Goodnight, Little Light

Tova walked the moss path with Rosa close beside her. The moss was damp and soft, like velvet left out in the rain. Her boots made almost no sound. Stars hung in the gaps between the old trees, and lanterns of starlight lay on the path. Rosa's one tall ear turned, listening to everything at once. "It should be awake by now," Tova said. She was going to see the little light that grows for one night only. Rosa hopped ahead, then stopped and waited, the way she always did.

They found it on a fallen log, under a curl of bark. It was a small round mushroom, glowing butter-yellow in the dark. Its cap looked smooth and cool, softer than Tova's own cheek. She did not pick it. She leaned close instead and let the light sit on her face and her hands. Rosa's whiskers shone faintly at the tips. "Hello, little light," Tova whispered. The log under it was rough with moss and tiny wet ferns that brushed her knuckles.

Then Rosa's nose twitched, and her nose was never wrong. Tova looked where Rosa was looking. In the leaves lay a moth, grey and damp and very still. Its wings were stuck down with dew, heavy as wet paper. It tried to open them. It could not. Tova sat down carefully on the cold ground and put her face near the leaves. The moth's feet were thin as threads. "You are too wet to fly," she said, as softly as she could say anything.

Tova's scarf was red and thick and warm around her neck. She found the loose end and pulled. A long curl of wool came away, and the scarf grew shorter. She pulled again, and again, until she had a soft red heap in her lap. The cold air touched the bare place on her neck. She did not mind much. She lined a dry piece of bark with the wool, making a little nest. Then she lifted the moth with two fingers, slow, slow, and set it down inside.

The wool held the moth the way a hand holds a bird. Tova breathed on it, warm and quiet, counting her breaths. Rosa pressed her side against Tova's knee and stayed there. Little by little, the wings loosened. One opened. Then the other. They were grey, with small pale moons on them, dusty as chalk. The moth shivered its wings dry in the starlight. Tova did not touch it again. She only watched, and the forest went on breathing slowly all around them.

When she looked back at the log, the little light had changed. It was dimmer now, the colour of a candle far away across a field. Mushrooms like that shine for one night, and then they are done. Tova's chest went tight and small, the way it does. She knelt on the wet moss and put her chin on the bark. "Goodnight, little light," she said. "See you tomorrow." Rosa leaned down and nudged the moss beside the log with her nose, once, twice.

Tova bent close to see what Rosa had found. There, in the soaked green moss, sat four pale buttons. They were round and firm, no bigger than peas, pushing up slowly. Tomorrow's lights, waiting under the stars with all the time in the world. Tova touched one with the very tip of her finger. It felt cool and smooth, like the shell of an egg. She laid a wide leaf over them, gently, and kept her hand there a moment longer.

Behind her, something soft lifted off the bark. The moth rose, wobbled, found the air, and steadied. It circled Tova's head once, close enough to stir her hair, then went up into the dark branches. The red wool nest stayed behind, empty and still warm. On the log, the little light faded and faded, until it was only a glow, and then it was gone. "Goodnight, little light," Tova whispered. "See you tomorrow." Rosa's ear came down and rested against her shoulder.

Tova's eyes were heavy now, heavier than her boots. Rosa crouched low in the moss, and Tova climbed onto her warm back and held on. Her short scarf tickled her chin. The path went by slow and quiet underneath them, moss, root, moss, root. Somewhere above, wings she could not see went on turning through the starlight. "Goodnight, little light," Tova said, nearly asleep. "See you tomorrow." Rosa carried her home through the old trees, step by soft step.