Prose by Abby Whittington

Edited by Heather Wilson and Karen Li

Rigel walked down the cobblestone street of the little town he and his best friend Ella lived in. As he was walking, the tell-tale sounds of people drawing in and reinforcing the silk curtains to their windows told Rigel it must be near early dusk. He never understood those curtains, it must be something people from this town did, he thought. His old town never went to bed as early as this one. No matter, Ella always left a corner unfastened for Rigel to climb through so she could tell him all about what she learned in school that day– giving him makeshift lessons in the process. Rigel started walking quieter as the last few people scurried into their houses. Following his mentor’s guidance, Rigel was careful not to make a sound– people would start asking questions if they heard someone outside at night, though he doesn’t know why. Nighttime was Rigel’s favorite time of the day, everything was quiet and nobody was outside to
bother him.

Once Rigel reached Ella’s house, he started to climb. Brick by brick he made his way up the side of the house, moving the creeping vines to the side as he looked for a stable place to put his hand. Once he made it to her window, Rigel pushed his head through the unfastened corner of the silk. “Hey Ella!” Rigel said, moving the bottom of a silk sheet to the side. He was holding himself up with crossed arms on the window sill, barely tall enough to stand comfortably on the
small ledge below.

“Hey Rigel, I’m glad you made it!” Ella said as she browsed her bookshelf.

“What did you do today?” he asked the girl.

“I didn’t do much in school, but I had cello practice again. Mr. Leo says I’m getting better! I learned something new so I can teach you! Here, hurry, come through the window.” He climbed through and sat in the middle of the floor, right in front of a chair and a beautifully crafted cello. Only after she hears him fasten the curtain to the window did Ella turn away from her bookshelf. She sat gracefully on the chair, smoothing her hands over her pants to get rid of
any nonexistent folds– a habit she learned from her mother. Leaning to the side, she slowly lifted the cello in front of her. Its spruce shined in the yellow light of her lamps.

“Mr. Leo showed us how to play a multi-note slur today! He said that it was important to keep our bow straight when we play, and to not go too fast or we won’t have any more bow to play with.”

“That sounds hard, can you play something for me?”

She nods her head as she picks up her bow and plays a small snippet of the music she practiced in class. The bow glides over the strings gracefully until it slips and the tip hits the fine tuning pins towards the bottom of the cello with a thud.

“Ah! Sorry, let me try that again. I worked really hard to get this.” She picks up her bow again, this time carefully holding it as it glides across the strings, focusing hard not to miss a note.

For some reason Ella was always good at staying in tune, Rigel thought. Whenever he tried to play, he would always miss at least five or six notes in each row of music. But when Ella played, the whole world seemed to stop and listen; at least for him it did. Music notes danced around Rigel’s head as Ella played a tune that sounded like an old lullaby his parents used to sing. Even if it wasn’t the same song, Rigel felt the same amount of comfort from it now as he
did then.

When she finished playing, she looked up to see Rigel gazing expectantly at the cello. “Do you wanna try?” she asked.

He nodded with a little too much enthusiasm and slowly stood up. She directed him towards the chair and around the cello, gently placing the neck into his hands.

“Can I play the same thing you did? I think I remember some of it.” She nodded.

“Try to play what you remember and make sure you pay attention to how
fast your bow goes. If it goes too fast the notes will sound scratchy and harsh, and you won’t have enough bow to play.”

He started to play, but as soon as he got to the second measure of the piece, the music stopped and he looked up. He ran out of bow.

“See, this is what I was saying.” She placed her hand under his elbow. “Hold your elbow like this, it will be easier to move.”

He starts playing again, this time with her hand holding his arm for support. He
proceeded to recreate the piece she played previously, missing a couple notes here and there. Despite that, his level of playing was remarkable for never receiving any type of formal training other than when Ella would teach him. Ella was close to a prodigy in her year 5 class. She understood concepts quicker than other students and was always praised by her teacher for her good intonation. However, Rigel was good at copying anything she did. His tone quality wasn’t the best, but he was a very fast learner. With a proper teacher he could surpass Ella rather quickly.

“Wow you played that really well! Are you sure you haven’t heard this before?”

“No, only when you played it just now. I only get to hear this music when you teach me.”

“I wish you could have a professional teacher in a class, you would be an amazing player.”

“No! I only want to play with you. The other kids don’t like me very much.”

“I’m sure they’ll like you! I could introduce you to some of my classmates if you’d
want?”

