The Price Of a Beautiful Night

There was once a young man whose greatest wish was to owe the Night a fortune.

This was a peculiar ambition, especially for someone who had very little money.

But every evening, the Night collected its dues from lovers, and every evening, the young man waited to be charged. Yet the night never came for him.

He longed for someone whose hand he might reach for beneath the stars, someone who would make even an ordinary evening worth paying for. But he had never been in love, and the Night had a bargain with the Sky to honor.

You see, every evening, the Night paid rent to the Sky for the privilege of existing beneath it. And every evening, it collected that rent from lovers.

A silver coin for a shooting star. Two for a particularly beautiful moon. A handful of gold for those nights when two people might look up, then at each other, and fall a little more in love.

The lonely, however, were allowed to look for free.

The Night had never objected to this condition of its agreement with the Sky. It knew that looking at something beautiful and having no one to turn to was its own kind of payment.

And so, although the young man had spent countless evenings beneath the stars, he had never paid a single coin.

It was an unusual business, certainly, but the Night had been conducting it for longer than the Earth itself had existed.

Long ago, when the Sky belonged entirely to the Day, the Night had approached it with a proposition.

“Let me rent a few of your hours.”

“And what would you do with them?”

“I would make them beautiful.”

“The Day is already beautiful.”

“Yes,” said the Night. “But the Day shows the world what is there. I should like to show it what might be.”

“And what would you offer me in return?”

“A share of everything I earn from those who come to admire it.”

The Sky laughed.

“Who would pay to look at darkness?”

“Wait and see.”

And so they struck a bargain.

When the Earth was young, the Night hung stars in the darkness, set the Moon to wander among them, and filled its borrowed hours with things that could not exist in daylight.

The bargain was said to have been the birth of wonder on Earth.

People also said the Night employed the stars as screenwriters of dreams. Each evening, they composed adventures, romances, impossible journeys, and occasional reunions with people who could no longer be found among the living.

The young man, meanwhile, spent much of his life beside the ocean.

He knew the names of the stars, their seasons, and the evenings when the Moon would rise so large and red that it seemed almost close enough to touch.

He knew something else, too.

The Moon spoke to the Ocean every night.

He had watched their conversations since he was a boy: the way the waves reached toward the moonlight, the way the tides rose as though answering a call, the way the Ocean could never quite touch the Moon, yet never stopped trying.

He knew they were speaking. For why else would every encounter between them feel like a magnet drawing his soul to the very edge of his skin?

But he had never understood a word.

Perhaps their language was too old for human ears. Or perhaps it was the sort one could only understand after falling in love.

Then, on a small stretch of coast beneath a very ordinary collection of stars, he met a girl.

She was sitting alone on a bench, wrapped in a coat much too large for her, looking up with such concentration that he wondered whether she was waiting for something.

“Are you looking for a particular star?” he asked.

“No. I’m trying to remember as many as I can.”

“Why?”

“In case they’re ever taken down.”

“Why would anyone take down the stars?”

“I don’t know. Repairs, perhaps.”

He laughed and sat beside her.

After a while, she pointed to a faint star near the horizon.

“That one’s my favorite.”

“Why?”

“It’s not very bright. But every evening, it’s the first one I look for. I think it would be sad if nobody noticed it.”

He looked at the little star.

“Well, now there are two of us.”

She smiled.

The next evening, he returned with a pastry.

She looked delighted.

“How did you know?”

“Know what?”

“That I was hoping you’d come back.”

He sat beside her, suddenly unable to think of anything to say.

She broke the pastry in half, carefully giving him the larger piece.

Soon he began looking forward to sunset, not because of the stars, but because he knew she would be beneath them.

She collected unusually shaped pebbles, rescued moths that flew into lamps, and always stopped to watch the last bird returning to its nest.

She was also a remarkably poor liar.

Once, when the wind was particularly cold, he offered her his coat.

“I’m perfectly warm,” she insisted, her teeth chattering.

“You’re shivering.”

“I’m excited.”

“About what?”

She looked around desperately.

“That cloud.”

He gave her his coat anyway.

She also believed, quite firmly, that the stars wrote dreams.

“Not all of them,” she explained. “Some are much too busy shining. But the ones that flicker are thinking of stories.”

“And the shooting stars?”

“Those are the ones who get fired.”

“For what?”

“Terrible endings, mostly.”

She told him that as a child she’d wished upon the brightest star, hoping it might write her a particularly lovely dream.

“And did it?”

“Once. I dreamed I was a queen.”

“Of where?”

“I don’t remember. But I had a magnificent horse, and everyone was very frightened of me.”

“That sounds about right.”

She nudged him.

“What do you dream about?”

“Nothing worth remembering.”

