by D. W. White

At a thousand million miles the girl was eight and prone to singing. The air when they went out at night was the crisp, clean air of clear skies and stiff fingers, miles and miles of nothing but open cold. There were howling things hidden away behind the rolling ground, ground that went on in every way from the house, on towards the mountains hidden in the dark. She would sing to the howling things, sing their language that she didn’t understand, sing at them while they set up and they got ready. She had for her birthday her big hat, very soft and very new for she’d only just been given it. She would put the hat way down over her ears and sing sing sing. Sing like the stars do, across the sky in the dark night.

There were blankets and big gloves that were too big, there were sweatshirts faded and named for schools like states, there was an old radio with dials and numbers and a silver antenna, there were songs that people sang, but the people didn’t howl. There were chairs, too, but they never used the chairs. There was hot chocolate in big heavy mugs, mugs with rubber around their tops and wounds on their sides, mugs that had been dropped and tossed and scratched. The girl’s mug was pink and blue and a little white, and had many stickers from many places all over everywhere, covering up the wounds. In her father’s mug, which was not pink or blue or even a little white, but black black like the sky, was just a little drop of whisky, because it was very cold on the best of nights. It was very cold and very dark and so so clear, and that was how they liked it best.

There was the great porch that wrapped around the house, all filled up with books and boxes and things, books with great big words that told her father where in the sky to look, but some books too that told the girl what they were looking for. There was a screen all around the porch that kept away all but the very smallest bugs, little flying things that would go right for the light, because in the very dark it is the light that is wanted most. There were big white boards for her mother to put pictures and colors on, and some that already had them, but not the right pictures and not the right colors. There were clothes that the girl had used to wear, way way back almost to where she couldn’t remember, clothes that didn’t fit and that didn’t mind the cold. There was the cat, too, but you could never see the cat because he wasn’t really their cat, only stopped by time to time. That’s what her father said, and he knew a great many things.

The porch was best for singing. The girl would go singing out of the door with her great big gloves and big soft hat and very hot chocolate, down the steps of the porch to the endless yard, the yard that was just where the ground stopped rolling. She would sing and sometimes her mother would watch from the window in the house, because it was much too cold, and her father would pull out the big telescope, which was very delicate and everyone had to be very careful, and he would set it up very carefully just how the books said and sometimes he would sign, too, but only a little. And when everything was just so, her father would take from the shed next to the house the wooden box that had brought milk for his father, and up the girl would go to stand and to look, far far away. The radio would be quiet and the howling things would be quiet and the girl would be quiet and they would look, look beyond anything that anyone could see, look into the dark and the cold and the night.

And this was the best part, the looking, because it was theirs, theirs and the mugs’ and the howling things’, but really just theirs. And the books told her father what were the things they saw and her father told the girl, things with great big names from long ago. And sometimes they named the things themselves, because the names they had were very hard to say. And sometimes it hurt your eyes and your head, to look so hard, but they watched the things moving, which moved because they moved, too, there in the yard on the rolling ground in the very dark and the very cold. The whole world moved, but it was very hard to tell. And then one day, when their fingers were very stiff and their chocolate very hot and the night so so clear and dark, the girl saw a wonderful thing, a thing even the books didn’t know about, a thing with a big tail like the cat had and which no one had seen before. And her father looked and looked again and checked with many people to be sure. Because it was a new thing, a found thing, and her father called it a comet and the people he checked with called it remarkable but the girl just called it hers.

And when they found it, it was theirs, and it was coming to meet them.

——

At eight hundred million miles the girl was halfway to nine and beginning to dance. It was only cold in the mornings and the mugs were back on the shelf, stickers on their wounds. The howling things came out later and later every day, when the light went to dark, and you could see the rolling ground out towards the hills. In the living room all the books were spread out on the floor, books with fantastic pictures of galaxies and stars, books with maps of the sky, birds and scorpions and horses and men, books with nothing but words and no pictures at all. The girl wore her hat inside even though it was much too warm, her mother said, and even though it made her cheeks red like the sun. But it kept her hair away from her face when she would dance, and it was very important to see where you were dancing.

In the evenings they would have dinner at the big oak table, all covered in books, and her father would tell the girl where her comet was, where she was, coming to them very fast. It was named for her because she had found it, and all the people who wrote the books her father read thought it was a very big deal indeed. It was going through space, which was very cold and very dark, and it was flying faster than any plane or any bird. But it would take a long time to get to them, because it was very far away. And her mother would smile and her father would smile and the girl would eat dinner with her very big and very soft hat and listen to all the things she’d seen across the galaxy. In the evenings they would have dinner at the big oak table, all covered in books, and they would talk and she would imagine, imagine flying through all that cold and all that dark right towards them.

The living room was best for dancing. After dinner they would dance, the girl and her mother and her father, and her head sometimes would hurt and she would feel sometimes dizzy, but they would play music from her father’s old radio and she would howl just like the howling things and wear her great big hat and they would dance dance dance. Dance like the stars do, across the sky in the dark night.

In the night, which came later now and was not so very cold, the girl could see herself coming towards them, brighter and brighter each day, and she knew that many other people now were watching her too, because she was very fast and very important. But those people weren’t her, weren’t hers, the way she was her in the yard with the rolling ground and her in the sky fast and bright and flying. Her father said that she was getting closer, and soon enough she’d be high in the sky for everyone to see, and the girl said when when when and her father said soon enough, soon enough.

