The Pigeon Houses

The next dawn, the wind carried the balloon into a narrow valley. The walls on both sides were covered in small carved holes, row after row of them, like tiny windows with no glass in them.

"Pigeon houses," the pilot said. "For hundreds of years the farmers here carved little rooms into the cliffs for the pigeons. The birds slept safely inside, and their droppings were collected to feed the vineyards and the gardens."

Polly flew from the basket across to the valley wall and stepped inside one of the little rooms. Grey pigeons shuffled and cooed all around her in the dim carved hollow. Framed in their small doorway, the whole valley lay glowing in the morning light.

She flew back to the basket, and the pilot let the balloon climb a little higher. "Do you feel that?" he said. "Up here the wind is going somewhere else entirely." Polly closed her eyes and felt the air turn slowly around her, moving a different way at this height than it had a moment before.