An Infestation of Soot Goblins

This story is the first in a series chronicling the exploits of the Midnight Paw Society.

The Midnight Paw Society Mission Statement

We of the Midnight Paw Society dedicate our lives to the protection of our human and fellow animal companions from the forces of mischief, trickery, and all other small evils. In concerted effort with the Dimensional Stability Agency (DSA), we pledge to be ever vigilant. May our eyes be sharp, our snouts be keen, and our claws be strong.

Helene Shimbottom was used to her human companion, the Professor, bringing artifacts home for study. They were a leading expert in anthropological ceramics and stoneware, particularly from the Mediterranean. The neat row house Helene and the Professor shared was filled with such artifacts, many replicas but some genuine. Almost all were up on high shelving. Helene had been rambunctious in her puppyhood. For the most part, she’d learned to control her excitement, though her docked tail and squat hips would still wiggle from time to time. Hence the name the Professor had given her, Hellie Shimmybutt.

“Hellie, look at this amphora. It’s almost completely intact. Dr. Davis is hoping I can date it for him.” The Professor gently lifted the jar from the cardboard box sitting on their kitchen table. They unwound the bubble wrap and brushed away the packing peanuts. The amphora was about as long as their arm, plain sandy brown, and had a large crack running along its side that ended in a hole near the bottom.

While the Professor was diligently inspecting the ancient jar, Helene noticed something scurrying past the large opening in the base, something residing in the amphora. Not a bug. Not a rodent. Something else.

The bark raced up Helen’s throat and out her mouth before she could control it. Loud, Sharp.

The Professor jumped. They nearly lost grip of the amphora but caught it just in time. It tipped precariously, spilling out a cloud of black soot on the tiled kitchen floor.

“Oops,” The Professor said. They set the amphora carefully back in the box and went away to the hall closet for a broom.

Helene immediately lunged at the mass of black soot. Five wiry goblins, each no bigger than a person’s thumb, dashed from the pile in opposite directions. Helene tried to catch them, but goodness they were quick. One slipped under the pantry door, another slid behind the fridge. Two of them seemed to vanish beneath the floorboards. Only one was frazzled enough to give chase. It ran around the small kitchen island twice before wriggling under the oven. Helene scratched and shoved her snout into the base of the oven, as if it might magically give way this time.

“Hellie!” The Professor yelped.

Helene stood and looked back at the Professor in the doorway. They were gazing, astonished at the kitchen. Only then did Helene notice the maze of black streaks along the floor, the soot all over her buff colored fur, and the utter mess she’d made of the kitchen in the five seconds her companion had been gone. Guiltily, her stub of a tail began to wiggle.

“I was mortified,” Helene grumbled to Dr. Croutons Adebayo, a Timneh parrot, and Helene’s closest friend.

“It could have been worse. At least you didn’t break anything.”

“Oh I can’t even imagine!” Helene sighed and laid her chin down between her paws.

The animals were in the living room of Dr. Sky Smith, Crouton’s research partner, and the Professor’s romantic partner. Croutons had been working with Sky for almost a decade. The Professor and Sky had been dating for about three years. The paramours were chatting and laughing in Sky’s library nook, gushing over the latest novel in a series they were reading together. Typically Helene was more eager to lean against the Professor’s legs and follow their conversations. But not now. Instead, she curled on the couch and let out another long sigh. The Professor hadn’t yelled or even used a stern tone when cleaning up the soot goblin mess this morning, but there had been a distinct flavor of disappointment in their voice, which Helene could not bear.

“You’re sure the goblins are still in the house?” Croutons asked, walking along the back of the sofa and hopping down onto Helene’s back. He plucked a tuft of shedded fur off her coat.

“Yes. They scurry around in the corners and crevices, leaving smudge and filth. Each time I spot them, I let the Professor know but it’s as if they can’t see the goblins.”

“Probably not. Humans often can’t see the creatures we can.”

“The Professor thinks I’m barking at an infestation of beetles or some other bug.”

“Then perhaps what you need is an exterminator.”

Helene lifted her head and looked at her friend, bemused. “You just said humans can’t see these things. How will an exterminator help?”

“Not a traditional one.” Croutons lifted a wing and adjusted the alignment of one of his feathers. “I may know of someone.”

“Who?”

“A man in a suit who smells like flowers. Give me two days, and I’ll see what I can do.”

Helene tilted her head, interested.

Helene and the Professor’s house was in a neighborhood of rowhouses unfortunately plagued by solicitors. Mostly young men in polos but occasionally an older woman with pamphlets, usually touting free roof inspections and complimentary window replacement quotes, and the word of someone named Jesse Chris. Regardless, Helene hated them all. To her they were the scourge of society. Honestly, who simply walks up to someone’s door and knocks uninvited! The audacity!

So when a man in a black and green striped windbreaker knocked on her door, Helene conducted herself accordingly. She sprinted to the front of the house, jumped at the windows one room over, and barked furiously. The Professor, as usual, opened the door. To Helene, it was the Professor’s one flaw. They always opened the door.

The man on their doorstep introduced himself as an exterminator giving free assessment around the neighborhood. Typically the Professor would politely shoo them away. This time however, they allowed the stranger inside!

“Actually, my dog has been barking at something and scratching at the baseboards,” The Professor said, closing the door behind them. “I think we might have some infestation. Beetles maybe.”

Helene made a series of snuffs and grumbles to show her disapproval. Cautiously she approached the man and sniffed his shoes and pants. Peculiar, she thought. He didn’t smell like most other exterminator technicians, no chemical scent, no mud and dust. Only the faint smell of flowers. When she looked up at him, he offered her his hand to sniff.

“Hey, girl. You’ve been protecting the house, huh?”

After a tentative sniff of his hand, Helene allowed him to stroke one of her long, silky ears.

“Can you show me where they are?”

The Professor chuckled. “Oh, she isn’t a hunting dog. I haven’t trained her to–”

Helene trotted off to the downstairs powder room. She could hear the goblins mucking around in the cabinet under the sink in there. The man followed. When he entered the bathroom, she scratched at the cabinet door.

“Ah, yes. I hear them too, girl.” He patted her head and knelt down. He removed a few packets and a spray bottle from his workman’s bag. None of it smelled typical. Again, no noxious chemicals or astringent scents. Instead, there were spices and herbs, and strange drawings on the labels.

In a low whisper the man said, “Soot goblins, hm?”

Helene cocked her head. He could see them? How unusual.

The Professor stood in the doorway, watching curiously. “Did you find them?”

“Oh yes. You were right, it’s a kind of beetle. I’ll set a trap and spray something that will make them clear right out.”

“Great, thank you! Come on, Hellie,” The Professor patted their leg. When she didn’t move, they gently took her collar and said, “Let’s let the man do his work”

She resisted, legs locked, and had to be dragged away.

“It was quite bizarre, Doctor,” Helene told Croutons during their next visit. “He wasn’t like any exterminator I’d ever met before.”

“I’d think not. He’s a DSA agent.”

“A what?” Helene sat up from her sunny spot by the big window in the living room.

Croutons explained, “The DSA, or rather, the Dimensional Stability Agency is a group of humans who could sense otherworldly beings, much like we animals can. I came across him before during one of Sky’s clinical trials. Quite a pleasant fellow.”

“He was very pleasant. Gave excellent ear scritches.”

“And the goblins are gone?”

“Oh, yes. Vanished within the hour of him casting whatever spell he used.”

“Let me guess, the Professor suspects nothing?”

“Nothing at all, of course. But the man left a card with his scent. I think I’ll keep him in mind should we run into any other pesky entities in the future.”

Thanks for visiting,
Jessi, The Curator