Falstaff and Me
The Unsown Field: Canto 9
by Paul Bailey
Tales of Trapwater, no. 7.
Canto 9
lost in the woods — Mrs. Grissus — the boys — she instructs them about Burve
When
through the grayness Ghoh had gaily sung,
and Stahp, his wise old fern he treacly swung,
his sister bade him stop and take her hand,
and he pretended not to hear or understand.
Then suddenly she stopped, and all he heard
was eerie silence, not a single word.
Before he even looked behind him, still
something was wrong to give him such a chill.
“Burve?” quoth the boy,
“Big sister, are you there?
This isn’t funny! Please come out, I’m scared!
I’m sorry that I’m such a pill to you.”
But no one echoed back the whole dell through.
Speeding in circles (as his sister had),
with panic rising, now the poor lost lad
got deeper in the laurel roughs until
at last he stopped, cried some, and then sat still.
“‘Don’t be a burden,’ Burve had told me so.
But for the consequence, how could I know
she’d ditch me over this? How’m I to learn
a lesson from this, Stahp, my conscience fern?”
But by some sinister lethargic spell
among the sleeping woods, Stahp, joining, fell
into a slumber, out of season now,
his leaves what color Autumn will allow,
now that the forest’s hush within him crept.
Alone, poor Ghoh at last gave up and wept.
But while he cried a lady passed along
and sang an eerily familiar song:
“Autumn keeps the children sleeping.
Missus Grissus gets them weeping
where they try and fail to trick it.
Once they’re ready, then I’ll prick it
ever deeper in the thicket
for my bark-charm, videlicet:
“Mites and mice bewitched with twitches,
cobwebs, mushrooms, twigs and switches,
little boys and girls when going
lost their way; to them I’m showing
to these woods a Springtime basket;
from these woods an Autumn casket—
“Now what’s this, a lad I see here?
Run-away, perchance to be here?
What’s the name that I may call you?
Come with me, lest harm befall you.
Come with Missus Grissus, deary,
shoulders weak and eyes all bleary.”
Youthful she did appear, yet still she felt
an age unnatural, by malice dealt.
He reasoned she must get it from the trees
who, victims now, eroded in the breeze.
Alas, poor Ghoh, on better days would know
with this uncanny jane he should not go.
But lacking hope for any other way,
he followed her into the fading day.
So through the woods she led him, by and by
unto a cottage, where the boys stood nigh.
Their eyes! What lifeless souls were these!?
They had no eyes. It seemed as though
the light cast through could not reflect and show
what matter lay upon the other side.
Ghoh felt the urge to run away and hide.
Their eyes were portals to a time and land
beyond what cosmos he could understand.
Quoth Missus Grissus:
“Meet my helpers, Scratch and Sticker.
My, you do your chores much quicker!
Did you do your pickling truly?”
“Yes, a boy we’ll set up duly.
Found him, did we, in the woods.
Now he’s fixed for future goods.
Seven days of constant brining,
then to curing, then maligning.
He was maybe seventeen —
sure he’ll last till Halloween.
What about the boy with you?
Shouldn’t we extract him too?”
“No, of course not! Far too green!
Take the ones beyond fifteen.
Go and prep yourselves for dinner.
Ever more you’re getting thinner.
Eat your Ike and eat your Truman
if you’re both to pass for human.
“(Mind, another wand’ring out there,
green like this one, not so stout here.
She’s no use as green as that;
still we’ll utilize this brat.
Should you see her, misdirect her.
Try to make the woods affect her.
If persistently she pries,
don’t take risks with tricks and lies;
ere suspicion makes her check,
crack her skull and break her neck.)”
To Ghoh she spake:
“Don’t be frightened by their eyes.
They’re not perfect in disguise.
Though not human, they won’t hurt you.
They were made by Lurrel’s virtue —
magic of the Lurrel Queen!
She will cure you of your green.
First you must perform a favor,
one the Lurrel Queen will savor.”