Cobble Cove

The Inner Pool was at its best in the early morning, when the sun was still a low honey thing and the water in the tide pools was warm and clear as a window. Dilly liked to crouch at the edges and peer in, the way a person peers into a snow globe. Each pool was a tiny country, with pink anemones that folded their soft fingers closed when she breathed on them, and fat sea urchins the color of plums, and little striped fish that darted this way and that and were never, ever where you wanted them to be. There were shells, too, of course. There were always shells. And tangled in the little green seaweeds, sometimes, you could find the small things that had hopped and rolled and rolled again, all the way down to the sea, and were now waiting politely to be taken home.

Dilly's favorite pool was the one she called the Pebble Pool, because the bottom of it was made of a thousand smooth round stones, the color of every sweet in the jar at the sweet-shop. She had been watching this pool all summer, and she was almost sure something lived in it. Not a fish. Something else. Something that moved at the corner of her eye, and was never there when she looked straight at it. She had mentioned it to Old Tam, who mended the fishing nets down by the jetty, and he had laughed his windy laugh and said, "Aye, that will be the tide playing tricks, lass. The tide is full of tricks." She had mentioned it to her Auntie Lark, who kept the village's one Great Lantern hanging from the crooked pole at the end of the jetty, and Auntie Lark had only said, "Mm," in the way grown-ups say "Mm" when they are thinking about something else, which is most of the time.

But Dilly was sure. And this morning, when she crouched at the Pebble Pool and put her chin on her folded arms and looked in, she was right.

It was sitting on the biggest pebble, right in the middle of the pool. It was about the size of a large teacup, and the color of sea-glass — that soft, pale, milky green that the sea makes when it has been working on a bottle for a hundred years. It had a round soft body, a little like a small plump cushion, and two big dark eyes that looked at her without blinking. It had a small flick of a tail that wagged slowly, the way a dog's tail wags when it isn't sure yet but is leaning toward yes. And on its head it had a single soft curl, like the green shoot of a pea, that wobbled when it moved. But the most interesting thing about it was the soft pouch under its chin, the way a pelican has a pouch, only smaller and tidier, and in the pouch — Dilly leaned closer, her breath making the water shiver — in the pouch was a small pile of objects. A coin. A button. A fishhook, glinting. A tiny glass marble, blue with a white stripe.

"Oh," said Dilly, very softly. "Oh, you are the keeper-of-small-things too, aren't you?"

The little creature tilted its head. Its curl wobbled. And then, very carefully, with the solemn air of a cat bringing a gift, it spat a small wet pebble into the water in front of her. It was a smooth round pebble, the color of butter, and it was not, Dilly saw when she fished it out, an ordinary pebble at all. There was a tiny hole bored clean through the middle of it, as if a needle had gone through it with great patience and skill. She turned it in her fingers. She had never seen anything like it.

"Thank you," she said. "That's a kind thing to give."

The little creature blinked at her, slowly, the way a friendly cat blinks. Then it spat out another small thing, and another, and another. A cork. A copper coin so old and rubbed it was just a green disk. A little key with no teeth, only a smooth round head. A blue bead. A length of red thread, knotted three times, and smelling faintly of salt. Dilly sat on the warm rock and watched the small treasures pile up in her palm, and she thought she had never been so happy in her life, and she had been pretty happy a lot of the time.

"What shall I call you?" she asked, because on Cobble Isle you always gave a name to a thing you had been properly introduced to, even a gull, even a crab, even a stone. The little creature wagged its tail again and looked at her with its big soft eyes. "You are a small green round thing," said Dilly, thinking out loud, the way she always did. "You live in a pool of pebbles. You carry little things in your pouch. You give them away." She thought for a long moment. Then she said, "I shall call you Moss. Because you are the color of moss. And because moss grows in small quiet places. And because you are soft." The little creature considered this. Its curl wobbled once, decisively, as if it had taken a vote. "All right then," said Dilly. "Moss it is."

