“Why you got that smile on your face, boy?” My stepfather’s cold voice cuts through the silence at our dining table like an ax splitting wood.

The cup I was bringing up to mouth trembles as my hand starts to shake.

I slide my eyes to my mother first, and as usual, she’s sitting with her head bowed. Her hands rest on the table right in front of her plate, and she just stares at them.

I know what’s coming, and I don’t want my mother to have a huge mess to clean up when my stepfather’s finished, so I put my glass down.

His palm cracks across my cheek just as I’m turning to look at him. It hurts, but I never let him see that at first. When I cry out, it gives him satisfaction, and I mean to deprive him of it for as long as I can. He thinks it means I’m giving up.

He thinks he’s beating the ambivalence out of me.

He thinks he’s whipping the fear of God into me.

If he knew that all he’s doing is strengthening my resolve to see him suffer something terrible, he’d beat me until I was dead. So, after a while, I cry out just so he’ll stop. Not for myself. I don’t think me being alive makes a difference in this world. But, Mama … I don’t know what she would do if I died.

He told everyone that Ellie died because of her past sins. He used Ellie’s death as a weapon against the people in Caine’s Weeping. He told them that holding on to their desire for worldly things would bring similar fates onto their children.

The tiny bits of happiness, the occasional song on the church piano, the men laughing with each other on their porches—all of it stopped after Ellie died.

In our house, smiling without permission had become a crime. This was the second time I’d been caught smiling. Last time, I got off with a slap and a warning that the next time would be worse.

So, after that, without him saying a word, I get up and go get his belt.

The whipping hurts. It’ll leave welts on my back and the latch of the belt tears into the skin of my shoulders on his harder swings.

But it’s worth it because the smile that got me in trouble came from a place deep inside me that I hadn’t even remembered existed.

And no amount of pain could dim the happiness that I’d discovered in the last week.

Apollo and I spent every afternoon together. And for those two hours, we lay in my hammock, we read and talked.

She told me all about her life in Las Vegas, and I told her about living here in Cain's Weeping.

I’ve read five books, too. All of them about things I’d never dreamed existed.

But, what we have planned tonight is going to be the icing on the cake.

Apollo is going to show me her telescope. She said we can see the stars up close at night. As soon as she told me she could show me some of the constellations the book talked about, I knew I’d risk anything to see it.

Sneaking out of the house is easy. He’s a heavy sleeper, and I can hear his snores through the entire house as I slip out the back door. My memory serves as my internal navigation system as I run all the way to Apollo’s house.

My back is stiff after my whipping, but it doesn’t slow me down or dim my excitement about tonight. Thinking about seeing her again always excites. Every time she steps out from the little path I cut through the woods and sees me, she smiles so happily. It feels like the universe has suddenly remembered that I exist and sent me my very own angel. She isn’t just smart. She’s nice, too. Not just because she brings me cake every day. She cares about the things that most people never even notice.

When I started to wipe away a spider web that clung to the leaves on the trees I was about to hang our hammock from, she’d stopped me. “We can find another set of trees to read in today. This spider will have to build a whole new house.”

Yesterday she stopped to pluck a worm-eaten leaf and asked me if I knew if worms had teeth or if they did this with just a little mouth. I didn’t know. And despite never having even thought about it before, I wished I had a way to find out. The more time I spent with Apollo, the more time I wanted to know answers to all of the questions she had.

Living in Cain’s Weeping meant I probably never would. No one ever left. Except for the Fergusons. Mr. Ferguson used to run the town bakery out of the back of their house. They had a son, too. His name was Riley. We hadn’t been friends. He was older than me by almost ten years and was already working out in the field, but our mamas had been friendly.

At least as friendly as you could be with anyone in Cain’s Weeping.

When Mrs. Ferguson came by to deliver our daily bread, she’d always sit for a few minutes and talk with Mama. She smiled at me and ruffled my hair every time she went up and down the steps.

And then one day, three weeks ago, she didn’t come to deliver the bread.

Not ever again.

I never knew what happened to them. Two days after the last time I saw her, Mr. Ferguson delivered the bread himself.

