The Last Starry Night

“Do not be afraid!” said the Artist. “The Beast is speaking to her mind.”

Azzie cradled Mama’s head in her hands, brushing the hair away from her eyes. Mama eyes were closed and she was breathing rapidly and evenly. Azzie thought she saw her eyes twitch under her eyelids.

“Her eyes are moving,” said Azzie. “She’s dreaming. She’s asleep!”

Azzie squeezed Mama’s hand, but Mama did not respond. Perhaps half a minute passed.

***

Ngoc stood in a forest, with trees that were impossibly tall and thin, absolutely straight as if they were pillars of stone rather than living things. Far above, so high that the vision became misty, leaves tossed and twisted in powerful winds. The wind’s howling was little more than a whisper here at the forest floor. Tendrils of air twisted and curled along the floor, skittering along, picking up and playing with dead leaves and dry branches. The trees were just a few feet apart. Nothing else grew here.

“Hello?” said Ngoc, speaking instinctively in Vietnamese.

A woman stepped out from behind a tree: the long-fingered woman from the previous evening’s feast. She was wearing the same dress, but instead of carrying a small white dog, she was leading a large unpleasant-looking reptile on a leash. This reptile was nearly four feet long; its scales were translucent pastel yellow and aquamarine, and it had seven gold eyes.

“Welcome,” said the woman, also speaking in Vietnamese. “I have been looking forward to speaking with you, Ngoc Griffin. I am the Beast.”

“Where am I?” asked Ngoc.

“You have been at a disadvantage from the beginning,” said the Beast gently. “You have only understood half of what you have heard, since you have trouble with English. Your husband brought you to America, and then died and left you there with two small children and no way to go home.”

“I understand enough,” snapped Ngoc. “You want to know if I am sentient.”

The Beast smiled, and knelt to stroked the back of the reptile. “The Trial can be hard,” she said. “But it is a beautiful thing, nevertheless. Do you know anything about the Trial?”

“No,” said Ngoc. “I didn’t understand much of what you said about it last night.”

“Excellent,” said the Beast. “I wish to introduce you to someone.” She stood and gestured at a nearby tree. A man appeared, a white man with very short hair. He was wearing an American Marine uniform, and smiling from ear to ear.

Ngoc gasped. “John!” she said. She switched to English. “John, that is you?”

It was him, from the crinkles around his eyes and the smell of his uniform to the feel of his arms around her. She held him close and squeezed him until he laughed.

“You’re going to squeeze me to death,” he said.

“Do not joke about that,” she said.

“About what? Death?” he asked. “Are you afraid I’m going to die?”

She looked up at his blue eyes. “You did die,” she said.

“I just went away. I’m back now. How are the children?”

“They are ok,” said Ngoc. “They miss you.”

“Then they’ll be happy to see me again. Come with me.”

“I don’t understand,” said Ngoc. “How can you be here? What is going on?”

“Just follow me, I’ll explain.”

He took her hand and led her a few steps, and suddenly they were at their apartment in Alabama. There were unpacked cardboard boxes everywhere, and they were standing by a large box with a candle on it and two glasses of wine.

“Do you remember where we are?” he asked.

“This is our apartment,” she said. “It looks like when we first moved in. Azalea was nine, she was asleep, and we had dinner.” She smiled up at him.

“You were pregnant with little Johnny, weren’t you?”

“Yes. And you said you were so happy that we were going to have another child.”

“No, that’s not right. I said I didn’t want any more children. I said I was sorry that you were pregnant again.”

“No! I don’t remember you saying that!”

“That’s the way I remember it,” said John. He took her hand and pulled her another few steps, and they were standing in the dark outside a small house with light coming from the windows.

“Do you remember this place?” he asked.

“This is your parents’ house. I met them here for the first time.”

“What did I tell you here?”

“You told me they didn’t like the idea of you marrying a woman from Vietnam, but you were proud of me and you would stand up for me.”

“No, I never said anything like that. I said I wanted you to pretend you were Japanese. They liked the Japanese. I was ashamed that you were from Vietnam.”

“No! That is not what you said at all!”

“I remember it that way,” he said.

“What is wrong with you, John?” she asked. “Why don’t you remember properly?”

“Are you sure that you’re the one remembering properly?” He took her hand again, and then they were standing by the lake near the embassy in Ho Chi Minh City, where they had taken long walks in the evening with the moon over the lotuses in the water. She smelled the lotus flowers and felt the night breeze in her hair.

“Do you remember this place?” he asked.

“I remember,” she whispered.

“I thought you had forgotten,” he said. “Because you threw away the picture of me standing here.”

“I will never forget, John. But it hurts to see the picture.”

“Do you remember what I said to you here?”

“You said you loved me. You said you would marry me and take me to America.”

“No, that’s not right. I said we would be friends. I said you were not the right woman for me.”

“Stop it!” she screamed. And in Vietnamese: “Why do you keep lying to me? Do you think I don’t remember? What are you trying to do to me?”

“Are you sure I’m lying?”

“Yes! Yes, I’m sure!”

“Why do you trust your memory of me?” He grabbed her arms. “You try not to think about me. You never talk about me, not to the children, not to yourself. You throw away our pictures! You throw away my old things! If you keep this up, you won’t remember me at all! And neither will anyone else!”

“It hurts too much!” she cried. “Stop it! It hurts, it hurts! You’re hurting me!”

“You don’t remember me!” he screamed. “I died once, and if no one remembers me, I won’t even have lived! You’re killing me again!”

