Connecting Lines
After his brother was gone, all that remained were the books he’d left behind.
Ray studied these constantly, and kept rules for their maintenance.
The books must never leave the house
The books must never leave Lucas’s old room (still perfectly preserved, gathering a thin layer of dust)
The books must only be accessed under the cover of night (to maintain the sanctity of the darkened sky).
He never once broke these rules. He had been tempted to, in the beginning; Ray wanted
to take the books to school so that he would have something interesting to read while
the teacher helped everyone else with their equations. This problem was quickly solved
when Ray finished memorising the books, and was able to close his eyes and flip
through them each time he left the house, in his mind rather than his hands.
Initially after his brother’s death, their parents told Ray that Lucas had turned
into a star. Ray never found any star in his books which could confirm this, and he soon
accepted that his parents were probably lying to make him feel better. But a few months
after he’d memorised all the stars, constellations, planets, and meteors in the books, he
decided it was finally time to find out for himself.
He had never actually looked into the sky at night– he had always been much too
afraid. He hadn’t even been out at night since the accident, so it wasn’t too difficult for
him to avoid. Now, to see the stars for himself, he ought to be brave.
He climbed out onto a branch outside his window and gathered himself; there
weren’t any good trees outside of Lucas’ old window, and even if there were, he was
technically still outside of the house, so the books would have to stay put. He closed his
eyes and remembered instead.
When Ray finally got up the courage to brandish his face to the sky and open his
eyes, he was disappointed. He surveyed for a new star which might be Lucas, but wasn’t
too surprised when there wasn’t one. What really upset him was that there were no lines
connecting the stars in the constellations. The lines were in all his books, but not here.
He decided that when he got to space, that would be the first thing he looked into
changing.