Bekka of Thorns

by Steve Shilstone

  “How? Why? When?”

  “I’ll carry ’em with us when we go to adventure.”

  “Go?”

  “We’re going, you and I are going into the W’s Three. We will search for Rumin!”

  “Leave the hedge?”

  “Yes, of course leave the hedge. We’ll be like Bandy of Legend. We’ll go and find a story and bring it back and I’ll write it down in the secret language!”

  “I can’t leave the hedge. Bendo dreen don’t leave the hedge.”

  “Bandy did. Aren’t you always doing what nobody ever did? Hopping in circles and reciting tales backward? Didn’t you just a nince ago suck chewed thorns up your nose? Remember when you knitted stockings to wear OVER your highboots?”

  “But those things were in the hedge. I’m not brave. I’m a cracked melon. You are the one who went to the hut. I’m the one who pretends to faint. If I went outside the hedge, I would not be pretending. I would faint for true.”

  “Look here, what if I tell you this? We might find our way to the Wide Great Sea. And if we do find our way to the Wide Great Sea, we might in some sort of way get across it to the Island of Acrotwist Clowns.”

  That was when I knew. Truth, I captured her to my dream. Karro’s most favorite stories of all of ’em were stories like The Repair of Fan Wa’s Clock or The Ledgemoon, stories with Acrotwist Clowns in ’em, so to say. I knew Kar’s most treasured hope was to see an Acrotwist Clown, even more to BE one, thusly such a better truth. She got quiet when I said “Acrotwist Clowns” and stopped tucking the membrane she was working. It snapped away from the rim and hung limply.

  “No one has ever walked into the W’s Three with highboots on the wrong feet and four tambourines sewn to the back of her jacket… No, five… The fifth chonka not sewn, but worn as a hat with ribbons tied under the chin to hold it in place. It has to be held in place, you know, otherwise it will fall off. And wouldn’t that look silly? I could walk on my hands up hills and have room to practice cartwheels without crashing into briar walls. I could hang my red gloves from my ears. Ear gloves. No one ever did that in the W’s Three, I bet….”

  I let her go on and on and on. I just nodded and smiled.

  Chapter Five

  Telling Zinnia

  Not too much later Zinna bounded into the shop and spilled a clatter of freshly forged chanks on the table. She tossed out a tale quiz as she wrestled into her jacket, which she’d used as a bundle to carry the chanks.

  “What about this one? Identify,” she said. “Crouching Mame.”

  “Ojums! It’s too easy!” piped up Kar. “Old Princess to the Dragon. She’s in the Gwer drollek tale about Lorelei Lo and the Dulcimer and the sprite, and there’s the witch, too, and Harold the Tooth when he was youngling Prince Hal. Such!”

  Zinna buttoned her jacket over her deeply blue shirt. She fisted her hands and perched ’em on her hips.

  “Your melon may be truly cracked, yet none of the tales leak out. Karro, you are a strangeness of marvel. Always have been, ever so, since long ago when you insisted on sleeping under your bed in the nursery while clutching a castoff highboot. That was the when where I thought Hmmmmm, that youngling could prove to be an interest of sort. Such became so, Silent Bekka, such became so,” rambled Zinna, sorting the chanks by size and thickness, thin wafer to full wafer.

  Zinna called me Silent Bekka because that’s what I was. Silent. I rarely spoke to anyone other than Kar. That is one of the whys of our friendship. Kar spoke enough for both of us. A truth. So to say, as Zinna and Kar continued to prattle at each other while we all worked, I bubbled inside, ready to boil over and announce our plan to Zinna. So I did.

  “We’re leaving the hedge,” I said.

  “What? What was that? Did you say something, Bekka?” asked Zinna. “Speak up. I can barely hear you.”

  “We’re leaving the hedge to find adventure,” I repeated, looking at Kar to increase the volume of my voice.

  “Now, what about that? Stain my socks and call ’em cakes, I think I heard what I heard, didn’t I?” she said to the ceiling. “Would you know it? The silent and the cracked are going to leave the hedge. Like Bandy, eh? Is that the so?”

  I nodded, and Kar giggled nervously.

  “Aren’t you scared?” asked Zinna.

