The first thing Brittle did the next morning was venture out from his Mama’s empty hovel in search of the wizened old snapping turtle, Yerma. Legend had it that Yerma was older than the swamp itself. The old turtle spent his days lurking underwater amongst the silt and slime, snapping at any fish or frogs that passed by. Yerma was a notorious grump who only ever enjoyed conversation if it involved telling the other party how little they knew. Brittle didn’t mind. Having been born with a hollow head, he assumed there was a lot he didn’t know.
A handful of fresh bog buttons was enough to draw the mighty behemoth from the depths. Yerma’s shadowy body slowly drifted upwards until his leathery head broke the surface without a splash. The giant turtle’s beady, black eyes looked Brittle up and down as he snapped the food into his hooked maw.
Brittle knew not to bother with a polite ‘Hello, Yerma. How’s that fungus on your shell? Are the snails treating you nice?’ For someone who did nothing all day, Yerma always seemed to be in a hurry, especially when pleasantries were involved.
“I want to know about water serpents,” Brittle said, slipping a second bundle of bog buttons from the inside of his moss and lichen coat and holding it aloft for the turtle to see. “What do they eat?”
Yerma chewed thoughtfully for several seconds before his hooked mouth pulled into a devious smile. The old turtle exhaled through his nostrils, offering his answer in the form of a hiss.
“I’m not feeding it my toes.”
It took several more handfuls of bog buttons before Yerma gave the answer Brittle needed. Thanking the turtle for his time, the bog log beast hurried on with the rest of his morning. There was suddenly so much to do before his afternoon visit with the Great Maker. His first stop was to the edge of the swamp, where the open areas of embankment received the most light. Swamp milkweed grew best in full sun and Brittle collected enough to fill his satchel until it was nearly bursting at the seams.
Next, he waded all the way to the rickety house built smack dab between a grove of twisted tupelo trees. The home belonged to the friendly witch, the swamp’s only human occupant who avoided others of her kind as much as the other swamp-dwellers did. The witch was a pillar of the community, Mama used to say. She traded with swamp beasts of all shapes and sizes for the medicinal plants needed for her potions.
Brittle used to find her intimidating, but ever since last summer, when all the bog log beasts went missing, the witch’s demeanor had changed. Nowadays she’d offer him a smile, a bite of food, or to come in for a spell anytime he stopped by. Today was no different.
“Good morning, Splinter,” she greeted, cracking a snaggle-toothed smile.
Brittle had given up trying to teach her his name. It never mattered. The witch would call him something different the next time he waded up to the front of her stall anyway.
“Care to come up for breakfast today?” the friendly witch asked. “I have some nice sausages.”
Brittle’s stomach clenched at the very mention of the food. Shaking his head, he promised to take her up on her offer another day. “Just a trade today, please.”
The friendly witch was quite pleased with his satchel of swamp milkweed. She exchanged him a black and white striped fish and three jute balls filled with monster wort for the milkweed with hardly any haggling at all.
With his prize in hand, Brittle hurried home to pack. He wrapped the stinky fish in moist sphagnum moss and placed it into his satchel, along with the monster wort and a generous supply of toast and loam sandwiches – the extras were for the goddess. After his experience at dinner the night before, Brittle thought Mara might appreciate some real food.
With his satchel bursting at the seams once more, Brittle threw open his rickety front door and jumped, startled to find his front porch occupied. “Son of a gum tree!” he said, clasping a spindly hand over his heartwood. “Gilly, what are you doing here?”
The pink and orange lizard thumped her tail against his log porch with a wide-mouthed yawn.
“Good morning to you too,” he returned her greeting suspiciously. Brittle was an early riser, often up before the sun itself. Unlike Gilly, who preferred to sleep in her burrow until the wet swamp air was thick and balmy. Most days Brittle didn’t see head nor tail of the lizard until well past mid-morning.
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Gilly stretched her clawed forefeet in front of her and arched her back. Finished showing off her limberness, the lizard slithered across the log porch and into the green algae-filmed water with barely a splash.
“And just where do you think you’re going, madam?” Brittle tapped his cork bark toes against the porch, bracing himself for Gilly’s reply.
The answer was just as he feared.