He didn’t stop to smile at me as he walked up the steps. He didn’t linger after he’d laid the basket outside the front door. I watched him walk down the steps and disappear into the cornfield that separated our houses before I scrambled inside to find my mama.

She’d been in the kitchen. Her arms were moving in slow circles in the elbow deep dark red water inside the vat of wool she was dyeing.

“Mama, where’s Mrs. Ferguson?” I asked as I stood in the doorway

“Who?” She’d answered quietly without looking up from her task. Her arms never lost rhythm. I knew then that something was wrong. The only time mama avoided my eyes was when we weren’t alone. I held my breath before I glanced at the crib in the corner of the room. He wasn’t there, and some of my apprehension eased. I looked back at Mama and said tentatively, whispering now even though we were alone.

“Your friend …”

Her arms stopped their motion, and her eyes came to mine. In them, I saw a look I didn’t understand, but that stopped me from asking the other questions that were dancing on my tongue.

That same night at a special assembly called by my stepfather and held where every important meeting in town was held, with Mr. Ferguson standing next to him, my father warned us to forget the abominations who had lived among us. He called them a cancer that had been cut out of our body—of our town’s righteousness.

But I thought about them all the time. I walked down the path leading to Apollo’s house. I wonder where they went. I think about the hole in the fence. Is that how they got out? Why didn’t they take us with them?

Maybe, like me, they’d met someone who showed them that the world outside of town wasn’t full of dangers. That it was just the opposite—full of wonderful things that he didn’t want them to ever know or see.

When Apollo brought the mirror the next day, she’d told me that where she grew up and everywhere she’d been, everybody had at least one in their houses. The only time I’d ever seen myself was catching a reflection in the lake, but it wasn’t very clear.

Her mirror was only a tiny thing, but it felt like so much more. When I first held it in front of my face, all I could see were my eyes. I thought it was Mama staring back at me.

Apollo took it from me and held it a little farther away so I could see my whole face. I was glad she was holding it because I think I would have dropped it. I touched my face and only when I saw my hand had I believed I was looking at myself. My eyes are just like Mama’s. So is my mouth. My hair is the same color, too.

But my nose, my chin, the shape of my head is different. I wondered if those were from my daddy. It was the first time I’d ever thought about him as more than just some man I’d never know.

I looked at it so long that Apollo said I should keep it. I couldn’t risk taking it home, but I asked her to bring it back the next day so I could look again. Every time I did, I saw something different. I tried to imagine what my daddy might have looked like. Was he tall like me? Did his voice sound like mine? Did he love to read to? Now, I imagine what my life might have been like if he hadn’t died.

At the dinner table, I try to see him sitting where Jeremiah does. Maybe I’d be like Apollo, going to school. Traveling. Reading. Happy.

But more than anything, I wanted so much more than I had.

I wanted to read the rest of the books listed at the end of The Hobbit. I wanted to visit the house called Monticello where a man named Thomas Jefferson had invented things and had written books and papers that even hundreds of years later still mattered. I wanted to ride a bus and fly on a plane like the one Apollo talked about.

I can feel the freedom in the air as soon as I step out of the cornfield that’s in front of Apollo’s house. It’s like a whole new world. When I get to the beginning of the white gravel drive that leads up to the house on the top of the hill, I stop.

A few days ago, I walked Apollo all the way home, and when we got to the drive, I’d stopped. I didn’t believe all of the stories of damnation and perdition Jeremiah shouted from his pulpit. But, I’d still never ventured this far before. She grabbed my hand when I hesitated and pulled me along. As we walked, sin and damnation had been the last things on my mind.

Apollo’s warm hand felt like protection—like flesh and blood deliverance from evil.

The sunlight made the stones shine like clusters of white tipped waves. And like an ocean, it dips and rises, rolls and sways on its way to the white picket fence that wraps around their little house.

Tonight, it’s pitch black. I can’t see the moon, and the only light is from the stars and it creates fluttering shadows from the leafy trees that line the path.

I gaze up the road at the house. Just like she said it would, the bright light of Apollo’s bedroom shines like a beacon, promising that if I can get there, I’ll be safe. I start walking toward it, every step I take bringing me closer to something I never imagined I would have. My friend.

