Puddlebrain

Chapter Twenty Five

"There's got to be another way, Billy," she said quietly, her hands dropping to her sides. "I won't destroy them."

"Won't...?"

Billy jumped up and down in frustration. Any other time the sight of the gnome performing what looked like a sulk dance might have been funny. Here, they had left fun back home. He slammed his feet down onto the ground and faced Puddlebrain.

"You won't? Do you know what is at stake here? Your sisters! You don't want to hurt a few deformed trees in order to save your sisters? What is wrong with you, girl!"

Puddlebrain had had enough. She had put up with the gnome and his moods and his comments for long enough. Ever since he'd planted himself in their back garden, she's been subject to his cutting, so-called jokes. No more. She stepped forward suddenly, a move that surprised Billy and made him fall backwards.

"Deformed? You, a gnome, talks about being deformed? Look at that hump on your back! Look at that excuse for a nose! Destroy! Blast! Maim! Is that all you are interested in? What if there's a better way? What if we can do this quietly? Peacefully? What then? Hurt for the sake of it? Because it's easy?"

"No! Because it's fast! Look around you witch!" Billy gestured wildly at the trees. "We are in the Grimace! We are trapped! There is no other way! They are only trees! They don't matter! Now stop being a stupid little girl and just do it!"

Right.

Puddlebrain drew in a slow breath through tightly clenched teeth. She let it out through her nose, a faint whistling disturbing the silence that had slammed down like a hammer between them. She was not stupid. She left that to Gemini, who managed it so well. She was not a little girl and hadn't been for a very long time. She was over three hundred and fifty years old! When would people start treating her like it? She had outlived the entire population of Little Whimsy many times over and still they thought of her as a youngster. Now this gnome, who knew little more than how to hurl abuse, had joined in the fray? She wasn't going to stand for it, not any more. She was tired of being the brunt of insults and jokes. She was completely fed up with being the baby of the family - of the town in fact. It had to stop, and it would stop right here and right now.

She raised her hand slowly.

"Finally!" Billy exclaimed, pushing himself up.

She pointed it at the gnome.

"Wha...?" Billy looked amazed. He couldn't understand what he was seeing. Why would she be aiming at him? They were friends! "You can't! You need..."

She flicked.

The gnome froze as the magic enveloped him in a silvery web. Strands of light sped over his body as if a hundred invisible spiders were wrapping him in their silks. A low moan escaped his lips as his body started to creak and bend, making him sound like an old rocking chair pitching to and fro. There was a ripping sound and his shoes began to swell and split, the seams bursting apart. Billy's toes were growing longer, stretching and changing colour to a deep terracotta brown. The tips of his toes bent suddenly downwards and plunged into the earth, splitting and spreading. His body scrunched and twisted. His arms were forced upwards and outwards, his fingers lengthening and splitting apart like his toes had.

His face, already gnarled, solidified, the colour changing from grey, like the sky when it's deciding whether or not to rain, to match his feet and his arms and hands. His eyes became small knot holes. Tiny leaves budded at the extremities of his fingertips. His ears, normally large and flappy, became dark bores, the sort you'd expect a squirrel to poke its head out of.

In seconds the transformation was done. Billy was no longer a gnome. He had become one of the trees he so bitterly wanted destroyed.

Puddlebrain was shaking. She felt guilty. She hadn't wanted to hurt him, but she had no choice. Besides, he wasn't hurt, only... changed. It was his own fault. What could she do? How could she concentrate on helping her sisters and everyone else when he was constantly making jibes and insults and everything? Dragging her down and stampting on her emotions?

Puddlebrain sighed. She turned around to face the heart of the Grimace realising that she was now on her own. Billy had been noisy and he had been a pain, but at least he had been there. No matter. What was done was done and there was only one option. Puddlebrain had to continue alone. She breathed in deeply, letting it out slowly.

Calm. Be calm. Focus.

In a little while, she felt better. Billy had been a help, but he'd also been a distraction. She may very well need him in the near future – she had no idea what she might face – but she couldn't be doing with the agitation the gnome couldn't help but cause. This was the only way, and she was sure it was the right way.

But still...

Puddlebrain looked around, wondering which way she could go. The Grimace hung over and about her, hemming her in. She could hear its laughter in the whisper of the breeze through the leaves. It taunted her, taking the gnome's lead.

Well, she thought, the joke's over.

"Now then," she said matter-of-factly to the air. "Let's stop this nonsense. I haven't come here to hurt you, nor have I come to play games. The fact is, I need to get through you to whatever it is I'm heading for, and I could do with some help. If you can't manage that, but you're not hindering me, I suppose that's the next best thing. How about it?"

The air, the trees, the forest ignored her. They were eternal, or at least very nearly. They had been there for longer than even they could remember and would be so far into the future. Who was this girl to intrude and test their patience? Who was she to command them? No. Hurt them? Hah! They would keep her there, trapped. It would be her penance for the intrusion. Already they tired of even noticing she existed and so ignored her pleas. The patience of an oak is as mighty as the tree itself. Time is meaningless to something that could potentially last forever, so the comings and goings of mortals and their world were nothing to the Grimace. Time had granted them an arrogance that came to match their warped stature. They were the Grimace. Nothing else mattered.

"Come on," pleaded Puddlebrain, knowing as she spoke that it was no use.

She could sense the indifference of the forest. She knew it didn't care for her problems. She could almost taste the ages soaked into the trunks of the oaks, like water into a sponge, and suddenly felt very small. She was a girl. Hardly a witch at all, especially as she'd only just regained her magic. The Grimace was the Grimace. What was she in comparison to that? She was the blink of an eye to them, the buzz of an insect that irritated for a second and then was gone. If she reached out to stroke the bark she could probably feel the years infused therein.

No!

Puddlebrain snatched her hand back! She was a hair's breadth away from touching one of the trees. Without even been aware that she was doing so, she seemed to have somehow been lulled into a trance. It had happened so quickly and so completely she didn't get the chance to feel it overcoming her. What might have happened if she had touched the tree, she didn't know. Perhaps nothing, but perhaps...

Was the forest conspiring against her? She looked again at Billy. Had she been too harsh? Could she have been a shiver away from becoming just like him?

"Right," she said. "I did ask first. Remember that"