Old tales have been told about strange seeds that must pass through the belly fire of rare beasts before they will sprout and grow. There are also stories of creatures eating things that then bloom in their bellies and grow out of them from within. In some far regions, certain birds will carry seeds great distances, dropping them into the embers of fires, where they uncurl into shapes like flames. There are even creatures who live within other creatures, just waiting for their hosts to eat the leaves of a single plant at a certain time, and who then use the plant’s virtues to bring about an orphic transformation. Sometimes a natural progression has been altered—by teeth, talons, or sly fingers—to achieve an unnatural end. By design or by accident, or perhaps a little of both.
In this instance, the distinction would serve no purpose. It began with the one called Shawmapple, who was slightly more curious than canny, who decided to steal down to the running waters where treacherous folk, some also canny, lived and brooded and were known to keep little hoards of rare and dangerous and valuable things. He made this transgression for his own reasons, and the fact that he did so was certainly unknown to his own folk. But while he spied on the long-fingered treacherous folk and their grotesque creations, he gleaned something of the way they nurtured the malevolent sentinels that dotted that realm’s boundary, and this knowledge was of obvious value. So when he returned, he brought something with him.
Once home, he considered the means to cultivate his gain. How he went about doing this might be described as haphazard. It could also be argued that it would be wiser to assume that it was by design.
Born of Three Nells looked like a lumpy beast from a distance. He (a word they applied lazily) was the color of a dry summer meadow or a sandstone cliff. He had the belly fur of a bumblebee and the back hair of a thistle. His ears could stretch like clay, as could some other parts, like his toes. There were none like him except the always-grinning Whizom, who could have been a cousin.
Born of Three Nells lived among the folk who lived up on the high meadow and over by where the land became steep and wrinkled—those folk who mostly went by the name of Crosstangle. He could be seen during the day, a bump on the hill or a fuzzy something in a field. He was often hard to focus on and was scolded for it by the others, but he felt nothing about this. Truth be told, he did not feel much of anything. He had his likes and dislikes. He liked the sunlight in the morning and the smell of the night wind. He did not like to fall out of trees.
He liked to eat flowers. He liked to eat spring ferns and tender young bark. He liked to eat crickets and worms. He especially liked to eat berries. Tasting their bright colors made him dizzy, and he would eat and eat until he could not stay awake. Once he ate all the berries on a vast hillside and slept for a week. When he woke, a pool of water had formed by his side and a frog had made camp under his armpit.
It chanced that Shawmapple had gone visiting in the upcountry woods. The owl-eyed, cat-muzzled ugbubs of those hills were shy, but they had taken the cuttings he had brought from the running waters and coaxed them to fruit. Now he had returned and met Born of Three Nells in a meadow.
“You about came up to a dandelion first time I saw you,” he said by way of greeting.
“A clay bowl with legs. Remember that?”
Born of Three Nells sniffed at him.
Shawmapple, tannic and toadstool-eyed, knew what Born of Three Nells liked and told him of the berries growing upcountry. There were bright blue berries covering one hillside, dusky purple berries, frosted greens, and mottled pinks on another. There was one patch of orange berries with russet stripes that filled up a clearing. In fact, Shawmapple had picked a bunch of these, and now he brought out a handful.
Born of Three Nells’ head went a-fizz as the little orange and red berries burst in his mouth. There was a sound of popping bubbles and his toes squirmed and clenched.
“Don’t eat too many at once,” Shawmapple cautioned. “They’ll go right through you. Or worse.” Then he hawed and went his way and Born of Three Nells turned his snout to the upcountry woods.
It was a long walk up into the hills. He arrived and set about snuffling through the trees. An ugbub hooted, and he followed it. And there on one side of a hill, were the bright blue berries blooming on their vines.
Born of Three Nells opened his mouth and sucked a cluster straight from its branch. They were cool and dewy and popped in his mouth like little clouds. Next he tried some yellow ones and they prickled like prickly shooting stars. The limpid green berries swirled on his tongue like tiny dreams and the purple ones filled his nose with new colors. Every kind of berry brought something new.
