The hill is the first thing you see when you enter our village. It’s not technically inside the village proper, but when you leave the rest of the world behind, when you cross over, the hill is the first thing you see. It rises gently towards the sky, like a child reaching for something they want, but are in no hurry to get. The tall grass that blankets it like a familiar, lethargic lover always sways gently in the wind. The wind is always blowing on that hill. Watching. Waiting. For what, no one was entirely sure, even though all of them suspected the truth. That the wind was waiting for me.

So I pushed into the breeze, unyielding, defiant, and determined to prove myself the stronger. Our age-old game, and my “welcome home.” Oh, he fought back, of course, (that was part of the game) but we both knew he wouldn’t win. It had been years since the wind was able to knock me down. Not since I was a child. But as I grew up and got stronger, I started to win, and he would cry bitter tears and howl out his anger all through the night. It used to drive the adults in the village crazy, but that just made me laugh harder. You see, the wind may have been dead everywhere else in the world, but not here. Not in our village.

In our village, the wind still plays games with us, and I’m not a child anymore, but this isn’t a game you have to be a child to play. These sorts of contests of strength were enjoyed by everyone. I can still remember how Joseph used to play with the rocks and stones when we were little, and how he would win, too.

‘He’s a strong one, that Joseph,’ the adults would say. ‘That Joseph’s going to make us proud.’

I couldn’t push against the rocks. I wasn’t strong enough to play with them. But the wind and I always had an understanding. A special, unique one. Rock would speak to Joseph, but we could all understand it, just like when Water and Tree sang together at night. When Wind spoke, I was the only one who could truly understand him.

“You’ve been gone a long time,” Wind whispered in my ear, finally satisfied with our game.
“I know,” I answered, letting myself fall back into the grass of the hill and basking in the sensation of falling. “I missed you a lot. The wind is dead everywhere else in the world.”
“I know,” Wind said.

“Has anything changed in the village? Is everyone still the same?” I asked.

“It was lonely, you know, by myself. No one would play with me,” Wind continued, unabated, dancing about me, refusing to settle.

My body tensed and my heart beat sped up in my chest. I sat up sharply. “Wind!”

“Yes?” he paused.

“What happened?” I asked again. Wind was never, nor would he ever be, the greatest at focusing, but I knew for a fact that he could answer my question. Which left only one possibility. He was hiding something. “What happened?”

Wind stopped his dancing altogether and sat down next to me with a gusty sigh. “It was Sun.”

“What?” There was disbelief evident in my voice, but relief in my heart. At least it wasn’t Rose.

Rose. The reason I had left in the first place. Actually, there had been a couple of reasons, but this particular reason just happened to be the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. When she got sick…well, the village may have been magical by the standards of the outside world, but no amount of ancient secrets could replace the advances made by modern medicine in the last hundred years alone. So I left, with the same vow that every one of the few people who had ever left the village had made before they journeyed forth. The promise to return. Only difference was, I had intended to keep mine.

“Sun flickered. She went out. It only lasted about a second, but…we all figure it means something. The old one, the stargazer-”

“Elijah.”

“Yes, he’s been trying to read the stars, but he’s not been having much luck.”

“Why? Will the stars not speak to him?”

“It’s not that,” Wind looked around cautiously, as if afraid Elijah might be standing right behind him, then he grinned mischievously and leaned forward to whisper in my ear. “It’s that he gets blinder every year.”

And then Wind laughed lightly, his previously serious mood destroyed. I smiled a little myself and lay back on the hill beside him and felt the grass sway under me. The sun beat down on us now, and she didn’t look like she was going to flicker. She was always strong, always broad, always…there. To have her gone would be the most horrible thing I could imagine. She was our mother.

“You wanna play?” Wind offered.

“Not right now. I’m tired,” I yawned and felt Wind caress my face softly. He knew that put me right to sleep.

And then I woke up, and I couldn’t feel Sun on my face anymore. My eyes snapped open in terror, and then I groaned.

“I thought the sun went out,” I moaned, slinging an arm across my eyes.

“Nah, just to sleep,” Moon informed me, knocking some ash off the end of his cigarette. I fixed my eyes on it.

“That’s new.”

Moon shrugged.

“It’s bad for your health.”

He snorted.

“They cause cancer.”

“You’ve been out in there for three years, kid. In the world. You think one of these little things is going to kill me?” Moon raised the cylinder up and took another drag. “The rest of the world’s a cancer, kid. This thing? This is harmless.”

“Sun wouldn’t approve.”

Moon gave a throaty chuckle at that. “You’re right about that much. Where’s your pal?”

Then I realized Wind was gone. I pushed down my panic and waved a hand vaguely. I kept reminding myself that this wasn’t the outside world. The wind wasn’t dead, it was gloriously alive. With Moon though, you had to be careful. You couldn’t let him know when you are scared or upset or worried. He was tricky like that.

“He’s around,” I said.

“How long are you planning to lie on this hill?”

“Long as I need to. I’ll go into the village tomorrow.”

