Waldemar and the Root Gnome with the Tangled Name

More about Waldemar and the Root Gnome with the Tangled Name

At the edge of the old hollow, where ferns wave and the earth smells of resin, Waldemar stopped. He was an upright raccoon with a large brown backpack, a red hat, and tightly buckled leather straps, and he knew the rustle of every leaf like a map. Beneath a hornbeam, its roots creeping along the ground, a gnome crouched, plucking at a root knot so thick, it seemed as if the forest hadn't finished a thought. "Do you need help?" Waldemar asked, setting down his backpack. The gnome looked up. "My name's stuck," he said quietly. "Since the night of the great wind. I don't know how to call myself." Waldemar placed his paws on the wood. "Names can't be pulled out like nails," he murmured. "You have to unravel them like a song." He asked the gnome to close his eyes. "First scent?" - "Warm clay after rain." "First sound?" - "The cracking of a hazelnut." "First light?" - "Amber, as if the air had drunk honey." With each word, the knot vibrated, but it remained firm. "Perhaps it doesn't hold your name, but its syllables," said Waldemar. "We'll retrieve them, one by one." He took a string, chalk, and his notebook. "Come. We'll ask the forest for loans." By the stream, which ran as bright as glass, Waldemar bent over the water. "Every syllable needs a sound. Give us the one that arrives and yet wants to return." The stream sent out a double gurgling sound. Waldemar caught it with the string and tied it to the gnome's wrist. "For a start." A silent shadow lay between two rocks, as if the night had forgotten something. Waldemar drew a circle with chalk. "For a syllable, you also need peace." The shadow settled into it and became soft as velvet. The gnome breathed more freely. In a narrow clearing, wind brushed over grasses; each blade of grass spoke its vowel. A jay called three short, one long note. "An intermediate sound," said Waldemar, "so the name doesn't stumble." He dropped the sounds into his notebook as if into an open hand. As the sun set, they returned to the hornbeam. The root knot waited, as large as a curled-up hedgehog. Waldemar tied the stream loop to a root tip, laid the shadow over it like a blanket, and opened his book. "We'll try." He hummed the collected syllables: the double chuckle, the soft vowel, the jay's call, a short pause. "If it's your name," he said, "you won't hear it—you'll be it." The knot trembled. Resin smelled of apple and smoke. A word formed in the air, brittle, then clear, as if it had horns and roots at once: "Tirrewurz." The sound took root in the gnome's feet. He stood up and laughed, light as a leaf. "It's me," he said. The knot lost its weight and became wood again.