Gooma is a fruit from a modest, inconspicuous, nameless tree. How these fruits came to life, nobody knows for sure. Some say that they were touched by inexperienced magic; others witnessed a falling star in the thickets. There is different gossip about it, but one thing is true, once upon a time this tree's fruits came to life and went ahead traveling in all directions over our vast continent.

It happens that in the middle of his travels, Gooma withers and from the seed in his head a new tree appears. Its fresh fruit comes to life and continues this desperate journey.

Gooma keeps a diary during his entire life, and then his followers continue traveling from the last page where the life path of the older Gooma stopped.

Why don't people go outside at night? There's simply nothing to do out there. Not a soul around. Only whispers, and long shadows taking their evening strolls. And in the morning there are so many things to attend to — it's a shame to put them off for such a whim. In short, nighttime is for sleeping.

And yet at this late hour, hurried footsteps can be heard. Sharp firs bend toward the path. Lantern light flickers between thick trunks, its sparks chiming in drops of resin. Nimble shadows stretch away from the flame that hunts them. Gnarled branches reach down to the very ground, as if wanting to roll up the thin ribbon of the trail and tuck it somewhere out of sight.

Gooma comes tumbling down the path. He drags a knapsack made from an old fishing net. Something rattles inside.

The trees part, the path curves around a pair of gray boulders, and Gooma runs down to the seashore. The trail leaps across a narrow beach and disappears into the water as a staircase of polished, green-bearded stones. Into the last one, a rusty iron ring is screwed. It holds a painted sailboat on a short leash.

The ring screwed into the stone clinks, the oar slaps the black water, the sun sinks beyond the horizon. The sail shows off a brand-new pattern across its full breadth. From shore the lantern on the mast is still visible, but there is no one left to watch its blinking flame — at this hour everyone is asleep. The last one to observe the night departure has only just gone to bed.

Gooma steers into the open sea, ever closer to the horizon. An old sea chart — spotted with salt, covered in various handwritings, thick with notes and crooked figures, its edges torn — is spread out before him. In the center of the chart sits a strange instrument. Bristling with needles, it diligently watches the stars, checks the wind's direction, and even counts the waves that strike the bow.

Gooma does not look around. He catches the slightest twitch of a needle and adjusts his course with a slender oar. Then, in the night silence, the cunning instrument rings its little bell three times.

The boat rocks with its sail furled, in the middle of a drowsy sea. Neither stars nor moon are visible.

At the stern, Gooma peers into the light-catcher. It is opaque. The traveler's eyes are closing.

Knock. Knock-knock. Knock — a dry rapping sounds against the hull. Gooma opens his eyes but cannot quite work out whether he is still asleep or already awake. Sleep seems unwilling to release him: a strange, never-before-seen fleet has surrounded him on all sides.

Boats and skiffs and rafts are moving across the sea. Rocking gently inside them sleep translucent cats and foxes, mice and hares, impossible birds and mysterious insects, and creatures no one has ever seen before. All of them silently follow the moonlight.

Not the faintest breeze stirs the surface of the sea. Yet the boats move so steadily and in such unison, as if each one were tied by a thin thread of gossamer to the bright crescent moon and gliding along its silver road.

Dinghies and longboats — from tiny, barely-there vessels to enormous ones resembling three-masted frigates. Rafts of timber from trees no one has named, ice floes, bubbles, clusters of fruit, carved bowls and crests of foam — anything that can stay afloat serves as transport for a moon wanderer.

Gooma does not stir, for fear of waking the flotilla. Then he notices a small boat. In it, a fox kit with enormous ears breathes in its sleep. Waves wash over its low sides. It barely moves, and at any moment threatens to go under.

Gooma stretches his arms as far as they will reach and carefully scoops up the little vessel together with a handful of cold black water.

By touch, he tries to find the leak in the fox kit's boat, but it fills too fast.

The fleet of moon wanderers recedes steadily westward. The last boats drift past, glimmering faintly.

A decision must be made. Follow them and mend the little boat on the go — or turn back home? Gooma yanks the rope and hauls up his painted sail.

The path winds up the hill, small stones crunch underfoot, fir branches lash at a weathered face. Home, quickly!

The first ray of sunlight breaks from behind the distant mountains. With a soft hiss, the fox kit begins to melt before his eyes—

Gooma, beside himself, breathless, reaches the front door. He slams it behind him so fast that even the most nimble sunbeam cannot slip inside.

The room falls into darkness. A clock ticks loudly. The night guest sways in his flooded little boat, as if nothing at all has happened.

Beside him on the table lies a heap of notebooks filled with notes, worn scrolls, old books. One of them, lying open at the middle, contains an old sailor's account of a legend about the night wanderers. To see them even once is great good fortune — and a test for the rank of captain. Next to it lies a guide to sea routes — a sailing directions manual. It marks the places where, in different years, sailors waited for the night flotilla and never saw it come. A third book holds sketches gathered from seafarers' tales — meditations on the magical nature of the moon wanderers, their connection to the ocean, to tides and ebbs, to the substance of moonlight, and to other riddles without answers.

The adventure-filled night draws to a close. The Moon Fox begins to glow faintly. Gooma watches this swaying light on the waves and drops into the deep sleep of a weary traveler.

In the dream, mist swirls. Through the haze, rocky shores of translucent quartz emerge. The sea is still, and the northern lights ripple in the sky. In his boat Gooma drifts along the moonlit road, beneath him the ocean abyss. From its depths someone rises to meet him. An octopus. Its enormous eyes are shut, its powerful tentacles nearly motionless.

For a little while they travel side by side. The deep-sea giant turns back into the depths, and the mist curls closed above it. The boat carries Gooma onward — toward an island. A volcano smolders at its center, sending rings of pinkish smoke into the sky. On the shore, an enormous bird sleeps. A gentle play of wind through its feathers releases a quiet chime into the air. Gooma rounds the island, and there they await him — motionless, forever sleeping in their sturdy boats, his own kindred. A silent tribe that has never seen the sun — the inhabitants of the night side of the earth.

Gooma wakes at the height of the hot day. The room is dim and stuffy. Chasing away the last traces of the strange dream, he cuts a moon and stars from glossy paper, and the warm glow reflected from them — the light of the moon wanderer — dances around the room in time with the waves.

Gooma still cannot make up his mind: should he keep the fox kit? But what is a gift of fate at sea is only a souvenir on dry land.

Then the navigation bell chimes three times, a wave rolls against the hull, and the darkness thickens into a dense, inklike mass. Sleep sweeps over him without warning, and the deep-sea octopus with its transparent crown rises from the depths again.

Knock. Knock-knock. Knock. Gooma opens his eyes. As on the first night, the majestic lunar squadron moves before him. The gliding fleet seems to be waiting for something. Without a moment's hesitation, Gooma moves to the bow, picks up the oar, sets the fox kit on its very tip, pushes the oar with its fragile cargo forward — and the little new boat slides away from him, following the others into the night.

Standing at the bow of his own skiff, he watches the lunar squadron with a long, lingering gaze. For a moment it seems to him that somewhere out there among the countless rafts and vessels, asleep in an eternal dream, sails a white boat shaped like a bird — and in it, a Gooma just like himself. Together with the moonlight the vision fades, and the inkblack night wraps itself around the world, waiting for dawn.