Puddle: A Tale for the Curious

by Elena "Birch" Bozzi

  Each species at Festival was represented: Beech, Pine, Cedar, Apple, Birch, Pawpaw, Oak, Hawthorn, Hazel, Rowan, Maple, Walnut, Willow, Holly, and Elderberry.

  Any outside worries were to be left at the entrance of the Stone Circle, in order to fully arrive mentally. To assist, a bowl of water and pile of stones were provided. The trees could drop a stone, representing a worry, into the water of solace.

  The trees spent a moment smudging their atmosphere with sage.

  Then, the Council began.

  -What do we know about these things?

  -Their ability to hide in plain sight is remarkable.

  -Their numbers grow.

  -They are plant and they are animal.

  -They are both.

  -They are neither.

  -So, they are difficult to categorize.

  -Their actions are indiscernible. Observations give us few insights.

  -Their numbers grow.

  -Their communication is unintelligible.

  -How have interactions played out?

  -As soon as they notice us, they disappear.

  -All attempts at contact have proven futile.

  -Their numbers grow.

  -They cause destruction.

  -What is your evidence?

  -They hide.

  -They’re sneaky.

  -They keep secrets.

  -Their numbers are growing. They will overtake the land.

  -We must contain them. We must take preventative measures.

  -We must stop their invasion.

  -We must stop them now.

  The chorus of trees swished to a frenzy. Leaves broke away. The trees called for action. It was mostly bark. The stratus greys in the sky flicked droplets on the ground.

  Hawthorn called a pause from the commotion, and advised that everyone reconvene in the morning. The time would allow everyone to have a good think, and hopefully a constructive solution would precipitate.

  *~*

  Puddle and I stacked some flat stones on the bank of the Oasis. They were tiny houses for frog spirits.

  The spring filled my heart with life. I felt sure of myself. I felt prepared for anything, like I wanted to take on the world. However, this world had nothing that I felt needed to be taken on. It went with its cycles, and flowed with balance.

  Puddle and I stacked more stones. I thought our tiny houses were beautiful. Building them taught us a lot about friction, gravity, and balance. How productive.

  Then I felt a hungry earthquake in my guts.

  The sun yawned behind the clouds as Puddle and I journeyed up the ridge. The Apple clan had offered that we could stay with them again.

  The sky sprinkled a few drops, and I wondered if the trees would cancel the evening fire.

  *~*

  The Council had finished their raucous conversation, and everyone went about their evening activities. The Birches gathered for a meal in their camp.

  “She’s here,” one began.

  “She said she figured out how to get here on accident,” another pondered.

  “The other one instructed her,” the first corrected.

  “She has her tektite stone. She needs that to travel the worlds in her current form,” one observed. “Only plants can travel without that key, and she has chosen to incarnate as an animal.”

  One of the trees, who felt extra jaded after hearing about the disagreements at the Council, scoffed, “Animals are such consumers.”

  Another countered, “Her insights can help our species.”

  The one that had attended the Council said, “We have another worry. We need to compose a list of options to bring back for tomorrow’s meeting.”

  *~*

  The Apple clan’s grumpiness was the kind that got passed around like a hot potato. Nobody wanted to keep the grump, so they said borderline cruel things to each other to pass it off. When asked, their answers denied anything was wrong, but it still felt like they were hiding something. Their reasons for the fire cancellation were sketchy too. They blamed the rain, but the sprinkles from the sky were light and infrequent. They told us to be patient.

  Whatever. They were the ones that needed to be patient. Ugh. The grumpy was contagious.

  The sponge of evening sat in the dingy water of anxious discontent. Experience taught me that things didn’t always need fixing right away. Sometimes acting like a sounding board could be helpful. Other times, it was best to let someone full of thoughts stew inside their own mind for a while. It felt like the trees needed a moment on their own. Trees were incredibly capable at life. Puddle and I decided that it was in everyone’s best interests if we found somewhere else to be for a while.

