Brittle followed the winding path of hovering lights deep into the forest. The shaggy, needle-laden boughs interwove so tightly overhead, all trace of light was blocked out from the brightening sky. It could have been morning for all Brittle knew and yet, the quiet forest was as dark and void-like as ever. Ordinarily he might have been bothered by this, but Lastar was doing enough fretting to cover for the both of them.
The demigod trudged alongside Brittle in the form of a short, bristle-haired goat, equipped with two too many horns. “I’ve read all about mushrooms, you know,” he whispered, yellow eyes darting back and forth amongst the gloom, searching for whatever fanged beasts were waiting to gobble them up. “Did you know there’s a species of fungi that grows exclusively on dead bodies?”
Brittle uttered the same reply he’d been giving since leaving Zabel’s clearing. “How interesting.”
“That’s the best I can hope for, these days. Fungus fodder.”
“How interesting.”
“Glad you think so, because you’re destined for the same if you don’t come to your blooming senses!”
With a deep, bark-rattling sight, Brittle abandoned his customary response in favor of something that presented itself as logic. “If I die, the future of the forest sprite kind dies too. Personally, I think it’s in Zabel’s best interest to keep that from happening.”
Lastar was the type to dig around in his egg pudding in search of a shell fragment and then complain how it looked a mess afterwards. If there was an anti-silver lining, he’d be the one to find it. “Maybe that’s how it works. Maybe Zabel knowingly sent us to our deaths. A decomposing bog log beast could afford all of the necessary nutrients for budding forest sprites to flourish.”
Brittle, once more, for what he hoped was the last time, kindly reminded Lastar that he did not have to tag along. Return home, Brittle insisted. He could handle the adventure all on his own. Lastar gave his usual list of reasons as to why he couldn’t turn tail and run, before resorting to muttering unintelligibly under his breath for the rest of the journey. To Brittle’s relief, the walk itself was over soon after. The line of dancing blue motes of light snaked around one final corner before ending alongside an ancient rotted log. All manner of forest life grew over its decomposing bark, like a colorful coat of moss and fungi.
Brittle’s spirit swelled, filling his hollow trunk until it felt fit to burst. “We did it, Lastar! We found it.”
“Great. Marvelous.” Lastar spoke without any of the relief or happiness that usually accompanied such words as he nervously shifted from hoof to hoof. “Go on then. Fetch the ones you need. The sooner we’re out of here, the better.”
The harsh sting of reality brought Brittle’s spirits crashing back down in record time. “I,” he started, feeling a flush of embarrassment creep across his bark, “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t remember what they look like.”
“You’re joking.”
“It’s just, I didn’t expect there to be so many to choose from.” Brittle halfheartedly gestured to the array of fungi clinging to the rotted log like a second, more colorful bark. He made the mistake of glancing at Lastar and nearly wilted under the demigod’s glare. “I only saw the drawing for a moment. I don’t have a picture-graphic memory, you know! It’s mostly hollow up here.”
Brittle gave the side of his head a knock to demonstrate.
Lastar stared back at him for several unblinking seconds. Finally, with a shake of his horned head, he dropped his glamour and morphed back into his true form. “You’re fortunate I take such detailed notes,” he said, retrieving a small notebook from the inside of his jacket. His mouth quirked to the side. “No, not fortunate, lucky.”
Brittle was too flustered to get the joke. “You take notes?”
“Well I am a spy.”
“What could you possibly take notes on?”
“Oh, you know, this and that. The usual. Or, in your case, the unusual.” Lastar flipped through the tattered notebook before finding what he sought. He ripped the page from the binding and extended it in Brittle’s direction. “I’d like this back, please. It’s one of my finer ones.”
Wordlessly, Brittle accepted the parchment, still too caught up on the existence of the notebook to offer his thanks.
The demigod tucked the booklet back into the safety of his pocket and kindly filled in for him. “Why thank you, Lastar. I simply wouldn’t know where I would be without you. I take back all the hurtful things I ever said.”
“I, uh, thanks,” was all Brittle managed weakly.
To Lastar’s credit, it was a rather fine drawing. Exceptionally detailed, in fact, for someone who had shown no interest in finding said mushroom. The search did not take long. After scrambling up and down the log’s fungi-riddled trunk, Brittle found a whole host of specimens growing inside its musty hollow, tucked against the wood all the way at the back. Brittle had to crawl on his hands and knees to reach them.
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Using the flat of the blade he carried for emergency sandwich making purposes, Brittle pried several of the largest specimens from the side of the log. He stowed the lot carefully into his pockets, mindful not to crush them as he slowly backed his way out again. The surrounding dark was a little less void-like by the time he was done.
Brittle stood and craned his head back, trying to glimpse the sky from between the shaggy, interlaced boughs. “Do you suppose it’s morning yet?”
“It certainly feels like we’ve been up all night,” Lastar said miserably.
Unfortunately, as tired as he was, there wasn’t time to rest. Brittle had places to be before the day got any older. He started off once more, doing his best to retrace their steps without the aid of the twinkling blue lights. Having served their purpose, Zabel’s magic had disappeared, rendering the forest slightly less haunting in its absence. Lastar didn’t have the heart to question whether or not Brittle knew where he was going – which was just as well considering Brittle was relying entirely on intuition. The demigod simply followed, bleak and weary-eyed, like a sagging cart horse too worn down to buck the system.
