Lucky Teeth

Some bargains come early, some come late, but they always come to collect your fate.

The Clover & Crown always smelled of damp peat and spilled stout by the end of St. Patrick’s Night—a smell Siobhán had grown so used to that she could taste it at the back of her throat long after she’d gone home. Tonight, the air carried something else too. Something metallic. Something like the cold breath of a storm long before the clouds knew it was coming.

“Last call was twenty minutes ago,” Siobhán said gently as she ushered the final trio toward the door. Their laughter spilled into the mist outside, softening as they vanished into the dark lanes of Kilcolman village. The pub grew still, lit only by the low orange glow of coals settling in the hearth.

She locked the front door behind them, her keys jangling with a tired rattle. The pub had celebrated well. Too well. Banners of green and gold drooped sadly from the rafters. A paper shamrock had fallen into a puddle of spilled lager, bleeding its dye into the floorboards.

Only one patron remained: Granny O’Shea, perched at the far end of the bar like a raven on a fencepost. Her white hair was illuminated by the soft burning embers.

“You’re here late,” Siobhán murmured.

“I’m here early,” Granny O’Shea corrected. Her voice rasped like old leaves. “St. Patrick’s Day isn’t over ’til sunrise. The hours between dusk and dawn matter more than drinking.”

Siobhán rolled her eyes affectionately.
“If you’re going to warn me about the Good Folk again…”

The old woman tapped a finger, yellowed and crooked, against the bar.
“Mind the cellar tonight, girl. He’s restless every few years. Some bargains come early, some come late, but they always come to collect...”

Siobhán smiled politely.
“Collect what? There’s nothing in the cellar except kegs and spiders.”

“Aye,” Granny whispered. “But what’s truly valuable to him is still up here.”

Before Siobhán could respond, the old woman slid off the stool with surprising grace for her age. She pulled her shroud around her shoulders, flipped her hood up and drifted out into the fog.

The pub fell into absolute silence.

Siobhán exhaled, rubbing her temples. Her shift had been nearly twelve hours of pure debauchery and drunken dancing, singing, fighting (and maybe even someone fucking in the bathroom). She wanted only to mop the floor, take the rubbish out, and collapse into bed. But when she turned to fetch the mop—

Knock.

A single, heavy rap from somewhere below.

Siobhán froze.

The sound hadn’t come from the front door, nor from the street. It had come beneath the pub—low and hollow, as if knuckles struck stone.

She waited.

Nothing.

Her heart slowed. Probably the old heating pipes expanding. Or a keg shifting. Or—

Knock.
Knock.
Knock.

Steady. Intentional.
Each one spaced just far enough apart to feel like a question.

Siobhán swallowed.
“Is someone down there?” she called, immediately regretting the sound of her own voice.

The dead of silence answered her.

She shook it off and continued sweeping, deciding firmly that she would not go into the cellar alone at midnight on St. Patrick’s night, no matter how silly the superstition seemed.

But then—

A voice rose from the floorboards, soft and strange:

“A coin for a tooth…
A tooth for a coin…”

The broom slid from Siobhán’s grasp and clattered onto the tiles.

The cellar door, which had been shut since yesterday afternoon, creaked. Slowly. Painfully. As though someone were pushing it open from the other side.

No.

Not someone.

Something.

The rusted padlock she’d latched earlier now dangled open, unlocked. It swayed gently, as though a hand had just released it.

A cold breath wafted from the stairwell, smelling faintly of moss and wet earth.

Siobhán hesitated at the threshold.
“Hello?”

Stale air rising from below whispered back at her.

Against every sensible instinct, she descended the first few steps, the old wood groaning under her feet. The cellar below was dim—only the faint orange glow from the hearth upstairs reached it, stretching long shadows like fingers across the stone floor.

She reached the bottom step.

And saw it.

A figure sat hunched in the corner, its back bowed, its limbs too slender to be human. Shackles wrapped its wrists and ankles, though the chains lay slack and open on the floor as if it had only recently slipped free.

Its skin was the color of moss-slicked stone.
Its clothing tattered green cloth resembling centuries-old velvet.
And worst of all, an absolutely horrifying mouth.

Most of its teeth were missing.
The few remaining were rotted, cracked, or replaced by dull stones wedged into its swollen gums.

It lifted its head.

Two golden eyes gleamed.

“Siobhán,” it croaked, speaking her name with a familiarity that chilled her marrow. “There you are.”

She stumbled back, hitting the stair railing.
“Who? What?”

It smiled. A grotesque, gap-riddled smile.

“You keep a bright smile, Siobhán.
Give it to me, and I’ll give you gold enough to drown in for all your days.”

Her scream lodged in her throat. She bolted up the stairs, grabbing the railing.

The cellar door slammed shut above her.

Her palm struck the wood. She shoved, twisted the knob, rammed her shoulder. Nothing. It was sealed tight, as though fused.

