Benny had heard the joke all his life: Tristan da Cunha is so quiet you can hear the grass grow. It sounded like something from one of his books about dragons and knights and adventures, but of course there was nothing magical on Tristan da Cunha.
When almost everyone decided to investigate, Benny heard another unfamiliar sound: keys clinking in pockets after people had locked their doors, many for the first time.
The curious crowd trekked the green-flanked path, through mist, past swooping gulls. They emerged above the clouds near Queen Mary’s Peak to see a waist-high egg gleaming opalescent. It crumbled as they approached, revealing a flame-feathered bird.
“A phoenix,” Benny breathed. “How? And why here?”
The phoenix ruffled its feathers into place. “Nowhere else in this world remains quiet enough to leave room for magic,” it answered. “Listen. Can’t you hear the grass growing?”
Kai Holmwood holds an MA in Writing from the University of Canterbury in Aotearoa New Zealand and was awarded the H. W. Hill Prize at UC Berkeley. Her works have appeared or are forthcoming in Solarpunk Creatures, Stanchion, DreamForge, Flash Frontier, and elsewhere. She lives in rural Portugal with her Brazilian husband and two giant formerly stray mastiffs.
Kai’s most recent appearance in our virtual pages was “The Captain’s Mistake,” a story that turned out to be a huge fan favorite. Check it out!
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