Song of the Stars

By R. F. Gammon

The stars are my guide.

It isn’t their light that I follow so much as their song. Every night, I wait for them to come out, to paint the ocean waves. Water laps against my boat, and I follow the path laid out by the celestial chorus.

It’s faint if you don’t know what you’re listening for, the faintest of aching tones. Shifting between minor and major keys, occasionally touching a part of me I didn’t know existed. The other sailors told me they couldn’t hear it, but they’re all gone now—victims of the merciless war. And here I am, one lone man sailing the sea with my hand on the rudder and my ears to the sky.

I… I never meant to be on my own.

But every night—every song—brings me a little closer to home. Closer to Alice.

My love, I am coming back to you.

The stars’ whispers fill my mind as I trim the sails and put my hand once again on the rudder of my ship, The Victor. Alice has waited too faithfully for me to fail her now. I survived a war. Every day, I fought the enemy and walked away the victor. Am I invincible? The song of the stars leading me home seems to think so.

The ocean ahead seems to be on my side as well. It’s a smooth, black mirror spreading as far as my eyes can see.

I lean back on the deck and sigh as the stars wink overhead. Their song swells deep in my heart, and I focus on following it, just as I have every night. Weeks have passed since I last heard or saw a human. The nights are the worst. But I am not alone.

Alice, I’m coming to you.

I peer ahead, in the direction that the song leads. But my breath catches in my throat at what I see. For a moment I can’t even hear the stars. The lap of the water vanishes.

The pale silver ocean no longer goes on forever. Now there’s something else there—a hump of darkness.

Land.

The stars have led me true. I will be home soon.

Faster.

Hardly a breeze shifts the air, but I continue to steer my boat toward the land. If I can reach it, freedom will be mine. Freedom from the storms and the war. I’ll be back with Alice.

My eyes sting as the star song returns. That ache in my temples pounds again. Harder. Fiercer. Maybe I’m running out of water now, and this pain is thirst taking over. All the greater reason to reach land.

The hours grow longer as I sail, and the whispers grow louder. Except now it’s not just the stars—Alice’s voice is there, too, whispering to me like she did the night before I left. “I’ll be waiting, Killian,” she’d told me all those months ago. “Whenever the fighting is over. And then we’ll reach the stars together.”

Dawn comes slowly, pink and orange light sliding over the cusp of the horizon. The land is growing steadily closer. And although the stars have vanished beyond the sunlight of morning and the sky is gray, the song continues.

I blink. Why can I still hear the music? I never hear it in the morning. Ever.

The ocean around me shifts. The waves grow choppier. Rocks. All around me, sharp gray points jut above the roiling surface. The song tugs at me, pulling me onward, toward the land…

Alice’s voice swells. It’s no longer the stars that are singing, the stars I swore someday I’d reach. It’s Alice. It’s all Alice. Longing yanks on me like a thread drawing me onward toward the thing I want more than anything else. My love. My Alice. I miss her, I long for her…

Just thinking about her makes my chest tighten. Then my heart throbs. And my head…

The land towers over me. High atop one of the cliffs, I see it now. A female form. My breath catches. Alice! She’s there. She sees me, and I can hear her—hear her angelic voice drifting toward me…

Her face doesn’t look right, though.

This woman, singing with Alice’s voice, has gold hair instead of red, shining in the faint sunlight. Her face looks different, too, even from the distance. But it’s her voice. Land, land is within my reach. Land and Alice and—

The stars are singing again.

In daylight.

The melody pours from the cliff overhead. Luring me closer… ever closer.

Legend warns sailors about sirens. I just never expected their song to pull me in like this. Not me.

But who am I to resist the stars?

Can you guess which song inspired this story? (This month it could be any time period, any genre.) Share in the comments!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

R. F. Gammon is a high school student currently residing in the wilds of Maine with her family. She has written a number of novels, but Havok is her first publication. If she isn’t writing, she’s listening to Fall Out Boy, petting her cats, or playing Chopin. Most importantly, she’s a daughter of the One True King.

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