One Button Too Many

In a world made all of soft square blocks, where the hills rose in tidy green steps and the clouds drifted by in slow white rectangles, there was a little cottage in a sunlit meadow. The cottage had walls of pale oak and a roof of gentle red, and a chimney that let out one quiet curl of smoke. Around it the grass grew in perfect cubes, each one a slightly different shade of green, and the morning light lay across all of them like warm honey poured from a jar. It was the kind of morning that did not ask anything of anyone.

Inside the cottage lived a boy named Miles.

Miles was, as he liked to tell people, a speedrunner. This meant that he practiced doing things quickly, running from one place to another, climbing hills in clever ways, and finding the shortest path between where he was and where he wanted to be. He had a small notebook full of times he had beaten, and a slightly larger notebook full of times he had not beaten yet. But this morning he was not running anywhere at all. This morning he was sitting very still, at a small table by the window, doing the one thing in the whole Overworld that made him slow down.

He was polishing his elytra.

Now, an elytra, if you have never held one, is a pair of wings. Not feathered wings like a bird, and not buzzing wings like a bee, but a smooth folded pair of gray gliding wings that a person could wear across their shoulders. When you leaped from a high place and spread them wide, they caught the air and carried you, long and low and gentle, over valleys and rivers and rooftops, until you touched down soft as a leaf somewhere far away. They were rare. They were very rare. In all his wandering, Miles had only ever found this one pair, and he loved it more than he loved diamonds, more than emeralds, more than any shining thing he had ever dug from the ground.

The wings were a quiet gray, the color of a dove, or of morning mist, or of stone that has been rained on for a hundred years. Miles rubbed them with a soft cloth, following each square edge, humming a little tune with no particular words to it. Where the light struck them they showed the faintest shimmer, like the inside of a shell. He turned them over in his hands, careful as a person carrying water, and he smiled the small private smile of someone who owns exactly one thing they treasure completely.

"You are going to look wonderful today," he told the wings.

The wings, being wings, said nothing. But they seemed to agree.

Across the room, over by the wall Miles had built for practicing, another boy was standing with his hands clasped behind his back and his round face tilted in wonder. This was Beno, who was Miles's best friend, and had been for as long as either of them could remember which was, in the way of best friends, longer than either of them could actually remember. Beno was the sort of person who found the whole world interesting. A puddle was interesting. A chicken was interesting. A slightly unusual rock was, to Beno, a small event worth stopping for.

And right now, the most interesting thing in the entire cottage was the wall of levers and buttons.

Miles had built it himself, over many patient afternoons, for his speedrun practice. There were levers of every kind, wooden ones and stone ones, and a long neat row of buttons in colors like sunset. There were pistons that pushed and pistons that pulled, and little hoppers that carried things along, and one careful launcher tucked into the corner that Miles used to fling himself up onto the practice course so he could work on his landings. The whole wall clicked and hummed and whirred in the softest way, like a sleepy machine dreaming of being useful.

Beno leaned close to look at it, breathing a small breath of admiration.

"You made all this," he said. It was not quite a question.

"Most of it," said Miles, still polishing. "The blue button sticks. Don't press the blue button."

"I would never press the blue button," said Beno, who was already looking at the blue button.

There is a thing that happens to a certain kind of person when they are told not to press a button. The button, which a moment before had been only a button, becomes suddenly the most fascinating object in the room. It seems to glow a little. It seems to lean toward you. It seems to whisper, in a voice only you can hear, that pressing it just once, gently, would surely do no harm at all. Beno was exactly that kind of person. He did not mean to be. He simply loved to see what things did.

"What does this red one do," Beno murmured, more to himself than to anyone.

"Practice launcher," said Miles, not looking up. "Careful. It hums."

Beno pressed the red one.

The wall made a small polite click, and somewhere behind it a piston gave a soft thump, and a hopper carried a little something from one place to another, and nothing very much happened at all. Beno felt a warm glow of relief and delight. He had pressed a button and the machine had answered, and the world had not ended.

"See," he said. "Nothing to it."

He pressed a green one, just to be friendly about it. The wall clicked again, and a lever somewhere flipped itself, and a low humming began to build in the corner where the launcher was. It was not a loud hum. It was the sort of hum a bee makes when it is thinking things over. Beno tilted his head at it, charmed.

"Miles," he said. "Your machine is singing."

"That's the launcher warming up," said Miles, and now he did look up, because a launcher warming up on its own was a thing worth looking up for. "Beno. What did you press."

"Only two," said Beno. "The red and the green. And maybe the yellow, just now, to see."

The humming rose one gentle step higher.

Miles looked at the wall. He looked at his friend. He looked, in the way a person looks when a small cold thought has just walked into their mind and sat down, at the wide flat plate at the base of the launcher where he set things he wanted the machine to lift. And there, resting on that plate exactly where he had set it a moment ago so his hands would be free to reach for the cloth, was his elytra. His treasured, dove-gray, once-in-a-lifetime elytra. Folded neat and calm and entirely unaware of what was about to happen to it.

"Beno," said Miles, very softly. "Don't press anything else."

