Drawtober 2026: Fungus Collector

Time: 3:12 p.m., October 31

“Please come down.”

“No.”

“I won’t hurt you, I promise. Look, I’ll—I’ll just lay the invitation right here and you can come fetch it. I’ll back up.”

“You’ll pounce on me.” From her perch in the upper branches of an obliging oak tree, Barley Nutcorn stared at the Shadow Prince with suspicious black eyes. The cat sat three branches down. He held a piece of paper in his paw, one he claimed was an invitation, but she knew better than to trust him. He was a cat, after all.

Up until his arrival, Barley had been having a lovely day. She’d woken up to the bite of frost on the air and scurried outside as fast as she could with a basket in paw, eager to begin her foraging. Like many of her kind, Barley was an industrious sort of squirrel. Before even the first hint of winter had hit the breeze, she had begun stockpiling for a long winter. Today, she planned to find mushrooms.

Barley loved mushrooms. While other squirrels savored nuts and berries and bugs, she sought the meaty, dark flavors of fungus. She hunted around fallen logs and on the shady sides of stumps for her prey. She’d been doing just this when the sound of crackling leaves sent her racing up the nearest tree (the oak she was currently in) and staring around with a twitching nose for danger. When she finally spotted Prince, trudging out of the shadows with a messenger bag across his chest, she had not relaxed. Cats were no friends to her kind. When he asked her to come down, she refused. When he climbed up the tree to come to her, she scampered higher.

This had been going on for a solid twenty minutes.

Under normal circumstances, Barley knew that Prince could wait her out. Cats were terribly patient creatures, and squirrels were not. But the longer she sat there and stared down at him, the more she came to realize that something was wrong with the cat. His normally glossy black fur was matted down, shiny in an unhealthy way. His whiskers drooped, and cobwebs trailed from the fur along his back. Every few minutes, he would look nervously over his shoulder.

This is a trap, Barley decided. The only thing she didn’t know was whether it was a trap for her—or a trap for him.

“Please come down,” Prince begged again.

“Just leave it,” Barley retorted. “Leave it and go and I’ll think about coming down.”

“But I need to know your answer!”

“My answer is go away.” She looked at her abandoned basket of mushrooms at the base of the tree and felt even more irritated. “I have nothing to say to you.”

“Ple—” Prince broke off. Barley heard, distantly, the sound of something loud coming their way. Beneath her, Prince let out a piteous whine.

She coiled up, considering where she could flee to. Leaving her basket hurt her, but if the thing coming through the woods was enough to scare Prince, she wanted no part of it.

“Please!”

She looked down, pausing. Prince was scrambling up the tree. He looked at her with wide eyes, claws scraping against the wood. It was getting too narrow for him to climb comfortably, but that wasn’t stopping him from trying.

“What are you running from?”

“Miss Spider.” The crashing got louder. “I didn’t think she would follow me. Help me hide, please.”

Barley hesitated. She was not a hard-hearted creature. She did not always approve of Prince’s tricksy behavior—squirrels are notorious for scolding rude manners—but the poor creature seemed terrified. Also, Barley knew Miss Spider. She knew what she did to those who crossed her.

Mind made up, she scampered down to Prince. “Follow me,” she said as the crashing grew louder. “And be quick.”

#

Barley knew when Miss Spider neared her clearing. The little red squirrel sat atop a huge, rotten log, watching for her newest guest. Her basket of mushrooms sat beside her, mostly full, though she did munch on a turkey tail while she waited. The flavor helped her stay calm as the black mass of Miss Spider appeared.

Barley swallowed her mouthful and raised a paw. “Good afternoon, Miss Spider.”

The spider’s eight eyes swiveled to her. Barley had to keep herself from flinching as the creature drew closer, mandibles clicking.

“A sssquirrel,” Miss Spider said. “It isss not often I am addresssssed by your kind. But perhapsss you are too ssstupid to be afraid of me.”

“My name is Barley, Miss Spider. Barley Nutcorn,” Barley said. “And I am afraid of you. Very much so.”

“Then why do you not run?”

“Because I am guarding my stores.” Barley patted the fallen log beneath her. “With winter coming on, I cannot afford any thieves in my stash.”

“Then you and I have sssomething in common, for it isss a thief I ssseek.” Miss Spider drew a little closer. “Thisss very morning, he took sssomething preciousss from me.”

