9. To Be Small
CHAPTER NINE
TO BE SMALL
Growing lost and wandering deeper into The Thicket has proven easy. I have never been so turned around in all my life. It is to a point where I think the earth moves in my wake. That the trees change their leaves and bark and soil fills my tracks. I have no proof, but I have no other explanation. Even the sun seems to change places in the sky between heartbeats, the hours moving in blinks of an eye, later and later, then early again.
The woods smell familiar, at least. It is autumn here in The Thicket as much as it was autumn in Tennessee. The leaves that are crushed beneath my feet add an earthy scent to the air, not unlike a strong tea.
The Thicket sounds familiar, too, though it could be that I have only grown accustomed to the sounds of this forest compared to the one I call home. Birds sing overhead so often it creates a background noise that I can choose to ignore or hear at will. It is only punctuated by the birds with odder songs than others. Cowbirds and the like. The rift proved how easy it can be to lose track of things. It could be far louder or more silent here than I am used to and I would never know until shown something to compare it to side by side.
All day, I have wandered. I lost my nerve and made for the road only to walk so far that I know I would have crossed it if it were still there to find. There have not been any creatures of note—so far as I can tell—since parting with Fallow this morning. The information he dropped about The Keeper Of The Thicket has weighed down my thoughts and steps as I stomped through the woods. The Keeper is where I will meet my end and He resides in the center of this place, which could be twenty feet in front of me or months of walking from here.
Based on nothing aside from a hunch, I get the feeling that the center is more of an idea than an actual place.
The heavy feeling in my guts over leaving the rift behind this morning has faded throughout the day, as if by magic. It isn’t a relief, though. I’ve rarely felt anything so strong as my trepidation over stepping foot into The Thicket, and I’ve never been one to feel strong emotions over nothing. That I cannot recall why I hesitated to leave the rift is beyond worrisome. Since there is nothing to be done about it, I have walked on and tried to press the feeling that I’m forgetting something to the back of my mind, but it lives there like an itch I cannot scratch.
The longer I have wandered in daylight sifting through the madness of the time I’ve been here, the more it feels I have landed in a Grimm’s fairytale. Many of those have happy endings for main characters who remain steadfast in their tasks. They are fables of doing what is right and sticking to the road set beneath one’s feet. They also often involve listening to the advice of those who know more than you. That is what I intend to do to the best of my ability, even if my advisor might be a villain in disguise. He is the advisor I have.
“Is there anything safe to eat, Fallow?”
Still miffed with me for tricking him this morning, I think, Fallow has been quiet each time I have asked anything of him. I know he is near, though. Even when he is nothing that I can see, I can feel his gaze on my back. For a while he hopped along the trees as a squirrel then flew over my head as a mourning dove, the whistling of his wings keeping me company. There is a strange connection between the two of us that is growing stronger the longer I roam The Thicket. It is more than an entwined purpose. The feeling is difficult to compare to anything in the world I have known before. It is like having a safety net.
Reaching down, I forage from a plant that looks a little like pokeweed, as poisonous as it is vibrant with its small, black berries on crimson stems. It’s not quite the same, some of the markers I would look for in my world are missing, but I think it is a fair guess. I lift a fruit to my lips and Fallow, in the body of a robin, swoops down and steals it from my hand. He lands on a nearby branch, spitting it out while watching me with a glower. When I smirk, the bird appears to huff.
“You fell for it. So, you know what I should not eat. I have seen nothing of substance that I recognize as food. Even the greens grow strangely.”
Fallow flits away. If he knows of any dinner I can scrounge together, he is not going to help me find it.
Famished, I search the brambles by my knees, following the sound of a stream to find some late berries or thistles. Rosehips. Anything to snack on. Everything grows different here. The things I would find in my woods are not to be found in these. It is such a small change as to go unnoticed by the version of me from the past. Now, though, I see how the thistle grows with more spikes and less leaf to eat. In the trees above, I can find no haws on the hawthorns. The trees are alive and familiar, but it feels like nothing thrives here. I’m reminded of how things appear in dreams, the details turned vague or out of place.
There are mushrooms in abundance, but each and every one that I have observed bears something off about it that makes me hesitant to eat it. All the tells of a safe plant are present, but an instinct in me whispers not to trust it. It could be a growing knowledge of this place and how to navigate it. More likely, I am jittery from the trials of the night. I have spent much of the time pretending to not be afraid, but I am. Every rustle in the woods that I do not know the origin of sends my heart pounding and my eyes scanning in all directions.
