Chapter Text
One year, Snufkin left Moominvalley later than ever in autumn, and returned later than ever after the new year. The latter was because he was thinking so much about his reasons for the former that, as he walked up an unfamiliar mountain path, he didn’t see the snowstorm before it hit him. The snowstorm had been so bad that he had been trapped in a cave on the mountain side for days, and then the journey back to Moominvalley was slower and more treacherous than ever.
In its own way, it had been enjoyable – a real survival situation! Real solitude, real quiet, and a landscape like no other! He had done some fantastic walks, and almost filled his latest journal. He had been blocked in his poetry writing lately, but such a drastic change of pace had given him ample time to reflect and put his thoughts into words.
On the other hand, being trapped for so long had left him late to Moominvalley. Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t help but think about Moomintroll worrying for his arrival. Just sitting on that bridge, waiting and watching and growing more restless, perhaps starting to look for someone more reliable to spend the warmer months with. It gave his spring tune a lonely sort of sound he couldn’t shake out, no matter how hard he tried.
Snufkin knew it was pointless to try and force a spring tune into a different shape, but the loneliness of it felt self-indulgent. As a snufkin, he was meant to be a jolly creature, after all.
All he could hope was that nobody looked too closely at it. He rather hated people looking too closely at the feelings behind his tunes – it was much too personal.
Not that it were much of a spring tune any more. It was quarter past summer already, after all.
So, trying not to seem as though he were at all nervous to be back so late, Snufkin walked towards Moominhouse, putting as much jolliness into his spring tune he could manage. The summer heat already blanketed Moominvalley. Snufkins’ coat clung wetly to his back, and the cicadas were singing from the trees.
To his great surprise, the normally peaceful valley was a hub-bub of activity upon his return. Moominpappa was out in his garden, erecting an enormous wooden stage, and Mamma and Sniff w were clambering around, stringing fairy lights and colourful bunting around poles erected in the earth (at the least, Mamma was. Sniff was mostly just getting tangled in the lights and shouting for help).
He stopped playing as they all looked at him. Moomintroll was nowhere in sight. Suddenly, Snufkin felt rather crowded, and cringed in on himself, embarrassed.
“Hullo”, he said quietly.
“Ah, hello dear!” Mamma said brightly. “We were just –“
“Where have you been!?”
Snufkin dropped his mouth-organ, almost jumping clean out of his fur. He whirled around to see Snorkmaiden charging towards him, expression thunderous. Oh dear. Well, he couldn’t say he didn’t deserve such a welcome, being so late, but it was unpleasant all the time. He shrank into his coat as she approached, much ashamed of himself.
“Hello Snorkmaiden. Did you have a good winter?”
She looked as though she rather wanted to slap him.
“Well, I did, but spring’s been rotten, thanks to you!” she said, jabbing him in the chest with a paw.
“I know, I’m terribly late, I got into rather a spot of trouble, and –“
“Well I’m very glad you’re okay!” she said, so furious he knew that she’d been terribly worried. He pulled his hat over his face. He wasn’t about to apologise for being “late” (it was hardly as though he was obliged to turn up on the first day of spring!), but it was terrible to make anyone worry so much.
Snorkmaiden looked at him for a moment and sighed.
“Well, it’s done now, you ass,” she said, shaking her head. “But poor Moomintroll’s been a state. You’re going up to that house and saying hello to him right now.”
“I was going to anyway…”
“And spoil him as much as he wants, you hear me?” she snarled.
Snufkin hardly had any idea what on earth he could do to ‘spoil’ Moomintroll. It wasn’t as though he brought back presents, and he wasn’t a particularly good cook. The most he could do was tell him silly stories or playing him little tunes, and that could barely be counted as anything.
He was about to say that, but Snorkmaiden looked dangerous. It was probably best to just go along with whatever she said. He nodded. She sighed at him.
“Honestly,” she muttered, more to herself than anyone else. “I am so glad we’ve all had something to distract ourselves with this spring…”
She stalked off, going to help Moominpappa with something. Snufkin didn’t dare ask what, and just headed straight into Moominhouse. It was very quiet inside.
“So you finally decided to show up,” said a familiar voice from the chandelier. Little My stuck her face between the prongs of chandelier, glowering down at him.
“Well, hello to you too, Little Mymble,” he said. “Yes, I got a little side-tracked, I’m afraid…”
“I’ll say. Do you know what a spring’s like here without you?” she said, lying on her back and making the chandelier swing. “I mean, I’ve been pleased to not have to look at your ugly mug. But a certain someone has been a real drama queen about it.”
“Well, I’m back now,” he said, starting to get irritated. Perhaps he should just leave, if this was how he was going to be treated. It was all beginning to seem a little absurd. Surely Moomintroll hadn’t been so lonely. He didn’t lack for other friends, after all, and Snufkin wasn’t even the most exciting of them.
Little My tutted at him and hopped down from the chandelier, landing on all-fours on the kitchen table, before leaping down to the floor in a cat-like pounce.
“Anyway, it should be an interesting summer, that’s for sure.”
“Hm. Now what do you mean by that?”
Little My stared at him, unblinking, and then gave a little chuckle and darted out of the door, something purple clasped in her paws.
“Well, that can’t be good news,” he muttered to himself, and then looked back up the stairs. “One thing at a time.”
He had Moomintroll to see first.
