How I Wonder What You Are

The constant sounds of the deep city circled the bedroom. Sirens, horns, gigantic ad screens proclaiming the superiority of Coca-Cola - it was a wonder the little lump in the covers could sleep at all, let alone so soundly. David knelt by her bed and placed his hand on her small shoulder, jostling it carefully. Light from streetlamps, headlights, and those relentless neon advertisements intruded into the small space, so David could make out every detail of her peach and periwinkle quilt despite the midnight hour. “Ronnie,” he breathed. “Wake up, kid.” Her eyelashes quivered against the lacy pillow case, but she only pulled her stuffed something-or-other closer under her arm. She’d clung religiously to that something-or-other for exactly 365 days, ever since he’d bought it for her on her fifth birthday. It had caught her eye as he was walking her to the ice cream shop - a fat pointy-eared thing with gray fur, pink paws and not even one computer chip in its belly. David couldn’t decide if it was a hippo or a bear or a misshapen cat, but Veronica was in love with it. She had a way of loving things it didn’t make much sense to love. Himself included.
“Ronnie,” he repeated, giving her short black ponytail a gentle tug. At this, her eyes finally peeled open, revealing curious brown orbs so much like his own. He smiled at the sparkle of surprise he saw ignite in them immediately. “David!” she squeaked.
He held his finger to his lips, a gesture she childishly mimicked. “Happy birthday, Sis.” “When did you get here?” Ronnie asked in an overstated whisper. “Just a few minutes ago. You see, it’s midnight, August first 2062, and that means you are an official, certified six-year-old.” David rustled her sleep-crinkled bangs. Ronnie giggled into the furry back of the something-or-other. “Now get up. We’re going on an adventure.” She swung her legs out of the covers in an instant, eager and unafraid. “Where are we going?” “Somewhere very special. There’s something I want to show you.” But it was more than special. It was important, and it had to be now. David just knew it. He held out his hand and Veronica took it, her purple nightshirt hanging sleepily below her knees. She looked up into her brother’s face, beaming mischievously. Softly and silently, David, Ronnie, and the something-or-other slipped out the front door and into the rusty night.
The sky was painted shades of red and brown by the lights of the midnight city. It looked sick, muddy, at least to those who knew any better. It was a cloudless August night, but you had to squint to find a star, and even then, it was probably an airplane. The lights were much too loud for something as quiet as a star to be heard. It had been that way for most of David’s life and the entirety of Ronnie’s. She thought she knew what stars were – dots of yellow in a reddish-brown plain of squiggles she scrawled with crayon in her first grade classroom – but she would never know the genuine night David recalled from his own childhood. Not unless he did something about it.
It was a risky undertaking. He had been able to get Ronnie out of the house without waking their parents, a miracle in itself, but it was likely that they would come around and notice she was gone before he got her home. In hindsight, leaving a note would have been sensible. But David had never been one for sensible, which is why he had to pick locks in the middle of the night to see his baby sister in the first place. The protests he led against his father’s factory had been the last straw. Not only was he a “hippie,” a miscreant, and a college dropout, he was a betrayer. No person like that could be allowed to influence their precious, innocent Veronica. David was cavalier when it came to consequences (what was the significance of that term paper in the real scheme of things anyway?), but losing Ronnie was the one exception. She was the only person he really cared about, ever since she was born two weeks before his fourteenth birthday. To the world they were opposites, this scruffy black sheep with a cigarette and this little princess in pigtails. But in their hearts, they knew they were made for each other. She said David’s name before “Daddy,” and David insisted that hers was “Ronnie,” despite their mother’s vehement protests. He would see her. If it involved breaking and entering and what he considered only a mild case of kidnapping, then so be it. It was just one night. But he knew confronting his parents would be the least dire of the obstacles in carrying out his plan.
