Moonlight. Such wondrous beauty. Too bad it shone on such a lonely girl. The lonely girl was beautiful, too, like the moonlight. Her long chocolate-colored hair shone in the dimness, and her blue eyes were framed with long black lashes. She leaned on the stone rail of the balcony that protruded from the balcony of the rich house, sighing.

She couldn’t stop thinking of him. Him, with his sweet brown eyes and lovely smile. She had met him when she just happened to come to the poorer side of town, and he had been in the marketplace, playing his trumpet. When he saw her, his playing got higher and faster and louder, until his face was red. She had stopped, of course, how could one ignore a sight like that? Then he smiled, What a beautiful smile, that’s what she thought, and bowed his head, his shaggy black hair falling into those sweet brown eyes.

Then, he was everywhere she went, playing that trumpet. And one day he asked her name. She’d said “Jessamine,” very softly. “Well, Jessamine,” a small smile from her, “I’m Will.” And then he’d bowed so deeply that she had laughed.

They met very often after that. Will would take her to the river, where he looked over it and told her she was beautiful, more beautiful than any girl he’d ever before seen, more beautiful than a rose; and he’d take her to a candlelit fountain on the poor side of town, make her close her eyes, and kiss her, softly and gently. He made her laugh and smile and blush; he made her heart beat faster. It wasn’t long before she was with him every night, him sneaking to her room, climbing onto the very balcony where she stood, and then whispering to her his love and kissing the top of her head. But not tonight.

Tonight Will was in jail. Her parents caught him. Just one night, she forgot to keep her ears open, forgot that her parents even existed, because of her love for that boy. She regretted it so much now. It was against the law for a man to be in the room at night of a girl he was not married to. So, tonight, he wasn’t with her. And she was alone.

Just then, a shooting star flew across the sky. She closed her eyes and made one wish: a wish for him.




Damn these chains! The boy thought. He wanted to bang his head against the stone wall, but he already did that. No use. Just gave him a headache. Not that he cared much. He would take the pain of the headache a thousand times more if he could just be with Jessamine. Ah, Jessamine. Those pretty blue eyes, like pieces of fallen sky, those full, soft lips, that demeanor of kindness that surrounded her.

He wondered if she was thinking of him. Yes, she probably was. He started playing a memory from last night in his head, over and over, to chase away the hard cold seeping into his skin from those stupid chains on his wrists: her eyes lighting up when he finished the climb onto her balcony; the way he could feel her heart beat faster when he put his arms around her, even through the thick, expensive fabric of her dress, and the feeling it produced in him; his heart beating harder when he kissed her, as if to lighten the load hers had, to help her stay with him.

Yes, he loved her. More than he loved anything, really. There was nothing else to love besides her. His parents were dead and he didn’t remember them being alive, his trumpet was old and dented, and his friends only were with him because he was good at lying. It had been very helpful when they created schemes to steal from the rich, like Jessamine. Not that he cared that she was rich. He would have thought her beautiful whether she was wearing a silk gown or a filthy frock. Even if she weren’t beautiful he would still love her.

He longed for her now. He wanted to hold her in his arms, hear her whisper beautiful words, feel her lips on his.

He looked up at the moon through the tiny, single window in his cell. He thought it was pretty, but not beautiful like Jessamine. And just then, when he happened to look up at the night sky, a shooting star flew across it. He stared at it and made one wish: a wish for her.