Morrie did not notice her all at once.

If he was honest, he had seen her many times before… coming and going near the old stone building, carrying boxes, setting things down, leaving them where they stood. Humans did that. They arrived with intentions they did not keep and stayed for reasons they could not name. Morrie had learned long ago not to stir the hedges for every passing presence.

But this time was different.

It was not the sound of her footsteps that caught his attention, nor the shape of her moving through familiar spaces. It was the pause. The way she stopped, just once, with her hand resting on something old, as though listening for a thought she could not quite hear.

As she stood there, small details began to stir Morrie’s own remembering—the way she tilted her head, the stillness she carried when something mattered. Once, long ago, she had done the same thing, standing very much like this. The quiet whispers as she spoke with herself, and self would answer back. It was then that Morrie felt the shift… not as a change in the air, but as a memory finding its way home.

He did not move. He did not speak. He waited.

For days after, he watched from his quiet places. He noticed how her belongings no longer stayed piled, how they began to settle. How she returned each evening without surprise, as though her body had already decided what her mind had not.

“Nesting,” Morrie thought. The word carried weight.

Still, he did not tell Coo.

It was not enough to hope it was so. Morrie had seen hope before. This was something else.

The certainty came softly, the way it always did. One afternoon, when the light bent just so against the stone, Morrie felt a familiar warmth: not from the sun, but from remembrance. Although faint and incomplete, it was unmistakable. 

She was in her study, going through a traveling case of old letters she had retrieved from the basement. He was just out of sight, tucked in his usual place: a small stone recess between a cedar cabinet and a stone wall.

She looked his way. He thought she had remembered; but instead, she returned her gaze back to the hedges, located not far from the old stone building.

She had not remembered everything.

But she had remembered enough.

And that was when Morrie knew.

She was back.

 

Morrie grabbed his cane and his glasses so he could hear better, and hobbled out the stony doorway that led to the back side of the old stone building. Tall grasses surrounded the outer walls of the old building. He remembered when there were none.

Crossing through the grasses on the one small path made by his own coming and going many times over the years, he finally exited into the afternoon sun.

One… Two… Three… Four… Five!
Five smooth flagstones.

It was the most important flagstone on the path to the hedges. It was the one that caught the afternoon sun on sunny days; it was the smoothest; it was the one with a slight indentation, so on rainy days Morrie could easily take a sip and fill a bucket or two. All these were good reasons the fifth flagstone was important, but the most important reason was that the fifth flagstone was where Morrie would meet Coo, the resident pigeon, who brought the neighborhood news to him each and every day… at the same time… no matter the weather.

Once there, Morrie stopped and took a look around to make sure the neighborhood cat, Farley, wasn’t about to pounce on him again. All in a day’s fun for Farley… but for Morrie, well, he now carried a cane.

As soon as he made a complete circle around, hobble, stop, hobble, stop, hobble, stop once more, he felt safe enough to do what he always loved on sunny days like today: sit down and lay back into the warmth of the fifth flagstone.

Morrie let his aching bones settle with a small, grateful sigh. There had been a time when such aches were earned differently: earned with effort rather than age. He smiled at the thought.
He remembered a time, long ago, when it took him all night, working patiently but quickly, at the base of the east wall. The mortar there had cracked with time and weather, and where others saw only crumbling stone, Morrie had noticed possibility. Piece by piece, he loosened and carried away the rubble, his body sore but willing, his purpose clear even if the outcome was not.

The next morning, when the opening was finally large enough, he slipped inside. The space had surprised him. It was darker than he expected, smaller too. But then there was the scent. Cedar.
The fragrance of the nearby forest wrapped around him, easing his muscles and quieting his doubts. Cedar had always been a comfort to, Morrie. His family fled to the forest often during plowing season. He loved it there, especially the fragrance of cedar. 

The space he found himself in, was a small stone recess built into the corner of a larger room. No one really knew what to do with it, so it remained empty except for dust bunnies and a few lost papers that had found their way inside.

It was deemed unusable by humans, but for Morrie, it whispered, Home, and at the time, that was what he needed most.

Morrie would remember that night for the rest of his life.
How the entrance was revealed, through a night of hard work. 
How the scent of cedar told him everything he needed to know.

