The Little Dream-Keeper

Sam lay very still and listened to the night. The house breathed in small slow waves, a soft rhythm that Sam had learned like a favorite poem: the creak of the stairs, the hush of the curtains, the kettle’s distant hum that sometimes forgot it was supposed to be quiet. Tonight the room felt a little thinner around the edges, as if someone had carefully lifted the corner of the blanket and let a draft slip in. Sam had a name for a thing that lived in that corner—the tiny welcome that settled before sleep. It wasn’t a lamp or a sound, not something you could hold, but a gentle warmth that Sam called the dream-glow. The dream-glow was the part of night that made lids grow heavy and worries small. It was the little hush that turned the house into a safe pocket where tomorrow could wait. But the hush seemed unsure. Sam turned on a small, shaky smile at the stuffed rabbit tucked under one arm—Patch, with its patched ear and button eye that had seen many sleepy adventures. Patch felt cool when Sam hugged it, not the same cozy warmth Patch usually had when the dream-glow was near. Sam sat up and smoothed the blanket, as if a hand could press the evening back into place. The window threw a strip of moon across the bed, and in that light the pillow looked like a tiny boat waiting at a dock. Sam liked to think pillows were small boats for little imaginations. On this night the pillow’s seam seemed a little frayed where the quiet used to knit things neatly together. Sam slid out of bed and padded very softly to the window, knees whispering against the rug. The curtains made a slow, agreeable sound when Sam pushed them aside, and the moon, which liked to be polite, leaned in a little more so Sam could see its face in the glass. Outside, the street was a watercolor of roofs and trees, and the moon painted long silver roads between them. Sam called to the night in a small, hopeful voice. "Hello," Sam said. "Are you there, little hush?" Only the clock answered, its hands moving like tiny kind horses. Sam checked the usual places: under the bed where lost socks and toy cars kept their meetings; behind the bookshelf where dreams sometimes hid between pages; inside the closet where coats hung like patient trees. Everything was where everything usually was, but none of it held that soft certainty that meant sleep could come without questions.