Currently available: The Story of Small Things | MG Fantasy | 60k

First 10 Pages

Prologue

Lilyfield Mouse stood very still. “There is something moving in the reeds.”

“Probably just the wind,” Owl replied.

They were old friends, and their evening walks together were generally uneventful.

Lilyfield shook her head. “That’s not the wind.” She hunkered down and moved toward the rustling. Soon, she was close enough to see a fat, dimpled hand, as big as her whole body, rising up from the ground, willfully shaking the reeds by their stems.

She turned to run, then stopped, sensing two eyes staring at her from behind. Peering over her shoulder, even in the dim evening light, she could see the outline of its body. She remained frozen, then motioned for Owl to approach. “I’ve never been this close to one before,” she whispered, her eyes widening.

Owl edged nearer, then gasped. “Wait here,” he said in a hushed tone, before taking off into the sunset sky.

Lilyfield watched as he circled far and wide, trying to glimpse who might have left the baby there.

“Nothing,” he said, after landing beside her.

Lilyfield stood on her hind legs and sniffed the air. “It seems to be all alone.”  Her whiskers drooped. She inched closer to the infant, squinting and leaning in to read the note pinned to its blanket.

“Aurelia,” she read aloud, with a few words printed below it. “Please take care of her.” She stared at the baby again. The infant held her gaze and let out a soft gurgle.

Lilyfield leaned in further while everything around her grew silent. “Can we keep her?” she whispered, as if posing the question to the wind or fate itself, as if even Owl, still standing behind her, had no real choice in the matter.

Chapter 1

One of Aurelia’s first memories was of two dark eyes staring at her over the curled edge of a leaf that served as her crib. Even before she could talk, she sensed that those eyes contained nothing but love for her.

At first, she hadn’t questioned why she was no bigger than a mouseling. It was only years later that she understood how big humans usually were and how Lilyfield had saved her life.

By the time she was twelve, Aurelia knew the story well. She could even tell when Lilyfield was about to share it again. She walked into their burrow, placing a flower she had picked for Lilyfield on their worn kitchen table.

Lilyfield stopped stirring a pot of porridge and leaned over to admire it. “It seems like only yesterday you were a baby and now, look at you! Out foraging on your own!” She clasped her paws together and cradled them against her cheek.

The wistful sound in Lilyfield’s voice was a dead giveaway. Aurelia sat cross-legged on the floor to face her, never tiring of hearing the story.

“The night Owl and I found you, I remember how you cooed and stared at me in the moonlight. One of the first things I said was ‘Can we keep her?’ Though I wasn’t really asking anyone’s permission.” Lilyfield smiled. “Because I already knew—in here.” She tapped her right paw over her heart. “I already knew.”

What Aurelia knew was once Lilyfield decided something, there really was no stopping her. Lilyfield often said it was a trait that the two of them shared. “Like mother, like daughter,” she liked to say, letting out a melodic yet squeaky little laugh.

“You weighed almost seventeen river stones when we found you. Around eight pounds, I think most humans would say—perfectly normal for a human baby.”

But Aurelia knew that was far too heavy for a mouse and an owl to have moved her anywhere.

That’s when Lilyfield had called in one of the fastest sparrows she knew, instructing him to bring her some Leathorn leaves, an herb that grows on the highest peak of Underling’s only mountain. When eaten, Leathorn could cause an animal to shrink as much as a hundred sizes, depending on the dose. No one in Underling had much use for it generally, for there were only small creatures in the Underling Forest— no animals any bigger than a large raccoon. Some say it was because the other plants in Underling were poisonous to larger creatures—as if seed, sun, wind, and rain had banded together once to create a place where all small things are safe.

Lilyfield’s idea was to feed Aurelia the Leathorn until she was tiny enough to carry her into the Underling Forest herself. At least until she’d realized that Aurelia was too young to chew leaves. Quickly, she instructed Owl to help her crush the Leathorn into a paste, which she fed to Aurelia every few minutes for two hours straight. She had crawled up to Aurelia’s chin, carefully placing one pawful into her mouth at a time.

And it worked. 

Once Aurelia was no bigger than a large acorn, Lilyfield scooped her up, cradling her in her arms, while Aurelia turned her head, nuzzling into the soft warmth of Lilyfield’s fur.

“And that’s how you became the first human to ever live in Underling!” 

That was it, end of story — at least the way Lilyfield liked to tell it. She’d never once mentioned that there had been an objection to it at the time.

Rattickens, a tall brown rat who was very familiar with humans, had been one of the first to arrive at the edge of the Forest on the day she’d been found. There were rumors he had suggested leaving her there. From what she’d heard, the conversation had gone something like this:

“She’s a baby!” Lilyfield protested.

“She’s clearly not your baby,” Rattickens retorted. “Trust me, when night comes, she’ll start to wail. They always do,” he muttered. “Then her people can find her.”

“I haven’t spotted another human for miles,” Owl insisted.”  If we don’t take her into Underling now, coyotes will likely find her before anyone else.”

This made Rattickens grow quiet, tapping his tail in thought—or at least what was left of his tail. The tip had been chopped off many years ago by one the most selfish and easily frightened kind of creatures he had ever known: humans.