by T.A. Barron
The Darkness had departed.
Whether the creature of the void had truly died or had merely withdrawn to some other part of the universe, Kate could not tell. All she knew was that her heart leaped at seeing it go; all she hoped was that it had gone forever.
“We’ve got to leave, Kaitlyn.” Grandfather’s voice was filled with urgency. “The star has returned to the Pattern, and that means it’s beginning to collapse.” He looked at his ring: Only a small sliver of the right wing remained. It seemed to be disintegrating before his very eyes. “Let’s go.”
“But how?” cried Kate, seeing for the first time the tattered wings of her butterfly. “Morpheus! Your wings are ripped to pieces.”
“Orpheus and I have already devised a plan,” said Morpheus with a graceful swish of his antennae. “You and your grandfather will both ride on my brother’s back.”
“What?” exclaimed Kate. “And leave you behind?”
The antennae waved sadly. “I fear I won’t ever fly again, Kate.”
She stepped to the side of the great butterfly and placed her hand upon his neck. “I don’t want to go without you.”
“You must, Kate,” Morpheus replied. “I will stay here with Ariella, who will remind me of the cartwheels I could once perform.”
“But the star is collapsing,” objected Grandfather. “If you stay here, you’ll be destroyed along with everything else.”
“I have no choice but to stay,” answered Morpheus. He turned again to Kate, and his broken wings rustled like the leaves of a stricken elm tree. “I will miss you. It was an honor to fly with you on my back.”
“If only we had more time,” said Ariella with regret. “Then perhaps I could find some way to heal you. But time is the one thing we don’t have.”
Kate stroked the black fur of Morpheus’ neck. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“Come, Kaitlyn.” Grandfather’s voice was firm. He took her hand and helped her climb onto the back of Orpheus. Then he slid into position behind her, wrapping his arms tightly around her waist.
“Are you sure you can carry us?” he asked Orpheus.
“I can carry you,” answered the butterfly bravely. “It is my grief that is now too heavy to carry.” Orpheus waved his antennae toward Morpheus. “My brother, when will we meet again?”
The multifaceted eyes of Morpheus gazed at him somberly. “I don’t know.”
Through her swelling tears, Kate could see Ariella leap into the air. The snow crystal floated before her face and gently touched Kate’s cheek with a single delicate arm.
“Ariella …” began Kate, but Ariella already knew her thought.
“I will miss you, too,” said the shining snow crystal, her own eyes brimming with tears.
Suddenly, Kate removed her butterfly ring and placed it into Ariella’s cupped hand. Simultaneously she reached for Grandfather’s ring, which was on his hand at her waist, and grasped it firmly. As she had hoped, she remained heartlight because she was still touching Grandfather’s ring.
“That’s dangerous, Kaitlyn,” said Grandfather sternly. “If you should let go of my ring while we’re in flight—even for an instant—you’ll perish immediately.”
“I know,” she replied. “But I want Ariella to have my ring. Something to remember me by.”
“Are you sure?” asked Ariella. “I don’t need your ring to remember Kate of the Ring.”
“I’m sure,” answered Kate. “I want you to have it. Maybe—just maybe—it will give you a little more time. Maybe you can even find a way to heal Morpheus! Please take it.”
“But Kaitlyn—”
“I want to do this, Grandfather.”
Seeing she was unshakable, the old man shrugged in resignation. “All right, if you feel you must. But Kaitlyn … at least do this for me. You take my ring to wear, and let me hold on to you.”
Kate studied him closely for a moment, then nodded. She took Grandfather’s ring and slipped it on as he laid his large hand over her own.
Ariella clasped Kate’s ring, her silver eyes sparkling. “I love you,” she whispered. Then she dropped to the floor next to Morpheus and cried: “Farewell, dear friends! You have saved our star, now save yourselves!”
With that Orpheus began to climb. As they approached the splintered dome, Kate could hear the wild storm raging outside. She looked below to catch one final glimpse of Ariella. To her surprise, the tiny crystal was growing steadily brighter. As Ariella’s radiance increased, she began to glow like a small star. Gradually, she grew so luminous that she seemed to be made more of light than of snow.
