The Light in Her Eyes

By Mitchell Hoyle

When the boy first saw the stars it was through the reflection in his mother’s eyes. Sat by the hearth, wood smoke scenting the air, she rocked him gently and pointed to the cosmos above. 

“One day you’ll bring your own light to the sky, little bug,” she said pointing up to a shimmering pinprick. “You’ll make a star even brighter than your father’s for everyone to see.” 

But the boy did not care to make stars for everyone, he only wanted to make stars for her. For in her eyes it was like drops of mercury were shimmering in pools of blue, and all he wished was to make it brighter. 

As the years went on, the boy soon learned that making stars was no easy task. With his father’s books, he took to study, and when he wasn’t helping his mother in the fields, he curled up next to the hearth, reading about the creation of the cosmos while watching them dance in his mother’s comforting gaze.

But where time honed the boy's strength and sharpened his mind, it chipped away at his mother’s. Soon the fields became his alone, and the hearth his to tend, but in this, his resolve never wavered. Guided by his arm, the boy took his mother’s unsteady frame to the hearth and made a promise.

“I will make you the brightest star ever.” 

After another year passed, an invitation arrived. The boy was to apprentice at the Astral Observatory, a feat of human engineering, and the birth place of all the stars.

In it, the Master of Constellations ruled the house. A wizened elder who was clever with his words and sharper with his cane. But in the art of making stars, he was always just and even tempered.

Together they studied the heavens, learning the history of each creator before them and the methods behind their stars. And through this study, the boy learned more than could be taught through his father’s books. 

“And what of this one?” The boy said one night, pointing to a tiny star flickering weakly in the distance. “If we have the means to do so, why can’t we bring it back to the observatory and fix it?”

“Because we are not gods, boy,” the Master of Constellations said. “The night sky is a tapestry of all the imperfections that came before us. To remove a piece because it doesn’t suit your ideal would not only alter the tapestry, but unravel the very knot you wished to fix. That only leaves us all in the dark.”

The boy nodded silently although he did not see the reasoning. They were the ones making the stars, so why then could they not do what they wished with them?

Eventually study turned to practice, and the boy was made to build his first star. The process was tedious and required more focus than he had to give, for the farm still required managing and hearth tending. And with each day that his star grew, his mother seemed to diminish.

For years he toiled away, weaving together all the pieces of sunshine and moonlight he could find until at last it was nearly complete. Days and nights bled into one as the boy’s focus became singular. Then, in the dead of night when all was quiet in the world, a finished piece of radiance thrummed in his hands.

“A worthy thread for the tapestry,” the Master of Constellations smiled, ushering the boy to the top of the observatory. 

Caught between heaven and earth, the top of the observatory made the night sky within reach. After years of study and practice the boy could wait no longer, and when he raised his hands the star settled next to his father’s and gave off the most magnificent sparkle.

But something didn’t feel right, for the boy hadn’t made the star to see this moment himself, he’d made it to see it through another’s eyes.

The realization of what he’d done came far too late, and although he ran from the tower to the farm with as much urgency as he could muster, it still couldn’t change what he had so woefully neglected. 

When he finally got to the farm, a hollow house awaited. He crept into the darkness, silence festering in the corners like a creature lying in wait, but all he saw was his mother. Sitting by the cold hearth, eyes staring out blankly, clouded and matte. 

The boy wanted to give her peace, but his guilt wouldn’t allow it. Picking up her stiff frame he carried her out of the darkness and into the field where all the stars shone above them. “Can you see that one?” the boy cried. “I made that one for you.” He looked down, but nothing could reflect off the storm clouds that covered her eyes. “It’s the one next to Father’s. You see it don’t you?”

Her stillness mocked him. And in his grief the boy came to a desperate conclusion. If she could not see the star herself, then he’d have to bring the star to her. 

Back in the astral observatory, the boy stood atop the tower and gazed upon the sky. The tapestry of stars hung above him, perfect in its imperfections, and ripe for the picking. He knew the rules. Knew that if he plucked out his star it would unravel all that he had done, but he didn’t care. If the star couldn’t be seen by his mother, then why should it be seen by anybody else. Reaching up, the boy found his light and plucked it from the sky, feeling the tug as he rended it from the cosmic tapestry and placed it in his pocket.

Returning to the farm, his mother was where he’d left her. Crouching next to her the boy held up the star. “Look, I brought it for you.” The piece of sky was radiant in the night, but even then all it did was illuminate the milkiness behind her gaze. 