“Moomintroll?” he called up the stairs, admittedly surprised Moomintroll hadn’t heard him play on the way. Usually Moomintroll had rather good hearing. Perhaps he was sick? Oh dear, that would explain why he was cooped up inside on such a sunny day.
Or perhaps, he was feeling strange about last autumn. Moomintroll had been behaving so oddly before Snufkin left for winter. He had alternated wildly between avoiding Snufkin as though he’d caught some kind of deadly plague, and practically hanging off him.
The latter was perhaps not so unusual, but it was also accompanied by this sudden uptick in how much Moomintroll touched him. Perhaps Snufkin’s imagination and wishful thinking had been getting away from him, but last autumn it seemed as though Moomintroll was constantly resting a paw on his shoulder, or picking autumn leaves out of his hair, or smoothing down wrinkles in his coat.
Perhaps, Snufkin thought, Moomintroll had decided to just avoid Snufkin permanently. The thought was rather sobering.
As he got closer, Snufkin heard music coming from Moomintroll’s room. Snufkin didn’t recognise the music –the vocals were a bit warbling and mournful for Snufkin’s tastes. At the very least that may explain how Moomintroll missed his spring tune.
He knocked on the door. It budged open under his fist and he peeked in – Moomintroll was lying on his stomach in bed, bundled under the covers, his snout buried in a little purple book. Moominpappa’s gramophone was in front of the door, making it rather difficult to get in and out. A fan was also on in the corner, blowing cool air about the room. There was a canvas on the easel, with a rough sketch and the starting flats of something Snufkin couldn’t make out, and a big stack of completed canvases in the corner.
It seemed Moomintroll had been busy over the past season.
He knocked on the door again.
“Mamma, seriously, I really don’t want to –“ Moomintroll started, and then sprang up.
“Snufkin!” he shouted, bolting upright. He fell off the bed with a thump, legs tangled in the blankets. “Ow, hold on, hold on, I’m –“
Snufkin laughed despite himself, squeezing through the small gap in the doorframe. Moomintroll had mostly managed to sort himself out, standing up with a corner of the blanket over his snout.
“You’re here! You’re okay! I mean, are you okay, I -” he chattered, and then stumbled over the blanket and hit the floor again. “Ow…”
“Perhaps I should be the one asking if you’re okay,” Snufkin said, offering a paw to help him to his feet. Moomintroll took it, letting Snufkin pull him to his feet.
The fur on his paw felt thicker and softer than usual. Had he been awake in winter again? Now Snufkin looked, his fur looked thick at the neck, growing into the ruff he developed if he was out and about during the colder months.
“This looks rather warm, for the weather,” he said, reaching out to bury his fingers in the soft fur. There were layers to it, now, and he had to sink his fingers in deep before he felt the firm muscles of Moomintroll’s neck.
“Uh, it is, a little,” Moomintroll replied, going pink at the ears. “Things keep getting stuck in it too…”
All too late, Snufkin realised what he was doing and snatched his paw back.
“What is this music?” Snufkin asked, trying to change the topic. Moomintroll only went redder at that and gave the gramophone a sharp kick, silencing it.
“Nothing, nothing!” he said, clearing his throat, and then leaned against the bookcase, idly observing his own paw. “So how was your winter?”
Snufkin opted for the simplest version of the truth.
“Long.”
Moomintroll nodded, humming and examining the back of his paw. It was a moment before he spoke again, glancing at Snufkin out of the corner of his eye.
“…And your spring?” he asked. Snufkin winced. Oh dear. He supposed he deserved that, really.
“Much too long. I hadn’t intended to come back so late, but…”
But what? He had been an idiot and underestimated the mountains, overestimated himself, failed to read the signs of snowstorm properly? What an embarrassing thing to have to tell Moomintroll, who always thought so highly of him.
“Well, the winds weren’t blowing right for it,” he finished. Moomintroll, always very kind, simply nodded as though Snufkin had said something enormously insightful.
“Yeah, of course, winds. Duh,” he said, and then grabbed at Snufkins’ paws. “I’m pleased to see you, though. You’ll have to tell me everything that’s happened!”
“Well, it seems I’ve missed things here too,” Snufkin said, glancing out of the window. Moominpappa had taken to his little stage, addressing the growing crowd. “What’s all the fuss?”
“Oh. That. Pappa’s trying to get a literary scene started in Moominvalley,” he said, tugging him away from the window. “There’s been a poetry collection published recently, and it’s gotten popular here.”
“Really?” Snufkin said, intrigued. It wasn’t often poetry caused any particular stir – it was a sadly underappreciated artform. “Is that what you were reading?”
“Ah, yes, it’s very good! I mean, well, I think so, but –uh. It’s probably a little sentimental for your tastes,” he said. “You know more about poetry than me, Snuf. You’ll be able to tell if it actually any good or not.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t give me so much credit,” Snufkin replied. “I’ve just read a fair bit on my travels, that’s all. One learns a lot, reading many different things by many different people.”
“See! That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” Moomintroll said with a laugh. “You really are clever.”
It had been long enough that Snufkin had rather forgotten how intensely Moomintroll could look at people. Snufkin rarely knew what to do with so much doting attention. It wasn’t unpleasant – far from it – but it always felt too big for him. He didn’t really own anything that was too big to be carried in his pocket. When offered something like that, he didn’t really know what to do with it.
“If you say so,” Snufkin said awkwardly, belatedly taking his paw back. “Shall we go see what Moominpappa is up to?”
