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better if we went this way.” She pointed toward the stream.
    I nodded. “Go ahead, then,” I said. Goldie skipped ahead, while I turned and quickly went in the other direction.
    “Oh, look! I found one!”
    I nearly crashed into a tree to stop myself. I whipped around and ran back toward Goldie. “Where?” I asked.
    “There!” Goldie pointed toward some tall grass.
    “I don’t see—”
    The grass moved. Then it grunted. A head bobbed above it.
    Gnome!
    I lunged forward and snatched up the gnome by the scruff of his neck. The gnome immediately started kicking and grunting, which is normal behavior for gnomes until you tell them you want them to send a message. Then they calm down and listen.
    “I want to send a message to my parents, Agnes and Thomas.”
    But the gnome did not calm down. “Lemme go! Lemme go!” He thrashed and flailed his little limbs, and then he bit me.
    “Ouch!” I let go and he fell to the ground. There were teeth marks on my pointer finger. Blood dripped down my hand. Never, ever would a gnome bite a person who wanted to send a message.
    I looked down at the creature and inspected him more closely. He was slightly bigger than most gnomes, and his features were sharp and shrewd. He was all points: pointy nose, pointy ears, pointy beard. He wore a pointy hat, too, and long, pointy shoes. He glared at me, pointedly, with dark intelligent eyes. This was not the blank stare of a gnome.
    “You’re a dwarf!” I said.
    “And you’re a big ugly girl!” The dwarf kicked me in the shin and ran away.

CHAPTER SEVEN
By the Beard
    I rubbed my shin and pressed my bleeding hand into my apron. I’d searched for a dwarf for years, but my first encounter was not as magical as I’d imagined. Little brute!
    “A dwarf!” Goldie was astonished. “I’ve never seen a dwarf before! He wasn’t very friendly, was he?”
    No. He wasn’t. But then I remembered what Granny had taught me about dwarves. If you caught one by the beard, it had to do whatever you asked—guide you wherever you wished to go.
    I sucked in my pain and ran after the dwarf.
    “Where are you going?” Goldie asked.
    “To catch a dwarf!”
    “Goodness, you certainly like chasing things, don’t you?”
    I ignored Goldie and instead focused on my pursuit. Curses, the dwarf was fast! Much faster than a gnome. I chased him over a rock and around a tree. I leapt over shrubs. He was just about to escape down a hole when I dove and caught him by the foot. The dwarf spat insults and tried to bite me again, until I grasped him by his pointy black beard.
    “Lemme go! Gerroff! Gerroff, you stinking human!” He flailed and twisted and kicked, but I held fast to his beard. What now? Was there something I had to say? A spell or incantation? Granny had never said.
    “Oh, Dwarf,” I proclaimed. “I take thee by the beard and—er—request your assistance on my journey.”
    The dwarf stopped his flailing. He turned red as a radish and glared at me. “You nasty little witch!” He took a small ax from his waist and smacked my arm with the flat side, right on my funny bone. I dropped the dwarf.
    “Ouch! You little monster!” I rubbed my elbow and shook my arm.
    The dwarf stood with his ax over his shoulder, glaring up at me as though he wanted to chop me to bits.
    “I don’t think he appreciated you grabbing his beard,” Goldie whispered.
    “What do you want?” the dwarf asked sharply.
    “A love potion, please,” said Goldie.
    The dwarf eyed Goldie as though she were a cockroach. “I wasn’t asking
you.
” He turned back to me, impatiently waiting for my answer. I opened my mouth and shut it again.
    Goldie’s request gave me an idea. I had planned to ask the dwarf how to catch a nymph, but even if I succeeded in making the Cure-All, Granny could get sick again.
    Everyone dies.
    But did everyone
have
to die?
    Granny always says that life is magic. Everyone has magic, even if they don’t know it. Magic is what makes them alive.