Counting the Last Window

"Eighteen," said Nico. "Nineteen. Twenty." He had his nose pressed to the cold window and both paws up on the sill. Nico was a small grey rabbit with one ear that flopped over and one ear that stood up straight, and he was the best window-counter in the tall house at the end of the street. Every night, when the rain came tapping, he counted the warm squares of light across the rooftops, one, two, three, all the way to the end.

Behind him, Lark said, "Twenty-one." Lark was his big sister. She could tie a knot in a shoelace and find a lost button in the dark, but counting windows was Nico's job. "Twenty-two," she said, very quietly, as if the number might get away.

"I'm the counter," said Nico. "I say the numbers." "I know," said Lark. "It's only, I wanted to say the very last one. Just once. Just tonight." Nico shook his head so hard that his floppy ear swung. "No," he said. "I always say the last one."

From the kitchen came the smell of warm milk, and under it the bakery smell from down the street, all new bread and wet pavement. Papa came in with two cups and set them on the little table. "Twenty-two windows," said Papa. "That's twenty-two good dreams just starting." Nico told him about the last number and how it was his, always, every night. Papa said, "Hmm," in his thinking voice, and stirred his tea, and didn't say anything else.

Lark turned over in her bed. "Fine," she said. "You say it. You always say it." She pulled her blanket up over her shoulder, and she didn't say goodnight. Nico waited. The rain tapped on the glass, soft and steady. She didn't say goodnight.

So he drank his milk and lay down in the dark, and a cross feeling sat in his chest like a small stone in a shoe. He could have said sorry. He thought about saying sorry. He decided he would say it in the morning, when it would be easier. Then he went to sleep.

In the dream, every window in the city was dark. Every single one. The rain fell upward, up past the chimneys, and Nico went along the rooftops looking for one warm square of light, and there wasn't one. He wasn't running from anything. He was just looking, and looking, and there was nothing to find.

He woke up with his heart going tap, tap, tap. Papa was there before Nico even called out, sitting on the edge of the bed with his big warm hand on Nico's back. "I'm here," said Papa. "I'm right here." He waited a moment. "Was it a wobbly one?" Nico nodded. His ears were flat against his head.

Papa opened the little round window a crack. In came the rain, tapping on a hundred roofs, and the smell of wet pavement and warm bread. Papa wrapped the blanket around them both and pulled Nico onto his lap, and they sat and listened. "Hear that?" said Papa. "That's every roof in the city getting a wash." Nico leaned his head against Papa's chest and listened to the rain and the thumping inside.

"Where does it go?" asked Nico. "What?" said Papa. "The dream. When you wake up, where does a bad dream go?" Papa pointed out of the window, down along the rooftops, and there, drifting between the chimneys, was a small round shape under a wide black umbrella.

She was about the size of a teapot, and grey, and soft all over. She steered the umbrella with one paw. In the other paw she held a net on a long handle, and on her back was a basket with a lid. She floated past a chimney, reached out with the net, and scooped something out of the air that wasn't quite there.

"That's Glim," said Papa. "She catches the dreams that wander off in the night. The ones that leak out of windows and float about, grey and lost, like little balloons with the string let go." "Bad ones?" whispered Nico. "Some of them," said Papa. "But look what she does with them."

Glim tapped her net against the basket, gave it a shake, and squeezed whatever she had caught down small, and smaller, until it was no bigger than a crumb. Then she tipped it in the basket and patted the lid, humming a low humming song. The rain went pat, pat, pat on her umbrella.

Nico leaned out as far as Papa's arm allowed. The basket was full of small grey somethings, all folded up and quiet. "Are they asleep?" he asked. "They're finished," said Glim, without turning around. "That's different. A finished dream is the softest thing there is."

"In the morning," said Papa, "she hangs them all on the line and shakes them out, and they turn into soft rain. So every rainy morning, somewhere, somebody's bad dream has been helping the flowers." Nico thought about that for a while. It made the rain sound friendly.

Glim turned her head. She saw them in the window and came drifting over, umbrella first. Up close her eyes were small and kind and a bit sleepy. "Bad dream?" she asked. Her voice was like a kettle just starting to sing. Nico nodded. "A wobbly one," he said.

"Ah," said Glim. "Those float the highest." She held her umbrella over the window and the rain went pat, pat, pat. "Do you know what I do when I catch a bad one for myself? I play the warm windows. Shall I show you?" Nico nodded again, and his straight ear came up a little.

"First," said Glim, "hold up your two paws like a net." Nico held up his paws. "Now say, 'I caught you, small thing.'" "I caught you, small thing," said Nico. His voice came out small too. "Good," said Glim. "Now put it down. Gently. It's only a dream, and dreams are light."

Nico put his paws down on the blanket, slowly, the way you set down a full cup of milk. The dream didn't feel heavy anymore. It felt like a bit of fluff.

"I caught one myself once," said Glim. "A big grey one with corners on it. I held up my paws and it went straight through them." "What did you do?" asked Nico. "I did it again," said Glim. "And then I played the warm windows. And then I had my breakfast."

"Now," said Glim, "you need three warm windows. Three warm things from today. You say them out loud, one, two, three, and then you go to sleep in the middle of them, like a cat in a square of sun."

Nico thought. "The bakery," he said. "Number one, the bakery smell, when Papa opened the kitchen door." "Lovely," said Glim. "Number two?" "Number two," said Nico, "Lark's shoulder. When she said twenty-one, her shoulder was warm against mine." He stopped. His floppy ear lifted. "Number three, Papa's hand on my back in the dark."

"Three warm windows," said Glim, and she smiled a small round smile. "Now you can go to sleep in the middle of them." She pushed her umbrella up into the rain, and the rain went pat, pat, pat, and she drifted away over the roofs, humming her low humming song.

Papa shut the window to a crack. Nico sat on his lap and listened to the tapping get softer. Then he said, "Papa. I didn't say sorry to Lark." "No," said Papa. "You didn't." "I said I'd do it in the morning." "Morning is a long way off," said Papa. "But it's your sorry to give."

Nico slid off Papa's lap. He crossed the little dark room to Lark's bed, which was under the window, and put one paw on her blanket. "Lark," he whispered. "Lark." She rolled over. Her eyes were open. "I'm sorry, but," said Nico, and then he stopped, because he could hear the "but" in it, propping his sorry open like a door. So he took a breath and started again. "I'm sorry I said no. It's your window too. You can say the last one. I'm sorry."

Lark blinked at him in the dark. "I'm sorry too," she said. "I pulled my blanket over and I didn't say goodnight. That was a cross thing to do." "That's all right," said Nico. And the cross feeling went out of his chest all at once, like a small stone rolling out of a shoe.

Papa lifted Nico up and set him on Lark's bed, right under the window, and tucked the blanket around them both. "Two rabbits," he said, "one blanket. I'll be in the next room with the door open." He kissed them both on the top of the head, and the floorboards creaked, and then the house was quiet.

"Look," said Lark. "There's one still on. Down by the bakery." They counted together. Twenty-three. Twenty-four. Far off, a little yellow square winked once and went dark. "That's the last one," whispered Nico. "Do you want to say it?" Lark's ears went up, both of them. "Twenty-five," she said. "Goodnight, twenty-five."

The rain kept tapping, soft as a paw on the glass. One by one the roofs went dark, and the bakery smell went away down the street, and Papa's chair creaked once in the next room. Nico's floppy ear went down, and his straight ear went down, and his breath got long and slow. Lark's shoulder was warm against his. The last warm window in the whole city was the two of them, right there, under one blanket, with nothing left to be cross about.