Rubberband World 6 (Patreon)

I sure have missed this story. I hope you have too. You might want to look in the story index and re-read what I already had to catch up.

In other news, I'm headed off to visit in-laws and will be out of town for a week or so. Wish me luck.

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Gretchen trudged slowly up the path. The hill wasn’t particularly steep, but it did feel endless. In a way, climbing the hill felt a lot like plowing her fields—slow and steady work, chipping away at a task so enormous that it was best not to even think about it. She let her mind go blank, focusing only on keeping her hooves moving.

But soon, the invasive thoughts were back, and she couldn’t help catastrophizing. What if this was all a trick? If it wasn’t a trick, and it was really up to her to save the world, then how could she do it? She didn’t know the first thing about fighting. And she’d only brought a shovel? What sort of idiot goes off to fight a war armed with only a shovel?

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid!

Gretchen had been so focused on her thoughts that she didn’t even realize she was no longer alone. “Uh… Uh…” squeaked a youthful voice.

She spun the shovel about, gripping it too tightly in shaking hands, but she didn’t see anyone. So, she ducked her head and turned quickly back, but no one was on the path behind her either. Eventually, she looked up, and there on the branches overlooking the trail, a young squirrel’s face peeked out from where he crouched within the leaves. “What are you doing?”

Feeling safer, Gretchen lowered the shovel. “Minding my own business,” she grumbled under her breath.

She turned and walked away, but the squirrel scrambled across the branches until he clung upside-down to a trunk beside the road. “Hey!” he called out. “You’re going the wrong way.”

The donkey stopped, planted the butt of her shovel into the dirt and her free fist into her hip. She asked, “And how do you know which way I’m trying to go?”

The squirrel twitched his furry brown nose inside a circle of lighter fur. His black whiskers fanned and he adjusted his tufted ears. “Well, I uh … don’t?” he finally admitted.

Gretchen grunted at him and set off again. Once more the squirrel scrabbled across the branches to get ahead. When she stopped, he took a moment to readjust the green tweed vest hanging loose across his white chest. He raised a finger, pointing a long claw up into the canopy. “But the way you should be going is downhill!” he explained. “It’s almost moonrise. You’re never going to make it home if you don’t turn back now.”

She glanced back the way she had come and took a moment to think about home, about her farm, her family, and just how much she’d like to do just that. When she spoke, she found her throat wasn’t being cooperative, and she had to try several times before managing, “Yeah, I know.”

He tilted his head. “You don’t … want to go home?”

“Yeah, I want to,” said Gretchen, but kept her explanations to herself.

She shifted her weight to continue up the hill, but he stopped her almost immediately. “Hey, do you wanna see something neat?”

She wasn’t sure she did, but as she didn’t even know where to head next—apart from uphill—so she had to concede a little curiosity.

When she shrugged, the teenage squirrel grinned wide and gestured for her to follow. “C’mere!”

The donkey wasn’t about to climb into the branches, but the squirrel was careful to stick to the branches over more-or-less donkey-navigable paths. She held the limbs on either side and stepped carefully across thicker trunks, deeper and deeper through the tangle until finally they came to a ledge of shattered wood—a stump maybe fifteen feet across broken long enough ago for the wood to age grey.

The squirrel hopped down on the stump and started to walk toward the edge, but then he paused. “Uh… You’re not afraid of heights, are you?” he asked.

“What?”

“Heights. Are you afraid of being high up and looking down?”

Gretchen thought about it briefly. “Maybe?” she admitted. “I think everyone’s afraid of falling to some extent, right?”

“Donkeys, yeah,” he agreed. “You guys are sure-footed and good at walking narrow paths, but I don’t think any squirrel is really afraid of falling.”

He took a seat on the stump and patted the wood beside him.

With a nod, Gretchen stepped down to the stump, then lowered herself to her knees and then hip. “No?” she asked. “You don’t ever worry about falling?”

“Nah, not really,” he said. “Everyone falls from time to time. If you get lucky, it’s a minor fall you can bounce back from.”

Her long ears pulled back in concern. “And if it’s a major fall?”

