Once upon a time…

I am Tarka, a rain fox who follows caravans along the high salt road between blue mountains and a lake that tastes like tears. I trade nothing. I trade news. One spring, I found a peddler named Jun with a cart of brass bells and needle thread. He feared the pass ahead. The wind there is said to count travelers. If it reaches seven, it takes the last one.

We met six more on the climb: a spice man, two yak drovers, a monk with cracked lips, a widow with jars, and a boy with a flute. The wind hummed and kept its tally. That range has a custom: at dawn, walkers set a stone on a stacked tower and speak the name they will leave behind, so the mountain knows them less.

When the wind rose fierce, Jun handed me his smallest bell. “Run,” he said. I darted ahead and set the bell on the tower, then barked Jun’s childhood name. The wind paused, unsure who was seventh.

We crossed. At the lake, Jun sold his bells. I kept one sound: a wind that forgot to take.