Moomintroll rolled his eyes as they descended the stairs and out the front door.
“I’d rather go down the river and hear about your winter adventures, honestly. He’s –“
“Welcome, welcome, one and all!” Moominpappa bellowed, interrupting whatever Moomintroll was about to say. “Welcome to the weekly meeting of the Moominvalley Literary Society. I am your master of ceremonies, the exceptionally scholarly Moominpappa.”
“Where did he get the mortarboard from?” Snufkin whispered to Moomintroll, making him snigger. He then glanced up at his father and frowned.
“C’mon, Snuf, let’s go.”
“No, this is terribly fascinating,” he said, curiosity overriding his normal distaste for hub-bubs, ignoring Moomintroll’s insistent tugs on his paw. It was a funny crowd –fillyjonks and hemulens, many with beards and most smoking cigars or pipes. They all wielded expensive pens and expensive notebooks, but none seemed to write as much as a word in any of them.
“Now, for this first meeting we’re going to discuss the de-byuu collection of the esteemed Sir Mimsy de Hemulton, the lovely little collection Thistles,” Moominpappa continued, revealing a little book with a flourish of his paw. It was the same one Moomintroll had been so absorbed – a little thing, with a flashy purple cover, something painted on it in silver. Snufkin couldn’t make up the image on the cover. Snorkmaiden was also sitting in the front row, clutching an identical copy in her paws.
“Sir de Hemulton is, of course, a fascinating character. To debut as a poet after earning a knighthood! From a King,” Moominpappa said, brightening up at the mere mention of royalty.
“I’ve been writing to him, often, of course, but his responses are terribly enigmatic. So, we shall discuss the work ourselves!” he continued, taking a seat on a little stool up by the stage and opening his book. “Now, let’s discuss the sonnet ‘Summer Swallows’, which Sir de Hemulton noted as a particular favourite of his, written during his six days fasting in the Icy Desert.”
“Six days fasting in the Icy Desert?” Snufkin muttered, squinting. “The man would have been dead in the first two.”
“Uh, I really think we should go,” Moomintroll said softly, pulling at his tail, but Snufkin wasn’t listening. This all was starting to give him an uneasy feeling at the pit of his stomach. In Snufkin’s experience, it wasn’t clever to flee too quickly at such a feeling. One needed to work out where the uneasy feeling was coming from, after all.
“To begin, a brief reading!” Moominpappa said and cleared his throat with greater importance. “Two nesting swallows cupped soft in your palm –“
Snufkin was certain the blood had never left his face so quickly.
“Uh. Moomintroll. I – ah –“ he spluttered. Moomintroll just looked at him, one ear tilted down. From her seat, Snorkmaiden glanced over at them, her expression equally odd. Oblivious, Moominpappa continued with his reading:
“-that snowdrop white, soft as petals –“
“I forgot something! Must be off!” he said, and ran as fast as his legs would carry him.
****
As Snufkin ran off, only one word repeated over and over in his head.
Unfortunately, that word is much too rude to write down here. Please just know that he was in a great deal of distress.
“Now, now,” Snufkin told himself. “It could be a coincidence…”
A coincidence, that a poem with the exact same title and opening lines as his own work had made its way to publication? Unlikely.
Snufkin didn’t have his original copy to compare the stolen poem against. He only enjoyed writing poetry. Afterwards, he never really wanted to revisit it or share it. He just left the old notebook behind somewhere and procured a new one, ready to start again.
There was no denying the familiarity, though. After hearing it in Moominpappa’s voice, he couldn’t remember when or where he penned it, but the work was certainly his.
That didn’t solve the issue of how this De Hemulton fellow had come to claim it as his own, or why. Snufkin had never even met the chap.
Perhaps a piece of his notebook had torn lose? This de Hemulton fellow could have seen a scrap of paper somewhere and snatched it up. In all likelihood, de Hemulton’s entire collection was stolen pieces from here and there. Pitiful, but really none of Snufkin’s business.
He breathed out. Yes, alright, some sad old coot had stolen from him. It was nothing to worry about. Snufkin only stole what he needed, but perhaps this De Hemulton felt he needed this, for whatever reason. Snufkin certainly didn’t need this sort of attention. The fool was welcome to it, if he so desired.
It was fine.
Although a touch embarrassing to hear his own words back at him – especially such clumsy work, from so long ago - it was a passing fad. Snufkin was certain it would pass quickly.
****
It did not pass quickly. It felt as though everywhere Snufkin went, De Hemulton’s collection was waiting for him. Pappa’s new literary club was thriving, attracting more and more members every day. Poor Moominmamma was run ragged, fetching tea and cakes and lemonade for everyone. Moreover, her fantastic catering only made more people go out and buy a copy of the book, wanting an excuse to join in on the fun and free biscuits. Soon it was not just the stuffy hemulens and fillyjonks, but mymbles and forest trolls and whompers and all manners of creatures.
Snufkin tried to escape to the forest, but even the little creeps were talking about De Hemulton.
“I heard he scaled the Jagged Peak by himself.”
“Yes, I heard that! Apparently he was gifted jewels from the spirits up there!”
“Oh, yes, he’s fabulously wealthy. But apparently he just lives in a tent and gives everything to charity!”
“Oh, how gallant! He drew the cover himself as well, you know! How talented!”
