Secret of Nimh: Thorn Valley
Chapter 3

Fortune favours the brave

-

The family of five had instinctively moved towards the forest. There were dangers there, to be sure, but at least they had cover instead of being out in the open otherwise. Mrs. Brisby and the children walked slowly away from the farm that had been their home for so long. It was not a pleasant progress, and they routinely looked back. But they knew they had to keep going.

Night had fallen faster than they thought it would...the day had been spent packing and rearranging and saying goodbye. There was a tiny nook in a tree facing the farm, and when Mrs. Brisby had seen that it wasn't being used, the five settled down into it.

It certainly wasn't the Brisby home. Even after a good meal, the mother and children tossed and turned most of the night, half through discomfort, half through fear of what the future would bring.

These fears came to a head for Timothy. "AAAAAAAAAAAHHH!"

"Timothy?" Mrs. Brisby (who hadn't been sleeping well herself) rushed best she could to her son's side as he awoke with a start, the victim of some nightmare. She held his hand as he related his dream, best he could.

"M-mother...there was a cat anna monster anna house was burning down an..."

"Timothy! Timmy! Calm down. It was just a dream. We're all okay. I'm here. You're fine." Brisby said with all the reassurance she could muster.

Timmy took a few more gasps of air before he calmed down enough to fall asleep. Mrs. Brisby tucked him in again and did her best to fall asleep herself.

Her nightmare was not as chaotic as Timmy's had been, but it was no less terrible. The five mice were in a lush field with a large tree, playing some childish game of romp happily.

Suddenly night fell, and dark shapes like mice and rats materialized out of the shadows. Before the mice could run, they had grabbed them all. Brisby had clutched her children, but she found herself being pulled away from her terrified children.

"MOTHER! MAMA! MOMMY!" The children shrieked as the shadows dragged them towards a pit in the ground, with their helpless mother watching them. She tried vainly to break her captors grasp, but the shadow only grimaced as it dragged her towards another hole.

"MARTIN! TIMMY! TERESA! CYNTHIA! DON'T - "

And then they were all gone.

"NO!" Mrs. Brisby awoke with a gasp to find that she had been crushing Timothy's sleeping hand all the time. A quick look to reassure herself that the children were all there and still breathing was nearly not enough to calm her. She teetered back to her blanket, a poor substitute for a bed and fell onto it.

She had a thankfully dreamless sleep for the rest of her first night away from home.

Everyone's sleep was jarred by the sound of machines roaring nearby. The children had woken up and tumbled out of their beds in one motion. Mrs. Brisby knocked her head on the low roof of the cavern waking up.

"Mother, whassat?"
"I don't know..." But in reality, she knew exactly what it was.

The five mice scrambled up to the entrance of the cave and looked at the farm.

Mr. Tucker's workers had arrived a day early, and they were busy plowing up the farm to make room for the power plant. Diggers and backhoes scooped out leftover crops, and a steamroller was flattening the area out for the asphalt layer to do it's job. Rabbits and moles that Brisby knew ran terrified from the mechanical monsters destroying their home. One of the huge shovels was making it's way towards the stone were they had once lived...

Mrs. Brisby decided she didn't want to see any more. "Let's...let's go children. We can't stay here. C'mon."

None of the four young mice needed any second bidding. They turned and never looked back.

The day was spent walking through the woods and picking edible berries while being careful not to make any noise. Every so often Mrs. Brisby would hear a noise and dart her head upward looking for what made it. Cynthia noticed it was happening very often.

"Are you scared, momma?"

Brisby looked at her youngest daughter straight in the eye. "Of course I am." Brisby could never lie to her children.

"Then why do you keep going?"

Mrs. Brisby couldn't think of any answer other than "Because I have to."

-

"It's because you're brave, Mrs. Brisby."

None of the Brisby family heard the speaker, or could see him. But he could see them. An electrically charged crystal ball...or something of the sort...allowed him to watch the family's journey from very far away. The orb sparkled with energy as the watcher looked on the image he saw.

"You're BRAVE. Braver than any of the mice in Micoloni. Braver than that fool, Nicolas. You just don't see it, though we see it in Nicolas. Whether it's there or not. Aheheheheheh."

