And behind the gate was not the street. Behind the gate lay a wide, wide land.
“How did you do that?” whispered Nora.
“It is the one thing I am really good at,” said Lumi. “Nobody else can do it. Not one single soul in Elim.” She said it without pride, the way you say what color you are.
“Come,” said Lumi. “Just climb onto the windowsill and step through.”
Nora climbed out of bed. Bruno was beside her in one leap, before she had even put a foot on the rug. She stepped onto the sill, took one deep breath and walked through the warm light. It felt like sunshine on a summer day.
And then she was standing in the grass.
It was night, but not a dark night. Above her stretched a sky the color of honey, and as far as she could see, little lights were glowing. In the grass, on the hills, along the bank of a quiet river. Bruno ran in a little way, stopped, looked around, and then came back and stood right beside Nora, very close, as if to say: I am here too.
“Where are we?” she whispered.
“This is Elim,” said Lumi. “The land where nothing good is ever lost.” Her eyes moved across the meadow while she said it, back and forth, back and forth, and her lips moved just a little. Nora noticed and did not know what it was. Lumi was counting. She was counting the lights, the way she did every evening, and had done for a very long time, and she could not have told anyone why.
Then she lost her place, sighed quietly and started again from the beginning.
Nora bent down to one of the lights in the grass. It was warm and smooth like a little stone.
“Every light here was once something good,” said Lumi. “A kind word. A bit of courage, when someone was afraid. Things like that are never lost. They come to Elim and wait here until they are needed again.”
“Even when nobody saw it?” asked Nora.
Lumi looked at her. “Especially then.”
Far away, on the highest hill, there burned a light much bigger and warmer than all the others. It did not flicker in the wind. Nora knew at once that this light would never go out.
“And that one?” she asked quietly.
“That is the First Light,” said Lumi. “Everything warm here comes from there. I come from there too.” She paused for a moment. “It knows every light on this meadow. And it knows where each one is. Even the one that is not here right now.”
Nora looked up at the far, quiet light. And all at once the feeling from this afternoon came back, the one about being quiet, but it felt different now. It was as if someone were looking at her who had never once let her out of sight. Not this afternoon and not any other time either.
Lumi looked down at Nora, at her feet. “May I ask you something?” she said. “Why do you have slippers? There is already a floor.”
Nora had to laugh. “So that my feet stay warm.”
“I see,” said Lumi, and nodded seriously, the way you nod when you have not understood a thing.
Then she lifted a little light out of the grass and laid it gently in Nora’s hand. “This is yours now. Hold it close. Tomorrow I will show you how we can use it to help a little friend who is feeling a bit alone today.”
And then everything turned warm and golden. Nora fell asleep, with Bruno curled up at her feet, and the little light glowed softly in her hand the whole night through.
