“Well now, you two ought to feel awfully foolish, eh?” Sprig’s shrill voice rose up from the bushes to their left. “All that reckless gallivanting up and down the forest, and for what? Just to end up the place you were meant to be.”
Try as he might, no amount of twisting or turning allowed Brittle to glimpse the sentient onion below. Trying, however, had the unfortunate effect of reminding Brittle just how far he was from the ground. He gulped, tapping the top of Lastar’s fuzzy head as politely as possible. “I’d like to get down now. I might just sprout wings if you keep me up above the clouds any longer.”
Lastar’s stout legs trembled, barely able to hold his own weight. Even on the verge of collapse, he seemed reluctant to admit defeat. “We need to keep moving.”
“And go where?” Brittle demanded. “It’s obvious we can’t get away. If I’m going to die, I’d at least like to do so on my own two feet.”
“Die?” Sprig’s shrill voice was laden with offense. “No, no, lil stump, you got it all wrong. As I said before, Zabel means you no harm.”
“You did not mention that before,” Lastar pointed out.
“Didn’t I?” Sprig’s ominous white glow grew brighter as the senion popped up out of the overgrown shrubbery near Lastar’s feet. “Whoopsie. I can see now why you ran so much. Ah well. All in the past, I suppose. Time to let bygones be bygones.”
Brittle was relieved when Lastar set him back onto the ground. Not completely relieved, as the mystic willow still loomed at the center of the clearing, seemingly taller than before. Brittle wrung his hands and watched, spellbound, as a fresh line of glowing lights rose up out of the long grass and bobbed in his direction. The path stretched all the way from him to the base of the magic tree.
“No time like the present, lil log,” Sprig said, shooing Brittle forward with their curled root hands. “Zabel’s waiting for you.”
“Just me?” Brittle’s startled stare jumped from Sprig to Lastar. The latter was now seated amongst the grass and clover, hunched over, and breathing hard. Poor fella didn’t look like he had it in him to go any further.
“Don’t worry. I’ll keep this one company.” Sprig gave Lastar’s knee a friendly pat. “You go on now. Git.”
Short of joining Lastar, Brittle didn’t see any other alternative but to do as the strange onion caretaker said. Running wouldn’t do any good. Zabel’s forest magic had already proved that to be a waste of time. Gathering his courage, Brittle turned and followed the blinking path of lights. He may not have known what he believed any more, but the familiar words to the Great Maker’s prayer offered him a sliver of peace all the same.
“Blessed be the Great Maker,” he whispered, running the flat of his hands over the tops of the shivering hairgrass. The sweet smell of wet clover and mud filled his nose as he tottered one slow step at a time. “For She who stubs Her toe grants strength to those with heartwood thick and true. Wherever we may wander, She hobbles too…”
The willow’s bent branches rustled when Brittle neared. A harmonious voice called out to him, carried on a breeze that he swore was blowing in the wrong direction. “So it is true then,” the voice said. “A beast most unusual walks my forest.”
Brittle came to a stop just shy of the swaying branches, ignoring the overwhelming impulse to reach out and touch the tree’s twinkling leaves. Threads of shimmering silver wove up and down the willow’s branches, like strands of enchanted spider silk. “Brittle,” he introduced himself. Creepy glowing tree aside, it was still the polite thing to do. “You, uh, wanted to see me?”
“You are creating disturbances in my forest.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Brittle couldn’t believe it. All this hullabaloo for a little noise? Seemed excessive. Not that he dared tell the creepy tree that. “I’ll try to use my inside voice from now on.”
Brittle swore the mystic willow chuckled. Her long, lance-shaped leaves rustled like a thousand strips of dried paper caught in the wind. “A different kind of disturbance,” Zabel explained. “Gold within my pools, tadpoles arriving after season, the trees themselves exhibit growth I have not seen in many years. All of these changes took place after your arrival.”
“Darn puberty,” Brittle muttered.
“You have greater influence than you realize, little one. Perhaps we can help one another. I can feel the longings of your heart deep within the roots of my forest. It rages inside of you. Tell me, what is it you desire?”
Finally, a question he could answer! Brittle’s chest swelled with confidence. “A mushroom.”
“That is not what you desire.”
“It is!” Brittle insisted, slightly miffed that this tree, a stranger no less, dared tell him what he did and not want. “I need it to help Rochelle, so she can make all of the villagers better again. And then they won’t be mean to her anymore.”
“Then you desire not a mushroom–”
“Yes I do!”
“–but to help others.”
“Oh.” Brittle quieted down, realizing the forest sprite might have had a point, even if it was a pedantic one. “I guess so.”
“Why?”
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“Because that’s what good bog log beasts are supposed to do. Help all of the Great Maker’s creations, big and small.”
“But you don’t believe that anymore.”
He really hated how the forest sprite stated this not as a question, but as an irrefutable fact. Brittle hated how it might have been right even more. “Maybe not the faith part,” he admitted. “But I still believe I’m supposed to help.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s right.”
“Why?”
Brittle suddenly understood why Lastar hated his incessant questions. It was downright infuriating. Heat rippled across his bark as his face grew unnaturally warm. “Why do you mean why? It’s what good people do! I may not always do the right thing, not as of late anyway, being a hardened criminal and all, but I still want to be good.”
“Why?”
Anger wormed through his scarred bark and flooded his hollow bones. Its heat pried at his heartwood, loosening the hard truths he’d done his best to keep hidden away. The words poured free from his mouth regardless of whether or not he wanted to hear them. “Because if I don’t, I’m going to end up just like them! Like Edvin, and Sir Thomassin, and Mara. All the other gods and goddesses who don’t care anymore. They’ve all given up, written the world off for what it is, but I can’t do that. I want to make a change, make something better, even if it’s just a little bit.”
