Hercufleas (21 page)

But Hercufleas had given her a future, and though it was not quite a Happily Ever After, still Greta filled it with what happiness she could.

There were the evenings she spent with Mayor Witz, eating sweet beetroot pies, drinking nettle tea and telling stories in the warm light of the stove. Evenings that reminded her of her parents.

There was Artifax, with his soft white feathers that she stroked, and his loving purple eyes. Artifax, who reminded her so much of Wuff.

There were the long days she spent up on Yânarik's head, which had grown into a meadow of sage and camomile. Watching the Earth stretch endlessly away to the west and endlessly return from the east. Sometimes she took her axe up there, and other tools too, though what she was making she never told anyone – except Hercufleas.

Hercufleas.

As always, he was the voice whispering hope in her ear. The one constant on her shoulder. It was Hercufleas who saved Greta, again and again, whenever grief threatened her. He never stopped being her hero.

Six months after the battle of Tumber, Greta rode Artifax out into the woodn't. The roost-wife who saw her go said she crossed the bridge without dropping her tears into the river. When Hercufleas heard that, he knew she wasn't ever coming back.

No one knew where she went. The cinderwikk men said it was to Avalon, to tell the truth about Prince Xin and Ugor. The cossacks shook their heads: Greta had gone to the Sorrows, to try to find a way to bring life back to the salt lakes. No, clucked the roost-wives, she went back to the Waste, to live with Sir Klaus and the Mousketeers.

Hercufleas did not know who was right. On the morning that Greta left, she didn't say goodbye. When he woke, still snuggled in her green scarf, it lay draped on the ground. She hadn't even left a note – just a single drop of her blood in a thimble, there beside him. Hours later, after he had searched all through the town calling her name, he came back and drank it down. It was sweet and full of sorrow, leaving a lump in his throat for hours. But for the first time, the bitterness had gone.

That night in his dreams he saw a fierce bramble-haired girl riding a bird through the trees, searching for the giants, green and great as cathedrals, who lay dreaming deep in the forests.

He saw her reach them, though it was many years in the future and she had grown old. He watched her wake the giants and lead them back to Tumber, to find their lost brother who had wandered off while they slept. And just before Hercufleas woke, he saw the green giant – whose name had grown so long it would fill a book – reunited with his family, and in that moment Greta's grief finally left her forever.

But in truth, where Greta went was known only to her, for no two hearts beat alike nor break alike, and so each must be mended in its own way.

‘I wish I'd told her the truth,' Hercufleas said to Mayor Witz, a month after Greta left. ‘I never explained about the Black Death.'

Mayor Witz polished her gold key. ‘What about it?' she asked innocently.

Hercufleas sighed. ‘You were wrong,' he admitted. ‘When I got there – inside that chest where it was – I saw the truth. Yes, it would have destroyed Yuk. But it wouldn't have stopped there. It would have carried on killing – on and on. First the Tumberfolk, then Petrossia, then the world. Sir Klaus told me… Only evil can come of the Black Death. So I didn't drink it. I didn't take its power.'

He expected surprise, but she just looked crafty as the fox on the handle of her walking stick. ‘Dear little flea,' she said. ‘By the time you reached the Black Death, you didn't need its power.'

Hercufleas looked at her. He thought back to that time, long ago, when Mayor Witz had sat knitting Greta's scarf and his destiny into being.

‘You never wanted me to bring the Black Death back,' he realised. ‘But why did you send us all that way, if you knew it was for nothing?'

‘I knew no such thing,' Mayor Witz answered crossly. ‘And some power
did
come back with you.'

Hercufleas groaned. Mayor Witz was getting forgetful in her old age. ‘I already told you,' he said. ‘I didn't take—'

‘I did not say the power was in
you
,' Mayor Witz interrupted.

Hercufleas frowned. ‘It wasn't?'

She shook her head. ‘It was in Greta.'

‘
Greta?
'

‘Greta.' She nodded. ‘When she left here, her heart was cold and despairing. All our hearts were. She came back carrying a flicker of hope. Like a tinderfly within her heart. And look at the fire it sparked. Even in you.'

Hercufleas shook his head. The wily old babushka was right.

‘We're all fleas feeding off of a creature called Hope,' he grinned, remembering Sir Klaus, and suddenly he knew that Greta would be fine, wherever she went and whatever she did.

O
n the day Hercufleas and his fleamily left Tumber, the whole town turned out to say goodbye. So many sad tears were cried that the nettle tea was ruined and the fleas had to wear wellingtons. Mayor Witz stepped up to an enormous object in the centre of the town, hidden under a white sheet.

‘Big Things are easy to remember,' she told the town. ‘Big Things almost never get lost. It would be very strange, for example, if tomorrow you saw someone walking down the street, scratching their head and saying to themselves, “Now where did I put Avalon?” Avalon is a Big Thing, you see.

