The Bell from the Garden
The rain over the sea below had stopped. Rae pressed their nose to the round window and watched the clouds pull apart like wool. Sunny floated up beside them, round and warm and golden. Something small went tap against the glass. It was a little brass bell, drifting by itself, turning slowly in the air. Rae caught it in both hands. It was cold, and it smelled green, like a leaf just broken in half.
Rae held the bell under their nose and breathed in. Mint. Wet soil. The smell of the garden room, where the lettuces grew in rows under pink lamps. The bell hung by the garden door, so the plants would hear someone coming. Now it was here, at the wrong end of the station. Sunny sniffed it too and made a small happy sound. "It wants to go back," Rae said. They tucked it into their sleeve pocket.
The garden room hung at the far end of the long tunnel. Rae knew the way. You could not walk it. You floated, hand over hand, along a line of soft blue handholds. At night the tunnel lights went low, and the middle part was very dark. Rae stopped at the open mouth of it. "I don't like the dark bit," they said. Sunny floated close, so close that Rae could feel her fur against their ear.
Rae put one hand on the first handhold. It was cool and ribbed and easy to hold. They pulled, just a little, and drifted forward. Sunny came too, turning gently like a honey-coloured balloon. "One handhold, and then the next one," Rae said. The station hummed around them. Behind, the window light grew small. Ahead, the blue lamps shrank to dots, each one further apart than the last. Rae took the second handhold anyway.
The air in the middle of the tunnel smelled of cold metal and clean laundry. Rae stopped there and stayed still. Their heart went quick, then slower, then quiet. Sunny waited beside them. She did not hurry. She never hurried. Rae counted three long breaths, the way they did in bed. Then they reached out and found the next handhold in the dark, exactly where it was supposed to be. "One handhold, and then the next one."
Halfway along, Rae turned their head and sniffed. Under the metal smell, something small and green had arrived. Mint. It got stronger with every pull. The bell shifted in Rae's sleeve and gave one soft tick against their wrist. Sunny bumped gently into Rae's shoulder and stayed there. The blue lamps began to come closer together again. Then a warm pink glow spilled out of the doorway ahead, like a lamp left on for them.
Rae floated into the garden room. Leaves brushed their cheeks. The whole place smelled of soil and mint and wet green stems, and the lettuces turned their faces under the pink lamps. By the door hung a small empty hook. Rae steadied themselves, took the bell out, and hooked it carefully back where it belonged. It swung. It rang once, small and round, and all the leaves seemed to lean in to listen.
Rae looked back down the tunnel. It did not look so long now. It looked like a thing they had done. Sunny found the soft net hammock strung between two planter beds and climbed in, which took her a while. Rae climbed in after her. The bell gave one more tick in the warm drifting air. "One handhold, and then the next one," Rae said, quieter now, to nobody in particular.
Below the window, the sea turned slowly out of the dark. The pink lamps dimmed themselves the way they always did at night. Rae put one hand in Sunny's fur and smelled mint and soil and warm bear. The leaves moved a little. The bell was quiet. Sunny's chest went up, and down, and up. Rae's breathing found the same slow shape, and the garden breathed with them both, all the way to morning.
