Trowbridge Road by Marcella Pixley

Author:Marcella Pixley [Pixley, Marcella]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781536211924
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Published: 2020-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

The path to Majestica was transformed by rain. Mushrooms emerged from the ground with warm, wet lips. Some poked blindly beneath the leaves like the heads of sleeping turtles. Some unfurled like white feathers from the damp bark of the hollow logs. Others gathered in choirs to sing quiet blessings to each other, their golden heads bowed and their eyes closed tight. The sun shone on our heads. We sat cross-legged in the leaves and watched everything sparkle. Ziggy took off Jenny’s necklace and held it up to the sun, and the beads gleamed red and orange and purple like tiny flames. He tucked it behind his ear. Matthew scrambled from Ziggy’s shoulder, found a tiny brown toad the size of a pebble, and pounced around the leaves after it.

The two creatures danced together. They scrambled around the forest floor, the sound of unseen creatures rustling beneath the leaves. I wondered what other invisible beasts might be hiding nearby without our ever realizing it, buried in pine needles or gazing at us from treetops. Matthew emerged with the toad in his jaws, his tail bristling with pride. He lifted his white face, chewed twice, and swallowed.

I stood up and took a deep breath. The ninth dimension smelled like wet leaves and dandelions. Up toward Nana Jean’s orchard, the peaches and apples were getting so heavy that the trees bowed their heads.

I lifted my face and called, “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” so that every invisible beast could hear me.

Slowly, creatures that had been hiding emerged from the shadows like details in a hidden-object picture, the bark of the trees wrinkling, the branches shifting until they were all around us: beasts from the shadows, the color of earth.

The first to emerge was the bark beast. She stepped from the tree with her long, craggy face and wrinkled brown wings. She shook herself free, sniffed the air, and began making a strange, low, grumbling howl of freedom.

Then came the leaf beast, who flicked herself up from a leaf pile with her pointy face and paper-thin claws. She tumbled her papery body toward me, winking as a sign of ancient respect, and then whisked and twirled away, taken by the wind.

The stone wall shivered.

Three bald, round-backed stone beasts the size of potatoes rolled from their crumbled piles like petrified babies and blinked at us with gray impassive eyes.

There were leagues of pinecone and pine needle and acorn and pebble and mushroom beasts, popping from the ground to wander about in hordes, so many that we had to be careful not to step on them, and they had to be careful not to bump into one another with their tiny heads.

Last of all, as though performing a grand finale, the biggest hollow log rolled onto her side and became a magnificent hollow log beast, with her long, broad body and wise snuffling face. She lumbered over to us, grunting joyously.

“Welcome, beast,” I said to her softly. And then I raised my face. “Welcome, all of you.

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