As they drove through the blinding color and lights of the expansive city, David’s small car seemed a little less gray than usual. Veronica squirmed and giggled in the passenger seat, highly amused by the fact that she was in the car while wearing her pajamas and much too delighted to be with her big brother to notice the strangeness of what they were doing. She talked about imaginary friends and kindergarten things and David listened, just as blissful on the inside as Ronnie was on the outside. Happy minutes stretched into sleepy hours as they continued to drive. Ronnie was fast asleep by the time the urban landscape finally began to change, two hours along. As he glanced over at her, hugging the something-or-other tightly in her sleep, David was at peace. Whatever happened to him tonight, she was worth it.
The old, tired brakes whimpered as David pulled the car over onto the side of the road. The sound was enough to wake Ronnie, who opened her eyes to a very peculiar place. Here it was quiet, dark. The road only had two lanes and there were hardly any cars passing by. On either side of the road were tall, perfect trees standing close together and appearing to form an infinite line. Their high branches reached out over the road, creating a ceiling of leaves that shivered as a breeze touched it. So quiet.
As she became increasingly aware, Ronnie’s face scrunched up in confusion. “Good morning, birthday kid,” said David, smirking at her bewilderment. “Are…are we here?” “Almost,” David answered, grunting as he stepped out the driver’s side and stretched his constricted muscles. Ronnie soon followed his lead, getting out and mimicking his stretches. “We have to walk a little ways to get to it. That okay?” Ronnie looked down at her bare feet incredulously, and then turned her big brown eyes up to David. He knew that look. “Well,” he sighed, “it is your birthday.”
With the something-or-other in his hand and Ronnie on his shoulders, David trekked through the trees. All the while the tiny voice above his head made guesses at what her birthday surprise could be. They ranged from a castle to a chocolate factory to a Ferris wheel, but all were met with an amused “no.” Twenty minutes into the trees, the uncommon trio of voyagers met an iron fence. It almost looked lost among the trunks that were equally abundant on either side of it, like it had slid away from the definite border it was meant to guard. But David knew better. The trees past the fence were just another deterrent to trespassers, meant to conceal the secret beyond them as thoroughly as possible. But the fence itself was low, over-confident in its obscure location. David lifted Ronnie over the fence, followed by the something-or-other, who Ronnie insisted be moved as safely as possible to her. Then, after only a bit of scrambling, David managed to climb over the iron bars himself. Ronnie resumed her place on his shoulders and they continued on.
As little as David wanted to reveal about where they were going, Ronnie would not let up about that fence. She would not be distracted, not by any forest sounds David tried to point out, and not even when he abandoned his dignity and asked her about that boy band she liked. Eventually, he buckled. “Where we’re going…it’s technically someone’s yard. The fence goes around it.” “A yard? Like the yard of a castle?” Ronnie’s grip tightened around David’s neck in excitement. “You could say that,” he choked, and the skinny arms loosened their gasp. Castle was as a good a term as any for the building that lied further beyond the fence. “Why did we go over the fence though? Why couldn’t the castle people just let us in like normal?” “Well…they’re sleeping, Ronnie.” Also technically true. The wealthy CEO and his family and staff would be fast asleep in their beds, hopefully oblivious to the odd trio of three a.m. visitors. “Why didn’t we just come when they’re awake then?” So many whys. “Because the surprise only comes out at night. That’s how it gets its magic.” David hoped this promise of magic would be argument enough for a six-year-old. Ronnie became strangely quiet for a moment, her enthusiasm briefly overtaken by concern. “But…won’t the castle people be mad?” David was casual in his response. He was used to sweetening up the truth, be it to professors, his parents, or potential one-night stands. But tonight, he mostly just didn’t want to frighten Ronnie. “Of course not. I called them up and told them it was my favorite kid’s birthday, and they were more than happy to let us come and see. Don’t ask so many questions, Ronnie. Your big brother’s got it all sorted out.”
