Fold and the River That Went Sideways

The stream through the glowing forest was not wide. It was not deep. It was, if truth be told, the sort of stream a boot could step across without even trying. But to a paper boat no bigger than a sparrow, it was the whole world, and the whole world was moving.

The paper boat's name was Fold. She had a pointed prow, two crisp sides, and one small dent near her stern where someone had pressed too hard with a thumb. She did not mind the dent. It made her feel distinguished.

What Fold wanted, more than anything, was to reach the place where the stream bent left past the three mossy stones. Dripwick the water beetle had told her it was the most beautiful spot in the entire forest — that the trees there leaned over so far their boughs touched the water, and after dark every single twig glowed pale blue like a sleeping thought. Fold had floated on this stream her whole life, which was three days, and she had never seen anything glow.

"I'm going to the mossy stones," she announced to no one in particular, because there was no one particular nearby.

A small green frog on a reed gave her a sideways look. "Going to, are you? Or being taken to? Because floating is not quite the same as going."

Fold considered this. The frog had a point. Floating, she realised, was what happened to her. Going was something she would have to choose.

She had never tried to steer before.

The first time Fold tried, she leaned hard to the right, hoping to angle herself toward the faster current near the far bank. The stream, unfortunately, had a small eddy there — a lazy spinning patch of water that the stream had apparently forgotten to move along. Fold spun in it for what felt like half an hour. She went in a circle. Then another circle. Then a slightly smaller circle, which felt like progress until it turned into another circle exactly the same as the first.

"You're going in circles," observed Dripwick, who had appeared on a floating leaf to watch. He was a glossy beetle, very blue-green, very pleased with himself, with two long antennae he waved in what he believed was an encouraging fashion.

"I noticed," said Fold, through gritted paper.

"I find," said Dripwick, "that going in circles is the stream's way of suggesting you haven't made up your mind."

"I have entirely made up my mind," said Fold. "It is the stream that hasn't."

Eventually the eddy hiccuped and spat her out, and she drifted onward, ruffled but uncrumpled.

The second try came at the place where a long stick had fallen across the water, making a sort of low bridge. Fold could see the glow of the mossy-stone bend beyond it — just a smear of blue-silver light between the dark trunks, enough to make her paper heart go tight with wanting. She tilted her prow upward, hoping to ride the little ripple under the stick, and pushed off from a passing pebble.

She made it halfway under.

Then she stopped.

She was stuck. A small snarl of algae had caught her dent — that distinguished dent — and held her fast. The water moved around her, gurgling past as though she was simply part of the river's furniture. Above her, the stick smelled of bark and beetles. Below her, the current tugged politely and then gave up.

"Ah," said a voice from the bank.

Fold craned sideways. Sitting on the mud was a small grey mouse named Ossle, wrapped in a piece of birch bark she used as a coat. Ossle came to the stream every evening to watch the glowing trees, which she found extremely useful for reading by. She was currently trying to read a very small book made of pressed leaves, but the light was doing that annoying thing where it shimmered.

"You're stuck," said Ossle.

"I am aware," said Fold.

"Would you like me to—"

"No," said Fold. Then, because that had come out sharply: "Not yet. Let me try."

Ossle settled back against a root and opened her leaf-book, which was polite of her. She did not watch, or not obviously.

Fold rocked. She rocked left, then right, the way she'd seen ducks do when they were trying to shake water from their feathers. Left. Right. Left. The algae stretched. Right. It thinned. Left, with all her might — which was, for a paper boat, considerable — and the dent popped free with a sound like a whispered oh, and the current snatched her up again and pulled her through, under the stick, and out the other side.

She spun in open water, astonished at herself.

"Well done," said Ossle, from behind her leaf-book.

"You weren't watching," said Fold.

"I was reading," said Ossle. "But I do have very large ears."

The third time, there was no dramatic obstacle. Just the steady drift of the stream, which had grown a little wider, and Fold, who had grown a little more decided. She felt the current running slightly stronger along the left bank, near the trailing roots of an old alder. She chose it deliberately. She aimed for it the way you aim for a chair you've already decided to sit in. She leaned, and the water caught her lean and carried it forward, and the stream bent left, exactly as Dripwick had always said it would.

The three mossy stones rose from the water like patient green islands. The trees above them — tall beeches with bark like grey velvet — had not finished glowing yet. They were just beginning: a low, warm shimmer at the tips of the branches, somewhere between silver and blue, like starlight that had decided to stay awhile. As the glow built, it cast soft wobbly reflections on the water, and Fold floated through them, and the reflections broke apart around her hull in slow rings.

Dripwick landed on her prow. His antennae were still. For once, he did not say anything wise or annoying.

Ossle had followed along the bank at a trot and arrived, slightly breathless, to sit on top of the middle stone. She opened her leaf-book, found the light perfect, and began to read.

The forest went on glowing. The stream went on moving. Fold went on floating — but it was different now, floating was. It felt, this time, like something she was doing on purpose.