The Moonflower Cup
Tova carried the shell cup with both hands. It was full of rainwater, cool and sweet. She had saved it all day for the moonflower. The moonflower grew on the rim of the far tide pool. It opened for one night only, and it smelled like honey. Tova stepped into the warm shallows. The water came up around her ankles and stayed there, soft as a sleeve. She walked slowly so the cup would not spill.
The wet sand squeaked under her feet. A wave turned over somewhere behind her and sighed. Tova smelled salt, and warm stone, and the little rain in her own cup. A turtle drifted past, slow as a floating plate, and blinked one round eye at her. "I'm going to see the moonflower," Tova told him. The turtle blinked again and drifted on toward the dark water. "Goodnight for now. See you tomorrow night," she said.
Halfway along the rocks, Tova heard a small dry scraping. High up on a flat stone sat a snail, far above the water line. His shell was pale and chalky. He smelled like dried seaweed, like a jar left open. The tide had set him down there and gone away without him. His foot moved a little, then stopped. Tova crouched beside the stone and looked into the cup in her hands.
The rainwater shivered when she tipped it. There was just enough for the moonflower, and not a drop extra. Tova thought about the honey smell. She thought about the snail on the hot pale stone. Then she poured a slow ribbon of water over his shell. It darkened straight away, like a stone in rain. The snail's foot slid out. Tova set the cup down, lifted him with both hands, and held him against her chest.
She walked him down the rocks one careful step at a time. He weighed almost nothing, and he was cool now, and he smelled like the sea again. At the bottom she found a pool with green weed floating in it. Tova knelt and set the snail on the weed, under the water, where the light wobbled. He began to move. She tipped the last of her rainwater in after him. The shell cup was empty.
The far tide pool was quiet when she reached it. Tova held out her empty cup and felt sorry for a moment. Then she smelled it. Honey, and melon, and something like warm bread. The moonflower had opened by itself, white as a spoon of milk, wide on the dark water. Sea spray had kept it wet all evening. Tova sat down on the rim with her knees up and breathed the smell in.
She stayed while the moon slid across the pool. A little fish came up to look at the flower and went down again. Then the white petals began to move. They curled in slowly, one over another, the way a hand closes. The honey smell grew thin. Tova put her finger near the last open petal, not quite touching. "Goodnight for now. See you tomorrow night," she said. The flower folded itself shut.
Tova looked along the rim of the pool. There, just under the water, were four small green buds on four small stems. They were shut tight as beads. One of them had the thinnest white line down its side, like a door not quite closed. Tova counted them twice with her finger in the air. Four more nights of honey. She yawned so wide her eyes watered, and she wiped them with her wrist.
The tide came up warm around the rocks and lifted her nightdress like a jellyfish. The turtle was back, floating beside the stones, waiting the way turtles wait. Tova climbed onto the wide smooth deck of his shell and lay down on her front. He swam toward the sand without hurrying. The water smelled of salt and honey and rain. "Goodnight for now. See you tomorrow night," Tova said, and her eyes were already shut, and she was already being carried.
