Chapter Text
June, 1946
The summers in Moominvalley are often densely hot, as every season which crosses the land pools into the hills and festers with a hodgepodge of different climates. Whatever arrives from the mountains will stay, and stay, and then leave with a blank slate for the next visitor.
A thick tub of molasses swamps the hillocks; only the breaths of wind provide any release from the hot temperatures, and the plants wither as the water from the air and river is drained. With the trees overgrowing they drip onto the tall, wheat-painted grass as though to tell the earth secrets.
The children inhabiting the valley are blessedly smothered in this only place they’ve ever known, or have ever been allowed to tread. Although their family lineage is littered with nomads, there’s a sort of mutual, unspoken negotiation between all parties that this is not a trait to be repeated until the kits are prepared. It stems from trauma, aptly put, glossed over but embedded into their genes older than sin — it can only be cured by slicing the cycle in its tracks.
And so, here, the children play without care, despite the packing heat.
Lil Muff, ginger and proud and very fluffy like cotton waste, climbs a holly-oak planted near Moominhouse which brings shade. A grunt escapes her — knowing a curse would cost her tonight’s dessert — when a tuft of her fur has clasped itself around a stray branch and is now snug in the bough. She tugs, wincing when it pinches her nerves, and is freed with a bright, ginger cottonball being left behind.
“Is everything alright?” Below Lil Muff is Snap — the busybody, she’d say if asked, but it’s a good thing she isn’t — who looks up at their sister with crossed arms and a frown.
“‘M fine!” Lil Muff calls out — she attempts purchase on the branch above her to prove it, digging her little claws quite painfully into the bark.
“You’re going to fall and sprain something.”
“You wish!” she sneers.
Snap raises their brow but decides, ultimately, that should their sister tragically die here it’d be the way she wanted: with a grand, stupid act of bravery.
They could lecture more, but instead they sit and uphold thick condescension when they hear their sister’s groans of defeat, seeing there’s no way to reach the top as the branches slim out. Many ‘I told you so’s hang in the air, unsaid but still heard because Lil Muff gives their sibling such a glare from where they’re sitting in the grass, watching them intently.
“You’re rotten,” she calls out.
“I didn’t even say anything,” Snap says, crimping their lips.
“You think so loud!” When her paws pads touch the earth again she sprints over on all fours to give her sibling a rude flick on the forehead, emitting a protest. “I can tell you’re being all high n’ mighty in that oh-so-big brain of yours!”
Rubbing their abused temple, Snap glares at her. “Well, either way you’re out of that tree so there, perhaps my rotten self saved your hide.”
“I chose to stop climbing,” Lil Muff scoffs, turning away. “Don’t give yourself so much credit!”
“Dripsayshuh.”
“Huh?”
“Oh, nothing.” Snap grins to themself. They stand and brush the dirt off their behind. “Let’s go see what Pappa is doing.”
“Pappa?” Lil Muff whips her head around to see, indeed, Moominpappa has situated himself on the opposite side of the holly-oak, right on the edge of where the hill teeters downward. He can’t see the children from his easel and canvas.
“Wonder what he’s paintin’,” Lil Muff wonders aloud, and at once the children flock over to where their father stands.
Moominpappa paints with uncertainty, as though every brush stroke is permanent. He cleans the brush in an old jar filled with muddy water, pit upon a stool with other supplies, and tries very hard to emulate the tree before him.
“Hiya!” Lil Muff and Snap approach, with the former sprinting over like a startled rabbit. Her happy tail slaps against the grass. “What’re you painting, Pappa?”
Fondly, Moominpappa sets his palette to the side and scoops her up, as she’s still young and very cute. “Hi, Muffin,” he coos, holding her so she can eye his work. “What do you think, eh? A modern masterpiece? Y’know artistry runs in the family, dears — perhaps you’ll be a painter too!”
Lil Muff puckers her frown to the side, thinking it over; she gives the painting a proper looksee, despite her itchy attention span, and concludes, “Looks bad, Pappa.”
