Maya and the Lantern of Quiet Colours
Maya was almost asleep when the purple light came through her window. It wasn't bright like morning light. It was soft, like the inside of a blanket, and it pooled on her floor in the shape of a small door.
Biscuit saw it too. He lifted one ear, then the other, and padded over to sniff it.
"Should we?" whispered Maya. Biscuit wagged his tail once, which in dog language means obviously.
Through the door was a meadow at dusk, where the grass was deep violet and the air smelled like lavender and warm bread. In the middle of the meadow stood a fox — but not an ordinary fox. Her fur shimmered plum and lilac, and she carried a small lantern that glowed with no flame inside.
"Oh good, you came," said the fox, as if she had been waiting all day. "I'm Wisteria. My lantern has gone quiet, and tonight is the night I light the sleeping colours."
"The sleeping colours?" asked Maya.
Wisteria nodded toward the hills. "Every evening, the world's colours get tired. The reds have been busy in apples, the yellows have been working in the sun. Someone has to tuck them in, or they toss and turn all night and come out wrinkled in the morning. But a lantern only lights when it hears a kind, sleepy voice. Mine has heard only fox yips for weeks."
Maya knelt beside the lantern. She thought of the voice her mother used at bedtime, low and slow like honey being poured. "Goodnight, little light," she said, in exactly that voice.
The lantern gave the smallest golden hum — then glowed, gentle as a night-light.
Biscuit was so pleased he did a slow spin and lay down in the violet grass with a satisfied huff.
So they walked the dusk together, the three of them. At the orchard, Maya whispered goodnight to the reds, and the apples dimmed to a cozy rose. At the tall meadow, she hushed the yellows, and the buttercups folded up like tiny umbrellas. Biscuit's job was official Yawn Starter: whenever a colour was too wiggly to settle, he yawned an enormous, squeaky yawn, and the colour simply couldn't help itself — it yawned too, and grew dim and dozy.
The blues were last. Blues, Wisteria explained, are the sleepiest colour of all, but they like a story before bed. So Maya sat by the pond, where all the blue of the sky had come to rest for the night, and told it a very short story about a girl and a dog who once walked through a purple door. The pond rippled slower... and slower... and went still as glass.
"That's all of them," whispered Wisteria. The whole valley now rested under a soft violet hush, the exact purple of Maya's favourite crayon. "You have a wonderful goodnight voice, Maya. The colours will sleep well tonight — and so, I think, will you."
The lantern floated up beside them and drifted Maya and Biscuit back across the quiet meadow, through the little door, and into her own warm room. The door faded to moonlight on the floor.
Maya climbed under her covers. Biscuit curled at her feet, already dreaming his huffing little dreams. Outside, the night looked deeper and softer than before, as if someone had tucked it in.
"Goodnight, little light," Maya murmured, one more time, her eyes closing on the last word.
And far away, in a violet meadow, a fox raised her lantern — just a little — as if to say it back.