The Light That Rolled Away
Ivo walked out across the wet sand while the tide was still going away from him. Fern rode in the crook of his arm with her nose tucked under her paw. The moon sat low and made a long white road on the water. Everything was warm. The shallows came up over Ivo's ankles and went down again, soft as breath. He liked the sound they made. He liked how the light slid sideways when he moved. Fern did not say anything yet. She was shy at the beginning of most nights, and Ivo knew to wait. So he walked, and let the sea do the talking.
Something smooth stopped his foot. Ivo crouched and dug with two fingers, and the sand gave it up: a ball of green glass, round as a plum, cool in his palm. Water ran off it and left it clean. Inside, deep down, there was a small drowned shine, as if the glass had swallowed a little of the moon and kept it. Fern lifted her nose. Her spines, mossy at the tips, caught the light. "Look," Ivo said. He turned the ball slowly. The shine turned too, following him around. "Hold it to the moon and look," he said, and Fern climbed up to his shoulder to see.
Fern looked for a long time. Then she pointed her nose down the sandbar, where the rocks began. Out there, low to the water, were other shines. Six, maybe seven, small and green and steady, sitting in a ring. Ivo had never been that far out at night. The water between here and there was ankle-deep and lukewarm, and the moon road ran beside it like a friend going the same way. "I think it belongs over there," Ivo said. The glass ball was heavier than it looked. He held it with both hands and started walking.
The sand ribbed under his feet, hard little waves of it. A long shape moved past him in the shallows, unhurried, and he stood still until it had gone by. Crabs went sideways into their own small darknesses. Fern's claws held his collar. Once Ivo's foot slipped and the ball nearly went, and after that he carried it against his chest, the way you carry something that is not yours. The moon climbed. The lights ahead did not blink or move. They only waited, green and patient, and Ivo walked toward them without hurrying.
The rocks were warm on top and furred with weed below. In a hollow between them lay a pool, round as a bowl and clear to the bottom. The glass floats sat in a ring around its rim, pressed into old soft weed, each one holding its drowned shine. One space in the ring was empty. Sand had blown into it. A small fish hung in the pool under the dark part where no light reached, not moving much. Ivo knelt. "Hold it to the moon and look," he whispered, and lifted the ball one last time.
The ball would not sit. It rolled, knocked the next float, and Ivo caught it against his knee. So he put it down in his lap and cleaned the empty place instead, scooping sand out with the edge of his hand until he found the hollow underneath, shaped exactly round. Fern came down off his shoulder and patted the weed flat with her front feet. Then Ivo lowered the glass in. It settled. It did not roll. The ring was a ring again, whole all the way around. He took his hands away slowly, in case.
The moon found the new float and went into it, and the pool changed. Green light leaned down through the water and touched the bottom, and the dark part was not dark any more. The small fish came out into it. Then two more, thin as eyelashes. They turned, and the light turned on their sides. Fern sat with her chin nearly on the water and watched them, and Ivo watched Fern, and neither of them said anything for a while. The sea breathed in once, somewhere beyond the rocks.
They went back along the moon road, slower than they had come, because Ivo's hands were empty now and there was no hurry in them. Halfway up the beach the sand was dry and still warm from the day. Ivo lay down in it. Fern curled into the warm place under his arm, spines folded soft. Behind them the little green light kept on in its ring, and the water came up the sand and went away again. "Hold it to the moon and look," Ivo said, almost asleep. Fern's side rose and fell. So did his.
