The Last Warm Light
Iris climbed the cloud stairs with the light in her hands. It was the last warm piece of the day, round as a plum. It hummed against her fingers, low and slow. Wisp drifted just ahead, glowing at the edges. The wind came up through the stairs and hummed too. Iris hummed back. "The wind hums, and we hum back," she said. Wisp glowed a little brighter. The top step was soft as a pillow, and they sat down on it.
Below them the clouds turned peach, then grey-blue, then almost dark. Iris cupped the light close to her chest. Her hands were warm all the way to the wrists. She thought she could carry it into her cloud bed and sleep beside it. Then she looked up. Wisp had gone dim. In the dark their edges were only a thin silver line, like a thread. Wisp drifted near the light and glowed, just a little, and then less.
Iris knew that look. Wisp wanted the light too. All night the Cloud Kingdom would be dark and quiet, and a small cloud with dim edges would have nothing to shine by. But Iris wanted the light too. She had carried it up all those stairs. Her hands had never been so warm. Wisp waited beside her. Wisp did not ask. Wisp never asked. The light hummed, and the wind hummed, and neither of them said anything for a while.
Iris tried giving it away. She held it out, and Wisp glowed gold. Then her hands went cold, and Wisp saw, and pushed the light back with a small puff of air. Iris laughed. They passed it back and forth like that. Warm, cold, warm, cold. It did not work. The light hummed. The wind hummed through the stairs. "The wind hums, and we hum back," Iris said, and she hummed while she thought.
Then Iris had an idea. She pressed the light flat between her palms, soft as dough. It stretched thin and gold and shone right through her fingers. She wound it around Wisp, once, twice, all along their edges. Wisp turned bright as a lamp. And Wisp was warm now, so Wisp drifted down into her open hands and stayed there. Warm hands. Bright cloud. Iris grinned into the dark. Nothing was left over, and nothing was missing.
They watched the last of the sky go. Far off, the edge of the world went blue, then blue-grey, then nothing at all. The gold around Wisp began to thin. It did that. Sunset light never stayed; it always went home. Iris felt it fading in her hands, slow as a breath. She was not sad, exactly. It was small and going, and it had been theirs. She held Wisp closer and watched the last threads shine. The wind hummed.
"Goodbye," Iris said to the little light. "See you tomorrow." The gold slipped off Wisp's edges and drifted up, one small spark at a time, going back the way the sun had gone. Iris waved with the hand that was not holding Wisp. The sparks went over the stairs and out of sight. The sky closed soft behind them. The light hummed once, and was gone. Wisp glowed on their own, silver and small.
The Cloud Kingdom was dark then, and it was a good dark, thick and soft. Iris lay back on the top step. Wisp settled in the curve of her arm. The wind moved through the stairs below, humming its long low hum. Wisp's edges glowed with each hum, on, off, on. "The wind hums, and we hum back," Iris whispered, and she hummed, softer and softer, until the hum was mostly breathing.
Under her, the clouds rocked a little, like water. Somewhere below the stairs the morning was already coming, carrying more light than one pair of hands could hold. Iris did not wait up for it. Wisp did not go anywhere. She closed her fingers gently around Wisp's warm silver edge, the way you hold a hand. Wisp glowed, then dimmed, then glowed. The wind hummed on, and did not stop. Iris slept.