Moominpappa sputters in shock and offense; he spends so long gawking that Lil Muff finds the time to wriggle out of his hold.
“Goodness,” he murmurs at last, as his daughter runs round and round his setup. “I’d thought the tree looked decent…”
“Looks like a blob!” Lil Muff trumpets, still trotting around like a horse in a carousel. “You should make it a big giant! A green pirate giant!”
“You and your pirates,” Snap sighs.
“‘Cause they’re neat!”
“Yes, but if they’re giants, their ships will just cover up the entire ocean,” Snap argues, swatting cleavers off the hem of their dress.
“Easy fix,” Lil Muff retorts. “Flood the land to make the sea bigger!”
“Now there’s an idea…” Moominpappa mutters above them; he’s so wounded over his daughter’s critique that he’s picked up the palette out of spite. He doesn’t look up from his line of work to say, “How’s about you go and tell Snufkinpappa his music is atrocious, then?”
On cue, a familiar creak from the red door on the veranda answers. From it emerges their second father, who is only present for select seasons but brings toys and songs and a good ear. He holds a tray with a ceramic jug, its contents unknown, and sets it on a nearby table where the glasses on the tray dance.
“Lemonade and fruit!” he calls out.
The children are immediately excited and leave Moominpappa to his work, setting off up the hill.
Behind Snufkinpappa, Pluckey steps out with their own share of fruit slices, having helped their father in the kitchen. They chew on the cherries to aim the pits at their siblings as they clamber up the steps, receiving dirty glares in their wake.
“Hello, bumpkins,” their father greets them warmly, pouring each of them a glass of strawberry lemonade. “Tell me if there’s too much sugar in this, please.”
They all thank him, sipping their drinks under the hot porch — in truth it’s more tart that sugary, but they’re all too parched to complain.
Snufkinpappa settles himself into a rocking chair and nibbles on a few stray pieces of pear. “How is your day, sweets?”
“Pappa’s an artist!” Lil Muff proclaims, finishing her lemonade and scrambling into her father’s open lap — he doesn’t mind the shedding furs left on his smock. “He’s paintin’ trees.”
“Badly, it seems,” Snap comments, leaning against the railing.
Farther out, Moominpappa listens in and gives the most bitter and vocal ‘Pah!’ he can muster. This has Snufkin tugging back an amused grin; he watches his partner brush violent strokes of green across his canvas.
“It’s not very nice to tell others that their art is bad,” Snufkinpappa chides, patting his daughter’s downy pelt. “Artists are often very sensitive. They don’t like it when others can’t see the same things that they can.”
“Like bad trees?” Lil Muff tries.
“Exactly.”
She cranes her neck to the side a bit. “Are you an artist too, Papa?”
“I’m whatever you’d like for me to be,” he answers.
The afternoon melts into the sighs of primrose and honeysuckle swaying in from the west, and the children eat their goodies as Snufkinpappa plucks a strand of heather from Moominmamma’s garden just below, sealing it between his pale lips to dissuade the temptation to smoke. Lil Muff worms out of his grip, only to climb atop his shoulders and rest just beneath the brim of his hat — she’s too big to scurry underneath it like her aunt.
You promised we could go and give some food to Juniper, Pluckey reminds their father after everyone’s bellies are filled.
“Ah, yes,” he murmurs, then pulls himself away from the railing where he’s been admiring Moomintroll’s work. He gently shoos Lil Muff off his shoulders and she slithers her way off and onto the floor to explain, “Our guest may enjoy some lemonade, too.”
“Does Juniper even like sweet things?” Lil Muff asks.
“She likes you lot very much, so I’d assume so.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know!” she retorts with a fuss. “All she does is brood in her room! She never wants to play!”
“She’s twice your age,” Snufkinpappa reminds her. “Her idea of play may be different from yours.”
“She seems lonely,” Snap comments offhand, quiet for only the considerate ears. When none seem to notice their remark they look inside their glass to the kaleidoscope of lemonade and ice, and are ignored when they very much shouldn’t be.
