“What is it?” I asked.
He picked an item up from the floor. It was a silver tube. He showed it to me; there was glass set into each end, and the tube had smaller tubes nestled into it.
“It's a spyglass.” Akylas rubbed a hand over the shiny metal. “I found it among the pirate treasure. Would you like to look at the stars with me?”
Akylas waved his hand toward my window, and I saw that he had placed a blanket on the floor before it, with pillows for us to sit on. I nodded and slipped out of bed. Akylas took my hand and walked with me to the blanket. When I was settled, he extended the spyglass till it was very long, and then handed it to me.
“Look there, the second star to the right,” he whispered.
“I see it,” I declared. “It's so bright. Looking at them through this glass makes it feel as if I can touch them.”
“That it does,” he agreed as he sat beside me. “I was amazed by it, and had to share it with you.”
“Thank you,” I put the glass down and leaned against his shoulder.
Akylas took it from me and stared through it, at the small piece of heaven we could glimpse through the swaying branches of our home.
“There is a group of stars that seem to be talking to each other,” he murmured. “They wink in patterns.”
“Let me see.”
He held the spyglass out to me, and I peered through it again.
“Yes, they do wink!” I exclaimed. “It must be the language of stars. How beautiful!”
“Starsarebeautiful, but they can't take part in anything, they must just watch the world forever.”
“Like me and my pool.” I frowned.
“Perhaps they were punished as you were meant to be,” Akylas spoke in the sweetest tone, the one that no woman could resist. “But they were not as lucky as you, and did not attract the attention of a sympathetic god.”
“Punished?”
“For something they did so long ago that no star can remember what it was.” He smiled softly, getting into his story. “Now, the older ones have become glassy-eyed and seldom speak–only wink”–he winked at me–“but the little ones still wonder.”
“You are a romantic,” I said with a measure of surprise.
“Don't sound so shocked,” he huffed. “I was a poet once.”
“You were?”
“Yes, I wrote poetry for all the pretty girls, and for the boys who wanted to bed them.”
“You wrote poems for the boys?” I teased.
“So they could use them to woo the girls,” he explained.
“Ah, you shared your romance.” I chuckled.
“Now, I only want to share it with you,” he whispered.
Then he asked the one thing that none of the other men had.
“Will you tell me who you were before Zeus gave you to Epimetheus?” Akylas asked.
I blinked at him, first in shock and then in sadness.
“Pandora, what is it?”
