When Mr. Launceleyn won first prize for the biggest giant pumpkin in the grand competition that was held in Roselake, it was certainly a matter of great pride for the people of Frostspire.

But the problem started when he couldn't seem to figure out what to do with such an enormous thing, cut it up in slices, and started handing it out to everyone who happened to cross paths with him.

Alvar had seen the orange giant, and prayed for the poor horses that had to draw it in a carriage all the way to the town and back. In fact, it was big enough to be made into a carriage itself. Carve out the flesh from the inside, cut out a door, attach two pairs of wheels at the bottom, and lo, a fine carriage for a princess to travel to her luxurious balls, he thought.

Be that as it may, it was not good for eating. You couldn't put it in soups, nor in stews, and not even Lars with his cooking skills could sweeten it enough to make a pie out of it. Its flesh was watery and stringy, and oddly mushy that felt revolting to eat. But Alvar couldn't bring himself to throw away his share, for good old Mr. Launceleyn had put his very soul into its making.

The bigger reason was, of course, that he couldn't possibly dispose of it in a discreet manner, not in a small place like Frostspire where everyone knew everyone's business.

He could only imagine the look on the man's face if he happened to pass by their house and saw his precious pumpkin rotting in the manure pit.

"It'll make him sad," said Alvar, eyeing the giant slices that crowded his kitchen counter. "Also, it'll be a waste of food."

"If food you call it," said Aunt Elena, morosely lifting the lid off the bowl of last night's leftovers--the aftermath of Alvar's heartfelt attempt to make something edible out of half a slice. It was not so bad, though bland and chewy. Then she looked back at how much of it was still left on the counter and sighed. "Growing real sick of this, y'know? And it's only half a slice. Come on, let an old sailor savour the last days of her life! You don't want me to starve, do you?"

Alvar shook his head at her silliness. "Oh, come off it! Fine, I'll make something different. It'll be a nice change of taste."

To her surprise and delight, he brought Gran's notebook to the kitchen and laid it on the counter. He flipped to a page that had piqued his interest for a long time, for it struck him as odd to have been included in what essentially was, for the most part, an easy manual for gardening magic.

She peeked over his shoulder. "What'cha looking at?" Then she followed his gaze and her eyes widened. She let out a low whistle. "I didn't know Mother left recipes in here."

It was a recipe for a simple soup made from broth. Making it seemed easy enough and it required few ingredients, one of which were button mushrooms, which grew in plenty all over the fields, raising their pale little heads here and there. Some chicken broth they already had in the larder, and Alvar aimed to make good use of it.

"Well, if she has included this here, it must be special," he said, pointing at a picture showing how to pour salt over the soup as it simmered in the pot.

The recipe said it had to be done in a circular pattern, followed by a few incantations which the cook must utter. He read them off the page.

Lars used magic in his cooking all the time, but he'd never seen the wizard do anything like that.

Shaking off his doubts, he got to work, chopping up the mushrooms and vegetables on the cutting board, all the while imagining the look of awe on Lars' face when he would taste it. He sent a short note with Snatcher when the raven came by the kitchen window, nosing around for treats.

Come by at twelve. Lunch at our house, he wrote in his elegant, flowing script, rolled up the piece of parchment, and put it in a small wooden tube attached to the raven's leg, made by Lars for this very purpose. He rewarded Snatcher with some corn before sending him off.

Not even a quarter hour had passed before he came flying back. Alvar smiled as he unfurled the paper.

Gladly. Though I hope it's not pumpkin, the wizard had written back, in his near-illegible chicken-scratch. No one in the village had been exempt from Mr. Launceleyn's generosity, and the man was strong-willed enough to climb all the way up the mountain.

All went according to the recipe. The mushrooms turned a delicious golden brown as he stirred them on the pan, before tossing them into the pot, and next went the seasoning.

And finally, the salt.

He took a handful and poured it in a circle. He waited a moment, half-expecting the soup to change colour, or some otherworldly aroma to rise from the pot. But nothing of that sort happened. It remained the same, and though it smelled delicious, there was nothing extraordinary about it. It was just an ordinary pot of mushroom soup after all.