“I don’t need watching over, you know.” Truth be told, Brittle wouldn’t mind the company. It was the assumption that he couldn’t make the journey on his own that rubbed his bark the wrong way. He watched Gilly paddle in circles along the surface for several turns before he gave in with a sigh. “Fine. We can go together. But we’re making a stop first.”
Despite Gilly’s protests, Brittle insisted they return to the lightning struck tree to check on Sir Thomassin. They arrived to find the knight was already gone. The only evidence of his presence was the indented area of flattened grass where his body had rested throughout the night. Brittle was relieved. One, it meant the man had awoken just as the Great Maker had promised and two, staggered off on his way back home, hopefully to never return again. Brittle placed one of his toast and loam sandwiches in the grass just in case the hungry knight accidentally wandered back to the place of his awakening.
Two hours later, Brittle and Gilly reached the basin of Stay Away Canyon. The entrance to the cave looked the same as it had the day before, grinning coconut skulls and all. Gilly’s nonchalant demeanor changed the moment they reached the dark pool of still water. She’d been content to follow Brittle’s lead up until this point. Evidently the time for such courtesy had passed. Inflating her dewlap with a rattling hiss, she pushed Brittle back with her tail as she stalked on still legs to the water’s edge, prepared to face off with the lurking water serpent a second time.
“There’s no need to be a bully, Gilly. Poor thing’s probably just hungry.” Brittle unclasped his satchel and withdrew the fish from within. He didn’t care for yellow-eyed perch, much less any kind of fish, personally. But Yerma, the old snapping turtle of the swamp, claimed the black and white striped fish was a water serpent’s favorite food – right after unsuspecting bog log beast toes, of course.
With the slimy fish in hand, Brittle stepped carefully over Gilly’s tail, pretending not to notice the look of absolute indignation radiating from her black eyes. He struck his foot against the water’s surface three times and then waited. A soundless ripple swept towards them, barely visible along the pool’s glassy surface. Brittle noticed of course. As did Gilly, who had her dewlap puffed up bigger than he'd ever seen before.
The water serpent burst from the dark pool, fangs bared, but Brittle was ready. He threw a finger into the air, shouting, “You hold it right there, mister!”
The serpent jerked to a halt mid-lunge, appearing only slightly more confused than Gilly.
“The Great Maker herself gave me permission to be here. Eat me and you’ll be angering the very goddess’s cave you live in.” Brittle crossed his spindly arms, tearing his gaze from the snake to give the surrounding cavern a once-over. “Seems like you’ve got a pretty cushy thing going here. Displease the Maker, and you’ll be out on your tail by the end of the day, forced to go live in the swamp.”
The snake narrowed its eyes.
If there was anything Brittle excelled at, it was being needlessly dramatic. Sir Thomassin had said so himself. “The swamp is no place for a beastie like you, friend. The fishermen would take one look at you and declare war on all of snake-kind. They'd accuse you of stealing their food, and their women, and jobs. The next thing you know, they’d be calling a big town meeting to plot how to catch you and turn you into a purse.”
Both Gilly and the water serpent were staring at him in horror, mouths open and quivering, unable to speak.
Brittle lowered his voice to a hushed whisper. “The ugly kind. Covered in glitter and fake gems, obscuring the natural beauty of your lovely scale pattern.”
The snake’s venomous expression withered under the ferocity of Brittle’s hollow-eyed stare.
“Wouldn’t want that, would you?” Brittle lifted the yellow-eyed perch and gave it a tantalizing wiggle. “Well neither would I. You look like a decent beast just trying to get by, do his job, and all that. Which is why I brought you a fish. And so long as you don’t give me any trouble, I’ll keep bringing one, every time I visit. Deal?”
The serpent bobbled its head. Keeping a nervous eye on Brittle, the snake edged forward and gingerly grasped the white and black striped fish in its mouth. And then, without a sound, it slipped back beneath the surface. The only trace Brittle saw was the ripple that glided across the black pool as the snake returned to its underwater burrow.
“What’s that, Gilly?” Brittle said, tilting his head at the flabbergasted lizard. “Impressed, you say? I appreciate your kind words, but it was nothin’, really.”
The great pink and orange lizard blinked one eye and then the other, refusing to acknowledge Brittle’s cleverness.
Brittle waded triumphantly into the water ahead of her. While might, ferocity, and pure of heart all had their place in the world, too often people seemed to forget the most overlooked quality of all – the collective desire to not be fashioned into an ugly purse.