He looked up at the night sky and felt all the muscles in his body tense in a moment of unprepared shock at what his eyes were seeing.

Gracie stood by, watching his face carefully, trying to decide whether or not it was appropriate to place a comforting hand on his arm. After a few tense moments of peanut-butter-thick silence, she came to the conclusion that it was.

All of the fine hairs on his arm underneath her fingers were standing on end.

“What is it?” she asked gently, as his eyes wandered over an ocean that shared the same color, its glassy surface splashed with stars and the last fading fragments of sunset.

“The stars,” he said finally, in a voice hardly louder than a whisper.

And even though Gracie had seen this more times than she could count on one hand, it always gave her goosebumps to witness. His already pale face drained of color in the silvery light of the moon, causing his freckles to stand out in stark contrast to his milky skin.

“They’re different here,” he finished.