“How dreadful. I’ll have to speak to the stars about that.”

For a while, their evenings seemed to stretch endlessly before them.

But sometimes she grew tired before they reached the end of the beach. Sometimes she coughed until she had to stop speaking.

And sometimes she missed an evening altogether.

“I’ve been ill,” she told him one night.

“I thought something might be wrong.”

“I’ve been seeing doctors.”

He took her hand.

“How are you feeling?”

“Better today.”

“That’s good.” He hesitated. “Do they think you’ll get better?”

She looked down at their hands.

“That’s what we’re hoping.”

He held her hand a little tighter.

“Then that’s what we’ll hope.”

She smiled, and he wanted very much to believe her.

As the weeks passed, she began spending more afternoons at the hospital.

Once, after a difficult appointment, he found her crying outside.

“Bad news?” he asked.

“Nothing new.”

He sat beside her.

“I was supposed to go to the market today,” she said. “There’s a woman there who sells flowers. She gives me the ones with broken stems because she thinks nobody will buy them.”

He waited.

“I promised I’d come back for the yellow ones.”

“Would you like me to get them?”

She shook her head.

“I wanted to choose them myself.”

The next evening, he brought her a small yellow flower growing in a crack beside the road.

She held it as carefully as though he’d brought her something rare.

“Where did you find it?”

“Somewhere nobody was looking.”

She kissed his cheek.

One evening, on a hill overlooking the sea, she pointed toward a cluster of stars.

“Isn’t that beautiful?”

He looked up, then at her, and found the sky twice as beautiful.

A moment later, the Night appeared beside him, dressed in a coat of darkness with silver coins sewn into its sleeves.

“That’ll be three gold pieces.”

The young man stared at it.

“For me?”

“Three for you, and three for the lady.”

He looked at the girl, still gazing at the stars.

“Could I pay for both of us?”

“If you like.”

The young man reached into his pockets. He had very little money.

“What are the three pieces for?” he asked.

“One for the stars, one for the moon, and one for the way you looked at her just now.”

The young man smiled.

“Will it always cost this much?”

“Some nights more. Some nights less.”

“And if I want to spend every night with her?”

“Well,” said the Night, “that could become rather expensive.”

He looked at the girl.

“Then I hope,” he said, “that I die terribly poor.”

The Night laughed so loudly that a thousand stars trembled.

The young man counted out six gold pieces, and the Night accepted them with a little bow.

From then on, whenever the lovers sat beneath the stars, the Night came to collect.

Some evenings it charged only a silver coin. Others cost nearly everything he had in his pockets.

He never once complained.

But the girl’s strength continued to fade.

There were evenings when she could no longer reach the hill, so he came to her window instead, bringing stories of the stars and seashells from the shore.

The Night found them there, too, and the young man always paid.

He told her the Ocean still reached for the Moon every night.

“Do you think they’ll ever meet?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe they don’t need to.”

She watched the moonlight on the water.

“Although I’d be rather cross if I were the Ocean.”

“Why?”

“Imagine doing all that reaching and never getting so much as a kiss.”

“Perhaps the Moon is shy.”

“Then someone ought to tell her the Ocean’s been making a fool of himself for centuries.”

She smiled.

“Do you think they love each other?”

“I think so.”

“Then I suppose they’ll manage.”

As her illness worsened, she slept more often.

Sometimes she dreamed of walking along the shore without growing tired, or dancing beneath the stars.

Once, she dreamed of growing old.

“I had wrinkles,” she told him, “and grey hair, and a little garden behind our house.”

“Our house?”

She looked embarrassed.

“I hope you don’t mind. You were there too.”

“What was I doing?”

“Trying to grow strawberries. You weren’t very good at it.”

“Did we have children?”

“Two. They were always bringing home injured birds.”

“Did we have a nice house?”

“A small one. The roof leaked when it rained, but there was a window beside the bed where we could see the stars.”

He tried to smile.

She reached for his hand.

“It was a nice dream.”

“Do you think I’d really be so dreadful at growing strawberries?” he asked.

“I think you’d be worse.”

“I’d be excellent.”

“You watered the flower I gave you with tea.”

“It looked thirsty.”

She laughed.

“Well, we’ll have to plant something hardier.”

“We’ll plant whatever you like.”

“Strawberries,” she said firmly. “I’ve already decided.”

He held her hand until she fell asleep.

For a while, they continued to speak of getting better.

The doctors had always spoken of treatments, of rest, of waiting to see.

Then one afternoon, they stopped speaking of getting better.

When he visited her, she was sitting by the window, still wearing her coat, a small paper bag of medicine resting beside her.

“They don’t think it’s going to work,” she said.

He sat beside her and took her hand.

