Thistle Hedgehog Makes a Mistake
Thistle Hedgehog liked her life in lists.
Each morning, she uncapped her inkwell, straightened her spectacles, and carefully unrolled the scroll labeled This Week in Widdershins. Not everyone needed to see it, but Thistle did. It was her way of helping things stay in motion.
She wasn’t the one who made the flowers bloom or told the bees where to fly—but she did like to make sure they remembered. She sent notes. Checked in. Gently reminded the mushrooms not to oversleep.
And everyone appreciated it.
“If Thistle wrote it down,” the frogs often said, “then it must be important.”
So when one bright, blustery Monday morning arrived and Thistle sat down with her cup of Earl Grey tea with a hint of bergamot, she felt a small, sharp silence inside her.
She had forgotten to remind the bees about Pollination Day.
No note. No message.
She stared down at her open ledger, heart pattering against her ribs like a moth in a jar.
“I forgot,” she said aloud. And the world, rudely, did not pause.
She was out the door in under a minute.
Her satchel bumped against her side as she hurried past the stump, the mossy bench, and the puddle that always looked like a half moon. Her notes fluttered behind her like lost feathers.
By the time she reached the hives, her fur was mussed and her glasses slightly fogged.
She expected disaster.
She expected confusion. Collapsed blossoms. Bees milling in small, apologetic circles. Something ruined.
But instead… there was harmony.
The bees were humming as they always did—zigging and zagging from bloom to bloom in graceful loops. The flowers were open, patient and ready. Even the dandelions looked smug with success.
A worker bee paused mid-flight to hover near Thistle’s nose.
“Oh, hello!” it said. “Didn’t expect to see you this early.”
“I—I forgot to remind you,” Thistle confessed, voice barely above a whisper.
The bee tilted its wings.
“Well,” it said, “we missed your note. But we didn’t forget the flowers.”
It winked—or perhaps blinked—and zipped away.
That evening, Thistle sat beneath her notice board, the ledger open across her lap.
The line she had left blank all day stared up at her:
☐ Remind the bees
She took a slow breath.
Then, with careful care, she crossed it out.
☐ Remind the bees
And underneath, in smaller letters, she wrote:
☑ Trust the bees
She did not feel foolish. Or useless. Or unimportant.
She just felt... lighter.
Later, just as the sun slid down the edge of the Wood, she spotted a new bloom beside her door. A small, ruffled thing in a shade of lavender she didn’t recognize. It hadn’t been on any of her lists.
She watched it quietly for a moment, then nodded to herself.
“I suppose not everything needs my help to happen,” she said.
And she let it grow.
Lady Bergamot
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