He passed the day browsing the slopes and indeed he ate too many at once, but when he was full for the moment, he found a clearing and made himself into a fuzzy lump for a nap in the sun.
Now some time passed, for he had eaten quite a number of berries, but finally he awoke and scratched and stretched his legs and toes back out. As he did this, he felt the beginnings of a rumbling. One rumble followed another and soon he had to squat and go, move away, squat and go, move away, over and again, just as Shawmapple warned. Just as he would finish and walk away, another rumble would come. So he would move off, go again, and when it had all finally run its course, he had gone quite a lot all over the place.
All of this was enough to make him weary. The sun had nearly set, so Born of Three Nells found the clearing he had napped in and burrowed down in the grass for the night.
He slept well as he always did, even through the rain that came in the night. He awoke to the sunlight on his back, which he liked. There were still berries all around, so he fell to eating again, mincing over the business of the previous day. And once again he ate too many berries, which led to a later reckoning.
When the day was over, Born of Three Nells was still among the slopes. He lumbered down to his clearing and burrowed into the lumpy grass again. He slept well as he always did, right through the murmuring rain and night breezes.
He awoke to the sun shining on his back, and that was pleasing. He was no longer keen for berries though. So he scratched and stretched his legs and toes back out and looked around him. In every direction there were little brown and blue and green piles and puddles. In truth, it was quite impressive. But there was something more striking: sinuous things with multicolored flowerlike heads had popped up everywhere. They arched up from every one of his leavings, their petal coronas reaching well above his shoulders.
Born of Three Nells stood up and walked over to one. Its mottled face seemed familiar. Its toothy mouth was enormous.
“Yum,” the flower said to him. It had a familiar voice too.
He sneezed at this and walked away, but the flower called after him. And then another flower turned its head and called as well. Then others began to rouse and call to him. There was nothing to do but move off, and he minced his way along until he came too near to one and it nipped his arm.
“Ah, how sweet,” it said.
Born of Three Nells backed away and tripped himself. A flower bent over and bit off a toe. Another flower bent over and bit off another toe.
“I would have a taste,” another crooned.
Though he was not one to feel strongly, he understood urgency now. So he loped away. He loped and loped through the woods, away from the flowers that nipped. It seemed this might take a while as the extent of his leavings was quite impressive. There were many, many flowers. But his missing toes had changed his gait. After a while, he began to see the same trees, the same flowers, and indeed, the beginnings of his own path.
“Give me a nip,” said one looming flower.
He loped in another direction, but this proved unwise as the gauntlet of flowers was thicker here. They stretched from their stems, nipping little nips, taking pieces of fur and clay and flesh.
“Give us a kiss,” one flower whined.
“Have a munch,” sang another. It stretched over and took a nip from his elbow. There were nips from his shoulders and legs as well. His fur was cropped, his clay pocked, and even the stone of his bones was showing in places.
Now he saw that eat or be eaten was how things must go. He opened his mouth (with an appetite after all the loping) and began to eat the whining and murmuring things, silencing their voices one by one. This worked with the smaller flowers, but then he came to one especially large flower—too large to eat, in fact. Its orange and yellow petals were edged in black. It stood before him simply looming, not leaning for a nip. Instead, it curled its mouth into a toothy sneer.
“For that I am given to know, and to decide, so I will tell it… the ugly hairy foul unworthy thing.”
“There were three Nells. They kept a special pot. They put water and stones and clay in the pot and began to stir it. Then each Nell sang and added something she wanted to cast off. The first Nell put her big appetite in the pot. The next added her habit of going vague. The third her fuzzy belly fur. These were stirred around with grass and hair and scat. Then the pot was set to bubble. While it bubbled, they went away for a while.”
“Then one called Shawmapple came out of his place in the trees. And he stirred the pot and added something to it, as we are given to well know. A scat beastie, dropped from the foul mouth of a nimpet.”
“When the three Nells returned, the brew had proven, but more than they intended to make. It wasn’t something to carry to the running waters and banish, for it climbed right out of the pot. It rolled on the ground and looked at them and did not speak.”
