The Bells in the Reeds

The Bells in the Reeds

The bell didn’t answer until Julian stopped laughing.

Before that, there had only been the sound inside his backpack: a short, muffled strike nearly swallowed by the wet fabric. Julian had put the backpack down, unzipped it, and looked inside. Between his gym notebook and a crushed package of butter cookies lay the altar bells. Four small brass cups on a single handle. Heavy enough to pull the bottom of the backpack down.

“Great,” he said.

He gave a single snort of laughter. That was how he made a mistake smaller. If he laughed at it first, there was less left for the others.

A note sounded from the reeds.

Julian raised his head.

The sound was lower than his bells. It had a rough edge, as if someone had worked it over with a file. Afterward, he heard water dripping.

He stood at the start of the embankment path. Behind him, the road climbed toward the village. Ahead lay the ponds, flat, dark fields beyond reeds still yellow from winter and broken in places. The spruces on the opposite slope grew so close together that they looked like a single wall.

Julian waited.

A car passed on the road above. Its headlights swept across the bare willows. Once it was gone, he could hear the little stream running beneath the embankment again.

“Cow,” he said.

There hadn’t been cows down here for years.

He knew that.

He zipped the backpack shut anyway and kept walking.