Clove & Moose 24: The Solstice Surprise

Clove and Moose is a serial fiction story. If you want to get caught up on what came before, click one of the buttons below.

Previously, on Clove & Moose: After the mysterious Cataclysm dried up the earth and its magic, Clove and her cat Moose travelled to find and repair pools of corrupted magic left behind. She's picked up three companions: Marissa, Jasper, and his trusty horse Miss Delilah. They've spent the past few months at Bone Gorge, and recently stopped a cult that tried to bring about a second Cataclysm.

“Moosey boy, wait up!”

Clove jogged after Moose, his tail swishing from side to side as he led her down the familiar path away from their secluded campsite to the stream that ran through the gorge. Luckily, his harness had been holding up well since Jasper had repaired it, but after his recent off-leash adventure, she was still more nervous than she used to be about the possibility of him breaking free.

The sunlight slid slantwise into the gorge at this time of year, and though it never got truly cold here, the temperature was decidedly crisp. With the depth of the gorge, these golden hours didn’t last long before shadow overtook everything, and Clove had been doing her best to get outside and enjoy it while it lasted. After her recovery time cooped up in bed, she was eager to get outside whenever she could.

With Moose picking his way down the trail ahead of her, she looked upward, admiring the sharp contrast of the trees’ dark branches against the ocean of sky beyond. She was able to relax for a few breaths, her shoulders falling away from her ears, before her peace was interrupted.

“Stop right there.” Marissa stood in front of her on the trail, arms spread wide to block her passage. “No entry!”

“What do you mean, no entry?” Clove tried to peer past her, bemused. “Is there something on the path?”

“Nope. No questions. Turn back now. No Cloves allowed.” She scooped up Moose and nuzzled his forehead. “Moose can stay though.”

“What on earth is going on?” If there wasn’t a reason for the trail to be closed, then she was a little concerned by Marissa’s behaviour. She’d seemed a little happier, certainly less frantic, since she’d accepted that her parents weren’t here. She still had her sad moments, of course, and Clove worried that some dark mood had overtaken her now. “Is everything alright?”

“Everything’s great. You’re just not allowed, okay?” Marissa sounded exasperated. “Go home.”

“Wow, okay.” It was hard not to let her feelings be hurt. “Never mind then. Come on Moose.” 

She took Moose back from her friend and turned around, starting back the way she had come. Jasper appeared from between the trees and walked beside her, reaching out to ruffle Moose’s head. “Don’t mind her. It’s a surprise and she doesn’t want you to spoil it, that’s all.”

“A surprise?” Clove was glad to hear that Marissa was okay, but was equally bewildered about what kind of surprise she would be hiding on the pathway. “What kind of surprise?”

“You’ll see,” Jasper said, winked at her, and disappeared back into the woods.

“What are they up to, do you suppose?” Clove whispered to Moose, looking back over her shoulder suspiciously. 

Moose planted all four of his paws on her chest and pushed.

“Alright, alright, down you go.” Clove set him down on the ground and they walked together back to camp. Since their walk was cut short, she lay down on the grass and watched the sun slip by overhead while Moose chased bugs and shadows.

They were some of the last people left in the Gorge at this point. Now that her hands were so much better, there was no reason to delay their journey for much longer. And now that the Gorge was no longer a population hub, no one was carting in food and supplies, so they wouldn’t have much choice but to move on. 

Even Jen and Jon were getting ready to move on and find somewhere else to set up their cider press. Clove suspected that they had delayed their own journey to watch over her, and she felt a little guilty over it, but they insisted that they still needed time to wind down their operation and finish packing up.

As the last rays of the sun slipped beyond the cliffs overhead, Clove was just starting to gather Moose to her when Marissa and Jasper came up the path back to camp.

“You done with your surprise?” she asked.

“How did you know there was a surprise?” Marissa sounded affronted.

“A little bird told me.”

“A bird named Jasper, by any chance?” Marissa smacked his arm lightly. “I can’t believe you ruined it.”

“I didn’t ruin anything. I think she’ll still be plenty surprised.”

“It’s true,” Clove reassured Marissa. “I have no idea what the surprise is, only that there is one.”

“Well, come on then, let’s show you.”

Clove joined them, Moose following more slowly on his leash, and her friends walking on either side of her.

As they walked, Clove saw a glimmer of light up ahead, then another. As they drew closer, she saw that there were lanterns hung from the trees. They lit the path all the way from the campsite down past the place where Marissa had stopped her earlier in the day.

“What is all this?” she asked.

“A celebration,” Marissa said. “The last couple months have been hard on all of us and I thought it would be nice to do something together to mark the occasion and try to turn things around. Since today’s the solstice, it seems like a good time to let go of the darkness of the past few months and look toward the light ahead.”

“The solstice.” Clove had lost track of time so thoroughly here that she hadn’t even realized what day it was. Somehow days and weeks and months didn’t seem to have such significance after the Cataclysm, and especially not out here where the seasons barely differed from each other. “You spent all day on this?”

“Pretty well,” Marissa said. 

“You did a great job. It turned out beautiful.”

“You haven’t seen anything yet.”

Then they rounded a corner and there it was: a grove filled with lanterns. Hanging from every tree branch, sitting on every stump, sitting on overturned crates that were stacked around the edges of the clearing. A small fire crackled in a pit at the centre of the grove.

Clove stopped for a moment to take it all in, bewitched by the gentle dance of so many flames. “This is–”

“Incredible?” Marissa teased. “I know. I couldn’t have done it without Jasper’s help.”

Jasper stood among the lanterns, dark hair glistening in the light. “It was nothing.”

“Not nothing,” Clove said. “This is amazing. Thank you both. But you didn’t need to surprise me with it. I could have helped.”

“No way was I letting you near this many flames with your burns barely healed,” Marissa said. “Now, I know it’s cheesy, but I have a little activity prepared for us. It would mean a lot to me if you would participate.”

“Of course,” Clove said, although she was a little wary at what kind of activity Marissa might have planned for them. After going to all this trouble, though, the least she could do was endure a little cheesiness.

“Here.” Marissa handed them each a slip of paper and a pen. “Let’s each write down one thing you want to leave behind this year. Then we’ll burn them in the fire to let them go.”

“Do we have to share?” Clove asked immediately, although she didn’t even know yet if what she was going to write down was a secret.

“No. It’s just for us.”

Clove rolled her pencil between her fingers, considering for a long moment. The year had brought her so much good and bad and she wasn’t sure how to tease them apart yet.

Jasper wrote his answer down right away and folded his paper in half. Marissa was also thinking hard, which struck Clove funny since the whole thing had been her idea, but perhaps she’d been too caught up in the preparations to actually think about what she wanted to let go.

After a minute of thought, Clove wrote down “Past mistakes” and folded up her paper. Seeing that she was the last one, Marissa jotted down a response and folded her paper as well. 

She beamed at the others. “Ready?”

“Ready,” Clove and Jasper echoed.

One by one, they fed their slips of paper to the fire. After Clove put hers in, she watched the sparks rise up from the fire into the air, following them until they winked out.

The three of them stayed in the grove and chatted until the lanterns began to burn down, making plans for their upcoming journey and where to go next. Clove held Moose on her lap and snuggled him close all night, knowing that these friends and this moment were things that she never wanted to let go.

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Katie Conrad is a speculative fiction writer living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. You can find her on bluesky and instagram.