In my mind’s eye, I see the mothers of the rift transformed into hideous beasts each time I close my eyes. From the peripheral of my vision, the stream to my side seems to ripple like something swims beneath the surface, following me. The more time I spend in the silence marching toward what could be my doom, the more time I’ve had to wonder over what I’ve seen thus far. The rift brimmed with tortured women. Fallow said it was rare that a mother made it to The Keeper. Perhaps their diggers failed them.
The thought isn’t a hopeful one.
I must eat. Fallow is tasked with keeping me alive for The Keeper Of The Thicket. I do not think he would allow me to poison myself from wherever it is he watches me, but for all I know, The Keeper is an iffy mushroom and Fallow could do nothing to stop it.
Ahead, a deer scratches at the earth with its hooves and kicks over a mushroom before eating it. That might answer one of my questions so long as that deer is not so different than the ones I have seen in the woods of these mountains for years now. “So, these are safe to eat?”
The deer’s head shoots up from grazing at the sound of my voice, but it watches me in pure, animal terror just as any animal would.
“Not a magic, talking deer, then?” Leaning down to pluck one of the mushrooms from the earth, I tuck it in my apron pocket. The regular old deer bolts, leaping over the nearby stream and bounding over stone and hedge until out of sight.
With care, I inspect each mushroom, ensuring nothing dangerous has grown in the patch—so far as I can tell with untrained eyes for this place. A mouse watches me from inside a hollow knot in a tree and I try not to notice it.
When it keeps watching me, full of curiosity, my squirming nerves hold my voice hostage. Speaking feels like an invitation for more drama. The more I try to pretend the intelligent gleam in its eyes is my imagination, the clearer it becomes that it is not going anywhere until I shoo it away. “I have learned a lesson about the mice in this place. I do not want to be friends.”
The creature ducks back into the knot out of sight and leaves me to my collection. I had not realized how my breath had quickened under the gaze of a rodent until now. It feels silly in hindsight, despite the mounting evidence that Fallow meant it when he said that nothing here could be trusted.
I am starting to trust Fallow, though, no matter how I try not to. It is especially foolish to do so when I know he is only safekeeping me to lead me to the proper end.
Shaking such thoughts away, I mutter about starting a fire, cooking myself a meal, and settling for the night in a clearing. I had meant to get more done today than wandering, but I suppose if I am going to be eaten by monsters in the night, it is likely to happen regardless of shelter. The monsters I met with last night would be able to tear down a cabin wall just fine.They would have had no trouble with any lean-to I managed to teeter together. That is not to mention how I cannot keep directions straight in this place. If I built something to pass my nights in relative comfort, the odds of me ever finding it again are zero.
With an apron full of mushrooms, I set to collecting something like wood sorrel and what might be the last of the season’s dandelions to go with them. The sorrel leaves have white tips, enough to make me question if they’re sorrel at all. Lifting one to my teeth, Fallow makes no attempt to stop me. It tastes like wood sorrel. The dandelions have white flowers rather than yellow. I will try them later.
To only myself, I mumble, “It will be a bland meal without salt and butter.”
“Hard things to come by.”
A creature, almost like a man, with eyes too small for his face, all black with no whites at all, and a mop of hair atop his head that grows in too many shades of brown to be natural, leans against a tree. His nose is long and hooked so far toward his face he scarcely looks human, and his ears are so small as to almost be missing. His fingernails are long, thick, and gnarled like those of an ill kept beast who has horns or hooves that have grown too long for their own good.
He stands before me, totally nude, as if clothes would be a waste of his furry body, and guffaws when my cheeks heat and I take a large step back, tripping in my haste. I stumble upright just before I can land flat on the earth. With only my eyes, I search for Fallow and find no sign of him. I know he is near but do not understand his rules around what he chooses to warn me against.
The creature smiles, revealing small, short teeth. Two front teeth are longer and more pointed than the rest and sit dead center, overlapping his bottom lip. There is something familiar about him when he grins. “I’m sorry to frighten you, Odell.”
“How do you know my name? ”
“We all know the next mother meant for The Keeper. We will see if you impress him.” Beady eyes scanning the woods, the corner of his lip rises, pleased. “No one is watching you now.”
His voice is far higher than I would imagine the voice of a man should be. Higher than mine, even. It is unnerving, like everything that has deigned to speak to me here has been, save Fallow, who I am beginning to find some comfort in.
