Neversink

by Barry Wolverton

  “Oh,” said Egbert. “Well, by definition, I can only write an autobiography about myself.”

  “Then make up a new word!” snapped Rozbell. He shut his eyes, feeling a tremor in his eyelids. Once he relaxed, he said, “This food shortage must be hard on a fellow your size. I may have an emergency stash of smidgens…perhaps extra nourishment would encourage you?”

  “Oh, I could never take food from you,” said Egbert. “Not with all that’s going on. I may not be an auk, but Neversink is my home. And Lockley Puffin is my best friend.”

  “The troublemaker?” said Rozbell, whose bright eyes widened. Once again, Egbert had blundered into the sin of giving too much information, and it was obvious to Rozbell that Egbert thought Lockley was still in captivity. “Well, if you care about your friend, you’ll accommodate me, like the rest of the colony.” The king turned to go, then added, “I’ll also be sending you some of my own work I’d like included in the book. Just some poems I’ve been jotting down over the years. They may need a touch of editing, but I think you’ll find them as powerful as I do.”

  When Rozbell finally left, Egbert headed for Lucy’s as quickly as possible. The burrowing owls would soon discover her, if they hadn’t already. And even though Lucy hadn’t laid her egg yet, it would be obvious she was pregnant, and they would come again. Maybe if he could get her to another location first, she and her egg would be safe.

  He took the long way so as not to advertise where he was going, lurching over rocks and forcing himself through small passages to reach her. When he finally got there, he didn’t bother knocking, instead thrusting his head through the front door. But it was Egbert who received a painful shock. For there was Lucy, standing over a solitary, grayish-white egg.

  He stared at the egg and then at Lucy. “Move that into your bedroom,” he said. “And don’t come out of your burrow. Anyone who knows about you needs to think you’re still pregnant!”

  The urgency in his voice frightened Lucy. “Egbert, what’s going on?”

  “I can’t explain right now,” he said. “But here, I brought you something.” And he unwrapped a small bundle of clams and oysters.

  “Egbert!”

  “You know and I know that auks don’t store away food for the winter,” he said. “But I do. Now eat something, regain your strength, and stay out of sight until I think of something.”

  DEATH ON THE MOORS, OR THE BITTERN’S LAMENT

  When Lockley, Ruby, and the mole resurfaced, Lockley could tell they had gone sharply upland. The air was cool and damp. Coarse grasses grew in tufts and clumps around ponds of standing water. The ground beneath them was quilted with peat and embellished with the yellow and lavender buds of spiny gorse and flowering heather. Thickets of barbed thistles grew in abundance.

  “Where are we, Mr. Mole?”

  “North of the Midland Woods, as promised,” the mole replied.

  “That crazy badger said to stay off the moors,” said Lockley, taking note of the surroundings. “Are moors anything like bogs?”

  “They’re exactly like bogs,” said the mole. “You’re familiar with such terrain?”

  “We have a region on Neversink called the Black Bogs,” Lockley explained. “This could be its twin.”

  Just then, Lockley’s webbed foot sploshed into what felt like a slimy hole.

  “Forgive me, Mr. Puffin,” said the mole as he watched Lockley slowly sink into a thick soup of mud and decayed plant matter. His trembling voice was filled with genuine regret.

  “Lockley!” said Ruby, zipping first next to him and then over to the mole. “What have you done?”

  “I believe Mr. Mole has misled us,” said Lockley with a sigh. “Tell me, was Otus in on it, or did you betray him too?”

  “Oh no, poor Otus doesn’t know,” said the mole, wringing his paws. “I tried to explain, Mr. Puffin, we lesser creatures are at the beck and call of owls. And Rozbell’s a frightful little thing….”

  “Wait a minute,” said Ruby. “You mean the mole is a mole?”

  Lockley felt the bog tugging at his legs, pulling him down. He vainly kicked his feet in hopes of gaining traction. “So you’re just going to let me drown?”

  “Oh no, I’m going to alert the northern owls that you’re trapped. Someone will fetch you. Assuming the Teeth of the Moors doesn’t get here first.”

  “The what now?” said Ruby.

  “I’m not a bad creature,” the mole pleaded. “But no one wants to get eaten.” He turned to go, but looked back briefly and said, “Don’t kick. Kicking only makes it worse.” And then he disappeared, leaving behind nothing but a small mound of dirt.