Alvar sighed. Perhaps he'd been overthinking it. Anyway, he decided to see it through to the end and picked up the notebook and read the incantations aloud as he stirred the pot with a ladle. Strange words they were, and they seemed harsh and foreign to his tongue. He read them three times, as instructed.

With a poof, a plume of black smoke rose out of the pot and the fire went out with a gust of wind that rattled the kitchen window. He reared back, draping himself against the opposite wall, the frying pan raised like a weapon.

"Stay back!" he said, and swung the pan with all the strength he could muster. It hit nothing but air.

The smoke cleared up almost as suddenly as it appeared, and the fire blazed into life on its own. The window panes swung a little on their hinges. Alvar was alone in the kitchen.

He looked left and right, under the table and out of the window.

Nothing seemed amiss.

At last he went back to the pot in wary steps. Taking a great leap of courage, he scooped up some soup in a ladle and had a taste.

"Needs more pepper," he decided and sprinkled some in with a flourish.

"This is the best thing I've had in weeks," said Lars at lunch as he raised his bowl for a second serving.

"This is the best thing I've had in my whole life!" said Aunt Elena as she tossed aside her spoon and drank directly from her bowl. Bits of food stuck to her chin as she too called for seconds.

"It's just soup," said Alvar, who found the whole affair a little dramatic, but he was more than happy to refill their bowls. "Plain, ordinary soup."

"And what's wrong with that?" said Lars, fishing bits of mushroom with his spoon.

"Well, I expected something more than that. Something magical. I found the recipe in Gran's notes after all," he said, staring into his own bowl.

"Gran's notes?" The wizard chewed thoughtfully. "I do think it's quite extraordinary. It's great to have a change of taste after all that pumpkin," he said, then grinned. "Maybe you should send some of it around to your neighbours. I bet they'll appreciate the change of taste too. We're all victims of Mr Launceleyn's generosity after all!"

"Huh, not a bad idea at all," said Alvar, seeing how much there was still left in the pot after the three had eaten to their heart's fill. He'd made a severe miscalculation in measuring the ingredients, but none complained when the end result was so good. "I was thinking of sending some to the Bushburys anyway."

Lars had been ever so right. The elderly couple was delighted to see him arrive at their doorstep with the soup. He'd showed up at just the right moment, when they were bickering over whether or not they should try roasting the pumpkin. But among his neighbours Mr. Launceleyn was the happiest recipient.

He sat in the back garden, curling his moustache and deep in thought, when Alvar arrived. A huge chunk of his beloved pumpkin sat on his porch, too big to bring inside through the door. It was all that was left after the whole thing had been cut up and distributed, and he didn't have it in his heart to part with it.

"Good day, sir," he said, smiling as he let himself in though the garden gate, the small covered pot balanced on one hand. "Here's a little something for you."

"Hm?" The man snapped out of his thoughts and lifted the lid. He looked like he was about to cry from joy. "You dear, dear boy! Thank you!"

Alvar looked at the pumpkin. Bits of it had been chiselled off, in some feeble attempt to make use of it, no doubt. The house sounded awfully quiet. It didn't seem like Mrs. Launceleyn was home.

"Where's everybody?" he couldn't help but ask.

"She's gone to her parents' house, and took the kids too," said Mr. Launceleyn sadly. "Either this pumpkin goes, or I do, she says to me. Thought she was only joking until she began packing her bags just this morning. She was angry when I grew those cabbages, too. But this time she ain't having none of it."

Alvar didn't blame Mrs. Launcelyn. He pursed his lips to keep from laughing. It was rude to laugh at other people's marriage problems after all, even if they were centred around ridiculously oversized vegetables. He cleared his throat. "You ought to try bringing her back."

"Oh, of course I will, but I gotta get rid of this first. But see, not even the birds would eat it!"

And so you hoped your neighbours would? Alvar didn't say that aloud, of course. "You could dump it into a manure pit," he suggested.

"Only, it'd never fit," said Mr. Launcelyn, showing him a small pit in one corner of the yard, already filled to the brim with waste. "You have one in your garden, haven't you, boy? Maybe if I hired a carriage and took it there—"

"Oh, no, no," Alvar protested, because he had his own share to dump as well. "That one's already full."

