Two Hums Make a Sky

The bowl was warm again. Rumi put both front claws on the rim and leaned in close, and the hum came up out of the brass like breath out of a sleeping person. Every evening at this hour the bowl got warm, and every evening Rumi climbed the tower stairs to be there when it did.

Rumi was a dragon, but only just. He was no bigger than a cat, with wings like paper fans and small soft claws that clicked on the stone floor when he walked. He lived in Starlit Castle, in a snug corner behind the kitchen stairs where the stones stayed warm all evening.

Nana Fennel lived there too. She was an old gray mouse who kept the castle's candles, and she carried a ring of keys on her belt that went jingle, jingle wherever she went. She had looked after Rumi since he was small enough to sit in a teacup. She said the castle's hum was older than the clock, older than the stairs, older than the velvet on the walls.

The clock stood in the corridor, as tall as a door, and it ticked. Every evening at the same slow moment, the candles lit themselves one by one along the corridor. Fss. Fss. Fss. Little warm heads of light, all the way down, and the whole hallway smelled of beeswax and old books.

That was Rumi's favorite time, because that was when the hum began. It came up the walls of the tower and settled in the round room at the top, in a wide brass bowl big enough for a cat to bathe in, set low on the floor with a rim you could rest your chin on.

Rumi would climb in, curl his tail around himself, and let the hum fill him up like warm milk in a cup. It was the best feeling in the castle. Better than a sunbeam. Better than a raspberry.

One ordinary evening, without meaning to, Rumi hummed back.

Dragons are not famous for humming, so he wasn't sure he could. But he made a small sound in his throat, hmmm, and the bowl hummed along with him, and something floated up out of the brass. It was a spark of light the size of a crumb, warm and yellow, turning slowly.

It drifted up and hung near the ceiling. Then it faded, the way a breath fades on a cold window. Rumi stared at the place where it had been. "One," he said. Then he said, "Hm," and thought about that for a long while.

Down in the corridor, Vera was dusting the clock. Vera was a young mouse, quick and tidy, with a whisk broom in one paw and a hum of her own. Her hum went up and down, up and down, like a mouse running on a staircase. Rumi could hear it through the tower wall, and it didn't match the castle's hum at all.

"You hum too much," he told her the next morning, while she dusted the kitchen shelf. "Mm," said Vera. "You hum too." She kept dusting. Rumi could not think of a good answer to that, so he ate a raspberry and looked out of the window.

That evening he tried again. He hummed longer, and the bowl hummed back, and three sparks came up out of the brass, one after another, wobbling. Three. Rumi laughed out loud, a small surprised dragon laugh, and he held out a claw so the last one could land on it. It sat there, warm as a fresh biscuit, and then it faded too.

Vera came to the bottom of the tower stairs and looked up. "What's making that light?" she called. "Is that you?"

Rumi leaned over the stair rail. "It's nothing," he said. "It's only the bowl. It's mine." "Can I see it?" "No," said Rumi. "The bowl's only big enough for one." "It's big enough for a cat," said Vera. "Well," said Rumi. "I'm a dragon."

He went back inside and sat in the bowl and felt very pleased with himself. It was a good feeling. It did not last as long as he expected, but it was a good feeling.

Every evening after that, the bowl was Rumi's bowl and the sparks were Rumi's sparks. He gave them a name. He called them his stars, which was not quite right, since the real stars were outside and doing fine without him, but it made him feel grand to say it.

He dragged the velvet cushion off the landing and pushed it across the top of the stairs, so nobody would come up and make the room crowded. Nana Fennel found it there the next morning and moved it back without saying anything at all, and Rumi looked at the floor while she did it.

Every evening after that, Rumi climbed the tower and hummed, and the sparks came. But each evening there were fewer. Four, then three, then two.

Rumi hummed louder. He hummed till his throat went scratchy. He tried humming two ways at once and got the hiccups, and the bowl hiccuped back at him, which was funny but didn't help. He put his whole head inside the bowl to hum, and the hum came back at him all at once and tickled his nose, and he sneezed so hard that his tail came uncurled and his wings went flat. On the fourth evening he tried humming with a mouthful of honey, in case sweetness helped. It didn't. It only made the bowl sticky and his chin sticky, and he wiped his chin on the cushion and felt sorry for himself.

