*
Many are the tales that have been told of moonlight and nighttime fancy, but few folks until now have heard the story of the night-bird.
Once a young prince lived in a splendid palace – a prince who loved, from his bedroom window, to gaze at the dark sky and the stars set in it like lustrous pearls. Below his window spread his father the king’s garden, a wide and beautiful courtyard filled with potted shrubs and trees; and in a tall orange tree in the midst of all that beauty lived the night-bird, a shy, sleek, gentle creature who always hid in the deepest part of its home, close to the trunk and among the thickest boughs. No one, not the gardeners nor the servants nor the royal family themselves, knew where that bird had come from; neither did they know how long it might live, nor had anyone seen its like before. A long tail it had, and three dainty curled feathers that sprung from its head to form a crest; and of color the bird was all of one hue, a ravishing silver that sparkled so sharply that one would think that beast to be made of the same stuff as the moon.
Perhaps most strange of all, the bird never seemed to stir nor fly; and all thought that it must hunt for its food in the depth of night. The young prince often stayed up late at his window to watch for it to leave its tree, which he thought must be a wonderful sight, like a silver comet streaking across a magic blue backdrop, disappearing over the mysterious horizon – but never did his eyes catch that departure; and sleep always pulled the prince back to his bed long before the first hint of dawn appeared.
“Oh night-bird,” said the prince one day to the little dweller in his orange tree, “will you ever let us see you fly? In the night you must surely be the most beautiful of creatures, with spread wings that glitter like the angels’ do.” But the bird only glanced back and forth, oblivious to the prince’s words.
The young prince grew older. In time, he was obliged to leave the palace, for he was to be married to a princess whose father was in ill health; and it was expected that soon he would be the new king of a far distant realm, ruling over subjects as his father did.
The prince lay in bed awake for long hours on those nights before he was to leave, listening to the silence of the palace. Sleep, in its soft-footed tour of the many rooms, neglected to visit his.
I don’t believe I’ve ever stayed up this late before, he thought one especially anxious night, turning in bed.
The hands of the clock on the mantel had now reached a position he’d only ever seen by day. The prince felt the cold wind breathe through the window and touch his face.
In a while, his nerves started to relax. Just as he was beginning to slip away, a sparkling silver streak seemed to leap through his window. The prince saw it sputter and fluster. Was he waking or dreaming? The streak circled many times above his bed.
What wonderful brightness! he thought. The luminous wedge spat sparks and streamers like the sudden collision of a million stars or an explosion of white fireworks. Then it slowed, and gave off not quite as many flecks of light as it circled; and then it grew dimmer still, slowing as a pinwheel winds down in a dying breeze; and finally it settled upon the footboard of the prince’s bed.
It was the night-bird. In its silver effulgence it glowed like a strange beauteous fire; and the creature stared at the prince with wide, black eyes – much wider than he had ever seen them before. In its beak, it held a large key as silver as itself.
The prince wanted to speak to the bird, but his lips would not so much as twitch. He wanted to rise from his bed and touch it, but his body was as a lump of dead flesh.
If more occurred, the prince did not remember it. He awoke in late morning, with only a vague memory of the staring eyes and the key.
*
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Soon the day came when the prince had to ascend his carriage and begin the long journey to the kingdom of the princess he was to marry.
“My son,” his father said to him, “please take my blessings with you. And since I’ve always known you to love your night-bird so, shall I have the footmen cage it, that you may take it with you to your new kingdom?”
The prince thought for a bit, much longer than the king would have expected. “Yes, please,” he said at last.
So the footmen were charged with capturing the bird, and with ladders and nets and sticks they tried to seize it – but very promptly after they began to beat the boughs to get it to stir, the peaceful thing darted up from its hidden nest and, with hardly a flap, ascended high into the blinding regions of the sun, never to be seen again.
Disappointed, and feeling that something perhaps indefinable was amiss, the prince made his way in his carriage to the far-off kingdom. He married the princess, and shortly after came to rule as a king. After some years, he ceased to think very much about the night-bird.
Much later, word came to him that his father had died, and not long after that, his mother the queen; and the princess’s own parents were not long in following them. More years went by, and the princess herself, long a queen, passed away, as did the king’s siblings back home, and many of his friends and most of the nobles of his court. At long last, in some cold and rainy month whose name he’d forgotten, the king found himself upon his deathbed.
He lay attended by pages and servants all hours, near motionless, passing in and out of sleep. The nights grew longer, and the king’s sight and awareness dimmer and dimmer.
One midnight, as all those attending him slouched sleeping in their chairs, the king was startled awake. There was a sudden flash – the silver streak had appeared again through his window. He saw it circle and settle.
It was the night-bird. Again its eyes stared wide and black, and again it held the silver key in its beak.
Behind it, a strange door had appeared – a door that seemed to have grown gradually out of the stone wall, and was now pressing closer and closer slowly. Its dark keyhole loomed ever larger, growing like a shadow.
The king tried to speak, but his lips would not so much as twitch. And however much he tried to strain himself – to rise up or to reach forward an arm – his body would no more move than would a cold lump of flesh.
*