Howard and Stan use their Dowsing Rod to Locate the Water Ghosts of Sunny Valley Marsh

Here is an illustration I did recently of Howard and Stan using their dowsing stick to find some water logged ghosts. 

When Stan was a young man, he had wandered into the woods and become lost. He tried as he might to make his way back to civilization, but had no luck. Eventually, he mostly accepted his fate that he would be a man of the woods, a man of the mountains, and a man of all great natural terrains. Sometimes it was lonely. But Stan became friend of the lark, of the willow tree, of the rock tumbling off the mountain side. And eventually, Stan even made a friend who could speak normal words... his rabbit human friend Howard.

Howard was born a rabbit like any other. But one day he was granted a wish by a particularly assertive gust of magical wind, traveling from the north where magic reigned. Howard wished he was a human, but the gust of wind was sloppy and only turned Howard into part of a human. So while he walked like a man, talked like a man and thought like a man, he still had the long eared head off a cute and fuzzy rabbit.

Stan and Howard both longed for something. They both longed to go home. Stan wanted to escape the wilderness. Although the wilderness had made him wise and kind and in a way peaceful, he wanted to say hello and goodbye to all his human kin.

Howard, despite his wish, longed to be all rabbit again. He wanted to go back to the warren. He wanted to snuggle against his rabbit friends. He wanted to hop through clover filled fields.

They had heard of the Water Ghosts and their magical ability to grant wishes. The Starlings by the river had told them tales of these ghosts. So with their dowsing rod, they traveled through the woods and over mountains until they reached the Sunny Valley. The pressed their dowsing rod along the ground and when it shimmied and shook, the dug. A marshy pond spread between their fingers as they dug, and the ghosts bubbled forth.

"How can we help you?" The ghosts asked.

"We want to go home!" Stan and Howard said together.

The next day, they woke up.

Howard hopped around with his rabbit friends. He didn't remember his former life, but sometimes he would have some rather deep thoughts for a cheery little bunny.

Stan remembered everything. When he was back in civilization, he often longed for nature again. Civilization had changed a lot since he last lived there. The people he knew were different now. They were so thrilled to see him, but they didn't quite trust him. They didn't know how to talk to him or what it was and was not okay to say.

The girl he had loved as a young man had married someone else.  His mother had died while he was away. His father had married another woman, a lady with a sour expression and a desire to shoo him out the door. His brother was in the army in a far off land. His friends had all moved to different cities and places.

In a way, he was back in the wilderness again. But he had done it before, and he could do it again.