Worse still, Snufkin was certain there was nothing in that collection but his own stolen work. It seemed De Hemulton had simply stumbled across his old notebook and claimed it as his own.
It was having a rather odd effect on Moomintroll. He seemed to read it a great deal, although Snufkin couldn’t imagine why. It was hardly good work, he thought. He was not trying to be modest – they were barely first drafts, written almost two years ago now. His current work was much improved, but even then, he was nothing to make such a fuss about.
For the life of him, he couldn’t see why Moomintroll spent so much time on it.
After fleeing from Snorkmaiden’s attempts to discuss the collection with him (not for the first time), Snufkin stumbled across Moomintroll in the forest. He was reading the little purple book again, face twisted in concentration. Perhaps trying to make sense of Snufkin’s sloppy use of symbolism? Or his inconsistent adherence to metre? Either way, Snufkin would prefer he stopped.
“You certainly do read that little pamphlet a great deal,” he said, leaning over and resting a paw on Moomintroll’s shoulder. Moomintroll jumped, almost dropping the book, and then clutched it to his chest, turning very pink.
“Oh, it’s just – I suppose it’s comforting, that’s all,” he said, and stood up, hastily tucking the book under his arm. “Would you like to spend the day together?”
“Hm, that depends,” Snufkin said, pretending it was even up for debate. “What did you have in mind?”
“Mamma needs strawberries for juice, I was going to go foraging,” he said. “The company would be nice.”
Snufkin huffed. Mamma seemed to barely have a moment to rest her legs, lately. Every time he went to Moominhouse, Moominpappa was out on the porch with the stuff friends from his literary society, chattering away about De Hemulton’s glamorous life and glamorous friends, with barely a word exchanged about the actual work. Moominmamma rushed between them, bowing to demands for juice or whisky or coffee or tobacco. The whole lot stayed there all night, smoking and swapping rumours.
“Strawberry foraging sounds like an excellent way to spend the day,” he said. “Although perhaps this is something where the more paws the better. Shall we fetch the others -“
“No!”
Snufkin’s jumped so hard his hat fell to the grass. Moomintroll looked away from him, ears flat against his head.
“Well, the thing with that is...” he said, picking up Snufkins' hat. “Everyone’s terribly busy.”
Snufkin pretended to think about this.
“Yes, I think you’re right. They really are.”
Moomintroll nodded solemnly.
“Horribly.”
“Wouldn’t even be worth asking.”
“Would just be an inconvenience if we did.”
Snufkin laughed, covering his mouth with a paw, and Moomintroll grinned at him. He put Snufkin's hat back on his head.
“Alright. I think I saw some wild strawberries growing eastwards,” Snufkin said, his foul mood lifted embarrassingly quickly.
“I knew you’d know where to gather them,” he said, following Snufkin as he led the way. “You’re so observant.”
It may well be his imagination, but Snufkin also thought Moomintroll had become far more complimentary lately.
“I have to be rather observant of good foraging spots. Otherwise I could well go hungry.”
The statement came out of his mouth quite without thinking, but Moomintroll looked him up and down so thoroughly he immediately rather regretted it.
“Does that happen often then?” he asked, rubbing at the ruff around his neck.
“What, going hungry?” Snufkin said.
“Well, yes.”
He hummed.
“Only now and then. Not as often as when I was small, and not so good at caring for myself.”
They fell deadly silent at that, and Snufkin had the horrible sense he’d made a misstep. Moomintroll had never went hungry a day in his life – the concept was probably utterly foreign to him. While Snufkin hardly thought of it – the occasional pain of hunger was a small price to pay for his carefree lifestyle, after all – but the very idea probably disturbed Moomintroll deeply.
“You’re a bit skinny this year,” Moomintroll finally said, very quietly.
“Am I?”
“I mean! It’s hard to tell, with the coat, but usually you’re not quite so small around here,” he said, and slid a paw around Snufkin’s waist. His paw felt very warm and heavy. Their pace slowed until they were standing still, quite unintentionally.
Last autumn, moments like this had started cropping up. These odd little moments where they suddenly became awkward with one another in a way they never had before.
“You weren’t getting enough to eat this winter, were you?” Moomintroll said, tone accusatory.
“I’ll have plenty now I’m home,” Snufkin said quickly. “I’ll get round again on Mamma’s pancakes, and it will last me an entire winter.”
Moomintroll tilted his head, as though Snufkin had said something odd. Clearing his throat, Snufkin hopped forward, releasing himself from Moomintroll’s hold.
“Right then! Let’s hurry and fetch these strawberries. The locusts will be descending on poor Mamma again this evening, no doubt.”
Moomintroll was still looking at him oddly.
“…There’s an interesting poem, you know, in that collection, Thistles, about hunger,” Moomintroll said very gently.
“Enough poetry!” Snufkin replied, doing a slightly desperate cartwheel. “Aren’t you tired of hearing your father talk about it every night?”
“Oh, yeah, yeah, totally. Totally boring,” Moomintroll said. “Just, you know, there’s –“
Oh, Snufkin did not like where this conversation was going.
“Why don’t you tell me something from your winter,” he interrupted. “You were awake for a bit, I gather. Surely something exciting must have happened.”
“Oh, um…not much, actually,” Moomintroll said quietly.
“I don’t believe that for a second,” he said, nudging their shoulders together, “Exciting things always happen around you.”