I wanna go see her, Pluckey says. Can I bring her the glass, Papa?
“That’d be very kind of you, pudding.”
Satisfied, Pluckey hurries back inside to retrieve a clean cup.
“I wanna see her, too,” Lil Muff pouts, ears drooping.
Snufkinpappa cranes his fingers to give the top of her head an assuring scratch. “Maybe when she’s more comfortable with everyone, she’ll be happy to come out and talk.”
“Then we could go berry-huntin’,” Lil Muff agrees with a nod, perking right back up like a sunflower. “Pappa doesn’t ever take us.”
Snufkin trades a worn grin with a very unamused Moominpappa, who is still eavesdropping and is feverishly painting with a stiffer demeanor than before.
“Perhaps be nicer to his hobbies,” he murmurs quietly to his daughter, “and he might consider.”
Pluckey knocks the door to regain their father’s attention, and they both take the dirtied dishware inside as the remaining two scurry off the veranda to further bug Moominpappa.
-
Every visitor, no matter the time or circumstances, can always rely on a room to be waiting for them in Moominhouse. There’s a comfort to that, but there’s also a yawning loneliness if one knew where to look, too. Nothing stays in Moominvalley for too long, the place being so serene and distant from the world that it’s almost a mirage; for some, that’s scary.
It does lend aid, though, particularly to any lost child that scurries up the hillside. And each with a name, sometimes where there once was none: Tuffe, Toft, Ninny, and many more all arriving like injured birds and leaving with eager, flapping wings onto the next adventure.
The occupied guest bedroom in question is at the very end of the hallway, as Juniper had a habit of folding herself in as small as possible. She hadn’t been invisible when she arrived, but everyone was fretful she was on the cusp of.
Snufkin holds the plate of fruits, given that Pluckey would just eat them on the journey up, and he knocks the door with his free paw.
There’s a tangible weight to the silence, not unlike making noise and seeing a deer crane its head. The drop of a heartbeat on the other side is so visceral that Snufkin finds himself uneasy too.
“Hullo,” he tries. “May we come in? We have snacks, if you’d like them.”
An intermission follows, before the clacking of hooves approaches and the door is hesitantly opened. Juniper’s eyes are the first to bleed through her frizzy hair, and she looks worn out. Her eyebags are so purple they bring a new pop of color to her maroon locks.
Her gaze drops to her visitor’s feet, and she seems delighted that they have no shoes to begin with. She widens the entrance and makes room for them to enter.
The bedroom is just as pristine as it’d been when they’d first given it to her — a ghost could make more of a mess. The only variety is a slew of opened books and scattered papers flung across a desk facing a window; they're all dictionaries or picture-books from the attic. Her wastebasket is overflowing.
“I wasn’t sure if you liked mandarin,” Snufkin says, placing the dish on top of a nursery book. “But I remember you drinking orange tea once — this is a similar taste. There’s cherries, too — you can spit the pits back onto the plate, I won’t mind cleaning it.”
Juniper just stares on politely, paws knitted together at her front. Her turtleneck itches greatly but she doesn’t budge.
She’s a very odd creature to the settlers in Moominvalley: a sort of deer but with markings on her face, and narrower in the snout. Her horned antlers are as sharp as, quote Lil Muff, ‘killer party hats’. She’s thin, too, like walking paperback; but there’s a strength beneath her, too, and her corded muscles always seem prepared to sprint. Akin to a wolf in sheep’s clothing, glinted eyes bleeding through the wool.
When she first found her way to the valley, she spoke with a very strange language that sounded like her voice was raised, and the way her tone was structured just wedged a thick barrier; her accent and her stress on odd syllables made her listeners scratch their heads.
They concluded rather quickly that her language tree was borne from an entirely different pasture. But, she’s very smart: she doesn’t sway from changing her language, but she does point to what she desires and helps the house spell it out to suit her. Pluckey has done a fantastic job teaching her sign, so she’s warmed up to them the most.
