Grub stage is the third in a trilogy of novelettes by Ima Erthwitch. Set in the Ozark Mountains of northwest Arkansas. Progress has been undeniably slow, but I am hoping to keep the words flowing this year so I can get this book finished. You can find the other two books in paperback at Amazon, and ebooks anywhere ebooks are sold. The titles are First Hunt and Second Hit.
- It’s been more than a year since my last update here, and I apologize! For many reasons I’ve been stuck and haven’t been writing fiction. It’s time to get past the block and get on to finishing up this trilogy.
- These are unedited posts of working draft. If you see mistakes, I’m happy to hear them. And if you’d like to be a beta reader, email me and let me know and I’ll send these chapters to you by email for feedback: .
Chapter 7
Defending the Maidenwood Tree
I shoved the empty bags back into my pocket and pulled the drawstring tight on the one bag full. The bags were so small, it only took a few roots to fill one. Before I could follow suit with it, though, Aada stopped me.
“Wait! You need to ask the messengers if they’re willing. Did you do that?” She was visibly distressed at the blank look of confusion on my face. The question didn’t need to be asked. She knew I had no idea what she was talking about. The little being sucked in a breath and expelled it so hard and loud, the wind from it tickled the hair on my neck and I shuddered. It caused her to have to crouch down and hold on. When it passed she stood and stomped her foot down onto my shoulder.
“Hurry. We don’t have much time. Take the roots out and lay them in your hand.”
I opened the bag again and dumped the roots as ordered. Each one was living, dormant for the winter, with a plump red bud at the tip end of the root waiting for spring to arrive. Roots on open palm, I showed them to her even though I knew she could already see them from her vantage point.
“What now?” I asked. The situation was beginning to annoy me. First we needed to hurry back, now we had to stop and do this thing. And it needed to be hurried too. All the hurry and mystery, with no explanations was too much.
She put her hand to her head. “You mean you don’t know?”
Now she was truly distressed and began turning circles and talking to herself.
“Aada, tell me what to do.” I demanded. She stopped circling.
She threw up her hands. “Ask them if they’re willing to be sacrifices for you.”
I looked at her dumbly. She grew agitated. “Hurry!”
The eye-roll couldn’t be helped. “Okay. Bloodroot sleepers, if I need you to do so, will you be my willing sacrifices?” I looked over at Ada. “Happy?” Her eyes didn’t roll but she glared at me.
“What do they say?”
To this, I pinched my lips shut and closed my eyes. This was ridiculous. But I tried to quiet my mind to receive an answer. They felt happy enough to do so to me, and I told her so.
“Okay. Put them back in the bag. Put the bag in your pocket and DON’T LOSE THEM. Let’s go. And hurry.”
Probably not as quickly as Ada had wished I had, I got the bags back into my pocket and turned back towards the tunnel entrance. There wasn’t much light emanating from the other end anymore, but it was enough to barely see by. The light on this end was getting pretty dim, too.
“What’s the big hurry?” I asked her as I quickened my pace. “Other than it’s going to be too dark to see if we don’t head back now.”
Ada audibly sighed, a breath large enough from a tiny little thing like her to cause the hairs on my neck to tickle. It was a restraint I didn’t know I had to smooth my neck hairs down without slapping her in the process.
“There are things that want to claim the tree. We need to stay close to it at all times, but this was necessary. These roots are necessary.”
“Things? What kind of things?” Now I was becoming a bit concerned. Ledeir didn’t mention ‘things’ when she left me there alone. “She left me to defend that tree against something? Alone?”
Now Ada harrumphed. “You’re not alone,” she said. Indignation rang in her tone.
“Sorry. I’m glad you’re here. But tell me about the things you’re afraid of.”
She sighed again, quieter this time. “I’m not afraid of them. But you should be. It’s you the shadeling will challenge, not me.” She shook her straw-like hair, causing the tiny beads hanging on the ends of the few braids mixed in to rattle against each other. “He might not come. But if he found out that Ledier left, then he’s probably already there.” She nodded her head at her own comment. “He’ll be waiting for us when we return.”
My heart began to race a bit. I didn’t say anything for a few steps.
“Then, why did we leave?” I asked after I regained my composure. “Ada, why did you want me to go get these roots?”
