The Light That Was Passed
Something went pock, pock, high up in the dark, and Wren stopped to listen. Plum sat on their shoulder with her sleepy lids half open and her brows up. The forest smelled of wet moss and crushed pine. Pock. A seed pod split above them, and something small came drifting down. It landed in Wren's cupped hands, warm as a breath on a cold morning. It was a little round light the colour of honey. Plum leaned in close, and her grey-brown feathers glowed at the edges. "Hold it a while, then pass it on," Wren said, because that seemed the right thing to say to a light.
Wren walked slowly, the way you walk with a full cup. Plum flew ahead and waited on low branches, then flew ahead again. They came to a beetle crossing a fallen log, and the log smelled of mushrooms and old rain. Wren knelt and tipped their hands. The light rolled onto the beetle's back and sat there, shining green through his shell, and he carried it three proud steps before turning around. He nudged it home into Wren's palms. Plum made a small sound in her throat, pleased. "Hold it a while, then pass it on," Wren whispered, and the beetle went on into the dark.
Plum wanted a turn. Wren held up their hands, and Plum took the light in her claws, gentle as picking up a berry. She flew one wide circle between the trees. From below she looked like a lamp with wings, lighting the moss, lighting the ferns, lighting a ribbon of mist that smelled faintly of cold water. Then she came down and set the light back into Wren's hands without so much as a bump. Wren laughed, quiet, the way you laugh in a sleeping house. Above them the pods went pock, pock, as if the tree were clapping very softly for her.
Moths found them next. They came in ones and twos, then in a small grey crowd, and the air filled with the powdery smell of their wings. Wren held still and let them land. Each moth touched the light for a moment and lifted away carrying a crumb of shine on its back. Soon there were little glows wandering all through the branches, going nowhere in particular. Plum watched with her head tipped over sideways. The light in Wren's hands was not smaller for it. Wren checked twice. It was exactly the same, only now the whole wood was flecked with pieces of it.
The path turned downhill, and Wren tucked the light into their pocket to keep it safe. Under the cloth it went small and grey, like an ember losing heart. Wren stopped and lifted it out again. Plum shuffled down their arm until her feathers touched Wren's wrist, and the light came back gold, then gold and then brighter. So they held it together after that, Wren's two hands beneath and one soft wing above. It grew warm enough to smell, and it smelled like bread, like honey, like the inside of a tree. "Hold it a while, then pass it on," Wren said.
They carried it back to the tree with the popping pods. Its bark smelled of resin, sticky and sweet, and there was a hollow in the roots lined with moss like a nest. Other lights already rested there, six or seven of them, dim and slow, breathing in and out the way sleeping things do. Wren crouched and set their light down among them. It rolled a little, found a comfortable place, and brightened until all the others brightened too. Plum landed on the root above and fluffed herself into a round shape. Neither of them said anything for a long moment.
Wren sat back against the roots. The moss was deep and cool and smelled green, and the light from the hollow lay across their knees like a blanket that weighed nothing. Plum hopped down and settled on Wren's chest, warm and surprisingly heavy, her claws careful through the wool. Far off, a pod went pock. Another answered. Up between the branches the stars leaned in a little closer, the way people do when a story is nearly finished. "Hold it a while, then pass it on," Wren murmured, though there was nothing left to pass, and nowhere either of them wanted to go.
Plum's eyes closed first. Wren watched the feathers on her back lift and fall, lift and fall, and found that their own breathing had gone the same slow way without being asked. In the hollow, the little lights dimmed and swelled, dimmed and swelled, like the forest itself was asleep and dreaming something pleasant. The air smelled of honey and pine and warm owl. Wren's hands, empty now, rested one on top of the other. The moss held them both. The stars kept watch. And Wren and Plum breathed together under the old tree, in, and out, and in, until there was only breathing left.