They walk to the lake in their coats, though it’s June and the heat clings. The path is mostly dust now, cracked and thin with thistle. They don’t speak. Ella carries the jar. Just a wide-mouthed mason jar, damp from her grip. Inside: water, clear and sloshing. She watches the water as they saunter as if it might change if she looks away. “I’m not sure it matters,” Jonah says. She shrugs. “I want it to.” The lake is lower than she remembers. Drawn back from its edges, the color of old coins. Along the shore, they spot bottle caps, bones of long-dead fish, and a single boot with a daisy growing through the laces. They find the rocks where they used to sit with their feet in the water, telling secrets between them. Ella wades in. The water is cool against her shins. At knee height, she unscrews the jar. “What was in it?” Jonah asks. She hesitates. “The last melted piece of snow. From January.” He doesn’t laugh, but he watches her pour it in. The lake takes it. She holds the jar to her chest. They sit a while until the sky cobalts and the lake’s surface smooths over like breath settling. That night, it rains for the first time in weeks. 

Murray meets her on the bus. She is ninety, maybe three hundred. Wears a coat the color of mistakes and a hat shaped like a small, aggressive boat. She carries a parcel wrapped in tinfoil. He is twenty-seven, a professional understudy. Quiet elbows, nervous shoes. She sits beside him, collapsing into her seat. “I’ve just ironed four clouds,” she says. “They were wrinkled with worry. Can’t have that drifting overhead.” Murray nods. Of course. “Did they thank you?” “One of them spat,” she says. “But in fairness, it was cumulus. They’re always dramatic.” They ride in comfortable silence. Her parcel begins to hum. He offers a peppermint. She declines, but then takes it anyway. “I like your quiet,” she says. “Most people clatter.” “I try to keep my sounds inside,” he replies. “They get lost if I let them out.” She pats his knee. She smells like cinnamon. “You’ll need a louder soul someday. You’ll be called upon.” “For what?” he asks. She considers. “Possibly a goat emergency. Possibly love. It’s unclear.” At her stop, she stands with a series of creaks and one celebratory twirl. She hands the understudy the parcel. “It’s warm. Not in temperature. In temperament.” He stares. “I can’t—” “You already have,” she says. “The clouds told me.” She leaves. The bus lurches forward. The parcel vibrates faintly, like a cat purring. He does not open it. Instead, he speaks to it softly, like a future. When he steps off the bus an hour later, a tiny rainbow follows him for three blocks. He does not ask it why.

Rita books the volcano tour for November. Not for the novelty. Not for the view. But because it’s empty.Dormant, the guidebooks say. Resting, say the locals, with a particular squint. The air smells rusty. The path up is cracked and steaming in places like the earth’s thinking hard beneath her boots. She hikes slowly. Not from fatigue, but because it feels rude to rush. At the rim, she sits. Unclips the jar. Glass, with a metal clasp and his hand-written label still smudged on the side: Sugar (Raw). She waits. The volcano hisses faintly. It’s barely tolerating being a mountain. “You liked to say fire was honest,” she says to no one. “Which was your way of making bad decisions sound like principles.” The wind presses against her. Not comforting. Just there. “You never climbed a thing in your life. Ladders. Stairs. Emotional heights. But here we are.” She taps the jar once on her knee. The ash shifts inside. “You’d hate this. You said nature was too theatrical. ‘Always fog or wind or birds screaming like unpaid extras.’” A bird screams on cue. She smirks. She opens the jar. The ash is lighter than she remembers him ever being. It eddies in small, uncertain whorls, then dives into the crater in a rush. “Don’t make this a habit,” she mutters. “No haunting. No smoke signals. Stay in the magma like a grown-up.” The volcano exhales steam. She lingers, her hands warm on the jar. The sky is pinkening with effort. She leaves the label behind. Tucks it into a crevice in the rock. Sugar (raw). Feels about right. Then, she begins the descent. Lighter, but not absolved. Just slightly less full of him.

Murray meets her on the bus. She is ninety, maybe three hundred. Wears a coat the color of mistakes and a hat shaped like a small, aggressive boat. She carries a parcel wrapped in tinfoil. He is twenty-seven, a professional understudy. Quiet elbows, nervous shoes. She sits beside him, collapsing into her seat. “I’ve just ironed four clouds,” she says. “They were wrinkled with worry. Can’t have that drifting overhead.” Murray nods. Of course. “Did they thank you?” “One of them spat,” she says. “But in fairness, it was cumulus. They’re always dramatic.” They ride in comfortable silence. Her parcel begins to hum. He offers a peppermint. She declines, but then takes it anyway. “I like your quiet,” she says. “Most people clatter.” “I try to keep my sounds inside,” he replies. “They get lost if I let them out.” She pats his knee. She smells like cinnamon. “You’ll need a louder soul someday. You’ll be called upon.” “For what?” he asks. She considers. “Possibly a goat emergency. Possibly love. It’s unclear.” At her stop, she stands with a series of creaks and one celebratory twirl. She hands the understudy the parcel. “It’s warm. Not in temperature. In temperament.” He stares. “I can’t—” “You already have,” she says. “The clouds told me.” She leaves. The bus lurches forward. The parcel vibrates faintly, like a cat purring. He does not open it. Instead, he speaks to it softly, like a future. When he steps off the bus an hour later, a tiny rainbow follows him for three blocks. He does not ask it why.

In the last weeks before my mother died, a fox began appearing on our front porch. Always at twilight. Always facing the door. It didn’t scratch or howl. It didn’t pace or flee. It sat there, still, eyes fixed on the brass doorknob as if waiting to be let in. Its coat was too clean, too red. Its presence too deliberate.  But we watched it from the kitchen window, my mother and I. She in her robe, flowers faded from the wash. Me with a hand on her shoulder, though I never knew what comfort felt like to her. “It’s not a real fox,” she said once. “It’s a message. You just don’t know how to read it. Yet.” That night, I dreamed it stepped through the door, walked the house like it remembered the rooms. Its paws made no sound, and its breath fogged the mirror above the sink as it stood on its haunches. When it turned to me, its eyes were unmistakably my mother’s. Not in color or shape, but in a way I can’t describe without sounding ridiculous. You’d just have to have known her. After she passed, the fox stopped coming to the porch. I left a saucer of milk out for a week, then a piece of bread, then nothing. Seasons turned. The ivy swallowed the stoop’s railing. The door swelled in its frame. I tried to move on. While clearing out the attic, I found a sketch she’d drawn, pencil on yellowing paper. A fox was seated neatly in front of a door, and above it, in her handwriting: If I forget how to find you, leave the light on. That night I lit a candle in the hall. And when I woke, there were paw prints along the corridor. Small. Clean. --- Cate McGowan’s the author of four books. Her collection of poems, Sacrificial Steel, is forthcoming from Driftwood Press in 2025. Brill published McGowan’s collection of memoir essays, Writing is Revision, in 2024. Her short story collection, True Places Never Are, won the Moon City Press Short Fiction Award.