And Even the Stars Listened

For the record, my brother dragged me into this. I never really hung out with his college friends, despite their filling the house with shouts and laughter for the entire first semester, but this time he wouldn’t let me lock myself in my room with my guitar. This time they were going all out — a week-long vacation at some lakeside cottage in Maine near our hometown. In his words, a “glamping trip.”

“Come on, Ethan. It’ll be fun!” Max said with a wide grin. “There’ll be campfires, outside ice skating, s’mores, and who knows, you might actually talk for a change.”

“Hey, I do talk!” I threw a pillow at him with a slightly less wide grin.

“So you’re going?” He caught the pillow and faked throwing it at my guitar, smirking when I jumped in front of my most prized possession. I glared at him.

“No, what am I gonna do?” I said, folding my arms. “Practice my fingering while you goof off with your squad?”

“Anything’s better than your instruments being your friend-group.” He gave a cursory glance to my chunky nineties-era keyboard, sticker encrusted guitar case, and leaves of sheet music littered around the floor and overflowing from the trash bin.

“They understand,” I grumbled.

“Wait till you meet the gang. You’d be surprised.” He tossed the pillow back to me. I stumbled back at the force hitting my chest, and raised an eyebrow. I had met them. A few times. But never actually talked to them. “Besides, it’s your senior year. Why not go on a little adventure?”

***

So I ended up crammed between my guitar case and the window with potato chips crumbled across my lap. But I got the aux cord at least. He got song veto rights — his car, his rules. Eventually we agreed on “All I Want for Christmas is You,” which he screamed at the top of his lungs as we hurled down the highway with snowflakes whizzing past our windows..

I stared out the window, voice locked away behind my thoughts.

When we finally parked it was sunset — giant streaks of vibrant blue and flower orange and living pink painted across the horizon, reflected in pastel form by the snow and ice elegantly edging the tree-lined lake. The water crashed and retreated and sang.

My eyes watered. It was probably just the freezing wind.

Then I punched Max’s arm cause I caught him smirking.

“I knew you’d like being back here,” he said, hauling his battered duffle bag out of the back, then throwing my barely-used one at my feet.

“Who doesn’t like a sunset?” I protested, picking up my bag and glancing over my shoulder at the view again. “And it’s not like I hate being back, it just brings up a lot of… memories.”

“Worth a song lyric or two, Mr. Bard?” Before I could emphatically shake my head no, he pointed back toward the snow shoveled gravel road we’d driven here. “Oh, hey, that’s them. Hey guys, over here!”

Max waved his arms wildly above his head as he beckoned a third- or fourth-hand van into the half-eroded parking lot. It chugged to a stop and faint cheers resounded from the inside when it parked.

Five people stumbled gleefully out into the snow. I don’t really remember their names even though Max was shouting to them right next to me, cause the last one to jump out made it hard to swallow. I hadn’t seen her in years, since the night before we moved, behind the bleachers at a homecoming game when she turned me down for a date. I gaped in astonishment and glanced back at Max.

He winked. “Surprise. I figured you’d want someone your own age to play with.” 

As he spoke, Beatrix Starling turned away from the group and walked toward the shoreline, coming to stand on the wet dark dock, wind blowing her long auburn hair just as it scattered the snowflakes around and the clouds above. She let her arms drop from where they had been hugging her sides and stared at the watercolor painting before her. She became part of it, absorbed into the atmosphere as if bound to the past.

I took a step toward her but Max put a hand on my shoulder.

“Woah there, loverboy. Meet the squad first!” 

I grimaced at the name-calling and shrugged his hand off. “Isn’t Bea part of the squad?”

“I mean, yeah, she’s Eric’s sister, but she kinda keeps to herself nowadays. C’mon over!”

I let my brother pull me over and re-introduce me to his college friends, but I kept glancing back to her. Beatrix swayed a little in the wind.

***

That night, we lit a bonfire between the snow and the lake. Out here, miles away from all the Hallmark towns with the cutesy storefronts and flashy light shows, you could see millions upon millions of stars, and if you stared long enough you felt like you were floating into them, like you were slowly soaring, up, up, into the night.

“Hey.” A soft, familiar voice spoke.

I jumped and turned to see Bea — Beatrix. She’d asked me to call her Beatrix after she turned down my date, and I tried to honor her request, but habits you’ve had since you were three die hard. These were the first words she’d voluntarily spoken to me all day; even when I’d bought her a peppermint milkshake (her favorite) from one said cutesy Hallmark hometown earlier that day, her gratitude had been sincere but short. Maybe the gift had dissolved some of our earlier awkwardness?

So I smiled. “Yeah?”

“Could you move, please?” She cocked her head to the side, owl-like, frowning. “I’m trying to see Orion.”

“Oh, uh, sure.” I slid over, the wooden bench Max had shifted closer to the firepit earlier creaking under my weight.