  “After we find Rumin, we might go across the Wide Great Sea and visit the Acrotwist Clowns,” I blurted out quickly to bolster Kar’s courage.

  “Bekka of Thorns, I am stunned. Such a lengthy string of words from your lips to fall! Why, we hardly guessed you had a tongue! Well, so, how will you eat? Where will you find thorns? The W’s Three is a wasteland, not a play bower, you know,” said Zinna.

  “We know. There’s weeds, maybe thistles,” I muttered, uncertain.

  “Rumin, I wonder, ahhhh. The silent and the cracked. It might be so. I never did think. When are you leaving?” said Zinna, thoughtfully tilting her head.

  When? When? It became bramble real to me right there at that when.

  “Tomorrow morning,” I declared, again looking at Kar.

  “So quickly thus. Don’t you think that you better risk a short walk outside the hedge first to see if you can bear it?” asked Zinna.

  “I’ve already been to the Roamer hut and back,” I said proudly.

  That utterance knocked Zinna to the bench and left her gazing at the two of us with her mouth hanging open. I was talking. Kar was silent. Zinna was amazed. I finished reciting my morning adventure, aiming my words at Kar to keep my voice loud enough. I waited for Zinna to say some sort of thing to support us. Truth, I believed she would.

  “Then it is such,” she said at last. “A time of ripeness true.”

  She stood and went to the cupboards. She opened a drawer and brought out a little red box. She opened the box and lifted from it a sort of a cup, red with a hinged red lid. It was a strangeness. Never before had I seen anything like it.

  “A water wizard gave this to me,” whispered Zinna, “as payment for a festival chonka I crafted for him. He said I would know when to use it in a time of ripeness. When you, Silent Bekka, tell me that you have been to the Roamer hut and back, I believe it to be a truth. And what is more, as you spoke of your adventure, words leaped into my head.”

  “What words?” whispered Kar. Kar rarely whispers.

  “The water wizard’s words. Time of ripeness,” answered Zinna.

  “What does the cup do?” I whispered. When forced to speak to anyone other than Kar, a whisper was just about all I could manage.

  “It feeds bendo dreen who roam from the hedge. It is a bottomless cup of thorns!”

  She pried open the hinged lid and held out the cup to me. The thorns looked dry, undipped. I took one and tasted it. Bland. Not merely dry, but dusty dry.

  I must have made a face, because Zinna said, “They aren’t as good as fresh. But they’re only magic, so what can you expect?”

  Chapter Six

  Leaving

  Zinna served us bowls of capp melon soup with leafy shavings at the end of our long work day. I flinted some sparks in the bittem trough, and we dined in soothing green light. Zinna filled the air with gabble, remembering times and times when she herself had nearly thorned up the courage to adventure. Nearly, but never quite. Once, so said, with a full pack on her back she greeted a morning standing a simple step through the hedge from the open space of the W’s Three. She could not force herself to take that simple step. Couldn’t do it. She retreated to the shop, returned the magic thorn cup to the cupboard drawer, and never looked at it again until for truth she took it out and gave it to us, to Kar and me, to Cracked Melon and Silent Bekka. The cup in its red box sat next to my soup bowl. I studied it as Zinna gabbled, and when she paused, I spoke.

  “I will keep the cup in its box. I will carry the box in my pack’s outmost pocket. There it will be handy. Kar, you will be able to get at it with ease. Such,” I announced.

  “Silent Bekka!” said Zinna, amazed. “Listen to her spi
ll on like the Greenwilla River is said to flow. And she says she already has a pack! Youngling, you have been thinking and preparing quietly, haven’t you, all this time? I was going to offer you the use of my honey vendor pack, the one I secretly traded for so long ago when my courage almost didn’t fail. What pack have you?”

  “I gave a pouch of sugared thorns to Calvor Jems through the hedge where it meets the Villcom Wood. She talks to Kar and me sometimes. She told us once that she had a honey vendor pack in her root nest. I went back alone and asked if she would trade me the pack for thorns. I knew she loved sugared thorns. That’s why she agreed. I added the outvest pocket, sewed it on myself,” I boasted, remembering how long it had taken me to work up the strength to go by myself without Kar and speak to the Chalky Gray.

