Twelve Honey Drops and a Hum

Rumi had her ear pressed flat against the tower wall, counting. One hum, two hums, three. The stone was cool and a little rough under her cheek, and it said mmmmm, low and round, like a bee humming inside a very big jar.

Rumi was a young unicorn, small for her age, with a silver horn that hadn't finished growing and a tail she couldn't keep tidy. She lived in Starlit Castle, where the corridors hung with velvet the color of plums. Plenty of grown-up unicorns lived there too, and someone was always clattering pots down in the kitchen. But it was Tavi who hummed. Tavi had been gone six nights, up in the far hills helping with a new foal, and without her the castle felt three sizes too big.

Down the corridor, candles lit themselves one by one, pop, pop, pop, each a small gold flame. The clock as tall as a door ticked its slow tick. Everything smelled of beeswax and old books, which was exactly how Tavi smelled when she leaned down to kiss Rumi goodnight.

Some evenings Rumi missed Tavi so much that her horn felt tingly, right at the tip. She found ways to make the tingle smaller. She sat in Tavi's chair, which still smelled of beeswax and peppermint. She wound Tavi's long gray scarf around her neck three times and wore it down the corridor, even though it dragged behind her like a sleepy snake. And she hummed, and the tower hummed back, and it felt like a letter being answered.

On the shelf by Rumi's bed sat a round tin with a bee painted on the lid. Tavi had left it there the morning she went away. Twelve honey drops, she had said, one for each night. Every night Rumi set one on her tongue and let it melt into gold while she hummed. Twelve nights felt like a very long time.

The trouble with Rumi's hum was that it was squeaky. It went up at the end, like a gate that needed oiling. Tavi's hum was low and round and went right down into the floor. "Will the tower still hum while you're away?" Rumi had asked, the morning of the trip. "It'll hum," said Tavi, buckling her saddlebag. "Half of it, anyway. The other half is somewhere here in the castle."

Something sneezed in the corridor. Pff. A smoke ring floated up to the ceiling, round as a bracelet, and popped. Bumble was a dragon no bigger than a cat who slept on a velvet cushion outside Rumi's door, gray as a rain cloud in the daytime and pink around the edges when he got warm. When he was happy, his smoke rings came out in twos.

"Is that honey?" asked Bumble, sniffing along the floorboards toward the tin. "It's mine," said Rumi, and she put the lid back on with a click. "Twelve nights, twelve drops." Bumble's wings drooped. He went back to his cushion and curled up with his tail over his nose.

On the fifth night the corridor was too quiet, so Rumi ate one honey drop, and then, because the quiet didn't go away, she ate another. Then she counted what was left. Six drops. Seven nights. Her ears went hot.

She put the tin under her pillow, then under her blanket, then in her empty saddlebag, which did no good at all because she wasn't going anywhere. Then she climbed the tower stairs to hum, because humming was free.

She hummed her squeaky hum, and the tower hummed its low one, and between them was a gap. A soft empty place in the middle where the song should have been. Rumi hummed louder. The gap got wider. She sat down on the top step and put her chin on her hooves.

Then something rumbled. It came along the floor and up through her hooves, low and round, and it fit the gap exactly, like a lid on a tin. Rumi tiptoed to the stairs and looked down. Bumble was asleep with his tail over his nose, and the rumble was coming out of him.

"Bumble," Rumi whispered. "Bumble, wake up. That noise you make, that's the other half." Bumble opened one eye. "That's only my sleepy noise," he said. "It isn't a proper song noise." "It is," said Rumi. "Hum with me."

So they did. Rumi hummed high and squeaky and Bumble rumbled low and round, and the gap in the middle closed up. The tower hummed along with them, so loud it buzzed in Rumi's teeth. The candles along the corridor bobbed, and Bumble made two smoke rings at once.

Rumi carried the tin down from the tower. Six drops, shiny as buttons. "We could share one," she said. Cutting a honey drop in half is not easy. It's like cutting a very small, very sticky moon. Rumi got the bigger half the first night, because it was her tin, and she meant to give Bumble the bigger half the second night, but honey drops are slippery, and somehow she got it again.

After that, every night looked the same in the best way. Bumble saved Rumi a warm spot on his cushion, and she sat in it, and they did one drop, two halves, one high hum, one low rumble. Two smoke rings. The corridor didn't feel so big. The nights got shorter, and Tavi's hum stopped being a sad sound and turned into a song with two parts.

On the twelfth night the tin was empty. Rumi tipped it upside down and shook it. Nothing came out. Her ears went hot again. "There's none left," she whispered. Bumble thought about it, the way he thought about everything, slowly. "Then we'll hum instead," he said.

So they hummed. They hummed the whole song, high part and low part, right there in the tower, and the stone hummed back with them. Rumi closed her eyes and hummed and forgot to worry, and that was when she heard the big front door open.

Hoofsteps came down the velvet corridor. Then Tavi was there, with her mane full of little burrs and her saddlebag bulging, and the cold grassy smell of the hills still on her coat. "I heard the whole song," she said, "right from the front step."

"There's no honey drops left," said Rumi, very fast. "I ate two on the fifth night and then we shared the rest and now there's nothing." Tavi laughed. "I ate two on my fifth night too," she said, "when I was small." She opened her saddlebag and took out a jar of hill honey, thick and gold as lantern light.

They had a spoon each, three spoons, sitting on the tower step where the stone was warmest. And they hummed, Tavi and Rumi and Bumble, and Bumble made three smoke rings, one big, one middle, one small as a button.

Then the candles lowered themselves one by one, pop, pop, pop, and the corridor grew dim and soft. The tall clock ticked its slow tick, and the tower hummed, quiet as a bee in a jar. Rumi lay in her bed with Tavi's blanket over her and Bumble's tail flopped over her toes. She closed her eyes and listened to the whole song, all of it, from the high part to the low.