I pick up a couple of the rocks under my feet and when I get to the side of the house, I fling one at Apollo’s window. It bounces off with a crack that makes me look at the rest of the house for signs of her aunt waking up. She told me her aunt took some special medicine to help her sleep and that even if she wasn’t asleep she wouldn’t mind if I came over, but I’d rather not see her.

When nothing happens, I pull my arm back to throw another rock. Right then, Apollo’s dark head appears in the window. She grins down at me and waves wildly before she points for me to go ‘round the back of the house and then her head disappears again.

When I get to the back door, she’s standing in the open door, her tiny flashlight pointed out into the night.

“You shouldn’t hold the door open. The ‘squitas will get in and chew y’all up while you’re sleepin,” I scold her as I step into the kitchen. I grab the flashlight from her. “Turn that off before your auntie wakes up.”

I flip the switch. It plunges us into darkness and Apollo whimpers as she grabs it from me to turn it back on. “I hate the dark. It scares me. I sleep with this on,” she says quietly and then she slips her hand into mine and tugs me toward the stairs.

“Your hair is getting long,” Apollo whispers without turning around.

“Yeah, I’m growing it,” I say casually, but I’m really happy she noticed.

She stops and turns around. She shines the light at my head

“How come? You said hair was for sissies and girls,” she whispers, but I can hear the teasing in her voice. I’m glad it’s dark, and she can’t see my blush.

“Yeah, well, I just wanted to see … I mean, you said it was nice, so I thought …” I’m stammering and feel stupid.

“Thought what?” She prods my shoulder with her finger.

“Well, you know … that I’d wait for you to leave before I cut it, since ...” I blow out a deep breath and look down at the steps.

“Do you mean you’re letting it grow because I like it?” she asks, not whispering this time.

“Shhh, you’re talking too loud. And don’t make a big deal out of it.”

“I told you, my aunt won’t wake up. She could sleep through an earthquake. I’m not making a big deal out of it. I think it’s nice. ” She snickers, but quietly now and turns to walk up the stairs again, but her grip on my hand is tighter now.

Each creak of the steps has me wanting to turn and run out of the house. But, I won’t. It’s not just because of the telescope either.

She’s leaving in a few days.

The thought of her being gone, of reading at the lake without her, makes my stomach hurt.

Like she can feel the pain in my gut, she squeezes my hand and then shoots a grin at me over her shoulder. Even in the dark stairwell, it feels like a burst of sunlight through a cloud, and my stomach eases. The smile I give her in return comes straight from my grateful heart.

At the top of the steps is a door, and when we walk through it, I have to duck to keep from hitting my head on a low hanging beam.

“What is this place?” I ask and look around at the piles of boxes that clutter the room. My nose itches at the dust that I can see floating around in the beams of light the flashlight’s casting.

“Tante told me that women used to stand over there.” She points at the small window where her telescope is set up. “They would watch for their husbands coming home from war or work in the mines or wherever they’d gone. But a lot of times, the only person who would come was someone coming to tell them that their husband was dead. So, they called this place the widow’s watch.”

“That’s terrible,” I say, looking around again and imagining how awful that must have been.

“Well, lucky for us, the thing we’re looking for tonight is sure to be there.” Apollo lets go of my hand and goes to stand in front of the telescope.

“The sky is clear, and the moon won’t be out until close to midnight, so the sky is nice and dark. It’s perfect for stargazing.”

I’ve stopped asking Apollo how she knows these random facts. The answer’s always the same: “Oh, I read it in a book.”

Whenever she says that I feel sad because that’s all I want in the world—to learn.

She peers into the peephole. Her tiny fingers, with their chipped gold polish, turn the dials quickly like she’s an expert. She probably is.

“That’s it. Perfect,” she whispers excitedly as she pulls her eye away from the lens to smile at me over her shoulder.

“Come on.” She waves me over. “It’s your turn.” As soon as I take my first step, she turns off the flashlight and the room is plunged into darkness.

“I thought you were afraid of the dark. Why’d you turn it off?”

“The dark makes the view from the telescope much clearer. I don’t want you to miss anything. Besides, I know you’ll protect me from anything bad.” She smiles at me and then grabs my arm to drag me closer.

