Puddlebrain

Chapter Thirty

Puddlebrain looked around, suddenly aware that threats could threaten from any side. The forest was a mass of grey on black. Anyone or anything could be hiding within its dark embrace. She knew she didn't have time for any of this. Her sisters, and the rest of the villagers, were quite probably dead. But if they weren't...

"If they're not, you're going to rescue them, aren't you, girly? You're going to plough right into you don't know where and do you don't know what."

The old man dropped to the ground. He fell with a complete lack of grace or care and should have hurt his backside with the force of impact. Instead, though, there was a muted whump, as if the ground had softened to receive him.

"Big brave impulsive girly that you are."

Puddlebrain took offence at being called 'girly'. So she was young, in witch terms. So what? She'd still lived a lot longer than any of the residents of Little Whimsy!

"Are you so sure of that, girly?" the old man cackled.

I wish you wouldn't do that! Puddlebrain thought angrily.

This was getting on her nerves. She didn't know, and right at that moment didn't care, who this old man was. She needed to get on! She'd wasted enough time sleeping when she should have been searching. The last thing she wanted was to be delayed for longer.

"Oh, tush, tish and cherry tomatoes. You don't know what you're going to do anyway, so doing it earlier or later wouldn't stop it being a great big mystery with lashings of uncertainty piled on for good measure, now would it?"

Puddlebrain moaned softly. She held her head in her hands, feeling helpless. He was right. She simply didn't know what she was to do. She had no idea where she was going. If she could work that out, she still didn't know what she could do once she got there. Playing it by ear just wasn't going to work!

"That's your problem, see?" he said. "You don't have the ears to play it by ear. You'd need to be a Lig or at the very least a Daintyfoot to be able to play anything by ear. You being you, I'd have expected you to play it by finger!"

He laughed hysterically at this, a joke so hilarious it seemed the whole forest was joining in. The trees quivered with mirth at the joke. It was one kick in the teeth too many for the witch.

She raised her hand and threw a spell at the old man. She didn't even know exactly which spell it was. She just hurled her finger at him in frustration. She wanted him to stop! The magic hit him right in the centre of his chest, a silvery gold swirl that lit up his features briefly. The glow dissipated, and he giggled.

"Do it again!" he cried. "It tickled!"

So she did. She raised both her hands high above her head and, as if crashing them onto the keys of an invisible grand piano, brought them slamming down onto the ground. Sparks leapt from her fingers, threatening to set alight the sparse grass that dotted the ground. The sparks became snakes, four of them, tendrils of silver that slithered to and fro across the hard earth towards the strange man. Once they reached him, the snakes spiralled up his legs, their crackling sounding not unlike hissing. They carried on up his body, weaving across the tired cloth of his muddy grey overcoat, and paused at his face. He opened his mouth slightly, as if taking a breath, and with a sharp snap, the snakes dived in. His head whipped backwards and Puddlebrain thought he was going to fall.

Ha! she thought. Got you!

The old man was unsteady for a moment. Puddlebrain could see the spell working inside him. The slithers of magic whirled around in his belly, their glow increasing in brightness so that it could easily be seen through his body and his clothes. Within seconds, his whole body was shimmering as the snakes became a concentrated ball of magic churning about inside him.

Then he burped.

The glow vanished.

He was standing still once more, no longer on the verge of collapsing.

"Yum. Chewy, with a hint of cinnamon!"

Puddlebrain sank to the ground. She slumped forward, resigned. What was she thinking? For the umpteenth-and-then-some time, she realised that she wasn't up to the task she had set herself. This time, however, she didn't think she had the strength to convince herself otherwise. She was feeling as if she was on a wagon with a dodgy wheel being drawn by a horse that had lost its mind three weeks last Thursday. The ride was bumpy and frenetic, and she didn't know if she could hold on for much longer.

"Oh fuddleduddle," said the old man. "Pull yourself together girly! You're worse than the Grimace on a cold Autumn day, desperately trying to hold on to the leaves that it knows are going to blow off!"

Puddlebrain stared at him. Who was he? Her mind was spiralling and she found it difficult to concentrate on anything, even the him.

"And," said the old man, "will you stop thinking of me as an old man! It's very demeaning, dontcha know. Just because I look like an old man and I sound like an old man, doesn't automatically mean I am an old man, now does it? You seem to think you're a witch, mighty and powerful indeed. Have we seen much evidence of that? I think not. You've bewitched an elm sapling into being your friend. A broomstick even. Hooray and lad-de-diddle to you. You convinced a few oaks, minor ones at that, on the outskirts of the Grimace to raise their branches to the sun – in the night. Not exactly great achievements, are they?"

He crackled his rattley cackle.

Puddlebrain sighed. Who did she think she was? She'd turned her only ally into a tree! How clever was that? Yes, so Billy was an annoying little pain in the posterior, but he was all she'd had. She toyed absently with a sprig of grass that had managed to push through the harsh earth into the clearing. Twisting it around her fingers, she felt just like that blade. Life was twisting her about its fickle fingers, and it threatened to pluck her at any moment.

"You know," the old man wheezed, "that would be almost poetic if it wasn't pathetic! Pull yourself together girly!"

"WHO ARE YOU!" she cried, the words punctuated with sobs. "JUST WHO... who are you?"

"Well then," he said. "Finally, a sensible question."