With nothing left to do but wait and listen he took out his tome and found a piece of graphite. He wasn’t sure what to add to his journal as he hadn’t taken the time to study spores and make new notes. He wanted to add something. He wracked his brain trying to come up with something, anything. The morning after leaving the burning splinters of his home he’d done nothing but tirelessly walk in the company of a faun and her witch friends from one disaster to another.
Before the arrival of Hoxley and the prince he knew nothing of witches. And now? A witch was all he had on his mind. Siouxsie, the bewitching girl with dirt on her face, bats in her cloak and songs on her lips. The words he wanted to use to describe her were bigger than his tongue or brain could handle so he set the tip of the graphite upon the paper of his book and let it fashion the first things he thought about; eyes, ears, nose, smiling lips, hair as black as coal with a silver stripe running from the brow. Lines on the page took control and painted an image greater than what he thought imaginable. Each of the marks and curls led from one into the other to paint the visage of a face he put above any other. When he licked the tip of his finger and applied it to the page he made shadow and smudge do his bidding. His hand took the lead and found the means to paint a glint upon the eyes, a pout upon the lips and even the wide brimmed pointed hat atop her head. And when his hand finally paused from its frantic pace, he found himself enraptured by the portrait he never knew he had the means to create. He blinked twice and shook his head as if to break up a daydream that had settled about his eye. And there, staring back at him from the page was the visage of the one person that could make him smile. Siouxsie. Every line was perfect. Every scratch of graphite had serendipitously found its exact perfect place in relation to the others to form a flawless portrait of his missing companion.
“I wouldn’t be so scared if you were here with your lightning.” He said, with a bigger smile. “I’d even take your sour brother at this point.” Delighted with the result of a talent he never knew he had, he took the picture in one last time, kissed the page and closed the tome before shoving it deep within his pack. The light in the sky hadn’t moved at all. Morell put his knees to his chest and pulled the blanket tight about him. He tried not to think about negative things or anything at all.
Then it happened…
What started as an awkward little twinge in his back began working its way up to his shoulders. It wasn’t painful like a limb falling asleep, nor was it like an itch. It was more of an uneasy sensation moving its way through muscles, contracting then easing one after another as it slipped through them like a liquid breeze. The feeling was neither troublesome or pleasurable as much as it was persistently present to let him know it was there with him. With no way to even identify what it was or what is going to do next, Morell rested his cheek upon the softness of the blanket and looked out upon the mirrorlike reflection of the bogwater. First there was nothingness, then Morell could hear the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears. It started faintly like a distant drum with its rhythmic *thump thump*…*thump thump*. Then it grew, and grew again, and again growing louder and more invasive until his head throbbed from the percussion of it all. Morell clamped his hands over his ears and pressed to try and make the pain lessen. The sound was deep and thundering like that of a hundred cyclops stomping their feet in unison to an invisible dance ritual. Louder and louder, faster and faster the thumps came. The boy thought his head might split like and egg from the thunderous cacophony. He pressed his head from both sides tighter and tighter to try and relieve the pressure. And then, just as fast as it had began…the drums were gone.
The sky became brighter. For a moment he thought the morning or midday sun might be trying to break its way through the mist. It was not to be. He felt exhilarated, almost out of breath merely from sitting still. At first, the thoughts in head seemed to leap from one topic to another about the type of soil around him and if it would be a good place to find mushrooms. After that his eyes fixated on the threads of the blanket around him. The stitching seemed to grow and magnify until the threads were as thick as the bands of wicker furniture he’d seen his grandfather create. His grandfather; the old man was long dead but a vivid image of his old wrinkled face seem to come melting through the blanket before floating like a ghost above it. Flashing memories of the home exploding into a huge plume of fire came rapidly one after the next to play over and over in his mind to torture him.
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“This is all your fault, you miserable boy.” The ghostly old specter growled at him.
“No, no it’s not!” he yelled back “Y-you attacked the prince and Hoxley defended him! It was wrong of you!”
“I needed the gold, you worthless little mushroom catcher.” Said the face, looking even more angry now. “I needed the gold to keep your fat little belly full because I was saddled with you.”
“I didn’t know!” Morell began to cry. “I didn’t know anything!”
“You don’t know anything at all, you stupid boy!” The ghostly face became more hateful and loud. “You play with your mushrooms while your chores go unfinished, and you’ve don’t nothing to put food in our pot! I toil to feed you, you ginger little burden, you!”
“You’re dead!” Morell shouted at the head to make it back away. “You’re gone and blown to bits! And you know what? I won’t go back to bury what’s left of you! I bet the animals and beetles have already helped themselves to what’s left! I’m on my own now! I have friends and we are doing good things!”
“But it won’t be enough to get the witch girl to like you.” The floating head said cruelly as he laughed at him. “You follow her so closely so intently thinking you have something to offer besides blathering and crying, you simple dirt child you!”
“I am NOT simple!” Morell shouted, tossing his blanket and jumping to his feet. “And Siouxsie is the most beautiful girl who ever lived! She’s magical and sings! All you ever did was regard me as a burden! I hate you, grandfather! I HATE YOU AND I’M GLAD YOU’Re dead!” The ghostly head continued to mock and laugh. So angry and out of his mind was Morell that he let his emotions get the better of him. It was a headful of wild blue mushroom that allowed rage to ultimately make a fool of him. Without thinking, he snatched up his pack and flung it at the face, expecting to shut it up. But to his horror, the heavy pack sailed cleanly through the face leaving it unfazed as the pack went plunging into the murky water far beyond. A sobering shock leapt though him as he realized the folly of his actions. He was about to chase after it but the exposed root of the bent tree next to him tripped him up, twisting his bad ankle once again. The pain was unimaginable and lying on his side he pulled the thrice wounded leg to his chest as the agony of his ankle crept through him. He cried and wailed with agony. When it subsided enough not to leave him shaking with pain, he got to his knees and crawled in the direction of where he thought the pack had landed. The dry ground gave way to water and he waded out into the nastiness.
The bog water was deeper here. So deep in fact that he couldn’t feel the bottom with his good foot. He paddled out a little further hoping to catch a glimpse of where it went down. The ripples created by him getting into the water unmade all the telltale waves by the pack’s impact and he quickly lost sight of the place where it had landed.
“No…no…” He panicked not being able to locate where it went down. “No, please where are you?” He paddled to keep his nose above the surface of the tepidness. The water was far too murky to see the bottom or even a few feet down. “Where is it?” he began to panic even more. “Where are you?” He stomached his disgust enough to take a deep breath before plunging down into the blackness. The inky depths seemed to have no bottom. Five feet, ten feet, twelve. There was no bottom to be found here. Low on air, he waved his arms overhead to push himself back up. He moved over a little to a different spot and tried again only to find the same result. Wherever his pack was, it was now out of his reach.
