The Bell That Waited

About this story

On the last deep night of winter, Yuki climbs the temple steps alone while her grandfather waits below with tea and Scout settles on the porch boards. She counts her breath the way he taught her, waits for the valley to be ready, and rings the evening bell herself. Its one long note passes every window the winter has visited, and the whole valley lies down inside the sound.

Becoming the keeper of what once kept you.

When your turn comes, the waiting you learned will hold you.

Read the beginning

It was the last evening of winter, the biggest night of the whole valley's year, and Hana was climbing the long temple stair as fast as her boots could carry her, with her round white dog Momo bounding ahead through the snow. Tonight the great bronze bell had to ring, to tell every family by every fire that spring was on its way. And tonight, for the very first time in her whole eight years, it was Hana who had to ring it, all alone. "Hurry, Momo," she panted. "The whole valley is waiting on us."

High over the snowy rooftops a glossy black raven crossed the darkening sky, slow and calm, turned one wide circle above the bell tower on the hill, and settled on its old dark beam, the way it does when a story is about to begin.

At the bottom of the stair, Grandfather Kenji had pressed the lantern into her mittens, for his old knees had folded up like rusty hinges on the very first step. All winter he had taught her his art, and now he taught her the last of it. "The bell already knows your hands, Hana," he said. "Only remember the bell keeper's secret. You cannot hurry a bell. Wait until the whole valley grows quiet, and the bell will do the rest."

At the top of the hill the great bell hung in its tower of dark old wood, bigger than a standing bear, dusted with snow. Hana bowed to it, just as she had been taught, and reached for the smooth cedar beam, worn pale by a hundred years of hands. But Momo did not sit and wait. Momo went stiff as a statue, ears up like two flags, and made a small worried sound at the dark mouth of the bell.

Hana knelt in the snow and lifted her lantern, and in the warm gold light she saw. Curled up inside the great bell, fast asleep on the cold stone, lay a tiny fox kit, hardly bigger than her two mittens. It shivered in its dreams, all alone, and outside the falling snow had covered its little tracks behind it.

Hana looked down at the valley, where every window glowed and every family waited for the bell to sing. Then she looked at the tiny sleeping fox. If she rang the bell now, the enormous sound would come down on those small ears like a mountain falling, and the kit would run terrified into the freezing night. Her heart pulled two ways at once, and the beam hung heavy and ready beside her.

"You were here first, little one," Hana whispered, and she reached in slowly, slowly, to lift the kit out. But the kit woke with a start and shrank away, deeper into the cold bronze dark, trembling all over, its eyes shining like two wet berries. It did not know her. It was too afraid to come. And the wind on the hilltop began to rise.

Hana's eyes stung and filled. Down in the valley the windows glowed and glowed, and up on the hill she was one small girl with one small lantern, too little for the biggest night of the year. "I can't do this alone, Momo," she whispered, and her tears were hot on her cold cheeks. "I want Grandfather."

The story goes on in the video.