“I see.”
Brittle shoulders slumped, grateful Zabel hadn’t followed up with another question. After all, he’d been politely awaiting the opportunity to ask one of his own. “Is what Sprig said true? Are you really the last forest sprite?”
There was an unmistakable somberness in her tone. “I am.”
“Did you give up too then? Like all the others?”
“Uncalled for!” Sprig’s shout caused Brittle to jump. The angry senion was suddenly a lot closer than they had been before. Their telltale white glow popped up out of a tuft of flowering hairgrass and stomped towards them, accentuating each step with a dramatic arm swing, ranting and raging the whole way. “Show some darn respect, young log! Zabel is not like the failed gods and goddesses, she does what she can, when she can.”
“Thank you, Sprig.” The willow’s pendulous branches shooed the angry senion away, convincing them to turn back around. “Speak openly, Brittle Rotten Wood. I have lived upon this earth for centuries. I doubt there is anything you could say to offend me.”
Somewhere, somehow, across the void of distance and time, beyond the veil of the spirit plane, Brittle felt Mama wince. She’d always insisted he had a special gift for saying the right thing at the wrong time. Brittle tried to put it as gently as he could.
“It’s just,” he said, tapping the tips of his finger together, “it seems like everyone who’s been around long enough gives up. The entities that created this place, the ones that swore to protect it, they don’t bother anymore. I just wondered if you were the same. Rochelle says forest sprites are supposed to protect the forest, but you can’t even leave your tree to speak to me face-to-face.”
“I would if I could.”
“And why can’t you?” Brittle’s gaze moved to the strange black moss growing along the left side of willow’s trunk. He could see it clearer now that he was closer. It was soft and spongy, reminiscent of the mold that’d taken over the sitting room rug when his family had first moved into the cottage. He had a sneaking suspicion that, unlike the rug, Zabel couldn’t replace her damaged soul tree with another from the market. “Is it because of that?”
“It is.”
“Can it be fixed?”
“I’m afraid not,” Zabel sighed. “I no longer have the strength to leave the protection of my soul tree. The next trip I take into the forest will be my last.”
“Oh.”
“As the last of the forest sprites, I carry the responsibility of ensuring the next generation of my kind. For decades I have hesitated. My forest is not as plentiful as it once was. Every year it grows smaller. If I wish for my kind to thrive, they must be spread across the land. A task I can no longer carry out on my own.”
A spindly branch reached down. Brittle saw a drawstring bag tangled amongst its wilted leaves. “Your travels will carry you long and far, little one. I ask only that you plant a seed in every great forest you pass. Do this for me, and I will help you find what it is you seek.”
Brittle hesitated, mind a flutter with a thousand nagging questions. “To be clear, you mean the mushroom, right?”
Zabel’s voice was warm, like a mother’s smile. “Yes.”
“And you’re not asking me to raise the seeds, yeah? ‘Cause I never knew my Papa, you see. I wouldn’t know the first thing about being a father figure.”
“The seedlings will need rich soil, abundant sunlight, and a place far from the greedy reaches of man. Ensure that they have that, and nature will take care of the rest.”
Brittle suddenly understood why Zabel had selected him. After all, who else knew more about soil and sunlight than a bog log beast? He was practically an expert on the matter. “Is that all?” he said, plucking the drawstring bag from the branch extended in his direction. For such an important task, it seemed simple. Too simple. If there was any lesson he’d learned over the course of his short life, it was that nothing was ever as simple as it seemed. “Won’t they need a caretaker? Like Sprig?”
“They will create their own from their environment, as I did,” Zabel replied knowingly.
“And what about Sprig? What happens when you…” If Mama hadn’t been wincing before, Brittle was certain she definitely was now. Putting indelicate things delicately was a skill of its own. One he unfortunately lacked. “You know, don’t come back from your last trip in the woods?”
“Sprig will find their own way.”
Brittle remembered what it was like to lose someone close. First Mama, and then Gilly. Mara too, in some ways. That was not a misery he wished on anyone. He wanted to ask how Zabel could be so sure, where she’d gotten the confidence that everything would work out just dandy without her, but he suspected he wouldn’t understand the answer even if she gave one.
The breeze shifted, stirring the tops of the hairgrasses as the mystic willow’s glowing branches swayed overhead. Brittle didn’t know how he knew – it was one of those instances where the unknown became known by means that sidestepped logic – but he was convinced Zabel was smiling at him. Somewhere, tucked away deep in the heart of her soul tree, the last of the forest sprites was looking down on him as pleased as punch.
One of these days, Brittle vowed, he would taste punch. And then maybe he would understand what all of the fuss was about. For the time being, however, all Zabel’s silent approval did was make him feel defoliated. “What?”
“Forgive me, little one. I feared this day would never come. And now that it has, and my long wait is over, I’m not sure what to do with myself.”
“You could point your fancy lights in the direction of the mushroom for me.” Brittle tucked the cloth satchel of seedlings into his pocket for safekeeping. Tilting his head skyward, he could see the first traces of morning light peeking up over the mountains to the east. With dawn approaching, the dark blanketing the forest floor would soon be on its way. Every minute counted now if he hoped to reach the pools with Rochelle’s mushroom in hand by mid morning.
“Of course,” Zabel said, failing to disguise the tremor that rendered her harmonic voice heavy with sadness. With a gentle sweep of the willow’s bent branches, a new line of glowing motes appeared, snaking off into the deep reaches of the forest.