Wren and the Jar of Sleeping Wind

Nobody in the valley could say when the wind stopped. It was simply gone one morning, like a visitor who had left without saying goodbye.

Wren noticed it at breakfast. The kitchen curtain hung straight down, as stiff as a board. Usually it danced and snapped at the window, and Wren liked to watch it.

“Gran,” she said. “The curtain’s broken.”

Her grandmother looked up from the bread she was slicing. She looked for a long moment, then set the knife down very slowly.

“Not broken,” she said. “The wind has stopped.”

“Wind can’t stop,” said Wren.

“It can. It has.” Her grandmother went to the door and opened it. Outside, the mill on the hill stood with its great sails hanging still, like a bird with its wings folded. Down in the lower field, three boys were staring at a red kite lying flat on the grass.

“It went up fine,” one of them called. “Then it just fell.”

Wren’s grandmother nodded, as if she had expected exactly that. “Come and sit,” she said. “There’s a story, and I’d rather not tell it standing up.”

So Wren sat on the warm stone step, and her grandmother sat beside her with her hands folded.

“Long before you were born,” she said, “the wind had a name. We called it the valley breath. It slept up on the high hill in a little hollow, and when it woke it went round the whole valley, and the mill turned, and the kites flew, and everything was right.”

“And now it’s still asleep?” said Wren.

“That’s my guess.”

“Then someone should wake it,” said Wren.

Her grandmother looked at her for a long time. Then she smiled, a small, careful smile. “Someone should,” she said.

***

The blue glass jar lived on the shelf above the fire, and Wren had never been allowed to touch it. It had a cork with a little brass ring, and the glass was thick and clear as water.

“Gran,” said Wren. “Can I borrow the jar?”

Her grandmother was mending a sock. She didn’t look up. “What for?”

“To catch the wind.”

The needle stopped. “You know where it lives?”

“In the hollow on the high hill. You said so.”

“I said so in a story,” said her grandmother. But she got up, and she reached down the jar, and she put it into Wren’s hands. It was cool and surprisingly heavy.

“The old stories say the wind likes a jar that’s been loved,” she said. “This one’s been in the family a long while. Be gentle with it.”

Wren tucked the jar inside her coat so it wouldn’t knock against the gatepost. Then she set off up the path.

The hill was steep and stony, and the grass was dry under her boots because nothing had stirred it for days. Halfway up she passed the mill, and the miller, old Tom, was sitting on the step with his hat in his hands.

“No wind, no flour,” he said gloomily. “No flour, no bread.”

“I’m going to fix it,” said Wren.

Tom looked at her jar. He didn’t laugh, which she liked. “Mind the hollow, then,” he said. “That’s where the old ones say it sleeps.”

Above her the hill went on and on, bare and quiet, and not one blade of grass moved.

The top of the hill was a bald green dome, and in the middle of it was a hollow, worn down like the bowl of a spoon. Wren knelt at the edge. There, curled in the very bottom, was a small grey cloud. It was no bigger than a sleeping cat. It rose and fell with slow breaths, and its edges frayed and knitted together again.

“Hello,” said Wren softly. “Are you the wind?”

The cloud did not answer. It only breathed, in and out, and its breath smelled of rain.

Wren climbed down into the hollow and set the blue jar beside it. “Grandmother sent me,” she said. “The mill can’t turn. Tom’s got no flour. The kites won’t fly.” She waited. Not a single wisp of cloud lifted. “If you wake up, it would help everybody.” Still the cloud slept on, heavy as a stone pillow.

So Wren began the way her grandmother had taught her, with the old stories. She sang the one about the wind chasing the leaves down the lane. She sang the one about the wind getting lost in the chimney and crying all night. Her voice went thin and small in the wide, still air, but she sang it all the same. When she finished, the cloud’s edges stirred, just once, like a cat’s ear flicking at a fly.

“Please,” whispered Wren, and she laid her hand on it. It was soft and cool, and it felt exactly the way a summer morning feels. Then, slowly, it rolled into the blue jar and settled at the bottom, and Wren screwed the lid on tight.

***

The jar was light at first. Wren carried it down the hill in both hands, humming, and the cloud inside swirled gently like cream in a cup. Halfway down, the jar began to get heavy.

“You’re growing,” Wren told it. The cloud pressed its face against the glass, and the glass went warm.

By the gatepost the jar weighed as much as a sack of apples. Wren held it against her chest and took the path one slow step at a time. Inside, the cloud was turning, faster and faster, and little grey threads trailed off it like smoke. The lid rattled.

“Not yet,” said Wren, through her teeth. “Wait till we’re home.”

The cloud thumped against the jar’s side. Wren stopped and looked at it, and for a moment she was afraid. What if it broke out here, halfway down, and rushed off and got lost? What if she carried it all this way for nothing?

Her grandmother was waiting at the door. “Steady,” she said. “Don’t grip it so hard. A jar that’s been loved doesn’t need squeezing.” Wren loosened her fingers and breathed, and the thumping quieted a little, though the cloud still turned and turned.

“Where does it go?” asked Wren.

“Where it likes,” said her grandmother. “But it likes to be asked first.”

Wren carried the jar through the door, and the mill sails out the window hung still as fence posts.

The kitchen smelled of bread and woodsmoke. Wren set the jar on the table, and the table shook. Her grandmother folded her arms and did not touch it. “Well,” she said. “There it is.”

“It’s heavy,” said Wren. “Heavier than before.” The cloud pressed flat against the glass and streamed, grey and thin, and the lid hopped once.

Her grandmother leaned close and listened. “It wants out,” she said. “It has been wanting out since the hill. A wind in a jar is a wind in a trap.”

“But if I let it go, it might sleep again,” said Wren. “It might never come back.”

“Maybe,” said her grandmother. She slid the jar toward Wren. “It’s your jar now. Your choice.”

Wren put both hands around it. Through the glass the cloud turned and turned, and she could feel it pushing, like a heart that wanted to run. She thought of the still sails, and the kites lying in the grass, and she thought of what it would be like to keep the wind in her room forever, humming in the dark.

Then the jar jumped. Her fingers were wet with the cold of it, and the lid rolled off and rang on the floor. The jar tipped and slid. Wren caught it against her chest, and the whole kitchen went quiet.

“Take it outside,” said her grandmother, calm as stone. “Now.”

Wren ran.

***

Out in the yard, Wren stood with the jar hugged tight. The lid was gone. The cloud swirled and pressed at the mouth of the jar like water at a dam, and she could feel it, warm and wild, right against her hands.

“Go on,” said her grandmother from the doorway. “Ask it.”

Wren lifted the jar. “Please,” she said. “Please go home.” Her voice came out small and shaky. “Go and fill the valley. Go and turn the mill.”

For a heartbeat nothing happened. Then the cloud poured out of the jar in a long grey ribbon. It rose and curled over the roof and spun out across the fields, and the grass bent flat where it passed. The apple tree shook itself awake. The washing on the line snapped and danced.

The mill sails creaked, and turned, and turned faster, and the whole mill hummed like a hive.

Wren stood in the middle of it, her hair blown straight back, laughing without meaning to. The wind came round her, tugged her coat, and pulled at her sleeve like a hand. She put out her arms and let it lift them.

“Will it stay?” she asked.

Her grandmother came down the step. “It’ll come and go,” she said. “That’s what wind does. But it knows your name now.” She smiled. “You asked it nicely.”

Wren set the empty jar on the windowsill. All evening the mill turned, and the kites rose again over the valley, and she slept with her window open, listening.