"That's too bad," he said, though he cheered up once again after he'd had some soup.

Then he took Alvar to his fields and showed him the other pumpkins he was currently growing. These were regular sized, Alvar discovered with great relief. He would happily trade his share of the giant pumpkin for one of those, as they tasted great and made for excellent pies.

The man had clearly developed an obsession, he had to admit. Even the scarecrow he'd propped up in the middle of the field had a spooky looking head made of a hollowed out pumpkin.

Alvar shrugged. Whatever makes him happy, I suppose.

He didn't look so happy when he came rushing to Lars' house a few days later.

"You have to help me, Master Wizard!" he cried as he came running into the kitchen, where Lars was busy trying out some spells to make his share of the pumpkin disappear. It wasn't working. He tried to hide them from sight, nevertheless.

But Mr. Launceleyn had no time to notice such subtleties. "All my pumpkins have begun to rot! Out of nowhere!"

Alvar, who was busy pulling out weeds, poked his head in through the kitchen window. "The big one, you mean?"

"No," the man wailed, "those ones I showed you! Wee little ones!"

Lars donned his signature green cloak and grabbed his staff. "I'll go have a look."

Alvar decided the garden could be weeded later, and anyway Lars seemed to favour those thorny little vines and brambles. He was the one more troubled by them invading his idea of a 'perfect' garden.

He set off with the other two. Marcella, who had been dozing on the fence, woke up and bounded after them. Alvar scooped her up as he ran down the hill.

When they arrived at the field, a sad sight greeted them. The pumpkins, which had been plump and a bright orange only a few days ago, were shrivelled up and bruised--almost all of them. Some had burst, and a pale ooze trickled down the browned skins. Flies buzzed and a stench of rot was in the air. A strange, stifling heat lingered. Marcella refused to go any further than the borders of the field, and Alvar had to let her down when she began squirming and hissing at nothing.

"Odd," said Lars, looking at her sidelong. "Haven't seen her do that before."

They left her outside the fence and waded through the desolation of the pumpkin patch, noses covered. Even the scarecrow had wilted upon its frame, knocked askew.

Lars crouched on the ground, picked up a pinch of soil with his thumb and forefinger, and brought it close to his eyes.

"Were there any early signs of disease that you happened to notice?" he asked, rummaging around in his satchel for his monocle.

"No. And though I've no idea what this is, it ain't that," said Mr. Launceleyn. "In all my years, I don't think I've heard of any disease that ruins the whole patch overnight!"

"Some of it may yet be salvaged," said Alvar, gesturing at the ones which looked to be in better shape than the others. He thought of using Ilaira's silver shovel, which had brought many of his plants back from the brink of death. "We could move away the rotten ones and cleanse the soil. I know a few spells that might help."

"Very well. Do that," said Lars. "I'll go put some protective wards around the place. Just to make sure no further harm comes to them."

It saddened Mr. Launceleyn to gather the rotten pumpkins in a cart and haul them off into a big pile away from the field, but it had to be done.

"Figure out anything yet?" he asked when he found Lars crouching by the field.

The wizard's hand was pressed flat against the soil, lips moving with soundless words. A faint glow flickered there on the ground, and spread all over the field before vanishing. The stench lessened to almost nothing, swarms of flies dispersing with almost frantic movements. In the distance, Alvar reworked the soil with a brilliant, silver shovel that gleamed in the sun.

Lars sat there a long moment before answering. "Strange," he said. "I thought it was a curse of some kind."

"A curse?" Mr. Launceleyn looked terrified. "Who would put a curse on me? I haven't done anything to piss off anyone."

Lars thought the whole village was secretly annoyed because of the giant disaster of a pumpkin, but that was hardly a reason to place a curse.

"Don't worry, that isn't the case here," he told the man. "Curses don't wear off with just a few wards. You need a whole ritual to lift a curse. The fact that my wards seem to work here rules out that possibility."

"Then what is it?" said Mr. Launceleyn, more to himself than anyone else, and twirled his moustache.

