The ship moved so easily through the breeze that it seemed to be a part of it, as though the breeze had created it to show its own invisible power.

The wooden boat pointed toward the horizon where the star was shining and its wind was rising. The wood's grain lay in rippling, brown patterns, from some far-away forest. The grain looked like waves of water, from a secret stream where tiny birds would have landed for a moment and then vanished to another world of water.

But the wood was now a ship, and the water was the sea. And the wood's ripples could as well have been the ripples of sound waves still singing.

The only sound heard now was the wind, "Huuuuu." If Hugh listened carefully, he could become aware of other sounds that played from the "Huuuuu" sound, the way lights and mirrors play off each other in a hall of mirrors. Sometimes the sounds faded from clarity to a more subtle feeling; the boy could feel the sound itself.

Then the sound seemed to come from nowhere but inside himself, and from hardly any direction at all, to no place, like the seemingly aimless direction of the boat.

Hugh looked out over the water, and he saw, nearly directly in his path, a lighthouse. On this side of it, the lighthouse was painted gold, like the wingtips on Hansa -- who stood alert and then flew from the ship's bow, toward the island where stood the lighthouse.

In flight, Hansa was one with the wind. Somehow he seemed to control his motion by following the wind currents that were already there, and choosing the currents that he knew would take him to his destination, the island.

On shore, the swan came to earth next to a man dressed in a sailor's uniform which was the same color as the sea. The sailor kneeled next to Hansa, and carressed the radiant white feathers.

The sailor seemed to be talking, or singing, or communicating somehow with the bird. When Hansa stretched his wings suddenly to the sky, they caught a fabulous reflection of the lighthouse gold, as though to answer the man with silent brilliant color.

Then Hansa flew from the island back to Hugh, who had been watching from the nearby sailing ship, as it had continued on its voyage. As they passed the lighthouse, Hugh saw that the other side of it was painted blue -- not the same shade as the sea, or the sky, or the sailor's suit. It was the color of the singing blue star.