“It really didn’t this year,” Moomintroll said, shaking his head. “I painted and read a lot. I did start learning to bake from Mamma’s books. But that’s hardly exciting to you, I’ll bet.”
“Learning a new skill is exciting,” he replied, smiling at him. “Tell me what you baked.”
“You can’t be interested.”
“You would know if I wasn’t,” Snufkin said honestly. Moomintroll laughed.
“Well, alright then. I only had what was in the larder to work with, but I did make this interesting pie…”
Thankfully, talking about his baking exploits distracted Moomintroll so thoroughly, Snufkin managed to have a blissfully poetry-free afternoon.
****
“Mimsy is coming to Moominvalley!” Snorkmaiden squealed, hopping up and down with the letter clutched to her chest. “Pappa and I have been writing, and he agreed to come talk about his collection! How glamorous! How exciting!”
Her news, however, was not met with the excitement she’d been anticipating. Sniff and Little My merely grunted, consumed with their game of poker (Little My was, strangely enough, losing). Snufkin just looked up at her inscrutably, chewing on a piece of straw. Moomintroll didn’t seem to have even heard – he had been far too busy lying on his stomach and staring at Snufkin as though he’d never seen him before.
Honestly.
For someone who was so resolute about ‘I could never, ever tell him, Snorkmaiden!’, he really was terrible at keeping it hidden. He was only lucky the old vagabond had two left feet when it came to social matters.
“Moomintroll!” she said.
“Huh?” he said, blinking.
“You must at the least be excited! You’ve read Thistles more than anyone,” Snorkmaiden said.
“Read it?” Little My said with a snort. “He sleeps with it on his pillow!”
Snufkin’s eyes went very wide at that. Surely that wasn’t odd, Snorkmaiden thought. She slept with books she liked too, sometimes.
“I guess it’ll be interesting…” Moomintroll said, not remotely enthused. “What do you think, Snuf?”
“Don’t you have a mind of your own?” Little My said. “It’s pathetic, you know, looking to Snufkin for every little thing.”
“He doesn’t look to me for every little thing,” Snufkin protested.
“I just like to hear what he has to say about things!” Moomintroll huffed.
“Of course you do,” Sniff said, not looking up from his cards. Moomintroll kicked him, hissing ‘Shut up, Sniff’.
“Well, I can’t say I have an opinion,” Snufkin said. “I’m pleased Pappa’s venture is going so well.”
His voice sounded perfectly calm and amiable, but his nose was twitching. It always did when he lied. Others may not notice these things, but Snorkmaiden had known Snufkin longer than anyone. Right back to when he was just a little boy in a pink-and-white stripe dress, mispronouncing his own name.
If she was honest, his obvious disdain for De Hemulton’s work mystified her. Yes, it was a little sentimental and perhaps even a little unpolished in places, but she thought he would appreciate the enormous strength of feeling in the collection. Or, at the very least, the reverence for nature present throughout.
She had been so excited to chat about it with him too. he was fun to talk to about these things, even if the two of them rarely agreed. Yet whenever she tried to chat to him about it, even to find out what he disliked so much, he simply went silent.
“Well, I think it will be a lovely event,” she said. “And it will be so exciting to meet Mimsy, after all. And he’s rather handsome.”
“How do you figure that?” Little My asked, scowling at her. “Men who write poetry always look like they fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. That’s why they write poetry to begin with!”
“Well not this poet,” Snorkmaiden said. “There was a photo in the paper, and he’s very good-looking.”
“There was a photo!?” Moomintroll said, jolting upright. “Do you have it?”
“Moomintroll,” she tutted. “I don’t carry around photos of every handsome man I have designs on.”
Moomintroll gave her a Look.
“…Alright, yes, I have it,” she said, sighing and pulling the newspaper clipping out of her copy of Thistles, pausing to admire it again. He really was a handsome hemulen. And unlike most hemulens, who went bald the second they became adults, he still had a full head of glorious violet hair, arranged in artful curls. And his gaze was very arresting. Even dangerous! How exciting to think he would be in the valley soon enough!
Before Snorkmaiden had any longer to get really lost in her fantasy, Moomintroll snatched the photo from her. He glowered down at it with far more intent than was remotely necessary. Little My leaned over to look at it.
“Pah. He looks like he’s so up himself he’s about ready to turn inside out,” she said.
“Just looks like a regular hemulen to me,” Sniff added, squinting.
“Shush, you two!” Snorkmaiden snapped. “Moomintroll?”
“Eh,” Moomintroll said, and handed the photo back.
“Oh honestly. You all have no taste. Snufkin!” she snapped. Snufkin looked rather alarmed to be addressed. “You look at it. You, at the very least, may appreciate a handsome fellow.”
“Why would I do that?” he grumbled. All the same, he consented to have the photo shoved into his face. He looked at it for a long time, mouth puckered as though he’d been sucking on a lemon.
“He’s too arrogant to be handsome,” he declared.
“How would you know he’s arrogant?” she said.
“The interview around the photo, of course. He brags about his PhD and his knighthood and namedrops all those awful rich people he’s friends with,” he said. “Insufferable.”
“Well, of course he talks about himself, Snufkin. It’s an interview about him,” she replied, looking at the photo again. “And he doesn’t look arrogant.”
“If you say so.”
“Well, I’m sure he will look much more dashing in real life,” she said, deciding not to look at the picture too hard from now on. “Few people photograph well.”
