Between the Flagstones

I slipped through the bottom corner of the porch screen door and stepped onto the garden path. Between two weathered flagstones, a thick cluster of velvet moss had spread across the stone crack. Tucked right into the green cushion was an empty spiral snail shell, pale ivory with faint amber stripes. I knelt down close on the damp paving and rested a slender dried twig across its hollow mouth like a tiny threshold. I waited in the quiet morning air, listening for any faint sound from deep within the damp soil, but the garden kept its quiet secrets to itself.