Chapter 13 Our First Act of Homemaking

We divided our desperate labor.

“I will look for medicine,” I volunteered, “My Dada, Kaka, he taught me. Goblin medicine. It draws out fever. A paste numbs pain and seals wounds. Fight the rot-spirit in deep cuts. I will find the herbs. Pain goes away. Feel much better.”

Muddy, leaning against a cypress knee, raised a weak hand. 

“I know the belly of this place. Grubs here are fat and white, living in the soft pulp of fallen giants.” 

He pointed to a massive, half-submerged log.

 “The snails that cling to the reeds, their shells are hard, but the meat inside is sweet. Grub and Grill, we have to turn logs, to pull at roots. You come with me. We find what fills the aching belly. We will not feast, but we stop the gnawing.”

 Snag spoke next.

 “A home. It must be dry, or dry enough. A solid ground, maybe a hummock of roots and packed mud. Hidden from the open water, where bigger things might swim. A place we can dig into, make a burrow like… like before, but better. Hidden by the hanging moss. We will look for such a spot. A place that feels like it wants to keep a secret.”

The plan was set. A fragile hope.

We split apart, melting into the green-grey gloom of the swamp. Each of us searching for a different key to our collective survival in this new, stinking, promising hell.

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A few hours later, I returned first, my arms cradling a damp bundle of herbs. I’d already chewed a bit of herbs into a paste and smeared it on the worst of my cuts; a cool, blessed numbness was spreading, muting the fire.

Next came Muddy. Behind him, Grub and Grill wobbled slowly. Grub carried a section of sodden, pulpy log, its interior crawling with fat, white grubs as long as a finger. Grill held a smaller bundle of broad leaves, inside squirmed several large, slime-coated swamp snails and two massive frogs. Over Grill’s shoulder was a drag-bundle of thick, tuberous roots, dug from the soft bank, their ends oozing a milky, starchy sap. It wasn’t a feast, but it was more food than we’d seen in a week.

Finally, Trog and Snag emerged.

“We found it,” Trog whispered, “A home.”

Snag took over, “A big island of hard ground, like a turtle’s back in the middle of the soft suck-mud. On it, a giant black stump, rotten through the middle, a ready-made hiding hole! The roots are like walls, like a fortress. But… The path to it… you must know it. Step wrong and the soft mud will take you to your chest. It is a trap for the heavy, the careless. For us, who are light and can learn the path… it is a moat. Nothing big will cross it. They sink.”

Finally, Trog and Snag led us the last few dozen paces to their discovery. It was a fortress of decay. A massive, ancient tree stump that rose from a stable island of hard-packed peat and tangled root matter. All around it, however, the ground fell away into a deceptive bog of soft, sucking black mud. A natural moat. The only safe path to the stump was a narrow, winding ridge of firmer ground, invisible to any eye that didn’t know to look for it.

From a nearby tree, Fort half-fell, half-slid down. He had been our lookout.

 “The water is clear of big swimmers near us, yes. But there is a deep, still water far away. I saw a long, dark shadow drift through it, big as a log but moving against the current. We should mark that place as forbidden."

He drew a quick line in the soft dirt with a stick.

 “Good things: a vast stand of cattails, taller than two Grubs. Good for bedding, and the roots are edible. Between here and there, the ground is firmest.”

He added another mark. 

“Beyond the sucking bogs, the land rises slightly. There are berry bushes. The kind with thorns, but birds were eating them, so they are tasty. A few hours careful travel for gathering when we are stronger.”

He looked up, meeting our eyes.

 “Most important: I saw no smoke. No cut stumps. No paths but those made by animals. This part of the swamp… it is forgotten. Humans do not come here. The air smells of rot and life, not of metal or fire.”

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We dragged our broken bodies across the hidden path and into the lee of the great stump. There, in the cathedral space formed by its soaring, rotten walls, we performed our first act of homemaking: we ate.

We cracked the snails on rocks, slurping the firm, sweet meat from the shells. We popped the fat grubs into our mouths, savoring their rich, nutty burst. We gnawed on the fibrous, juicy roots, the milky sap coating our throats. 

It was a silent feast. No one spoke. The only sounds were the crunch of shells, the soft pops, and our own ragged swallows. When it was done, we simply fell where we sat into the soft, dry leaf litter at the base of the stump, our hollow bellies now a comforting, heavy ache.