He looks down at his clothing, stained from the trials he faced on the streets. It’s been a while since Rigel has been to school. Memories of sitting in the headmaster’s office while another child sat crying and pointing in the chair adjacent sent shivers down his spine. Rigel hasn’t seen any kid other than Ella since he’s been kicked out of school– by his own will at least.

Rigel shuddered. “Eh, maybe another day. But enough of that, what else did you do today?”

Looking up she said, “Ummm, we learned about the stars. My teacher told us how each one of them holds a memory dear to us. But Mommy says never to look at the stars, she said if we do, we would scare them away and people would lose their memories. But that’s why we have these books,” she held up the giant book that was sitting on her bed. “They have pictures of the stars, Mommy says it looks just like real ones.”

He sits on the bed with her, looking at the beautifully drawn designs on the worn page. Tracing his finger over the line work, his brow furrows.

“Ella, this isn’t what the stars look like? Haven’t you seen them in person before?”

“No! Are you mad? Weren’t you listening, those are people’s memories, how could you look at them and break them?” she said quickly, clearly angry at his stupidity.

“Ella, the stars don’t break if you look at them for a long time, neither does the moon. Instead they twinkle in the dark sky, a light in the dark–”

“Moon? What’s a moon? I’m not allowed to look outside at night.”

“You’ve never seen the moon? It’s this massive rock in the sky, sometimes it’s a full circle, other times it’s this little tiny sliver.” Rigel pinches his fingers together. “No matter its size, it continues to light up the sky! Just like the stars do but bigger!” He then fell backwards on the bed with a thud, arms wide open trying to describe the size of the moon, as if his arms were big enough. Yawning, he swung his feet in order to sit back up.

“You’re kidding, nothing can be that big, someone would know about it.”

“Nobody would know if they keep these windows covered with this silk.” He motions towards the window.

“Everyone has these on their windows, it’s normal.”

“Is it? Why Ella, why do they have these curtains? My parents never had them.” He tilts his head in thought, genuinely trying to think of reasons why.

“I– I don’t know? It’s just how it is Rigel. Mother always said never to open my window and take it off.”

“But you open your window for me, and I even crawl in through the corner flap of the silk.” He remembers the countless times after school where he would climb the familiar bricks and vines that painted the exterior of Ella’s house.

“Yes, that’s because we’re friends, and anyways I don’t open the curtain. You do.”

“But Ella, aren’t you curious about what the real stars look like?”

“But people’s memories…” she trailed off.

“People’s memories are safely stored away in their heads, they might even be stored away on the moon. Maybe the moon is a giant memory storage bank. Wouldn’t you want to see the real thing?!”

Ella looks around her room. It’s large enough for a full size bed, a couple bookshelves, a desk, and a window with a little bench. Clad with variations of navy blue and gold accents, her room looks like it’s straight out of a dream. The contrast of her furniture’s dark wood and navy blue fabric draped around her bed against the gold jeweled decor brings out the more ethereal aspects of her bedroom. Her ceiling has a mural of golden stars on it, each reflecting the warm
light of her oil lamps, brightening the room. Next to the overflowing bookshelf, is a single window covered with a white silk fabric, completely connected to the frame including the small corner where Rigel climbed through.

“I- I guess. Is it pretty like you say?”

“Yes! Now come on Ella, let’s look at the moon and the stars! The gemstones in the sky!” He grabs the corner of the silk covering the window and completely rips it off.

“Wait–” Ella’s face lights up. “Wow! This is beautiful, how are the books so wrong?” She gazes in awe, “No drawing or painting could ever capture this incredible sight. Why did Mommy and Daddy hide this?”

“It’s gorgeous, isn’t it Ella? And look at the way the stars reflect in your eyes! They are sparkling! Now look this way, the moon is a full circle tonight!”

“I’ve never seen anything like this! How did you know about this? And why doesn’t Mommy and Daddy know? It’s… amazing.” Ella says, awestruck by the size and brilliance of the moon.

“I don’t know why nobody knows. Everyone has these silly, silk curtains hiding the beautiful moon and stars. Ella, what do you think?” He looks towards the moon. “Do you think there is a memory storage in the crater there?” He points at the large crater in the moon, grinning.

“It’s… pretty… so… bright…” Rigel’s grin falls as he looks at Ella. Her face is still
glowing in the light of the moon, the stars still dancing in her eyes, however they seemed to be the ones moving, not her.

“Ella? Are you okay?” He turns away from the stars and moon, fully facing Ella. He looks at her face. What looked brightly illuminated before looked sickly pale now. “Ella? Ella say something? Are you okay?” Panic outlined the boy’s voice as he called to his friend.