Barley’s ears twitched, and she shifted firmly on her log. “There are no thieves here, Miss Spider. Please do not come any nearer—I cannot trust even you near my stores.”

“Foolish creature,” the spider hissed. “I have no interessst in nutsss or ssseedsss. I ssseek a cat of black fur with a bag around hisss shouldersss. I know he came thisss way.”

“That would be quite a silly thing, a cat with a bag. Perhaps he was trick-or-treating.”

“He ssstole from me,” Miss Spider hissed. Her face was suddenly inches from Barley’s own. This close, the red squirrel could see her trembling nose reflected in the spider’s many eyes. “Thievesss will be punished.”

Barley could hardly breath. She wanted very badly to hide. To scramble up the tree and conceal herself in its branches. But Barley was a squirrel of her word, and she did not like being yelled at. It was rude.

“Miss Spider, normally I would agree with you wholeheartedly. Stealing is very wrong. We squirrels know this all too well—why, my store of food is constantly being filched from even with my vigilance. But—” and here, Barley raised a paw, for she saw the spider open her mouth to speak, “—you forget what day it is. The rules that are so precious to you and I, they bend on All Hallows Eve, bend so far they would break on any other day. And yet they do not. By those rules, bent or no, we must abide. Even squirrels know this.”

At her words, Miss Spider reeled back as if struck. Barley saw the knowledge flicker across the creature’s face. Halloween was a day of treats and tricks. If Prince had stolen from her on any other day, Barley was not sure she could have protected the cat from her wrath. But today, just today, the laws of the universe went crooked. If Miss Spider repaid a trick played this day with violence, it would not go well for her. Not at all.

Still, the creature wavered. Her legs shuffled in the fallen leaves, making a shh shhhhh sound that sent shivers up Barley’s spine.

“Thisss isss not over,” Miss Spider said finally. “I will not be mocked by a sssquirrel.”

“I am not mocking you, Miss Spider. I am merely telling you the truth. Oh! That reminds me.” Barley reached into her basket, the rules of Halloween echoing in her own fluffy ears. She pulled out a fine, tender mushroom and held it out to the arachnid.

“A treat, Miss Spider. I am not one for tricks. Happy Halloween.”

Miss Spider glared at the mushroom with all eight of her eyes. She did not take it. Instead, the creature turned her massive bulk and skittered off through the trees.

Barley waited until she was sure Miss Spider was gone. Then, she knocked on the log three times.

“All clear.”

A cat head—covered now with bark and splinters—popped out of the hole in the log that Barley had been sitting above. Prince clambered out and sat himself down. He began licking his paws shakily.

“Thank you, Miss Nutcorn,” he said in a trembling voice. “That was very brave.”

“You should not have stolen from her.” Barley began putting mushrooms into the log from her basket.

“I know.”

“She will not let this go.”

“I know that, too.” Prince sighed heavily. “I am a very foolish cat.”

“You are. But I shall not hold that against you.” Setting her basket aside, Barley looked him up and down. Having faced the far more fearsome Miss Spider, Barley didn’t feel a twinge of fear for Prince now. “You said you had an invitation for me?”

“Oh. Yes.” Prince opened his satchel and pulled out an envelope. “It’s for the Samhain festival tonight in town. It is probably starting very soon…” His words trailed off, and he looked down at his rather piteous state. If possible, he looked even more ragged than when he’d first entered the clearing.

Barley’s nose twitched. He looked so very piteous sitting there, and Barley could not help feeling sorry for him. He was a very foolish cat, but that did not mean he deserved to be eaten.

“There is a spring not far from here,” she said as she set the invitation aside. “It has very pure, very clean water. Not many know of it. I can show you where it is, and I will even help you get clean in time for tonight. But you must make a deal with me, first.”

Prince’s ears perked up. “A deal? What is it you want?”

“You live with the witches, yes?”

“Yes…”

“In exchange for me helping you, you will bring me a banana nut muffin from the baking-witch every week this winter.” She held out her paw. “Deal?”

Prince blinked his big, cat eyes. “That’s all you want?”

“Her muffins are very good,” Barley said, affronted on behalf of the witch. “For a hungry squirrel, they are worth quite a bit.”

Prince the cat smiled a weary cat’s smile and took her paw with his. “Fair enough. You have a deal, Miss Nutcorn.”