Willodeen

Part One

The little creature appears late one afternoon on an old carousel in the village of Perchance.

She is propped, dazed and damp as a newborn, on the saddle of a wooden unicorn.

She blinks, then blinks some more.

She makes a noise, a sort of squeaky growl.

Her breath comes and goes in tiny gasps and sighs. Her furry paws move when she tells them to. Her head turns this way and that.

She seems to be in fine condition.

But where is she? And more importantly, why is she?

She pats the neck of her lifeless steed. Perhaps she should wait here. Yes. That might be the best thing to do, under the circumstances. She does not know herself well yet. But she seems to be a patient sort. And patience, she suspects, might serve her well, might even save her life.

The creature has a maker, a boy with nimble fingers and a tender heart. He’s spent hours weaving weeds and thistledown in the milky moonlight, spinning her into existence.

She has a friend as well, a girl with sharp eyes and a stubborn soul. And though the girl is young, she understands things that others do not.

The creature on her wooden horse knows none of this, not yet.

She does know, all at once and with great certainty, that she is quite alive, and quite alone.

CHAPTER

ONE

Once upon a time, when stones were soft and stars were bits of dust, I loved a monster.

It seems forever ago, and perhaps it was, though things weren’t really so different. True, magic was gentle then, and plentiful. But it’s always there, if you know where to look. The moon, after all, still smiles from time to time, and the world still spins like a dancer through the skies.

In any case, the whens and wheres don’t much matter.

The earth is old and we are not, and that is all you must remember.

CHAPTER

TWO

I suppose I always loved strange beasts. Even as a wee child, I was drawn to them.

The scarier, the smellier, the uglier, the better.

Of course, I was kindly disposed toward all of earth’s creatures. Birds and bats, toads and cats, slimy and scaly, noble and humble.

But I especially loved the unlovable ones. The ones folks called pests. Vermin. Monsters, even.

My favorites were called screechers. They screamed at night like demented roosters, for no reason anyone could ever make out.

They were grumpy as tired toddlers. They were sloppy as hungry hogs.

And—I guess there’s no nice way to put it—they stank to high heaven.

Get one riled, and he’d slap his big tail and give off a stench as ferocious as an outhouse in August.

And screechers were almost always riled.

That’ll happen when people are constantly aiming arrows your way.

Screechers had needle-sharp teeth and dreadful claws. They had wild green-and-yellow eyes, two curlicue tusks, and more drool than a dog at dinner. They weren’t big. About the size of a baby bear, I guess you’d say. Their bristly fur was plum-colored, and their tails looked like burnt flapjacks covered in quills.

I was the first to admit that screechers weren’t exactly charming. But I had a soft spot in my heart for them nevertheless.

I’m not sure why. Maybe I knew a thing or two about being unlovable myself. Maybe when the whole world was marching one way, some ornery part of me started shouting Go the other way, Willodeen.

You’ve just got to root for the underdog, don’t you? And it sure seemed to me that screechers had always been the underdogs in nature’s plan.

Although rooting for cute puppies would have been a whole lot easier.

Anyway. That’s how it was.

It’d take someone a whole lot smarter than me to tell you why we love what we love.

CHAPTER

THREE

I saw my first screechers when I was six. I was out hunting for sunberries with my pa. I should have been at school, I s’pose. But my ma and pa had long since figured out that I was happier on my own. I’d tried attending a few times. But I felt awkward and uncertain around other children, and they seemed to feel the same way about me.

We didn’t find a single berry. It hadn’t rained in forever and a day, and the bushes were shrunk and crumbly. We were about to give up when Pa whispered, Willodeen!

I followed his gaze. There she was, a ma screecher curled near a fallen tree, along with a tangle of five squirming, complaining babies.

Right off, she noticed us. She whacked her tail on the dirt, hard as could be.

Well, I knew what was coming next. Pa had warned me.

The smell is hard to describe. Put a hundred rotten eggs in your mind. Then add some scoops of dead fish and a splash of skunk spray. You’ll have the general sense of things.

Ain’t her fault, Pa said, coughing and sniffling. They rattle easy, poor creatures. And folks is always bothering them.

But why? I asked as I wiped stinging tears from my eyes.

Claim they eat livestock. Kill pets, wild game. Not a whit of truth to it. I seen ’em eat dilly bugs and the like. Mostly they live on peacock snails, grubs, worms. Pa rubbed his eyes. ’Course there’s the matter of their … odor. Some say they scare off tourists. He laughed. That much might be true, at least.

We stepped back from the nest, nice and easy, choking on the reek. Pa smiled in spite of it all.

She’s just doing what she’s meant to do, my girl, he told me. Caring for her own, best as she can. Like all us mas and pas.

You’d have thought we’d leave then, stinking as we did. But Pa pointed to a big rock nearby, and there we sat. Seemed we were far enough away for the ma screecher to calm herself.

Pa loved creatures, same as me, which is why we had so many roaming the nooks and crannies of our cottage and yard: goats and tree hares, chickens and dibby ducks, a peahen and an ancient river otter who could no longer swim. Our endless flow of cats and dogs had long since learned not to eat the other residents.

See how gentle she is? Pa said as the screecher nestled with her brood.

I hear them at night sometimes, I said. I wonder why they make that caterwaul noise, all screechy and harsh.

Nobody knows for sure, said Pa. Maybe they’re like coyotes and wolves. Just singing to the stars.

Maybe. I considered the possibility. Too bad they can’t carry a tune better.

Pa smiled. Nature, Willodeen, knows more than we do, and she probably always will.

The ma screecher nudged one of the babies with her snout. I wish people didn’t hate them so, I said. They were here first, when you think about it. It doesn’t make sense.

Pa made a sad sighing sound, one he hardly ever made, and it startled me.

If you’re looking for folks to make sense, my girl, he said, you may find yourself looking for a very long time indeed.

CHAPTER

FOUR

After washing our clothes with boiling water and lye soap, my ma finally admitted defeat and burned them in the hearth.

Cursed screechers, she muttered at breakfast. What in blazes do you two see in them? Can’t eat ’em. Taste like they smell. Useless a critter as I ever met.

I glanced across the table at Pa and shared a smile. "Nature knows more than we do,