“I hope we still have enough time,” said Grandfather.
Kate, however, wasn’t listening. “I love you, Ariella,” she said quietly. “And I always will.”
XIX
The Black Hole
A devastating blast of supercharged lightning seared the sky. Crimson clouds billowed and the winds whirled about them with gathering fury.
“It feels like everything is falling apart!” cried Kate, as an octagonal crystal burst into pieces directly above them.
“It is,” called Orpheus above the din. His antennae waved frantically, searching urgently to find his bearings in the swirling storm.
Boom! Boom! Boom! rolled the thunder of distant explosions, sending shock waves in every direction. Lightning sizzled through the starscape and brightly glowing gas was everywhere. Cannons of destruction sounded continuously.
Boom! Boom!
Boom! Boom!
Grandfather gripped the ring on Kate’s hand ever more tightly. Another bolt of lightning ripped across the sky. Crystals exploded on all sides.
Orpheus struggled to stay on course, but the stellar gale was intensifying. Furiously he beat his wide wings, pushing himself as hard as he could.
Kate watched the powerful wings laboring, as her worries mounted. What if one of these explosions knocked Grandfather’s hand off the ring? Why did Orpheus seem to be slowing down?
The starscape flared with electricity.
“Grandfather!” she cried. “What’s wrong with Orpheus?”
His face was ashen. “He is struggling.”
“Against what?”
“Against the most powerful physical force in the universe.”
“A black hole?”
He grimaced. “We may be too late to escape.”
As the great butterfly strained to carry them forward, Kate realized that everything around them was being pulled backward into the deep funnel of darkness forming to their rear. Gas clouds, crystals, asteroids—all were being sucked into the center of the collapsing star.
“No!” she cried in terror, as Grandfather’s description of a black hole flashed like lightning across her mind: a force so powerful not even light can escape …
Orpheus forged ahead with every ounce of his strength. His wide wings beat frantically, but his progress diminished steadily. Now they were hardly moving forward at all.
“He can’t keep this up much longer. We’re barely staying even. As the gravity increases—”
“Look!” shrieked Kate. “His wing. It’s disappearing.”
She pointed to Orpheus’ right wing. The upper tip had vanished completely, as if it had been sliced off by a knife.
“My God! We’ll never—”
Zzzzappp!
A sizzling explosion of brilliant white light crashed across the sky. So bright was the blast, much more powerful than anything they had seen, that it seemed to freeze everything instantaneously. The winds died, the wings of Orpheus ceased beating, and Kate felt she could not even blink an eye. Everything around them stopped moving, frozen completely, as if time itself had been suspended, and with it, the collapse of the star. The only sound they could hear was no sound at all: Pure silence surrounded them.
Suddenly, the luminous wings began to surge.
“We’re moving!” Kate cried.
Grandfather shook his head in amazement. “I don’t understand.”
Orpheus flew swiftly, despite his sliced wing. They left star and storm far behind, still suspended in space and time. Soon they had passed the outermost wisps of Trethoniel’s multicolored veil.
At length, when they had reached a safe distance, Orpheus glided to a halt. With a graceful swoop, the butterfly turned to face the star.
Trethoniel was bathed in a new illumination, a silvery light that glowed and shimmered. Something about it reminded Kate of Ariella’s eyes. Then, welling up from the heart of the star, a beautiful sound came wafting toward them.
Floating in open space, they listened once again to Trethoniel’s magnificent music. As the melody radiated from the star, it felt—if such a thing were possible—even more full and beautiful than before. The undertone of tragedy no longer fought against the melody, but joined it, enriched it, deepened it.
Then, as the music swelled in power, something miraculous occurred. Very gradually, graceful wisps of golden light began to form around Trethoniel, encircling it in lovely luminescence. Pure condensed light. Slowly, as if they were waltzing with the music itself, the broadening beams of light began to undulate, twirl, then flow outward into space. Forming great glistening arcs, they stretched, like rainbows made of fiery filament, far into the galaxy.
