by Pete Prown
* * *
April 31st, 1722, A.B.
My Dearest Saoirse,
I hope this letter finds you well . My friend Toldir, of the Woodland elves, kindly said he would bring you this note on his next expedition to the Grey Mountains and I trust you’re holding it at this moment.
I have been home at the Perch for over a month now, but I still am mindful of our time together and how it has changed my life for the better.
I also want you to know that I’m also keeping Truckulus in my thoughts. He and I never found time to get to know one another, but I think we would have found common ground in time. As I suggested once, his actions came from an urge to protect you. (And that, m’lady, is as true a form of love as anything in this world. The boy loved his mother.)
As for me, the past few weeks have been quite a blur. My return to Thimble Down has involved one bit of news after another.
I spent much of the first day in my kitchen of the Perch, in the joyous company of my nephew Wyll Underfoot and his young friend, Cheeryup Tunbridge, who remains as sharp and brilliant as ever—this girl is bound for great things, mark my word.
We laughed merrily, even more so as a parade of visitors made themselves known to me, among them, my close friend Mr. Timmo (the metalsmith I told you of), Bedminster Shoe (our fine teacher and scribe), and even Sheriff Forgo, whom I hadn’t thought to see again so soon. Many tears were shed, but most of them in joy and fellowship.
The inestimable Mrs. Fowl down the lane gifted me several of her mouthwatering beef ‘n’ spring onion pies, as well as apple-crumb cakes for dessert. And as I had promised on the day my dreadful travails began, I brought up a small keg of applejack brandy from my cellar and we had a grand tipple later that evening.
Outside of my own journey in the East, life in the village of Thimble Down has been wildly tumultuous since my departure. The legal proceedings regarding my circumstances were enough to make one’s head spin, but suffice to say, my solicitors Darwinna Thrashrack and Tiberius Grumbleoaf defended me magnificently and forced all charges to be dropped.
There’s more—Darwinna has become our new Mayor, which is staggering news. The old mayor, a certain Tobias Grim –as shifty a bugger as ever walked our lanes—has been banished from the village and is now reputedly in the Port of Water-Down, plying some new nefarious scheme. Good riddance, I say.
The new Mayor has also recast several key laws, among them the right for Criminal defendants to have their causes decided by Jury, not solely the Magistrate. This would have changed my trial significantly, but then again, had I not been exiled, we would have never met.
Life is bittersweet sometimes, yet magical in its way.
Even more surprising was Darwinna’s announcement that she’s to wed. Sometime during my absence, the famously beautiful Barrister formed an attachment with the aforementioned—and well-named—Grumbleoaf and they are to marry on the first day of Summer.
As it turned out, the normally taciturn Tiberius is quite a poet in his spare time and his secret love sonnets to Darwinna verily stole her heart. (There’s talk of publishing his poetry in a volume of its own, and I may invest a few tuppers to underwrite the venture—in fact, I think I shall!)
Perhaps the most interesting chapter of my homecoming involved a late-night meeting in my burrow. ‘Round about midnight on one rainy night, I heard a knock at the door and was pleased to welcome Dalbo Dall, Sheriff Forgo, Timmo, and our tinker, Minty Pinter, for a quaff of wine and quiet talk by the fire. What I heard that night sent me reeling, but makes so much sense now. It has changed my understanding of the World.
As we know, rather obviously, I never killed Dalbo with my errant arrow—instead, he is a being known as the Heartwood. Incredulously, I asked him, “Why, oh why, were you lying on the ground whence struck with my arrow?”
With a giggle, he responded that heartwoods—like trees themselves—require certain periods of dormancy in Winter. He was merely taking a nap, he responded sheepishly. Even after we buried the poor fellow, he remarked that he was quite content and cozy sleeping under the soil.
When he finally awoke, he dug his way out and left for Fog Vale with a small army of trees—though some method of communication I can’t fathom, he already knew there was trouble in the East. That would sound absurd, had you and I not been in the Vale and observed the march of the forest ourselves.
