(Holler Lore smudged between spilled potion ink and a hog hoofprint)
It all started behind the smokehouse.
Not in it. No goblin with a lick of sense trespassed on Ma’s salting and brewing domain, but behind it, in the narrow strip between the woodpile and the goat fence, three of the holler’s younger goblins huddled around a scorched crate.
To the untrained eye, they looked like they were plotting petty mischief. To them, it was nothing short of high command. They were leaders in training after all.
Cletus leaned in, squinting at a charcoal map he’d sketched on the crate lid. In his left hand he clutched a half empty mason jar of Uncle Kinxy’s moonshine, which he’d “borrowed” from the back of the rocker months ago. He never went plotting without it.
Looty was chewing licorice root in a way he surely thought looked authoritative. And RG, Rednekk Goblin, as he insisted everyone call him, had his rusty belt buckle slung sideways like he’d won it in a duel, not scavenged it out of the old hog shed.
“We gotta know what’s goin’ on,” Cletus said, voice a little raspy from the shine. “Can’t get better if we ain’t even trusted with the plan.”
Looty nodded gravely, spit out a splinter, and tapped the jar. “You ain’t s’posed to drink that. Last time you did, you said you was invisible and climbed the smokehouse roof.”
“Shut up,” Cletus hissed. “I was mostly invisible.”
“If that’s the case, maybe you outta drink some before barreling into an enemy base much higher than yours,” Looty teased. “Might actually get a star.”
Cletus glared. “Hey! I’m Uncle Kinxy’s premier scout! He ain’t sending you in, is he? It’s a high honor.”
Looty laughed again. “I guess. Ma does have an invisibility spell she hands out sometimes. Is it the shine?”
Cletus ignored him and went back to studying his imaginary battle plan.
RG cleared his throat. “I’m tellin’ ya, Pa thinks we’re porch decorations. He don’t even point at us when he gives orders.”
“Decorations?” Cletus’s eyes widened. “I am a war goblin in trainin’, not a dang windchime.”
“You’re a porch menace,” said Ellie Mae, who’d crept up silent as a breeze. She had her arms folded tight and that disapproving wrinkle between her brows. “Y’all better not be fixin’ to sneak into the barn again. You know what happened last time.”
Cletus puffed up, the shine giving him extra courage. “Go kiss Ma’s spoon, Ellie. We’re doin’ real war work.”
“Yeah? Last time your ‘real war work’ turned Uncle Kinxy’s privates green.”
“He liked the attention!” Looty insisted.
“He tolerated it,” Ellie snapped. “And Ma’s already mad from Uncle Kinxy spillin’ brine in her herb drawers. You get caught again, it ain’t the spoon, it’s the belt. Pa don’t like it when Ma gets riled, and y’all know it!”
RG swallowed hard, scratching the side of his neck. “Think he already oiled it?”
Ellie just tilted her head. “Belt stays ready.”
Cletus took a deep swig from the jar and set it down hard on the crate. “I ain’t skerred. We go in, we hear the plan, we get out. Easy.”
“You’ll be brave right up ’til Bacon moves,” Ellie muttered.
Spoiler: Bacon moved.
The Infiltration
Their plan was simple in theory. RG would loosen the board behind the goat stall, Cletus would use a feed bucket to boost Looty into the loft, and they’d hide behind Ma’s drying mushrooms to listen in.
Except:
The board wasn’t loose.
The bucket cracked under RG’s boot.
Looty sneezed the instant he touched hay.
And Cletus, determined to be stealthy, insisted on bringing his moonshine jar up with him, declaring it “tactical courage.”
He dropped it.
Down below, Ma was dividing spell jars. Pa was tapping his sword against the map, voice deep and sure, laying out the various strategy possibilities. Uncle Kinxy rocked in his chair, his little brown jug of moonshine in one hand, offering input on Pa’s ideas, both of them bouncing ideas off one another.
Bacon, snoozing, gave a single grunt. Then another. And slowly stood, snout lifting toward the loft with ominous certainty.
“We got ears,” Pa said calmly, eyes shifting upward toward the loft.
All hell broke loose.
The mushroom curtain tore. Looty shrieked. RG slipped on a clump of hay and fell backward, knocking Cletus’s moonshine out of his hand. The jar spun midair, time stretching like taffy, before shattering on the barn floor in a geyser of corn liquor at Uncle Kinxy’s feet.
Cletus landed on RG, and both of them skidded through the spill straight into Uncle Kinxy’s boots.
Ma’s spoon clattered to the floor. The sound rang through the barn like a church bell on judgment day.
Pa stood still as a statue, one hand moving to the hilt of his belt, the other at his side. He didn’t yell. He didn’t even blink.
But the look in his eyes did all the talkin’ for him, the kind of look that peeled the bravado off a goblin faster than any shout could.
It said “I warned y’all.”
And most of all, it said “You’ve got about three seconds before your tail meets consequences.”
Ma’s voice rang through the war barn as she pointed toward the doors.
“OUTSIDE!”
Uncle Kinxy leaned over them, sniffed, and murmured, “That was my good batch, you little heathens.”
The Reckoning
Pa’s hand moved to his belt buckle. The sound of the leather sliding free made Cletus nearly faint.
“WAIT!” he hollered, scrambling backwards. “I BEEN FRAMED! It was Ellie! She said we oughta….”
Ellie, who was standing just outside the war barn where the others had now been marched out, whipped her head around, jaw dropping.
“I did not!” she shouted, scandalized.
“You did! You said…..”
“You hush!” Ma said sternly. She advanced, a bar of soap in her hand. “For lyin’ on Ellie, and for stealin’ Uncle Kinxy’s shine, double consequence.”
Looty whimpered. RG hid his face.
Uncle Kinxy took another sip from his jug and sighed. “At least you got taste in liquor.”
Cletus tried to scramble away, but Bacon blocked him at every turn.
“You leave the pig alone!” Cletus wailed. “He’s in on it! He’s the one told Pa!”
“Swear on my jug,” Uncle Kinxy said, “that hog’s smarter than you.”
Ma stepped forward, voice calm and firm. “Looty, you will fetch a bucket and rag for the shine. The others are goin’ with Pa and Bacon to the woodshed. Cletus, you will be marching there with a bar of soap in your mouth.” And she shoved it in.
The Return to Order
Not ten minutes later, Looty was scrubbing the barn floor under Ma’s watchful eye, while Cletus and RG sat on a log behind the woodshed, looking like their souls had left their bodies.
Cletus glared down at the jar shards he’d saved in his pocket, mumbling, “Coulda at least let me finish it.” He spit more taste of soap out of his mouth. “Would help get this taste outta my mouth at least.”
RG rubbed his backside and muttered, “Told you Bacon was a spy.”
Inside the barn, Ellie sorted spell jars with shaky hands. Ma gave her a quiet nod of approval and stroked her hair to calm her nerves. Pa cleared his throat and tapped the map again.
“Now,” he rumbled, “as I was sayin’ before we were so rudely interrupted.”
Uncle Kinxy rocked back, chuckling. “Next time, they’ll think twice about tappin’ the shine.”
Epilogue: One Week Later
No one tried sneakin’ in again. Not that week, anyway.
But somebody left a scroll on Uncle Kinxy’s rocker one morning:
A Future War Goblin
Bacon Sees All
Accompanied by a drawing of Bacon wearing a helmet and standing triumphant over a smashed mason jar.
Uncle Kinxy nailed it to the barn wall, where it stayed.
In the holler, you didn’t just get to hear the war plans,
you earned the right.
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