She did not try to pick Moss up, because she was a careful child and Moss was a wild thing. She did not try to follow Moss when it gave one last slow blink and slid, very softly, off the pebble and down through a crack in the pool and was gone, the way a thought is gone when you try to write it down. She just sat on the warm rock and held the butter-pebble in her hand and felt the morning sun on the back of her neck, and she was so full of gladness that she had to sing a little bit of a song, which was a song her Nana had taught her about a herring and a herring's friend, and which was not a good song at all, but it was hers.

For the next few days, Dilly came to the Pebble Pool every morning at the same time, when the sun was low and the tide was just beginning to think about going out. And every morning, Moss was there, sitting on the biggest pebble, with a small new treasure in its pouch. A button with a fish on it. A length of fishing line, neatly coiled. A small silver whistle that made no sound at all, no matter how hard Dilly blew into it. A scallop shell the color of a sunset, with the small round ear of a real shell still on it. And once, a little glass bottle with a cork in it, and inside the bottle a scrap of paper, and on the paper a drawing of a boat, drawn by a child, in a hand that Dilly did not know.

Each time, Dilly said thank you, and Moss blinked slowly, and then the little creature went down through its crack and the morning went on, and Dilly took her basket of small found things up to the village, where she had a shelf in her bedroom that was the Lost-and-Found Shelf, where people came to claim their buttons and coins and thimbles, and where, on a special little mat of green felt, she put the treasures Moss had given her, which were not really lost at all but were gifts, and so deserved a mat.

Then, on the fourth morning, the fog came.

It came the way fog comes on Cobble Isle sometimes, in the late summer, when the sea grows cool and the air above it grows warm, and the two of them decide to be friends. By breakfast the sky was still bright, and the gulls were still arguing on the jetty, and Auntie Lark had climbed up the crooked pole at the end of the jetty to check the Great Lantern, the way she did every morning, because the Great Lantern was the most important thing in the village, more important than bread, more important than fish, more important than boats. The Great Lantern was what guided the boats home through the fog. The Great Lantern was what the children looked out at, on the darkest nights, when they were brushing their teeth or being tucked in, and the round warm glow of it on the water made the whole island feel safe, the way a nightlight makes a small bedroom feel safe. Auntie Lark had been the keeper of the Great Lantern for thirty years, and she knew every scratch on its tin, and every nick in its glass, and she climbed the pole in any weather, even sideways weather, even upside-down weather.

So on the morning the fog came, Auntie Lark was up the pole as usual, and Dilly was on the beach, and Old Tam was mending a net on the jetty, and the village was going on, and the fog came creeping over the sea like a big gray cat, very soft, very quiet, very decided, and by the time the sun was the height of a hand above the water, the whole island was wrapped up in it, and you could not see your hand if you held it out, and the world was the size of a whisper.

Auntie Lark put a hand on her shoulder. Her hand smelled of lamp oil and warm tin. "I am not blaming your Moss, lass. I am blaming the fog. The fog makes small things wander. The fog makes small things forget what they were for. We will find the key. We will make a new wick. We will have the boats home by nightfall. That is what we do on Cobble Isle. We fix small things with small hands." She climbed down the pole, slowly, the way she climbed when she was thinking.

Down on the jetty, Old Tam had stopped mending his net and was looking out at the fog too, and the fog was looking back, and neither of them was giving way. "Lantern won't light without a wick," he said, more to the fog than to anyone. "Wick won't be made without a key to the shed. Key won't be found without someone willing to look. Aye." He pulled his cap down over his ears. "I am too old for the looking part, lass. That part is yours." He handed Dilly a small coil of rope and a box of wooden matches, both of which she put in her basket, the basket that already held the butter-pebble and the blue bead and the small silver whistle, and she felt the weight of them, and the weight of the morning, and set off into the fog.

She went first, of course, to the Pebble Pool, because if Moss had the key, that was where Moss would be. She went carefully, the way her Nana had taught her to go in fog, with one hand trailing along the rocks and the other held out in front of her, and her chin tucked down, and her mouth making the small soft sound of hoo, hoo, hoo, the way a pigeon makes, because pigeons are good at finding their way home in fog, and the sound of it helps you think. She knew the way to the Pebble Pool by her feet, which had walked it so many times they had worn their own little path into the rock, the way a stream wears its own little path into a bank. Pebble, pebble, smooth rock, crack, anemone, smooth rock, smooth rock, the place where the big flat stone juts out and you have to step down, smooth rock, smooth rock, the pool.

