Puddlebrain

Chapter Thirty Three

Puddlebrain frowned. Not worry? She could do nothing but worry! Little Whimsy was deserted! Her sisters were gone! She was lost in the Grimace and she was running vocal circles in the maze of the old man's words! How could she not worry?

Thistle giggled. "I like that," he laughed. "Vocal circles! Very good! Maze of my words! Priceless!"

Puddlebrain threw up her hands. This was pointless. She was getting nowhere. There was no option but to find her way out of the Grimace and try and find her sisters. She put her hands on the ground to push herself up. She suddenly felt spiders crawling across them and went to snatch her hands back...

... but she couldn't! Staring down, she saw why. It wasn't spiders on her hands. It was mud! The ground was still moving, just as it had beneath Thistle, but this time it had shifted over her hands, trapping them! She couldn't move! She glared at the him.

"What are you doing? Let me go!"

"I'm not doing a single little thing, girly," he smiled. "If you want to go, then go! If you don't want the help of a silly, senile old man, then be off with you." He stood up and looked down at her. "It was, I must admit, a joy to meet you. You tootle off and perhaps I'll see you again one day."

Puddlebrain could only stare helplessly as Thistle walked over to one of the oaks and placed his hand flat against its bark. He smiled at her, then pushed, and walked into the tree! In a second he was gone. The air of hollowness that fell on the clearing stunned the witch. It was as if all the life had been sucked from the area and she was the only thing that had been left. Her eyes were fixed on where he had been a moment before then, with a whoosh, she felt the air moving and heard the leaves rustling. She tried desperately to pull her hands free of the ground, but they were stuck fast and her struggles only seemed to make the earth grip her tighter. She was frantic and tears were streaming down her cheeks.

"Come back!" she cried. "Please!"

She froze as a chuckle sounded behind her. Twisting her body as best she could, Puddlebrain strained to see the source.

"Just my little joke," said Thistle, stepping away from the trunk of a second great oak.

"Joke?" cried Puddlebrain helplessly. "Joke? Where's the humour in this? Please tell me which part is actually funny!"

"Why, girly, all of it is!" said Thistle, dancing a little jig. He clapped his hands and chuckled. "You just need to see past it and you'll be rolling around fit to burst your belly."

Puddlebrain could feel her face flushing with anger. She was fit to burst, all right. It wasn't with the non-existent hilarity, however. Enough was beyond enough now. She'd come to the Grimace to find out... well, whatever was happening. All she had managed to do was be delayed by the Grimace itself. It had trapped her and talked her head into a spin. Maybe that was the plan all along. The forest was obviously where she'd look for her family and the rest of the villagers. Now it had her too. What if the Grimace was the one that had stolen everyone? They hadn't just been brought here, the Grimace had taken them!

She didn't notice Thistle standing in front of her until he was, suddenly, bent close, almost nose to nose. She could see the grain of his skin now. Tiny little knots like pimples on wood. Breath that smelled like fresh cut shavings.

Her thoughts froze in her mind as if a hand had wrapped itself around her brain and squeezed the juice into a cup for a drink. Being so elusive was thirsty work.

"Listen, girly," Thistle whispered.

His voice was hushed but Puddlebrain was sure she'd be able to hear it from the kitchen of her own house even with Edna's stew bubbling away. The sound wouldn't have dared fade until it reached exactly the ears it was intended for and delivered its message.

"Tell me, please, what I would be doing with a whole village full of people. They're not water or sun, so they can't feed me. They just talk and complain and they're so impatient. And they are gone so fast I would barely notice they were here at all."

Puddlebrain wondered if he was telling the truth. The Grimace could be lying. It could be (and was) confusing her to keep her there.

"If I wanted you to stay, you wouldn't be leaving" said Thistle standing, his movements so fluid you couldn't be sure he'd moved at all, if it wasn't for the fact he was no longer crouched right in front of you. "And we would not be having this fun little chat. You would be held by my branches and wouldn't be able to move for the rest of your short little life. Even a life as long as yours is a shiver of a heartbeat to me."

Puddlebrain noticed his jovial nonsense was absent, to be replaced by a much sterner and firmer manner. While he had spun her like a top previously, she preferred that to the bubbling, troubling severity that now threatened her.

"You feel threatened, girly?"

"No," she said, defiantly.

Yes, she thought, honestly.

"Don't be." Thistle's voice was suddenly softer. The hard bark had been smoothed down. "You wanted help. I find it difficult not to play games. It's so long between talking to your kind, or at all, that I forget myself and get carried away. And it takes a little of your time for me to adjust."

Puddlebrain could understand that. No-one dared enter the Grimace, so the chances to chat were few and far between.

"Your father was the last, and the only one for a long time."

Puddlebrain gasped. Her father?

"Yes. He was like you. He felt nature. The grass. The birds. The weather, even. That's how he knew we were in pain."

The Grimace was in pain? Did trees even feel pain?

"Not in the way you do, but we know what pain is. Your father felt it too and came to help."

Her father?

"Yes, girly. Your father. Stop that. Your brain is hitting thoughts of your father like a bull at a brick wall. Climb the wall. Don't be running at it with your eyes closed."

Puddlebrain coughed and shook her head, trying to make the wall topple so she could get around it. She'd spent so long being the baby of the family she wasn't particularly athletic, physically or mentally.

"Don't be putting yourself down, girly. Too many others will do that for you. Let them waste their energy and you put yours to better use."

"What did my father do?" she asked.

"We were slumbering. We do that. It passes your time until we get to ours. And a... blight... invaded us. A shadow we could not keep out. It wanted our heart and almost stole it away."

"Your heart?"

"What makes us. What gives us... this Thistle. It wanted to claim it. We almost lost ourselves."