"I wasn't going to," said Beno.

And then, being Beno, and being the kind of person whose hand sometimes moves a half-second before the rest of him has quite agreed, he leaned back to stand up straight, and his elbow, that traitor, that innocent well-meaning elbow, brushed one last button. A small one. A pale one. The last button on the row.

One button too many.

The wall gave a final satisfied click, as if it had been waiting all morning for exactly this. The humming swelled to a bright and cheerful note. And the launcher, doing precisely and perfectly the thing it had been built to do, lofted the elytra up off its plate and out through the open window and into the wide golden morning.

There was no crash. That is the thing to understand about it. In a louder world there might have been a bang and a fright, but this was not that kind of world, and this was not that kind of launcher. The wings simply went up, up, in a long slow gray arc, spreading a little as they caught the air the way they were made to. They did not tumble. They did not fall. They sailed. Out over the garden fence and over the first green hill they went, sailing like a kite that had slipped its string, like a gray leaf riding a warm rising wind, growing smaller and smaller against the blue.

Miles stood up so fast his chair rocked.

Beno stood up too, both hands pressed to his mouth.

The two boys crowded to the window and watched the wings go. They watched them clear the first hill and drift lazily over the second. They watched them shrink from the size of a pair of wings to the size of a bird to the size of a moth to the size of a single gray speck against the far pale sky. And then, over the third hill, where the land folded down into places the boys could not see, the speck slipped from view entirely, and was gone.

For a long moment neither of them said anything.

The meadow hummed its quiet meadow hum. A cube of cloud drifted by. Somewhere a bee, a real one this time, went about its slow business among the flowers, and the smoke curled up from the chimney exactly as it had before, as if nothing at all had changed. But something had changed, and both boys knew it, and the silence between them stretched out soft and wide.

Miles took a breath.

It was a long, careful breath, the kind you take when you have decided, in the small space between one heartbeat and the next, not to be as upset as you could be. He let it out slowly. He looked at the empty launcher plate, and at the open window, and at the far hill where the gray speck had vanished. And then he looked at Beno, who had gone the particular pale color of a friend who knows exactly what he has done.

"Miles," said Beno.

"I know," said Miles.

"Miles, I am so sorry."

"I know," said Miles again.

"I did not mean to. I only wanted to see. I pressed the red one and it was fine, and I pressed the green one and it was fine, and then I stood up, and my elbow, it was my elbow, my elbow pressed the last one, and I am so, so sorry, and if I could take it back I would take it back a thousand times, and you told me about the blue button but you never said anything about the pale one, not that it's your fault, it's my fault, it's completely my fault, and I would understand if you never let me near a button again for the rest of my whole entire life."

He said all of this in one long tumbling rush, without stopping to breathe, which was a thing Beno could do when he was truly sorry. Miles listened to the whole of it. And somewhere in the middle of it, around the part about the elbow, the small cold thought that had walked into Miles's mind turned around and walked quietly back out again, because it is very hard to stay upset with someone who is apologizing that hard, in that many different ways, with that much of their whole heart.

"That's about eleven apologies," said Miles.

"I have more," said Beno.

"You don't need more."

"I have at least four more."

"Beno." Miles felt something rise in his chest that was not quite a laugh, but was thinking about becoming one. "It's all right."

"It is not all right, it was your favorite, it was your elytra, you love it more than diamonds, you told me that once, you said it right here in this room."

"I did say that." Miles rubbed the back of his neck and looked at the window again. "I do love it more than diamonds. But it's not gone, is it. It went that way." He pointed over the hills. "It didn't crash. It didn't break. It just went for a little sail. Things that sail have to come down somewhere."

Beno lowered his hands from his mouth, slowly, and a small flicker of hope crossed his round face.

"You mean we could find it," he said.

"I mean we could go and look," said Miles. "It went over three hills. That's not so far. Wings that light don't travel forever, they just travel until the wind sets them down. Somewhere out past those hills, there's a meadow or a field or a hollow with a gray pair of wings resting in it, waiting to be picked up. And we know which way it went." He tapped the windowsill. "That's more than most lost things ever give you."

The hope on Beno's face grew a little braver.

"Then let's go," he said. "Right now. Let's run. You're the fastest runner I know. We could catch up to it before it even lands, we could sprint over those hills and be there in no time, I bet you could make it in your very best time ever."

And here Miles paused.

Because this was the thing Beno did not quite understand about him, and the thing Miles himself was only beginning, on this particular golden morning, to understand about the world. Miles was a speedrunner. His whole heart was built around being fast, around the shortest path and the best time and the number in the notebook getting smaller and smaller. If ever there was a thing to sprint after, it was surely this, the most treasured possession he owned, sailing away over the hills. Every instinct he had said run.

But the wings were not falling. They were sailing. And there is a difference between a thing that is being lost and a thing that is simply going somewhere ahead of you.

"No," said Miles slowly, and he was a little surprised to hear himself say it. "We won't run."

Beno blinked. "We won't?"