One spark. That was all there was, one evening. It came up small and pale and faded before it reached the ceiling, and the round room went dim. Rumi sat in the bowl with his chin on the rim and felt like the last pea in the pod.

The stairs creaked. Vera came up slowly, carrying a cup of warm milk in both paws, because Nana Fennel had said Rumi had been up there a long while and a warm drink was a kind thing to carry up a lot of stairs.

"I'm busy," said Rumi. "All right," said Vera. She set the cup down and sat on the top step with her whisk broom across her knees, waiting. Vera was a mouse who did not mind waiting. And while she waited, she hummed. Up and down it went, her dusty little hum, the one she used for the clock and the shelves.

A spark came out of the bowl. It was big and yellow and round, and it rose all the way to the ceiling and stayed there, shining.

Rumi sat up so fast that the milk sloshed over the rim of the cup. "Do that again." "Do what?" "Hum. Your hum. Do it again." Vera hummed. Another spark came out. Then another.

Rumi hummed back at her, and his sparks came, and her hum and his hum crossed over each other in the warm air, and the ceiling of the round room filled up with small bright stars.

Rumi sat in the bowl and looked up at them. All those evenings of humming alone, and he had made one small spark at a time, and kept it, and watched it go out. Now the ceiling was as bright as a jar of fireflies.

"I thought it was mine," he said. "The bowl. The hum. I thought if I let you in, there'd be less." Vera thought about that for a moment. "There's more," she said. "Look at the ceiling."

They heard Nana Fennel on the stairs long before they saw her. Jingle, jingle, jingle went her keys, one step at a time, and then there she was in the doorway with her whiskers lit up gold.

"Well," she said. "I haven't seen this ceiling do that since I was a small mouse in a pinafore. It's a two-hum tower, Rumi. It always was. One hum alone makes one small spark, and a spark on its own goes out. Two hums, and the bowl has something to answer."

"You never told me," said Rumi. "Some things are easier to find out than to be told," said Nana Fennel. She sat down in the round chair by the window and hummed the low part, the part like a floor under a song, and the bowl hummed deep and warm, and the sparks came faster.

Then they took turns. Vera hummed up high and Rumi hummed down low. Then Rumi hummed up high and Vera hummed down low. Then Nana Fennel hummed the floor part and they both hummed on top of it, and the whole ceiling of the round room looked like a sky that had been waiting all evening for somebody to look at it.

Rumi turned to Vera. "Tomorrow you can hum first," he said. "And the day after, me. And we'll leave the cushion out so the stairs stay easy." Vera nodded and dusted a little crumb off the rim of the bowl, and hummed, and a spark came up and joined the rest.

The candles in the corridor dimmed down to soft small heads of light, the way they always did when the evening was nearly done. The tall clock ticked. Tick. Tick. The hum in the bowl went slow and round.

Rumi climbed out of the bowl and pulled the velvet cushion over next to it, and Vera curled up against his warm side, which is what dragon sides are for. Nana Fennel settled in the round chair with her keys in her lap and hummed the low part, quiet now, so quiet. She set her keys on the floor, gently, so they wouldn't jingle. "There," she said. "Now nobody has to wake up for anything."

One by one the sparks drifted down from the ceiling and settled in the brass bowl, and the bowl glowed soft and gold, the way a room does when everyone in it is nearly asleep.

"Hmm," hummed Vera, with her eyes shut. "Hmmm," hummed Rumi, slower. "Hmmm-mmm," hummed Nana Fennel, low down, like a floor.

And the tower hummed with all of them, up the walls and down the stairs, along the velvet corridor, out under the door and into the quiet night, where the stars over Starlit Castle were already out and did not need any help at all.

The last spark drifted down and landed on Rumi's nose. It was warm as a biscuit, and then it was soft as a freckle, and then it was just a small gold dot. Rumi's tail uncurled and lay flat on the cushion. His wings folded up like two paper fans closing. He hummed one more time, very quietly, and the bowl hummed back, very quietly, and that was the end of the evening.