brought it to her immediately. I travelled across the village to her room in Old Thump in the southeastern corner of Sapsward. Talia was wide awake, worried about Marcus herself, as she too had not heard from him all day.
“Her first question when she saw me was if I had seen him. I sighed dejectedly and gave her the note. She crossed the room and sat down, gently unfolded the note, and rubbed her cheek, knowing already what it contained. As she read, I could see her heart drop. Her eyes filled with tears, and when she was done, she slowly folded the note back up and set in a drawer next to her bed.”
“What did it say!?” Bezra the young squirrel maid cried.
“Well, that note was not meant for my eyes, so I’m not really sure. If she wanted to tell me what it said, then she would have. But I could tell all that she wanted was to be left alone. The contents of it were obvious just by the expression on her face. Marcus was gone and he was not coming back.
“The seasons continued, the snow melted, the grass appeared once more, and the leaves of the trees returned to their rightful spots atop the canopy in the sky. We had all moved on with our lives, even Talia, but when the first flowers of spring began to bloom, Talia’s belly began to grow. She was with child, a baby mouse—”
“Durbin!” a squirrel at the back of the group squealed.
“Yes it was,” Elder Burkus chuckled. “And Marcus the Brigand was no doubt the father. Talia had a troubled pregnancy, she was quite sick the entire time. She had Durbin’s name picked out the moment she realized she was with child, and she knew no doubt that she carried a baby boy as he kicked and squirmed so aggressively, eager to begin the great adventure called life. I had her stay here in Great Hollow where I could keep a good eye on her. Several of the mothers of the village took it upon themselves to become her midwives to help prepare her for the coming of Durbin.
“It was summer when she gave birth. By noon that day, Durbin the mouse scamp had come into this world, a screaming, crying, healthy young boy. And by dusk, Talia had travelled on to Dark Meadow, unable to heal from the pains of birth. We did everything we could to save her, but the gods had their grasp on her early and would not let go. Now, would Marcus the Brigand have stayed had he known Talia was with child? I have asked myself that often, but I do not know, for I do not know the reason he left. But it must have been something terrible for him to disappear so suddenly.”
“So Durbin had no parents, hurr?” a hedge hog in the middle of the group asked.
“No,” Elder Burkus said, his voice dropping low. “But he did have plenty who loved him and helped raise him to be the courageous mouse that he now is. As Talia had no family here in Sapsward, I took him in as one of my own, but the entire village pitched in to raise him. He was always drawn to the room on Birchwatch Hall where his father stayed, so I let him move in there permanently when he was old enough to walk.
“Well, within time Durbin learned to run and jump and cause a great deal of mischief. I told him of his father, and what few stories I knew. Durbin was in awe of the idea of such adventure and spoke often of becoming a swashbuckling hero like Marcus the Brigand. I did not take his aspirations seriously though. I had assumed Durbin would grow up to be a farmer or a gather or a baker like most of the other critters of the forest, and that he’d fall in love with one of the local mice and get married and have little ones like yourselves running all around Sapsward... But was I ever wrong...
“It was less than a season after Durbin was born that Morro too was born. I’m not sure when it was that they officially met, but once they did they were inseparable. They explored every reach of the northern forest together, from the pond to the west, to the East Nooks, to Mountscaler Vale to the north. There is nary a critter in the forest who knows every tree and bush and root as well as those two.
“They attempted to do good, by becoming great heroes. They offered up their services to fight off tyrants and rescue damsels in distress, but there was little need for such things in our secluded forest valley, so they had to rely greatly on their imaginations. They would attack gardens, pretending as though they were full of snakes and toads. They would break into homes to steal fruits and pastries, claiming they were taking them for the needy. They would rescue those who did not need rescue and break out into impromptu duels with the other little ones over imaginary land disputes.
“But for all the mischief they caused, they also did great good. When Galen Graymason’s wall was knocked over by strong winds, Durbin and Morro helped the old squirrel pick up every stone and rebuild it. When the Higglepugs winter stash of food was destroyed by frost, Durbin and Morro went around and gathered a little from every critter in the village until the Higglepugs had twice the food that they started with!