It was even more astounding to hear Dalbo discuss the Wide Green Open, which he often refers to as “she,” as if it were capable of thought. Apparently, says the wanderer, she is just that and binds the natural world together most harmoniously. As a heartwood, his role is to be her emissary between the forest, its creatures, and we Halflings. Sounds preposterous, but from everything I’ve seen, entirely true.
Dalbo Dall wasn’t finished yet, oh no, as he shared with us some sad news and other that considerably brighter. He informed us that, despite his rather extraordinary abilities and role in the Wide Green Open, he had already been a heartwood for several hundred years. While my arrow didn’t kill him, the fact remains that his days are coming to an end—he is dying and will soon leave the Wide Green Open altogether.
We feel grieved over this news, as on the whole he’s a pleasing and amiable fellow I’ve known since my own childhood. Dalbo says he’ll starting turning into a tree himself, probably an elm, just like the Meeting Tree. That thought warmed us all.
Yet there’s more—when one heartwood dies, it is replaced by another. In this case, Dalbo reached out and put his hand on Minty’s diminutive shoulder.
“Minty, me pal,” he began, “Have ye ever had a strange feeling about the two us?”
Minty looked quizzical for a moment, but then nodded.
“Aye Dalbo, ‘tis true. It’s like we’re from the same stock. Folks even say we look alike—and certainly, no one would ever ask small fellers like us to pick apples from the top branch! We’re two short peas in a pod.”
“That’s cos, Minty, we be brothers, sprung from the same nut. I was once a Halfling like you, but other the years, my body has transformed into something more like a tree. And that will happen to ye as well—I don’t know any gentle way to say this, but yer the next heartwood, me lad.”
Minty’s mouth fell open and his eyes protruded, but subsequently he said, “Y’know Dalbo, somehow I always knew we wuz brudders and I had a destiny of some sorts. At least, beyond being a tinker all me days.”
Exclaimed his sibling, “Mark my word, ye shall be a grand Heartwood, Minty, I know it. Just watch out for Big Otto—he’s a naughty prankster! When ye go chat with him in the River Thimble, he’ll splash you or try to knock you in, and hen spend the rest of the day laughing and tellin’ them other fishies how he got ye all wet. Yet he’s always been a good friend and if something is amiss in the river, the pike will be the first to know.”
I added in that I had once caught Big Otto with my reel, to which Dalbo informed me that the fish got caught on purpose. He just wanted a look at me up close, as he’d heard Dalbo mention my name more than once, and actually had no intention of being taken home as my supper. Had I tried that, noted the wanderer, Otto would have slapped me in the face with his tail and leapt back into the river, perhaps taking me home for supper. Imagine that—a fish almost catching a fisherman!
And that, my lady, is all the news from Thimble Down. Everything is as it should be here. The moment Dalbo Dall returned to the village, the trees set their buds and the wide drifts of snowdrops and crocuses popped forth from the ground. It lent even more credence to his wild stories.
As for me, I think I’ve had enough adventures for the time being. My nephew Wyll will be turning thirteen soon and becoming a fine young Halfling, as is his most dearest friend, Cheeryup. They are thick as thieves, those two, and the school is thriving under the tutelage of Mr. Shoe. I have much to be thankful for, as well as fine friends such as Sheriff Forgo, whom I can never repay for coming to my aid.
Nor can I repay you, Saoirse, who riske
d so much to keep me alive and get me home again. You have my fondest gratitude and I shall never forget your kindness and company.
Now, if you will excuse me, I am roasting an herbed leg of lamb for a supper party, and need to peel the potatoes, bake a crumble pie, and shell a bucket of fresh peas. Oh, and I need to pick some Spring flowers to adorn the table—the first daffodils are up and I am rather mad for them. My life is back as it should be—dull perhaps, but I could get used to that.
Yet who knows, dear lady? I may get the urge to wander again and, if I do, I shall come visit the Grey Mountains for a cup of tea. You remain in my thoughts, as ever.
Yours with greatest affection,
Mr. Dorro Fox Winderiver
Bookmaster of Thimble Down
THE END
Written from April 1, 2014 to July 4, 2015
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