She opened her eyes to a deep violet sky spattered with lights of colors beyond imagination. Stars, flickering in and out of life, close enough that she could reach out and bury her hands in them like sand. She’d tried many times before, but night after night the stars proved themselves capable of evading all attempts at capture.
It was another dusk. Another breathtaking view she was blessed enough to take for granted.
Naomi paused to survey the sky and found Taurus in full bloom inches from her nose. An endless expanse of blackness, pressed up against a glass-like surface beneath her feet, and Earth, tucked neatly between folds of empty space. She allowed her gaze to dance from constellation to galaxy to nebula until finally, it fell on the faint radiance of sunset on the other side of the sky. And outlined against the glowing embers was the Sun himself.
Naomi’s heart had stopped skipping at the sight of space laid out above her long ago, but it had never ceased to flutter at the sight of him. She didn’t know his name, didn’t know what he looked like. She knew nothing about him except the shape of his silhouette against the fiery sky, yet she had once believed with every ounce of her being that he was destined for her, and she for him. He had to be. He was the Sun. She was the Moon.
That was before she had given up on him, though. Just like she had given up on the stars and on her mother. It wouldn’t happen. They had never seen each other but for across this ridiculous expanse, so even if they did meet in back on Earth, they would have no idea. It would be pointless and heartbreaking to hope.
An instinct, a tingling sensation beneath her ribs, reminded her that she had yet to send the moon swimming up into the sea of stars above her. Habit claimed her and tugged her eyes away from him, not hesitating to set her limbs to work immediately. She stretched out her palm and coaxed the moon up from its sleep below the horizon and led it upwards, releasing it like a child would a balloon.
This kind of serenity was hard to come by on the planet nestled so tightly beneath her, yet she felt it every dawn and dusk as she guided her moon over and under the horizon. Rarely interrupted, the peace she found here was—
Shoot. She had a paper to write for history. Due tomorrow.
Double-checking that the moon was safely on its course above her, Naomi crossed her legs and sat, letting her eyelids slide shut. She concentrated, willing her consciousness to leave this place behind, and after a moment, felt her body jolt awake in her bed. She shook the sleep out of her joints and rolled over beneath the blankets, groaning and seriously considering forgetting the paper altogether.
Suddenly, a memory struck her hard in the gut — the image of her dad at the kitchen table in the middle of the night, a mess of bills fanned out in front of him. Naomi had poked her head around the corner, shallow breaths whispering between her lips as she observed, unnoticed. He bit the pad of his thumb, and a broken, desperate sound escaped, one hand stringing through greying hair while the other struggled to make ends meet for an ambitious college student, two hungry young girls, and a lonely father. She’d stayed there too long, scared to move and betray her intrusion, but agonized to keep watching as silent tears crept down his cheeks.
The consideration died there. Resolve took its place. The tack, tack of computer keys echoed through her room until pale moonlight began to shrink away from the window.
⫷⫸
Sometimes, Naomi wished people could just shut up.
Sadly, the group on the other side of the amphitheater-style classroom didn’t seem to possess that capability — Monday morning and they were already at it again. They were the popular kids, or as popular as one could get in a small college like McLeod. Jocks, probably, or theatre kids, with maybe one truly intelligent student mixed in to cheat off of. She hardly knew any of their names; Carson was the lanky guy who always wore a leather jacket no matter the weather, Taylor was the class hunk kicked back next to him with his feet on the table (Naomi was a proud member of the dwindling group of freshmen who hadn’t yet fallen prey to his advances), and Shannon was constantly either chewing her gum as loud as humanly possible or getting a bit too friendly with one of the guys (or both). There were more, but Naomi didn’t know any of their names. A kid wearing a shirt that, unfortunately, wasn’t buttoned all the way, humming along to his headphones just slightly off-key. Her nose crinkled in distaste. A dark-headed guy that had draped his arm around the girl beside him, who had snow-white skin, a thick braid of silky blonde hair and perhaps the thinnest build Naomi had ever seen. Every time the boy next to her opened his mouth, she tossed her head back and laughed, but by the confused look on his face, he didn’t seem to have said anything funny. How disappointing that every last one of the caricatures at the university happened to be in 10:30 American History.
