Stars
Will stirred fitfully in his sleep, muttering and further tangling himself in the green-striped comforter. Moonlight filtered through the gauzy curtains and fell in bright bars on the bed, but the sleeping boy was oblivious to anything beyond the world behind his tight-shut eyes.
Moonlight lit their faces as they lay on their backs in the soft, cool grass of midsummer, on the gentle slope of a hill, pretending to be stargazing but in truth just enjoying being together. The great panorama of the heavens was spread out above them: stars and galaxies and planets, all caught up in the encompassing song that came from the early mists of time and would continue, unwavering and proud, until the end. The heavens gazed with eyes withdrawn and dreaming on the two humans, great in their minds but only a desperate flicker of light in the great dark that was so much of creation.
"D'you know how old the light on your face is?" said the girl. "It could've come from the beginning of time, and only now be reaching us… and we're here t'see it, t'welcome it home."
Silently she traced her fingers through the air.
"It's like the past is shining down on us," she said, more quietly, in awe of the splendor above her, into which her human eyes could pierce only so far.
"The Milky Way..." said the boy, wondering for some reason if the girl knew the thick path of stars by the same name. "It's like a path of centuries."
Gazing up at the stars, they heard in their minds a tremble of the great music of the universe, and it caught them up like pebbles in a flood. As their minds opened to the vastness of the universe, they shivered, feeling the absolute zero of empty space, checkered with the pinpoint blazes of stars. They felt their hearts swell at the knowledge that they were part of all this, these great stars and galaxies: they were part of the song, this rhythm that was life, and before the end they too would have a note to sing.
Suddenly, they were no longer separate beings on the hill in the cold night, but connected through a thousand channels and ribbons of life to each other and to every star above them. Unconsciously, they moved closer together, breathing in the scent of the starlit blades of grass.
"Lyra?" asked the boy. How did he know that was her name?
"Yeah?" she whispered, eyes closed.
"Could you hear the singing?"
She lay quietly for a moment, bathed in starlight. A distant river was blazing with moonlight, a ribbon of liquid silver. A few clouds gathered at the horizon, almost invisible in the perfect dark of midnight.
"I could hear it."
In a motion born of instinct and unconscious comfort, the boy put his arm around the girl's shoulders. The heavens seemed to hold their collective breath as he thought furiously, trying to sift through his feelings. The girl spoke before he could say anything.
"The stars are watching us," she said.
"I know."
"When y' looked at me, I could see your eyes light up, almost like the stars. Like our path of centuries."
"Magic," he said, but his heart was saying love.
For another few minutes they lay in companionable silence, and each knew the other's thoughts. It was magic, but more than that. The boy had been right: love. Suddenly there was no hesitation in his mind.
"I love you, you know." His voice was steady and sure, guided by the path of centuries above him. It was right. It was true. It was his note to sing, and for the first time, he wanted to sing it. He wanted it more than anything else; so badly that his breath caught in his throat and his eyes stung with tears when he thought about it.
"If knowing means I love you too, then I've known for ages," she said almost wryly, turning her head to look at him with eyes that mirrored his own. And he knew that it was true, and that from now on he would never sing alone.
The stars blazed into brilliant life above them, around them, and inside them, as the sun peeked over the horizon and light streamed up into the sky.
Will woke up slowly, blinking at the pale moonlight mixed with the tawny glow of the streetlamp coming in through the window. A strange sense of longing lingered in his thoughts, and the music of the stars echoed low and far away through the fog of sleep in his mind. He rolled over on his bed, reaching out a bare arm to pull the curtains back and let the moonlight in unfiltered. Blearily, he stared through the glass at the city-dimmed stars twinkling above Oxford.
Who was the girl?
He had already forgotten her name.