The Bud on the Fallen Beech
Lior climbed the last of the hill with their hands tucked into their sleeves, and Plum rode on their shoulder like a small grey lantern. The forest was cold the way early spring is cold: sharp at the nose, warm under the collar. The moss held the night's chill. The stones held the leftover afternoon. Lior stepped from stone to stone to keep their boots dry, and Plum leaned with every step, tufted brows low, heavy lids half shut. Above them the stars hung between the branches like lanterns nobody had to light. Lior was going to the fallen beech at the top of the slope, because Plum had seen something there the night before, and Plum saw most things first.
The beech had come down years ago and lay along the hill, wearing moss like a blanket pulled to the chin. Lior knelt beside it and put a palm flat on the bark. It was warmer than the air. It had been holding the sun all day and was in no hurry to let it go. Plum shuffled sideways down Lior's arm and stopped, staring, until Lior looked where she looked. There, on the underside of the log, out of the wind, grew a single pale bud on a green stem. It was closed tight as a small fist. When Lior touched it, it was cool, cooler than the bark, cool as a spoon left out all night.
Lior wanted to see inside it. That was the whole of the want, simple as thirst. They breathed on the bud, slow and warm, the way you breathe on a window to draw in the fog. Nothing happened. They cupped both hands around it like a lantern and held them there until their fingers ached. Nothing happened. They found the seam where two petals met and slid a thumbnail along it, gently, then stopped themselves before the gentleness ran out. Plum made a small sound in her throat, not a word, just a sound. Lior sat back on their heels. "It opens when it's ready, not before," they said, mostly to themself.
So Lior got comfortable, which took some doing. They swept the pine needles into a heap and sat on it. They put their back against the warm side of the beech, the side that had faced the afternoon, and pulled their knees up inside their coat. Plum climbed into the space between Lior's collar and their ear, where it was warmest, and settled with a rustle of feathers like someone shaking out a rug. The cold came up out of the ground slowly, the way water fills a footprint. The warm came off the bark slowly too. Lior sat between the two of them, one side cool, one side toasted, and watched the bud do absolutely nothing.
Other things did things instead. A beetle with a green back walked the length of a root and turned around and walked it again, as if checking. Two grey moths came out of the dark and blundered past, close enough for Lior to feel the stir of them. A drop of water fell from somewhere high and landed on Lior's wrist, shockingly cold. Far off, an owl who was not Plum called twice and stopped. Lior's breath went out of them in pale clouds and came apart above their knees. Plum's eyes closed and opened and closed. "It opens when it's ready, not before," Lior whispered, and Plum's lids lifted a little, as if agreeing.
Then Lior noticed something. When they leaned in close, breathing on the bud, the petals seemed to draw tighter, the way you hunch at a sudden gust. When they sat back and let the night air settle on it, the seams loosened. It was not the warm the bud wanted. It was the cool, the deep patient cold that gathers under a log after midnight. Lior moved their hands away and tucked them in their armpits. They sat back until only their looking reached the bud. It was harder than helping. Helping gives you something to do. Lior gave the bud the whole cold night instead, and kept their warmth to themself, and waited.
The bud opened the way a hand opens in sleep. One petal eased out, then two, then the rest all at once, pale as the inside of a shell. A smell came off it, cold water and honey and something like rain on stone. Lior did not move. Plum lifted her head from the collar and blinked her heavy lids, slowly, twice. One of the grey moths came back and sat on the rim of it, folding and unfolding, warming itself at a flower that had no warmth at all. Lior laughed, one small breath of a laugh, and felt it go out of them into the dark and come back cold.
After a while Lior stood, stiff at the knees, and left the flower to its night and its moth. Plum rode home on the shoulder nearest the wind, which is where she liked to be. The path down was warmer than the path up. Lior's ears thawed. Their hands came out of their sleeves. At the door they stopped and looked back once at the hill, at the dark shape of the beech holding its one pale light. "It opens when it's ready, not before," Lior said. Then bed, and blankets, and Plum settling on the bedpost with her feathers loose. The room went quiet. Two of them breathing, slower and slower, until only the breathing was left.