For a long while, neither of them spoke.

A few days later, he passed a stall selling strawberry plants.

He stood looking at them for a long time.

He did not buy one.

On her last evening, she asked him to open the window.

The sky was unusually clear.

“Will you still look at them?” she whispered.

“Every night.”

“Even when I’m gone?”

He tried to answer.

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“And don’t be sad when they’re beautiful.”

“How could I not be?”

“Because I’ll have seen them with you.”

They watched the stars for a while.

“You once said you’d speak to them about my dreams,” he said.

“I remember.”

“Do you think you still could?”

“What would you like me to tell them?”

He looked toward the window.

“That I wouldn’t mind dreaming of you.”

She smiled.

“You could have asked me that while I was here.”

“I’m asking now.”

“Then I’ll see what I can do.”

He held her hand.

“Are you afraid?” she asked.

“No.”

She looked at him for a moment.

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“I learned from you.”

She gave a small laugh.

He climbed into the bed beside her, and she rested her head against his chest.

He held her until the stars began to fade.

Before morning, she was gone.

For months afterward, he avoided the night.

He closed his curtains and stayed away from the hill. The Night, noticing his absence, did not come to collect.

He dreamed of her sometimes.

Not often enough.

They would be sitting on their bench, walking along the shore, or looking for that little star near the horizon.

Sometimes she laughed. Sometimes she was simply there.

And every time he woke, he wished he could return.

Sometimes, despite himself, he still looked for her little star in the evening sky.

He always found it.

Then he would remember that nobody was waiting to hear he’d found it.

Then, one evening, he found himself walking toward the ocean.

The Moon hung low over the horizon. He sat on the sand and listened.

For years, he had imagined the Ocean pleading with the Moon to come closer. Every rising tide was an attempt to reach her; every retreat, the sorrow of failing.

He had thought their conversations must be full of longing. What else could two things so beautiful, and so impossibly far apart, have to say to one another?

But that evening, he heard something he had never heard before.

Or perhaps he had heard it a thousand times.

The Moon was saying,

“How beautiful you are tonight.”

And the Ocean answered,

“Only because I am holding your reflection.”

“But you hold the stars as well.”

“Yes,” replied the Ocean. “But it is you who taught me to look up.”

The waves moved softly against the shore.

“Do you ever grow tired of looking at me?” asked the Moon.

“Never.”

“Even though you have seen me a thousand times?”

“I have seen you a thousand times,” said the Ocean, “and loved you differently in every one.”

The Moon was quiet for a while.

“And when I am hidden from you?”

“Then I remember how beautiful the world was when you were shining upon it.”

The young man began to cry.

All his life, he had mistaken the reaching of the waves for a plea, their retreat for an answer. He had imagined the Moon and Ocean spending their eternity speaking of all the space between them.

Yet neither had said a word about it.

The Ocean had never touched the Moon. It had never needed to, to carry her light across its waters.

And even on nights when the Moon was hidden, the tides still rose.

The young man lifted his head.

For the first time in months, he looked at the stars.

He looked until his eyes hurt, until the tears blurred them into little trembling lights.

Then he whispered into the night,

“How beautiful you are tonight.”

“That makes three gold pieces,” said a familiar voice.

The Night stood beside him, its dark coat stirring in the sea breeze.

The young man turned, startled.

The Night looked almost as surprised as he did.

“Forgive me,” it said. “An old habit.”

It glanced at the stars, then back at him.

“It’s been a long time.”

The young man nodded.

“I heard about the girl,” said the Night. “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.”

For a while, they watched the Ocean carrying the Moon across its surface.

At last, the Night cleared its throat.

“Well. I suppose I ought to leave you to it.”

The young man reached into his pocket.

“Wait.”

He held out three gold pieces.

The Night looked at them.

“Oh, there’s no need for that,” it said. “The stars are free tonight.”

“I know.”

The young man took its hand and placed the coins in its palm.

“One for the stars. One for the moon.”

He looked up.

“And one for the way she still makes me see them.”

The Night stared at the coins.

For a long while, it said nothing.

Then it tucked them carefully into its coat.

And so, night after night, the young man returned to the shore with three gold pieces in his pocket.

Though the Night never asked him to pay, he always did.

The stars continued writing dreams. The Moon continued speaking to the Ocean, and the Ocean continued answering her.

And on certain nights, the young man dreamed of the girl.

Nothing extraordinary.

Just the two of them, sitting beneath the heavens.

She would point toward the little star near the horizon.

He would tell her he’d already found it.

And she would smile.

He never knew whether these were gifts from the stars or memories his heart refused to surrender.

But he was grateful all the same.

And the lonely were allowed to look at the stars for free.

But he had loved her far too much to ever see them for free again.