  “Don’t worry,” said Ruby. “I’ll save you.” She began tugging at the scruff of Lockley’s neck like a cat trying to carry off a kitten.

  “Ow—ow! What are you doing? That’s not going to work, Ruby!”

  “It’s no use,” said Ruby, alighting on the spongy ground. “You’re too fat.”

  “I am not fat for a puffin!” said Lockley, now sunk up to his waist. “Ruby, do something!”

  “Wait!” said Ruby, who buzzed away excitedly. She returned with a long, slender branch, one end in her mouth and the other dragging on the ground.

  “Brilliant!” said Lockley, but when he grabbed the free end and pulled, he nearly yanked Ruby into the bog with him.

  “What are we gonna do?” said Ruby. As small as her face was, it still betrayed her sense of panic.

  “Maybe there’s time to find help,” said Lockley, without much confidence. The bog was gurgling just below his neck.

  Ruby rose up above the tussocks and looked out over the bleak moorland in all directions.

  “What do you see?”

  She spun around a few more times before answering. “Nothing.” But then, “What’s that?” And like a flame being snuffed, Ruby was gone, trailing smoke behind her. When she returned, almost as quickly, she asked, “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?” said Lockley, his voice filled with panic. But then, he did hear it. The low, booming notes of the legendary moorbird known as the bittern.

  Suddenly a mad, clucking cry erupted from the heather, and a reddish-brown rocket propelled itself straight up with fast-whirring wingbeats, screeching, “Go back, go back, go back” in rapid succession. Ruby bolted straight up, and the frenetic attacker fell to earth into a clump of grass near Lockley.

  “Cedric!” came a female voice, and Lockley saw a strange pair of birds approach: one that looked like a blue-and-green chicken, and another with stiltlike legs and a spear for a bill.

  “Oh my goodness,” said the chicken bird, her head jerking back and forth.

  “Please, help me,” said Lockley.

  “Cedric, Bruce!” she called, and the stilt-legged bird skittered closer, joined by a bird with a short, broad tail and small, hooked beak. “Help me pull this poor thing out.”

  “Yeah, hurry!” said Ruby, who was eye level again.

  The bog was almost up to Lockley’s bill, and the two male birds weren’t too happy about having to get their wings dirty. But the three strangers finally managed to pull Lockley out with a great suck. He was left lying on his back, covered in mud.

  “What is it, Cedric?” whispered the chicken bird. “It looks like a duck with a pet horsefly.”

  “Little one’s a hummingbird,” said Cedric. “But the other one…”

  “Here we go,” muttered Lockley.

  “Look at the fruity bill,” said the stilt-legged bird. “It’s obviously a parrot, or a macaw.”

  “Those birds live in the tropics,” said Ruby.

  “So do hummingbirds,” said Cedric. “And yet, here you are.”

  For once, Ruby was speechless.

  “What about the shapeless body?” said the chicken bird. “It could be a dodo. Or a small emu.”

  “I can fly,” said Lockley, who was now up, shaking mud from his feathers.

  “A harlequin duck? A barnacle goose? A loon? A scaup? A coot?
”

  Lockley began tapping his foot peevishly.

  “A tapir.”

  “An eggplant.”

  “One of those isn’t a bird,” said Lockley, “and the last one isn’t even an animal! I’m a puffin, for crying out loud! Lockley J. Puffin, of the Neversink puffins!”

  “Puffin!” said Cedric. “You’re a wanted bird!”

  “I gathered,” said Lockley.

  “Agnes, Bruce—help me push him back in.”

  “What? No!” Lockley backed away while trying not to step into another bog, and Ruby flew at Cedric, spoiling for a fight.

  “Stop it right now!” said the chicken bird, her head jerking back and forth. “How rude of us. I’m Agnes Moorhen. This is Cedric Grouse,” she said, pointing to the gruff bird with the hooked beak. “And this is Bruce Bittern.” The stilt-legged bird bobbed his head up and down.

  “You’re the legendary bittern?” said Lockley, gawking at the small bird with the booming voice.

  “He gets that all the time,” Cedric scoffed.

  Lockley shook the last of the mud off his feet. “As I said, I’m Lockley Puffin, and this is my friend Ruby.”

