Bramble Goodbarrel's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Bramble Goodbarrel wanted one thing: the coziest burrow garden in the whole Forsaken Undergrowth, the kind neighbors would walk miles to envy. But this morning, for the fourth day straight, his fresh beds looked like a battlefield. Little paw holes riddled the soil. His carrot starts lay torn and wilting on the dirt. He knelt and pressed a hand to the ruined row. The burrowing critters had struck again in the night. He had planted these seeds three times now. Each dawn, the same wreckage greeted him. At this rate, nothing would ever grow, and his garden would stay the joke of the hollow. Bramble tried a fence of woven twigs. The critters dug under it. He tried scattering pepper. They sneezed and dug anyway. He sat in the dirt, tired and stumped, when a soft glow crossed his ruined beds. Celestine Moonwhisper drifted down between the rows. She lived in the little enchanted cottage past his fence, the one shaped like a storybook home. Bramble knew her mostly by her wings and her nose in the air. She rarely spoke to a mud-caked hobbit like him. "Your soil smells like fear," she said, wrinkling her nose. "You'll never scare them off. They're only hungry." Before Bramble could answer, a small shape tumbled out of her shadow. A puppy with butterfly wings landed in his cabbage patch. It sniffed a paw hole, growled, and shoved its snout deep into the dirt. "That's my dog," Celestine said, folding her arms. "He hunts diggers. He's been restless for weeks. I need him tired before I settle down." She touched her belly and looked away. "I'm hoping to have a baby soon. A yapping, digging dog won't do." Bramble watched the winged puppy bolt down the largest tunnel. The ground trembled. A moment later, three fat critters shot out the far end and fled into the brush. The puppy popped up grinning, tail wagging, wings dusted with soil. "Let him patrol my garden at night," Bramble said quickly. "He'll wear himself out. You'll get your quiet cottage." Celestine studied him, then the ruined beds, then the puppy already digging happily. "One week," she said. "If he ruins more than the critters did, we're done." They shook on it. That night, Bramble planted his seeds a fourth time. He watched from his window as the winged puppy circled the beds, ears up, chasing every scratch in the dark. At dawn, the soil lay smooth. No paw holes. No torn starts. His green shoots stood in tidy rows for the first time. Bramble laughed out loud. Then he saw the far corner. The puppy had dug his own crater there, chasing one last critter, and flattened Bramble's flower border completely. Celestine hovered above it, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised. "Six more nights," she said. "Fix that before I change my mind."