“‘We have had a baby,’ they said. And they laughed to see it, for it had taken on what they had cast off.”
“The Three Nells brought it to the place where the folk of Crosstangle met and they left it in a field to grow in the sun and eat what it would. It grew and grew and ate crickets, worms, flowers, and all the berries to be found. The one called Shawmapple showed it where berries grew. He said he thought berries were the best kind of food for such a creature.”
“Such a creature as what? That is what even a stupid beastie might have wondered about. Such a one that liked the sun in the morning and the smell of the night wind. Such a one that liked to eat, it thought. But that is not much to wonder about. Any simple creature would like these things.”
“It was not one of the Crosstangle folk, for it was not made the way they were made.”
At this, Born of Three Nells began to move again, for the words made his head itch. He turned away from the flower.
“Crosstangle folk were born from rain, rock, and wind. But this one was cooked in a pot.”
Born of Three Nells turned and swatted the flower to the ground and lurched off. But the words were loose and went slipping from bowel to brain and back. And then another large flower, just a little way off, spoke in the same tone.
“Scat beasties,” it rasped. “Foul and feral.”
The orange and yellow flower rose like a snake behind him and lunged, taking a shred of hind leg.
A song was wafting up the hill. Two voices in trebly tremolo were approaching—two Sam Stemrunners were jogging upslope.
“Chick and pip, nick and clip, tangles need a shave,” one sang.
“Frizz and fray, snip away, learn them to behave,” the other sang back.
One abruptly skipped into view, cheeks puffed out to tiny red apples and mouth puckered into an O. He came to a stop directly between two lines of flowers and went silent and still, only his eyes bobbling from side to side, for the gauntlet’s odd flowerheads had swiveled to track him. Then there was a furious lashing of heads and stems, and the little brown jerkin and grass breeches exploded in a spray of chaff.
The other Sam Stemrunner’s wailing voice faded back down the hill.
The flower was still speaking.
“...had it been taught. Humble beastie lay the way. Seed to soil for a day. Steward to the flower tend. I am first and I am end.”
Born of Three Nells spent the night between three stout trees. Despite creeping hunger, he slept well as he always did, right through the night winds and sweetly murmured threats all around him.
A band arrived in the woods the next morning when the sun still hadn’t reached the lower hills, for the Sam Stemrunner had howled its story to half of Crosstangle the previous evening. There was Shawmapple with a knotty cudgel, Fern Unbuckler with his green arrows, Burl-kneed Bill with his fists, and a dozen Sams armed with pole pruners and sickles, humming like hornets. Burl-kneed Bill led the way, with Shawmapple perched on his shoulder.
As they came upon Born of Three Nells’ leavings, Sams began to slip away. Flowers thrashed around them, falling one by one. Soft ugbub hoots from above led them on. One dropped to the ground in front of Burl-kneed Bill. It turned and walked in front, bobbing its little ibex-horns with nervous bravado.
They walked into a clearing where the ugbub stopped and pointed. The great sentinel shone in full sunlight, its teeth flashing like white flames, its petal corona a motley palette of shards. It seemed to be speaking to Born of Three Nells, who was wedged awkwardly into the fork of a nearby tree.
Shawmapple sprang from his burly perch and walked across the clearing. He hailed the sentinel. It ignored him.
“You’re going to fall out,” he called to the pockmarked creature in the tree.
The others stalked behind him, spreading in a semicircle. The sentinel’s hoarse voice was barely audible. Its words had the rhythm of litany.
“Ag-Ba begat Ag-Ba-Gab, who begat Odd Ell, the first picotee,” it rasped in the direction of Born of Three Nells.
“After this, the others were taken up and Odd Ell was given to live twelve years, begetting Nod Odd, who begat Oddee Wyrt, who lived ten years and gave all its fruit notched teeth.”
Shawmapple cleared his throat.
“These were the numerous Sawtooth Oddees who ate their cousins and attacked the Stewards and were culled except the foremost among them, Pilum the Orange.”
