“Star light, star bright,” she said, and stopped. She looked at him. “Do you know it, Eddie?”
“Yeah.” Eddie kept his head down. His voice sounded clear enough, but if he looked up she would see he was weeping.
“Then help me. But you have to look.”
“Okay.”
He wiped the tears into the palm of one hand and looked up at the star with her.
“Star light—” she looked at him and he joined her. “Star bright—”
Her hand reached out, groping, and he clasped it, one the delicious brown of light chocolate, the other the delicious white of a dove’s breast.
“First star I see tonight,” they spoke solemnly in unison, boy and girl for this now, not man and woman as they would be later, when the dark was full and she called to ask him if he was asleep and he said no and she asked if he would hold her because she was cold; “Wish I may, wish I might—”
They looked at each other, and he saw that tears were streaming down her cheeks. His own came again, and he let them fall in her sight. This was not a shame but an inexpressible relief.
They smiled at each other.
“Have the wish I wish tonight,” Eddie said, and thought: Please, always you.
“Have the wish I wish tonight,” she echoed, and thought If I must die in this odd place, please let it not be too hard and let this good young man be with me.
“I’m sorry I cried,” she said, wiping her eyes. “I don’t usually, but it’s been—”
“A very trying day,” he finished for her.
“Yes. And you need to eat, Eddie.”
“You do, too.”
“I just hope it doesn’t make me sick again.”
He smiled at her.
“I don’t think it will.”
6
Later, with strange galaxies turning in slow gavotte overhead, neither thought the act of love had ever been so sweet, so full.
7
They were off with the dawn, racing, and by nine Eddie was wishing he had asked Roland what he should do if they came to the place where the hills cut off the beach and there was still no door in sight. It seemed a question of some importance, because the end of the beach was coming, no doubt about that. The hills marched ever closer, running in a diagonal line toward the water.
The beach itself was no longer a beach at all, not really; the soil was now firm and quite smooth. Something—run-off, he supposed, or flooding at some rainy season （there had been none since he had been in this world, not a drop; the sky had clouded over a few times, but then the clouds had blown away again）—had worn most of the jutting rocks away.
At nine-thirty, Odetta cried: “Stop, Eddie! Stop!”
He stopped so abruptly that she had to grab the arms of the chair to keep from tumbling out. He was around to her in a flash.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“Fine.” He saw he had mistaken excitement for distress. She pointed. “Up there! Do you see something?”
He shaded his eyes and saw nothing. He squinted. For just a moment he thought . . . no, it was surely just heat-shimmer rising from the packed ground.
“I don’t think so,” he said, and smiled. “Except maybe your wish.”
“I think I do!” She turned her excited, smiling face to him. “Standing all by itself! Near where the beach ends.”
He looked again, squinting so hard this time that his eyes watered. He thought again for just a moment that he saw something. You did, he thought, and smiled. You saw her wish.