The Stepping-Stones of the Night Sky

Soli could not sleep. She had lain in her bed for a long time, counting everything she could think of: the buttons on her sweater, the cracks in the floor, how many times the cat sighed in its basket. She had also turned her pillow three times, hunting for the very coolest side, but the pillow was already lukewarm everywhere. And she had counted backwards from a hundred, and lost herself at sixty-two. But sleep would not come. Her eyes were wide open, and her thoughts moved in small, slow circles. At last she got up and tiptoed down the hallway, out onto the porch, where the evening air was cool and almost entirely still.

It was that hour between evening and night, when the sky is blue as blueberry juice and the houses seem to breathe more slowly. Soli sat down on the top porch step with her feet against the cool wood. She looked up. Far away above the edge of the forest, a single small star kindled, so clear she could almost hear it. It blinked once. Then it blinked again, a little longer, as though it wanted to catch her gaze. All around her it was very quiet. Only the crickets played in the grass, and somewhere beyond the hedge a frog muttered to itself, mostly out of habit. Soli drew in a breath and tasted, in the evening air, a faint hint of hens and freshly cut grass and the neighbour's late coffee.

Soli whispered back, 'Hello.' She felt a little silly, you don't really say hello to stars, but then something odd happened. The star grew suddenly clearer, as though it were leaning forward. And inside her head, right in among her own thoughts, she heard a very calm voice. 'Did you know,' said the voice, 'that the night sky is laid with stepping-stones? Only those on the edge of sleep can see them.'

Soli held her breath. She looked up again, very slowly, and blinked the way she always did just before falling asleep, that heavy, soft blink, when the eyelids feel cushioned. And then she saw them. A stone, just above the porch railing, glowed gently like a wet little moon. And beyond it another. And beyond that another still. They were round and warm and they made a long, careful arc all the way up across the sky.