The Cloud That Came to Visit

A meadow turns to mist

One cool morning, Fenn the fox kit crept out of her den and stopped in her tracks. The meadow she knew by heart — the crooked fence, the row of birch trees, the little pond — had vanished into a soft, pale hush. Everywhere she looked was quiet white, drifting slow as breath. "Where did the whole world go?" she whispered.

An old friend explains

A low chuckle rose from a mossy stone nearby. Old Moss the tortoise blinked at her through the mist. "The world's still here, little Fenn," he said. "This is only a cloud that grew too heavy with water to stay up in the sky, so it settled down here to rest beside us for a while."

Tiny drops, up close

Fenn crept closer to a spiderweb strung between two grass stems, and gasped. Hundreds of droplets, no bigger than seed pearls, clung to every strand, each one catching a hint of morning light. "Is the cloud made of these?" she asked, touching one gently with a paw. "Millions and millions of tiny drops," said Moss, "all holding hands in the cool morning air. That's why you can walk right through it, and it never minds a bit."

The sun lifts the fog

As the sun climbed higher, its warmth crept across the meadow like a gentle hand. Fenn watched, amazed, as the mist near her paws began to thin first, fading to a whisper before lifting off the grass entirely. Bit by bit, the birch trees stepped back into view, then the pond, then the crooked old fence, each one waking up from its soft white nap.

The cloud goes home

By the time the sun sat fully over the hills, the last curl of mist rose lazily into the blue sky and was gone, climbing back up to become an ordinary cloud drifting far overhead. Fenn tilted her head back to watch it go. "Come back and visit again," she called softly. Old Moss smiled. "Some cool, clear night, it will."