The squirrel shrugged. “No point in worrying about those.” He offered a slender, long-fingered hand. “Basil.”

She took his hand and gave it a careful squeeze. “Like the herb?”

“What? No,” said Basil.

“Oh, that’s a shame. I’m rather fond of it.” With a smile, she added, “I’m Gretchen.”

“Well, Gretchen,” he said, “with this being your time here and all—I’m guessing—and with not being a squirrel, you should try rolling over onto your stomach and then crawl forward until you can see over the side. You’ll be perfectly safe.”

The Poitou nodded and set her shovel aside, then did as he said. She crawled slowly, feeling her fingers through the heavy leaf-cover until she found the stump’s edge, then she crawled beneath the leaves and pushed them from her face.

And the world opened up.

From her vantage point, she could see endless sky but not like she’d seen before. Even standing at one edge of her fields and gazing out, the sky ended in the woods beyond her farm. Blue sky tucked in behind green trees, but it ended, it didn’t fade away.

Here, the blue faded into grey at the horizon. Not a winter grey, where the clouds hid the sky but a … well, a grey she’d never seen before. It was almost as if the sky ran out of blue at the farthest reaches of her vision.

Beneath the sky, the land too was as she had never seen before—vast stretches of green without any detail. Forests reminded her of rolling stretches of wild ginger with cupped leaves elbowing each other for a view of the sun. The fields were brown and the furrows looked more like a texture than grooves in the soil. The buildings in the town looked like little toys, the people like ants.

“Wow,” she whispered, letting the sounds linger on her lips. Being so high up felt a little scary, but not too bad.

Basil pushed the leaves aside and took a seat on the edge. Gretchen turned away. Laying on her stomach felt safe, but sitting on the ledge? No way. That seemed like a pointless risk. Even watching him do it made her queasy.

“I’ve never met an adventurer before,” he sighed, sounding wistful. “I wish I was that brave.”

Gretchen perked an ear. She turned her head to look at him and immediately regretted it, turning back away. She covered the scare with a cough. “Why? Do you want to stay down on the world after moonrise?”

“Well, yeah, kinda,” admitted Basil. “It must be such a thrill!”

She shrugged. “I’m sure there’s adventures out there, but not so much on my farm,” she explained. “Harvest time is pretty exciting—lots of hard work trying to get it all in on time. Afterwards, the town bursts with celebration. So much music, laughter, dancing…” She thought about dancing with Richard and the words dried up on her lips.

“No! I mean adventure!” he groaned. “Swords and monsters and haunted manors and all that.”

“Well, maybe out there somewhere,” she said. “Not in Hilldale.”

Gretchen tapped his thigh gently with her fingertips, afraid of pushing him off the edge. “If you want adventure so badly, then why are you here?” she asked. “Why not go and seek it out?”

She risked a glance his way long enough to see him shrug.

“Nah,” said Basil. “I’m sure it would be fun and all, but I don’t care for the ‘never to return’ part of the bargain.”

The donkey nodded. “Yeah, my brother left to find adventure on the band. He never came home either.”

“So, you’ve come to find him?” asked Basil.

Gretchen didn’t want to talk about the prophecy, her real reason for coming, but he’d given her as plausible an excuse as any. “I’d love to find him,” she said, concealing the truth with more truth.

She asked him, “Don’t want to seek out adventure on the band? Or does legend say no one ever returns from that either?”

“Perhaps, I might … someday,” he said with a grin. “Where are you going to look for your brother?”

“The nearest town, I guess. It’s as good a place as any to start,” she explained. “That would give me a chance to get my bearings, form a plan. I was in a bit of a hurry and didn’t want to miss moonrise.”

A low and sinister rumble thrummed through the band, shaking the leaves and shushing the birds. Everything fell silent.

“Ooh! Look down! Look down!” said Basil, bouncing excitedly in place. His tail twitched with a fury.

So, Gretchen looked down, and but a moment later, the world fell away.

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Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1s_F01HlfN435Rop1ex1ZUYoOTk_5AuAaaSZs07ExWyM/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?