Hello, all! Leisl has, once again, created a story for her younger siblings...which escalated until it wasn’t fit for them at all! This is rated PG, but is mostly harmless. I’m still pursuing a story-telling voice with this story, as I did in the stories of Kitterly. I hope you enjoy the show!

Chapter the First – an Introduction to the Solution

I’m here to tell you the tale of the solution. Rid your mind of the definition you know; the solution of which I speak is a mysterious creature, hard to pin down and even harder to describe. There have been recorded encounters with solutions before, but precious few. As with other rare things, the solution is surrounded by a miasma of fable and legend.

Some say the solution is a fearsome thing; green and brown and ugly, breathing smoke and fire—but that’s not right, because what they’re describing is a dragon, not a solution. Solutions are much more powerful. There are rumors that it’s white as snow, with a long mane and a horn on its forehead—but that’s not right either, because they’re describing a unicorn. Solutions are much more beautiful.

They say good solutions are simple, but very hard to come by. Almost all of the encounters to date with solutions have been with bad solutions, because those are easy to come by. Bad solutions are unwise and often irreversible and stubborn. They’re faces are sometimes ugly, but mostly they are lovely and enticing—don’t be fooled. That’s a ‘bad solution.’

‘Good solutions’ are simple—no, not comely or plain, simple—and very, very hard to come by. The first known encounter with a good solution was at the beginning of time. You’ve probably heard the story, for the stories of solutions are widespread: God had so much love for man that he wished to do something about it. He came upon a good solution and created man. That was the first, and only, known encounter with a good solution—God Almighty stumbled upon one, and that was the last time one was ever heard of. So, you can see, they’re pretty rare.

Now, the world in which my tale occurs is fraught with bad solutions. They lurk in doorways, lounge openly in saloons, and make themselves as on-hand as possible. Why? Because it’s their greatest pleasure to be listened to and consulted. They have great fun in giving their terrible advice and watching the aftermath of their play. The bad solutions are wretched beasts.

Bad solutions do like to work alone, but every once in a while they group up in twos or threes to make misery fall on some unfortunate chap. For example: in Pitterburg, a quiet little town quite south of here, four of the nasty things grouped together and cheated a farmer named Willis Fielding out of his whole crop. The poor man went bankrupt and had to sell just about everything he owned to feed his wife and little baby girl. The poor family moved out of their farmhouse into a shanty between a tavern and a blacksmith’s in town. Theirs became a life of poverty. The bad solutions’ fault, so ‘twas.

Something like twelve years passed that way. The poor family kept bumping into hard times, and they became the favorites of the resident bad solutions. One of the beasts burnt down their shack and they had to move into a shanty, right next to a smokehouse, so that their hunger was always worsened with the smell of the meat they couldn’t afford. Another of the nasty things pushed Willis into another man at the market, causing him to upset a cart of apples so that he had to pay for the ruined fruit. I could go on, but you look drowsy. I’ll get on to the exciting stuff.

Willis Fielding’s daughter, Elizabeth, at the tender and unblossoming age of thirteen, decided she’d had enough. She searched her mind for days, hoping that some plan would present itself. There was nothing left to sell, no jobs open, and no answer seemed apparent.

On her way home, she met a strange young boy on her block. He was leaning jauntily against the smokehouse storefront, and he was the handsomest thing she’d ever seen. He was tall and blade-thin, with thick curly hair and a light complexion. He gave her a nod and a bent grin. “Evening,” was his low-voiced greeting.

Elizabeth’s knees weakened and she quickly lowered her eyes so he wouldn’t think her presumptuous. “Good evening,” she returned, not finding anything else to say. “Are you from this town?”

“No,” the young man returned, easing himself fluidly off of the smokehouse wall and sauntering toward her, his hands in his pockets. “I’m spending the night with an uncle. But I was walking and saw the hovel by the smokehouse,” he said pointedly. Had she been looking at his face, she would’ve seen his conspiringly raised eyebrow. “And I wondered,” he said, “what beggar lives there, so that I might help him.”

Elizabeth was very embarrassed, and her cheeks colored as she stammered a response. “Actually,” she said, “that’s my home.”

A shallow gasp from the boy, who began to walk in a slow circle around Elizabeth. “Sorry to hear that,” he said. “Have you a job?”

“No,” Elizabeth said sadly. She looked out of the corner of her eye at the young man, whose shirt was slightly unbuttoned at the neck.

“Anything to sell?” he continued.

“Again, no,” Elizabeth said. The young man had a sharp jaw line and the handsome beginnings of a beard.

“Anyone to marry?”

Elizabeth’s heart skipped a beat, and she looked up. Goodness but that young man was attractive. “No,” she finally said, her cheeks’ pink deepening. “No, I’ve no dowry.”

“Ah,” the boy said. “Sorry to say I’m unavailable,” he continued, and Elizabeth bit her tongue and mentally berated herself for swooning over some girl’s husband-to-be. That didn’t change the fact that he was breathtaking…. “But,” the boy continued, “I may have an idea for you.”

“What is it?” Elizabeth asked, after a short pause.

“Find a solution.”

Elizabeth recoiled, knowing what her father had always told her about how he lost his farm to a bad solution. “Find a solution?!” she exclaimed, “a solution?! How dare you suggest that? One of those vile, dissolute things got me into that shanty! Do you think one could get me out? Nasty creatures, solutions!”

The young man hardened at her outburst. “I didn’t mean a bad solution, you ninny,” he said, causing Elizabeth’s heart to twinge. “Find a good one. It’s not as impossible as all the storybooks say.”

“Don’t be stupid,” she said then. She went inside the shanty in a huff. He followed after a moment.

“May I come in?” he asked, parting the ripped cloth curtain that made the shanty door. Elizabeth was the only one in the home. She, kindling a blaze in the little inglenook, nodded listlessly. He came in and sat down on an upturned barrel. “You’ve made quite a home of it,” he said.

Elizabeth didn’t recognize his sarcasm. “Thank you,” she said, without leaving the fireside.

“But I was serious about going to find a good solution,” he said, standing up. He walked to the fire, until he was right behind her. “I think a girl like you could find one.”

Elizabeth straightened up, conscious of how close their bodies were. “I can’t,” she said. “It’s impossible.”

“It is not,” he replied, quieter.

Elizabeth shifted uncomfortably. “Please go,” she said. “I’m…I’m not comfortable with you here. You’re going to be married, and I—”

“I never said I was going to be married,” he interrupted, sliding a hand expertly up her arm. “I said I was unavailable. Two very different things.” She brushed his hand off, but he was speaking again. “Listen to me. I’m being perfectly sensible. You’ve nothing else to lose; you might as well go and look for a good solution. Nothing to lose; everything to gain.”

Elizabeth considered. He was right, she thought, looking around the shanty. There was no food, no power, no money to lose. Nothing. She could pack up and go. The young man, seeing this dawn on her face, stepped away from her. “You see,” he said. “You can go.” He saw resolution creep into her young features and headed for the door. “You’ll find a good solution, don’t worry,” he said. With a malicious smile that she didn’t see, he left.

He, dear reader, is a prime example of a bad solution. He was a beast clothed in enticing disguise. Not the best way for Elizabeth to start out her tale, but that’s the way it happened.