Chapter 1

Niamh sat in her grey ford focus, with the engine running and the heater set high. It was just after six o'clock in the morning and the night was clearing, showing a layer of mist over Curragh woods.

She was the only person, in the only vehicle in the car park. She listened to the morning radio. The presenter spoke in a dull drone as he read the morning news. She practiced her breathing exercises, dreading stepping out into the cold twilight of the woods.

She sat here ready to take up running. She had managed to avoid intensive exercise since she left school, which was sixteen years ago at this point, which until recently suited her just fine.

She took a deep breath, threw open the car door and stretched out into a fierce punch of cold, breezy air. Her teeth started to chatter and her bare arms broke out in goosebumps.

She locked the car and clutched her arms tight against her body to keep warm. She stood, wearing the largest sized, grey lycra gym clothes she could find at the supermarket. They were not appropriate for her body type. The material clung to every bulge and roll, the shorts cut into her waist, giving her even more rolls than if she naked.

She looked at herself in the car window, which served to warp and stretch her wider. She had never had a problem with her body until recently. Now, she felt a little disappointed by the stack of tyres she saw in the reflection. It wasn't like her weight had affected her life and men didn't kick her out of bed when they took her clothes off.

Breathing out little clouds of condensing air as she shivered, really started regretting her decision to do this, but she wanted to be alone, she didn't want dog walkers, joggers or nosy pensioners out on a stroll seeing how unfit she is, especially not like this.

She stretched her legs out on a bin in the car park, subtly making adjustments to the lycra to find a way to make it feel comfortable. The stretching ache in her leg felt very new to her as long unused muscles started waking up.

In new, cheap trainers, she walked towards the entrance to the woods. An information board lay out the paths she could take. She took out the torch on her phone to illuminate the instructions. There were green, blue and red routes. The green route being the shortest at a one kilometer loop and the most gentle looking, it did not pass through many contours. She set her GPS tracking fitness app to record her statistics and see where she was against the map.

Getting used to the cold she held up the torch, pointed it at the ground in front of her feet and picked up her pace.

Her feet hit the ground heavily, causing ripples of fat to wobble up her thighs, into her bum, through her belly, into her breasts and arms every time she took an exhaustive jog forward. It was not long before she felt hot sweat steaming from her face and her breath struggled to keep up with her pace.

She stopped to breathe and checked her GPS. She was only a hundred metres deep into the woods. Looking around, the woods were dense and old. She shone her torch, she could only see the path forward and the car park behind.

When her breath returned to normal she paced forward. She tried to push forward further this time and tried to relax her mind. She tried to enter a zen state of mind and concentrate only on the exercise and not the pain.

She ignored her thighs gliding against each other, she ignored her knees rubbing together and she ignored her belly jiggling it's way out of her shorts and pushed forward more. She glanced at her app, wiping the sweat from her eyes. She got another hundred meters. She pushed forward. Two hundred meters.

Fighting for breath and even feeling a little light headed she stopped. Her heart raced inside her chest. She slumped forward. This must have been her limits. Once her breath came back, she would walk a little bit to recover.

Looking around, panting, the woods seemed even darker now, even though the Sun had been rising since she arrived. She shone the torch around. Shiny glints of dew were frozen on the leaves of the trees which overhung the path. She started to feel anxious, a deep, primal fear of being lost in woods was creeping in, despite the clear, bark chipped path.

Before her breath could return she started a fast walk. As she moved, she peeled stray sweat drenched, chestnut hair from her face and tucked it back into her ponytail. She looked at her app to see her position on the trail as the torch lit up ahead. She focused on the blue dot on the app to ignore the claustrophobic columns of trees around.

Further into the woods, it darkened, the canopy closed over and the dot vanished. She shone the light up, leaves overshadowed the trail above.

She stopped. Now she was no longer running the cold had come back. Her belly was freezing, she forgot to tuck it back into her shorts as it hung lifelessly over the crumpled waistband. She ran her fingers through the shorts and tucked it away.

"Psst" came a sound from the woods.

She looked around. It could have been wind.

"Psst."

She shone the torch into the trees. Some children had nailed fairy doors to several trunks in this place. She shivered more and walked on.

"Psst."

She picked up the pace. She heard a twig break from the trees beside her.

"You don't want to be doing this, do you?" Came a voice. it was quiet and had the thickest Irish accent she had heard.

She looked around with the torch. "Get out here. Who are you?" She hissed. Her heart raced again.

"Oh don't mind me, girl. I just like to keep joggers company."

She stopped moving and looked around, the voice was creepy, but sounded so old and faint that it was not terribly threatening. "Get out here."

The bushes rustled below her and something green wiggled out. It stood up and stretched itself out, it was two feet tall. She pointed her torch straight down and saw a tiny man with a big, hooked nose and thick ginger hair. It was wearing green rags and surprisingly polished, shiny shoes, which looked like emeralds.

Niamh stared in disbelief, but her heart stopped racing. She grinned and burst out laughing. "Oh no. No. No. No."