‘It's the Small Things that tend to get forgotten. They are always slipping from our heads, like coins down the back of an armchair. It would not be very strange at all, for example, if tomorrow you saw someone by the side of the road, scratching their heads and saying to themselves, “Where are my scopical glasses?” or “What's the name of that little dot on top of the letter i?”'

‘Just so you know, it's called a tittle,' said Tittle.

‘Questions like these will always be asked,' Mayor Witz continued, ‘because people have a habit of forgetting about the Small Things. But just because something (or someone) is small doesn't mean they aren't important. They can still do stupendous, awe-inspiring, heroic things. And that's why we must remember Hercufleas.'

With that, she unveiled the statue in the town square.

A bronze flea, with the inscription:

Until the flea bit, the child wouldn't fight.

Until the child fought, the axe wouldn't chop.

Until the axe chopped, the tree wouldn't fall.

Until the tree fell, the giant wouldn't wake.

Until the giant woke, the nightmare couldn't end.

And all from the bite of a flea.

The crowd burst into applause, then looked at Hercufleas. Now it was his turn to make a speech. But he just stood there, looking at his statue.

After a while, the Tumberfolk began to get nervous. Was something wrong? Was the statue not grand enough? Should it have been made from marble instead of bronze? Was his nose too stubby? Were his spines too spiky? That was it, wasn't it? His spines were definitely too spiky, they had thought the same thing.

‘Do you… like it?' asked Mayor Witz tentatively.

Hercufleas looked up with a sad smile. ‘I'm honoured,' he said to her. Then he turned to the Tumberfolk. ‘But I don't want a statue.'

Mayor Witz frowned. ‘But—'

‘I'm not a hero,' said Hercufleas firmly. ‘I'm just a flea who lost his fleamily and then found them again. A flea who found a best friend and then lost her.'

The mayor spread her hands. ‘What would you have us do?'

Hercufleas thought for a while. He looked up at Yânariko, standing high above them.

‘Plant an everpine seed here,' he called up, cupping his hands at his mouth and yelling hard as he could. ‘So they will always remember: big things come from small beginnings!'

And that is exactly what the green giant did. He planted the seed, and the Tumberfolk saw it grow tall. When it was big enough, they wrote the names of everyone who had been lost upon the leaves, starting with Natalya and Nicholas and Wuff. All through spring and summer they lay upon the branches, whispering to each other in the breeze. In autumn, each loss withered and blew away.

‘Come on then, all of you,' said Min. ‘It's a long way to Avalon, and we've been here far too long already.'

But Hercufleas shook his head. ‘We're not going to Avalon.'

‘We're not?' said Pin.

‘No,' said Hercufleas, taking his fleamily's hands and forming them into a circle. ‘We need a new home.'

‘If not Avalon, then where?' said Min.

‘And who will our host be?' said Pin.

Hercufleas grinned. ‘You'll never know unless you jump. Ready? On three.'

The fleas looked at each other nervously.

‘One…'

Were they ready? Of course they weren't! What was Hercufleas going on about?

‘Two…'

But he looked at them with such belief that the question no longer seemed to matter.

‘Three!'

The Tumberfolk never saw them again.

T
he fleamily landed on a hillside meadow of chamomile and sage, beside an old hollowed-out tree stump. It had tall square windows carved into the sides and a blood-red door with a brass knocker and a tiny sign, painted with an eyelash. It said ‘Stump Cottage'.

The fleamily stood staring at it.

‘Where are we?' said Dot.

‘On Yânariko's head,' said Hercufleas.

The others looked down at their feet in amazement.

‘Look,' said Hercufleas, pointing at the supplies piled by the tree stump. ‘We've got elastic bands, to make a new boingy-boing room. Pints of blood to put in the pantry. Matchsticks and candles and a cloth we can cut into blankets, and even a box of tinderflies we can breed for fires!'

‘You made all of this?' Min gasped, looking around the stump. ‘It must be ten times the size of the hat house!'

‘Greta built it,' Hercufleas said. ‘Before she left. Yânariko knows. He's offered to be our new host. We can stay on him for as long as we like. All he asks in return is for us to make sure that nothing nasty plants itself on him ever again. We'll be like his gardeners, uprooting any nasty weeds.' He stared at them all, hopping about with nerves. ‘What do you think?'

The fleamily looked around them, then back to Stump Cottage. And they burst out laughing.

‘Unbe
flea
vable!' said Itch.

‘
Parasitic
ulous!' said Titch.

‘
Pest
itively brilliant!' said Burp.

Hercufleas smiled. He joined the others in celebrating. They did star jumps, and somersaults, and double-pike-cross-split-topsy-turvy manoeuvres, leaping through the meadow towards home.

Sometimes, words are like fleas: pesky little things that won't stay where I want them to. Hopping all over the page. Itching and irritating. Leaving me feeling faint.