Lars had no answer to that, yet.

It irked him.

Rarely was he so clueless when faced with such troubles. The wards might protect the field for the time being, but the root cause remained out of his grasp. He ran a hand through his hair, weary beyond measure all of a sudden.

He listened to Alvar chanting his spells, magicking away the bruises from the crops. He managed to reverse some of the damage, as promised. His voice seemed to work wonders on Lars, calming his frayed mind.

He's learnt his craft well, thought the wizard with great pride. It was not easy getting him to learn new things--stubborn little thing as he was-- but once he got started, Alvar was an inquisitive learner, always peeking beyond the pages Lars tried to teach, impatient to gain all the wisdom Gran left behind.

He wondered why she'd include a recipe in her book, though.

When he approached Alvar, his work was almost finished. He was busy setting the scarecrow upright again. Mr. Launceleyn hadn't asked for that, but putting it right certainly made the place look much more cheerful. He leaned on the silver shovel after he was done, wiping the sweat off his brow. With a weary but satisfied smile, he regarded the pumpkins, restored to their former freshness once again. Their orange skins glistened, freed of blemishes. The air was cool and free of odour. The soil was healing.

Soft fur pressed up against the side of Lars' legs, and he looked down to see Marcella circling around him, uttering happy high-pitched squeaks.

Lars petted her head. "I see you have changed your mind about coming here."

She trilled, then went over to Alvar to nuzzle her face against his legs, pestering him until he too leaned down and stroked her fur. She flopped down, belly upwards in invitation.

"Brrt?" Her pupils were round as marbles, and everyone knows that is a deadly trap, no matter how loveable their little faces look.

"Ain't no way I'm falling for that!" said Alvar, tickling her twitching ears instead. The corners of his eyes crinkled as he laughed, his freckles like stars etched into his skin.

Lars smiled, looking at the pair of them. Alvar always had a healing aura about him, even when he wasn't actively using magic.

Some folk just had a different sort of light about them. Not everyone could see such things, but only those who knew how to look.

Alvar's was a bright gold, like sunlight on a clear summer's day, which, if you basked in it for long enough, would make all your worries go away and make your troubles seem small enough to solve. With all its gentleness, it had the power to quieten the voices in his head, those that called him from the mountains and the trees and the grey sea, Calls from the Unknown that wanted to whisk him away.

Lars sat down on the grass and worried no more for the rotten business, which didn't trouble the village for a few more days.

Until it happened again.

This time, not one, but a group of peasants gathered before the wizard's house, all wailing for help.

It was potatoes and orchards this time, a strange blight taking root overnight, leaves shrivelled up and fruits bruised and half-rotten. The very air about those places were rank with sickness, and a shadow hung over the fields.

Lars didn't bother with wards this time.

"But I can help," said Alvar, who came running as soon as he got word from the village folk. His trusty shovel was clutched in his hands. "I've got Ilaira's gift!"

Lars' face was grim as he watched the ruinous fields below, standing upon a crest.

"This is too much for one to handle," he told him.

Alvar would have stayed and argued, no doubt, but then Aunt Elena arrived, equally as anxious as the peasants.

"Your flowers," she said, panting. "They're wilting.”

All the colour drained from Alvar's face. "What?"

"Put your gift to use. Keep them from harm while there's still time," Lars said. "And let me handle the rest. Go."

After the two were gone, he climbed off the crest and took the dirt road through the fields and orchards, careful eyes upon root and bark, leaf and flower, wilted stalks and wrinkled fruits. Even though the scene that greeted him was desolate, hope was kindled in his heart, because all the damage appeared restorable yet.

The wizard made up his mind. He was getting to the bottom of this.

The rot always came overnight, without warning signs that may otherwise be detected by experienced eyes, but it never came during the day.

So it is at night that I will keep vigil over the fields.

He filled a water-skin from a stream, bought a loaf of bread, and salvaged a few fresh apples from the orchards. Late into dusk he wandered through the trees, making a full circle of the whole area before the shadows grew long and dark.