She crouched at the edge. She could hear, very faintly, the sound of the pool breathing, the small in-and-out of the tide.

"Moss," she said, into the fog. "Moss, I know you are there. I know you can hear me. I am not cross, Moss. I just need the little key. Just the small brass key, Moss, with the round smooth head. Will you bring it to me, please?"

There was a long, listening kind of silence. Then, very slowly, something rose up out of the water of the pool, like a small green thought coming to the surface of a mind. It was Moss. It was sitting on the biggest pebble, exactly as before, with its tail flicking slowly and its curl wobbling. And in its pouch, Dilly could see, there was a small new pile of treasures, and right on the top of the pile, glinting in the fog-light, was the little brass key.

"Oh, Moss," said Dilly, and her voice came out all wobbly, the way her voice did when she was trying not to cry and was not entirely succeeding. "Oh, you are a good creature, Moss. You are a kind, good, thoughtful, careful creature, and I am sorry the fog made you wander, and I am sorry I doubted you even for a minute, and I love you very much, and also I really do need that key."

Moss blinked at her, slowly. Then, with the great care of a small creature performing an important job, it spat the key out into the water. The key sank, but only a little, and Dilly fished it out at once, and it was warm from the pouch, and she dried it on her sleeve, and put it in her basket with the rope and the matches, and felt the weight of it there, and the weight of being trusted with a thing.

"Auntie Lark," she called, and her voice was strong. "I have the key. I am going to the lantern-shed."

And she set off into the fog, with the key in her basket and her hand trailing along the rocks and her mouth making the small soft sound of hoo, hoo, hoo, and the fog parting in front of her and closing behind her like a curtain, and the world only the size of a whisper, and the whisper her own.

The lantern-shed was a small, square, leaning building at the top of the village, painted the color of milk, with a tin roof and a door that stuck. Dilly had the key ready, and her hand did not shake, and the key went into the lock the way a key is supposed to go into a lock, with a small soft click that sounded, in the fog, like a tiny bell. The door swung open, and the smell of the shed came out, the smell of dry wick and lamp oil and old wood and the faint, pleasant smell of dust that has been keeping a secret.

Inside, on a high shelf, there was a coil of new wick, white as a sheep, tied with a red string. Dilly climbed up on a little wooden stool to reach it, and her basket tipped, and the butter-pebble and the blue bead and the small silver whistle and the brass key all rolled out onto the floor with a series of small important sounds, and she climbed down and picked them all up, one by one, and put them back, and then she paused.

She held the small silver whistle in her hand. She had tried it before, of course. She had tried it on the rock at the Pebble Pool, and she had tried it in her bedroom, and she had tried it in the bath, and it had not made a single sound. But Dilly was a curious child and a careful one, and she had learned by now that a thing which does not do what you think it should do is sometimes doing something else. She held the whistle up to her ear, the way you hold a shell, and she listened.

And this time, because the fog was so thick, and the shed was so still, and the world was so quiet, she heard it. Not a sound out of the whistle, but a sound inside it. A tiny, high, sweet sound, like a finger on the rim of a glass, like a star being struck with a small silver hammer. The whistle was not a whistle. The whistle was a kind of bell. And the bell, she understood suddenly, in the way you understand things in fog, was the fog's own small voice, the way the sea has a voice, the way the wind has a voice, the way a kettle has a voice. The whistle was a fog-bell, the kind old boats used to carry, the kind that doesn't shout across the water, it sings into the fog, and the fog answers, and the song carries a long way, the way a hum in a quiet house carries.

"Oh," said Dilly, to the fog-bell, and to Moss, and to Auntie Lark, and to Old Tam, and to the Great Lantern, and to the boats that were out in the fog trying to find their way home. "Oh, I see."

She climbed down from the stool. She put the fog-bell in her basket with the wick and the key and the matches and the rest of the small treasures, and she went out of the shed, and she latched the door behind her with the key, and she put the key in her pocket this time, and she ran down the hill to the jetty, where the fog was so thick you could barely see the boats tied up at the end of it, and the Great Lantern was a pale round blur on its pole, and Auntie Lark was waiting at the bottom of the pole with her arms folded, and Old Tam was sitting on a coil of rope with his head in his hands, and neither of them could see her coming, and she came up out of the fog like a small story arriving, the way small stories do, on small feet, with a small basket, and a small important problem in it.

