Lucas Lanthier
The Strange Death of Silly Jack-Tumble
In the forest, south of a field of buttercups and purple clover (buzzing with bees and standing up straight in the sun), there were three young ladies, not as tall as salamanders. They were seated on a stone in the dappled shade, and there they sang and there were times, in between the honey and the moonlight that sprung forth from their sonnet, that you could see their wings. Before them, a brown-bristled boar was eased back on his haunches, watching and listening and smiling at them. He was an appreciative audience and he grunted at all the right moments, when the song waned, and lolled his tusks in time to every chorus and refrain. And when the music stopped he rose to his four hooves, stamped the earth with happiness, and trotted off to look for grubs under rotting bark and leaves. The three young ladies laughed and waved him goodbye and then flew in circles until they were swallowed up by the leaves overhead. Once hidden in the branches and twigs, they held hands and whispered to one another like this:
“My darlings, that fat little boar was a-twinkling!”
“He fell face-first in pollen!”
“He fell in with our Jack late yestreen and today! They spent half the time feasting and half the time fey! Jack rode him out to the village of Hethe and they scared Bickers, his wife, and their child half to death!”
“And then they came back through a stream of snow tears!”
“Dripping and worn…”
“And brought sneezes to young Bluebell Cob, hardly born!”
But then they were surrounded by laughter, and the leaves shook and shivered around them. The three young ladies screamed and laughed back, for there was their Jack, on a branch, on his back.
“So, look at me, little ones! The naughtiest sprite in the sun, in the night! But Bluebell stopped sneezing, and Bickers found sleep once again… Can I help but be merry? I won a smile for myself and my boar, from a nighttime of ennui and dew drop collecting… and this morning is butter-rum and honey beer from pointed ear to pointed ear!”
And with that he was gone, down to the earth and beyond, away to the heather and thyme and the moss beds, strewn with spiders, of the inner forest. And the three young ladies wondered at his audacity! But they soon found a dragonfly who wanted a song and their Jack was away and they wrapped themselves in music once more.
But down below, in the dirt between roots and low-growing ferns, a fire newt stared up and up at them and ran his tongue over his eyes. He had listened to Jack and the three winged maidens, and now he scurried off and under the trees, wisps of red flame burning around him. He crawled fast and determined, and he hissed with each step, “With a brown-bristled boar I shall be very well-met!”
Hours and years and days and months later, in the evening and when the sun fell away, Jack was cross-legged and scowling on a boulder. He sat there blinking and showing his teeth like a beast, and he grunted and howled at each new aspect of dusk. Finally, when the moon was up and the brown bats were tumbling after bugs overhead, he was joined by Erobon, his Lord, who wore lichen and bark, as in battle, and whose long, white cheeks shone with tears.
“Thou art scowling, Jack-Tumble, Jack-Tongue! And why dost thou wipe the stars with thy screams?”
“My screams and your tears, Lord,” said Jack, half-afraid. “We’ve both lost our merry, and tonight, with these clouds, she is very well hid! But my scowls are for Death, and his arrogant stride. He has taken my boar, my stout-snouted friend! He’s been burned to a crisp, calcined and blackened!”
“I know it Jack, and I fear for thy skin. It may be charred before long, for Death is one friend I’ve ne’er turned from our wood, though it pained me to welcome him. ‘Twas a fire newt that rendered thy boar into ash and cracked bone. And he came from Old Bickers, off and away up in Hethe, bought from a gypsy called Mol Lillibeth. Her art is revenge, and Bickers paid dear for her services. His child is dead and the night she rode forth, he spied you by her bed! My Jack-Merry is sought for the murder of infants, and the newt will not stop ‘til thou art melted.”
“The infant is dead from Billy Goat Pox! My jokes cannot kill, though it be my most-earnest will!”
“The newt will not end his search for my Jack, but Bickers has sent an alternate death with his assassin. He and his wife would call back the newt, would a child come to them with the waning of the old moon.”
Jack scowled and hissed and spun into the night, and Erobon wept at the loss of his sprite.
Hours and years and days and months later, Old Bickers, up in Hethe, watched his wife and their child. The babe had come in the night, fussing and smiling, and he grabbed at their fingers and laughed at the dry paper sounds of their tinder wood voices. His hair was black and ramshackle, and he winked at the moon.
“We’ll have to watch this one,” she said. “He’s too clever, too soon!”
“Let’s call him Jack,” said Old Bickers. “It’s an appropriate name.”
And the child sang a windsong in quiet refrain.
Home