Normally, when she says stuff like that, I blush. But right now, my stomach is in knots as I stare at the telescope. What if looking turns out to be a mistake? I’ve been here for most of my life now. All I have are a few memories of my life before my mama brought us here to live with Jeremiah in Cain’s Weeping. Since we’ve been here, it’s felt like we fell into a hole that someone covered with dirt and everyone who knew us before has moved on and forgotten we existed.

Sometimes, being with Apollo makes me feel like one of the chickens that Jeremiah slaughters every Saturday morning. He ties a string tight around their necks for a few seconds before he cuts off their heads. He says it’s for mercy. But when their little eyes bulge, and their beaks move soundlessly, it doesn’t look that way.

I know that Apollo is being nice showing me all these things. But I resent that what she’s teaching me is likely all I’ll ever know of the world. And that makes my heart feel like it’s being strangled by jealousy and envy. In those moments, I think it would have been better to have never met her. To never know what I was missing.

“What’re you waiting for?” Apollo prods me in the ribs with her fingers, and I skirt away from her tickling. She turns on her flashlight and shines it in my face.

“Ow, you’re gonna blind me.” I complain and shove the light out of my eyes.

“Well, what’s wrong?” she asks, pointing the light at the ground. My gaze follows it as it dances along the floor.

“I dunno,” I mumble and drag the toe of my sneakers along the seam in the hardwood plank I’m standing on. “You’ll think I’m dumb,” I confess under my breath.

“Why would I think that?” She sounds totally confused.

“You’ve told me about where you live. All of the places you’ve been. I know you must think I’m dumb and dull,” I say, embarrassed but also knowing that she won’t laugh at me. She hasn’t laughed at a single other stupid thing I’ve said.

“You see all those stars up there?” She points out the window into the glittering night. “Not one of them is brighter than you!” she exclaims.

“Shut up!” I tell her. “You ain’t gotta pay me compliments to make me feel better.” I roll my eyes.

“I’m not. I mean it.” She comes and stands in front of me. “Listen, all those stars. They’re so far away. They don’t do anything but look pretty. You do that, too. But so much more. You’re smart. You’re nice, and you’re brave.”

“Come on, now … a lot of people are those things.” I look at the ground, embarrassed by her praise.

She takes my hand in her tiny one. “Graham?” She gets my attention, and I look her in the eye. She has that expression she wears when she’s about to talk like an adult.

“No, a lot of people aren’t like that. You’ve told me some about your town. I know you understand what I mean when I say that sometimes it feels like I’m completely surrounded by darkness, right?” she asks.

“Right,” is all I say. But I know exactly what she means.

“But, you’re still nice and brave and you risk getting in trouble to spend time reading because it makes you happy. That’s what stars do. They shine when it’s dark,” she says with a smile that makes my heart do a flip. I can tell she means it. No one has ever said anything like that to me.

“Well, that’s why I call you Sunshine. You smile and laugh when most people wouldn’t.”

“The sun is a star, too, you know,” she informs me, and thanks to the books she’s shared with me, I do.

She claps her hands together. “I have a great idea. You need a middle name. Let’s make that it.”

“Make what my middle name?” I ask her, confused by her changing the subject.

“Star.”

“What the heck, Apollo?” I protest, my male pride wounded. “That’s a girl’s name.”

“I have a boy’s name,” she says with a shrug

“Yeah, that’s fine for you.” I frown at her.

She wrinkles her nose. “You call me Sunshine. I want to call you Star.”

“No way are you gonna call me Star.” I glare at her as best as I can.

She frowns for a minute and then that smile is back. “How about if I say it like it’s one word? Like Grahamstar?” She smiles hopefully, and I can’t say no when she looks at me like that. I would give her just about anything she asked for.

“Whatever, it’s just a name,” I grumble.

“A name is more than just a word. It should mean something. And you’re the smartest, nicest, bravest boy I ever met,” she declares.

“Well, guess you ain’t met many boys,” I mumble, glad it’s too dark for her to see my blush.

“Please. Stop putting yourself down. It really makes me sad,” she says, and I feel bad at how sad she sounds. I don’t want her to ever be sad. Not because of me anyway.

She steps close enough that the toes of our shoes are touching and grabs my other hand and links our fingers. She smells like the bluebonnets and grass. And like the sun. It’s the best thing I’ve smelled in my entire life. Even better than that cake.