One guy, who she thought could have been Paul or something, seemed to be the only palatable one of the bunch — even if he was just as loud as the rest, he didn’t have to shove his way into the conversation. He just spoke, and people listened. His short, wavy hair was a rich chocolate brown, quite a few shades darker than his honeyed skin, and by its volume seemed resistant to a good brushing. Where his friends were piled on top of tables and perched atop the backs of chairs, Paul-Or-Something sat in his seat like a normal person with passable manners. Where his friends wore obnoxiously bright hoodies and collared shirts with too many buttons undone, he had come in a simple maroon tee and jeans. He didn’t look like he was trying too hard to impress everyone. But then again, he might be. Considering the circus act around him.
Naomi only realized she had been staring when he looked away from his crowd and caught her gaze. Clenching her jaw, she pressed her focus back down to the history textbook in front of her before he could smile at her, after which she knew her nice-person instincts would kick in and force her to smile back.
Minutes and paragraphs slid by, but she could still feel his eyes on her. She dared to peek through a curtain of black corkscrew curls to see if he really was still watching, not surprised to find that he was. He gave a little sideways grin, and almost immediately her lips quirked into a smiling response, just as she’d expected. What she hadn’t expected, though, was for the rest of his group to take notice, and their snickers sent her heart beating double time. She shrunk into her seat, away from the eyes boring into her, and adjusted the giant circle frames sliding off her nose as she busied herself with the textbook reading. Naomi stole short, nervous glimpses, pretending she was fascinated by Thomas Jefferson’s time in France, while the guys shoved Paul-Or-Something out of his seat. Taylor whooped and the guy with the headphones teased about catching a fish.
He stumbled out from behind his table, tripping over legs and steps and his own feet as he made his way towards her, finally catching his balance in the center of the room. Professor Chae, kicked back at her desk, cast an amused glance toward the commotion before returning to her grading, evidently unbothered by the fact that nobody was working on the group project she’d just assigned. Paul-Or-Something shrugged and threw a sheepish look at Naomi as he took a step forward, and something seized in her core. Anxiety placed an icy hand on her shoulder, and her face went hot with blush. She sucked in a sharp breath, frantically searching the room for anyone or anything to defend herself with, but the students around her were either paying no attention or content to simply consume the drama. He didn’t seem to recognize the alarm in her expression until he was only a few feet away from her table, and his brow puckered with concern.
He’d gotten nearly halfway through an awkward apology when the bell tower a few buildings away cut him off, signaling noon and the end of class. Naomi didn’t wait for him to finish as she threw her backpack over her shoulder, whipping out from behind her table where her textbook lay forgotten. She cut a clear path to the door, bursting through into blinding daylight and fresh air — a welcome change from the almost suffocating classroom. She downed a ragged breath. McLeod University’s campus was natural and beautiful, speckled with towering oaks and cedars, but Naomi didn’t stop to admire it as she rushed swiftly to the nearest water fountain. She nearly collided with the fixture, gulping up as much water as she could, the coolness of it easing the burning blush in her cheeks.
It’s like they wanted me to have a meltdown, she thought to herself. Why would he do that? And his friends… Everyone was staring… like they had nothing better to do than watch me make a complete—
“Naomi? Are you okay?”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
She started at the voice behind her, accompanied by the brush of a tentative hand on her shoulder. Khirad.
Naomi squeezed her eyes shut and turned to face the voice, swiping a hand across her lips to catch the water dripping from them. Khirad was a small girl, one who never seemed to run out of clothes nor compassion. There was genuine sympathy in her face, partially concealed by a tide of platinum-dyed waves pulled into a hasty ponytail on top of her head. Her hair, barely darker than a bright white, contrasted sharply with her rich tan skin, which had always reminded Naomi of the polished stones that frame a riverbed. Naomi was relieved to see her; in fact, she didn’t know if she could handle anybody else right now.
