Leaving at First Light

On her last morning, Polly climbs to the watchtower one final time, and finds Berta already there, which is odd for a creature who claims to despise climbing. The marten shrugs. Somebody has to check that the sunrise is done properly, she says. They sit together on the old stones while the sky goes about its slow, spectacular business.

First light touches the tower, then walks down the wall, then spills across the rooftops, and for a few minutes the whole town glows rose and gold, as if the houses were lit from inside. The bells of the flock sound faintly from the high meadows. Down in the gorge, the river keeps its ancient loop, holding the town the way it has held it for a thousand years.

Berta does not do farewells, she announces, and then does one anyway, pressing a dried fig into Polly's wing with great firmness. For the road, she says. Towns like this one do not mind being left, she adds, because they know that leaving is the first half of coming back. Then she trots away down the wall, tail high, without looking around.

Polly lifts off from the tower and lets the river show her the way out, following the green water through the gorge until the pink town folds away behind the hills. The fig, she decides, will be for later, somewhere far from here, when she needs to taste a small pink town again.