The journey involved more retracing of steps than Brittle would have preferred but, eventually, they reached an area of the forest he recognized. By that time, the shroud of darkness had receded, flooding the woodland with the soft gray light of dawn. A blanket of mist swirled around his ankles as Brittle broke through the line of dark pines and was greeted by the soothing trickle of slow-moving water.
There, tucked alongside the rocky shore of the pools, he awaited Rochelle’s arrival. Brittle waited, and waited, and waited some more. The sun was high overhead by the time he conceded there was perhaps such a thing as too much waiting. “Lastar,” Brittle said, rousing his companion from his slumber with a gentle shake. “Lastar, wake up.”
The demigod was in skunk form, lying curled snout to tail in a flowering tuft of sedge grass, basking in the sun. He rolled over with a groan. “No.”
“It’s well past mid-morning. Rochelle should have been here by now.”
“Oh dear, I suppose I’ll have to sleep some more.”
“What if something’s happened to her?”
“She was up half the night, Brittle. She probably overslept.” Lastar fluffed his black and white tail before using it as a pillow. “A fine idea, if I do say so myself.”
Brittle glared across the shimmering pools as he considered what to do. It didn’t take much time. With his mind made up, he stood and set off all on his own.
“What are you doing?” Lastar called after him.
“I’m going to go find her.”
“You don’t know where she is!”
“Yes, I do. She told me.” Brittle pointed at the claw-shaped rock formation towering above the treetops. The peak appeared less foreboding in the sunlight, a fact he was grateful for. “Her home is at the base of that peak. Can’t miss it.”
Grudgingly, Lastar abandoned his nap and scampered after him. Rochelle’s home wasn’t far and, true to her word, impossible to miss. What she failed to mention was the state of the place. Brittle tried not to be one to judge, but it was no wonder she’d offered him the old hayloft out back. The cottage was an absolute mess. The front door was busted in, the windows shattered, and all the furniture within the home had been dragged out into the yard and left in varying stages of disassembly.
Ignoring the nagging feeling blossoming at the back of his neck, urging him to turn and run, Brittle scurried across the cluttered yard and tucked himself alongside the house. He sidled along the wall, moving from broken window to broken window, checking the inside.
“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.” Lastar stayed close. Too close, in fact, as Brittle nearly tripped over him several times. “This isn’t good, Brittle.”
Brittle peered through another shattered window into what looked like an upturned sitting area. The couch was lying on its back with its legs in the air. A rattling cough permeated the musty air, bouncing all the way from the back of the house. A trio of voices followed, growing louder as their clacking footsteps moved down the adjoining hallway. Brittle ducked down out of sight, heart stone thumping like a drum as he strained to listen. He heard the muffled scuff of something heavy being dragged over the hardwood floor.
Brittle moved with the noise, following it towards the front of the house. Lastar nipped at his heels – literally, teeth and all – in a futile attempt to get him to stop and reconsider. Brittle merely stepped over him. Rounding the corner, Brittle ducked behind a rosemary hedge and watched as a trio of familiar-looking boys tromped out of the busted front door, dragging the upturned couch with them. The red-faced boy and the taller one heaved the faded green settee into the middle of the yard between them.
The smallest of the three remained on the steps, watching his companions struggle to snap the couch’s legs from its wooden frame. “I still don’t see why you have to do that. It’s a perfectly good couch.”
“We’re sending a message,” the red-faced boy grunted as he tried, unsuccessfully, to break the stubborn couch leg between his pudgy hands.
“That we don’t like couches?”
The red-faced boy tried to kick the couch leg loose to no avail. Earned himself a broken toe too, judging from the way he now hopped about on one foot, furiously clutching the other as his cheeks flushed from rose to tomato. “That this is what happens to witches who overstay their welcome!”
“Oh,” the smallest said. He paused for several thoughtful seconds before asking. “But don’t you suppose the Nettles already know that? What, with being arrested and all?”
The red-faced boy continued his awkward bouncing. “The warning’s for other witches, idiot!”
“Yeah,” the third, largest boy agreed. A phlegmy cough rattled up from the center of his chest and caused him to fold in half. He coughed and hacked, wheezing pitifully for breath, until the fit passed. Finished, looking both exhausted and a little paler in the face, he stood and wiped the spittle from his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “Now any witch passing through here will think twice about cursing us with their presence.”
“...Because of a broken couch?”
“It sends a message!” the red-faced boy reiterated. The flush of red crept all the way to the tips of his ears as he strained once more to break the surprisingly sturdy furniture.
The smallest looked unconvinced.
“Stop overthinking it!” the largest said before descending into another uncontrollable fit of coughing.
“But why? Why do we have to muddy the waters with broken furniture? The sheriff's message stands on its own.” The littlest reluctantly moved from the front steps to assist their efforts, uttering words that ran like ice through Brittle’s hollow bones. “Hard to beat a hanging, you know.”