Saffron and the Moon Door — Under the heat lamp’s honey light, Saffron pressed her toes to the warm branch and watched the Moon Door glow beside the leaf stems. Read the full story →
Under the heat lamp’s honey light, Saffron pressed her toes to the warm branch and watched the Moon Door glow beside the leaf stems. Every night it shone pale and round, and every night she wanted to touch it before the crickets began their scratchy fiddling. She carried her favorite thing with her—a clear shed scale, thin as onion skin—because it had belonged to her first climb.
Down she went, past bark that smelled dusty-sweet and pebbles that clicked under her feet. A cricket leaped from the shadows. Saffron jumped, dropped the scale, and heard it whisper away into the gravel. “Oh, no,” she breathed. She almost turned back, but the Moon Door gleamed from its dark little opening, as if keeping a secret.
Inside, the lost scale had landed across a hidden drop of water. Lamp-light passed through it and scattered tiny stars over the cave wall. Saffron chirped so loudly that even the crickets stopped. She ran back for everyone—crickets, leaf beetle, and sleepy isopod—to see the stars. Next time you spot Saffron on her warm branch, check the pale doorway; the honey light may still be sharing her first climb.
