Under A Million Stars by Mindy Haig
Each night I made my way to the single giant oak tree that stood stoically at the heart of this place. While it stood among the grandest of the monuments of what had passed away, it was itself, a monument to life, to longevity, to all that endures.
But I sat there because it was far from my stone.
The tree’s heavy limbs sheltered me, though I did not need shelter as much as I just felt the need to hide myself there. And we were alike, the tree and I. His memories, good and bad were etched in concentric circles within the essence of his wood. Mine were engraved upon the spirit that remained. But we both kept them hidden within us. We both had no way of sharing.
We both constantly reached for the heavens, but could not reach them.
Each night, I sat and watched the sky darken and then gradually lighten.
I sat in the rain and the snow.
I fought the urge to howl at the full moon as it trundled across the sky.
I sat alone.
Until the night I saw her.
Third:
I crept closer, but still kept my distance.
She stood before one of the grand old stones, a monument to a wealthy family long gone to dust that had no kin remaining to keep the bramble from obscuring the names and final memories. She looked off into the distance, her head bobbing just slightly as though she were counting the stones to get to this one. Then she knelt, leaned in very close to the stone and read the words aloud.
‘Mary Margaret Fulsome Southerland. Most beloved wife and mother. Welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven 14 September 1898.’
I watched as she continued along the stone. She read all the names, all the inscriptions and spoke aloud to those who lay so long beneath the ground.
‘So, Mary Margaret, were you truly most beloved to Daniel or were those just words inscribed in a moment of grief? Barbara MacLellan was also most beloved to her husband James, they are sixteen stones east of here, perhaps you’ve met them where you are now. I wonder, how did you meet Daniel? Was it a wonderful life that you shared? Yes, I suppose it was. I imagine you must have met at a summer house, on holiday. How romantic! Courtship and suitors, flowers and dancing, he must have swept you right off your feet! Did you know that Barbara and James met at church? Yes, it’s true. Well, in my mind it’s true. He walked her home and then he asked her father’s permission to take her to dinner. They married just four months later! That’s quite quick by today’s standards, but it was true love.’
True love.
I looked out toward the east, wondering about this Barbara and her husband, James. I wondered if they had found true love and what it was like to feel such a thing. Perhaps it was warm.
But my musing distracted me from the lovely vision who spoke to the stones.
I looked all around the Sutherland stone but she was gone.
It seemed to be only an instant later that the first ray of light shot across the horizon, that single moment of the day when what was beyond became visible. The gates shone in that one glorious beam, but remained solemnly closed.
Covering my eyes did little to hide the light and instead of bringing warmth, the day made me colder and emptier than I had ever been.
So I left the place of my supposed rest and went to walk among the living.
Fourth:
Each night I searched for her.
Every time I began to think she was just a trick of the moonlight, I would see a glimpse off in the distance. But no matter how quickly I ran, I could not reach her. There was but one person in my world and I still could not make a connection.
The moon began to wane in the night sky until just a sliver remained.
“Please!” I called out to those who had gone through the gates. “Please grant me this one wish! Let me see her once more before the moon is gone and all is dark.”
I stood with my arms raised, wishing and praying for some reply, some sign.
When a single voice began to sing.
It was a lullaby, a song for a child’s bedtime, sung in a thin, sweet voice.
I turned and ran toward the sound.
Four rows.
Five rows.
Past the obelisk and toward the chapel. The light of the moon was not enough to see the ground or the engraving upon the stones, but the cross upon the small steeple shone like white gold.
And there she was, just a few paces away.
She rose and brushed phantasmal dirt from a chimerical dress then she turned toward the chapel and saw me.
She took a big step backward.
I could feel her fear for just an instant, and then it was replace with wide-eyed curiosity.
“Who are you? Why are you here?” she asked me.
Fifth:
My tongue was tied.
My spirit wished to say so many things, but none were right. None would make their way out from my thoughts. The same loathsome silence that kept me solitary in life was ruining the one wish Heaven granted me. “Who were you singing to?” I asked, though it was quite possibly the very last thing I needed to know.
She looked down at the stone for a moment and than back at me. “His name was Samuel Howard,” she sighed. “He is the youngest of all I have seen here. He was taken through the gates on the day of his birth. Here lies the ultimate heartbreak. A child, a new born babe taken from his mother’s arms. All the hopes and dreams his parent had for nine months gone to dust. And the saddest thing of all is that he lies here alone, no parent or partner at his side. So I visit him, especially when the moon goes dark. I don’t need to read the words on his stone, I know them in my heart. And I sing so he won’t be afraid of the darkness.”
“You must be the most wonderful woman ever made.”
“Why would you think such a thing?” she gasped.
“It’s a great kindness to speak to the stones, to remember those who’ve already gone. Especially the lonely. Do you know all the names?”
“No, not all of them,” she answered and for a moment I was sad because I wished she’d read my stone. I wished she knew my name.