Again, she said nothing. She stayed standing in front of the window sill, unmoving– unblinking. Instead, she stared at the moon. Rigel waved his hand in front of her face and even grabbed her hands and pinched the skin on top of it. Nothing. She didn’t even flinch, let alone blink. He checked her pulse on her wrist. One, two, three,… seventeen, eighteen,… thirty-four, thirty-five… a continuous heartbeat. He breathed a small sigh of relief, one which was cut short when he heard muffled footsteps running up the stairs. Panicking, Rigel braced himself to jump off the side roof, a quicker but longer distance than the bricks he used to climb up there. Just as he was about to jump, he saw Ella’s face again. His stomach dropped out of dread. Rigel knew something was wrong, and it could be even worse if he just left her like this. Maybe he could
explain what happened, to help her get better in some way, or at least figure out what was wrong n the first place. He turned around and got off of the window sill. As soon as he took a step towards Ella, he heard the door swing open, and saw the horrified faces of Ella’s parents.

“Who the hell are you? Wait– honey shield your eyes, the silk is open!” Ella’s mother quickly covered her eyes with her forearm as she blindly made her way over to the window, knocking into the cello that was resting on the floor in the process. Rigel looked over, relieved to see that it wasn’t broken. “You must be that boy from school. We told you to stay away from Ella when you got kicked out. For now, you- you stay there. Ella, get away from the window, it’s dangerous to be near it,” her mother said.

Rigel ran to the corner adjacent to the window, terrified of what was going on.

“Ella, I said get away from that window, can’t you hear me?” There was silence. The mother stopped her blind search for the window sill. Nothing moved until she whispered, “Ella? Ella, I said move away from the window sill.” Again, her mother only received silence as her answer. Rigel looked over to Ella’s father who was still standing in the doorway, covering his eyes with his forearms as well. Rigel was confused, why are Ella’s parents covering their eyes? It’s just an open window.

The mother let out a chilling sob as she started towards the window again. She finally grabbed hold of the curtain that was thrown on the floor in front of Ella, haphazardly putting it on the window, just enough to block the light emitted from the moon.

The mother grabbed the face of her child and let out another bone chilling whisper, straining her vocal cords. “Ella no! My baby, what happened to you?!” Her cries echoed throughout the otherwise silent room.

Ella’s father ran over, seeing the petrified face of his daughter. He dropped to his knees by his wife. “Ella why couldn’t you listen?” His voice breaking as he touched her cheek, “We told you not to touch the curtains.”

The parents stared into their daughter’s awestruck face; elation spread across her facial features. However, the longer one would look into her face, the more it looked… strange. Slightly distorted. The only thing moving were the stars dancing in her eyes.

Unsure of what to do, Rigel tried to shrink into the corner and disappear. Maybe if he closed his eyes hard enough he would wake up in his bed and leave this nightmare. The silence was deafening, his efforts to shrink into the corner held no avail. Finally, he decided to speak, hoping to understand what was going on.

“Ma’am, I don’t know what happened, sh- she was looking at a crater in the moon, and all of the sudden she was like this. I- I swear, I don’t know what’s wrong. Why is she stuck? I was only trying to show her the stars– she loves them. Why is Ella fr- frozen?” Tears brimmed at the corner of the boy’s eyes as he tripped over his tongue trying to speak quickly.

“You. You what?” Her mother whispered in a harsh tone. The brief look of confusion on her face was quickly replaced with a mixture of grief and anger.

Realizing he was in trouble, Rigel jumped and stuttered “I- I tried to sh- show her the s- s- stars.”

“This- This is why she’s like this. You did this to her. I swear when I get my hands on you–” The father’s eyes darkened with murderous intent. Rigel didn’t hear the rest of what Ella’s father yelled as he slipped past the father’s extending hands, pushed past the silk, and jumped out of the window. He landed hard on the side roof as sharp pain shot up his leg. Scared of what Ella’s father would do to him, he climbed down the familiar bricks to the ground. Rigel ran down the street and looked behind him, confused as to why nobody was following him. Not wanting to find out, Rigel continued to run. More and more tears streamed down his face with every step as Ella’s father’s words echoed throughout his head like a mantra. Your fault, your fault, this happened because of you! she’s like this because of you–

Rigel really wished he knew what happened, why Ella was frozen and why it was his fault. All he wanted to do was show her the stars she loved so dearly. He continued to run, tears streaming down his face.