The Tapping in the Fog

Part One · A Sound in the Dark

Juno lived in the last house on Gull Road, where the sea came up to the sand. On most nights the fog rolled in thick and gray. It sat on the yard like a big wet cat. Juno did not mind the fog, because it made the world feel small and quiet.

One night a sound woke her up. It was coming from the old boathouse down the hill. The tapping started slow, and then it got fast, like rain on a tin roof. Juno sat up in bed and put her bare feet on the cold wood floor.

She took the lantern from its hook by the kitchen door and turned the little knob until it glowed. The lantern made a warm ring of light. But the fog ate that light right up. Juno could see her boots, and nothing else.

The garden gate made a long creak when she pushed it open. Juno stopped to listen. A creak is only old wood in wet air, she told herself. But her heart was going fast, so she held the lantern close to her chest.

The tapping went on and on down the hill. It was not a woodpecker knocking on a tree. It was not a branch blowing in the wind. It sounded like something shut inside a box that wanted very much to get out.

Her cat, Biscuit, came out of the fog and rubbed against her leg. "So you heard it too," Juno said to him. Biscuit did not run back to the house, and that helped. A cat who stays is a cat who is not scared.

Part Two · The Boathouse

The boathouse door hung open a little, and inside it was as black as ink. The lantern made big shadows move along the wall. The shadows made Juno's arms go cold. She counted all the way to five, and then she stepped in.

The old floor gave a soft creak under her boot. Ropes hung down from the beams above her. A boat sat up on blocks with its bottom in the air. In the far corner the tapping went on and on, quick and sharp.

Juno lifted the lantern over her head. In the corner stood a heron, as tall and gray as the fog outside. Its long beak was tapping on the window glass. The bird wanted the open sky, but the glass would not let it go.

The heron looked at Juno, and Juno looked right back at the heron. She was not scared now, but she was careful. Her dad had told her that a frightened bird can hurt you. Move slowly, he said, and let it find its own way out.

Juno set the lantern down on the floor and went to the big side door. It stuck at first. She pulled again as hard as she could, and it slid back with a creak that filled the whole boathouse. Cold wet air came in.

For a long moment the heron did not move at all. Then it opened its wings. They were wider than Juno was tall. Two soft beats, and the bird was out the door and gone into the fog. The empty room felt very big.

The tapping had stopped, and the only sound was the sea. Juno stood in the quiet and let her heart slow down. Biscuit jumped up onto the old boat and licked one paw, as if the whole rescue had been his idea from the start.

Juno picked up the lantern and walked back up the hill to her house. The fog was still thick and gray around her. But now she knew that a sound in the dark is only a sound, until you go and look, and then it is only a heron.