Jaci Dawn

Aric woke up refreshed. He stood and stretched. He could hear frogs and crickets, but not the sort of chorus one hears in the springtime. Something splashed in the stream outside: several splashes, like something walking through the water. He hurried to the hole in the tree and lifted one of his rocks. The heavy scent of elk musk floated into his nose and filled his mind. He sighed and relaxed. He listened as the elk passed and thought how amazing it was that his ears could pick up that there many were by the grunts, farts, splashes, and hoof beats. Cows and calves, spikes and bulls. He knew this, not from the smells, the sounds, or even his terrible night vision: he knew this from the Novembers he had spent hunting with his father.
He felt sad. His dad was in some place, held prisoner, accused of being a ‘practitioner of magic’. No doubt, he was separated from his wife, Aric and Ella’s mother, who was also accused of the same thing. They were white collar professionals. High school sweethearts. Active in the PTA, the city council, and the library. They voted, and not always for the same candidate or issues. They argued. They loved their kids unconditionally – even when Deka and Aric had accidentally set Deke’s mother’s shed on fire, they had loved him.
He felt a paw on his shoulder. Ella slipped her arm under his. “What’s out there?”
“Just elk. You think about mom and dad, El?”
“All the time.”
“Do we have a plan?”
She took a deep breath. “Well, Gran and Dish thought we could go to Dish’s family cabin, and we could regroup and form a plan from there. But we’re days from there in our present size, and we’re not even headed that way.”
“We aren’t?”
“No. The deer mouse who was my friend, he showed me where this stream goes. There’s a big white warehouse-sort of building. He couldn’t see it in the way we see things like that; he just knew about the concrete foundation and the parking lot and stuff that a mouse would see. It’s huge in his mind. And he was definite about the white.”
They stared out into the darkness.
Someone moved next to Ella. Dish leaned against the other side of the entrance. “I might know where we’re headed, then, and why. It sounds like the old ShopMart warehouse building. The foundation is white concrete, and the rest of the building is cinderblock painted white. My dad was day-shift manager there until they closed a year ago. It would be a good place to hold prisoners.”
Ella and Aric looked over at him. “You think Kitsune is sending us to the warehouse?”
“Well, he is the one that said to follow the stream, and if the stream ends where your mouse friend believes it does… Yeah.”
“What can we possibly do to help them in the form we’re in?”
“We still have some magic wands. And some time to plan. Surely, we aren’t the only ones who were smart and ducked out before we were arrested. Heck, how did Kitsune avoid capture?”
“I wondered that, too.” Gran was up. “How do we know we can trust him?”
Ella rolled her eyes. “He’s Mr. Nagasaki, for crying out loud. He may be freaky and all that, but he is still my favorite librarian, and a very kind man. We have to trust him, like we trusted the deer mice.”
“That was scary, just so you know, El.”
“I know, Gran. It was freaky. All those pheromones and images, and their language. I didn’t know mice had so many sounds, or that they sang love songs to each other, but there we were, and here we are. And they’re still singing ‘peace, love, and harmony’.”
“You’re going all freak on us, El.”
“Thank you, Billie. Yes, I am. I acknowledge that there is magic involved in this <pauses for applause>.” She waited.
Someone clapped. Another one clapped. Billie said, “Go on.”
“It’s maybe psychic ability or something. No one trained me how to be a wizard or witch or whatever I am. Twerp turned us into mice by magic. But it wasn’t by magic that Twerp realized our cell phones were tracking us or that Billie got us out of the basement. Gran got us out of the yard and as far as the woods here. Kitsune appears and tells us to knock off the magic tricks. We get waylaid by nature, and nature saves us. Now we’re here, and we have an idea where we’re headed, but no plan.”
“I have an idea.” Twerp waded into the discussion. “We wait until we get to where we are going to form a solid plan. We have to assess the situation. See who is guarding our parents. Look for allies. We act like the mice we are: one moment at a time.”
“No way.”
“We’ll get killed.”
“Suicide.”
“Wait,” Twerp added. “How many millennia have mice survived? And how far into the future do you think mice think?”
“Exactly!” Ella pumped her fist upward. “For once, Twerp gets my vote!”
The others grumbled for a moment. Aric raised his own voice, “Look, we’re mice. We can travel in the dark. I vote we keep following the stream until we find food or shelter again.”
“Hold onto the tail in front of you,” Gran said. “That way, noone gets lost.” Heads bobbed in agreement.