  *~*

  Puddle and I went to the bridge. We picked a couple of sticks and chewed their ends until they splintered enough to be adequate tooth brushes. The natural antibacterial properties of salt made those little crystals good for cleansing mouths. The Apples liked to bake, which required a little salt here and there. But they were grumpy, so we had pilfered a pinch of salt each. It was one of those times when it was better to ask forgiveness, rather than permission.

  We had a drizzly, fireless, half-shunned sort of evening ahead of us. However, the air was warm enough. We sat beneath the bridge, thinking of riddles for anyone who tried to cross. The right words were always magic keys from one land to the other.

  The dripping gray grew darker. We decided to sleep beneath the bridge. If any trolls came, at least we had riddles for them.

  As I watched the last of the light fade, a patch of fog moved in to form a human figure. It sat with its smile to the sky. Its eyes pivoted toward us. My first thoughts were of fear because we had not encountered any other people, or people-like creatures, in Veorda. Usually people were more frightening than plants.

  The leafy chuckle could have warmed mountains. We watched each other, smiling. My fear dissipated.

  “Good evening,” it called.

  “And to you. Who are you?” I asked.

  “We could talk for ages about who I am, or was, or could become,” said the plant person.

  “Right now you are someone in the rain,” said Puddle. “Would you like to join us under the bridge?”

  “I enjoy the rain,” it replied. “I would also like to join you.”

  The air turned sweet and drowsy. The crinkles around the plant’s eyes told stories of joy, and its wiry hair defied the weight of the rain it held.

  “You are the first person we have seen on this planet,” I commented.

  It nodded. “I look like a person to you now. My true form is that of an herbaceous plant. I am Wormwood. We condense our essence into a form so we can explore differently than our rooted physical body.”

  “The trees can walk around freely.”

  “Some can.”

  “Can all herbaceous plants change their form to walk around?” I had a garden back home.. home?.. that had some explaining in store.

  “Everyone has different talents,” answered the plant. “I heard you laughing, and wanted to investigate. Wormwoods appreciate laughter.”

  “We were making riddles.”

  “How very abstract.”

  “Why did the cabbage win the race?”

  “It leafed early.”

  “It was a head!”

  Wormwood shook its foliage in amusement.

  Soon enough, the evening made us yawn. Sleep was wandering around.

  “I never remember my dreams,” Puddle lamented after another yawn.

  “I can try to help,” offered our new plant friend. “Wormwood is a dream-working plant. Would you like me to watch over you this evening?”

  Puddle nodded, “Plants, thus far in my life, have proven themselves trustworthy. Dream world is a delicate place. Realities in dreams can affect realities after waking up. I trust my feeling that you are trustworthy.”

  I also felt that Wormwood held no malice, and asked for dreams as well. The plant conceded.

  We talked and laughed a wh
ile longer until a sweet, drowsy aroma took over the night. Wormwood sat out in the rain. It was happy. After all, plants traditionally needed rain to survive. Puddle and I curled up on the tiny, soft grasses under the bridge. We chuckled through dreams of joy.

  *~*

  The plant spirit leaned against the trunk of the scraggle pine and waited for the sunrise. The cold blue light carved its face into deep valleys, which were difficult to tell from the texture of the tree. Each wrinkle was a story untold for ages.

  You’re most alert between day and night, its voice said. It lasts but a moment. Be quick. Speak to the instant of perfect balance between light and shadow. Pick up a bubble of dew. This orb of dawn sun and smiling moon actually is a dream condensed from a creature reposed. Peer through the rainbow inside. There plays a story. Taste the pure energy. Experience the tale.

  Wormwood’s voice scratched like the bark he leaned upon, and the words stretched from its lips like cooled honey. The pine needles hung in the air. Each dangled a world inside a drop of dew from its apex. Through the drops of condensed morning, I saw the moon from one angle, and the first silver rays of the sun from another. Drink me, the dewdrop dared.

  I did and entered the reverie as smooth as the dance of fog forming over a lake. A ribbon made from the dust of reality trailed in my wake. The dewdrop dream became clearer than waking life. Colors were supersaturated, sounds existed inside my mind like gems chipped from rainbows and shaped to refract exquisite condensed light. Thoughts appeared without the hindrances of words in the sorts of pictures only dreams could construct.