“You do,” Little My pointed out. Snorkmaiden smiled at her.
“Of course, I do. All of us do, but we’re lucky to be such a good-looking group,” she said, checking her reflection in the little hand-mirror from her purse. “You know, I think I’m rather Mimsy’s type. This muse he’s always describing, it sounds rather like me.”
Snufkin almost choked on his piece of straw.
“His muse?” Sniff asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Oh, yes, I suppose that’s what we’ve started calling her. He bangs on about the same troll a lot. The descriptions are consistent enough to be the same person, rather than a string of lovers,” she said, and then sighed. “Oh, there’s this lovely line. Oh, how did it go – ‘as daffodils spring, you –‘, hm.”
“As daffodils spring, they light my way home to you,’” Moomintroll piped up, staring down at the grass.
“Sentimental rubbish,” Snufkin grumbled.
“Oh, lighten up,” Snorkmaiden chastised him. “It’s sweet! There’s another section – oh, the thing about the pillow, Moomintroll.”
“Um, ‘my pillow your arm, sleeping sounder than ever’.”
“What’s sleeping sounder than ever? The writer or the arm?” Snufkin said. He was going redder than Snorkmaiden had ever seen him, right down to his neck. Goodness, Snorkmaiden thought, what on earth was he so angry about?
“Well, what about the one about the camelias?” she snapped, irritated that Snufkin was being so belligerent. “Ah, here: ‘Camelias bloom only at my heels…’”
“Trite,” Snufkin spat. “Borderline gibberish.”
“By my tail, Snufkin! What has you in such a terrible mood?” Snorkmaiden cried, throwing up her arms with frustration.
“I can’t abide sloppy poetry. You know me well enough to know that.”
“It’s subjective. You’re hardly the one to decide what’s sloppy and what’s not,” she stressed. He only grunted. Good Groke’s underpants, she loved him dearly, but he was so pretentious sometimes. How Moomintroll never wanted to throttle him was beyond her.
“Besides,” she said, “so many in the valley like it, it can’t be as bad as you say.”
“Well perhaps you all have awful taste!” Snufkin snapped, leaping to his feet and storming off.
They all sat frozen as he stalked off. Snorkmaiden had seen Snufkin lose his temper before – it was a rare occurrence, but not a non-existent one. It was always embarrassing and awful, all the same. She felt terrible to have poked and prodded at him so badly.
Yet he normally kept his composure much better around Moomintroll. Poor Moomintroll had never seen it before. He stared after Snufkin, looking like he’d been struck. With a sigh, she put an arm around his shoulders. It had been an odd autumn for Moomintroll, after all, and then a difficult winter, and a horribly long spring.
“It must be because it didn’t rhyme,” Sniff piped up, scooping up his winnings from Little My. “Snufkin hates poetry that doesn’t rhyme. Everybody knows that.”
****
The thing with storming off was that one regretted it almost as soon as doing it, but one couldn’t simply storm back. When one stormed off, this was something that needed to be done to completion. Someone who stormed off and returned too soon simply looked silly, and Snufkin couldn’t abide that.
So, he was to storm off all afternoon. Even though he’d rather just go back and act like he hadn’t had such an embarrassing outburst. In front of Moomintroll of all people.
“Perhaps I’m not so happy to be stolen from after all,” he muttered to himself. It was a silly thing to admit – why should it matter, after all? Words didn’t belong to anyone, and he put no particular stake on his poetry. He wrote it for the writing of it. He shouldn’t care in the least what happened to it afterwards!
Stomping aimless towards the river, Snufkin heard some music in the distance. It sounded a little like whatever Moomintroll had been listening to on the day he’d came back, albeit a little more cheerful.
Following the sound, Snufkin found a little cart parked among the trees. It looked a little like a circus cart, the type crueller ringmasters caged poor lions or tigers in, but the front had been split into two doors, swung open. IN front of the cart were many small bookshelves, crammed and stacked high with paperbacks and hardback and cardboard picture books and little zines and many other things beside. A gramophone, the horn painted a jolly shade of red, sat on the grass beside them, playing music.
Snufkin approached, frowning. Behind the counter, the bookseller was asleep with a comic book over their face, their boots resting on the counter. The table at the very front of the display was stacked high with volumes of the little purple book Snufkin had begun to dread the sight of.
He picked a copy up. The silver painting on the front was rather nice – a somewhat abstract rendition of thistle – but as a whole it was gaudy. The silver paint was glittery and dotted with sequins, and the title of the book was somewhat lost in it. The author’s name stuck out in huge letters at the bottom, and on the spine, and on the back, even on the inner covers, as though De Hemulton were terrified anyone would try to steal from him. Snufkin supposed capitalists were like that – they’d steal merrily from anyone smaller and less consequential than them, but heaven forbid anyone return the favour.
Glancing over to check the bookseller was still asleep, Snufkin flicked through the book. The pages were bone-white, the print on them neat and rigid and grey-black. Occasionally, a poem was accompanied by an illustration, rendered just as perfectly neatly. The publishing house had done an excellent job with the design, yet all it did was make the work itself more amateurish. Every bungled metaphor and trite cliché seemed to bulge on the page, the melodrama of each piece inflated by the self-importance of its packaging.
He wished he could give his younger self a good slap for writing any of it.
He couldn’t really bear to reread anything in full, but one line caught his eye.