Shawmapple spat provocatively in the direction of the sentinel and hooted.
“Spell maker,” one Sam hissed.
Another Sam scoffed. “Jibber jabber.”
“No,” Shawmapple muttered to them. “Like praying. Old trick to hold the mind together.”
Some nodded slowly.
“Stewards,” Shawmapple said pleasantly, “be the treacherous folk.”
It turned its sinuous neck. “Stewards?”
Shawmapple gave an uneasy haw.
“Just us rabble. Us being Crosstangle folk, mostly, come up to address and make amends.”
The semicircle was now more of a cauldron. Shawmapple waved them back.
“Though I guess I wouldn’t call it that. Comes of being curious. Are you curious, ah, how I taste?”
“Sirrah, I would not bite you,” it rasped.
“Sirrah, of course not. As I was saying, I was curious. I’ve done a fair bit of watching, down there where you’re from…”
The looming thing was now still but seemed to be listening.
“So I’ve seen things. Those long fingers are not good for my dreams. Look like spider legs. I know the scatters” —he pointed a thumb at Born of Three Nells— “are your, ah, antecedents. Scatters, at least, is what I heard them call them. You make the nimpets. They make the scatters. The scatters, ah, you come after them. Seen how they tend—sit and talk to you. The stewards, that is.”
He paused again. The sentinel said nothing.
“Also saw what you do to the scatters, what they do back. Or vice versa as may be. But what I can’t understand is why you go about killing each other in the first place. Why is that?”
This brought no reply.
“Hmm, maybe if I keep watching? I am thinking it’s the way you’re—the way you’ve come out after they raveled your heads. Whole libraries in there, I understand. But why in the wherefor would they do that?”
He gave the sentinel a wink.
“Hot water, huh? Cooking pot’s different than cold running water. Then we get this. Care to give me a hint?”
It barely hissed.
“I didn’t hear that.”
“Here,” the sentinel said.
“Haw!”
But Shawmapple did take two slow steps forward.
The two appraised each other. The expected blur came.
The cudgel caught the side of its head as it lunged forward. It was a meaty hit and teeth sprayed the ground.
Shawmapple’s feet came to rest on its neck stalk.
“Bring that pruner,” he gestured to a Sam.
Born of Three Nells fell out of the tree, which he did not like.
Shawmapple held the severed head up and looked at its face. Ugbubs were giving vigorous hoots from the trees around them.
“Should be nimpets, but this one’s too young. Here Bill, carry this. Come out of there!” he called to Born of Three Nells.
Sams were returning, their pole pruners slick and dark. Shawmapple climbed onto Burl-kneed Bill’s shoulders, and they all filed into the trees, leaving a modest carnage behind them.
“Do you know any stories?” Shawmapple turned and called behind him.
A young Sam piped up.
“There once was a bad old hackberry; Who lived by a festering pit; Whenever he had to relieve himself…”
“Not you.” Shawmapple glared behind him at Born of Three Nells, who wobbled on lop-toed feet.
Born of Three Nells said nothing. It was a bright sunny morning now, and this was something he liked.
They passed through the woods quietly, eventually coming to the familiar trees and meadows of Crosstangle. Shawmapple had gone silent, but now he turned himself slowly around so that he sat backwards on Bill’s rocking shoulder.
“A slap,” he said, looking at Born of Three Nells, who was now chewing on a piece of bark, one end wobbling from the side of his mouth, “to their self-regard is what.”
“More than that. You are a foil. Of some sort. Bill let me down, I’ll walk from here. I might go look for a nimpet.”
Born of Three Nells watched him walk down the long meadow. The running waters were a faint gleam far off downslope. Then he turned his snout away and went looking for a place to take a nap in the sun.
B Myers writes pure barmy from a safe location in Michigan. Recent whoppers can be found in Teleport Magazine, Collidescope, 96th of October, Archive of the Odd, Cast of Wonders, and The Disappointed Housewife. A deep dive into the background and life cycle of the flowers in this story can be found in issue 2 of Archive of the Odd, under the title "Field Notes on the Strawberry Sentinel".