Cup to Cup
Milo pushed through the wet ferns with Pip trotting at his heel. The rain had stopped an hour ago. The whole valley smelled of crushed mint and warm mud. His boots made small sucking sounds in the path. Pip's ears went up first, the way they always did. Low down among the fronds, something was glowing. It was a leaf shaped like a cup, and the cup was full of light. The light lay in it like spilled milk, pale green, moving a little when the wind came. Milo knelt. He did not touch it yet. He only breathed in and looked.
Pip put his nose close to the glow and his whiskers turned green. Milo laughed under his breath. Then he stood and saw what he had not seen before. Up the path, another cup-leaf glowed. And past that one, another. They went in a long line through the ferns, up the slope, all the way to where the hill went dark against the sky. Ten of them, maybe twelve. Milo counted with his finger in the air. Each little light waited on its leaf, patient as a cup of tea nobody had drunk yet.
While he watched, the near cup tipped. A beetle had landed on its rim, no bigger than a seed. The leaf leaned, and the light poured out slow and thick, and ran down into the next cup along. The first leaf sprang back empty. The second one filled and shone brighter. Milo sat back on his heels. So that was how it worked. The light did not stay anywhere. It travelled. It went along the row like a bucket of water at a fire, hand to hand, leaf to leaf, up the hill and out of sight. "Cup to cup, the little light goes," said Milo.
Pip was already up the path. He stopped where the ferns thinned and looked back, which meant come here. Milo came. In the middle of the row there was a gap. A heavy frond had fallen in the rain and flattened three cup-leaves into the mud. Beyond the squashed ones, the next good cup sat waiting, dark and dry, ten long steps away. Milo crouched and smelled wet green and broken stems. Behind him, one by one, the lower lights were passing themselves along, getting closer. They would come to the gap. Then they would have nowhere to go.
Milo did not wait. He went back to the nearest full cup and slid his fingers under the leaf. The light rolled toward his palm, cool as pond water, and slipped straight through his fingers into the moss. It sank and went out. Milo blinked at his empty hands. They smelled faintly of pepper now, and glowed a little at the edges. Pip sniffed them and sneezed. "All right," Milo said. "Not like that." The row still glowed behind him, plenty of it, unbothered. He wiped his hands on his knees and thought about buckets, and boats, and cups.
Under the big ferns grew smaller ferns, and among them Milo found a curled leaf of his own. It was new and tight, shaped like a spoon, with a stem to hold. He tested it with a little rainwater from a frond. The water stayed in. Pip watched with his head tilted. Milo carried the leaf-spoon back to the last full cup and held it low and steady. Then he tipped the cup with one careful finger. The light came out slow. It slid into his leaf and sat there, breathing, bright enough to show the veins in his hand.
Milo stood up with the light in his fist. The valley had gone the soft blue it goes before real dark. Somewhere off in the ferns, something enormous breathed out through its nose, slow and warm, and the smell of it came over them like hay and rain. Milo stayed still until the breathing moved away. Then he took his first step toward the gap. "Cup to cup, the little light goes," he whispered. The light wobbled but it stayed. Pip walked in front of him, close to the ground, ears up, checking the way the path went.
The mud between was soft and full of print-shaped hollows where great feet had pressed. Pip picked his way along the firm ridges between them, and Milo put his boots where Pip put his paws. Once he slid and the light leaned nearly to the rim. He stopped. He let his shoulders come down. He started again, slower. The ferns brushed his elbows and let out their green pepper smell. Nine steps. Ten. His arms ached from holding one small thing so carefully, which was a strange sort of ache, and not a bad one.
The waiting cup was tilted on its stem, dry as a bowl on a shelf. Milo knelt and turned his leaf-spoon over. The light poured in and settled and spread out flat. For a breath it just lay there. Then the cup leaned, the way the first one had, and passed it on. And the next passed it on. Up the slope it went, cup to cup, quick as a whisper down a line of children, each leaf flaring and going dark again. Milo and Pip watched it climb the hill until it was only a small green star at the top.
They followed it. At the top of the slope stood a creature as tall as three trees, her neck up in the last of the sky. She lowered her head as they came, slow, slow, and her breath smelled of leaves and river water. Below her, in a ring of stamped-down ferns, three striped hatchlings lay in a heap. The last cup-leaf hung right over them. Its light came down soft and green across their backs and their closed eyes, and none of them stirred. Milo sat down in the ferns to watch it happen. Pip sat too, leaning on his leg.
They stayed a while. The big creature folded her neck along the ground and let her eyes go half shut. Milo's hands still glowed faintly at the fingertips, going fainter. Down the hill, the whole row of cup-leaves had gone quiet and empty, waiting for tomorrow's light to start at the bottom again. The valley smelled of mint and mud and warm animals. Pip yawned so wide he squeaked. Milo scratched the cream fur under his chin and felt the yawn go through him too, the way yawns do, from one of them into the other.
Going home, they walked instead of hurried. The path was cool under Milo's boots and the rain had left the air tasting green. Pip stopped twice to smell things Milo could not smell, and Milo waited both times without minding. Their own fern hollow was where they had left it, the moss pressed into the shape of them, the roof of fronds still dripping a little at the edge. Milo lay down. Pip turned around three times and lay down against his side, warm as a loaf, with his nose tucked under.
Above them the fronds moved, and past the fronds a few stars came out, one passing its light to the next and the next, all the way across. Milo watched them for as long as he could. "Cup to cup, the little light goes," he said, very quietly, mostly to Pip. Pip's ear turned to listen and then let go. The valley breathed out its wet green smell around them. Milo's eyes closed. His hand was resting on Pip's paw, and Pip's paw stayed where it was, and neither of them moved it all night.