“Thanks.” Her mirror-like glasses hid her eyes’ expression. I remembered how she’d taken them off after the last notes of my first finished original song, hazel eyes bright in the shafts of light under the bleachers when I asked her out. She’d rubbed tears away roughly as she explained she wasn’t ready, that she didn’t want to ruin our friendship by making it a romance. Maybe she just hadn’t wanted to say she wasn’t really into me. But my confession left a scar on our relationship, and over the years we barely even texted each other, and forget sharing our songs like we had since childhood, laughing over stupidly melodramatic lyrics. I hadn’t shared my songs with anyone since then. Looking away before she misinterpreted my gaze, I slumped, and studied our other guests.

The conversation swelled around the college gang, my brother directing the conversation like a professional ringleader, always keeping tabs on each person, sustaining the entertainment, surrounded by wild laughter.

“Um, Beatrix — ” I faltered when she trained her fire-glazed glasses on me.

“Hey, Ethan?” Max called from the other side of the campfire. “What’s yours?”

“What’s my what?” I blinked and turned to gaze back at four pairs of curious eyes.

“We’re doing random conversation starters.” He was definitely trying to pull me into the conversation, something I yearned for and resented in equal measure. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“I don’t know. Wait, aren’t you guys grown up already?’

“We’re basically five-year-olds with responsibility and college debt.”

Laughter resounded. I noticed Bea didn’t join in.

“So, you got anything in mind?” Max pressed.

“I don’t know. Uh, I’ll pass,” I said, floundering for a way out of being put on the spot, “I’m not that interesting.”

“You play guitar, write your own songs. How is that not interesting?” Max said.

I froze. If he dared…

“Hey! How about you play us something?” Eric, Bea’s older brother and Max’s childhood best friend, straightened at the idea. “Something you wrote!”

Crap. They did dare. I looked away, pretending to see a cool shell between my feet.

I could feel someone staring at me. I hoped that someone wasn’t Bea. 

“Has everyone else gone?” I glanced around our circle, floundering for any out I could grab onto. “I missed the other questions, repeat them so it’s fair.”

“We can in a minute, you’re the only one left unless there’s a ghost around.”

“I must be a ghost then,” Bea said to my right. 

“Sorry, Beatrix.” Max laughed.

“Ladies first?” I ventured, gesturing vaguely to the rest of the group.

Her eyes flicked first to glance at me with annoyance, then couldn’t quite find a focus as she shifted in her seat. I bit my lip and looked back at my Elf socks, remembering our last real conversation, remembering how she wanted to make time stop.

“I’ll be Peter Pan or something.” She shrugged.

“He doesn’t grow up, Beatrix.” Eric said.

“Exactly.” Her glasses glinted sharply.

“I can’t wait till I get out of school and get my own place away from the folks,” Max said, leaning back against a dune and folding his arms behind his head.

The conversation morphed into a discussion of apartments, and I zoned out, staring into space like I could see what lay between the stars. Beatrix smiled and nodded toward the main conversation, but seemed distant. I wondered how powerful a telescope you’d have to have to see her as she was. As if she could sense my thoughts directed toward her, she shook herself a little and got up, waved, and walked to the sliding door just outside the circle of firelight. A couple goodnights dwindled into silence as her shadow disappeared inside and the door closed with a squeak.

I never answered their question. Like they couldn’t tell what I wanted to be from string-dented fingers and guitar pick necklace. Like Max hadn’t already told them all they needed to know. That’s what I told myself, anyway, as the conversation trailed on.

***

I turned over for the seventy-seventh time in my sleeping bag, twisting the plastic lump around me. They’d assumed I wouldn’t be coming, so there weren’t enough beds to go around and I ended up sleeping on the floor. I blew out a sigh through pursed lips and glanced at Max snoring like a broken muffler. I grunted as I sat up and untangled myself, then threw on my weathered navy hoodie.

Once out, I closed the door with a click and smoothed my hair down against the brisk wind. I sighed as if I could inhale my surroundings like a pleasant smell. The moonlight dappled the water, creating a path of silver across the waves to the horizon and probably farther if my imagination was any judge. Huh. That could make a good song.

I ducked back into the tent for a notebook and pencils and reemerged finding that I wasn’t alone. About a football field’s distance away, Beatrix walked toward the shore in giant careful strides, always on the verge of tipping over, like she was intoxicated or something. Or sleepwalking?

I glanced back inside. Max would know what to do. 

I should wake him up.

I glanced back to Beatrix.

Then I found myself running to her.

Her socked footsteps made the old wet dock creak loudly in the night air. 

“Beatrix! Beatrix!”

She kept walking, sped up even. She was getting closer and closer to the edge.

“Bea!”

Breathless from running, I grabbed her wrist. She flew into a frenzy, thrashing against my grip as I struggled to pull her away from the edge. 