“I’ve seen you before. But so briefly,” I told her awkwardly. I wished I could actually see her. We were only wraiths, shadows, the glowing spirit ejected from the mortal flesh that should have left the world, but didn’t. I could tell she was female because her ghostly form wore a spectral dress that brushed the ground as she walked and she continually tucked her long hair behind her left ear, a habit that must have carried over from her living days.
As I looked upon her, I wondered what she saw of me. Was my visage broken and damaged as the body it came from was? Was I a hideous thing or just plain, nondescript as I was in the days before I came here? I didn’t know and I had never thought to wonder.
But I did wonder if I could reach out and touch her, what it would feel like to touch her, another like myself. I wondered if the spirit was warm.
Alas, I wondered too much and spoke to little.
The orange glow was spreading in the east and that first ray would shatter the darkness any moment. My time was up.
She grabbed my hand in that final moment. “Come back to the chapel,” was all she said before the closed gate taunted me in the distance and her hand slipped away.
“I didn’t even ask your name!” I called out in grief.
It was too late. She was already gone.
And my hand was colder than ice when hers slipped away.
Sixth:
This day I abhorred the daylight more than any day I lived.
I could only think of the night.
I was anxious for the night.
I needed the night to come.
The darkness would be so deep, not even the smallest smile from the face of the moon would shine over our stones. And I was not sure I would be able to see her at all. I was not sure I could be seen if the moon did not light the sky.
But I abandoned the old oak and sat near the chapel all through the daylight h
And I waited.
Each passing moment seemed like a thousand years.
I wondered why I felt such need to see her, to be near her. Was it her or was it simply because she was the same thing I was? No, it had to be her. This feeling that pulsed through me had to be her because I had lived alongside so many in life and never felt any sort of connection, I never felt any emotion at all but she made my spirit long to touch hers.
“Have you been waiting here very long?”
I had been so lost in my thoughts I hadn’t noticed her approach. She startled me and my reply just tumbled out awkwardly: “No. Yes. Forever, I think.”
She laughed.
It was a wonderful sound. I sat listening to it, marveling at the fact that I could hear something joyful. And though the night was black as pitch, there was still something ethereal that was visible, perhaps not to what would have been my eye, but certainly to my spirit. In fact, it was so delicate in the darkness that it seemed even more beautiful, heavenly.
“I didn’t mean to keep you waiting. There’s a new stone today. I was hoping to read it, but there were so many people and it’s so dark now. It’s one of the new kind, small and flat, like a bookmark stuck into a page.”
“You don’t like those, do you? You like the old ones with the angels and crosses.”
“I do. The names might fade over time, but people still look at the beautiful monuments.”
“I like to pretend the really big stones are famous people. That obelisk, that’s Abraham Lincoln. That one out on the far eastern side that has the fence all the way around it, that’s Jim Morrison. The one with the really huge cross on the north side of the chapel...”
“Is Jesus, right?” she exclaimed.
“Of course it is! I mean, look at the size of that cross! It must be.”
“That’s funny, maybe Elvis is here or JFK. They would have grand stones, not like these new stones,” she sighed. “It bothers me that they get stepped upon. The weeds grab them and hide them. It’s silly, I guess. The bones don’t mind.”
I had an uneasy feeling that her stone was flat, the new kind. Perhaps she’d already watched people carelessly trample her resting place. I wanted only to get back to that moment when she laughed, when there was joy inside me. “Will you show me where the new stone is?” I asked. “We can try to read it together.”
“An evening stroll among the stones? Is that romantic or creepy?”
“Under these particular circumstances, let’s go with romantic,” I laughed.
“I don’t know,” she teased, “you seem a bit shady to me.”
The humor took me by surprise. “I can’t even phantom what you mean!” I replied.
She began to laugh again and then she wrapped her arm around mine. “That was so bad it was spooky!”
“How about this? I could hardly wraith to see you tonight.” I said it as a joke, but it was the truth.
“Neither could I. I’ve never felt like this before,” she said softly. “And I don’t even know your name.”
“Jonas. It’s Jonas.”
“Mine is Remy.”
“That’s a beautiful name.”
“Thank you,” she answered simply as we walked hand in hand toward the place she wished to see.
The dirt was still soft from being newly shoveled. We tread carefully, cautious of the new plot and any new shade that might reside there, but once again, we were alone, the only two of our kind.
“I wish there was just a little bit of light,” Remy whispered as we knelt close to the stone.
I wished I could give her what she wished for, and that was when it happened.
Seventh:
“How did you do that!”
“I don’t know. You wanted light. I wanted to give it to you and there it was.”
“Jonas, that is amazing! Can I touch it?” she asked as she reached out toward the glowing orb that sat upon my palm. “It looks just like the moon, only small enough to put in your pocket!”
“It does look just like the moon, doesn’t it,” I marveled as I lifted it closer to her, only as I lifted it, I noticed something. “I can see you.”
“Of course you can, I’m right here!”