"Yeah, I’m sorry. I just don’t like a lot of people looking at me. I didn’t mean to make a scene.”
Khirad listed her head, raising one brow with an understanding smile. “Believe me, you weren’t the one making the scene. Shannon and her guys do that just fine on their own.” She offered Naomi a textbook — her textbook, she realized — the one she had forgotten in her panicked retreat.
“Thank you,” Naomi said, reaching for the offering. It felt heavier in her hands than before.
“Are you sure you’re fine? Do you need maybe some ice cream or something? Cause my next class isn’t till four, and I just bought this raspberry gelato that will literally knock your socks off. Which are really cute, by the way."
She followed Khirad’s gaze down her own legs, past her jeans to her polka dot crew socks. She chuckled at the pointlessness of Khirad’s little comment, but for some reason it had hushed the buzz in her ears. “Thanks, really, but I think I might just go find a hammock and draw something. It’s a nice day outside, and I’ve got some time to kill, and sketching always helps me calm down.”
Khirad nodded like she understood, reaching up to give Naomi’s arm a little squeeze before releasing her. “Let me know if you’re free soon though. That gelato really is to die for.”
⫷⫸
Quiet chatter wove its way between the fresh afternoon breezes of the campus, which swayed the bright green branches of countless trees. Naomi’s empty hammock, strung loosely between two of them, rocked gently with the wind as she approached. She had intended to lay there, relax and sketch, maybe take a short nap on this beautiful day. But a conversation a few yards to her left barely caught her attention, a boy speaking with his mother over the phone as he leaned against a tree. They chatted back and forth in a cheerful discussion over what was going on back home without him. He listened as she spoke, smiling sentimentally as she told him what he was missing, then asked her the simple question, “Where are you?”
Three little words that you learn as a toddler, strung together to form one little question, hit Naomi like a bus. She found herself without breath as it rang around in her skull. Where are you, mom?
The hammock was forgotten. She pivoted sharply, set on a new destination. Determined steps drove her toward the squat brick building, the bell tower that crowned it still holding to a slight and fading hum from its midday toll — her new best friend. She passed through the glass doors of the library quickly and sat herself down at a computer. The library’s resource site offered her every book available on the topic and directed her to their location. Selecting four promising candidates, she combed the shelves to find them. Checked them out quietly. Settled down at a table outside in the sweet spring air, placed the first book formally square in front of her, and paused apprehensively.
Angels, In Nature, Habit, and Interaction.
It wasn’t that Naomi had never been curious about her mother. She had asked her dad about her many times over the years, though he had never given a truly satisfying answer. But he was the only one who actually knew the woman, and therefore the only primary source in this enigma. Earlier in Naomi’s childhood, the story of her mother had been a wound too fresh and tender for him to reopen. Later, after he married Carly, Naomi’s stepmom, there was a certain element of discomfort that came with asking him for details. How he felt about her now, what she looked like, how they met. What her name was — Naomi didn’t even know that. It was crazy how nineteen years had slipped away in the blink of an eye and she still knew next to nothing.
The few points he did divulge to her, however, were these: her mother was an angel, which explained why Naomi had been tasked with guiding the moon throughout the sky every day. Well, did it? The more she thought about it, the more she realized that her father’s skin-and-bones responses gave her even less of a complete picture of her family than she had assumed. She shuddered and continued her short inventory of every bit of information she had.
Her mother was an angel. She didn’t stick around after the pregnancy, and had made no contact with the child she produced nor the man with whom she produced it. Naomi was special because of a woman she never knew. When she was a kid, her father promised her that eventually, her mom would come back, but she had come to terms over the years with the fact that this was nothing more than wishful thinking.
