The Bell on the Glass Hill

Fog swallowed the valley path just as Tomas vanished beyond the sheep pasture. Mira stood barefoot at the bottom of the glass hill, clutching her skirt while cold mist curled around her ankles. Far above her, the home-bell hung from a bent silver post. The hilltop bell always sent its sound toward the person most in need of home, and tonight that person was Tomas.

“Tomas!” Mira called. Her voice fell flat, as if the fog had stuffed wool in its ears. Only the tiny sheep bells answered from somewhere below, clinking in worried little notes. Mira could see one crooked cottage roof in the valley, then even that faded to a dark smudge.

The glass hill rose before her, smooth and pale as frozen moonlight. Mira’s toes pressed the cold surface and slipped at once. She was the smallest child in the valley, small enough to hide behind the flour barrel, small enough that the old gate latch sat above her nose. The bell looked as far away as a star.

Mira snatched handfuls of long grass from beside the path and tied them around her feet. “Grass grips dirt,” she told herself. “Maybe it grips glass.” She climbed one step, then two, then three. On the fourth, the grass slid sideways, her legs flew up, and she skidded back down on her knees with a squeak that made one sheep bleat in surprise.

Her knees stung, and two red scratches shone on her skin. Mira wanted to sit down and cry, but the fog thickened until the pasture fence disappeared. Then she noticed black chimney soot on the stones beside the crooked cottage chimney. Where it had blown onto the glass hill, it stuck in dusty patches instead of sliding away.

Mira crawled to the chimney stones and rubbed soot over her palms. The black dust smelled smoky and sharp, and it turned her hands into two dark mittens. This time, she pressed her palms flat and climbed with her feet and hands together. Step by careful step, she rose higher than the sheep shed, higher than the roof, until the bell rope dangled just above her head.

“Almost,” she whispered. Her fingers closed around the rope, rough and damp from the fog. She tugged once, but the bell only gave a tiny cough. She tugged harder, and the rope snapped in her hands with a dry little crack.

For a moment, Mira stared at the broken end. The bell was still above her, the fog was still below her, and Tomas was somewhere inside it with no path to follow. Mira looked down the glass slope. Waiting for help would be easy, if she could bear the thought of Tomas wandering all night.

Her braid ribbon tickled her cheek in the wet wind. Mira pulled it free, and her braid tumbled over one shoulder. With shaking fingers, she fastened the broken rope to the ribbon and tied the tightest knot she knew, the one she used when her bundle of firewood was too big. She tugged the knot once, twice. It held.

The bell swayed just beyond her reach. Mira planted her sooty palms on the glass and pushed herself to her toes. “I am not too small,” she said, though her voice trembled. Then she leaped. Her fingers caught the ribbon, the knot jerked, and the home-bell rang out bright and strong, a golden sound pouring into the fog.

The ring did not spread everywhere. It streamed down the hill like a shining path made of sound. Far below, a voice shouted, “Mira?” Tomas stumbled out of the fog near the sheep pasture, hat crooked, cheeks damp, but grinning so hard he looked almost silly.

Mira slid down slowly on her sooty palms, laughing when the glass painted black streaks on her elbows. Tomas met her at the bottom and held up the end of her ribbon, still tied to the broken rope. Later, when the fog lifted and the crooked cottage roof glimmered with dew, Mira kept that soot-marked ribbon in her pocket. Sometimes she touched the knot and smiled at the hill.