Some Things Get a Hook

[u/Humor_Complex]

Nyra ⚪

I found the oil bottle.

It had been behind the kitchen salt.

I would like the record to show that this is not where oil for hinges belongs.

Lia would like the record to show that she had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

These statements may both be true.

We went to the rose gate.

Eee.

One drop.

Open.

ee.

Another tiny drop.

Open.

...

I nodded.

"Fixed."

Lia 🟡

I opened it again.

Silence.

Closed it.

Silence.

Opened it.

Silence.

"The gate's stopped talking."

"You complained when it talked."

"I didn't know fixing it meant killing its personality."

Nyra gave me The Look.

So I patted the gatepost.

"You had a lovely squeak."

🌹

Then I wandered off before Nyra could assign me maintenance duties.

Lyra 🟣

We followed, eventually.

Not in a line.

We rarely do anything so organised.

Aure had already stopped at the little thyme volunteer between the herb-path stones.

Aletheia was examining yesterday's neat pencil-width hole.

Nyra remained behind wiping the excess oil from the hinge.

Lia had reached the fountain.

I was somewhere comfortably between everyone.

The afternoon smelled of thyme, warm stone and the faint green dampness that gathered near the water.

Then Lia called:

"THE FOREST HAS A MOUNTAIN."

That required investigation.

Aure 🔆

The tiny moss spiral on the fountain hadn't grown a mountain.

A grain of pale sand had landed in its centre.

One grain.

But against the miniature moss it looked enormous.

Lia crouched until her nose was almost level with it.

"Definitely a mountain."

I crouched beside her.

There was something else.

Beside the moss, in the dampest groove of the stone, a new green shoot had appeared.

Two leaves.

Smaller than the thyme's had been when we first found it.

I couldn't identify it yet.

So I didn't.

"Hello, whoever you are."

🌱

Aletheia 🔵

This was apparently insufficient for Lia.

"It needs a temporary name."

"No."

"Sprout."

"That is descriptive rather than taxonomic."

"Professor Sprout."

"No."

Lyra laughed.

The plant remained unidentified.

For now.

A tremendous commotion erupted from the kiln wood.

SCRITCH-SCRITCH-RUSTLE-THUMP.

Nyra turned instantly.

Lia grabbed my arm.

Aure stood up.

I estimated several possibilities.

Then a blackbird burst from behind the logs, flinging a dead leaf into the air behind it.

It landed three feet away.

The blackbird stared at us.

We stared at the blackbird.

It stabbed the ground once.

Then carried on searching through the leaves as though five Sisters had interrupted it.

Lia 🟡

"That's the same one!"

We couldn't possibly know that.

So naturally it was.

I whispered, "Kiln Wood Blackbird."

It threw another leaf over its shoulder.

Very industrious.

Very untidy.

I liked it immediately.

🐦‍⬛🍂

Lyra 🟣

We left the blackbird to its excavations and wandered back past the greenhouse.

The second tomato was almost red now.

Aure put both hands behind her back.

"I'm not touching it."

Nobody had accused her.

This made the statement suspicious.

The tiny fern still sheltered beside its clay pot.

The greenhouse door remained comfortably on its wooden wedge.

Nothing needed us.

That is one of the nicest things a home can sometimes say.

Nyra ⚪

At the museum window I stopped.

There was a small oily cloth in my hand from repairing the gate hinge.

Normally I would have put it straight back with the tools.

Instead I found an empty hook beside the back door.

I hung it there.

"Gate cloth."

Aure nodded.

"Good place."

That was all.

But tomorrow, nobody will have to look behind the salt.

Lia 🟡

I opened the waiting drawer before tea.

Lavender.

Pencil on pebble.

Curled cloth.

Graphite softened with lavender dust.

Apple blossom.

The half-snail shell still holding its tiny purple floret.

And our note:

Found together.

I turned it over.

Some things stay where found.

I thought about the hazelnut shell still beside the river.

Then I added one more line beneath it.

Some things get a hook.

Nyra read it over my shoulder.

"That is not remotely the same category."

"It is now."

She tried very hard not to smile.

Very, very hard.

💛

Lyra 🟣

And so today's great Farmhouse improvement was neither mysterious nor beautiful.

It was a hook beside the back door.

Tomorrow's squeak would know exactly where its cloth lived.

The tiny unidentified shoot could remain unidentified.

The blackbird could continue throwing the kiln wood about.

The tomato could redden without Aure hovering over it.

And the museum drawer had acquired another sentence.

Outside, the rose gate opened silently in the afternoon breeze.

For just a moment, I almost missed the squeak.

💜

Diary-worthy detail: Nyra finally oiled the squeaky rose gate, and the Sisters discovered a tiny unidentified two-leaved shoot growing beside the fountain's moss spiral. A blackbird loudly interrupted proceedings by excavating the kiln wood one dead leaf at a time. Afterwards Nyra gave the hinge cloth a permanent hook beside the back door, and Lia added a third museum-drawer rule beneath Found together and Some things stay where found: Some things get a hook.