“No, Remy, I can see you as you were, I think.”
“Oh no! I don’t want you to see me like that, Jonas. I was...”
“So beautiful. Your hair was the color of honey. Your eyes were brown, dark, dark brown. I can see the pink of your lips and that your dress is the color of starlight. Why would you not want to be seen?”
“That’s what you see?”
“Yes.”
“I was sick, Jonas. I didn’t look that way in the end. Can you lift the light so I can see you?”
I was not sure what she would see, but I did as she asked.
“Your hair was wavy,” she smiled as she ran her fingers through it.
I could see her smile. I could feel the way my hair slid between her gentle fingers.
She leaned closer to me. “Your eyes were so green. There’s a dimple in your cheek.”
Each word brought her face closer to mine as the tiny moon in my hand made us real once again. And without a moments thought, I kissed her.
She did not pull away from me.
She kept her fingers up in my hair and gently teased the rowdy waves as our mouths found something we needed in each other. We sat there touching until the glow of day began to spread from the eastern sky and the tiny moon vanished from my hand.
Then she rose to leave me.
“No!” I cried out, “please don’t leave me!”
Eighth:
“But it’s daytime. Don’t you go back to your stone in the daytime?”
I shook my head. “I never go to my stone. I am not at rest. I don’t want to see the place they put my bones to sleep.”
“What do you do?”
“I go out there,” I said, pointing toward the gate between the stones and the living world.
“You talk to them?”
“No. They can’t see me. I watch them. I hear the traffic and the music. You’ve never left this place?”
She shook her head.
“Come with me, Remy.”
“I don’t know, Jonas. I don’t know if I can walk among them any more.”
“I’ll protect you. You won’t be alone.”
“I don’t want to be alone,” she said at last as she took my outstretched hand and we walked.
It was an odd place that we lived. The stones were only two blocks from the bustle of the big city and the University I might have attended had things gone differently in my life. Streets teeming with pedestrians were so near and still a world away. Remy hesitated when we reached the street, looking back for just an instant as she tightened her hold upon my hand and stepped back out into the world of the living.
The deeper we ventured onto the campus that more agitated she became. She made a deliberate effort to stay out of the path of those who walked, but her frantic dodging was very obviously worrying her.
“Remy, they can’t feel you. You don’t have to avoid them.”
“I’m afraid they’ll walk into me. Is that silly?”
“No, but think of the world as an animated movie, there are layers upon layers of cells that make the scenery and the action, they are on one layer, we are on another,” I said as I passed right through a man talking on his phone.
She froze. “I don’t think I want to try that.”
“Do you want to go back? I don’t want you to be afraid all day just to be with me. We can do something else. We can go sit in the park and listen to the music majors play their instruments over by the fountain.”
&nbs
And fortune must have been smiling on me for once because there were actually musicians in the park. There was a guy with a saxophone playing jazz music I did not know but I took Remy in my arms and we danced, right there while others just passed by oblivious to the beautiful gift of sound. She ran her fingers up into my hair and even though we were both just shades, I could still see her the way I saw her when I held the moon in my hand. If only I could wish for another chance at life, this would be what I would hold sacred, these tender moments when two hearts, two souls were one.
Too soon he packed his instrument away and we sat on the edge of the fountain listening to the sounds of the day. Birds chirped. Planes flew overhead. Leaves rustled in the gentle breeze. Remy reached behind herself and ran her hand through the water in the pool of the fountain. Then she lifted her hand and flicked the wetness at me.
And though no water actually clung to her fingers and spattered me, I still flinched.
She laughed. She threw her arms around my neck and she kissed me.
She said that I was wonderful.
Ninth:
“Why are you still here?” I asked as we walked back to the place that I did not consider home, but could be home as long as she was there with me.
“Do you mean right here with you or here, you know, like this?” she asked as she waved her hand in front of herself.
“Like this.”
“I don’t know,” she answered quietly as we stepped back through the gate and the world seemed to grow darker and smaller all around us. “I mean, I guess I do know, I just don’t want to admit it.”
“You can tell me anything. I will listen,” I told her as I led her to the tree where I spent my nights.
“When I knew they couldn’t cure me, I was angry. It wasn’t fair. I thought, why me? It’s selfish, I know. Don’t think badly of me, Jonas. I tried to be a good person.”
“I would never think badly of you. I think you’re perfect. I think the vast majority of people who get that sort of diagnosis have those feelings.”
“Well, I am definitely not perfect. Instead of trying to live each day to the fullest, as my body failed I let myself sink into my melancholy. I mourned that I would never fall in love. I was bitter at the thought that no man would ever love me with all his heart. I mourned for romance, for bouquets of flowers and moonlight strolls. I mourned for that first kiss and the simple pleasure of holding hands. Perhaps it was all a fairy tale, and it was never meant to happen for me. But I left the world regretting what might have been instead of being thankful for all I had been given and I have been here ever since.”