Then
silently, from the darkness, yellow eyes appeared. The father grabbed the child
and sat upright. Suddenly animals stepped from the shadows towards them. He
roused his wife. They huddled there together, shaking—turning every which way
only to see animals forming a circle around them. The child began to giggle.
The father moved to cover his face, but the child brushed his hands away. His
eyes widened with glee as the animals moved closer.

The
first to reach them was the mountain lion. She carried something in her mouth.
It was a rabbit. She laid it at their feet and turned away, yellow eyes
flashing. The bear lumbered towards them next. In his mouth were two rainbow
trout. He laid them before the trembling couple, snorted and sniffled, and then
turned back to the shadows. Then came the heron, looking for all intensive
purposes like a tall, skinny butler. He stepped his long, remarkable strides,
and in his outstretched wings was held a bowl of pure, cold water. He offered
it without spilling a drop. And so, one by one the animals came bearing gifts
of wild berries, salads of dandelion greens and edible flowers, and even
freshly baked bread from—from—the couple never found out where from. And lastly
came the reindeer and the wolf. The reindeer carried a wreath of glowing
candles in her antlers. With the utmost care she laid it before them. It
illuminated their tear-stained faces. The wolf took his place beside the family
and stood guard as they began to eat.

And so
that night they feasted on a meal lovingly prepared by the animals. They had
never had such a nourishing meal.

After
they had eaten and drank their fill, the wolf disappeared into the cave of the
night. And the couple laid back in the road to sleep. The darkness was almost
complete as they stared exhausted into the tree-branch laced sky. Then all at
once the trees leaned forward and down with their branches. The couple
screamed, but then realized the trees were opening their arms in offering—they
were giving them a place to nestle for the night. 

The
couple looked at each other and then carefully stood and stepped into the
waiting branches. The trees lifted them instantly high off the ground. The air
caressed the little trinity of humanity as it rose, higher into the night sky.
That night, they slept like baby birds in the gently swaying trees. 

It was
the child who awoke when he heard the earth singing the sweetest of lullabies.
It was a song of crickets and of night birds and frogs, it was the song of the
padded steps of animals, it was the song of the river flowing somewhere in the
darkness. As he listened, he felt the earth holding the roots of their tree
with all of the love and tenacity of a mother swaddling her baby. 

And so
it was the child who felt the arms of the moon reaching down and lifting them
even higher.

Her
embrace was like refreshing silver water pouring slowly over them. And as the
moon cradled the little family, the child laughed as he watched the Milky Way
swooping her star-fringed arms and gathering them all—the mother and father, the
babe, the animals, the trees, the earth, and the moon into her gently dancing
arms.

And
the baby reached up and brushed her face, tracing his fingers through her
star-dappled hair. And as he did, his eyes caught site of the universe turning
towards them, carrying them along in the perfect folds of his cloak of shadows
and light.