  My voice felt tired. I didn’t use it much, so said. Kar just sat there next to me with her mouth open, forgetting to pretend to faint or to drop her head into the soup or to turn her eyelids inside out. Zinna shook her head.

  “What a turn. So. I wonder how such a Chalky Gray youngling came to possess a pack. Osh! Never to mind. Don’t tell me. The time must truly be ripe. Look at ’em. Silent is noisy and cracked is subdued. Karro of Thorns, are you feeling well healthy?” said Zinna, placing her hand on Kar’s forehead.

  “Oh yes… I am… I will,” mumbled Kar vaguely.

  “Go to your nest bowers, younglings,” commanded Zinna. “Bendo dreen need their rest, and you two, most importantly so. A wander to the W’s Three! I will have a new sliver of story to share on Blue Day! All of us will await your return. You will return and tell us the story, won’t you? Oh, it will be a Gwer drollek, I’m certain!”

  “We’ll return,” I promised.

  “Oh, wait, yes! Bekka has a pack, but not you, my cracked melon!” shouted Zinna, jumping up.

  She attacked the cupboard and drew from its depths a sturdy honey vendor pack. Mine was better, though, newer. She gave the pack to Kar, who right away strapped it to the back of her head, cinching the tug lines across her eyes.

  “I’m the first ever to wear a pack like this, I bet,” she said.

  I felt happy. Kar was being Kar again. I picked up the red box, took Kar by the hand, and led her from the shop. I waved good-bye to Zinna, and she wished us luck. Kar’s tambourine chankled on her belt as we walked. Mine was still muffled. We arrived at Kar’s nest bower and huddled together for a time, trembling with thrill. I left soon enough, returning to my own bower. I looked at the dark shadows of my shelves and benches. I would be away for a long spell of time. Such was so. How could I sleep? I hauled out my almost fully loaded pack. The outpocket was empty. My earlier plan was to fill it with packets of jelly paste. Now no need! I shoved the red box filled with magic thorn cup into the outpocket. And yes, there so remained plenty of room for the books—the books! In they went. I pulled the strings tight, securing the flap, and tied ’em together into a knot bow. Night fell full dark, and I did everything by feel. I removed my highboots and curled down to sleep, knowing I never would. But I did! Bendo dreen DO need rest, even when they’re excited.

  Kar awakened me. She sat on me. I spluttered up. Through my bower hedge wall I saw the gray of dawn.

  “Get off! Let’s go! I’m ready!” I croaked.

  I rammed my highboots on, swung my pack to my back, grabbed Kar by the hand, and raced down the tunnel. I had to lead Kar, such so. She wore her pack the same way she had the night before, tug lines across her eyes. Her red Day gloves dangled from her ears, but her jacket was not covered with sewn on chonkas. Instead, her highboots were on the wrong feet, her jacket inside out. I stepped through the hedge on the W’s Three side, pulling Kar with me.

  “Lead me. I don’t want to see. Lead me,” said Kar in a shaky voice.

  “You’re the first one ever to leave the hedge like that,” I soothed.

  Chapter Seven

  Talking so as not to Notice

  What happened next was talking. We talked so as not to notice how small we felt in the great outside with no hedge ceiling to protect us. We talked to block our brains from worrying us into running home. Truth, we talked to hide from fear. I walked and talked and pulled Kar along. We passed up and over a hump of desolation that looked like a rotted capp melon rind. I talked loudly, but underneath I told myself if I looked back, I wouldn’t be able to see the hedge. Such a thought made me jerk on Kar’s arm, walk faster, and talk even louder.

  “This is nice, Kar! This is nice!”

  “I’m not deaf! I can hear through my ear gloves, you know. What’s so nice?”

  “This! It all! There’s dry mud and clumps of ragged weed. Plenty of rocks to do things with.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, such would… Boish! You’re the one who thinks of things to do! And you didn’t sew chonkas on your jacket like you said you would. Why not?”

  “I thought it was secret. I didn’t want to go chinka chankling down the tunnel waking everybody. And don’t tug so hard!”

  “Then unhitch the pack from your face! I can’t drag you all the way to Rumin by hand!”

