One by one, they had laid down their rusty knives and leathery caps. They had stopped stealing laundry from the line. They had forgotten the recipes for nettle beer and the old curses that made a horse refuse a shoe. The warrens under the cairn fell silent, then caved in.
Snikk watched them through a knothole in a fence post. He watched the baker’s wife hang her washing. He watched the smith shoe a placid draft horse. He watched a little girl lose a marble in a crack of the road. the last goblin
No one answered.
All save one.