A mirthless autumn wind whispered through the shivering leaves, and an edge of cold settled into the air after the sun went down. Lars pulled up his hood and blew on his hands to keep warm.

The waning moon hung askew from the sky above and a few frosty stars appeared, only to be hidden from sight by a host of clouds, blowing in from seemingly nowhere.

Darkness fell. And that was when he heard the shriek.

Lars leapt to his feet. The stone set upon his staff glowed a pale white of its own accord--something that it had not done in a long while.

And the last time it did so, he'd been facing a demon.

The trees around him shook and creaked in a windless storm, and heavy pounding footsteps came running towards him, though he could see no one. The grass at his feet withered.

Lars braced himself, gathering all his powers, and the light from his staff grew brighter and brighter, until it was almost as bright as daytime in the clearing.

The footsteps skidded to a halt, and another shriek tore through the night, this one panicked and frightened.

"Go back to the place whence you came!" commanded Lars. His hood fell away, and his hair flew wild. He struck his staff into the ground and a circle of fire erupted around him. "Leave this village and never return!"

Even as the wall of fire went down, a vast, shadowy figure took shape for a brief moment, before dissolving into the smoke.

The light from Lars' staff went out and all was dark and still.

The demon had fled, and with it the air of sickness and foreboding was gone.

Yet Lars was not reassured in the least. He may have startled the demon, but it could still return. He needed to banish it.

Wasting not a breath more, he turned and headed towards the village.

"Show me that recipe from Gran's notes!" he said as soon as a half-asleep Alvar answered the door.

"Why are you making soup in the middle of the night?" He stood there in bleary-eyed confusion.

"Just show it to me, will you?"

In the most uncharacteristic show of haste, Lars shuffled inside, tossed his staff on the kitchen table, pulled out a chair and dropped into it, his heart still hammering from all that running. He even forgot to hang his cloak on the hook by the door.

When Alvar returned with Gran's book, he lit his pipe, taking long drags to calm his mind.

By then Alvar looked more alert. He flipped to the right page. "Here."

Lars barely had to skim over it to know what was wrong. With a wry smile, he moved his hand over the page. A few of the letters glowed a bright, bloody red. Put together, they spelled a name.

"T-H-O-R-O-S" he read. "Ah, I know this fellow. Brings rot and decay wherever he goes, this one. One of Shadow Plain's oldest residents."

"What?" said Alvar.

"Congratulations," said Lars. "You have successfully summoned a demon. An ancient and powerful one at that. "

"Well--" He fumbled for words, wide awake now, "I just--I just wanted to make some soup!"

"And Gran wanted to hide a demonic ritual within the recipe. It would've been fine too, if you hadn't messed up a step," said the wizard, grinning with his pipe between his teeth. He circled a finger around the 'salt pouring' diagrams. "The magic circle is supposed to go around the pot. That's what keeps the demon contained, once you summon him."

Alvar dragged a hand down his face. "I poured it all inside the pot. Was that wrong?"

"Absolutely," said Lars. "And since the very boundary that's supposed to keep him in place is dissolved, our dear friend is now out there, roaming free and doing as he pleases."

When the weight of the words finally sunk in, Alvar dropped into a chair, hands clutching his head. "Please don't tell me I have ruined everyone's crops and doomed us all."

The look of remorse was clear on his face, as the wizard noted for a long moment. "This is why one should never be careless or hasty when handling magic. Greater disasters have happened in the past, even by the hands of well-meaning people. Even so," he said, laying a hand on his shoulder, "it is never too late to amend our mistakes."

Alvar looked up with watery eyes as Lars pulled away and went over to sit cross-legged in the middle of the kitchen. He retrieved a piece of chalk from the satchel and scribbled a set of strange glyphs all around himself in a circle.

"Since we now know his name, I can force him to reveal himself," he said, standing in the middle of his circle. He then spread his arms wide, his staff glowing a bright green, and chanted many a word in some strange language Alvar didn't quite recognise, except for the demon's name, Thoros.

--"What're you lads up to?"

Alvar looked up to see Aunt Elena at the top of the stairs, standing there in a billowy night dress, her hair wild and eyes squinted.