And that was it. That was all she knew about her mother.
No, there was something else, something she had figured out on her own. At seven years old, Naomi became the Moon, meaning there must have been someone else holding that position before her. She had a gut feeling that her mother had been the previous Moon, but decided she would let an informed opinion determine that rather than a hunch. Angels, In Nature, Habit, and Interaction. She took a deep breath and flipped open to the first page.
About two hours passed, over the course of which the breeze ruffled the pages of the books and Naomi discovered a few things about the role angels played in different religious systems, but nothing that seemed consistent beyond the surface level with what she already knew. She elected to discard two of the four books that weren’t particularly relevant to her research. She was just about to crack open the fourth and final volume when a melody, barely a whisper at first, began to float around her. The sound was sweet and mysterious, alluring and soft, and it persuaded her up from her seat. A momentary conflict occurred within her, but her brain was already saturated with information and she needed a break. Curiosity quickly won out. Her feet had fallen asleep and were hesitant to walk so soon, but convinced that if they had to, this was the only path they could choose.
The delicate music strung her across the grass, growing louder with proximity and more complex as the melody progressed. She was surprised to find that her destination was one of the boys’ dorms — specifically, a second-floor room with the window left open. White curtains fluttered quietly at the corners of the window, and though Naomi couldn’t see inside, she found herself content to simply stand and listen. She thought the sound might have come from a harp. It was beautiful. She stayed like that for a while, letting herself glide further out of focus.
Her trance was shattered by an unplanned note that was so out of touch with the rest of the song that Naomi’s eyes flew open — she hadn’t even noticed she’d closed them. A frustrated sigh followed the misstep, and Paul-Or-Something from history appeared in the window. He wore an aggravated scrunch of his lips as he ruffled his hand through his hair, dropping his head between his arms and muttering half-hearted insults at himself. Instant nervousness took over, though not as potent as before, and as he lifted his head she froze. He broke into an easy grin.
“Oh, it’s you,” he began, pausing to reach up and twirl the ends of his hair between his fingers. “Hey, I’m really sorry about scaring you like that in class.”
She shook her head immediately, hoping it would shoo away the butterflies in her stomach. “No, don’t worry about it. I just don’t like when lots of people are watching me, and I didn’t mean to run off like that. It just kind of happened, I didn’t…” She trailed off, cleared her throat. “That was you playing the— was that a harp?”
He half-groaned, half-laughed and dragged his hands over his face. “You heard that? That was awful! I miss that note every time.
“No, it was beautiful, really! Do you play with the orchestra?”
He shrugged. “I auditioned and I got in, but I didn’t realize they have late practices, and I—” He cut himself off. “I’ve got stuff to do, you know?
“So in other words, you’re too good for them?”
“Hey, you said it, not me."
She smiled. Talking to him was easy.
Propping his head on his hands, he cocked it to one side. “What’s your name? I don’t think I ever caught it.”
"Naomi,” she replied, leaning back against a nearby tree. “You’re— uh, is it Paul?”
"Paolo,” he corrected. “Lot of people call me Paul, but it’s Paolo.”
"Well, it’s nice to formally meet you, Paolo.” She opened her mouth to ask him another question, but her mind snapped back to her phone and books left laying out on the table outside the library, and she pushed herself off the tree. “Hey, I’m sorry, but I just realized I left my phone and stuff out when I came over here to— erm.” She coughed, choosing to omit the fact that she’d been eavesdropping on his practice. But he'd probably guessed that already. “Sorry, I just need to go make sure it’s still there. It’s been fun talking to you though. I’m sorry!”
Paolo chuckled and waved as she jogged backwards towards the direction she came. “I hope it’s still there when you get back. Nice to meet you, Naomi.”
"You too! Bye!” she called over her shoulder as she took off jogging towards the library. She was wide awake now, and her heart was beating hard, but it wasn’t from the running.
She wondered why.