The Shortcut Through the Ferns

The warm rain stopped all at once, and the valley began to drip. Cato stepped out from under the fern where he and Rosa had waited. Water ran off the fronds and tapped on the mud. Far across the valley something called — a long low note, like wind over the mouth of a jug. Rosa's upright ear turned toward it. One ear up, one flopped, as always. "Home before the stars," said Cato. Their sleeping hollow lay around the curve of the river, past the black boulders. It was a long walk. Cato looked at the ferns and had an idea.

A narrow gap ran into the ferns, green and dim and pointing straight toward the hollow. "This way, Rosa. It's shorter, I think." Rosa looked at the gap. Then she hopped in after him. The ferns stood taller than Cato, and the rain they held came down in soft handfuls on his head. The ground squelched. Somewhere behind them the long low note came again, slower now. They walked. The gap bent left, which was fine, and then bent left again, which was less fine. Cato stopped where two paths crossed and turned a slow circle. Both looked the same.

Three round footprints lay ahead, each one wide as a washing bowl, each one filling with rain. Cato put his hand in one. The water was warm. "Whoever made these was going somewhere," he said. Rosa sniffed the edge of the nearest print and set off along them, nose low. Cato followed. The prints led out of the ferns into a meadow of horsetails, where small green dinosaurs grazed in the wet like geese. They lifted their heads and watched him pass, chewing. The long low note came again from the ridge, and every head in the meadow turned toward it at once.

At the end of the meadow ran a stream, fat with new rain. Cato walked along the bank looking for stones, and Rosa walked beside him. They found a line of flat ones and crossed, one hop each. On the far side the mud held more prints, bigger now, pressed deep. Cato's feet were brown to the ankle. He laughed and shook one foot, and Rosa shook hers too, which did not help at all. "This way, Rosa. It's shorter, I think." Rosa gave him the look of someone who knows better and comes anyway. The note sounded again, nearer.

The prints climbed a slope of wet moss, and Cato climbed with them. At the top he stood and looked, and the whole valley lay below him, steaming. He could see the river, the black boulders, their sleeping hollow — small and far and on the wrong side of everything. The shortcut had taken them twice as far as the long way. Cato thought about this for a while. The sky was turning the colour of plums, and one star sat over the ridge. "Well," he said. Rosa leaned against his leg. Below them, close now, the long low note rolled up the hill.

They went down toward it through the moss. In the shallows at the river bend stood a dinosaur so tall that Cato had to tip his head back twice to find her face. Her neck went up like a path into the sky. She drank, lifted her head, and made the sound — the long low note, right above them, soft as a door closing in another room. Both of Rosa's ears went up. Cato stood very still and let the sound go through his chest. Then the big head came down, down, down, and stopped in the ferns beside him, and breathed.

Her eye was the size of Cato's two hands together. She blinked at him slowly, the way Rosa blinked when she was warm. Then she laid her neck along the moss like a ramp. Cato looked at Rosa. Rosa hopped up first, which settled it. He climbed after her, hand over hand along the warm ridged neck, until he sat high on her shoulders with Rosa in his lap. The ground moved away beneath him. The whole valley came back into view, dim and blue, and then it began, slowly, to go by.

She walked the long way round, because she was far too big for shortcuts. Cato did not mind. He watched the ferns pass under him and the stars come out over the ridge, one and one and one. Rosa was a warm weight against his front. "This way, Rosa. It's shorter, I think," Cato said, and yawned in the middle of it. Somewhere ahead the river made its quiet noise. He felt the long low note start up again, under him this time, like a hum inside a wall. His eyes closed. The valley carried him home.