He shrugged again. “Your call.”

I nodded, and lay back down in the grass. I kept my eyes open this time, though. Wind was asleep, and Moon was awake, which meant it was the very deepest night. Time and Space would be dancing soon, and Dreams would play the flute. I didn’t want to miss that. It had been a long time since I had seen that sight. Then I heard the first note in the still night air, and my heart broke and soared into the sky in the same instant. I took an involuntary breath and fell back onto my elbows. I had been unprepared. I had forgotten what it was like. But the strains of the music were unmistakable once they started. Nobody could make the music that Dreams made. Think of the greatest music, the sweetest aria, the most moving orchestral movement, the deepest, most bone-shaking drumbeat you have ever heard, and multiply it into the heavens. That’s what that first note from Dreams’ flute feels like, because it’s not so much a sound as it is a sensation. A triumphant climax of music and sensation.

“So the windspeaker’s back,” Space said, twisting around me. Space was always a little scary. Like being in the middle of infinity. With Time it was the same way, but Time was calm. Serene. Space was chaotic and full.

“It would appear so,” Time agreed, surrounding me and coaxing Space away. And they began to dance. “We’ve all missed you.”

“Really?” I ask.

“No,” Space said, and giggled. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Yes.”

“No one who left ever came back, you know,” Time tells me.

“I know,” I said.

“She’s been waiting.”

I blushed slightly and turned my head so I could hear Dreams’ music better. Time and Space continued to waltz, turning simultaneous somersaults in the air and holding each other so close they seem to become one being. If you look closely, you can see the entire cosmos contained within this masquerade. It’s an age-old dance (not that that has any relevance here, considering Space’s partner) and they love to have an audience. Normally there’s a whole crowd and they do it in the center of the village, but I suppose they chose this spot as sort of a welcome back for me. Despite Space’s earlier claim, they did miss me. They missed all their children when they were gone. Space and Time helped raise me, and so did Dreams, in its own way. Dreams never stopped playing, whether or not it could we never knew. I don’t think even Space and Time knew. But Dreams would play lullabies for us when we were children, to put us to sleep. It would sit and play long after we had fallen asleep, and would stay there until we awoke. Time and Space were different. They were always somewhat distant, like they were in their own little world where nothing else mattered but the two of them. They continued to dance, but they kept a steady eye on the moon. Like I said, you had to be careful when Moon was involved.
We have a legend in our village, that there was once a beautiful woman born here. So beautiful, they say, that she could freeze a stream, just by looking at it, and by the same token, melt it with a wink. She grew up in much the same way we did, playing with the water and trees, wrestling the rocks, listening to the song of dreams. Then, one day, Moon took notice of her, and spurning Sun’s warm and caring comfort, instead embraced this young maiden. She became impregnated, and bore him many thousands of children. Now Sun was a warm and nurturing being by nature, but she was also prone to great bouts of fury (much like any woman) and, maddened by love and fueled by vengeance, rained fire down on the land. The fire struck each of the millions of children, and they were all carried into the sky by the sheer force. However, the sun made it clear that she never wanted to see them again, and so they hid during the day, and thus the stars were born.

“S’not true, you know,” Moon informed me, gazing at the dancing pair, the cigarette balanced between his lips, inexplicably dark blue smoke drifting from the lit end.

“What isn’t?” I asked, curious.

“The legend. The stars are our children. Mine and the suns,” the moon blew out a cloud of smoke, the tendrils forming designs and patterns in the still air. The smoke formed two spheres, one tinted blue and the other gold. At first they were two, and then suddenly they came together into one and dissolved, the smoke drifted away through the still night air, the two strands twisting and intertwining with each other until they vanished.

I couldn’t speak. Moon never talked to anyone from the village. At least not earnestly, like he was now. He never talked about anything important. Yet here he was, sitting on the hill with me, telling me things no one else in the world knew.

“I love Sun. She’s my other half. My better half. I wouldn’t jeopardize that. Not for anything. I know everyone thinks I’m a cold, arrogant bastard. And I am,” he smirked that famous smirk. “But Sun sees more than that. She’s my lady, and I love her with all my being. I would do anything for her.”

I nodded. I knew what he meant.

“I know that you know what I meant,” he continued, his smirk widening into a full-blown smile. “You feel the same way about her, don’t you? Your Rose?”

“I…yes. Yeah, I do.”

“Did you really find what you needed? Out there?” he asked me.

“I did. I can save her now.”

Another cloud of blue smoke was released into the air. “Good.”

I stood up and kicked off my sandals, standing up and reveling in the feel of the grass between my toes. Grass always did feel good. He was a little too humble, but I guess I would be too, if I were in his situation.

“Hey, Moon?” I said, feeling the breeze stir my hair, and I knew Wind was back.

“Yeah, kid?” he looked over at me questioningly.

“Wanna play?”

He stopped, fixed me with an incredulous stare, and grinned. With a casual wrist motion he flicked the rest of his cigarette away. “Sure, why not?”