Shhh, Shhh, Snug as a Hug

Sol kept one ear turned up toward the sky. Sol was a small cloud fairy, no bigger than a teacup, with wings like wet tissue paper and a warm little glow in his pocket that he saved for dark corners. Every evening he listened for one sound, the soft creak of the balloon basket coming home.

Tonight the sky was quiet. Finn had floated off in the balloon to carry warm milk to the far hills, and the far hills were very far. "Three sleeps," Nana Wisp had said, and Sol had counted them on his fingers. Three was more than one.

Sol pulled the big green blanket up to his chin. It was Finn's blanket, soft as a nose, and it was big enough for two. Sol tucked one corner under his toes. He tucked the other under his elbow. The blanket slid off his shoulder and landed on the cloud. Pop.

"Shhh, shhh, snug as a hug," Sol said, because that was what Finn always said at blanket time. He pulled the blanket up again and held very still. Pop. Down it went. "Shhh, shhh, snug as a hug," Sol said, a little softer.

Then he heard something. "Mmm," said a small voice from the hill. The little cloud sheep stood up there in the damp, a puff of mist with two gray eyes, and her edges were thin and wobbly. She had no blanket at all.

Sol knew all about thin edges. When Finn was home, Finn wrapped Sol up every night, and the blanket went all the way around and there was no thin edge anywhere. Sol looked at the blanket. He looked at the little sheep.

Nana Wisp sat in her rocking chair on the porch with her knitting, where she could see Sol all the way up the hill. Sol wasn't big or strong. But Sol was small, and small hands fit into small places, and his pocket glow was just right for a dim evening.

He carried the big green blanket up the hill, one cloud-step at a time, and he wrapped it around the little sheep, corner over corner. "Shhh, shhh, snug as a hug," he said. The sheep's mist went soft and still.

The sheep yawned. It was a tiny yawn, the kind that makes everyone else yawn too. Then she leaned her warm misty head on Sol's shoulder, and Sol's shoulders came down from up near his ears.

That was when he noticed. The blanket was big enough for two. So Sol crawled in under one side, and the sheep took the other, and a fold of green blanket lay open between them, soft and empty and waiting.

Nana Wisp came up the hill with two cups of warm milk. Her sleeves smelled of fresh laundry, and the milk smelled of honey, and she sat down on the cloud beside them. "You found a way to help," she said, and she smoothed Sol's wing flat the way she used to smooth Finn's hair.

"I miss Finn," Sol said. It came out small, but it came out true. "I know," said Nana Wisp, and she didn't say anything else. She just sat close, and her knitting needles went click, click, click, slow as a sleepy heart.

Under the clouds the moon came up. It shone through the white, up from below, and made the whole hill glow like a lantern under a sheet.

Sol pulled the empty fold of blanket up over his chin, and this time the blanket stayed. "Shhh, shhh, snug as a hug," he said. The little sheep hummed. Nana Wisp hummed back. The clouds went shhh, shhh across the sky.

Far off, very far off, Sol thought he heard a small creak. Not yet. Soon. One sleep gone, and two to go. His eyes went heavy. The moon made everything soft, and the big green blanket held them both, and Sol slept.