Isla had never seen a truly dark sky.
She had seen stars, the way you see them in a city — a handful of the brightest ones, flat against a grey-orange background. She had pointed at Orion and the Plough, learned them by name.
She thought that was what stars were.
Her grandfather picked her up at ten on a Friday night without telling her mother the plan, which her mother had pre-approved and which they both found funny.
Two hours outside the city, he stopped on a country road and turned off the headlights.
Isla stepped out of the car.
She looked up.
She didn't have words for it. She had read about the Milky Way, had seen photographs, understood intellectually that it was the visible disc of the galaxy. But photographs are flat. This was depth. Layers upon layers of light, some stars sharp and close, some smeared into a luminous fog that stretched from horizon to horizon.
She turned around. Everywhere.
"This is what it always looked like," said her grandfather. "Before the lights."
Isla couldn't speak for a few minutes.
"Every person who ever lived under this sky," she said finally, "saw this."
"Every one," he said.
She stayed until her neck ached from looking up.
On the drive home, the orange glow of the city appeared on the horizon like a dim imitation of something she now knew existed.
She never looked at a night sky the same way again.