Once upon a time there was a magic castle in which everything wilted but the soul of one boy.
He was six when she met him.
The girl had arrived with her mother to prepare a festive meal for his family. She roamed the hallways, gliding over the marble floors of his mansion on socked feet. She was five—far too young to appreciate the grand arches and courtyards of roses. She slid back and forth, occupying herself until her mother was done, while thunder cracked outside.
It was the kind of winter Bostonians talked about for years afterward, unyielding and persistent. The dark sky shot needles of hail down on the castle, the ice banging over the curved windows angrily. The girl slid toward one of the Gothic windows, pressing her hand against the cold glass.
She was surprised to see a small shadow lying on a sunbed by the pool, out in the rain. A boy. He lay very still, letting the downpour hit him without resistance. He simply took it, accepting the punishing lashes of hail on his skin.
Panicked, the girl began to pound the window. What if he was injured? Unconscious? Dead? Did she even know what death meant? She heard about it sometimes, when her parents thought she wasn’t listening.
She banged the glass harder. His head turned slowly her way—lazily, almost like she was of no importance.
His gray-blues met her light greens.
“Come in!” she shouted, looking left and right to find a door handle.
He shook his head.
“Please!” she cried.
“They’re sending me away.” She read his moving lips, but couldn’t hear him. “I’m leaving.”
“Where? Where are you going?” she called.
But he just turned around, angling his face toward the sky, welcoming the whiplash of the hail.
His eyes were open, she noticed. She followed his gaze, looking up at the black velvet of the night. There was no moon. No sun. The earth seemed so terribly lonely without one of them to watch over it.
The girl wondered what would happen if the sun kissed the moon.
She had no idea she’d find an answer to that question one day.
Or that the person to give it to her would be that very lonely boy.
