The Town Inside the River's Arm

Polly follows the river north through dry hills where the summer grass has turned the color of bread crust. The water swings left, then right, cutting a deep green channel through the rock. Then it makes one last, lazy loop, and inside that loop stands a town. Pink houses climb the hillside in rows, stacked against the stone like books leaning on a shelf.

This is Albarracín, and about a thousand people live here, fewer than on a single street of a big city. The houses are plastered in soft rose and rust, and their wooden balconies lean out over the lanes as if they were listening. Above the highest rooftops, a stone wall climbs the bare ridge and keeps climbing, far past the point where any sensible wall would stop.

Polly glides over the rooftops and drops into the little main square just as the light turns gold. The plaza is barely bigger than a living room. A fountain mutters to itself in one corner. From an open doorway comes the smell of fresh bread, and from somewhere higher up drifts the clonk of a sheep bell, a sound these mountains have known for centuries.

She settles on the rim of the fountain and lets the evening arrive. One by one the lamps come on, and the pink walls turn the color of embers. Tomorrow there will be alleys to explore and that impossible wall to question. Tonight there is only the fountain, the bread smell, and a town going gently to sleep inside the river's arm.