“No! No! No!” she screamed. And she was alone, on her knees on the forest floor, sobbing into the dusty leaves. Someone was laughing.

***

Mama’s eyes opened, filled with tears. Azzie squeezed her hand again.

“Azalea,” said Mama. “He’s dead, he’s dead!” She broke into terrible sobs. Azzie held her close.

“Who’s dead?” asked Srini. “Floyd?”

“No,” said Azzie. “I think I know who she’s talking about.” And, she thought, if I’m right, then I definitely am not looking forward to meeting this Beast.

Suddenly Mama grabbed Azzie’s shoulder and looked at her fiercely. “Don’t trust her,” she said. “The Beast is a liar!”

Azzie looked down into her mother’s eyes, and as she did so, Ngoc’s eyes closed again and she stopped breathing.

“Mama!” cried Azzie. “No!”

Desperately she looked up at Gwen, Srini, and Johnny. All of them looked back at her with expressions of surprise.

“Help her!” Azzie looked around for the Artists, but they had disappeared. “She’s dying!”

Srini leaned a little, her eyes still wide open and staring, and then collapsed face-forward. Gwen and Johnny crumpled as well. Azzie scrambled over to Johnny, who was nearest, and cradled him to her. There was no breath, no heartbeat. Azzie was too shocked to scream; she could only gasp.

“They are not dead yet,” said a woman’s voice. Azzie looked up: it was the long-fingered woman. She was smiling unpleasantly.

“What have you done to them?” cried Azzie. “Who are you?”

“I am the Beast,” said the woman. “Who else?” She knelt to stroke the multicolored reptile at her feet. “I am projecting an image of a woman into your mind. As for these humans, I have stopped their lives, for a short time. We have a few minutes before any permanent damage is done.”

“What do you want?” whispered Azzie.

“You are brave, Azalea, and compassionate. But to achieve sentience takes more than courage and compassion. It takes sacrifice. Do you know how to sacrifice?”

“I don’t know,” said Azzie. She tried to put aside her fear. “I guess it’s your job to figure that out.”

“Good,” said the Beast. “You do have some wisdom. Are you ready for the Trial?”

Azzie gently lay little Johnny down on the stone floor next to the fountain. She stood up. “What must I do?” she asked.

The woman smiled again, showing her white teeth. “Listen carefully. The Warriors have decided not to wait for my decision. They have already removed the sun from your world’s toy universe.”

“What?” cried Azzie.

“It has been gone for one whole day now,” said the Beast. “The oceans are becoming bitterly cold. Rivers that are necessary for hydroelectric power and coal-burning plants are freezing, so that people are without power, and their heaters don’t work. Pipes are freezing as well – so even what fresh water is left cannot be distributed. The sky is simply dark – no stars, of course, and no moon either, since it only reflects the light of the sun. Not even the image of the Earth is in the sky, since that is reflected sunlight as well.”

“Please, you’ve got to stop them,” cried Azzie.

“I could declare the humans to be sentient,” said the Beast. “If I do that, the Warriors will be forced to return your sun. Do you want that?”

“Yes, yes!” said Azzie.

“But I won’t do it for nothing.” The woman smiled even more. “I am the Beast. I am part machine and part animal, and sometimes I must feed on other beings. I am very hungry. Allow me to eat your mother’s mind, and I will declare the humans sentient.”

“What do you mean, eat her mind?” said Azzie. “You can’t just eat a mind. You mean her brain?”

“No, her mind. I will draw her personality away and make it part of my own. She will be left alive, but she will be in a sleep that she will never waken from.”

Azzie tried to think. Sacrifice. This woman last night had said that the Trial would involve a sacrifice. Sometimes there were no good solutions, only a choice between evils. Here was a choice between evils – to lose her mother forever, or condemn the Earth to a frozen death. So maybe the right thing to do was to take the Beast’s offer, and allow the Beast to eat Mama. Sacrifice her mother to save the Earth.

But that didn’t feel right to Azzie. Why was the Beast asking permission to eat Mama? That made no sense. Surely the Beast could just take what it wanted. Which indicated that the whole situation was probably some kind of elaborate set-up, just part of the Trial. Probably the Earth was not being frozen – after all, the Warriors wouldn’t really do that until after the Beast had issued its judgment, right? So the Earth was fine.

The Beast was lying, just as Mama had said she would.

So what did Azzie need to do to pass the Trial?

Well, she could either agree to the Beast’s bargain, or not. If she agreed, would the Beast really “eat” Mama? But there was no reason to agree to that if the Earth wasn’t being frozen. On the other hand, if she did not agree, probably the Beast would think that Azzie wasn’t willing to sacrifice her mother to save billions of human lives. And maybe the Beast would take that to mean that Azzie wasn’t sentient.

So if Azzie agreed, then the Beast might eat Mama to no purpose. But if she refused, the Beast might decide that humans weren’t sentient.

She looked into the eyes of the woman. While the Beast was still smiling wickedly, there was something else there – something between fascination, awe, and hunger.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” snapped Azzie, anger overcoming all her fear. “You like watching me squirm! You’re just a big bully!”

The Beast’s expression turned to anger.

“Well, I’m not playing your game!” cried Azzie. “I refuse to answer your stupid question! You’ll get no satisfaction out of me! Now wake up my friends and my brother and my Mama, and make your decision and get it over with!”

The woman looked at her in surprise for a moment, then arched an eyebrow. She slowly lifted her hand and snapped her long fingers.