Lights Out

I tap my pencil eraser against my textbook. I gave up on it a while ago. When the clock says it’s time, I snap off my desk lamp.

Tonight is a good night, tonight is a chance to breathe, tonight is my favorite holiday, even if nobody has any idea what I’m talking about, even if my friend Lena says it’s just something my mom made up, and even if that kid that sits behind us in class sneers that it’s because my family is poor.

The other lights upstairs are already off. Candlelight flickers up the stairwell.

Mom didn’t make it up. She didn’t set the time or date, but when I was a baby, she did cast a spell of magic over the night, just like she does for all holidays.

I follow the candlelight down to our living room. Wrapped around the banister is a gold, twisty streamer with silver stars that probably was meant for a New Year’s Eve party. The paper was pretty in the daytime but now it sparkles in the low light.

Mom and Dad sit together on the sofa. My sister Jillian kneels on the floor beside the coffee table. When she sees me coming down the stairs, she bounces on her knees.

“I won!” she beams.

“By default!” I tease. “We could have switched math homework and then seen who was done first!”

“Come on girls! Ready?” Dad asks. He smiles wide as Jillian poises over the tray of mismatched candles collected from every corner of the house, and then looking down at his watch, he leads the countdown, “5…, 4…, 3…, 2…, 1!”

Julian blows away the light.

The house is wonderfully dark, except for the white light from the neighbor’s garage illuminating the kitchen window and it’s like I’m a fish, held by the dark expansive ocean, looking up, perplexed, at a wayward ship’s navigation lights.

Silently, Dad leads the way out the back door. Mom has already put blankets and beach towels on our small square of lawn. She set up the telescope and filled each of our baskets with goodies, too. I get a new canvas bag with a pretty flower design and a matching journal made from recycled paper. My sister gets seed packets and a book about bugs. And of course, we both have star shaped cookies.

After we peek through the baskets, and mouth a silent thank you to Mom, my sister and I stretch out on the beach towels. I clasp one hand in hers and then press the other gently into the grass.

I look up at the gray night sky and try to see all of it at once, as far as I can. I search for the Big Dipper.

But my gaze is averted by a flash of light to the side and I’m pulled out of the spell. Mrs. Carter peeks from behind her curtain at us and then dashes away inside her bright home.

We’ve lived next to Mrs. Carter for years and she still looks out at us and gasps. Does she also think that the only reason to sit outside in the dark is because the electric company turned off all the lights? Oh, the poor children on the ground!

I squeeze my sister’s hand and turn back to the deep, expansive night waiting above me. The world slips away, all of it, and I’m no longer a fish but a star, steady, maybe even stoic, in the haze.

Although impossible, space darkens.

My body takes over my daydreams, jolting me upright just in time.

One by one my neighbors’ houses go dark.

All down the street.

I hear Mrs. Carter’s slow steps moving over her wooden deck, the creaks loud in the stillness.

Then the street lamps go black. I didn’t think that was possible. What about the crime? Or the late commuters?

My sister tightens her grip on my hand so I follow her gaze.

We watch Mom reach over the fence.

She hands Mrs. Carter a basket.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Carter says too loudly. She winces and whispers, “Sorry! I’m a little nervous.”

Mrs. Carter eases herself down into her Adirondack chair and leans her head back.

I lay down, again, and try to let the world drift away, again, expecting to drift into maybe a deeper, darker void of space, but this time seven stars shine down at me, connected only by imaginary lines.

I realize I am not only a star, I’m a star in a constellation.

Brittany Saulnier is on a quest to inspire readers to find their own connection to nature. She is inspired by nature’s secrecy and often blends environmental science with whimsy. Her short stories have been longlisted for anthologies and competitions. In addition to writing, Brittany co-created the Read to Write Kidlit Podcast.