Prologue

a prologue

Two children lay side by side, nestled in a gap between two dunes. The sand beneath was soft, and by day it would have been golden. With the velvet-black sky studded with silver, and the sea at their feet that but an hour ago had been brightest cobalt, they could have been lying in a jewellery box; except that the air was fresh, and no box would feel this open or free.

The figure on the left was a boy, the other a girl. They were ten, more or less, but neither had kept count of their age, and if they had they would have used their own world’s year. They were certainly old enough that they might feel uncomfortable together, or fear the jibes of their peers, but they knew neither. It was hard to say why they were there: they might have been there since morning, or have come out to enjoy the evening breeze; they might have been waiting for something, or just be enjoying each other’s company. There may have been other people nearby, or not; to the two, it did not matter.

Not that their relationship was romantic. Over their lives, they had rarely considered such things, nor wondered at their friendship whatsoever; they had simply always been there. Thoughts of separation had never troubled them.

This night, however, the merest shadow of such a thought had entered one of their minds. The girl, who was slightly the elder of the two, caught this whisper in her mind and examined it, thoughtfully, as a naturalist might an interesting moth. It was an intriguing but worrying notion. She noticed that her skin had grown goosebumps, and that surprised her because the evening was warm, but such things happened sometimes.

No such puzzling thoughts had entered the boy’s mind. He was staring above them, counting the stars. He had reached well over two hundred already, and his gaze had barely passed the peak of Thomas Tilly’s house. He knew about the Kingdom of a Thousand Stars, and had heard it said that they ruled the whole universe; did that mean that there were only a thousand stars? He was sure there must be more.

With that chain of thought wrapped up, he half-turned his head to look at the girl next to him. He had felt, or possibly sensed, a slight shudder from her, and realised something had troubled her.

She met his eyes, silently urging her to share her thoughts. She felt a moment’s hesitation as she began, causing her to falter after the words “Do you think...” and pause to gather her thoughts, before asking “Will it always be like this?”

She was having difficulty putting her thoughts into words, and he could tell she felt uncomfortable; but her question had taken him by surprise, so he took his time in answering.

“Some things will change,” he said, eventually, “but not everything. I think most things will stay the same.”

“Will we? Will we stay...” Her voice trailed away, but he had understood, and his answer was definite.

“Forever.”

But his lifelong friend was still not satisfied. She sat up, looking down at him. Perhaps she had matured faster than he, lost some of the naivety that clung to both of them; or perhaps some fore-echo of the future had sounded in her ears, for she asked “What if we get split up? The galaxy is so big... What if we get lost?”

The boy raised himself up on his arms until he was level with her, looking deep into her eyes. “We can meet back up again,” he said. “Here. Right here, on this beach. We’ll come back, and we’ll find each other.”

Without knowing quite why, she placed one of her hands on his, where it lay in the still-warm sand. “Promise?” she asked, gazing up into his eyes.

He inclined his head slightly; and then he said something he hadn’t meant to. The idea may have come from his previous thoughts, or as a message from some guiding spirit, he did not know; but the words would haunt them both for over half a decade.

“Not even a thousand stars could keep us apart,” he said, and both lay back down, comforted for the time being by his words.

Behind them, just over the mountains, the sky began to dance.