“Grahamstar, you’re the first real friend I’ve had in my whole life. Well, besides my sister. I’m not sure that she really counts. She didn’t really have a choice.”

My heart beats a little faster. I’m nervous but excited that this girl who’s the closest thing to a miracle I’ve ever experienced is looking at me like she thinks I can move mountains. She makes me think that maybe I can.

“I read a lot, and I watch some television. I know it’s not normal for an eleven-year-old not to have any friends. You think I have some great life because I get to do those things, and travel and stuff. But I just wish I still had a family. I wish I could live somewhere as quiet and peaceful as this place.” She closes her eyes and smiles as if she’s daydreaming. “Somewhere that you lived, too. We’d read. You’d kill all the snakes. I’d cook dinner and bake us cakes. And every night, we’d get to sit outside and look at the stars.”

She opens her eyes and gazes up at me. Looking in them, it’s like I can see exactly what she’s describing. “That sounds nice. Well, except for living in a town like this. I want to live in a real city.”

She nods happily. “We could find somewhere we both liked. It wouldn’t even matter. ‘Cause we’d be together.” She stands up on her toes and presses a soft kiss to my cheek. My stomach suddenly feels like it’s full of dragonflies that just woke up and are trying to find their way out.

I feel like the spider webs and leaves and every other forgotten overlooked thing that Apollo notices. Hearing her talk about me like this, I know she won’t forget me when she leaves. Maybe … somehow … I’ll feel like I’m out there with her.

So, I say a rare prayer of gratitude that she fell out of the sky that day. I’ve learned more in these last ten days than I’ve learned in my whole life. It’s planted a seed that I want to water and never stop feeding.

I’m glad I snuck out tonight. That whipping was worth the memories that no one will ever be able to take from me. Even if I never get out of this place, that would be something more than what I had before she came.

“Grahamstar,” she singsongs my new nickname. I think I might actually like it … even if it is a little girly.

I look up to find her dark eyes smiling at me.

“Yeah?”

“The universe is waiting for you. And she doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

“She? How do you know the universe isn’t a man?”

“Because my father said that only a woman could create something so perfect. If the universe was a man, the planets would be colliding, trying to get closer to the sun.”

“That don’t make any sense,” I tell her.

“It does to me. Now, quit stalling.” That big toothy grin of hers draws me like sugar does ants. I step up to the telescope, and she moves out of the way so I can lean down. Just before I press my eye to the cold, plastic rim of the view finder, I snap it shut.

My heart feels like it’s going to come right out of my shirt. I have no idea what I’m gonna see when I open my eyes. But I know, just like everything she’s shown me so far, it’ll leave me wanting more.

“It’s gonna be amazing. I have it pointing right in the center of the Big Dipper. You’re about to see the planet Jupiter,” she says from behind me.

“Really?” I whisper. I try to swallow the ball of anticipation in my throat and take a deep breath.

“Graham, open your eyes,” she whispers softly into my ear.

Like they know that she’s in charge, my eyes pop open and my vision is filled with what looks like a million blinking, burning lights. A million burning possibilities. My heart feels like it’s expanding in my chest, and my mind starts to buzz with the desire to understand everything I’m seeing.

I will never be the same after this.

“Apollo,” I whisper, and she comes to stand next to me. When she’s close enough that I can feel her, I say, “It’s so …” I don’t have a word that describes something so beautiful and endless. “I dunno. There’s so much out there,” I say, my voice full of wonder. “I want all of that, Apollo.”

She wraps her little arms around my waist and rests her head on my shoulder. “Yeah, me too.”

A week ago, my world felt small and dark. I didn’t have anything to look forward to but reading my book by the lake.

I look down at the top of Apollo’s head. Her daddy must have been really smart giving her that name. Because she’s just like the sun. She chases away the dark. She lights me up and makes me worth looking at.

I haven’t known much love in my life. Even before Ellie died, love wasn’t something we showed or shared. But, right now, it’s filling this room. In a way that even though I’ve never experienced it, I know exactly what it is.

I love Apollo, and I know she loves me.

I’ll never forget her as long as I live.