The astronomer looked down at the jar in Thomas’s hands. Its captured spark glowed faintly against the glass, small enough to hide beneath one palm.
Thomas had meant to ask as soon as he found the old man. He had rehearsed it on the walk over, too. Now his words came out rough and plain.
“The thing I can’t remember. The song my mother sang.”
The astronomer’s face softened, but he did not offer comfort before he knew what comfort could honestly promise. “Tell me what you remember of it.”
Thomas pressed the jar to his coat. “She sang it when I was little. I know that. I can remember lying in bed and hearing her voice. I can’t remember the tune.” He swallowed. “I can’t remember any of the words.”
The old man nodded once. “The jar takes a precious memory from whoever catches the light.”
Thomas stared at him. “Every time?”
“Every time.”
The answer settled between them. Thomas’s fingers tightened around the glass. He had thought the missing song might be somewhere in his head, tucked behind a thought he hadn’t found yet. He had wanted the astronomer to point out where to look.
“Then it took that.”
“It may have.” The astronomer’s voice stayed careful. “I can’t tell you exactly how the jar chooses. I can’t tell you whether a memory lost this way ever returns.”
Thomas’s eyes burned. He blinked hard and looked at the spark. The first thing the jar had taken was his mother’s voice singing to him. Not a story from a book, or the name of a faraway village. Something she had given him when the night felt too big and he was too small to sleep alone.
The astronomer rested one hand on his walking stick. “You caught the light before you understood the price.”
“I thought you meant it would be hard to keep.”
“I should have made the warning clearer.”
Thomas looked up. The old man’s regret was real. It did not put the song back.
“Can I put it back?”
“I don’t know.”
The answer was too small to hold the hurt, but it was the only one the astronomer had. Thomas tucked the jar into his coat, turning the glass so the spark faced inward.
His mother was waiting at home. The star above the cottage had dimmed again while he was gone. He could still see it through the old man’s open door, a pale pinprick with a thin, unsteady edge.
Next
Will Thomas catch the falling shard, knowing the jar will take another precious memory from him?
“Thomas,” the astronomer said, as the boy turned away. “You don’t have to catch another.”
Thomas paused with one hand on the doorframe.
He thought of the missing tune. He thought of his mother leaning toward the jar last night, her eyes searching until the tiny glow came clear to her. The little light was still there. He could take it to her. He could give her that much without losing anything more tonight.
“I know,” he said.
He walked home with one hand closed around the jar.
His mother was in her chair beside the window, a folded blanket over her knees. She turned her face toward his steps.
“You found your way back.”
“I know the path.”
“That’s good. It would be a nuisance to lose you in the dark.” Her smile was gentle, but she didn’t reach for the needlework in her lap. The cloth lay untouched. “Were you able to speak with him?”
Thomas had not thought of what he would tell her. He set the jar on the table, keeping his coat draped over it. “I asked him about the light.”
“And?”
“He said it would stay in the jar.”
The answer was true. It left out the thing he could not say yet. His mother waited a moment, then nodded as if she’d heard the rest of the answer in his silence.
“Would you show me?”
Thomas lifted the jar from beneath his coat. His mother leaned forward. At this distance she could see the spark, and her face brightened with recognition.
“There you are,” she whispered.
“It’s a little brighter in the dark.”
“Then we should turn out the lamp.”
Thomas went to the wall switch and plunged the room into shadow. The jar’s glow laid a soft, amber spot across the table. It did not light the whole cottage. It made no grand change to the night outside. It only gave the darkness a center, something close enough for his mother to see.
She moved her hands toward it. Thomas carried the jar to her, holding it where she could look without straining. The light reflected in her eyes, and for a moment she seemed to be watching the star above their roof again.
“Tell me what’s happening out there,” she said.
Thomas went to the window. He could see the familiar star, dim but steady for now. Beyond it, the other stars filled the sky, each one sharp against the endless dark.
“The one above the cottage is still there,” he said. “It’s faint. The little one beside it looks like it’s trying to keep it company.”
“Does it?”
“I think so.”
His mother tilted her head toward the window. “I used to tell you that one was yours.”
“You did?”
“You always picked it out. Even when you were very small. You’d point to it and tell me you could see it blinking.”
Thomas tried to find the memory. He had known the star for as long as he could remember. He knew where it sat above the cottage and how it looked on a clear night. But there was no picture of himself as a little boy pointing from the window. No sound of his mother telling him it was his.
“Maybe I was right,” he said. “It does blink.”
His mother laughed softly. The sound warmed the room more than the lamp had. “You were very certain about it.”
“I still am.”
She reached for his hand. He let her take it. Her fingers were familiar, though a little thinner than he remembered. Her thumb stroked his knuckles once, an old, absent gesture.
“Thank you for bringing the light in,” she said. “I can see it.”
Thomas sat on the edge of her chair and watched her gaze rest on the jar. He wanted to tell her about the song. He wanted to ask her to sing it once, while he could still hear her voice. The words reached his mouth and stopped there. He did not know how to ask for something he couldn’t remember.
His mother’s hand stayed over his. They sat together until the small spark seemed less like a thing he had stolen from the sky and more like a shared lamp, a point they could both look toward.
Then the star above the cottage flickered.
Thomas leaned toward the window. A narrow shard of light slipped loose and began to fall. It drifted past the roofline, bright against the dark, headed for the garden below.
His mother followed the turn of his head. “What is it?”
“Another piece,” he said.
He reached for the jar on the table.
The spark fell toward the ground. Thomas held the glass open beneath it, his fingers trembling around the rim. He could still hear his mother’s voice, even if he could not remember the song. The astronomer’s warning moved through him, clear as the falling light.