“Bea — God —- hold on a second —”

Her eyes were open but glazed over, her face contorted into an expression of terror. We nearly lost our balance, half fighting on the dock. I staggered, scooped an arm around her waist, and hauled her backwards onto the shoreline, slipping off the dock into the slush and rocks at the edge of the lake. She flailed her arms and legs with surprising strength, and I tightened my grip. The slush sucked at our ankles as we staggered out of the snow and up the shoreline until I managed to half carry her up to the porch, shoulder the door open, and set her down on the massive leather couch inside, and thumped down on the thin carpet next to her. We were soaked from the snowfall – stressed sweat made my shoulders and torso damp and trickled down my face. 

I glanced over, panting. She lay in a fetal position, limp on the couch, her rippling hair plastered onto her face, glasses hanging off one ear. Her eyes were still open and still vacant. I went back to watching the waves, trying to collect myself, make sense of the unapproachable Beatrix losing it like that. The silver path sparkled as if nothing had happened. 

Thank God, nothing had happened. 

I slumped, weighed down with half relief, half dread. I decided to keep watch, make sure she didn’t wander off again. Within minutes I was restless.

I glanced at her again. Fast asleep, as far as I could tell. This could be a very long night.

Practicing my singing would be a good use of the time, but I didn’t want to wake her up and have her hear me. That would only awaken bad memories for both of us. 

The stars slid slowly across the dome of the night. Very slowly.

I yawned. Staying awake got harder and harder, and she slept on and on, and at some point I figured she wouldn’t remember my singing even if she did wake up.

So, cautiously, I started whistling a tune I’d made up earlier that day. Even Max with all his meddling hadn’t heard it, cause it was a deep, deep blue song. Deeper than the massive lake, but no less filled with danger. An untamable power born of the melody surged through my heart, and I sang like I hadn’t in a long, long time.

She stirred, and shivered, and sucked in a breath, then sighed.

I froze, stopping halfway through a key change, and watched her for a minute. No thrashing, which was good, and her eyes had closed, which was even better. Her breathing subsided to a gentle ebb and flow, and I gathered the courage to brush some of her wet hair away from her face and set her glasses aright. She was beautiful.

Forgetting myself, my whistle turned into low singing as I poured out my tune over her in blessing, remembering all the good times we’d shared as kids and hoping against hope there might be more moments in the future. I glanced at the heavens watching over us, the stars which seemed to hang closer than before.

“I like that.” Beatrix said.

I stopped short in the middle of a lyric and looked down. Her eyes reflected the moonlight, entirely lucid. Words stuck in my throat. 

“Hey, Ethan?” she said, voice heavy with sleep.

“Yeah?” I said.

“I haven’t heard you sing since forever. I think I’m dreaming.”

“Of course you are.” I inhaled and looked anywhere but at Bea. “Go back to sleep.”

“No.” She levered herself up on an elbow, then sat up. She folded her arms and stared out the sliding glass door at the lake. “I had a nightmare.”

“Night terror.” I corrected softly. “You tried to walk into the lake.”

We watched the moonlight on the waves outside. I could see her piecing together the events of the last hour like the dotted lines you draw between stars for a constellation.

“Thank you.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“You probably would’ve woken up as soon as you hit the water. It’s not a big deal.” I said.

“You saved me.” She laughed shakily, adjusted her glasses. “I never thought we’d be here.”

“Sounds like the make-believe we used to do,” I said. “Wish we could go back to fourth grade, huh?”

“Um, can you sing that again?” She offered a small smile, and finally met my eyes. Hers sparkled like stardust filled them. “That song beats all your other stuff by far. It’s real.”

“Thanks. I think.” I chuckled and bit my lip, looking back at the lake. “It’s a work in progress.”

“Can I hear it again?”

I sucked in a breath. No way. It wasn’t ready. I couldn’t have her of all people be the first to hear the full song, the rough cut of my unpolished soul, not when we were just beginning to speak again. Did she really want to venture into the deluge of the heart in all its humanity?

Did I?

I hesitated for a long moment, then said, before I could talk myself out of it: “Sure.”

I began the melody haltingly. Layer by musical layer, the song unfolded into bittersweet longing, and tears welled up in my eyes. The waves outside formed a choir, humming along to my tune. I nearly stopped in shock when Beatrix joined in, humming as well, adding counter melodies, her alto soft in the fire’s crackling. Our voices harmonized, sounding through the living room, the forest, the snow, the lake, the sky. The stars floated a little nearer to listen, and the moon hung lower on the horizon as the chorus swelled, more beautiful than I thought possible. We sat together in silence, listening to the world around us carrying on the tune long after the last note rang out.

“We should go back to bed. The others might wake up and wonder what happened,” she said, looking up at the moon. Then, with a surprised tone, meeting my eyes: “I don’t want to.”

I glanced at her, still and full. “I might stay up and work on my song a little more.”

“Can I stay with you?” Bea asked. “I’ve been meaning to try singing again.”

My nervous smile deepened into a grin, and I laughed, a hurried, halting laugh that bubbled with joy. “Sure. Let me get my guitar.”