​

He had found his Home.

​

That moment is told more fully in He Was Found, a short film found here. 

​

He shifted slightly now, feeling the years in his joints, and was deeply thankful that such work belonged to another season of his life. He smiled and thanked his younger self for finding and establishing his home when he did.

“Oh, to be young again…” he said wistfully, and let his mind drift like the wind.

“MORRIE!”

He woke with a start and sat straight up, forgetting his aching bones and wondering where he was. Regaining his composure, he saw his old friend Coo standing beside the flagstone.

“Coo! So nice to see you on such a fine day as today,” Morrie said, repeating the same greeting he spoke every day when Coo arrived.

Coo agreed and began his familiar pigeon pace in front of Morrie, who remained firmly seated, cane by his side. Back and forth, back and forth.

Morrie waited patiently, as always, for Coo to decide where he would stand for today’s delivery of the news. It was an everyday ritual that was somehow comforting to watch.

Coo stopped and turned toward Morrie.

“It’s been pretty quiet the past few days, Morrie. In fact, I’ve not seen or heard one thing that was the least bit interesting. Except there was a slight ruckus at the stone wall, seems the chickadees and the finches were having a little… let’s just say… chatter about who could build their nest on the west side, which is the warmer side of the wall. Last I heard, they were still chattering.”

“Oh my,” Morrie said with half-genuine concern. “They are both such wonderful families. I’m sure they will figure something out… they always do… every year!”

With that, Coo relaxed his knees and squatted, as pigeons do when they are finished with the business at hand.

Silence was always a comfortable place for the two friends. Almost like they were having a conversation that no one but themselves could hear.

But today’s silence was longer than usual, like a sigh after reading a love story. The only sound was the buzzing of bees gathering pollen from the wildflowers nearby.

Finally, Morrie broke the silence: but in a quiet way. He stood and stretched slightly, grabbing his cane to steady himself.

Looking out over the flowers, he asked, “Have you felt anything different lately, Coo?”
He turned to see if Coo had heard him. Sometimes Coo fell asleep during their silences.
Coo’s eyes popped open, and his head tilted slightly to one side, as if trying to catch the words again.

Coo blinked once. Then again.

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he shifted his feet, feathers ruffling as if the question had landed somewhere unexpected.

“Different?” he repeated slowly, testing the word.

He glanced past Morrie toward the old stone building, then back again.
“Well now… I wouldn’t have said so at first. Everything’s been where it usually is.”
He tilted his head, the way he did when something didn’t quite line up.

“But…”

Coo paused, uncomfortable in a way that had nothing to do with silence. “There have been moments. Little ones. Like I’ve carried a breeze farther than I meant to. Or found myself circling back before I was finished. Or I would completely forget what news I was to deliver.”

None of this was truly uncharacteristic of Morrie’s friend, Coo. 

He looked down at the fifth flagstone, then up at Morrie.
“And… I did notice some movement near the old building. Not the noisy sort. Has someone moved in?”

Coo shifted again, lowering his voice without quite knowing why.
“Why do you ask, Morrie? Have you?”

Morrie opened his mouth to answer.

The back door creaked.

Both of them froze.

The sound was soft, ordinary enough, but it cut cleanly through the moment. Morrie’s gaze shifted instinctively toward the stone building, and Coo followed without thinking.

Emily stepped out onto the top step and paused. The afternoon sun caught her full on, and she leaned into it, hands resting on her hips. An apron was tied around her waist, dusted faintly with the marks of work, and her hair was pulled back with a scarf, as though she had only meant to step away for a breath of air before returning inside.

She drew in a slow, steady breath as she brushed a few hairs back from her face.

Her eyes dropped to the ground, adjusting from the glare. They followed the steps downward… and stopped.

"Flagstones." she said as if someone had ask her what she had discovered.

Worn and uneven, half-lost beneath grasses and time, they led away from the building toward the hedges beyond. Emily’s brow furrowed slightly, not in recognition, but in something close to it… more like a pause without a name.

And just as she had done in the study days before, she quietly turned, having not seen what was right before her eyes… on the fifth stone.

The door closed behind her.

Morrie and Coo looked at one another, then back at the door.

Neither of them spoke.

​

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Chapter Two - Coming Soon