"Look at the stars
Look how they shine for you . . ."
– Coldplay, "Yellow"

Red flashes against the bluish-black of a stone wall washed with darkness as a fifteen-year-old girl runs through an empty room. Her hair is momentarily highlighted with gold as she darts, light-footed, past the dying embers in a fireplace. As she weaves lithely through crimson armchairs with overstuffed cushions her eyes, briefly illuminated by the smoldering remnants of logs, dart around the room. She slows her frantic pace as she nears a wall with a wooden-backed hole and silently pushes it open. Loud snores break the silence as she slips through the hole, past a depiction of a robust lady in a pale rose-colored dress. The soft sounds of the girl's feet padding on the floor are eclipsed by the lady's own noisy snores, and she does not wake.

The flame-haired girl resumes her former pace, the echoes of her pattering footsteps reverberating through the empty hallway. She runs up several flights of steps, and her breathing is rapid by the time she reaches a winding staircase. She does not slow, however. She ascends these stairs, too, without pause and when she at last pulls her slight frame through a trapdoor at the top she takes great gasps of cold night air. Surprise edges into her delicate features as she looks up and finds another girl staring at her through dreamy eyes.

"Hello," the other girl says, smiling serenely.

"Hi," she returns tentatively. "What are you doing up here?"

"Oh, just stargazing," the large-eyed girl responds. She turns back to face the velvet night that shrouds the grounds, and as she does so the other girl cannot help but notice how her dark blond tresses catch the light from the round moon dangling overhead. She walks over to where the girl with flaxen hair – her head upturned and bathed in moonlight as her round eyes shine – stands.

"My mother loved the stars," she says into the silence. "And the moon. She used to look at it every night on the roof of our house. That's how I got my name, you know. Dad wanted to name me Clarissa, but mum got her way in the end." She smiles fondly. The other girl's warm brown eyes glow, reflecting the night sky. For a moment, it looks as though her eyes are covered in minuscule pinpricks of light. She blinks, and the illusion is lost.

"I think you have a beautiful name," she breathes, her voice as soft as the whistle of the wind through the trees far below them.

The girl glances away from the silvery orb, and again she smiles. The fire-haired girl feels as though there is a bird feverishly flapping its wings in her chest, and she longs desperately to let it soar.

"Thank you. It is nice, isn't it?" She turns her head again toward the night sky, and the moon makes her pale face shine silver. "I always think of her when I hear it."

The girl named after the moon and the girl with the flame hair stand side by side, gazing up at the ebony sky dappled with pearly stars. Both of them think about the night sky and, though the flame-haired girl has no way of knowing, a bird longs to break free deep within the moon-girl also. They both look away from the sky at precisely the same time and their eyes meet for the briefest second before they both turn their gaze downward, to the dark stones.

"I've never seen all the stars out at the same time as a full moon," the fiery-haired girl says to the stones. She knows that something passed between them, but she does not yet know what.

"Neither have I," the moon-girl says dreamily. "I don't know why that would be." As she shifts her head, the moonlight in her hair shifts also, coating the lighter strands but leaving the darker strands untouched. The fire-girl isn't aware that the moon-girl has shifted closer to her, but she registers a tingling feeling on her right arm, which she has not noticed is almost touching that of the other girl.

They stand in silence for several more minutes. The moon and the stars hear their hearts beating in unison, although they do not. The trees below and the very stones in the tower have ears sensitive enough to clearly pick up the wild flapping of the birds that they themselves just barely hear.

The crimson-haired girl's gaze falls upon the small, white hand resting on the stone wall, and her own suddenly feels significantly empty. She clenches her fingers into a fist, and the bird in her chest protests. When she looks up, the other girl is looking at her again, a faint smile on her lips. This time the girl finds that she cannot look away. The moon-girl's luminescent eyes rival the moon above. The flame-girl has never seen anything so beautiful in her life, and she finds herself smiling, too. The bird beats more forcefully than ever as she slowly unclenches her fist and takes the moon-girl's soft white hand in her own.

At this moment the flame-girl stops fighting what she knows to be right, to be true, to be beautiful. She leans forward, and as their lips meet both their birds joyfully take flight at last. They stand, hearts beating wildy and in unison, for a full minute, and the moon beams down on them, and the stars beam down on them, and they both feel that their whole lives have been leading up to this moment. Then, after what feels like an eternity to both of them, they break apart from each other.

Neither of them knows what to say, but it doesn't matter. It just seems enough to be there, to be with each other, to be alive – and they are both more alive than they ever have been. After many minutes pass, the moon-girl speaks.

"I've never kissed anyone before. That was nice."

The flame-girl doesn't believe that the other girl can use such a mild word to describe what she thought had passed between them, but as she turns she sees in the moon-girl's beautiful eyes that she felt the same way about it as the crimson-haired girl did. They stand in silence for a few more minutes, gazing into the night sky, before finally reality comes crashing down on the fiery-haired girl. The faint smile that had been playing on her face before vanishes, and she turns away from the other girl.

"I can't -- we can't start seeing each other." She feels the moon-girl's injured stare on her back.

"Why not?" she asks. Her voice isn't angry.

"I'm worried what people will think of me. But most of all," her voice drops, and again she is whispering, "I'm worried what my family will think."

She turns back, and the other girl doesn't seem upset. She senses her disappointment, however, and she is quick to add, "I want us to be together too, believe me. If you want, we can see each other in secret –"

But the moon-girl interrupts.

"No," she says. "I understand."

The fire-haired girl's eyes flutter shut, and she says, with absolute sincerity, "I want us to stay friends. No matter how much we . . . care for each other, I want our friendship to stay the same."

"Of course it will," says the blond-haired girl, and to the other's relief, a small smile emerges on her silver-washed face.

They turn to the trapdoor. The flame-girl descends first, then reaches up for the moon-girl's hand and helps her through the hole. They climb down the winding staircase, still with interlocked hands, and when they reach the bottom the fire-girl kisses the moon-girl on the cheek. Only then do they break apart with one last exchanged smile. As the moon-girl heads off in one direction, and the flame-girl in another, they both know that no matter how long they live, no matter how many other memorable experiences they have, they will never forget this one moonlit night.