"If we run, we'll be tired and out of breath and we'll probably run right past it in some hollow without ever seeing it. And besides." Miles looked out at the hills, gold and green and gentle, rolling away toward wherever the wings had gone. "It's a nice day. And it went a nice slow way. I think a thing that leaves that slowly wants to be followed slowly." He shrugged, and this time the not-quite-laugh finally became a real one, small and warm. "In this world, Beno, nothing worth chasing needs to be chased quickly."

Beno considered this. It was a new idea to him, and new ideas were, as we know, among his very favorite things.

"That is the wisest thing I've ever heard you say," he decided. "You usually just say your times."

"I contain multitudes," said Miles.

"You contain a launcher that threw your wings out the window."

"We're not talking about the launcher."

"Fair," said Beno.

And so, the great decision made, the two boys set about the small and pleasant business of getting ready. This did not take long, because in this world getting ready for an adventure was a cozy thing rather than a frantic one. Miles found a small cloth satchel, the kind that hangs comfortably off one shoulder, and into it he began to pack the things a person wants when they are walking somewhere they have never been.

First, bread. There was half a loaf on the table from breakfast, still soft, and a whole one in the cupboard besides, and Miles wrapped them both in a clean cloth and set them in the satchel. Bread was the kind of thing you were always glad to have and never sorry to carry. Then torches, a small bundle of them, because you never knew when the path might lead somewhere the sunlight did not reach, and a torch was a friendly thing to hold in a dark place, a little handful of steady light. He added a flask of water, and a spare cloth, and, after a moment's thought, the softer of his two notebooks, the one with all the times he had not beaten yet, because it seemed to him that this walk might be worth writing down even if it did not have a number at the end.

Beno, meanwhile, was being helpful in the enthusiastic way of someone who feels he owes the whole world a favor. He fluffed the cushions on the little bench, though no one had asked him to. He straightened the row of levers on the wall, very carefully, touching each one exactly once and no more. He looked longingly at the buttons and did not press a single one, which for Beno was a genuine act of heroism. And he offered to carry the satchel, which Miles let him do, because a person who is sorry likes to have something useful to hold.

"Do we know the way," Beno asked, hoisting the strap over his shoulder.

"We know the first part," said Miles. He stood in the open doorway and looked out. The morning had ripened into full gold now, and the meadow lay warm and wide before them, and the three hills the wings had crossed stood clear and gentle against the sky, one behind the other, like steps waiting to be climbed. "We follow the way it went. Over the first hill. Over the second. Over the third. And then we look at where we are, and we figure out the next part when we get there."

"That's not much of a plan," said Beno.

"It's the best kind of plan," said Miles. "It only asks you to know the very next thing."

They stepped out together into the meadow.

The grass was cool and springy under their feet, each cube of it giving the softest give, and the flowers turned their square faces toward the sun. A few sheep, round and white and entirely unbothered, lifted their heads to watch the boys pass and then went back to the serious work of chewing. The chimney smoke thinned behind them. The cottage grew small and neat at their backs, a red-roofed dot in a green bowl, and ahead the first hill rose, an easy climb, the sort of slope you could walk up while still talking.

And they did talk, as they climbed. Or rather Beno talked, and Miles listened, and now and then said a word or two that let Beno know he was still there.

"I've never followed a thing over a hill before," said Beno. "Chased a chicken once. Never followed wings."

"Wings are quieter than chickens," said Miles.

"Everything's quieter than chickens." Beno paused to look at a particularly fine flower and then hurried to catch up. "Do you think it's still going. Right now. Sailing."

"I think it's landed by now," said Miles. "It'll have found a nice spot. Wings like that, they don't want to be in the sky all day. They just want to feel the wind for a while and then settle somewhere soft."

"That sounds nice," said Beno. "I would like to feel the wind for a while and then settle somewhere soft."

"You settle somewhere soft every night. You fall asleep on my bench."

"It's a very good bench," said Beno.

They reached the top of the first hill, and stopped, and turned to look back the way they had come, because that is a thing worth doing at the top of a hill. Below them the meadow spread out gold and green, and the little cottage sat in the middle of it, and the whole morning lay quiet and complete, a small perfect world going gently about its business without them. Miles felt something loosen in his chest that he had not known was tight. It was going to be all right, this walk. He could feel that now. Whatever happened, whether they found the wings by lunch or by supper or not until tomorrow, they were going to be all right.

"Ready," he said.

"Ready," said Beno.

They turned, and looked ahead, down the far side of the first hill and up toward the second, at the long gentle roll of the land unwinding before them like a green ribbon laid across the world. Somewhere out there, past the hills and the hollows and whatever lay beyond, a pair of dove-gray wings was waiting, resting in some soft and quiet place, catching the light with its faint shell shimmer, patient as only lost things can be.

And the two friends walked down toward it together, in no hurry at all.

The sun climbed. The hills waited. The satchel bumped gently against Beno's side, full of bread and torches and one soft notebook, and the boys' voices carried small and warm across the morning as they went. Behind them the cottage settled into its quiet. Ahead of them the wide green world opened up, hill after gentle hill, holding its patient secret somewhere in the folds of the distance.

There was no rush. There was only the walking, and the talking, and the good gold light.

And that, for now, was more than enough.