Just then, the trees abruptly gave way to a sprawling plain of soft, perfect grass. A three - story house stood solid in the distance, cloaked in darkness apart from two faint porch lights whimpering half-hearted light. No lamplight shown through any of the windows. David relaxed a bit at that fact. “We’re here!” he announced, tickling Ronnie’s cold bare feet as they stepped out from the forest and onto the lawn. She giggled lightly, clambering to be let down. “Stay close to me,” David advised as he set Ronnie down in front of him. “And remember - ” He put his index finger against his lips, and Ronnie was quick to mirror him, quieting her tinkling laughter. “Are we going to play in the pool?” she gasped excitedly, pointing toward the fenced in oval of still water on the east side of the lawn. David smiled. “Nope.” Ronnie looked around for a few moments, squinting, struggling to see anything at all in the exceptional darkness, let alone a Ferris wheel or a pony. “Then. . .what is it?” David’s hand wrapped around hers completely as he gently took it. “Look up.”
Surely, this was more than sky. This exquisite darkness was more than darkness. It was blackness like the deep middle of a lover’s eye, David mused, like some rare and polished stone on the bracelet of an empress. It was a blackness that was thought to have left the world, to be replaced with rust and cloud. But, impossibly, that wasn’t even half of the beauty of this more-than-sky. Suspended in this blackness were the most stunning creatures David and Ronnie had ever seen. Thousands of stars, quiet and perfect, looked down upon the earth with their wise, unspoiled light. That night, it seemed that they only had eyes for the shaggy boy and wide-eyed girl gazing up from the lawn. Ronnie was quiet for a long time. David began to worry that she was disappointed in her surprise, that her capacity for true, organic wonder was already lost. Then, she whispered a single word. “Beautiful.”
David and Ronnie (and the something-or-other) lay down on the damp lawn, hand in hand, gazing up at the wonder above them. It felt like minutes and months were passing by at the same time. These stars had a way of making life seem both exceptionally still and dizzyingly infinite at once. David was expecting lots of questions once he revealed his gift to Ronnie. Why was the sky so different here? Why did it get the way it was back home? How come only rich people got to live with the nice sky? But to his surprise they didn’t come. He severed his gaze from the stars to try and read what Ronnie was thinking. It was dark, but the moonlight was just enough to softly illuminate her face. Every once in a while, her lips would twitch into a small smile as if she had been told a wonderful secret. Other times she would hold her mouth open, breathing slowly in, as if trying to commit the taste of the air to memory. But no matter what the rest of her was doing, her eyes were open, shimmering, looking farther than they had ever been able to look before. As he looked at her, a strange feeling came over David. It was a kind of deep, inexplicable sense of sameness between them. Whether she seemed older or he felt younger, David couldn’t decide. Something about these stars, the ancientness of them, their quiet power, made them seem more together than he had ever realized.
With his head turned, David could see the light in the downstairs window of the mansion turn on. He could see the silhouette of the man walk up to it and then hastily disappear. He could hear the opening and closing of what must have been the front door. But he didn’t move. He didn’t even feel his heart skip with the instinct to flee. He felt unreachable, in a time between six and twenty, somewhere off the grass and up among those perfect stars with Ronnie. Ronnie’s eyes showed that she was there too, and David would not be the one to drag her out. “David?” she finally asked, her voice as deep and quiet as her breathing. David heard muffled footsteps and a single sweep of a flashlight beam caught in the corner of his eye . “Yeah, Sis?” “I think I see God.” The flashlight beam swept over them again, and the footsteps shuffled through the grass more determinedly, but Ronnie was only looking at the sky, and David was only looking at Ronnie. He swore he could see the stars reflected in her brown eyes. He imagined them floating there forever, holding pieces of her wonder, little flecks of this moment remaining within her always. Whatever happened to him tonight would be worth it as long as she remembered those stars, remembered being six years old and full of wonder, and maybe even remembered him. As he looked into her innocent eyes he softly answered, “Me too.”