Wren and the Window Moth

Wren was nearly asleep when she heard the tapping.

Tap. Tap-tap. Tap.

It was coming from the window. Wren sat up. On the other side of the glass, a small brown moth with soft dusty wings was bumping against it, again and again, trying to get to the lamp on her bedside table.

"You can't come in," said Wren. "It's bedtime."

Tap. Tap-tap.

"The lamp isn't even interesting," said Wren. "It's just a lamp."

But the moth did not seem to know that. It flew up and down the glass, and every time it bumped, it looked a little more tired and a little more sure that the lamp was the best thing in the world.

Wren got out of bed. She opened the window just a crack, and the moth came in like a leaf blown by a very small wind, and went straight to the lamp, and sat on the hot bulb, and jumped off again.

"Ow," it seemed to say.

"I told you," said Wren.

The moth sat on the edge of the table, fanning its wings. Up close, they were not plain brown at all. They were the colour of an old map, with tiny patterns like someone had drawn on them with the finest pencil in the world.

"Why do you want the lamp so much?" asked Wren.

The moth tilted its head. Wren did not speak moth, but she thought it might be saying: because it is bright, and I am small, and bright things are how I find my way.

Wren looked at the lamp. Then she looked at the window, where the night was waiting.

"I know a bigger one," she said.

She reached over and clicked the lamp off. For a moment the room was very dark and the moth gave a worried little flutter. Then Wren's eyes got used to it, and the moth's did too, and they both saw what had been outside all along.

The moon.

It was round and white and not hot at all, and it filled the whole top corner of the window, and it did not buzz or flicker. It just shone, the quiet kind of shining, the kind you can look at for a long time.

The moth walked slowly to the edge of the table. It opened its wings. It did not fly at the window this time. It only sat and looked.

"That one's been there every night," said Wren softly. "You were just too busy with the little light to see it."

The moth seemed to think this was a reasonable point.

Wren climbed back into bed. She left the window open a crack, in case the moth wanted to go, and left the lamp off, in case it wanted to stay. She lay on her side where she could see both of them: the small dusty wings on the table, and the big calm moon beyond.

In the morning the moth was gone. But on the windowsill, where it had sat, there was the tiniest dusting of silver, like the moon had left a note.