“Durbin quickly became the leader of the two and acted just like his father—well, just like he imagined his father to be. He made himself a cape with a silver latch, just as he thought Marcus the Brigand would have worn. I didn’t have the heart to tell Durbin that Marcus never wore a cape. And he made a belt out of an old worn cloth that he had found left behind in one of the rooms upstairs. Somewhere in the forest he found a twig that fit him like a sword, a perfect one with a hilt and crossguard, and dashed around as if he were a brave swashbuckler. Morro found an old slingshot in Great Hollow that had been passed around for a long time, since I was a little one.”
“That is a long time!” Timble said.
Elder Burkus laughed. “I suppose it is. He practiced with that slingshot every day until he was so good that he could knock a leaf off a branch from a hundred otterstails away!
“Well, I’m rambling on a bit, I suppose,” Elder Burkus said, taking a sip of his cider. “As you all know, we receive quite a few visitors throughout the season, but it was during the next summer after Durbin and Morro were born that we received a troupe of visitors that I believe changed Durbin’s life forever.”
“Who were they?” a young ground hog asked.
“Foxes!” Elder Burkus said.
The young ones gasped. One shouted out, “foxes for real!?”
“Yes, for real!” Elder Burkus said. “While many foxes happen to be predators, the ones who visited us were not. They are peaceful wanderers, the Nortichai, they are called. They are said to practice magic, Bakkhi, a discipline with dark roots, but essentially harmless.
“Durbin was quite taken by the foxes, as was most of the village, but he followed them everywhere they went. They showed him and Morro some of their basic tricks, such as making each other disappear, eating fire, and performing feats of dexterity. Their tricks were pretty unbelievable, but Durbin was most drawn in by their fortune telling. They had these cards, you see, Nortichai tarot, and when they laid them out in front of a critter, the cards would predict what fate was in store for that critter. Durbin had his fortune read by one of the foxes and he received three cards; the mouse, the storm, and the owl.”
“What does it mean?” Bezra asked, gasping in awe.
Elder Burkus smiled. “Such fortunes are shrouded in mystery. Although the foxes could not tell the specifics, they knew his fate involved a great storm and an owl—”
“Da Hoot!” one of the young ones shouted.
There was a frenzy of whispering amongst the little ones.
“Da Hoot isn’t real!” a dirt hog named Tyrus shouted.
“He’s a myth!” one of Tyrus’s friends shouted.
“No, he is real!” Bezra said as she stood. She turned towards Tyrus, stuttering as she spoke. “I k-know it! My mother told me—”
Tyrus and his friends stood up and began to sing loudly,
Da Hoot, Da Hoot,
The Scourge of the Night!
Young ‘ens are his favorite feast,
They can hardly fight!
He’ll eat your ears and eat your eyes,
And he’ll eat your tongue.
He’ll make a nest inside your chest,
To keep warm his young.
If you have wings of feathers,
&n
bsp; He will rip them out!
If you have a voice to scream,
He will make you shout!
Da Hoot, Da Hoot,
The Lord of the Sky,
You best run the other way,
When you hear his cry!
“And where did you hear such a terrible song?” Elder Burkus asked, shocked, as the song came to an end.
A hedge hog smiled wide as he answered, “from Durbin, o’ course!”
“Of course,” Elder Burkus sighed as he shook his head. “A terrible verse indeed.”
“But we all know Da Hoot isn’t real!” said Tyrus, the loudest of the singers. “It’s all a bunch of phooey our parents made up to keep us from wandering the forest at night!”
“A fairy tale is all!” one of Tyrus’s friends cried.
“It is true!” Bezra said as she gripped her paws tight. She pointed a trembling finger at Tyrus. “My mother wouldn’t lie—”
“Obviously she does,” Tyrus said, smiling proudly to himself. The other few critters in the close circle with him laughed.
Another one of Tyrus’s friends chuckled. “I bet you believe in dragons as well, don’t you?”
“Let’s ask Elder Burkus then,” Bezra said as she turned towards the old ground hog. “Tell us the truth! Da Hoot is real, isn’t he?”
Elder Burkus leaned forward, a look of pure solemnity on his face. He stared into Tyrus’s eyes. “Da Hoot is as real as the leaves on the trees and the dirt on the ground. He’s preyed on this