The Long Short Way
Bree went up the lane with the lantern swinging in her mitten. Plum rode on her shoulder, brows tufted, eyelids low and slow. The loaf under her arm was still warm through its cloth. Snow came down small and steady, and every window she passed was lit. Home was four corners away, past the well and the long fence. Bree stopped where the woodshed leaned against the hedge. There was a gap there, dark and inviting, that nobody used. "This way's shorter. I'm almost sure of it," she said. Plum opened one eye. Then they stepped in, and the lantern light went ahead of them over the snow.
The gap opened into a path Bree had never walked. Old cart ruts lay under the snow like soft grey ropes. The lantern swung, and the light swung with it, touching stacked logs, a bucket, a sled with one runner missing. Plum's head turned all the way round to watch behind them. At the end of the path there was no fence and no well. There was the duck pond, frozen flat, with a lamp burning on its post. The ice held the lamp's reflection like a coin someone had dropped. "Oh," said Bree. "That is further along than I thought." Plum made a small sound that was almost a laugh.
They went around the pond instead of over it, because the going was slower and prettier. Skate marks curled across the ice, silver where the lamplight found them. Bree held the lantern low so Plum could see her own shadow, huge and soft on the snowbank. On the far side stood the greenhouse, glowing green from the lamps inside. Rows of small lettuces leaned toward the glass. Bree pressed her mitten flat against the pane and felt the warmth come through. "This way's shorter. I'm almost sure of it," she said. Plum ruffled and settled. The snow went on falling, quiet as flour.
Past the greenhouse the lane narrowed between two barns. Plum saw it first, the way she always did. Along the low gutter hung a row of icicles, and every one held a thread of lamplight inside it. Bree counted twenty-two. She breathed on the smallest until a drop ran down and fell. Somewhere in the barn a goat shifted and sighed in the straw. Warm breath came out under the door in a slow pale cloud. Bree stood still and let the cold nip her nose, which did not matter at all, because her mittens were thick and the bread was warm.
The lane bent, and bent again, and brought them out at the bakery door. Bree looked at the bakery. Plum looked at Bree. It was the same door she had come out of, with the same footprints, only softer now under new snow. "We have been this way before," Bree said. She minded much less than she expected to. Her lantern threw a ring of yellow on the step, and inside the window the ovens glowed low and orange, banked for the night. Plum lifted one foot, then the other, the way she did when she was pleased about something.
So they started again, the ordinary way, past the well and along the long fence. The well wore a cap of snow like a hat pulled down. The fence posts wore hats too, all leaning in the same direction. Bree walked slowly on purpose. She had already been out a long time, and hurrying now would waste the good part. Plum flew ahead a little, low, so the lantern light slid along her wings and lost her, then found her again. Lamps came on in the houses one by one, and the snow under each window turned the colour of butter.
At the corner Bree saw her own house, third from the end, with light in the kitchen and light in the upstairs room. Plum landed back on her shoulder without a sound, the way owls do. The gate was stiff. Bree leaned on it with her hip until it swung open. Her boots printed a neat line up the path, and the lantern printed a circle around them. "This way's shorter. I'm almost sure of it," she said, and this time it was true, because only nine steps were left. Plum hooted once, very softly, into her hood.
Inside, the bread went on the table, still faintly warm. Bree hung the lantern on its hook and blew the flame out, and the kitchen kept its glow from the stove. Upstairs, the window was a square of blue snow-light. Plum settled on the bedpost and shuffled down into her feathers until she was a round grey pebble. Bree pulled the blanket up to her chin. She thought about the icicles, and the green glass, and the coin of light lying on the pond. Then she closed one hand around Plum's warm foot, and stayed like that, and slept.