The speaker was a mouse, a creature hanging in shadows that couldn't help but smile at everything he saw. He had an eye that glowed with a wild light in the darkness of his home. The ragged creature chuckled at his joke watching his crystal ball.

"You who tremble at the thought of a bird, but would walk through hell itself to save someone you care for. That's bravery, Mrs. Brisby. And that's JUST what the rats of NIMH and the mice of Micoloni need. They don't know it, but they need it. Ahehehehe. Brave."

"And fortune favours the brave." The mouse smiled, looking up above Brisby. "But sometimes, fortune needs a little push. Aheheheheheh."

The mouse's hands began glowing with a mystic power, and he made a shoving motion towards what he saw in the ball. The mouse let out one more chuckle

"And here...we...GO."

-

A noise, louder than any Brisby had heard before, broke out above the mice. Twigs snapped and branches broke as whatever it was came diving towards the five. Without thinking, Brisby grabbed her brood and shoved them out of the way as the black bundle smashed into the ground. It spoke angrily.

"Alright, who pushed me? Did you, Jacob? Huh? Someone pushed me I distinctly felt pushed! I know when I'm pushed!"

Brisby opened her eyes to a surprising and familiar scene. A goofy-looking crow was dangling a few inches above the ground, it's wings tangled in purple string. The crow turned to face them, and Brisby recognized him instantly.

"Jeremy?"

"Miss Briz? What are you doing here? I thought ya didn't OOOF!" Jeremy fell with a thump onto the ground as his loyal mate undid the strings, chuckling helplessly.

Mrs. Brisby giggled. "As clumsy as ever." She said under her breath. Jeremy didn't hear her, but he did hear her children's snickers.

"Now don't go thinkin' I tripped! Someone pushed me, I know it! Miss Right, did you see who it was? I bet it was that little scamp Jacob..."

The female crow shook her head laughing. Smiling and nodding politely at Mrs. Brisby and the children, she undid the ropes holding her irrepressible mate down.

"Ah, that, that's better. I swear, I was pushed. I know it! So, anyway, Briz what are ya doing here?"

"We're moving." Teresa stated.

"Moving again? You must like to travel. But why are you goin' away from the...oh." Jeremy quieted up, embarrassed. "The trucks on the farm...oh, I'm sorry. Oh boy..."

"Yes..." Mrs. Brisby sighed. "We're moving..."

"An' we don't know where."
"Martin!"
"Well we don't, do we?"
"Martin please..."
"Oh...sorry, mama."

The Brisby's sighed quietly. Jeremy looked a little puzzled. He thought where they would go was obvious. Why were they so unsure?

"Don't know where? Aren't ya gonna meet up wi' the rats?"

"Rats?"

"You know, the one's that you gave the sparkly to! They're in Thorn Valley, aren't they?"

"The rats!" Mrs. Brisby shot up in realization. Justin. Mr. Ages. Brutus. In the confusion she had forgotten them. She felt utterly foolish for doing so.

"The ones that went to Thorn Valley?" Teresa asked.
"Thorn Valley!"
"Can we go there Mommy?" Cynthia jumped up and down in anticipation.
"Yeah Mama, you promised!"

"Butbutbutbut I don't know how to get there..." Mrs. Brisby stuttered. She couldn't help it. This was all so sudden...

"That's no Problem, Miss Briz! I can fly you all there! Ya like flying, don't cha? C'mon, I can carry you all!"

"Um..."

"Flying? Up in the sky?" Timothy seemed to be the only one other than Mrs. Brisby to be apprehensive about the idea. The other children were excited.

"Say yes, mama! I wanna fly!"
"It'll be better than walking!"
"C'mon, momma! We'll see the rats again!"

Brisby was overwhelmed. Fly? Her and her children? On Jeremy? To Thorn Valley? Where the rats were? This was an unusual development...

"Mommy?"
"Can we go mommy?"
"It's either that or walking to nowhere we know."

That settled it. Brisby stiffened herself, took a deep breath, and said

"Yes. Let's go to Thorn Valley."

-

The shadowy mouse watched them, smiling happily at the children's happy dances at the prospect. But they didn't know what they were in for, the watcher sighed. It would be a long hard road. He sighed, still smiling.

"So it begins."