  After I said that, all the bickering leaked out of us. We stopped and stood still. In front of us spread a vast plain of scrubby dirt and low rocky ridges, cracked mud, gray scrap weeds. I let go of Kar’s hand. She nudged her pack’s tug lines up from where they covered her eyes. She squinted at the brightness of sunlight rushing at us from the open sky. There we were, cracked and silent, away from the hedge and alone in the W’s Three.

  “Play your chonka, Bek, or I think I’ll faint for real.”

  “I didn’t bring my chonka. I left it behind on purpose. We are adventuring, and besides, I thought you’d bring yours. I thought you’d bring five of ’em.”

  “We have no chonkas! Wait, that might be good. We might be… We are! the first bendo dreen ever to leave the hedge WITHOUT chonkas! I’m not going to faint. I might dance instead! Let’s go! Which way shall we go? Let’s hop like Princess Lovey! Here, Bek, you wear one of my ear gloves. We’ll have ear gloves and hop!”

  “I’ll wear one of your ear gloves, but I won’t hop. Let’s have something to eat first. Aren’t you hungry?”

  “Yes, but not for those magic thorns. Licking the floor of my bower tastes better than they do. Let’s try some of those weeds. We might be the first bendo dreen to taste ’em. Fair truly clear, we will be the first bendo dreen wearing ear gloves.”

  “This clump?”

  “Such.”

  I broke off some brittle gray stalks with clumps of wrinkled nubbly withered dry brown leaves hanging from them. I taste tested. Kar taste tested. They tasted very much like fired rind chips, but with more saltiness.

  “So. Better than the magic tasteless thorns, don’t you think, Bek?”

  “Such is so, such is so.”

  “Do you really think Zinna is my mother?”

  Kar is Kar. She jumps around. You think you are talking along a trail when she suddenly slides to another bower. I am the only one who stumbles with her, taking no notice. The rest of ’em sigh and shake their heads. Kar can truly make oldlings blush green with annoyance.

  “Well, she is nice to you,” I said as I draped one of Kar’s red gloves over my left ear.

  We moved on, eating weeds. Kar hopped. I walked. And we gabbled, not now to hide our fear, but to gabble. We didn’t mind noticing the wide open desolation. Together we squinted in the brightness. We sought adventure in the W’s Three. We were outside the hedge and not afraid.

  Chapter Eight

  The First Wanderer

  We dug holes to sleep in at night. The sun baked our heads in daytime, such was so, even as we walked on icy crunch gravel. I decided to weave a sun blocker hat from the tough fibrous gray tufts of grass. Thus did the brightness bother me so. I pictured in my mind the hats of Cloverian honey traders, but made mine with a wider brim. While I worked at braiding lengths of grass, Kar played with lumps of mud she dug from the edge of a cold muddy sludge bog choked with w
hat I thought were probably gwinlods. That means ‘razor reeds’. They had sharp prickles. Kar shouted “Gwinlods!” when we first saw ’em. Truth, I agreed. Old Mondo’s Gwer drollek story of wanderers searching for Rumin was spiced with gwinlods, shardweg, and wenswag, so said razor reeds, mushworts, and lug vines. You must be careful walking on lug vines. They are slick. Thus is so. So said, to return to my thought, I wove a braided wide brim hat. Kar didn’t need one. She wore her pack on the top of her head and tied the tug lines under her chin. On the seven days so far of our wander in the W’s Three, we’d met no creatures other than each the other, and seen only high flying beeketbwen. That means ‘beeketbirds’. We’d traveled for a long enough time so such that Kar now wore her highboots on the proper feet and gave up hopping. Such very so, again, I wove a braided hat. I put it on and leaned back on the slab of rock where I sat to watch Kar pile mud.

  “What are you doing, Kar?” I asked.

  “I am the first bendo dreen to wander in the W’s Three and make mud piles with a pack tied to the top of my head,” she replied.

  She pretended to faint, falling face first into the mud. After a nince, she rolled onto her back and put her ear glove into her mouth.

  My next question for Kar went unasked, shut off in my throat, because right then there a thorn of shock stabbed me.

  A muddy, tattered, ragged creature rose from the razor reeds in the bog. It looked Boadlian. I could see blue skin where it was smudging its face clean with the knuckles of its hands. It opened wide round its common brown Boadlian eyes.

  “EVERYWHERRRRRRRRRR!” it shrieked.

  Kar sat up. I flinched down. Such was so.