‘The Switch Fairy’ by Monica Wang

“Please stop pulling on that,” the small voice whined. “My leg.” 

I stopped knitting. I lived alone — someone must’ve hidden their phone, or themselves, in my apartment. Readjusting my grip on my needles so they could pierce intruder eyes, I checked the sofa. Under the sofa. Around the coffee table. The bare floor? Nothing. I did not own much furniture.

The voice grew louder. “Ow. Ow, you’re still pulling. You’re giving me rope burn!”

Rope? I kicked over the bag of yarn I’d just brought home and crushed the nearest ball in one fist. Nothing. The next ball. Nothing. The next. Noth — Something crisper than discount yarn poked through the strands and between my fingers: long, thin insect wings. Ew. I tried to hurl the yarn across the room. It flopped a metre away, weightlessly. 

From beneath the yarn, a tiny, muffled screech.

“My leg! Had you freed me properly, I would have made today a most glorious, luck-filled day for you. But now!” A daddy long legs, a humanoid daddy long legs, crawled out of the yarn.

“What are you? What is this? Are you a — ” I squinted. Perhaps the bug comparison would offend. “ A yarn fairy?”