  A note of silver began as a hum. It wavered, like hot sun on summer cement, and lifted me weightless. The moon-shaded silver song engulfed all my senses. I felt like I was nowhere and everywhere. My feet touched ground. As the silver turned shadow, it left a faint indigo glow around the edges of everything, yet somehow it defined the world even more.

  This wasn’t my dream. Whose dream was this?

  I took a deep breath and a croak escaped my throat. I sat upon a daintily undulating lily pad and watched a turtle’s face create ripple lines as it swam away. Food was buzzing all around. Without a moment to spare, I lapped up the air and everything that went with it. Then, danger shivered through my leapy legs, and I flew from the specific moving reeds that had a heron attached to the top. Gravity pulled me into the water.

  The subaquatic world was bathed in indigo. I felt my dream body lag behind as gravity kept pulling me. And pulling me.

  Earth. I was me again. I was home. Nobody noticed.

  I saw my siblings digging holes where they shouldn’t, and they knew it. Elsie picked up a clod of dirt and tossed it at Kail. Her intention seemed to edge more toward malicious than mischievous. He grabbed a grub and chased her through the echinacea.

  Mom was pruning in the greenhouse. Her off-green aura flowed through her pruners to bite the chopped digits of the plants. Dad was slicing vegetables for sandwiches. He hummed as he slathered some sauerkraut on the bread.

  I wandered around, touching masks on the wall. I thrumped my fingers on a djembe. My shoulder hit the doorway as I walked back into the kitchen. I put a piece of raisin bread in the toaster, and wondered if anyone had noticed I was gone.

  Perhaps my room would show some evidence. At least I could pick up some extra socks.

  I walked down the hallway. It stretched so the far end moved further and further away, but really went nowhere, like that camera trick when the director wanted the shot to look intense. I felt intense, though not of a particular emotion. Just intense.

  My door was stuck. The handle didn’t even jiggle the way it would if it was locked. It just got warm.

  My dream brain reminded itself it was indeed in a dream, and I prepared to walk through my door. In dreams, you remembered how to do the impossible things.

  I put my hands flat against the door, and made a triangle with my fingers and thumbs. I pressed forward as I swept my hands back and to the sides. A portal opened. I entered my room. Everything was the same, but frozen. A dusky gray energy glowed throughout the room.

  My raisin bread sizzled in the toaster.

  A carved wooden bird box sat on my desk. It waited.

  Kail burst through my door.

  “Here it is!” He yelled as he opened the wooden bird box. Elsie grabbed at what he held. I stood up to see.

  The toaster popped my eyes open. The only impression I had left was the faint scent of a burnt raisin.

  *~*

  The morning awoke fresh from the rain. Wormwood was growing where we had seen our friend the night before. The plant ignored us when we called. I thought its spirit might have been crepuscular.

  The rain had freshened up the Apple camp. The trees bustled over breakfast with their usual joyous air. Whatever was wrong the night before was fixed. They invited us to a meeting that morning in the Stone Circle.

  On the way, we met up with a couple Hollies. They strongly implied Puddle and I should check out the grassy knolls full of wildflowers. We said that would be a great plan after the meeting. To which they implied even more strongly the wildflowers should be seen sooner than later. We took the gator-nose-floating-in-the-nice-calm-swamp hint and went to frolic among the Asclepias.

  *~*

  Rowan was uncomfortable. The scratchy feeling started yesterday, around the time the sun crossed the zenith. Scratching an itch for a tree meant leaning back and forth. That calmed Rowan’s discomfort in the way a broken umbrella calmed the drizzle. It felt like someone was tickling away Rowan’s vascular cambium, and the phloem was flaking away from the xylem. Rowan found it difficult to concentrate on the conversation around the Stone Circle.

  Oak and Maple discussed how the little grassy creatures called Wreets posed only a small threat, and that was a threat of the Unknown. They flip-flopped between action and further observation. Holly hopped in and said further observations would waste time, and then it would be too late. Willow said there was plenty of time.