The way this man explains my circumstances gives me another tidbit of information to enlighten my plight. He has verified my hunch. The Keeper is watching me, this is all a test of my soul. It’s nerve wracking to be under the magnifying lens of one so like a god.
I have gone long enough saying nothing that the strange man pushes away from the tree he was leaning on and saunters toward me the way men approach a woman of interest in the street. “So, what can I help you with? I have no salt or butter, but you have questions for the deer and your digger. Neither answered. Why not ask me?”
The looks of this man make him appear untrustworthy from the get, a lack of clothes notwithstanding.
“It is a question of mushrooms.” I step away from him and he steps toward me. My heart hammers and it makes my head spin as the sound of it pulses through my ears. I prepare my limbs to sprint, testing how deep the soles of my boots sink in the damp earth and willing my weak knees to behave.
Revealing one of the mushrooms from the pocket of my apron, the creature before me wrinkles his nose. “I prefer my mushrooms cooked with an abundance of other veg. My woman might manage to make them tasty.”
“What else is there to eat around here?” Here we go. I see the new fork in the road. I am about to be dragged into a new terror, though doubt invades my mind that maybe it is better to starve to death than trust this stranger’s answer.
If I take another step back, my foot will land in the stream. Knowing all too well what might lurk there, certainly what likely watches from the flowing water, I’m hesitant to even jump over it. The creature before me sniffs the air and smiles again. “Careful where you step, Odell. The water here is its own sort of monster.”
Untrustworthy or not, I step away from the muddy bank at his unnecessary reminder.
He shakes his head, disappointed and amused in equal measure. “I could bring you to my home and my woman will cook you a fine meal. You would be safe for the night and not go hungry. It would not be so bland as what you have planned, of that I’m certain.” To prove my hunch that he is no man at all, he points to the knot in the tree where another small creature pokes its head out to watch our discussion. If I had to place guesses on the emotions of mice, I would think her disapproving. She might be glaring at him or me. Both. All would make total sense. If I were her, I’d glare at the whole of the world.
I point at his chest, feeling dumb. It is so obvious now. “You were the mouse? The one I shooed away.”
He scowls and, this time, I flinch at the hatred behind his expression. He spits, “We’re shrews! Are you blind?” He swats my hand away. “And it’s rude to point.”
Between Fallow’s warning, the shrew-woman’s disapproval, and this man’s venom, I shake my head. “I would be a mighty imposition on your poor wife, sir. Mine is a big mouth to feed.”
In a blink, the world around me appears to grow and it is even more disconcerting to realize the trees are not looming higher over my head, I am shrinking closer to the earth!
Everything in my apron pocket remains the same size it had been. As do my clothes. My dress, along with the mushrooms, wood sorrel, and dandelions grow into a mountain around me as I shrink down to the size of the wife-shrew that I saw in the knot in the tree which now towers above me.
The stranger drops on his haunches, grabs the boot which I have fallen into, and leers at me from above, only a single, beady eye visible from where I cower.
Like a mouse, though shrew may be more fitting, I throw myself against the sides of my worn boot, fright emptying me of sense. Just like I would not know what to do next if I managed to scale the invisible barrier in the rift, I would have no recourse if I somehow escaped this boot. I would still be tiny. This wicked man could stomp me into the dirt.
Fallow still has not come to my aid. Surely this shrew-turned-man is not The Keeper. It eases my mind only the slightest amount that I might not be in danger. Perhaps Fallow is laughing at me from nearby. I know enough of him and his purpose to figure he would put a stop to it if he had to.
“There. Now you are not such a large mouth.” The man’s voice is much louder now than it had seemed before, my ears ringing with its volume. When he pulls the boot further from his face so I can see more of his features. He has a cruel twist to his mouth like this is going exactly as he had hoped.“You mothers think yourselves so mighty. Well, I have a collection of mothers and The Keeper lets me have them, so you can’t all be so grand, can you?”
Turning the boot upside down so suddenly I cannot even think to grab hold of anything to stop my descent, I am plopped naked into his hand. Desperate not to fall all the way to the earth, I wrap my arms around one of his fingers and dangle a moment before he flops me into his furry palm. I inch away from his ragged nails to no avail. He pinches my middle between his fingers, his yellowed claws clacking together, and I fight back the urge to thrash in his grasp or bite his skin. In an instant, I grow immense empathy for every small creature that has ever tried its hand at defending itself in my presence. Every chick that ever pecked at me or kitten to bite me, I apologize in silence for dropping them, tossing them, or cursing.
It is terrifying to be small.