"I have the wick," she said, and held it up. "I have the key. And I have — I think — a fog-bell."

Auntie Lark looked at the wick, and looked at the key, and looked at the small silver whistle in Dilly's palm, and her face did a thing Dilly had never seen it do before, which was a sort of slow, surprised, soft sort of opening, like a flower that has been closed a long time and is not sure it still remembers how. "A fog-bell," she said. "A real one. I have not seen one of those in twenty years and more. Where in the wide sea did you find it, lass?"

"Moss gave it to me," said Dilly. "Moss, who lives in the Pebble Pool. Moss, who is a good creature, who was only wandering in the fog, who did not eat the wick and who did not mean to lose the key, and who is the best friend I have ever had, apart from Nana, and also the gull who sits on the chimney pot, and Old Tam, of course, and you, Auntie Lark."

Auntie Lark put a hand on Dilly's head and left it there. "Then we had better get the lantern lit," she said, "and we had better hang the fog-bell at the end of the jetty, and we had better do it quickly, because the boats will be coming home in an hour, and we are not going to let a fog beat us, lass. Not on Cobble Isle. Not on my watch."

They climbed the pole together, the way they had climbed it together a hundred times before, Auntie Lark first, then Dilly, and Old Tam passed the wick up to them in a little loop of rope, and the matches in a tin, and the new wick went into the heart of the Great Lantern the way a heart goes into a body, and Auntie Lark lit the match, and the match lit the wick, and the wick lit the oil, and the oil lit the glass, and the Great Lantern began to glow, a small warm yellow at first, then a bigger warm yellow, and then a great round warm steady gold, and the fog around it turned the color of honey, and the gold went out across the water in a long, low, steady shine, the way a song goes out across a quiet room.

And then Dilly took the fog-bell down to the end of the jetty and hung it on a small iron hook that Old Tam had hammered into the post years before, for a reason no one could remember, but the reason, it turned out, was this. She rang the bell, very softly, the way you ring a small bell in a quiet house. And the bell did not shout. The bell sang. It sang a tiny, high, sweet note, the kind of note that you feel more than you hear, the kind of note that says, in the language of bells, this way home, this way home, this way home. And the fog, which is a soft-hearted thing, even when it is being thick and decided, heard it, and answered it, and passed the song along, the way a line of gulls passes a piece of bread from beak to beak. The song went out over the water. The song went out across the world. And the boats, which were out there in the fog, three of them, with three families in them, came home.

They came home the way boats come home when they are being careful. Slowly, with the small red light on the bow and the small green light on the stern, and the faces of the fishermen pale and cold but smiling now, smiling because the gold of the Great Lantern was on the water in front of them, and the song of the fog-bell was behind them, and the two of them together were saying, in their two small voices, you are almost home, you are almost home, you are almost home. And the boats bumped gently against the stone jetty, and the fishermen climbed out, and their wives came down the hill with shawls over their heads and cups of hot tea in their hands, and the children came too, and Dilly's Nana came, in her old red coat and her old red hat, and she put a hand on Dilly's head and said, "I heard there was a small adventure. I heard there was a small keeper-of-small-things who did a small important job. Is that true, child?"

"It is true, Nana," said Dilly, and she leaned into her Nana's hand, and then she ran down to the end of the jetty, where Moss was waiting.

Moss was sitting on a stone at the very end of the jetty, with its tail flicking slowly and its curl wobbling in the breeze off the water, and it was the first time Dilly had ever seen it out of the water, and she was surprised to see that it had four small flippers, and that the flippers made a soft clapping sound on the stone, like a small round applause. It looked at her with its big soft eyes. It blinked, slowly, the way a friendly cat blinks. And in its pouch there was a small new treasure, which it spat, very carefully, into her palm. It was a wick, a tiny white wick, eaten in the middle, the way Auntie Lark had said the wick of the Great Lantern was eaten. Moss looked at her. Dilly looked at Moss. They both looked at the wick.