The little leprechaun looked hurt. "Yes. And don't laugh at me."

She pointed at him. "You are not real. Oh God. My brain has gone simple."

"I am real. I'm Quinn. Who are ye?"

Niamh shook her head and started up her fast walk. She ignored the little creature, who was comfortably keeping up with her.

"Hello?" He said, trying to wave for attention.

She blanked him and carried on.

The little man ran ahead and started jumping up and down. "Stop, I'm real. Don't ignore me."

She sighed, stopped walking and kneeled down. "Right, so you're going to stalk me the whole way?"

"I'm not stalking you. I'm trying to run with you. I run with everyone who runs in here. I love running."

She sighed. "I'm not running anymore, am I?"

"I know. You don't want to be. I can tell."

"Look, you're probably not real, but does anyone actually want to run?"

He smiled. Oh yes. They speed through here, some with their dogs, some listen to music, but they all seem so content."

She shrugged. "Leave me alone."

The little leprechaun jumped up and pulled her shorts down to let her belly out again.

"Hey!" she shouted and tried to slap him, but he rain away too fast.

"Don't hit me!."

She started to chase him into the woods. She pushed through low hanging branches and kicked the fallen leaves out of the way, but the little leprechaun ran just ahead of her, giggling.

She pushed further, panting. She felt her clothes snagging on errant twigs and nettles slapping against her bare legs, until she collapsed face first on the cold, dirty ground into an empty, mossy clearing.

The little leprechaun chuckled and walked over to the fallen woman. "You really don't belong here."

Niamh sighed. "What do you want from me?"

The leprechaun tried to look thoughtful. "Well, I want you to leave. Your thundering footsteps give me a headache and you're far too slow. You don't belong here with the real joggers."

She stared scornfully at the little pixie. "No. You can't be rude to me and kick me out. I have every right to be here and do what I want."

"Well, yes, but you don't want to be here. I don't want you here." He paused. "So why are you here?"

She glared. "I need the exercise."

"Well, I can see that." He wandered around her side and jabbed a stick into her bum.

She flailed to try to hit him again.

"But you don't want to exercise?"

Niamh started to pull herself back to her feet, her face and body caked with soil, she was bruised, clothes torn and covered in tiny cuts. She shone her torch around the clearing. "Of course I don't want to be running at stupid o'clock in the morning."

The little leprechaun jogged on the spot, rubbing his chin. "Tell me why you're doing this and ill see if we can come up with something else."

She sighed. "Well it's not me, it's my mother. She makes little remarks every time I come home. I'll walk through the door and the first thing she'll tell me is that I look fatter, that I'll never find a husband if I don't slim down."

"Well, Mammy's know best."

She glared. "She does not. She made a point of putting the roast dinner in the bin and cooking cabbage soup last time I came home. So I told her 'fine I will do your stupid diet and stupid exercise.'"

"Well that does make sense. Does this mean you will be stomping around my woods every morning until you're thin?" He strolled up to her and poked the saggy belly hanging over her shorts. "That might take years."

She tucked it back in. "Yes. Or do you have another solution?"

"Well maybe I can make some of me magic shoes, that might fix your problem as I understand it."

Niamh stared at the little imp. "Well, if you are a magic leprechaun, I suppose you could give it a try."

The little leprechaun leaped up and opened the side of a tree and pulled out an anvil with cobblers tools. With an air of concentration, he pulled and hammered the green leather into shape. He was fast and he was talented and he made a pair of emerald running shoes, just like Niamh was wearing.

He smiled at her. "Come on, take them."

Reluctantly, Niamh came over to the anvil and picked up the boots inspecting them. They were new, clean and shiny. "So what do these do? will I run faster now?"

"Oh no." The leprechaun chuckled. "They will hide your size. They won't make you lose weight but they will make you look thin."

She shrugged, taking off her trainers and slipping into the new ones. She bounced on the spot. "They're really comfortable but I don't feel any different."

"Ah, you won't, but if you just suck your tummy in, like you normally would, it will make you look thin, so long as you wear the shoes."

Rolling her eyes a little, then she looked down and sucked in her belly. It was a miracle, everything shrank and narrowed almost instantly. Her belly caved into a flat, toned waist. Her shorts loosened so much, they fell down. She was ten. Maybe twelve sizes smaller in an instant.

"No. Way. This can't be real." She relaxed her breath and immediately expanded back to full size. She quickly ducked down to pull up her shorts.

"Oh it's not real. It's magic. You can now hide your fat whenever you need to and nobody will bother you about it. Just don't forget, the magic doesn't work if you take off the shoes." He paused "And don't forget it doesn't make you lighter, so don't go sitting on anyone."

She smiled. "I suppose I should thank you, Quinn."

He shook his head. "Oh no, don't thank me, just keep your big, thumping feet out of my woods and that's all I need."

She shook his hand, sucked in her belly just a little bit to see how it looked without her shorts falling down again and went back to the car. She felt no lighter and when she tried to jog a bit got out of breath quickly. This was what she was told to expect.