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“Can you help me with the blanket, Nine?” Ten said, pulling the striped package out of the car’s trunk.
Nine perked up at the sound, tucking away their phone and hopping over to help unfold it. The siblings pulled the patterned picnic blanket out wide between them and tossed it up, shaking out any wrinkles and laying it down beside the car. A few feet away, Juice lugged a couple pieces of firewood into the pit that had been set up for them. The sun was sinking behind the rows of trees in the distance, bathing everything in pink-orange light.
Nine took a deep breath, the wind gently tussling their hair. It was a cool autumn evening, and Nine had taken a special liking to autumn out of all the seasons, the gentle weather, the colors of the trees. The darkness would grow in autumn, the Earth slowly tilting away from the sun, but Nine liked those evenings where the sun went down early best, where they could hide behind windows and curl up with Ten and Juice and a book or a movie or whatever football game was on at the moment.
Not tonight though. Tonight was going to be different. Nine put their hands on their hips and glanced out toward the horizon. It was as clear as far as the eye could see, not a cloud to be found, and that was all Nine could ask for.
Ten had brought out the cooler and set it up by the side of the blanket, opening it up to reveal a selection of various sodas, as chosen by Juice. She reached into the trunk and produced a few red-colored headlamps, handing one to Nine. It wasn’t quite time to use them yet, but it would be soon enough.
Juice fiddled with the lighter in his hands, trying to get a steady enough flame on the kindling in the fire pit. Ten and Nine watched him struggle for a moment before Ten scoffed and walked over, grabbing his wrist. “You have to press the child lock on top while pulling the trigger.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Juice rolled his eyes, but relented the lighter to her anyway, letting her do her thing. Within seconds, the pit was ablaze with orange and yellow flames, Ten staring proudly at her work. “Why do they even have child safety locks on these things anyway?” Juice sighed.
“For idiots like you who leave them on car seats and would probably end up lighting their asses on fire otherwise.” Ten gave Juice a smug pat on the shoulder, which he edged away from, rolling his eyes.
“Whatever. Now that we have a fire, we can get to the real focus of the evening: Dinner.” He pulled a grocery bag out of the truck while Nine grabbed the package of roasting sticks. The trio sat themselves down on folding chairs set up around the fire. Juice pulled out a package of hot dogs and buns, passing them around, and Nine sank back into their chair, watching as the flames brushed against their roasting stick.
The sun continued to set, light trickling away from the sky as the three conversed about anything and everything. They finished their hot dogs and moved on to marshmallows, with all the fixing of s’mores of course, and Nine felt a rush of excitement run through them as the wind shook the trees. It was a magical night, a new moon in the sky above them, and they felt so alive with the feeling of the ground beneath them and the sounds of the fire and the wind and Juice going on and on about some video he had found about the history of the entire world.
“He starts it off with ‘Hi, you’re on a rock floating in space’ but like, you can’t assume that about everyone. Come on. What if I’m the rock floating in space, huh?” Juice leaned forward, gesturing wildly, and Ten narrowly avoided getting hit with his roasting stick.
“You’re not a rock,” Nine said pointedly.
“Yea, but I was in space. Anyway, the thing was released in like 2017, so it’s missing a whole buncha shit that happened since. Doesn’t cover my launch. Doesn’t even go up to immortality. I think it’d be funny to make an updated version, you know?”
“Maybe,” Ten mused, carefully pushing a marshmallow off her stick and onto a graham cracker. “You said the visuals were a bunch of pictures on top of a globe? With jingles?”
“Yeah, pretty weird, right? I was thinkin’, like, Nine could do the research, and you could do the camerawork? Y’can’t really capture the magic of the original though.”
“Well, we can at least try.” Nine smiled, looking at the faces of their friends lit in the flickering firelight. The darkness had settled around them like a warm blanket, and Nine was getting antsy, tapping their foot against the ground. Ten took notice and set down her s’more.
“All right, all right, enough talk. We’re here for a reason.” She stood from her chair, and offered a hand to Nine, who gladly took it and rose to their feet. Juice joined them, grabbing his Fanta and headlamp. They walked to the other side of the car, away from the light of the fire, their headlamps tracing across the ground.
Nine lowered themself onto the cool blanket, resting their head on the ground. Ten and Juice laid next to them, Ten wrapping her arm around Nine’s neck and pulling them close. Nine smiled, then breathed in and out, shaking off the shivers. “Okay. Lights off in three, two, one.”
The stars were magnificent.
The sky stretched above them in every direction, better than pure darkness. There were so many stars, scattered points of light in traced patterns and swirls, clouds and nebulae and everything brighter than any photo. Nine felt the world turn upside down, hanging from the ceiling and looking down into a pool of the entire universe. Even though it was the thousandth time, they couldn’t help but gasp watching the stars twinkle in front of them.
Ten sighed contentedly, settling into the ground and motioning Juice to come closer. He laughed softly for a moment before siding up to her, and the three basked in each other’s warmth for a while, staring at the sky above them. They didn’t even need a star map to find their way across it, each star’s name and place and story coming to them easily. Juice pointed out Jupiter, of course, and Nine regaled them with the tales of their favorite constellations, which had shifted so much they were barely recognizable, but Nine still loved them anyway.
“Ophiucus was originally one of the zodiac constellations, since it lay on the ecliptic, the path the sun takes through the sky. But it was removed and forgotten by nearly everybody, probably because of triskaidekaphobia.” Nine whispered into the night. They didn’t need to whisper, there wasn’t anything to talk over, but the quietness of the moment felt right. “It’s still remembered as a constellation, but it was overshadowed by the other zodiac symbols.”
“Too bad. It has such an interesting story. More people should know about it.” Ten smiled, glancing over at Nine, her eyes reflecting every star above her.
“Why Ophiucus, anyway? They coulda gotten rid of Aries. That one don’t even cross the ecliptic.” Juice sat up pointed out the stars that made up Aries, which indeed, all sat above the line of the ecliptic even as they had shifted.
Nine snickered. “Don’t know. It’d be a much cooler star sign than a bull, anyway. The serpent bearer.”
The other two nodded in agreement, and Ten laughed, pulling Nine to her chest. “God, I love stargazing with you, Nine. Years spent searching the stars for you, and now I get to do it with you.”
Nine squeezed their sister even tighter, reaching across her and grabbing Juice’s hand as well. “I love doing it with you guys. I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
Juice chuckled and pulled in closer, Nine blinked back their glistening tears, and the three wished they could stay like that forever, feeling each other’s presence, laughing and smiling on this planet beneath the stars.