  Ruby did a midair bow.

  “Why did you want to push me back in?” said Lockley. “Are the moorbirds are in cahoots with Rozbell?”

  “Rozbell?” Cedric asked.

  “Yeah, Rozbell,” said Ruby. “Tiny owl with a Napoleon complex?”

  The moorhen, the bittern, and the grouse all looked at one another quizzically.

  “Never mind her,” said Lockley. “She comes from a different world entirely.”

  “We know who Rozbell is,” said the grouse. “And no, we do not cahoot with him. But owls are looking for you, and if we’re seen together, he’ll tar and defeather us all.”

  “Cedric,” said Agnes, “there’s no reason to be rude. Mr. Puffin, if I may ask, how did you end up here?”

  Lockley proceeded to explain what had befallen Neversink, how he and the Great Auk were captured, how Ruby had sprung him, and how the mole had tricked them.

  “Those owls,” said Agnes, clucking her tongue.

  Cedric agreed. “I’ve always said, power corrupts. But owlbsolute power corrupts owlbsolutely.”

  “I’ve never heard you say that,” said Bruce.

  Cedric ignored him. “The Roundheads—that’s what owls who wear hats call themselves—they’ve revived an old plan to drain the moors and marshes.”

  “Why would they do that?” Lockley wondered.

  “To plant more trees! They want to develop all this into forest!” said Cedric, spreading his wings toward the gray, flat horizon. “Connect the Midland Woods with the Great Northern Forest to the north. One big owl roosting territory from the downlands to the highlands!”

  “So you’d have to move,” said Lockley.

  “Move? Perish is more like it,” snapped the grouse. “The vegetation we eat, the insects and the frogs—all wetland species. We can’t just up and move every time an owl wants our spot!”

  “I know what you mean,” said Lockley.

  “Boy, owls sure do hate birds who like water!” said Ruby.

  Bruce Bittern’s neck stretched up in alarm. “The fog is creeping in!” He punctuated the thought with three eerie, booming bass notes. Indeed, as darkness slowly absorbed the light and the air cooled, cottony strands of fog began to unspool over the ground.

  “Mr. Puffin, you and your friend might want to get off the moors soon,” said Agnes.

  “The Teeth of the Moors?” Lockley asked.

  “You’ve heard of him?”

  “Only recently.”

  Agnes began jerking her head back and forth and twitching in circles again. “He prowls the moors at night looking for animals trapped in the bogs or wandering about. We all have our hiding places, but oh dear, Mr. Puffin, you rather stick out like a will-o’-the-wisp.”

  Lockley began extending and folding his right wing gingerly. “I’m not sure I can fly at the moment,” he said. “I think you hurt my shoulder when you pulled me out.”

  “You’re welcome,” Cedric replied tartly.

  Just then they heard the first fearful, guttural rumblings coming from the bowels of the fog. They all looked at one another, silent for a moment.

  “Can you really not fly?” said Agnes, twitching all over with worry.

  “I’m not sure.” Lockley spread his wings, flinching in pain, and then took a small running start and got himself airborne. His weakened right side caused him to fly in a wobbly, lopsided circle, coming closer and closer to the ground, until…“Not again,” he cried, just before splatting into another bog.

  Ruby flew to him, followed by Agnes, muttering, “Oh dear, oh dear,” over and over.

  “Get over here this instant!” screamed Agnes at the grouse and the bittern. They obeyed, and once again Lockley found himself being pulled from the clammy grasp of the earth and laid muddy on his back.

  “It’s useless,” he moaned. “I’m not a puffin, I’m a sitting duck!”

  “A sitting duck!” said Agnes. “That gives me an idea. Mr. Puffin, pluck me out some of your feathers!”

  No matter how much Lockley wanted to escape the Teeth of the Moors, he wasn’t at all happy with what followed. The moorhen led them to a marsh-mallow patch, where the squishy white fruit of the marsh-mallow plant grew in abundance. She picked one, attached Lockley’s feathers to it, added a carrot nose, and set it back in the bog.

  “A decoy!” said Ruby.

  “Why does the decoy have to look like me?” said Lockley. “And a carrot?”

  “Would you rather look like a carrot or be chomped like one?” said Cedric.