Behind her, the chains clattered.

The creature was rising.

“Let me see them,” it rasped playfully. “The lovely pearls in your mouth.”

Siobhán turned, heart ramming against her ribs.

The leprechaun’s grin widened.

“Come on, now. I only need the front ones…”

And then it bounded toward her on light, disturbingly joyful feet.

Siobhán sprinted deeper into the cellar as she tried to make a feverish escape from the creatures slimy paws. She lunged toward the cracked section of wall she’d always assumed was just structural decay.

But tonight, the stones shifted.

Revealing a narrow, dark passage.

She didn’t think.

She dove into the darkness just as the creature’s gnarly fingers grazed her ankle.

It let out a bright, childish, awful cackle as she crawled deeper into the stone throat of the tunnel.

Behind her, it whispered:

“Ahh…welcome.
Home sweet home.”

And followed, galloping in a hobbled pursuit behind her.

Siobhán didn’t remember making the decision to flee—her legs just carried her, half-crawling, half-falling into the newly exposed passage at the back of the cellar. The stones were slick with moss, the tunnel so narrow the walls scraped her shoulders. Behind her, the leprechaun squeezed through the cracked stones with a wet, greedy sound.

“Ahhh, there’s a good lass,” it crooned, voice echoing like a child mocking his sister. “Down ye go. Deep as roots. Deep as bones.”

Siobhán swallowed a sob and pushed farther into the darkness. The tunnel dipped sharply. Her hands met mud—cold, sucking, almost alive. Panic stabbed her ribs. The air tasted metallic, damp, and ancient enough to have allowed moss itself to take its very first breath here.

Behind her came the scrabble-scrape of small hands, impossibly fast through an uneven gait.

He was gaining.

She lunged forward. The tunnel widened suddenly, spilling her into a low cavern. Sickly green light leaked from patches of glowing fungus on the ceiling, just enough to illuminate the impossible sight spread before her.

Teeth. Piles of them.
Small mountains of human teeth—molars, incisors, baby teeth threaded on old twine, yellowed adult molars with rotting roots stacked like coins. They glittered faintly under the moss-light, an obscene parody of treasure.

Siobhán gagged. The smell of sweet rot mixed with copper hit her like a blow.

“Yer first visit to me trove,” the leprechaun chirped, crawling into the cavern after her. Its head tilted at an unnatural angle, the stitched leather hat slipping sideways to reveal patchy tufts of hair. “There’s value in what mortals toss away. Yer kind is forever spittin’ out the precious pearls.”

It slithered down from the tunnel onto the cavern floor, bare feet squelching in the damp. In the green glow, she finally saw its mouth clearly.

Not empty.

Too full.

Rows upon rows of teeth—jammed in, mismatched sizes, too many to belong to one creature. Some were far too big. Others too tiny. Several had been forced into its gums sideways, like stones hammered into clay.

She staggered back.

Its grin stretched impossibly wide. “I’ll have a lovely place fer yours.”

“Stay back!” Siobhán screamed, snatching up a fist-sized rock.

“Ooh, a fighter.” Its voice glittered with glee. “Good. It keeps the chase interestin’.”

Then it lunged.

Siobhán hurled the rock; it cracked against his shoulder, but the creature barely flinched. Its fingers brushed her ankle—cold and rough, like bark. She yelped and tore away, scrambling through an archway carved from knotted tree roots.

The next tunnel forked left into darkness, right into deeper darkness.

She chose right.

Her breath scraped her throat raw as she ran. Every few steps, she heard him behind her—skittering, giggling, dragging a bag that rattled like bones. The air tightened as the pathway grew narrower, the smell of earthen clay and deep decay swarming around her.

Ahead, the tunnel widened again—this time into a chamber lined not with teeth but with carvings. Spirals, knots, and faces half-lost to time. Old Gaelic symbols whispered warnings her grandmother had once muttered: Never follow a fae underground. Never eat their food. Never look too long into their eyes.

Siobhán had already broken most of those rules tonight.

Then she saw it: a stone door at the far end, cracked just slightly. Enough for a mortal to slip through.

She sprinted.

Behind her, the leprechaun’s claws scraped.
“Ah ah ahhhh, Siobhán the tavern wench…ye’re runnin’ toward me heart, not away from it.”

A lie? Or truth? With the fae, they were always the same thing.

She shoved her shoulder into the crack and squeezed through. The stone tore her shirt and scraped skin, but she forced herself through until she fell, hard, onto wet stone on the other side.

The door slammed itself shut behind her.

And the tunnel went silent.

She didn’t trust the quiet. Not for a second.

The chamber she’d entered was smaller, colder. Only one torch burned, green and guttering, set into stone like it had been there since before the first myth. In the center of the room sat a wooden chest, ancient, bound in rusted iron.

A faint rattling came from inside.

