On the beach, Hugh walked eastward toward the fishermen's old pier, where silver lights were dancing across the waves in rhythms so beautiful he could almost hear them. The sand was soft as it surrendered to the shape of his feet, and it was warm below the early morning sun. Hugh felt like this was the first morning of his life, the only morning that could ever have been.

As he approached the wharf, he came upon a sailboat that had washed ashore in the night. Its gold-colored, wooden hull was dented, but it looked like it would sail so effortlessly that it might suddenly take off into the air and find itself flying through oceans of clear sky, like a bird.

On the bow of the boat was a swan. Hugh walked toward him. The swan looked at the boy the way a star would look down from its heavens at a quiet distant world. Its white feathers seemed to turn to silver, then change to ivory, and to white as Hugh approached.

Then the bird turned and looked out over the sea, as though he was looking, or listening, or even somehow traveling over its restless waves, to a horizon. Hugh saw nothing but the bright blue sky, blue sea, and ...

There, the blue star had reappeared where Hugh had seen it before. Its color was more dazzling than it had been in the night. Now that his eyes were used to the daylight, he could again see that star. Its light made the other blues seem like just mild reflections.

It was the star that was drawing the swan's attention. It flapped its wings three times, but it did not fly from the ship.

The bird flapped three more times, but still it did not fly.

Hugh walked to the boat, to touch the bird, to pet it. Again its wings reached to the sky -- three times, as though it wanted to soar to that single star, and to carry along the boat and Hugh, too.

The boy pushed the sailboat from the shore and jumped into it. Then he raised its sail to the top of the mast. The sky blew its strong wind against the cloth, on the beginning of a voyage to the star's horizon.