The mountain beyond the orchard
From her uncle’s orchard, Noor could see a mountain shaped like a folded blue blanket. Sometimes its summit was sharp. Sometimes it was round. Sometimes there were two summits, leaning together like friends sharing a secret.
“That’s the Mountain of Maybe,” Uncle said, sorting apricots into a basket. “The clouds never quite agree about it.”
Noor wanted to see the lake halfway up. People said it held the reflections of birds that had not yet hatched.
She also wanted, very much, to stay beside the apricots.
“What if the path changes?”
“It does.”
“What if I don’t like it?”
“We can stop.”
“What if I want to come back before the lake?”
Uncle tucked bread and soft cheese into his bag. “Then we’ll know a little more about the lower part of the mountain.”
Noor rubbed a leaf between her fingers. It smelled green and peppery.
Beyond the orchard wall, the mountain rearranged one shoulder beneath its shawl of cloud.
“Could we just walk to the first tree?” she asked.
Uncle put on his hat. “I know an excellent first tree.”
They closed the orchard gate softly, leaving the afternoon bees to their work.
A pocketful of maybes
The first tree was an almond, with a trunk wide enough for Noor to lean against. From there, the next stretch of path looked less steep than it had from below.
They walked to a flat stone. Then to a spring where water sang through a wooden spout.
At the spring, Noor discovered something moving in her pocket.
She reached inside and drew out three tiny moths made of grey paper.
“What if it rains?” whispered the first.
“What if your legs get tired?” whispered the second.
“What if everyone else gets there faster?” whispered the third.
Noor stared. “Those are my thoughts.”
“Mountain air gives some thoughts wings,” Uncle said. He offered the moths his hat, but they stayed on Noor’s fingers.
She wanted to brush them away. Instead, she looked at their delicate folded legs.
“You can come,” she told them. “But please don’t all speak at once.”
The moths settled on her sleeve.
Above them, the path divided around a patch of buttercups. One branch was sunny; the other curled through shade.
Noor chose the shady way. She liked the smell of wet stone, and for a little while that was enough to follow.
The bridge that waited
By midday they reached a shallow stream crossed by a broad wooden bridge. The water below was clear enough to show every amber pebble.
Noor stopped.
The bridge was not high. Uncle crossed it once and came back. Still, the spaces between the planks made her stomach flutter.
The paper moths stirred.
“What if—” one began.
“I know,” Noor whispered.
A woman on the other bank was painting a sign beside a little tea shelter. She looked up and waved, then returned to painting. There was no crowd. No one was waiting for Noor to prove anything.
Uncle sat on a stone and unwrapped the bread.
“We could eat here.”
“But the lake—”
“Will have a perfectly ordinary afternoon without us.”
Noor laughed, though her eyes felt prickly.
They ate. A brown bird washed its chest in the stream, scattering bright drops.
After a while, Noor put one foot on the first plank. Then she took it off again.
Uncle remained on the stone.
“Could you walk beside me?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And talk about something boring?”
He considered. “I have several thoughts about repairing the orchard gate.”
“Excellent,” said Noor, reaching for his hand.
A lake full of wings
Uncle explained hinges all the way across. By the far bank, Noor knew more about rusty screws than she had ever wished to know.
Her knees still felt watery. She crossed anyway, with his hand around hers and the moths clinging to her cuff.
At the tea shelter, the woman gave them cups of mint water.
“Going to the summit?” she asked.
“No,” Noor said. “The lake, maybe.”
“A lovely maybe.”
The last path wound through grass that whispered against Noor’s trousers. Suddenly the lake appeared, round and still in a bowl of rock.
Across its surface moved reflections of birds: green birds, speckled birds, one enormous bird with a tail like falling snow. But the sky overhead was empty.
Noor knelt at the edge.
A tiny reflection paddled toward her. It looked like a duckling wearing yesterday’s sunlight.
“Has that one hatched yet?” she whispered.
“Not quite,” said Uncle.
The paper moths lifted from Noor’s sleeve. They hovered above the water, and their reflections became three small golden birds.
Noor watched until the evening breeze wrinkled the lake.
She did not climb to the summit. She did not stop having questions.
On the way down, she asked to hold Uncle’s hand at the bridge again. He offered it without a word about last time.
A little light to carry
Back in the orchard, Noor put an apricot on the wall for the brown bird, though it was probably a different brown bird that came. One paper moth remained in her pocket. She made it a bed from a folded handkerchief. It whispered a small question before sleep, and Noor answered, “We don’t have to know tonight.”
She liked remembering the lake. She also liked remembering the bread beside the stream, when turning back had been allowed and Uncle had stayed near. The mountain had not handed her a new, better self at the top of a path. She had gone there as Noor and come home as Noor, with mint on her breath and a little more room for wonder.