Stories

It had been two weeks since Tara’s passing, days after the songs, the stories, and the tears, and the world had fallen into a quiet hush, too heavy to lift. The hill where Tara once watched the sunrise stood silent, wrapped in the hush of dawn

Lumi sat there alone, her brindle coat pressed against the cold earth, her breath a pale mist in the morning light. She stared at a patch of mossy earth where Tara had so often sat, watching over them all.

Pollox watched her from a distance, his tail low and still. He glanced at Woodbine, who stood beside him, eyes calm and steady.

“She hasn’t howled since the funeral,” Pollox said softly, his voice hushed. “It’s like her voice is locked away.”

Woodbine nodded. “She’s holding Tara’s memory so tightly it’s breaking her apart. She can’t see how the land still remembers.”

The two of them approached her quietly. Pollox carried his red ball, though his usual enthusiasm was dimmed. He placed it down carefully, as though unsure of what to do with it. Woodbine walked up beside Lumi, nudging her carefully with his nose.

“Lumi,” Woodbine said softly, his voice steady, “we’ve been looking for you.”

Lumi’s ears flicked back, but she didn’t move. “I just need to think,” she replied, her tone distant.

Woodbine stepped closer, his tail wagging faintly in an attempt to cheer her. “We miss her too, Lumi,” he said. “But Tara wouldn’t want us to be sad forever.”

Lumi turned her gaze toward him. “I know,” she murmured. “But it’s so hard. She taught us everything—how to listen to the forest, how to be brave. How are we supposed to keep going without her?”

Pollox was quiet for a moment, looking down at the earth. The cold wind brushed over his fur, and he seemed to be listening to something in that hush. Then his ears lifted, a glimmer of realization in his eyes.

“Maybe we don’t,” he said slowly, his voice finding new certainty.
“Maybe… we find the pieces of her in the land. Things that were hers, or that she loved, things that remind us of her. We bring them here. Let them stand for the memories we can't put into words.”

So they each went to find something to carry. They searched in their own way, remembering the places Tara had loved and the quiet moments they had shared.
They looked for the things that held those memories close—things that would keep her alive in their hearts.

Woodbine returned with an icicle that caught the sunlight, scattering rainbows across the snow. He smiled faintly, holding it up to the light. “I found this by the stream where she used to sit with us. It glistens like the sunlit ripples in the stream—like Tara’s laughter,” he said softly, the words catching in the hush of the dawn.

Pollox returned with a small patch of moss, soft and green. He brushed the dirt from it with gentle paws and pressed it close to his chest. “This is from where Tara always sat in the summer breeze to tell her stories,” he said quietly. “It smells like the sun and the hush of those warm days, when everything seemed to pause for her words.”

But Lumi had not left at all.
She closed her eyes.
She wanted to offer something of her own, but her paws were empty. She thought of all the things she could bring—Tara’s favorite pebble, the piece of driftwood they found, a tuft of fur—but each felt too small, too fleeting, to hold what Tara meant to her. Her breath shuddered in her chest, and tears welled in her eyes.

Her voice cracked, thin as winter ice.
“I have nothing,” she whispered.
“Nothing that’s enough.
There’s too much to choose… too many memories.”

She let her tears fall, each one darkening the cold earth. Her shoulders shook, and she lowered her head, feeling the ache in her chest swell until it was too heavy to hold.
The air grew still around her, as if holding its breath.

Then—out of nowhere—something small and firm clonked her lightly on the head.
A pinecone bounced at her paws, rolling a short distance before coming to rest in the frost.

Lumi blinked at it, startled. She looked up at the empty sky, the open hilltop. There was no tree, no branch—no place for a pinecone to come from.

Pollox’s ears twitched. “A pinecone?”

Woodbine’s eyes glimmered with quiet understanding. “Seems like someone thought you needed a nudge.”

Lumi stared at the pinecone. Just an ordinary thing, but somehow it felt like the answer she hadn’t known she was waiting for. A faint scent of dusk lingered in the air, like the memory of foxfire, making her remember Tara’s laughter, warm and soft like the hush of dawn. She thought of what Tara always told her.

“The land remembers,” she whispered.

A shaky breath escaped her. Lumi picked up the pinecone in her jaws and turned to the earth. With her front paws, she dug a small hollow in the frost-hardened soil, her claws working in quiet rhythm.

Pollox and Woodbine understood immediately. When Lumi was done, Pollox gently nudged his piece of moss into the hole. Woodbine put the icicle on top of it.
Lumi lowered the pinecone into the hollow she had dug, her paws firm and steady. Then she covered it with earth, each motion deliberate and calm, as if weaving Tara’s memory into the soil itself.

She leaned down, her nose brushing the cold soil. “Grow,” she whispered. “Let this be a promise that Tara will always be part of the land.”

As she lifted her head, a breeze stirred—soft and playful, carrying a hint of laughter she could almost hear. A single golden leaf, shimmering like foxfire, drifted in on that breath of air. It turned and turned, landing softly on the fresh mound of earth above the pinecone.

A single raindrop fell from the clear sky, landing on the golden leaf’s tip—glistening like a tear. Slowly, it rolled off the leaf and sank into the soil, disappearing as if swallowed by the earth itself. After a few moments, a small green sprout emerged. A pine sapling, tender and bright, reaching for the dawn.

For a heartbeat, at the edge of the hill where the dawn met the forest’s shadow, a red fox might have stood watching. One white ear could have caught the light—then she was gone, melting into the trees with a flick of her tail.

Lumi stood, her paws heavy but her heart steady. She looked at the earth, at the place where their memories had taken root.

She drew in a breath, and with her head tilted back, she let out a howl.

It was not the proud, commanding song of the Solstice Howl, nor the bright call of celebration. It was a low, aching note, raw and honest, carrying her loneliness, her love, and her promise to remember. It rose and fell in the dawn light, and though it wavered, it did not break.

Woodbine stepped closer, his steady voice rising to join hers—a flowing note that carried the depth of rivers and the calm of ancient waters. Pollox pressed against her side, his bright, hopeful voice weaving around theirs—a song of grief, but also of connection.

And from the shadowed forest, the wolves began to join them.

Their howls rose in the hush of the morning, deep and resonant, voices weaving together like ancient threads that echoed through the dawn-lit air, carrying with them the memory of Tara, alive in the wind, rooted in the soil, and shimmering in every breath of light. The forest itself seemed to listen, every tree and blade of grass leaning in to hold the song.

When their song faded into the quiet of the dawn, Lumi’s breath trembled, but she knew it was enough. She looked out over the hill, to the horizon where the sky turned from night to soft gold. Every breath of wind, every flicker of light, would remember.
The land itself would carry her forward.

From the shadows of the trees, a red fox watched, one white ear briefly catching the light. Her eyes, usually bright with shifting colors, were black as the quiet earth today. She watched the three friends silently, her presence fleeting as mist. A faint, wistful smile softened her expression.

A voice, no louder than a sigh, drifted in on the breeze.

“You chose well, my dear friend.”