‘…to burrow in the snow of her fur…’
Eyes wide, Snufkin flicked through the pages, scanning every poem to check his eyes were not mistaken.
‘…the soft space she leaves…’
‘…with gold running between her paws…’
She?
Her?
What was this nonsense!
His fury was popping and spitting at the base of his gut, like a log being consumed on the fire. He imagined tipping over the table and kicking every last copy of this awful collection into the river mud. He pressed his paws against the underside of the weight of it, testing the weight.
“You’ll have to buy any copies you ruin.”
He jumped. The bookseller, feet still on the counter, lifted the comic book off their face. Snufkin had rather been expecting a stern old man with half-moon spectacles. More fool him for making assumptions. Instead, it was a squat muddler woman, perhaps around Mamma’s age. One of her ears was dyed pink and the other violet, and she had a little burnished gold hoop in the side of her nose.
“I don’t want it,” he said quickly, putting it down hard enough that he managed to tip a whole stack to the floor. The Bookseller watched him, twitching her toes.
“Pick those up,” she said, so plainly that to deny her would simply make him look childish. Hiding his scowl in the brim of his hat, he stooped to gathered up the books, stacking them in a neat pile. He placed them back on the table and was about to grumble a farewell and be on his way, when something bit his finger.
He yelped, snatching his arm out of the way. A little creature came flying out of one of the books. Snufkin fell back and the little creature landed on top of a stack. It was a small worm-like creature, covered in fuzzy green fur. It stared down at him with black glittering eyes, its black antenna twitching. Now that it wasn’t biting him, Snufkin couldn’t see its mouth.
“Dorothy, that’s not nice at all,” the Bookseller said lazily. The little creature – Dorothy – bounced away, bouncing between every bookshelf and table until she reached the Bookseller’s counter, and then crawled her way up onto her shoulder. The Bookseller rested her comic book on her thighs.
“Are you a writer then?” she said, scratching Dorothy’s cheek absently.
“Not really,” he answered, getting to his feet and eying the little creature carefully. Her short fur seemed to shimmer, green and ink-red and pale parchment yellow
“Don’t lie, you must be. Dorothy is a Bookworm - she only tries to get a taste of writers,” the Bookseller said.
“A Bookworm!” Snufkin cried, because even in his foul mood he couldn’t help but get excited over that. “They’re very rare, aren’t they?”
The Bookseller smiled at him, something in her eyes telling him she’d rather expected him to react this way.
“They are.”
“Dorothy, was it?”
“Well, at the minute. She’s eating her way through the Wizard of Oz right now, you see,” she said. “Last week she was Alice, before that she was Sophie. I couldn’t get her to be anything other than Lyra for a full two months, once.”
“She has good taste,” Snufkin said.
“Of course she does,” the Bookseller said. “So what are you reading at the minute, kiddo?”
Snufkin frowned. Now he thought about it, he wasn’t reading anything at all. He’d finished his book when he was trapped up in the mountains and hadn’t a chance to get anything since.
“Nothing.”
“Well no wonder you’re in such a huff,” the Bookseller said. “Reading is when we’re most in love with the world, you know.”
He grunted, not at all in the mood for aphorisms. He wasn’t in much of a mood for anything. He felt stupid and blank and not at all like himself.
The Bookseller observed him for a long moment.
“Come here. I’ll make you a coffee,” she said. Without waiting for his answer, she stood and turned away, turning on a machine lodged among all the books and bric-a-brac at the back of the shop.
Cautiously, lest he get bitten again, Snufkin approached the counter. There was a little stool hidden among the stacked books, and he awkwardly climbed onto it.
Dorothy hopped down from the Bookseller’s shoulder to the counter, looking up at him with something apologetic in her gaze. Now he got closer, he saw the shifting colours in her fur reflected shifting words, appearing and disappearing up her body, as though written by an invisible hand.
“It really is nice to meet you, Dorothy,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry I overreacted – it seems to be all I do, lately.”
He offered her finger and she touched it with her antennae, wiggling it in a funny imitation of a handshake.
“She’s lovely,” Snufkin said, looking back up. The Bookseller smiled at him and put a chipped enamel mug in front of him. The mug was dark green, painted with leaves and petals in burnished gold. The coffee was dark as the earth and smelled rich, warm between his paws.
“Thank you,” he said, surprised by how sincerely grateful he felt. He took a sip of the coffee and then looked at Dorothy again, nibbling at a corner of The Importance of Being Earnest.
“Isn’t it a bit counterproductive to keep a Bookworm, if one wants to own a book store?” he asked. The Bookseller grinned and sat back down opposite him, her own mug in hand.
“Not at all! Bookworms are such voracious readers, that can look at any customer and find them exactly the book they need. Even books I never knew I had!” she said, tucking her free paw behind her head and leaning on her chair’s back legs. “She even takes me to where I will sell best.”
“And she took you to Moominvalley?” Snufkin asked, a little dubious. The Bookseller nodded, reaching down to let Dorothy crawl up her arm.
“Right in the middle of winter, no less,” she said cheerfully.
“Funny choice. Almost everyone’s asleep for that time,” he said.
“I know. But she insisted,” the Bookseller said, touching the end of Dorothy’s snout with the tip of her finger. “And what luck! That awful man’s book would have never shifted otherwise.”
It wasn’t as though he disagreed, but Snufkin couldn’t help but be a bit offended at that.
“It’s very popular,” he said, trying not to sound defensive.