In the yard beyond the porch the girl could stand on her own on the crate to see the sky, to find herself, with the cat sneaking past and the howling things far off in the dark. In the window in the house sometimes both her father and her mother talked, and in the deep night, after the telescope was put away and the howling things had gone quiet and the car slipped away, the girl could hear her father and her mother talking very still and very sure about very important things that were hard to understand but the girl knew, too, were about her, somehow.

And at night sometimes it was hard to go to sleep, even if you were tired from dancing and from singing, and the girl thought about moving through the giant night that was the sky. Past the storms and rings and moons, past the planets that hung spinning above her bed, past all the things in the big books on the porch, past all that dark and all that quiet, came the girl’s comet, moving fast and straight and sure. Until it was morning, until it was here.

——

At five hundred million miles the girl was nine and wanted to write. She would write in the secret book for her secret thoughts her mother had given her, write about flying and dancing and singing and the sky. She was visible now, sometimes, far above them, but she was easier to see still with the telescope. The nights came very late and were very warm, and the howling things sang their song long past bedtime, because they only sang at night. The girl’s mother said she needed her rest, more and more, but her father took her out to watch the sky only every now and then. She could stand on her toes and look by herself, see her bright tail coming like a great flash of light, closer and closer and so much brighter than anything else.

The porch was best for writing. She wrote all during the long days of the summertime, when the sky was filled with blue and clouds and rain. It was warm and windy now, and it was much too warm for her big hat or their mugs of chocolate. She wrote on the porch in the sun with the cat while her mother and her father talked to each other, very serious and very much. She wrote because it was hard to dance and to sing, but there were many pages and a lot of room for her words.

Her father talked on the phone to people from big cities with important stories to write, and even though everyone said he was famous now, he said the girl had found it, and it was hers, and that was true, but the girl didn’t mind. He showed her new books he had ordered, books that talked about her now, in the sky and coming towards them. Books that talked about what she would look like, how bright and how fast, and where people all around the world could see her, and when. And that was nice, for them to tell everyone, but even without the books the girl always knew, knew where she was and where’d she be.

Her mother read her own books now, books from doctors and schools, books with pictures but not nearly as nice as the pictures of the sky and the stars. Her father would talk and her mother would read and the girl would write write write. From the porch the sun was very high in the sky, lighting up the shed and the yard and the rolling ground and the hills and even the mountains, far far away reaching up to the sky. Her father said she was going to the sun, flying all across the galaxy to reach the sun, which was very warm and very bright. And even when she was cold and tired, she thought about the sun hanging high, all day long, and she was getting close now, and that was good.

At night, when it finally came, she could lean out her window while her parents talked in fast whispers, and she could see herself flying, and she knew people all around the world were watching too, watching because she’d found herself and her father had told them, to look up high in the dark sky and see how fast and straight she flew.

——

At a hundred million miles the girl was ten and loved to dream. She would dream of herself, flying so fast, dream of the planets and the stars and the moon she passed, dream of the earth getting bigger in front of her, dream of the sun, where she was going, to where it was warm and bright. She dreamed in the mornings, tired and groggy, and she dreamed in the long car rides to white rooms and big buildings and many doctors. She dreamed of the moon, which she was getting closer and closer to, and the Earth, which was just beyond, and the sun, where she was going. She dreamed of the very dark and the very cold of space and sky. She dreamed of the howling things in hills beyond the rolling ground, and the mountains reaching up, and the porch with her father’s books all around. She dreamed in the evenings, which were cold again, and still and clear and sharp. She dreamed visions that she saw in the sky, all the stars looking on.

At night they could watch her flying, and people all everywhere were talking about it, because she was so bright and so fast. And her father brought out the telescope to look very close, and they could see so many things about her they hadn’t seen before. And her mother brought their mugs, with stickers on their wounds and chocolate in their bodies, because it was cold again. She wore her big hat and even if she didn’t dance or didn’t sing or didn’t write, she could see and she could dream.

The sky was best for dreaming, because it was where the night was kept, and it was where she was, too, bright and fast and sure. She dreamed dreamed dreamed, even when her mother and her father didn’t talk anymore in silent whispers at the window, but instead sat out with the girl to watch her in the sky. She dreamed, even when they stopped taking long car rides with her mother and the people from the big cities stopped calling her father, because now everyone could see her, see was so close and so bright.

Her name was in the papers now, because she was almost here, but the words were too hard to read, so her father did, just the way he used to read the great books on the oak table and the porch. And at night, under her light, the girl’s mother and father would sing the song of the howling things, the way the girl liked best, and they would sing back, rolling their voices across the rolling ground and under the dark and quiet sky.

And the girl was very tired now, but she would sit up as late as she could and watch the sky, watch herself and the stars and the moon, and listen to the howling things and breathe the air that came crisp and cold and still. She would see the shadows of the mountains, beyond the rolling ground, reaching up to where the sun would be tomorrow, reaching up to where she would be, in the sky with the stars and the dark. And it was all very calm, and very nice, and lit up by the bright lights of the girl’s own flame.

——

At perihelion the nights were quiet and the girl was gone. The books were put away and the table was cleared and the house was empty. And over the great rolling ground, far above the howling things and the porch and the yard and the hills and the night, the great bright light flew, flew with the girl’s name over the girl’s body, buried deep where the mountains began, back away the way it’d came, flying through the very cold and the very dark.