The Quick Way Up
The cloud under Sam's feet felt like warm wool, brushed soft. Sam pressed a toe into it and watched it spring back. Bram walked beside them, his striped face bright in the low gold light. They were going up to the round pool at the top of the stairs, where the last light of the day came to rest. Sam could see the stairs winding up and up and up. "Let's take the quick way, Bram," said Sam.
Sam stepped off the stairs onto a low white ridge. It ran straight ahead, smooth as the back of a spoon. Bram put one broad paw on it and nodded. The ridge held them both easily. Far along it, the light lay in long warm stripes. Sam walked with their arms out, the way you walk on a wall. Bram came behind, never hurrying. Then the ridge bent a little to the left.
The bend went on bending. Soon the stairs were behind them, and then below them. Sam did not mind at all. The bend curved past a place where the wind kept a hundred dandelion seeds spinning. They hung in the gold light like sparks that would not fall down. Sam stood still and watched them turn and turn. Bram watched too, with his wide quiet smile. Then the seeds drifted off together, and the two friends walked on.
The ridge widened into a soft meadow of vapour. Little puffs lay about it like sleeping sheep. When Sam walked near one, it glowed brighter, then dimmed again. Sam tried it twice more. The puff lit up like a lamp under a blanket. "Bram, look," said Sam. Bram stepped between two of them and made them both shine at once. They crossed the meadow slowly, leaving a trail of small warm lights behind them.
At the far side, the meadow tipped downward. Sam looked up and laughed out loud. The round pool was still high above them, further away than before. "This is the quick way," Sam said, "and it is very long." Bram sat down on the slope and made room. Below them, the fields of the world turned from green to grey-gold as the light slid slowly across.
A warm wind came up the slope and lifted Sam's hair. It smelled of rain from somewhere far away. Sam held Bram's paw and let the wind push them upward, step by slow step. The slope became stairs again, small ones, made of smaller clouds. Sam counted them. Seven, eight, nine. Each step glowed where a foot came down, then faded behind them. "Let's take the quick way, Bram," Sam said, and took the long one.
The last step brought them out beside the round pool. It sat in a wide dish of cloud, still as a held breath. All the day's last light had come down into it. It lay there gold at the edges and pink in the middle. Sam knelt and held one hand just above the surface. The light warmed their palm like a stone from a windowsill. Bram lay down with his chin on the rim.
Sam thought about the straight stairs they had not taken, and then stopped thinking about them. There had been seeds spinning in the wind. There had been puffs that lit up like lamps. The pool rippled once, all on its own. Tiny drops rose from it, floated for a moment, and settled back down. Sam watched them settle, again and again. Beside them, Bram's breathing went slow.
The light in the pool sank lower, the way water finds its level. Sam lay down with one cheek against the warm rim of cloud. Mist gathered above them and came down as the finest rain, so fine it did not feel wet at all. It settled on Bram's striped face, on Sam's sleeve, on the quiet pool. "Let's take the quick way, Bram," Sam whispered, and closed their eyes. The last drops settled, and everything was still.