“Yes. It’s funny, you know. That De Hemulton snob forced a copy on us, but Dorothy wouldn’t eat it all – not a page, not even to nibble the corners,” she said, letting Dorothy crawl into her fur of her ears. “My dear little Dorothy will try everything, normally.”
“It must really be a lot of old rubbish then.”
“On the contrary, I read a little and quite liked it,” she replied, just as cheerfully as she said everything. “It’s not the most polished work, but it’s very charming.”
Charming. He wasn’t sure that was a compliment. It sounded like something someone came up with when they had nothing nicer to say. He sulked further.
“It does, however, sound like something a much younger person than De Hemulton would write,” she said, fixing him with a look. “Fishy. Don’t you think?”
“I suppose,” he muttered, hiding his face in his cup of coffee. “If Dorothy wouldn’t even try it, how did it end up selling at all?”
“Funnier story still. Mind if I tell it?”
“Please do,” he said. She smiled at him, rocking back and forth on her chair like a badly-behaved schoolboy.
“So, the first few days in Moominvalley were a bore. Nobody awake at all, just the Lady of the Cold singing outside the cart every night, hoping we were fool enough to open the doors,” she said, shaking her head. “I was starting to think Dorothy had made her first-ever mistake, when the moomin boy from up the hill came by.”
“Moomintroll?” Snufkin said, sitting up. The Bookseller’s ears flapped with amusement.
“Oh, you know him?”
“In a sense.”
She leaned forward, resting her elbow on the counter and her chin on her paw.
“Now, you wouldn’t be Snufkin, would you?”
He didn’t much enjoy the smirk she was giving him.
“And what if I am?”
“Then you’re very lucky to have someone who will speak so fondly of you,” the Bookseller said, grinning from ear to flapping ear now. Snufkin went red and drank his coffee. She laughed and added another couple of sugar cubes to her own cup, before taking a loud slurp.
“I can continue this story as though you’re not Snufkin,” she said, gesturing towards him with her mug, “if that will embarrass you less.”
“I’m not embarrassed.”
“Please. You’re young - you’re embarrassed all the time and there’s nothing anybody can do about it. Best just embrace it for now,” she said, and winked, “after all, before you know it, you’ll be an old and batty like me, and you won’t be embarrassed by anything at all!”
She gave a cackle at that, and Dorothy made an odd squeaky sort of noise, covering her face with the end of her tail. Snufkin tried to imagine himself at their age, but he couldn’t picture it. He rarely thought of the future. He simply didn’t know what it would be, not even the vague shape other creatures seemed able to make.
The thought used to be quite comforting, but over the past few years it had become rather lonely and uneasy.
He didn’t like to think of it.
“So…Moomintroll was your first customer over winter?” he said.
“Yes, he was here a lot. Funny, though. I thought every moomin hibernated over winter.”
“He’s an unusual moomin,” he said quietly.
“I’m sure he is,” she said, smiling at him. “First time he came here, he just kept picking up books and putting them down, over and over Eventually I sent Dorothy out to figure out what he needed. She zipped right off and dug up that little book of poetry, right from the back of my reserve stock. It was the most peculiar thing.”
“Peculiar indeed,” Snufkin muttered, squinting down at his cup of coffee.
“It’s the oddest thing about being a bookseller,” she said, taking his empty cup and turning to clean it in a small basin. “The book someone needs is rarely the best book you have.”
“So, Dorothy gave the book to everyone else too?”
She laughed.
“Not at all! It was very annoying for her, actually. First the older moomin came by demanding a copy, saying something about wanting to talk to his son about it. Then before long he had his friends buying copies, and then their friends, and so on. Books can catch like wildfires sometimes,” she said. “Poor Dorothy – she was desperately trying to choose books for people, but everybody who came to the cart already knew what they wanted.”
Dorothy let out a sound like a deflating balloon, antennae drooping.
“She can fetch me a book, if she’d like. I promise I’ll accept it,” Snufkin said, and the little Bookworm perked up.
“Very kind of you,” the Bookseller said, but then rapped the price board behind her. “That will be a threepence.”
Snufkin frowned.
“Oh, I know money isn’t used much in the valley, but we Booksellers need it,” she said. “It is, unfortunately, what you buy more books with.”
“I don’t really carry money,” Snufkin admitted. Not exactly true, but he only did at the very start of winter. Moominmamma always managed to sew a little purse of travel money into his clothes before he left. It did not matter how rigidly he guarded his pack or his cloak.
“Oh, I’m sure you’re well-adored enough here someone will spot you a threepence,” the Bookseller replied, yawning. “You come back when you have that, little Snufkin, and Dorothy will find you something.”
“I’ll look forward to it,” he said. “So Moomintroll was here often?”
“Very often. Seemed lonely.”
“I suppose he would have been...”
Winter was lonely in Moominvalley. Snufkin suspected even he would find it isolating. It was dark and cold and much of the valley was asleep. It couldn’t have been easy for Moomintroll, who liked to be around others so much.
The Bookseller yawned and put her feet back on the counter.
“Alright, I need to get back to work,” she said, putting her comic book back over her face and settling down for a nap. “Be off with you. I’m very busy.”
Snufkin raised his eyebrows at her, biting back a laugh. He supposed he needed to go catch supper about this time, anyway.
“I can tell. Thank you for the coffee,” he said. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.”
“I tend to do that. Good luck, kiddo.”
