Hercufleas by Sam Gayton Page B

add a teaspoon of tears of laughter to the pot, and stir, turning the tea sweet.
    While Papa cooked and Mama chopped, they told Greta silly stories. Some were tales everyone in Petrossia knew, like ‘The Invention of Snow’, or ‘Why the Green Giants Sleep’. Others were known only by them, like ‘The Rattlesnoak called Natalya’.
    Greta listened, holding the teaspoon up to catch her happy tears, and before long she had enough to tip in with the nettles and water.
    Like everyone, they argued and bickered and infuriated each other from time to time. That is the thing about families. Like snowflakes, they are each entirely different and yet all exactly the same, and though they are innumerable upon the Earth, the loss of each one is a sorrow.
    After tea one night, Mama helped Greta tie a tinderfly to a sugarstick and they all took Wuff on a walk. The air was a cold glaucous blue, thick with the smoky smell of the town. A cinderwikk man stood on stilts, filling the street lamps with caramel and tinderflies. One flew free before he could shut the lid. Wuff and Greta chased the buzzing spark all the way to the river, over Two Tears, right to the edge of the woodn’t. There Greta stopped, but Wuff ran into the trees.
    â€˜Wuff! Wuff, come back, you’re not supposed to go in there!’
    â€˜That dog,’ Mama said, shaking her head. She ruffled Greta’s hair. ‘Good girl for not following him in though.’
    She stomped off to fetch him, while Papa took Greta’s hand and led her a few steps in, to show her it was safe.
    â€˜See that everpine there?’ He pointed. ‘Only cut their branches, never their trunk. Evers are gentle trees. They’ve been here since the green giants planted the first forests on the Waste and turned Petrossia into a garden.’
    â€˜Wuff!’ Mama called. ‘Here, boy! Time to go!’
    Greta’s eyes went wide. ‘Just like in the story?’
    Papa nodded. ‘Just like in “Why the Green Giants Sleep”. It’s a true story, that. The oldest, truest story in all Petrossia.’
    â€˜Wuff! Wuuuuuff! Come on!’
    â€˜And that nasty thing there?’ said Papa, reaching forward. ‘That’s a needler shrub. Pull it out, like this, before it grows too big and starts shooting its needles at the poor birds.’
    â€˜Wuff!’
    â€˜Papa?’ Greta asked. ‘Where’s Wuff gone?’
    Papa looked up and peered into the woodn’t. Then he looked up at Mama, and his expression changed. All the warmth went out of it.
    â€˜What is it, Papa? Has Wuff got lost?’
    He didn’t answer. Suddenly his axe was in his hand.
    â€˜Black bear?’ Greta heard him whisper.
    â€˜No,’ Mama whispered back. ‘Bigger.’
    â€˜You haven’t got your axe. We should run.’
    â€˜Too late. It’s already seen us.’
    Greta didn’t know what they were scared of. But Papa – who’d carved Mama’s name into a rattlesnoak – was trembling. That terrified her.
    â€˜Go home, Greta,’ Mama said.
    She folded her arms stubbornly. ‘I want Wuff.’
    â€˜We’ll find him,’ said Papa. His voice was soft, like whenever Greta scraped her knee and he pretended it was nothing. ‘Go home and make a nice pot of nettle tea, and we’ll be back in a bit to drink it. With Wuff.’
    â€˜Wuff!’ Greta called into the woodn’t.
    Mama whirled around, eyes blazing, and shoved Greta away. ‘Do what your father says. RUN!’
    And Greta ran. Across the river, up the street, beneath the moonless sky. Past Kopotikop and Potch, back into the cottage. She sat weeping into a pot of nettle tea like Papa had told her, her frightened tears turning it sour as vinegar.
    It didn’t matter. Her parents never came back to drink it.
    There was a search. The cossacks gave their huskies the scent of Mama’s scarf, but the dogs just stayed