath, surely to tempt him. 

The brownie rolled his eyes and easily reached under to retrieve the treat. He ought to mess up her toys for trying to catch him. Her mother would need to have a word with her about the proper way in which the fae were to be treated if they wanted to continue to benefit from their live-in housekeeper. But the girl was still young and merely curious, he supposed there was no need for a fit just yet. Instead, he slipped into her closet and swiped her shoes. When she would be unable to find them the next morning, her mother would surely notice and know that her daughter had upset the brownie somehow. Upon questioning, the daughter would confess, and her mother would set her straight and instruct her to apologize to the invisible brownie, who would be lying in wait to miraculously return her shoes. 

With the children’s room tidied, the brownie slipped into Amy’s room which was much tidier than her children's, Amy knew better than to take advantage of the fae and merely accepted any additional assistance the brownie provided. The brownie spotted her makeup wipes which had been left out on the counter and set them back on the shelf where they belonged. A few hair ties sat on her dresser, which the brownie scaled and looped the hair ties over his arm to deposit them around her ring stand. He fished a few bobby bins out from under her bed and tossed them in the little dish Amy kept on her bathroom counter. 

The brownie climbed up the bedpost and gave a satisfactory nod to the room. Then he looked down at Amy. Her king-sized bed seemed to swallow her up beneath a pile of blankets and pillows. He marveled at how much she’d grown and how far she’d come in all the years he’d known her. She, who’d inspired him to leave his centuries-long home had fostered this space of love and endurance. For a human to inspire the fae was a rare occurrence. They were ancient and humans only lived for such a short while. 

But the brownie could ill afford to stand around mourning a human who was nowhere yet near death. He needed his rest if he was to tidy the house again the following night. With a wink and a nod witnessed only by the stars twinkling in the sky outside Amy’s bedroom window, the gnome took a step back and disappeared into the shadows.