Shadows Cast by Stars by Catherine Knutsson

out and take his hand, setting the sun-wheel in his palm and curling his fingers around it. “It’s for you.”
    He stares at it for a long moment before looking back at me. “Thank you,” he says, like he really means it.
    I start to say that it’s nothing, that it’s made only from grass, but I stop myself and just smile instead.
    Bran sweeps his hair back and stands, offering me his hand. “Well, we should probably be getting back, I guess.”
    “I guess.” Though I could stay here forever, on this hilltop, with the grass swaying in the wind, the hummingbirds, the flowers.
    But I still take Bran’s hand. Our palms meet, and this time, even after he’s pulled me up from the ground, we don’t let go.
    Paul sits beside the beached canoe, smiling as we approach. “I thought you two had run off together,” he says as he touches his swollen lip.
    “Thought about it. Figured you’d hunt us down before long.” Bran gives Paul a friendly punch to the shoulder. Paul stands up and punches him back. They both laugh.
    This is how things are meant to be, and I would stop time right now if I could. My brother is happy. I am happy.
    But time doesn’t stop.
    And everything changes.

CHAPTER TEN
     
    S ometimes, I think the earth can hear my thoughts. There are days when I wish for a storm, or for a clear sky to see the moon, and the wish arrives.
    Today I wish for wind—a brisk wind, fierce, even—to bear us across the lake, to raise whitecaps so high that Bran is trapped at our house, and it comes, rushing over the hills, bending the firs, showering the lake with needles as Bran and Paul paddle the canoe toward home.
    My father greets us and holds the canoe steady while we scramble onto the dock.
    “Help me lift it out, Paul,” Bran says. “Last thing I want is for these waves to swamp it.”
    Doesn’t sound like such a bad idea to me, but I don’t say so.
    “The wind will die later,” my father says as clouds slip across the sky.
    Not if I can help it .
    My father brought down a brace of grouse while we were away. Bran and Paul pluck them while I light the fire.
    “Tell us a story,” Paul says as we settle in. The grouse sizzle and pop each time Bran turns them.
    My father doesn’t look up. “Maybe later, Paulie,” he says, though we know from the tone of his voice that “later” really means “no.”
    I love my father’s stories, but he seldom tells them anymore. Some things are best left to die, he says. Stories haunt the living and when my father turns his gaze back to the flames, I can see he’s no longer with us. Words hold power—everyone knows this—but perhaps those who tell stories know it better than the rest, for through their voice, the dead live again, resurrected like that story of the woman Eurydice, except there’s no Orpheus to lead the way back to the world of the living.
    Just as well—he didn’t do a particularly good job of it.
    “You tell one then, Cass,” Paul says. “You tell a story.”
    I’m not sure why, but the look in Paul’s eyes tells me he needs this story from me, to hold him to the earth, to tie him to something solid. Stories do that, my father says.They make the impossible real. That’s why my father’s choice to not tell stories anymore hurts both Paul and me. Some days we need to believe in the impossible.
    But when I try to find the words, none will come. I try, but all I can think of is that my father looks so sad tonight, staring into the fire, remembering. I know the story he would tell, if he could speak, the one of how he met my mother and knew, in an instant, she was the one he would marry. He’s told it to us often enough, but tonight, for some reason, he can’t, and neither can I.
    Later, against my wishes, the wind dies and Bran leaves. My father leaves as well, but Paul and I stay by the fire. Paul stares at the coals pulsing gray and gold. The fire has stolen him, drawing him down into the world of vision.
    Above us, stars crowd the