Before the exhaustion could fully claim me, I crawled to each of my friends. Using a flat stone, I mashed the herbs into a thick, sticky paste, just as Kaka had shown me. I smeared the cool, greenish goop onto the worst of Grub’s bruises, over Snag’s split lip, onto the angry, swollen welts around Fort’s neck from the rope. Finally, I rubbed the last of it into my own throbbing ribs and the fiery pain in my groin. The relief was immediate, a blessed dulling of pain.

I collapsed next to Grub, my back against the solid, rotten wood. We didn’t huddle for warmth; the swamp night was hot. We simply lay together in a scattered constellation of battered green bodies under the first stars prickling through the canopy, the chorus of frogs and insects sounded like a lullaby.

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The next morning came with a trickle of energy.

We woke slowly, groaning, stretching. The desperate, breath-stealing agony had receded. Our bodies were still a landscape of spectacular pain, every bruise a purple continent, every muscle a knotted rope, but the swelling had eased just enough. We could move without the world swimming. We could stand without immediately falling.

We looked at each other in the grey swamp dawn, our eyes meeting over our still-ravaged bodies. No one smiled. But the helplessness was gone. 

“My head… still rings,” Trog said, “Like a bee lives in there now.”

“My ribs,” Snag whispered, “They poke when I breathe deep. But… less than yesterday.”

Grub took a deep breath, a low rumble in his chest.

 “Everywhere. Is one big ouchie. But the paste… it makes it a sleepy ouchie. Hermit’s medicine is good medicine.”

 The swelling was going down. We would heal crooked, maybe, Snag’s ear would never sit right, Grub’s nose was a flattened lump, but we would heal.

 “The big aches… they hurt a lot. But pain of losing hatchlings… that hurts more. That is a hole no paste can fill.” Muddy said.

It was true. The memory of their tiny, desperate faces, of the sounds they made when they hit the ground, of the terrible silence after, it was a cold stone in our guts, colder and heavier than any bruise. 

Grub let out a long, slow breath that was almost a sigh.

 “We carry them. In our hearts. We carry them with us.”

It was all that could be said.

Then, Grill looked up, squinting at the open sky above our stump-cavern.

 “Big dirty clouds gathering above us. Rein will come. Sky is open. We get wet.”

We all looked up. He was right. Our new home was a bowl with no lid.

“We cover,” Snag said, "Find big leaves. Skin of trees. Weave sticks. We make a roof."

“Do we dig?” Trog asked, “Deeper down? Like a burrow?”

Grub shook his head, then winced. 

“Ground is wet. Dig down, find water. Bad. We stay up. On the hard root. We make walls with mud and sticks inside the stump. Like a nest in a big bowl.”

Then came the biggest question, hanging in the air like the coming rain. Fort put it into words, his eyes on the distant stand of cattails he’d scouted.

“What… what do we do now? Do we… live here? Like a… a place? A goblin place?” 

“Do we make more…” Muddy said, "More eggs? More little ones?"

I looked around at their faces, scarred, weary, but alive.

 “We camp,” I said, "We camp here. We make the roof. We make the walls. We learn the swamp. We find the best grubs, the sweetest snails. We make the quiet place inside us… less loud. We make this stump a good camp. A safe camp. And then… when the camp is strong, and our hearts are not so hurt… we can think about what comes next. A village… or just a good camp for us.”

Grub gave a firm, single nod.

 “Good. First, roof. Then, more food. Then… we see.”

The sky, which had been a flat grey, turned the color of a fresh bruise. A single, fat drop splatted on Snag’s broken nose. Then another. Then a dozen.

“Falling water is here! Roof! We need roof! NOW!” Grub shouted.

We scrambled out of our stump-bowl like startled beetles. We dashed for the broad, waxy leaves of the giant swamp lilies, tearing them from their stems. Trog and Fort scuttled to pick sturdy stick. Grub and Grill began wrenching long, flexible vines from the trees, peeling them free with wet, tearing sounds.

The rain was no gentle shower. It thickened quickly into a downpour, and then into a punishing rainstorm. Each drop felt like a small, cold pebble thrown from the sky. They struck our backs, our shoulders, our already blackened and bruised scalps with a painful pit-pat-pit-pat that was horribly familiar. The sky itself was now beating us, soaking into our wounds, washing precious medicinal paste away in muddy green streaks.