  Apple said they made the decision at the last meeting to do something. Apple secretly thought further observation was best, but had gotten agitated. Agitation had turned Apple stubborn, so it kept on with the destructive action ideas. Holly added that calling down lightning was solid action, and entreated Hawthorn to lend them thorns. Hawthorn agreed that was one option.

  Walnut stood silently, and wished to be back with the Daylilies. Those conversations were easier. They mostly talked about how much they enjoyed sunshine. Elder wanted to hang out with Walnut and the Lilies, and play the flute. The flute was Elder’s meditation. Elder said that if they played music at the grassy creatures, they would stop their foolish secrecy. They could dance it out. Maybe they had bee-like communication, and could only talk through dance.

  Pawpaw stayed at camp that morning, and lamented that the fire was canceled the night before. The Pawpawian fire hospitality was insulted. The tree that was supposed to be at the Council knew it was driving dissent even more by skipping the meeting, but felt it had to support the other Pawpaws at all costs.

  Beech and Pine said they should get those grassy things to play beechi ball with them. To play was a humbling act. It could transcend the wall built by incompatible ways of understanding. Cedar added that meditating afterwards would be helpful.

  The Birch kept to itself and thought about the human creatures that had been sent to see the wildflowers.

  The meeting kept on. Ideas were volleyed around. Nothing was decided, except that more mulling time was needed.

  *~*

  Nooks and Knacks

  Puddle and I sauntered in the direction the Hollies had pointed. Out of the grass peeked what appeared to be limestone, which generally only formed around the coasts of oceans. I wanted to ask the trees if the Festival area had once been a marine landscape, and about caverns. Caverns formed well in limestone areas. Granite outcroppings stood around like giants at a cocktail party. Granite formed underground. I tried to puzzle out how granite and limestone hap
pened in the same landscape.

  “These hills are magical,” said Puddle.

  I considered his words, but had been thinking with my scientific brain, and said, “Geology can explain it. Probably the limestone stuff settled as sedimentary a long time before the plutonic granite intrusions happened. Then weathering and erosion caused these tors. Is this sweetgrass?”

  “Something can be magical even if you can explain it,” Puddle defended.

  “You’re right. Sometimes it’s only magical if you can’t explain it. That type of magic is based on secrets.”

  “The mind is powerful. If you decide to look at something through a magical lens, then you will see the inherent magic. Just like you would see more ducks if you decided to look for ducks.”

  “Yeah. Science can explain the geology of a place, or how the body systems work together to create a generally functional machine,” I said. “Think of the air you breathe in. Your blood finds oxygen molecules, and carries them around. Too many, you die. Too few, you die. There is true art in that intricacy, and definitely a certain type of magic.”

  We scaled the granite tors. It was more like climbing on rocks than rock climbing, which was okay with me. I was a land creature, and liked to stay near the ground.

  We listened to the wind while sitting on top of rocks. I thought about the magic all around. I listened to the air molecules running into objects. It whistled around corners every now and then.

  I thought about the trees of Veorda. They had nobody to ignore them, who would then force their ideas upon them. They knew no chainsaws. They worked to include everyone.

  Their life-force was tangible.

  I thought about my garden, whom I infused with love. I heard the soil speak without words. Even in winter, I could hear the land that I loved dream. It had memories of green and growing. Those memories kept me going when the winds of March stole my breath and the ice threatened to never melt.

  I thought of the trees who would probably call me a sprout no matter what my age became. There would always be something to learn, some part of life to figure out, some reason to get up and try again.

  I thought of the soil in the conventional farm outside my town, and the time I snuck out to walk through the corn. They were in their neat rows, swelled up shiny with chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The soil felt lifeless beneath my soles. The microbes that kept plants healthy suffocated from the harsh nitrogen, and starved to death from the lack of composted plant matter. The groundwater was polluted from the need for more and more and more chemicals because the soil was dead. I thought of the dead zones in lakes and oceans caused by runoff from those fertilizers, where nothing could live because there was no oxygen left.