The enormous black handprint appeared on Tía Marisol’s kitchen door just before breakfast.

Chibi discovered it.

CHIBI: “MARA! THE MONSTER’S BEEN HERE!”

Mara examined the mark.

MARA: “It looks like soot.”

“Exactly! A monster covered in soot!”

From the doorway, Marisol laughed.

MARISOL: “That’ll be Brais. He’s a charcoal burner.”

CHIBI: “Does he live in the mountains?”

“Yes.”

“Is he enormous?”

“Quite.”

“Does he come down at night?”

“Sometimes.”

Chibi turned triumphantly towards Mara.

CHIBI: “I KNEW IT!”

Marisol brought them inside, where chestnuts were roasting beside the hearth.

“Perhaps it’s time I told you about the Apalpador.”

In the mountains of eastern Galicia, people remember a strange winter visitor: an enormous, soot-covered charcoal burner who comes down from the forests during the festive season.

He visits sleeping children and, in traditional accounts, gently feels their bellies to discover whether they’ve eaten enough.

Then he leaves chestnuts and wishes them a year of plenty.

Chibi stared.

CHIBI: “That’s the monster?”

MARISOL: “You wanted a monster. You got someone who checks whether children have had dinner.”

CHIBI: “That’s suspiciously disappointing.”

Marisol smiled.

“The old story comes from a world where a full stomach in winter was something worth celebrating.”

That evening, the village gathered to roast chestnuts.

Mara noticed a little girl called Alda standing outside the festivities.

MARA: “Aren’t you coming to eat?”

Alda shook her head.

“We haven’t brought anything.”

Her mother was still working, and her little brother Nuno had barely eaten that day.

Chibi looked at the two chestnuts in his hand.

Then he offered Alda one.

CHIBI: “Here.”

ALDA: “But I haven’t got anything for you.”

“That’s all right. I’ve got two.”

Later, Marisol and Brais brought food to the family’s house.

They also discovered that Alda’s mother had not been paid for work she had already completed.

A basket of chestnuts could help tonight.

Getting her wages paid could help the family survive the winter.

MARA: “So the Apalpador doesn’t really need magic to help people?”

Brais laughed.

BRAIS: “I’m not the Apalpador, little one.”

CHIBI: “But you’re enormous!”

“So I’ve been told.”

“And you’re covered in soot!”

“An occupational hazard.”

“And you brought food!”

Brais looked towards the family.

“Someone had to.”

That night, Chibi left a roasted chestnut on Marisol’s windowsill.

“For anyone who needs it,” he explained.

Much later, Mara heard three soft taps against the shutters.

Outside stood a tall figure.

A patched coat.

Broad shoulders.

A sack over one arm.

Then the figure disappeared into the darkness.

The chestnut was gone.

In its place lay another.

Still warm.

With a little black soot upon the cloth beneath it.

CHIBI: “Mara? Did he come?”

“Someone did.”

“WAS HE ENORMOUS?”

“Go to sleep, Chibi.”

“DID HE BRING CHESTNUTS?”

Mara smiled.

“One.”

Chibi grinned beneath his blanket.

CHIBI: “I knew he was a good monster.”

Outside, winter settled over the vineyards.

Perhaps Brais had been playing a trick.

Perhaps another traveller had passed through the village.

Or perhaps old stories sometimes remembered how to find their way home.

Not everything frightening is cruel.

And sometimes the most important question isn’t whether a monster exists — but whether the children have eaten.

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Mythveil Chronicles — Worlds That Remember.