Took, Took, in the Ferns
Wren held the hollow reed in both hands and blew one low, round note. The warm rain had stopped an hour ago, and the ferns were still dripping. Plum sat on Wren's shoulder with her sleepy lids half down and her tufted brows damp. The note rolled out across the valley and came back smaller than it left. Then, from somewhere under the ferns, something answered. Took. Took. Wren lowered the reed and stood very still. Took. Took. It came again, patient as a dripping leaf. "Somebody's talking," Wren whispered. Plum turned her head almost all the way round, and they stepped off the path into the wet green.
Wren walked slowly, because the ground was soft and full of footprints. Each footprint was wide as a washtub and brimming with warm rain. Plum glided from frond to frond just ahead, landing without a sound. Took. Took. The sound was close now, under a fallen log furred with moss. Wren crouched and parted the leaves with one careful hand. There, no bigger than a teacup, sat a hatchling with dust-green stripes down her back. She held a pebble. She knocked it on the log. Took. Took. Then she stopped and waited, her small head tipped, her eyes round as rain beads.
Wren waited too. The valley breathed. Far off, past the tree ferns and the slow river, something enormous answered — a low boom that Wren felt in their knees more than heard. The hatchling's whole body wriggled with gladness. She knocked the pebble again. Took. Took. The boom came back, a little nearer. "That's her mother," Wren said softly. Plum blinked a slow blink, which meant yes. So that was the trick of it. You did not just call and call. You called, and then you held still and let the valley bring you something back.
Wren wanted to try. They lifted the reed and blew — then blew again straight away, and again, filling up all the quiet with their own noise. Nothing answered. Nothing could get a word in. The hatchling climbed onto Wren's muddy knee, which was a brave thing for someone so small. She tapped the pebble on Wren's kneecap. Took. Then she sat back and did nothing at all, and the nothing was the lesson. "One call, then wait for the answer," Wren said. They blew a single note and pressed their lips together and counted the drips off the ferns.
Plum lifted off Wren's shoulder and flew into the dark beyond the log. For a moment Wren could not see her anywhere. Then, out of the green, came a round soft hoot. Wren laughed and blew one note. The hoot came back nearer. One note. One hoot. The hatchling knocked her pebble in between, keeping time, until the three of them had made a thing with no name — a song you could only play if somebody else was out there listening. Took. Hoot. A low reed note. Took. The fireflies came up out of the ferns like slow sparks to see.
They played it for a long while. Wren lay back in the moss with the reed resting on their chest and let Plum have the far side of the clearing. Sometimes Wren waited so long that they almost fell asleep in the gap, and then the hoot would arrive and pull them back, warm as a hand. The hatchling tucked herself against Wren's collar and tapped slower, and slower, the way a heart slows down. Steam rose off the footprints. The sky went deep and soft above the fern tops. "One call, then wait for the answer," Wren murmured.
The ferns at the clearing's edge leaned apart without a sound, and the mother came through. She was taller than the tree ferns and moved like weather, one foot and then the other, in no hurry whatever. Plum glided back to Wren's shoulder and pressed close against their ear. The hatchling slid down Wren's arm, crossed the moss, and climbed the great wrinkled foot as easily as climbing stairs, up and up, until she sat high on her mother's broad back and knocked her pebble there. Took. The boom that answered rumbled through the moss under Wren's shoulders.
The mother lowered her long neck until it lay across the moss like a warm fallen branch. Wren looked at Plum. Plum blinked her slow yes. So Wren climbed on, and the valley rose, and the ferns went by beneath them, dripping. Plum settled into the crook of Wren's elbow with her sleepy lids all the way down. Somewhere ahead, in the dark, the hatchling tapped her pebble. Wren hummed one small note and waited, and the answer came. "One call, then wait for the answer," Wren said, to nobody and to everybody, and the slow steps carried them home.