"We're summoning a demon," he said, and told her all about the reason behind the blighted crops.

Her eyes flew open wide, and she dashed down the steps. "Well, why didn't you tell me sooner?"

She grabbed a mighty big pot from the kitchen, a huge ladle that Alvar never used, and banged them together with a firm move. Clang.

"I've fought a demon or two in my time," she said proudly.

"Demons? At sea?" asked Alvar doubtfully.

"Oh yes. Gambling demons and drinking demons and demons of bad decisions," she said.

"I don't think that's the kind of demon we're dealing with here--" he scarcely had the chance to finish when an ear-piercing wail filled the kitchen, and a hulking shape materialised within the magic circle.

There stood Thoros, a looming dark figure towering over Lars, a pair of twisted horns jutting from either sides of his head, long taloned fingers and eyes gleaming like red fire. Steam rose as he let out an exhale.

When he spoke, it was as though several voices were speaking together. "You dare command me, mortal?"

Thoros struggled, and as Alvar watched in astonishment, the demon tried to slip past Lars, rather than outright attacking him.

"Be at peace!" said Lars. Even as he said so, his shadow grew long and dark, and shapeless ghostly figures approached from the corners of the room, binding the demon in place within the circle.

Thoros realised he was dealing with no ordinary human, and dropped the act at last.

"Be at peace, you say!" He tilted his head. "How can I be at peace when someone summons me upon this plain for no reason--and proceeds to assail me with a vile weapon?"

Lars looked confused. "Who assailed you?"

"I think I may have hit him when I swung my frying pan," admitted Alvar.

"You!" snarled Thoros as his eyes landed on him. "I have no quarrel with the wizard. You are the one who summoned me, then left me to wander aimlessly."

Alvar crossed his arms. "Well, you could always go back home. I summoned you by accident, is all. It's not like your arms and legs are tied up."

"They're as good as!" cried Thoros. "Luna...she crafted such cruel, cruel spells! Do you not know the weight of the words you uttered at my summoning? I am entrapped in the mortal world until I am granted release."

"Very well then. I will grant you release," said Alvar. "If you promise to undo all the damage you have done to our crops."

A howling laughter filled the house, louder and louder until it seemed they would go deaf from it. "Undo? Foolish boy. What has been done cannot be undone. Once the rot has taken hold, the lands will fester, and worms shall crawl over your precious crops."

"Is that so?" said Lars. "In that case, you must accept your fate of being trapped here for all eternity. I'm not taking the bindings off you either."

With a smug look thrown at Thoros, Aunt Elena began to bang the pot with the ladle as loudly as she could. "Take that, stupid demon!"

Despite Alvar's doubts about this rather crude method, it did work.

While it caused extreme distress to Thoros, as was evident from his thrashing around, it woke up the whole neighbourhood. When the first of the annoyed people showed up, Alvar explained to them what was going on, and soon a whole crowd of village folk were gathering in the kitchen, armed with pots and pans of their own and banging them together.

"Leave our crops alone!" they cried, though it was difficult to hear over all that clamour.

"Stop it! Make it stop!" wailed Thoros, and in the end, he lay curled up on his side.

Lars raised a hand, and silence fell. "What have you to say for yourself?"

"I cannot reverse the damage but--" he began, and Lars had to silence another bout of angry protests until the demon could speak again.

"But," said Thoros, "I can make it shift places. Take it off your crops and rot something else instead."

A murmur rose among the crowd. What could they let be ruined if it meant their fields would be saved?

"But it has to be a big enough thing to contain all that damage," said the demon, and seeing the uncertainty in the people's faces, gained some of his former slyness. "Now which one of you would give up their granary? Or your garden? Or your orchard? Or perhaps there're sick livestock you'd be better off without? Oh, don't be selfish, the fate of the whole village depends upon you."

Before panic could take hold of his neighbours, Alvar pushed through the crowd and made his way to where Mr. Launceleyn stood.

"Only you can help us now, sir!" he said clutching his hands.

"Me?" Mr. Launceleyn stood petrified for a full minute before the true meaning of his words hit him.

