When he awoke, he was greeted to the view of softly swaying willow branches above him, just now beginning to lose the last of their leaves for the fall. A few had made their way onto his face as he had been asleep, and with a quick blow and a brush of his hand he swiped them away, into a strange, black sludge that surrounded him.
Bucky clasped at the walls around him, lifting himself up from his slumber only to discover he was sitting squarely in the middle of a white bathtub, with nothing but trees encircling the small plot in which the willow tree lived. Warm colored leaves scattered the top of the ‘water’ without movement. As the boy shifted himself, the dark mud moved slightly with him; never latching onto him or soaking him, like liquids normally do. Dumbfounded, he exclaimed,
‘Oh me, is this all a dream? I must have fallen asleep in the bath, and now the water has gone sour!’ Beginning to lift himself from the tub, he brought one leg out onto the wet ground, but soon discovered that it was the only leg he had- his right leg never made it onto the grass, for it was no longer there.
A horrible cry left him! He grieved over his lost leg as he sat upon the ledge of the bathtub, with his head in his hands he wailed, ‘What a cruel dream this is! I cannot imagine bearing it for much longer!’
It was then that the ledge under him moved, bumping Bucky off and onto the floor of the forest; leaves cushioned him as he tumbled onto the ground. An odd giggle was heard from close by- as the bathtub he had been resting in began to stir.
Firstly, the brass hind legs that glinted like gold in the sun shuffled, and lifted the belly of the tub off the pile of leaves that lay underneath him. The front arms reached out in a stretch; sharp clawed fingers of the tub dug into the dirt, just as shiny and just as large as his back legs. As the tub turned itself to face the little boy on the grass, each step made the leaves and twigs snap below him without effort.
Two wild, round, blue eyes looked at the poor boy with an uncomfortable curiosity. With a wide smile plastered on the face of the bathtub, Bucky soon realized it was he who had been laughing at his misfortune.
‘You are quite silly!’the bathtub snickered; straight, sharp teeth shined from inside his mouth as he spoke, ‘have you tried pinching yourself awake yet?’ Bucky was too shocked to speak, but followed the tubs’ suggestion and pinched himself on the arm.
Nothing changed.
Again and again he tried to wake himself up from this disorienting dream, but only continued to fluster as once more nothing changed- except for the bathtubs’ terrible smile, which grew wider with each pinch of the childs’ arm.
‘I must be going mad,’ the poor boy gasped, feeling his head for a fever, ‘I know that I have two legs, and I know for certain that bathtubs do not speak!’
Only a laugh he heard in response, as the tub before him sat neatly with his hands resting on the sides of his face, as if holding his cheeks in careless attention. He chuckled, ‘If you cannot tell a blackwell from a bathtub, then you must be long since lost! Mad, maybe- but you are certainly not dreaming!’
‘Is that what you are?’ Bucky questioned hesitantly, ‘a ‘blackwell’?’
‘Is it not obvious?’ the tub responded, amused by the boys’ bewilderment. The fair child rubbed his eyes clear of stray tears as confusion overtook his sadness. He did not think it was as obvious as it seemed to the ‘blackwell,’ however, he did not want to say such to his face.
‘Well, you look awfully a lot like a bathtub to me.’
‘It was the only thing that could fit me,’ the tub shrugged, ‘everything else was much too small.’
‘So, you are a bathtub?’
‘No, no,’ his face shook as if shaking his head in disappointment, ‘ this is only a shell-’ and the tub tapped a finger on his side- ‘I am a blackwell. There is a difference!’
But Bucky was only more confused than he had been before. He simply nodded his head in false understanding, if only to return back to when the conversation was not convincing him of his own hysteria.
The boy sat against the trunk of the willow tree with both arms wrapped around himself, huddled a fair distance from the face of the blackwell that sat before him, studying him.
‘Who are you? How on earth did I get here? I had been running from something wicked, and now I am here with you- whoever you are!’
The tubs’ smile grew into a wide grin of horribly sharp teeth, excitedly he exclaimed, ‘That was me! I was beginning to think you had such a poor memory as to forget, or that you had hit your head too hard on the ground, and everything flew out!’
‘That was you?!’
Bucky blinked one, two, three times before finally recognizing the eyes of the blackwell to be the same eyes he had witnessed belonging to the beast he fled from. His eyebrows scrunched up in a pout as he began wiping away tears running down his round cheeks, turning away from the horrible thing in front of him with his head in his hands.
The blackwells’ smile faltered, confused. He did not understand the childs’ upset with him, for he was sure the small thing would be rather relieved to have lived after such an exciting night. He lowered himself on top of his front arms, crossed over one another. Tilting his face, he puzzled, ‘Why are you crying? You should be happy to be here, you know. You would have died a terribly sorry death if I had not spared you.’
Bucky snapped back, ‘If you are going to eat the rest of me, then do so quickly! I would rather you finish what you have started than be toyed with like this!’
Silence fell between them, distant bird calls filling the pause before a hearty, horrible laugh bellowed out from the blackwell. He tried to speak through his snorts, but the words were broken; Bucky could not understand what he was trying to say. By the time the bathtub composed himself, the boy had stopped his sobbing, though stray tears still glided down his face slowly.
‘It was not me who bit you that night, oh no! You really should have looked where you had been going, that hunting snare took more than I expected from something so small!’
‘But,’ Bucky sniffled, ‘you were the one who was chasing us! You are just as guilty as the snare, if not more so! Oh, if you do not plan to eat me then you would be doing me a big favor leaving me here to rot in peace! Or, hopefully, I may be found before I die…’
Pointing a brass claw at himself, the blackwell scoffed at the remark, ‘But I found you, and I am not wasting a perfectly good friend by leaving you here for someone else to take for themselves- oh! I can carry you with me around the woods; I have been quite the traveler lately.’
The fair child sat nervously, untrusting of this strange beast who seemed much too unserious for the sorry situation Bucky had found himself in. Wringing his hands he stuttered, ‘I appreciate the offer, truly I do, but I do not think-’
‘Oh,’ the tub dropped his smile, ‘I was not making an offer.’
The boy was taken aback as he fumbled over himself, blurting, ‘I do not even know your name!’
‘My name is Clawfoot! I would have thought that to be clear.’
‘‘Clawfoot’?’
And Clawfoots’ smile returned, humming, ‘Now tell me yours! Come on! It is not as if I am going to try to steal it from you, I know I will like my name better.’
‘My name is Bucky. Bucky O’Dea.’
A fair hand stuck out in front of the blackwell as the boy went to shake his hand, but he only looked at Bucky oddly. Instead, a large, black hand that shined a royal blue in the midday sun lurched out of the bathtub. It grabbed the childs’ hand and pulled him back into it gracelessly. With Bucky back in his place, Clawfoot stood hastily off the floor of the forest, starting off into the shaded woods.