Seven Holes of Light
The corridor wall was soft, like a worn towel, and Pia dragged her palm along it as she floated. Wisp drifted just ahead, glowing a little brighter at every round window. At the third window Pia stopped. A ring of metal hung there on a thread. It had seven holes in it, the size of buttons, and nothing in any of them. Morning light came through and made seven plain white coins on the floor.
Pia turned the ring slowly. It clinked against the glass. She patted her pockets and found one blue button, come loose from her sleeve. She pushed it into the first hole and it stayed. Blue light slid down the wall and landed on her knee. She held very still so it would stay there. Wisp glowed brighter beside her ear. "Let's find one more piece of light," Pia said, and she pushed off down the corridor.
In the galley she opened the drawer of odd things. Spoons drifted up like slow fish. Under them was a yellow lid ring, round and thin, the colour of honey held to a lamp. Pia pressed it into the second hole. Now two coins of light lay on the floor, blue and yellow, side by side. Wisp bobbed over them and his glow went warm. Pia counted the empty holes with her finger. Five to go.
The little greenhouse smelled of wet soil and green leaves. Pia nudged the pots aside, slowly, so nothing spilled. Behind the smallest one, a green marble had been waiting a long time. It was too fat for the hole. Pia breathed on it, turned it, pressed it with both thumbs, and it popped in. Green light joined the blue and the yellow. The leaves leaned toward the window, the way they always did.
The red piece was harder. Pia looked in the sock bag, the tool pouch, the pocket on the wall. Wisp drifted to the sleeping nook and glowed and glowed until Pia came. There, in the seam of her blanket, was a red bead from last winter. She worked it free with her nail. Four colours now. The floor looked like someone had spilled a jar of quiet. "Let's find one more piece of light," she said.
Purple came from the old spare bin: a little washer, plum-dark, light as nothing. Orange came from the hatch rail, where a scrap of tape had curled up and dried. Pia smoothed it flat and pressed it in. Six holes filled. One hole left, and nothing left to put in it. Pia hung in the middle of the room with her hair floating around her head, thinking. Wisp waited. Wisp was good at waiting.
Pia went back to the galley and squeezed one fat drop of water from the pouch. It came out round and shivering and stayed round, because round is what water does up there. She carried it on her fingertip, slow as a secret, all the way to the window. The drop slipped into the last hole and sat there, clear and trembling, holding on to itself. Pia did not breathe for a moment. It stayed.
Then the window turned toward the sun. Light came through all seven holes at once. Blue and yellow and green and red and purple and orange swam across Pia's hands, her sleeves, her chin. The clear one made a small white star on the ceiling. Pia turned slowly in the middle of it with her arms out. Wisp drifted through the colours and went blue, then gold, then green, then bright all over.
Below the window, Earth kept turning, and the sun slid behind its wide blue edge. The colours faded off the walls, one and then another, until only the clear one was left, then that went too. Pia yawned into her elbow. "Let's find one more piece of light," she said, "tomorrow." She tucked into her sleeping bag with the ring still swinging on its thread. She pressed the little lamp, and its light went out. Wisp stayed, glowing low.
