A Note Left Behind in Some Haste

My dearest Emma,

Right. I have not much time and I am writing this standing up, so forgive the hand. You very nearly had me. I have been doing this for six hundred years and I have never had to move that fast, and I would like it on the record who did it: EMMA.

You will want to know about the gold. Everybody wants to know about the gold. Here is the honest answer, and I am only telling you because you earned it: the pot is at the end of the rainbow, and the end of the rainbow moves when you do. That is not a trick I invented. That is just how rainbows are. Look it up when you are older.

So no, you will not get it, and neither will I, and I have made my peace with that. What I do instead is mend shoes. That is my actual trade, Emma — everybody forgets it. One pair at a time, properly, in a field, forever. It is better work than chasing.

That is the sort of thing that makes a person hard to catch, which in my professional opinion is a compliment.

You were closer than anybody has ever been,
and I mean that sincerely —

The Leprechaun

Shoemaker · Keeper of the Pot

P.S. — Whatever mess you find in the morning was me leaving in a hurry and I will not be apologizing for it. Check whether anything small is green that was not green yesterday.