Discarded by humans, the old bridge fell back under nature’s control. A brave tree or two took root in pockets of soil blown in by the wind, clinging to tiny cracks with desperate roots. Lichens feasted upon the concrete, crumbling the stonework bit by bit until the roots could grow bolder and stronger as the years went by.
Humans began to stop and look at it in wonder, thinking not of ruins but of the tenacity of nature and the power of patience.
“Find me a castle, and there I will live,” thought a bit of lichen caught by the wind.
They traveled the land and soared through the air but there weren’t any castles to be found.
“An old bridge might suffice for a bit of seed with a flexible dream,” suggested the wind.
The lichen agreed and lived ever so happily, after all.
She couldn’t quite reach. Not yet. It might take a few more years or growing in fact, but she was closer now than she had ever been and that was a fine thing to be proud of.
King Neptune’s crown had been tossed away by an angry whale a century or so ago, flying through the air with all the confusion of any sea creature that finds itself to be an unexpected bird. It landed with a soggy thud in a forest near the coast, where it waited to be found. In the meantime it cloaked itself in moss, embarrassed to be naked in the air without any water to cover it up.
“Come closer,” the brook said. “I’ve got something to tell you.”
The tree knelt down to listen and the brook babbled all its secrets.
The troll froze, clinging to the tree. The humans had surprised him. Shaking with fear, he pressed himself tighter against the bark and willed the humans not to see him. He was terrified of humans. He’d heard they built bridges and roads they charged other humans a toll to cross. Barbaric! Trolls had given that up a century or so ago.
There she slept for far too long, turned to stone: an ancient relic of a fossil record that had forgotten her. No true love’s kiss for her to wake, no thawing of flesh from ice, she was stone and it was stones that built the earth, that housed the moss, and cupped the pathways carved by water. So long as she was stone she was safe, and she was stone forever.
The moss maidens wove all night, making a shaggy shelter for the lost and orphaned children at the foot of the forest’s loneliest tree. In the morning soft sunlight flickered on the dewy moss when they awoke, amazed to have found themselves a home at last.
He looked down, pretending their words hadn’t hurt him. The moss growing upon him for the past century or so knew better. It couldn’t think of anything to say, so it hugged him a little tighter and let him know he wasn’t all alone.
It wasn’t as fancy as a castle made of stone, carefully cut and lain just so. Still, after years of studying architecture in London and Barcelona, the mouse was proud of the make-shift castle he’d made for himself. So he moved himself in, ordered a dragon or two from a mail-order catalog, and waited for his next adventure to begin.
Jennifer Shelby 