One of those luminous arcs, both Kate and Grandfather knew, would eventually reach all the way to the Sun.
“You did it, Grandfather,” said Kate softly. “You saved the Sun.”
The bushy eyebrows lifted. “No, Kaitlyn. You did.”
Kate shifted uncomfortably on Orpheus’ back. “I guess I had something to do with it,” she acknowledged. Then she asked: “What happened back there? When everything stopped so suddenly?”
“I’ve been wondering about that myself,” he replied, still studying the star. “Sometimes a collapsing star will reach a point of temporary equilibrium that makes it stop before collapsing any further.” He grinned. “But that’s just ordinary physics. And I have a feeling that something more than physics was at work there.”
“But how could it happen? I thought nothing in the universe is strong enough to escape a black hole.”
The old man’s eyes sparkled. “I guess there is one force in the universe even more powerful than a black hole.”
“Look. It’s collapsing again!”
With a flash of light, the star began to swirl once again in an ever-tightening spiral. Smaller and smaller it compressed, until finally only a tiny speck of brilliance remained. For an instant it glowed bright, then vanished completely, taking the music with it. Where once the realm of Trethoniel had graced the sky, only a point of impenetrable blackness remained.
For a timeless moment, they gazed in silence at the empty spot.
“Grandfather,” spoke Kate at last, “do you think there’s any chance—any chance at all—that Ariella could have survived? Maybe even Morpheus? Perhaps the ring …”
Gently, he squeezed her waist. “Only God knows the answer to that one, Kaitlyn.”
“If they are gone,” she said somberly, “the universe has lost some very beautiful voices.”
Grandfather sighed. “Yes, they were magnificent. But … somewhere else in the universe, some new voices will be born.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Yes, Kaitlyn. For the first time in my life, I truly do.” He placed his cheek against hers and whispered: “I believe that every living thing has a time to die, as well as a time to be born. That goes for stars, people, and chrysanthemums, too. The important thing is that they flowered beautifully while they were alive.”
Something about his tone of voice was profoundly disturbing, and Kate instinctively placed her free hand upon his and squeezed. Hoping to change the subject, she said: “I think it’s impossible to have an experience like this without it changing your whole life.”
“That’s right,” he agreed. “Whatever kind of adult you might have been before, I think you’ll be different now—just because you were foolish enough to follow me on a four-minute trip.”
“I inherited a certain amount of foolishness from my grandfather, you know,” she replied. “What do you really think I’ll be when I grow up?”
Grandfather gazed thoughtfully at the wing of Orpheus, glistening in the starlight. Eventually, a white eyebrow lifted. “I think you’ll grow up to be a wise and wonderful woman. A lot like your grandmother, as a matter of fact. You’ll be a mother, and your children will love to hear you tell them about the stars. And—now I’m going out on a limb—I would venture you’ll also become an accomplished meteorologist.”
“A what?”
“A scientist who studies the weather, both on Earth and other places. What’s more,” he added, “your special expertise will be the formation of snow crystals.”
Kate couldn’t help but grin. “I love you, Grandfather.”
The old man looked at her fondly. “I love you, too, Kaitlyn.” He smiled. “And I always will.”
Suddenly, Orpheus shook his antennae worriedly. “Our time is nearly gone,” he declared. “If you wish to return to Earth—”
“Heavens!” exclaimed Grandfather, feeling only the slightest sliver of a wing left on the turquoise band. “The ring is nearly gone. Take us home, Orpheus!”
The great butterfly’s wings burst into action, flashing in the starlight, as the old astronomer held tightly to Kate’s hand that bore the vanishing ring.
XX
Chrysanthemums
As Kate opened her eyes, she found herself lying on the floor of Grandfather’s lab. Smashed equipment, strewn papers, and broken bottles of chemicals lay everywhere; the entire place was in ruins.