“Oh,” she said as she tossed her beaded straw hair. “If we hadn’t, it would be much worse for you without the roots when he came.”
I let out my breath. Oh, that was much better. Great. Just great. Stuck guarding a tree from a thing called a shadeling with only a handful of roots. This was going to be spectacular, I just knew it.
“Thanks a lot. We should have never left the other side,” I said as we approached the squeezing invisible tendrils that announced the changing of dimensions. We’d exit my world and enter what I’d begun to think of as the ‘Maidenwood’ portal, rather than the Van Winkle portal. And I derided myself for thinking it would be easy to just go pick up a tin of curare this way. I made a mental note to give an earful of expletives to Cory, or whatever his name was, if I ever got to see that man again. Good guy or not. I wasn’t so sure of my original assessment of him now, anyway.
“Is there anything I should know about this creature?”
“Oh sure. He can’t stand the sun, but that won’t be a problem for him in the shade of the Maidenwood tree. So, maybe not so useful. Hmmm,” she mused. “Let’s see. Well, don’t let him touch you – and don’t you touch him. Nothing good comes of that.”
“Okay, no touchie. Got it. Anything else?” I surely hoped there would be more. Combat would prove difficult without touching him. The squeezing effect of the portal became more intense and each step became harder to make. We were close to the exit/entrance now.
“He’ll ask you questions to gauge your level of wisdom,” she added. “You might do well at that.”
“Thank you?” I couldn’t tell if it was an insult or a compliment. “So… what happens if he touches me?” Ada had left that comment hanging without expounding on it, but I hadn’t quit thinking about that.
She tilted her head from side to side and shrugged a little, not in disagreement, but as if she were trying to decide how to phrase her answer. “You won’t survive if he touches you, okay? Depending on whether you passed his ‘wisdom’ test, he may or may not keep one of your teeth.” She nodded briskly, as if she’d agreed with herself that she’d phrased it correctly.
Not because of the molasses air surrounding me now, I slowed a little more.
“I reeeaaallly think that’s something someone should have told me about before leaving me to do this job,” I said. I had the sinking feeling that this guy would definitely be there waiting for me when we returned.
Abruptly, Ada asked, “Do you feel his hooks, yet?” She glanced quizzically at my face.
“I don’t think so. What are they supposed to feel like?”
“They’re like thoughts that make you want to do something you might otherwise not have thought of doing. It’s a sort of thrall they can do. Maybe you’re not receptive to them, so that’s good.” She was so matter-of-fact about this whole situation.
“I take it you’ve dealt with shadlings before?” I’d resumed my pace, and put a little extra oomph into it so we could get this over with. Ada nodded in reply to my question.
“Okay, then. I may need some help, because I haven’t a clue what I’m dealing with here.”
“I’ll stay right here and talk you through it,” she said and patted me on the neck. “Ledier is receptive, but she recognizes the hooks for what they are, so she was able to deal with him. That’s how she became the guardian for the tree. She took it over from the shadeling she encountered.”
When we stepped from the golden hour of evening into the moonlit darkness on the other side, it knocked me aback for a minute. Yes, we were in the same location, so my fears of whether the portal would deliver me to the same spot twice was unfounded. But obviously more time had passed here than on the other side.
Nothing jumped out to attack. A breeze rustled the leaves and I tried not to jump. Feeling jittery, I patted my pocket to reassure myself the roots were still there. Finally to the hidden cottage door, I opened it and stepped inside. It wasn’t pitch black, but only because of the luminescent mushrooms growing around the periphery on an earthen shelf overhead. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
“What a great idea”, I mused out loud. Ada clambered down my arm and leapt onto the table.
“It is, isn’t it,” she answered smugly. “That was my idea,” she said. “And it looks like we made it out and back again before the shadeling sensed our absence. Good job!”
I nodded in silence, appreciating the ambient glow and satisfied in an odd way for the encouragement from my new little friend. With any luck, Ledier would return soon and I could get back on task with my job. There was the unfinished business of Avery, my target in the third incarnation. I didn’t know what came after that, but I was ready to find out.
So, there are three names I’m known by. I’m a writer (Ima Erthwitch), artist (Madison Woods), and real estate agent (Roxann Riedel) living in rural Madison county, Arkansas. I love nature, gardening, and wandering. My main website is wildozark.com and the real estate is at wildozarkland.com.