“No…” she whispered.

But curiosity pulled at her.
Fear dug its fangs in deeper.
And desperation won.

She lifted the lid.

Inside lay a single row of perfect, gleaming gold teeth.

Not metal. Real teeth dipped in gold leaf, each root glinting blunt and clean.
A note lay atop them, written in an elegant, looping script:

A trade for freedom.
A trade for silence.
A trade for the toll I’ve told ye, lest ye be trapped.

Siobhán recoiled, the chest snapping shut as if scolding her.

“Ye’ve found me savings account.”

The voice came from behind her.

The stone door had opened. The leprechaun slipped through the gap, twirling like smoke curling forward into shape around the tunnel walls. His grin stretched even farther, teeth glinting in the torchlight like a collector admiring a prized coin.

“Ye’ve spirit, lass. I’ll give ye that. Haven’t had a chase this good in…oh…a century or three.”

Siobhán backed against the chest, fists clenched. “I didn’t ask to be part of your game.”

“None of ye ever do.” He clicked his tongue. “But ye stepped on the old stones above me cellar, anyway. When ye should’ve listened better to ye ol’ Granny O’Shea. That’s invitation enough.”

“So what?” she snapped, heart pounding. “You’re going to drag me back and rip my teeth out?”

“Oh no, Siobhán.” His expression softened into something almost tender…almost reverent. “I’m goin’ to make ye offer them to me…happily,” he grinned.

He extended a tiny sharp-knuckled hand.

The same size as a child’s.
But the strength in it could break bone.

“Ye can give ‘em freely and live.”
A beat.
“Or fight me, and I’ll take far more than yer smile.”

Her pulse hammered so hard she felt it in her fingertips.
She had nothing. No weapon, no hope of outrunning him forever, no way out of this maze.

Except…

Her eyes went to the chest.

The gold teeth.
A trade from a past victim.
A trade that clearly hadn’t been enough.

“What if…” she said slowly, “I offer you something else?”

The leprechaun perked up, delighted. “Ooh, creativity! Mortal bargains are always so drab. What’s in that clever lil’ head o’ yers?”

Siobhán lifted the torch from the wall.

“Fire.”

And swung.

The flame hit him full in the face. Burning. Blinding. The leprechaun shrieked in fury and pain, stumbling backward as Siobhán grabbed a handfull of gold teeth and bolted past him and into the tunnel.

The chase resumed. Only now, he was furious.

She sprinted through shadowed corridors, twisting roots, earth dripping from the ceiling like rain. The passage sloped upward now—faintly, barely—but she felt fresh air somewhere above.

Freedom.
Possibility.

He was gaining again.

“You thievin’ bitch! Ye think flame can stop me? I’ve burned in fairy fire hotter than ye mortal sun!”

Siobhán shoved herself forward. A sliver of light appeared ahead in a faint hint of gray. Real light. Midnight glory.

St. Patrick’s night hadn’t passed yet. But the full moon was bright and the silver moonlight now guided her path forward.

Finally, a cave exit.

She threw herself toward it, lungs tearing open, ankle twisting on loose stone. She didn’t stop. She couldn’t.

The leprechaun grabbed her braid, yanking her backward.

Siobhán screamed.
His nails dug into her scalp, his acrid breath hot on her ear.

“Ye almost made it, lass. Truly. But ye’ve something I need.”

He spun her around—

And she kicked him square in the chest.

Enough to knock herself free.

She lunged for the exit.
He lunged after her.

They burst onto the cliffside together.

The sea roared below, violent and dark, waves smashing against rock like fists. Moonlight washed the cliff in pewter hues. Wind tore through her clothing. The drop was lethal.

The leprechaun crawled out behind her, silhouette small against the vast sky.

“Nowhere to go,” he sang.

But Siobhán was staring past him.

Behind the leprechaun…farther inside the cave…

The chest of gold teeth had spilled.
And in the moonlight, they glimmered like coins in a tale.

He followed her gaze. He became entranced with gold and greed.

A mistake.

She grabbed the nearest rock and struck.
Not at him.
At the ground beneath him.

The outcropping of stone, loose from time and erosion, crumbled.

His eyes widened. “No!”

The earth gave way.

He slid.
Clawed.
Caught her ankle.
“Come with me, girl—ye owe me a—”

She kicked. Hard.

His grip slipped.

The leprechaun fell backward off the cliff, shrieking curses older than Ireland itself, his tiny body swallowed by the crashing black waves below.

Siobhán collapsed onto the rocks, chest heaving, the wind whipping tears from her eyes.

She didn’t move for a long time.

Above her, the moon hung soft and pale, like a gleaming white tooth in the sky. Off in the distance a cloaked figure moved toward her. Ominous and old. It was Granny O’Shea. She’d come to retrieve her beloved Siobhán, to save her from the grave St. Patrick’s night.

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