There were shadows out this night, making the world seem haunted and eerie. The woods were not quiet. The stream burbled, a coyote howled from a long distance away. Something chattered in the dark. Occasionally, they heard the thud of a larger animal’s hoof step. A wind came up, making the trees creak and groan eerily. Once, they heard something soft go “thump-thump-thump!” nearby, right before a large rabbit nearly landed on top of Billie and Dash.
They all screamed, and the rabbit startled. It reared up as if to crush them, turned on one hind leg, and hopped noisily off. Ella thought she heard it mutter, “Harumph!”
The scent of rose hips drew them to a bush, and they paused to eat, taking turns being sentinels. Aric found a fresh twig he could wield as a club, and Gran commandeered a similar piece of wood to use as a walking stick (to probe dark spaces, he said).
Ella spent her turn on sentry duty, trying to listen to the sounds and to see if she could pick up and pheromones or thoughts from other woodland creatures. It didn’t work: if there were creatures out there, they kept their thoughts to themselves. She heard an owl hoot somewhere, and wondered if it was Horace, but she was afraid to reach out to him. She hoped it was him, and that he was safe, and – mostly- that it wasn’t some stray non-familiar owl on the hunt for mice.
They headed back downstream after eating. Gran took the lead without being asked, with Dish behind him, Ella and Billie, followed by Twerp. Aric preferred bringing up the rear, now that he had a weapon again. The stream circled the tip of a rock slide, and the mice were forced out into the open to climb over the rocks. There was no whispering, only the sound of their shoes on the stones, an occasional grunt as they hefted themselves over a rather large stone, and their rapid breathing. Dish tripped on a trailing blackberry vine and bumped his nose.
Gran turned and helped him up. He caught Ella’s eyes as he did so: she was looking at something behind him, and emitting a cold scent of fear. Gran looked into Dish’s eyes and saw them go from tired to fearful. Slowly, Gran turned around.
Three sets of eyes glowed back at them, green in the moonlight. The shapes came a little closer, smelling of garbage and grinning widely. Sharp fangs glowed white in the night. A black hand splayed on the white rock – so very human like! – and Gran could just make out the unmistakable black mask of the raccoon leader.
“Ra-raccoons don’t eat mice. Do they?” He squeaked.
“P-p-pretty sh-sh-sure they d-d-do.” Ella squeaked back.
One of the raccoons, a smaller one, ran up the rocks to a position above the six mice. Another waded out into the stream below them, chattering as it did.
“Wh-wh-wh now?”
“Use your stick to hit ‘em in the nose!” Aric shouted. He was waving his stick over his head like a bat.
“Stick to-to-gether,” Ella ordered. “Circle.”
“So we look bi-bigger than we are!” Gran grabbed his stick and backed into Dish, who backed into Ella and Billie. They grabbed hands with each other until Aric was the only one not in the circle. He had his back to the circle, waving the stick in a threatening manner at the small raccoon that had now circled around and was inching forward from the back, still grinning. The large raccoon sat on its haunches and made a trilling noise that hurt the ears of the mice.
The smaller raccoon charged, and the mouse huddle moved closer to the larger raccoon – except Aric. He lashed out with his club, only to have it snap in half when it encountered the raccoon’s nose. The raccoon raised a black hand a slapped Aric, knocking him end over end into the water, where the other raccoon was waiting.
“Help!!!” Aric screamed.
Ella just screamed.
Something roared. There were splashes and the raccoons squealed in terror. The raccoon in the front of Gran did a one-eighty and dashed into the darkness. The raccoon on the rocks scrambled upward and over the rocks in the same direction, never glancing over its shoulder. The raccoon in the water dashed up out of the creek, straight past Gran, showering them all with water, screaming raccoon curses as it fled in the direction of its elder.
The splashing continued for a long moment afterwards as something very large and very black moved closer to the frightened mice. So big and black, that it blotted out the sky when it rose up out of the water,
Ella was sobbing. “Aric…Aric…”
A long black nose with very large, sharp, canines and horrible breath gently dropped something on a flat rock between the mice and itself. Something tiny and still, in a green sweatshirt, skater shoes, and torn jeans.
“Is this Eric?” The nose at the end of the snout and above the cavern of rancid breath gently nudged the still form.
Ella didn’t think. She acted. She ran forward and grabbed her brother’s body, turning his head to face her. He had a small gash on the side of his head, above his left eye. Ella gasped inward with a sob.
Aric suddenly vomited water all over her. “Buhack!!Hack! Hack.” Cough, sputter.
“You’re alive!” Ella squealed and hugged him.
“Leggo, Dork. Lemme breathe.”

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