Where the Rain Stayed
Plink. Plink. Plonk. Ren stopped in the wet ferns to listen. Rain slid off a broad leaf above them and fell in fat drops onto a flat grey stone. Bram put his nose close. Each drop burst and ran away into the moss. Ren pressed a palm to the stone. It was warm and smooth as a plate. "All that water," Ren said, "and none of it stays." Below the stone was a small dip in the ground, dry and lined with grit. A striped lizard sat at its edge, waiting for nothing. Ren looked at the dip, then at the drops, and began gathering stones.
Bram dug his claws into the mud and rolled the biggest stone over. Ren set the flat ones on top, one by one, until a low wall curved around the dry dip. The stones were slick and cold under their fingers. Ren scooped mud from the bank and pushed it into every gap. It squeezed out between their knuckles like soft dough. "It only has to hold the rain," Ren said. Bram sat back and looked pleased with the wall. Above them the broad leaf bent, filled, and tipped. A long ribbon of water came down and slapped into the dip.
The wall held for three breaths. Then the mud slumped, and one flat stone slid out sideways, and the water went with it. It ran down through the moss and disappeared into the ferns, leaving a shine and then nothing. Ren sat down in the wet grass. Bram nudged the fallen stone with his nose, as if asking it to explain itself. The dip was dark and damp now, but empty. Somewhere off in the valley, something huge and gentle groaned a long note into the rain. Ren wiped their hands on their knees and looked at the mud, thinking.
They walked a little way along the path where the big animals crossed. Every footprint there was full to the brim. Rain had fallen in and simply stayed, dark and still, each print a small round pond. Ren knelt and slid a finger down the inside of one. It was not stony. It was grey clay, packed smooth and tight, pressed flat by something enormously heavy. Bram put his broad paw down beside Ren's hand. Ren looked at the paw, then at the print, then back along the path toward the flat grey stone and the dry, hopeful dip.
A shadow moved through the ferns, taller than the tree ferns themselves. Ren held still. A long grey neck swung by above them, and one foot came down on the path with a soft, deep sound, like a hand laid on a drum. When the foot lifted, a new print sat there, its walls pressed smooth and shining. Ren let out their breath. Bram's fur was warm against their arm, damp and coarse as a doormat. Then Ren was up and digging, filling their cupped hands with cold grey clay from the riverbank, carrying it back load by load.
This time Ren did not build upward. They dug the dip deeper with a curved piece of bark, then lined it with clay and pressed, palm after palm, until the inside was smooth as the inside of a shell. Bram climbed in and walked slow circles, packing it down with his weight, the way the great foot had. Around the rim they wedged the flat stones, rough side in. Last, Ren laid a long strip of ribbed bark from the edge of the broad leaf to the dip, tilted just a little. "It only has to hold the rain," Ren said.
They sat back on their heels and waited. Rain ticked on the ferns. The broad leaf bent, filled, and tipped, and the water came — but not in a slap this time. It ran along the ribbed bark in a thin bright thread and slid into the clay bowl without a splash. It stayed. It rose. Ren watched the line creep up the smooth grey wall and did not touch it once. The striped lizard came down off the flat stone, put its chin to the water and drank. Bram drank too, noisily, and then made room at the edge.
The rain thinned and then stopped. Drips came slower off the leaf, one, then another, and the rings they made spread wide and went flat. Ren lay down in the moss with their cheek on Bram's warm striped shoulder. The valley steamed. Frogs started somewhere, far off and unhurried. "It only has to hold the rain," Ren said again, quietly, to nobody. The last drop fell. The water rocked, and settled, and lay still as glass, holding one round piece of moon in it all night long while Ren slept.