The Short Way Home
"Which way is quickest home?" Pia asked. She held a round glass jar against her chest. Inside it sat a handful of evening light, gathered from the top of the sky. It glowed like a small warm moon. Wisp drifted just ahead of her and glowed brighter. Below them the stairs of vapour curled down and down, all the long way around the kingdom. Pia looked at the soft mist to her left. "Let's try the short way, Wisp," she said.
She stepped off the stairs onto a low bank of cloud. It held her like a pillow. Wisp floated beside her shoulder, round and white and smiling. The jar swung as she walked, and its light made slow circles on the mist. The bank sloped gently down instead of straight across. Soon they were standing in a wide white hollow. Pia looked back. The stairs were a pale ribbon far behind them. "Still shorter," she said. Wisp glowed.
A wind came through the hollow, slow as a yawn. It carried little seeds of light, hundreds of them, drifting past Pia's knees and her elbows and her nose. She stopped. She put out one hand and a seed landed in her palm and sat there, shining, weighing nothing at all. Wisp glowed brighter and brighter until the whole hollow was lit like the inside of a lamp. Pia watched until the last seed had blown over the edge.
They walked on. The cloud rose into a soft ramp, and at the top of the ramp there was a pool. Rain had gathered there and stayed, sitting neatly on the cloud like water in a saucer. The moon lay in the middle of it. Pia knelt down and looked. There was her own face, and Wisp above her shoulder, and the moon between them. She stirred the water with one finger. All three of them wobbled and came back.
Pia sat back on her heels. "It is taking a while," she said. Wisp bobbed once and glowed. She lifted the jar and tipped it a little over the pool. Some of the gathered light poured out, slow as honey, and spread across the water and stayed there. Now the pool shone from underneath. Pia laughed, one quiet laugh, and put the lid back on. "Let's try the short way, Wisp," she said, and stood up.
Past the pool the cloud grew ridged and rolling, like sand under shallow water. Small puffs of cloud drifted across it, bumping softly into her ankles and rolling away again. Wisp drifted just ahead, glowing, showing her where the ground was firm. The kingdom was very quiet. Pia could hear her own feet, which made a sound like walking on snow. She could hear the jar tapping against her buttons. She could hear nothing else at all.
Then the ridges dropped away and there below her were the stairs. The same stairs. They had gone all the way around the kingdom and come back to them, the long slow way, without meaning to. Pia stood at the top and looked at the curling steps and thought about the light seeds and the pool holding the moon. Wisp glowed, brighter than before. "That was the short way," Pia said. She did not mind even a little.
Down she went, step after soft step, one hand on the jar. Her sleeping place waited at the bottom, a dip in the cloud worn smooth and warm. Pia climbed in and lay down. She set the jar beside her head, where its light spilled over the edge of the dip. Wisp settled against her shoulder, glowing low and soft. "Let's try the short way tomorrow," Pia said, and her voice was already going quiet.
Then the sky began to let go of small flakes. They were not cold. They came down through the light of the jar and turned gold as they passed it, and landed on the cloud, and settled, and lay still. One landed on Pia's cheek and melted there. One landed on Wisp and did not melt at all. The flakes gathered along the edge of the dip, soft and even. Pia's eyes closed. Wisp glowed once more, very gently, and the snow kept settling.