When Pluckey comes in, they bow their head a bit and sign something that Snufkin doesn’t catch, as he’s too busy side-eyeing the odd writing beside the Swedish books. Juniper bows in turn, although not enough that her gaze is smothered by her unraveling plait of hair. She, too, signs something he doesn’t interpret.
“Moominmamma asked about you in her letter,” Snufkin speaks up, and Juniper looks to him. Meanwhile Pluckey searches the threadbare bedroom. “They’ll be back soon enough, but they worry like the dickens, you know. They hope you’re well-fed.”
Juniper is attentive to his tone; when he’d first spoken to her it sounded so harsh to her ears that she’d cried a lot in private. But his demeanor and kind eyes flit beneath language; she knows he’s harmless.
“We’ll leave you be,” he decides, not wishing to overstay. “Pluckey?”
He hears their head thunk loudly against the bed slats, and Juniper cries in alarm before ripping her tongue loose and seeming to scold Pluckey very brutally for their innocent scavenging. Snufkin deeply frowns, finding the display more of mischief than offensive intent, but of course he intervenes.
“Silly beast,” he sighs before kneeling down and calling, “Pluckey, please come out from there. We don’t hide under others’ beds without permission, remember?”
They pick their way out a moment later, toying with their pockets that look a little more loaded than when they first delved under the bed. Neither appear to notice, with Snufkin apologetically letting himself out and Pluckey hot on his tail.
The door closes behind them as final and sharp as a legal sentence.
-
Not even an hour after, Pluckey tugs on their father’s dress.
“What is it, chickadee?” Snufkinpappa doesn’t look up at first, occupied with her fervent attempts to scrub the rust off the family’s pans; with Moomin’s parents out on an impromptu sailing trip he’s determined to leave them with little to no chores upon their return.
He finally lets up by flexing his pruned fingers and giving them a wipe, and then turning to his child properly so they can communicate with him. “What is it?” he repeats kindly.
Pluckey pulls their findings from beneath Juniper’s bed from their pockets and holds it out for inspection: a soup can.
Snufkin looks rightfully baffled, at first. “Do you want this?” he asks them, taking it. “It’s close to supper, you know.”
They shake their head. Found it, they explain.
“Where?”
Juniper.
“Oh.” His tone becomes very strange — a verbal pin drop.
Slowly, he plots the can next to the sink, unsure of what to do with it. Pluckey awaits his response; they hope Juniper isn’t in too much trouble for stealing from the pantry, because she’s got a whole stockpile of goods so large it looks like a grocery under her bed. They saw some tinned peaches she’d stuffed away, and that’s admittedly upsetting because Pluckey had really wanted to save those for themself.
Their father keeps staring at the countertop very grimly. They recognize the symptoms of him thinking very hard about something particularly unwieldy, being: muscles lined, ashen face, a new weight to his eyes.
His thoughts are skewed and upturned; it’s hard to tell his eight year-old why she’s done this but he knows, he knows why, and he also knows he can’t solve it because he’s never found the solution himself.
Pluckey looks more concerned the longer he’s quiet, and trots forward until their paws are on his smock; they look at him until he finally looks back.
“Leave her be for now,” he sighs, doubling over to give a half-caress, half-headscratch. He encases their velvety paws with his prickled ones, which carry many stories beneath their grip. His eyes look like prisons. “If it makes her happy, best to let her take what she wants.”
Pluckey doesn’t look content by this — they’d really wanted those peaches. But, suppose someone in the house could always take them shopping to retrieve more.
With his gaze still battered and raw, he tries an easygoing expression that doesn’t suit him; he stands and releases his child’s paws. “Did you take a bath last night?” he asks them.
They blink. Yeah.
“Your hair smells lovely — must be that new shampoo,” he says. “Go and play with your siblings. I love you.”
They do so, and Snufkin perks his ears to hear them race off towards the direction of the front door.
Once he’s alone, he takes the soup can and pushes it behind a breadbox before it starts making him feel sick. If Moomintroll finds it and asks, he’ll try to be honest.