Chapter Three: Not Even One Drop

The letter contained no demand. There was only a pencil drawing of a valley: ten little houses, ten empty teacups, and one crooked sentence.

If you are willing, please send us a little rain. Even one drop will do.

Faraway thunder rolled inside Mallow, but not a single drop fell.

“I tried once,” the cloud whispered. Back then, Mallow had lived among a great family of clouds, and together they crossed a summer wheat field. After squeezing out that first raindrop, a small piece really had vanished from Mallow’s lower-right corner. Terrified, Mallow clutched every last wisp of moisture close and would not even lend the morning a bead of dew.

“If I keep raining, I will grow smaller and smaller until only my name is left.”

Milo thought for a moment. She took the blue stamp from beside her ear and pressed it onto an empty glass bottle. “Then we will not mail any rain yet. We will find the valley that wrote to you and ask whether one drop is truly all they want.”

Mallow looked at the bottle. “What is that for?”

“For catching any courage you happen to drop.”

The bottle was still empty, of course. But for the first time, Mallow felt that emptiness could also be a place made ready.