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Glowing orbs seemed to float in mid-air, illuminating the room with their soft, otherworldly light.
In the center of the room stood a massive telescope, its polished brass fittings gleaming in the starlight.
The telescope seemed almost alive, with its lenses shifting and adjusting as though it were watching the sky for some hidden wonder.
As I approached the telescope, I noticed that the floor was marked with a complex pattern of symbols and runes.
I recognized some of them from my studies, and others were completely unfamiliar to me.
Suddenly, the telescope began to hum, and a voice spoke from somewhere deep within its brass frame. "Welcome, young wizard," the voice said. "I am the observatory's guardian, and I have been waiting for you."
I looked at Rory, my eyes almost shooting out of their sockets. She giggled.
“Wait, how is this happening?”
She flourished her hands around like a little fae. “Magic. And a little bit of fate.”
The guardian of the observatory continued to speak, explaining the mysteries and wonders of the stars and the cosmos.
There had to be a room somewhere, some kind of speaker or some technology attached to it—but tonight, I wanted to let the child in me run free.
Growing up, observatories had been my solace from what went on at home. There was one near the family mansion, and I’d take Emma there and escape to the stars whenever I could.
It was always the same old story back within the confines of our home. Either Mom was shouting at Dad, or Dad was calling her a witch who’d set him on fire when he slept. It never let up.
Emma was very young when she saw Mom get hit for the first time. It messed with her head, but when she was old enough, she told me she wanted to make sure children like us got a fair shot at a good life.
I loved her for that. She was never one of those people who wanted to punish the world because something bad had happened to her.
No. Her thing was to use her past and mobilize it to help others. It was... she was a woman of the people.
“I wanted to say thank you,” I whispered to Rory as we walked into a room where the ceiling was nothing but a projection of innumerable little stars.
“For what?”
“For telling Emma you’d do a paper with her. You have no idea how much it meant to her.”
“It was my honor. She’s got everything it takes to make a good social worker. A great one, in fact. I just thought writing it with me would make her miss the work enough to get back into it.”
I couldn’t help smiling. Rory had actually brought Emma closer to returning to her passion than any of us had been able to in these few years.
“I think you two will be great friends.”
“Wait till she meets Chelsea. I’ll become the third wheel while they do Wonderwoman shit.”
Rory and I lay down under the gilded ceiling. We stayed in quiet silence for the longest time. I ran over the constellations in my head. I remembered the myths I’d read when I was a kid.
Maybe Rory had read my mind, because she looked at me and grinned. “You’re thinking of some kind of a story, aren’t you?”
My lips curved. “I sure am.”
“Tell me.”
“I made this one up when I was a kid. I had no idea what I was doing, but I wanted my sister to have some stories. She needed to know the world wasn’t all dark, and I became her bedtime story reader. We didn’t have anyone to read books with us. I kinda took that role on.”
She nodded and pressed her hand into mine. “I have a lot to say. But let’s hear the story first.”
Just like that, I remembered the night I’d told a particular story to Emma. I had a book full of empty pages in front of me. Emma liked to believe I was reading from this magical book.