Sitting up, she felt a dull pain throbbing in her head. Must have been a hard landing. Maybe I hit my head …
“Grandfather!” she called.
There came no response.
He’s probably down in the kitchen. Making a new pot of tea or something.
At that instant, she heard a noise in the hallway. “Grandfather!” she cried.
Instead of Grandfather, a long reddish face with floppy ears appeared in the doorway.
“Cumberland!”
Before she could get up, Cumberland pounced on her. The retriever licked her face energetically, his prominent tail waving all the while. Then he started barking noisily.
“Enough, enough,” she sputtered. “I’m glad to see you, too.”
At last Kate freed herself from the dog’s enthusiastic embrace. She clambered slowly to her feet. Surveying the wreckage of the lab, it seemed more and more strange that Grandfather wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
It wasn’t like him just to disappear like this, she thought, her uncertainty beginning to grow. It was almost like … like they had never left at all.
A pang of doubt shot through her. Was it all a fantastic dream? She rubbed her sore head again, wondering whether she had been knocked unconscious somehow. Could she have imagined the whole thing?
She stepped over a mass of twisted metal and glass that was once a laser, and with difficulty made her way to the door. Cumberland, who was already there, gave another loud bark. Then he turned and padded down the long hallway to the kitchen, limping slightly.
“Grandfather,” called Kate.
Still no answer.
Increasingly unsure of anything, she followed Cumberland past the lengthy rows of bookshelves. As she entered the kitchen, her heart was pounding and she felt a mounting sense of dread.
She froze in midstep.
“Grandfather!”
There he was, seated in the old rocker. His white head leaned back against the chair and his eyes were closed. Both of his weathered hands fell limp to his sides.
“Oh, Grandfather!” Kate ran to his side and shook him by the shoulders. “Grandfather, please. Please wake up.”
He didn’t stir. Not even an eyebrow lifted in response.
“Oh, no!” cried Kate, kneeling by the rocker and burying her face in the faded picnic cloth that still
covered his lifeless body. “Don’t die, Grandfather,” she wailed. “Please—please don’t die.”
For many minutes Kate wept, and the picnic cloth grew moist with her tears. “So it was just a dream,” she sobbed. “Ariella and Morpheus and the Voice and everything.”
She raised her head and looked sadly around the kitchen. How empty it seemed now. Her eyes fell to Cumberland, who was sitting by the rocker, nuzzling against Grandfather’s leg.
She rubbed behind the devoted dog’s ear. “There’s nothing you can do to bring him back,” she said dismally.
Cumberland turned toward her, and started licking her hand. Kate noticed for the first time that the cut on her wrist from the flying shard of glass had returned. The edge of her sweatshirt was stained with blood.
Then she saw what Cumberland was licking: Upon her finger rested a simple turquoise band.
Even in her grief, Kate’s heart leaped. She reached for Grandfather’s hand, the hand that had once worn the very same ring, the hand that had brought Morpheus and Orpheus into being. Tenderly, she kissed his hand, then placed it upon his chest.
She rose and walked slowly over to the telephone on the kitchen counter. Her ankle ached painfully, but the greater pain was in a place she could not touch. She dialed home; fortunately, her mother was there. All she had to say was the word Grandfather, and her mother knew something was dreadfully wrong.
“You just wait there, Kate, and we’ll be right over. I’ll take care of calling an ambulance.”
“Thanks, Mom,” she said, replacing the receiver.
Without any conscious thought, she walked past Grandfather’s body and over to the kitchen door. She opened it and stepped into the chilly autumn air.
The sky looked gray and full of grief. Somberly, she shuffled along the flagstone walk in the direction of the garden. At last, she leaned against the old wooden gate, her heart heavy with loss.
There was the great stone fountain, and the patch of unruly grass where they had picnicked only yesterday. The chrysanthemums were still strong, but their colors seemed more muted than before. The grape arbor hung heavily, and the scent of its rotting fruit filled the garden. The air had grown colder and the sky darker.