Candy, Cranks and Cold Tea
PB
We made it back to the clearing. Will of the Feywild gave us a place to rest—a bunkhouse sitting right on top of Little Oak the Treant. Sleeping on a walking tree is a strange sensation, even for one who carries his home on his back. We shared the room with a floating oil can named Squirt. Apparently, he’s from Yawn, and Skabatha Nightshade has some “boggle oil” he needs. My shell felt rested after the night, but this forest is getting darker and more cramped by the hour.
On the morning of the third day, we marched toward Loomlurch. The forest there is thick and gloomy, like the air right before a swamp storm. We reached a root bridge over a stream that led straight into a candy market. Goblins everywhere, selling sweets from stalls. Their leader was a fellow named Chucklehead who wore an apple for a head (don’t ask me why, this place is mad).
I tried to be diplomatic, telling him we were friends of Crowa, while A started talking business models (who is he, really…?). Chucklehead didn’t care much for the talk, but he did mention the goblins originally came to rescue the chief’s daughter, Yvelda, before they got distracted by the candy trade (something about that story does not sit well with my shell). Anyway, he went off and secured us a meeting with Granny Nightshade herself, but warned us: don’t mention the crank in her back (what a strange warning)
We were walked into a sitting area with a table and chairs, and shortly after the hag her self entered. Skabatha Nightshade is a piece of work. She served us tea—cold, in dirty cups—and stirred it with a chicken bone she pulled out of her shawl. I’ve eaten some questionable things in the bogs, but even I wouldn’t touch that brew. She’s got a wind-up key in her back (ohhhhh, now Chucklehead’s warning makes sense) that ticks like a nervous heart. When B asked for what was his, she just snapped that they were hers now.
She wants us to hunt down Will of the Feywild for her (as if we’d do such a thing). Said he “belongs” to her (how dare she…my rage begins to simmer). A told her to retrieve him herself and just kept goading her and wouldn’t you know, when she got angry, that ticking in her back sped up until it sounded like a frantic drum. She tried to tempt us with posters—promising B his flight back or foolish things like the “heart of the one you love.” Suddenly, screaming! It was coming from the north. The hag told us to stay put and scurried off. (I think this was our signal!)
Of course, we didn’t stay put, but as we started to hold up our end of the plan, I felt myself restrained somehow by the chair I was in. A CHAIR?!?! Restrain me???? No, these chairs in the room turned out to be Mimics! Of all the things to sit on, it had to be something trying to eat me. It was time for glorious combat! We made short work of them, smashing them into firewood and M, unable to contain her battle-lust, busted through a door into the next room, a toy workshop.
We found three children there—Nell, Philomena, and Song. They told us more kids are scattered around this wretched place: the textile mill, the kitchen, and the bunkhouse. We told them to stay behind us while we pushed forward (there was no way we could leave them completely unattended). We found a room with a spiral staircase and six tiny dollhouse doors no larger than a scute of my shell. M tapped one open and a tin soldier jumped out (such a tiny soldier…). Now all the doors are open and a whole company of metal men have their eyes set on us.
Maybe I can sharpen my axe on them. Regardless, these tin soldiers are about to be scrap metal.