Still, the boy held it. Waiting for the light to return in her eyes, waiting for her to see it. For hours the boy held it until at last he could hold it no more. 

In a moment of weariness the star slipped from his grasp and fell into her eye, settling into the back where its brilliance dispelled the clouds. The boy looked down and for an instant the night sky dazzled in her eyes once more.

Then, she sucked in a breath. 

The boy stumbled back. “Mother?” 

His mother sat up and looked at him confused. Her mouth moved as if to speak, but before she could, the star behind her eyes burnt out and she fell back.

The boy scrambled to catch her but it was already too late. The clouds had returned and she’d become rigid, yet newfound knowledge was his. His star had brought the light back to her and for a moment he’d seen its true beauty in her eyes. 

One single star for one single moment. 

And sitting right above him there were a million more moments waiting.

When the boy returned to the top of the observatory, the Master of Constellations was already there. 

“What have you done, boy?” The master's eyes were alight with fire. “Have you not listened to a word I’ve said? You cannot take what you wish from the tapestry.”

“You’re wrong,” the boy said. “There’s so much more we can do with them. You have to let me do this.” He did not wish to fight his old master, he just wanted the stars. 

But his master wasn’t going to allow that. And when the old man came at the boy with his cane held high, there was no other choice.

They collided with a mighty force, teacher and student becoming one under the night’s sky. But the boy’s strength was now that of a man, and with definitive ease, the boy took hold of the cane and brought the hilt down on the master’s head in a sickening crack.

Staggering to his feet, the boy looked upon the horror of what he had done. His master’s body, slumped over and still, rivers of crimson flowing from his caved in skull. Panicked, the boy began to pluck at everything in reach, the stars, the moon, and even the sun as it started to slip up the horizon. He just needed another moment, one more moment with his mother. 

He couldn’t stop himself until there was nothing left to grab. 

Using the small sliver of light escaping through the top of his bag, the boy guided his way through the darkness until at last he was back at his mother. Tipping the bag, the stars poured out like iridescent rain, falling into her eyes where the clouds cleared once more. 

With a sudden breath she sat up, blinking away the confusion as she looked at the boy with luminous eyes. “Little bug? Wh—what happened?”

 The boy could not speak. It was everything he had dreamed of and more. Her eyes were sparkling like a thousand diamonds, gleaming with a brilliance he couldn’t comprehend. “I took them,” he whispered. 

She didn’t seem to hear him, instead she looked into the sky and gasped. “Where have all the stars gone?” Tears formed in her eyes and fell like meteor showers, streaking across her cheeks with flaming tails. “What have you done?”

“I took them,” the boy said louder. “Every last one of them, I took them for you.”

Confusion knotted her brow, but then she wiped away a tear and looked at the star shine on her hand. “You gave them to me?” 

The boy nodded, but his joy did not reflect in her face.

"You shouldn’t have done that.” She stepped back, each sweep of her head casting a beacon of light upon the field. “They’re not mine to keep. They don’t belong to me.” 

The boy held her by the arms, but when he looked upon her, he froze. She was greater than anything he could have imagined. She was all the light, she was the essence of life, she was the cosmos. “They belong with us,” the boy said. “If the people wish to see the light again, they need only look upon you.”

“Little bug, I am not the stars.” She shook her head, cheeks wet with liquid light. “They never belonged to either of us, and they never will.” With one swift movement, she reached up and buried her fingers into her eyes, puncturing the surface and spewing out a luminous jelly.

The boy continued to hold her, transfixed by the beauty of a million stars bursting forth, and petrified by the act of her brutal mutilation.

But his mother did not relent. She clawed and pulled and tore until at last she stumbled, fingers slowing as she scraped out the last bits of light from the hollows of her eyes. “Bring them… back to the sky,” she said, falling to the ground where the stars shimmered in a pool of red around her.

“No, no, no wait! They belong in you!” The boy collapsed next to her and began desperately scooping the stars back into her sockets. They pooled in the hollow space, but without any eyes to settle into, they leaked pitifully onto the floor.

A chill crept across the field. A growing cold that numbed him to the screaming that rose up from the nearby village. The boy held his mom’s hand and looked up to the morning sky without a sun.  

One by one the stars below him started to blink out, but all he could do was sit there until at last, only darkness remained.