Kai was going to bring his sister home, to the bright side.
His sister Miya had spent decades circling the burnt-out husk of a fire everyone in town used to call Oyabi. Long ago, houses ringed that fire and orbited it together — “houses” being little more than shacks lashed to chunks of rock. Oyabi lit them, Oyabi warmed them, and circling it was simply what life looked like here.
Then, one day, Oyabi went out. Not with a flash. It folded inward, smaller and smaller, until no light or heat escaped it at all. For what it’s worth, people said Oyabi was never especially bright to begin with.
The fire died, but its weight stayed behind. So the houses kept circling the place where it used to burn — there was no way to just stop orbiting, not really. Then again, maybe nobody wanted to stop.
Still, circling a dead fire is cold, plain and simple. Everyone agreed on that. So one night, the town did “the Scattering.” Every house cut its tether at once and flung itself outward, chasing a bigger fire burning far away — Niibi, they called it. Head for that one. It’s bright out there. It’s warm.
Kai was one of the ones who launched that night. He was young. He caught the current just right, and after years adrift, he finally settled into orbit around Niibi. Not that anyone kept count of how many made it. Nobody talks much about the houses that scattered the wrong way, into the dark.
Kai did well for himself at Niibi — well enough, in fact, that the best he could think to do now was show up with a blanket for his sister.
Miya hadn’t cut her line the night of the Scattering. She’d stayed alone by the dead fire, still going around and around it. Poor thing, people at Niibi said. All that dark, all that cold, all by herself.
So Kai came to get her. Thick coat on, the warmest blanket he owned tucked under his arm.
“Sis. Come on, that’s enough. Come live at Niibi.”
“Oh, Kai! Is that you?”
Miya didn’t seem surprised in the least. “Just made some tea. You look cold.”
“I am cold. Out here where the fire’s dead and—”
He stopped mid-sentence.
It was warm.
The inside of the shack was warm, gently so, unmistakably. Right next to a fire that was supposed to be dead. Without meaning to, Kai loosened the front of his coat.
“Wh— why is it warm in here? Oyabi’s gone out.”
“Went out ages ago.” Miya sipped from her cup. “But you know, this ring’s small.”
Small. It really was small. Since Oyabi had shrunk down, the orbit around it had drawn in tight too. Which meant the houses passed close to each other, and often.
“Watch. It’ll be by soon.”
Miya tilted her chin toward the window. Out of the darkness, another shack’s window drifted into view — the neighbor’s house. Miya’s window and the one next door swept past each other close enough to touch.
“Yoh, want some tea?”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
Miya held out the cup. A hand reached from the other window and took it. The two windows drew apart again, gliding away, only to swing back around before long.
Kai just watched, a little dazed.
Niibi was huge. Bigger fire, impossibly bigger orbit. Houses there might pass each other once every few days, if that. Niibi was bright, and warm. And yet Kai realized he’d never once seen his own neighbor’s face.
What had been keeping this place warm wasn’t the fire at all. It was the small, tight ring, spinning everyone close together, again and again. Close meant warm. That was the whole secret.
“Guess you didn’t need the blanket,” Miya said, laughing.
Kai took off his thick coat. And then, for the first time in his life, he raised a hand and waved at the neighbor’s window sliding by, just an arm’s length away.