In Ora's tower, the books floated in slow circles, bumping gently against the shelves like sleepy fish. The shelves glowed the colour of old honey. Ora liked to count the books before bed — one, two, three — but tonight, when she counted, one was missing. The Cloud Book was gone. She spotted it just in time: a flutter of golden pages disappearing through the open window, out into the dark meadow below. *Drift, drift, drift* — that was how the Cloud Book moved, as though it had somewhere important to be. Ora pulled on her blue hat and followed.
The meadow grass was cold and wet against her hooves. Each step left a small dark print, and the Cloud Book had left its own trail — faint golden glimmers pressed into the dew, leading away between the foxgloves. Ora followed them carefully, one hoof at a time. The air smelled of mud and something sweet, like clover crushed underfoot. Ora breathed it in slowly. Above her, the sky was the deep blue-black of a mussel shell, and somewhere up there, a new star was waiting to be born — waiting for a cloud to rest on until morning. She needed to hurry.
Then she heard a small, worried sound. A humming, like a question. A moth hovered over a patch of golden light in the grass. She was the colour of birch bark, with wings that trembled very slightly, and she was bent close to the ground, reading. *Drift, drift, drift* — the leftover shimmer of the Cloud Book's pages, still glowing in the grass. The moth was trying to read her own shape in it. "I think I might be a cloud," the moth said, without looking up. "I drift. I float. Sometimes I go through things." She paused. "I've looked through every page. I'm not in there."
Ora looked at the moth very carefully. The way her wings tilted. The slow, uncertain way she moved through the dark air. "You're not in the book yet," Ora said. "You're a new shape. My name is Ora. What's yours?" "Dew," said the moth. And her wings went still for just a moment.
They found the Cloud Book resting in the split of a mossy oak, its pages turning slowly on their own, as if it were reading itself. The bark beneath it was damp and ridged, and a beetle walked solemnly across the cover without stopping. Ora lifted the book and held it open to a fresh blank page. She looked at Dew again. The tilt of her wings. The soft uncertain drift. Then Ora drew — slowly, carefully — with the tip of her horn pressed to the page. *Drift, drift, drift.* A new cloud shape, small and gentle and a little hard to see. Then Ora whispered. Just one word, very quietly, up into the sky. A cloud appeared — small and soft-edged, shaped like a moth who drifted and floated and sometimes went through things without being noticed. And as it settled into place, the new star blinked on. It found the cloud already waiting. It settled down with a slow, satisfied nod.
Ora and Dew walked back through the meadow together, the Cloud Book floating gently between them, its pages closed now and still. The tower windows glowed ahead, warm and amber. A frog said something from the ditch. Neither of them answered. Back in the tower, Ora tucked the book onto its shelf. It bumped softly against its neighbours and stayed. Ora leaned her horn against the cool stone wall and listened. Outside, the meadow was quiet. Somewhere up in the dark, a small cloud held a star, and the star did not move at all.
