The children have heard that somewhere beyond the sky, there is a place where wonder has survived.

To most, it is only a story.

For years, the children have looked out the window every evening. They know where the Moon will rise before it appears, and which branches will hide it as it crosses the sky. Seasons pass. Sleeves grow short around their wrists. They have never met anyone who has seen the place the stories describe.

They do not stop looking.

Then, on that one night, the luminous bear appears.

The great creature lowers itself toward the grass, its body shimmering between fur and constellation. One child reaches out, expecting her hand to pass through it.

The bear leans gently into the touch.

Soon they are settling along its back, holding one another as the ground begins to fall away. The trees sink beneath them. Clouds close over the place where they have spent so many evenings waiting, and when the children look up again, nothing stands between them and the Moon.

They watch it grow until they can no longer take it in at once.

At the Gates of Ascent stand Doge and Shiba.

The ancient guardians watch the bear approach. For a moment, the children wonder whether they will be asked why they have come, or what they have brought. They have imagined this arrival so often, yet neither has prepared an answer.

Then Shiba steps aside.

Beyond the gates, a lush meadow spreads beneath the lunar sky. Flowers shine among the grasses, their light reaching beneath leaves where small creatures stir. The children lean toward one another, pointing, until a thin thread of music makes them still.

Among the glowing flowers, the Moon Beetle plays a tiny violin.

The bear kneels in the meadow, and the children climb down together. The music leads them through the grasses toward an old raccoon with a brush in his hand.

He guides its tip through the air. A river of liquid gold follows beneath it, winding through the meadow toward a quiet pool. As the waters meet, their mingled light moves across his face.

The children watch. Here is something from the stories, happening close enough for them to hear the water.

“Is it finished?” one of the children asks.

He looks across the meadow, then down at the place where two waters have just become one.

He offers her a brush.

The children lean closer. She takes it, and for a moment holds its tip above the water, wondering what she might add.

Above the garden, Earth turns slowly in the dark. For the first time since leaving it, she stops looking back.

The Moon was never merely a destination.

It was a state of being.