He puffed out his chest and stepped forward. "Oh yes! I'll be glad to get rid of--er sacrifice my creation, if it means my friends will be saved from such a loss beyond measure, oh very glad indeed!"

Thoros raised a brow--or made a similar expression, because he had no eyebrows. "And what exactly is this precious creation of yours, so vast that it can contain all the damage I have done in the past few days?"

"You'll see," said the man.

It was not until Lars made another magic circle in Mr. Launceleyn's back garden that Thoros could teleport there.

The demon stood silent for a long moment, staring at the giant pumpkin before him. Even he had to crane his neck to look at it.

Mr. Launceleyn stood before it, all high and mighty with a pitchfork in hand. "Well?"

The demon bared his jagged teeth in a grin. "I should've gone for this instead of the fields. What a feast it would've been!"

"Ahem." Lars cleared his throat. "You should really get started. Dawn draws near. Your kind are not particularly fond of the sun, are they?"

"Hold on," said Alvar, who showed up with a cart full of the slices of his share. He dumped them in a heap beside the big one. "More are on the way."

One by one, the village folk came and piled up their shares. With sidelong glances toward Mr. Launceleyn, they all lamented how sad they were to let such a great thing go to waste. Some even wiped happy tears, but later claimed they were crying from sorrow.

When all was ready, Thoros raised his arms and gave a cry, his eyes glowing luminous. The crowd fell silent. A storm rose, and with it came, from all around the fields and orchards and gardens of Frostspire, dark swirls carried by the wind, like swarms of flies.

Together they merged into one, and hit the giant pumpkin. With fearful groans and hisses, the great mass collapsed in itself. The skin shrivelled up, the top half caved in, and its fleshy insides shrank until all there was left of it was a small, misshapen heap. The smaller slices decomposed much the same way, and the grass surrounding them withered to a dun brown. But soon the swarms of rot dissipated, and there was no more left.

Thus came the end of the giant pumpkin.

All Frostspire seemed to heave a sigh of relief in unison. Soon after, as a flicker of dawn began to tinge the horizon, there came happy shouts from the peasants, those who had gone running to their fields to see for themselves if the demon was true to his words and the rot was gone. Lars held Thoros in place until they returned.

"It's all gone!" they cried. "The blight's gone, Like it never happened!"

At last, after he'd heard them all, Lars turned to the demon. Thoros idled within the circle, sharpening his long talons with a nail file he conjured out of thin air.

"You have kept your word," said the wizard.

"Oh, we always do. It's you mortals that mess things up because you never actually read the terms and conditions of our deals," said Thoros. Then he looked skyward. "Daytime's near. Do you intend to torment me some more or am I granted leave now?"

Lars laughed, then gestured to Alvar. "It's not up to me, but the one who brought you here in the first place."

There had to be done a whole counter ritual to send Thoros back to his world. Thankfully, Gran had included that also, hidden in another unassuming recipe of bread pudding.

Alvar still had one last question for the demon, though. "Why did my grandmother summon you anyway?"

"To force me to do her bidding, of course," said Thoros.

"What kind of bidding?"

Thoros flashed his ghastly smile again before he vanished. He pointed a gnarly finger toward the reeking mass that was left of the pumpkin.

"Take a good look at the gift I leave you. If you're anything like Luna, you'll figure out the rest."

Alvar might think he did not possess much of Gran's talents, yet he figured it out all the same.

The horrid stuff that was left behind from the giant pumpkin made an excellent quality fertiliser, and he even got to keep it all for himself, since no one else seemed too eager to claim a share of the foul-smelling muck.

Mr. Launceleyn rushed away to board the first carriage that morning, off to try and bring back his wife and children. He even bought a bouquet from the shop before he went, one made of white roses, her favourite. Alvar didn't know whether it was the flowers or the news of the giant pumpkin finally being gone that convinced her, but she did come back with a bright smile on her face.

Alvar didn't mind either way, because he didn't really have the time. For many long days that followed, he was kept busy tending to his garden, where flowers unfurled in full bloom everywhere he looked, all thanks to the demon-made fertiliser.

He did, however, refrain from cooking mushroom soup for a very long time thereafter.