Brey Willows

Card 32, Writing Down the Bones: What is the secret life or hidden dialogue of your pet/plants/etc?

It’s the squirrels. Always the squirrels.

The triplets born last spring seem to have spread out, and there’s tension. When one is eating at the dinner bowl, another will sit on the fence, staring down, tail twitching, berating it for taking too long, eating to much.

And then the third head pops up and momentary chaos ensues as tail biting and chasing commences. No one really leaves. They just trade places for a bit, until one of them gets antsy.

That’s meal time. Theft time is entirely different.

One pops in. Looks around. No siblings. They run down the pillar, right past the food, and onto the decorative gravel. Pick one up. Taste it. Run it around in their paws. Too heavy. Not salty enough. Put it down. Choose another.

That’s just right. Into the mouth it goes, and sibling one dashes back up the fence, looks around to see if anyone is watching, and takes the stone to the lair. The one they’re building for the fairies, one stone at a time.

And then the other sibling comes down for their stone, but they’re a little more picky. It takes three tries before they find just the right one. And then they’re off, in the opposite direction, to continue building the fort for the sprites.

It’s the third sibling, though, who is the most industrious. They’ll stop, eat, and while eating scan the stones. Then they’ll choose fast, and scurry off, but return quickly to do the same again. The manor house for the pixies is coming along far more quickly than the other two.

When the inevitable battle comes, they’re all going to be well fortified.

It’s always the squirrels.

(To date, they’ve probably taken more than 100 stones out of our garden.)