  “You do have a white belly,” said the bittern. “And it’s a little on the squidgy side.”

  “Besides,” said Cedric, “we can all fly away. You’re the one endangering us.”

  The remark was intended to be flippant, but Lockley felt it deeply. It seemed to sum up his entire efforts to fight the owls. “You’re right,” he said. “The only way for me to escape the Teeth of the Moors is to defeat the Teeth of the Moors. I should be thanking you.”

  Cedric stared at him.

  “Thank you,” said Lockley.

  The grouse snorted, and then the three moorbirds, Lockley, and Ruby all hid behind a mossy rock. Here goes nothing, Lockley thought. “Help! Help! I appear to be hopelessly stuck,” he yelled, and then they waited.

  Before long the hellish rumblings crept nearer. Lockley imagined the billowing fog to be puffs of hot breath from the nostrils of this unseen beast. As dusk settled over them, Lockley could hear the distant hoots and calls of the northerly woodland owls—the long-eared owl, the hawk owl, the eagle owl, and the tawny—and he felt sure they were transmitting the mole’s intelligence back to Rozbell. But he didn’t have time to stew over it. For across a tussock and through the mist came a prowling beast, measuring the ground with impossibly long legs and fiery yellow eyes. Its bearded head swung low, six-inch-long canines overhung a drooling jaw, and from its gullet came that awful death rattle. It made straight for the decoy.

  The ferocity with which its jaws snapped up the decoy puffin made Lockley jump. But the trap worked to perfection. The beast quickly discovered the futility of trying to chew a ripe marsh-mallow. White goop stuck to its teeth and oozed out of its mouth, and the powerful jaws struggled to open as if the top and bottom were held together with rubber bands. The death rattle turned to a frustrated whimper as its whole body writhed in the struggle against the sticky surprise. Turning and twisting, the beast trod backward, heedless of everything except the goop, until its hind legs plunged into the bog. The fire in its eyes went out, replaced by fear, and struggling only mired the beast more deeply. Lockley and Ruby watched dumbstruck as the predator eventually sank to its neck, seeming to foam at the mouth with white mallow, black feathers sticking to its nose and chin.

  When they were sure the beast was vanquished, Lockley stumbled into a sitting po
sition, his eyes wide. “I hate the moors,” he said softly.

  “Lockley, we have to keep going,” said Ruby. “Lucy needs you, and the owls are bound to be on to us by now.”

  Lockley stood up and tried his wing again, grimacing as he extended and folded it. Agnes suggested they could all do with a bit of nourishment, which reminded Lockley of what had started all this. “Are none of you afraid to eat because of the Sickness?” he asked. “Or perhaps the rumors are to your advantage? If your normal predators are afraid to eat you?”

  “Pshaw,” groused Cedric. “It’s no comfort if the plague starts even lower on the food chain.”

  “How low?” said Ruby, who plunged low enough to hover just above the grouse’s tiny head.

  “All of the creatures who have supposedly died because of the Sickness—small birds and rodents in particular—eat insects, or host them as parasites. I eat mostly vegetation, but some insects. Agnes and Bruce here both eat frogs and such, which eat insects. You get the idea. We’re all doomed.”

  “Cedric!” said Agnes.

  Ruby began coughing and choking and trying to spit out the imaginary wad of food in her mouth. “Lockley! I inhaled a whole tunnelful of insects with that mole!”

  “Calm down,” said Lockley. “It’s just a theory. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” said Cedric.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” said Ruby.

  “Poor dear,” said Agnes, her head and tail twitching. And then: “That’s it! Be sick!”

  “Mission accomplished,” said Ruby.

  “No, I mean—wait right there,” and she darted off on her chicken legs, only to return a few minutes later with a leafy plant clutched in her bill.

  “You can’t possibly believe I’m hungry now,” said Ruby.

  “Trust me—just eat,” scolded the moorhen, and so Ruby reluctantly began to nibble on the harmless-looking leaves. It took only a few seconds for their purpose to become clear. Ruby began turning shades of green and purple and wobbling in midair like a butterfly caught in a crosswind. Suddenly she began shaking violently, her whole tiny body convulsing. And then, it happened—she puked. Right at Lockley’s feet, to be precise. Lockley couldn’t believe so much vomit could come out of one little bird, but there it was.