Star music is the most beautiful sound on New Earth.  Even though Grandpa Samuel tried to tell me, much later, that it was only a bunch of bugs making that sound out in the bushes and trees, I never believed him.  It made sense the stars should have a music all their own, and besides, I never saw a bug yet that knew how to sing like that.  It was the stars all right.

Gordie had crumbled another dirt clod and was scattering the soil in front of him.  "I don't believe there are any demons," he said out loud.

"You don't know that."

"Yes I do.  It was some old monster tried to eat your great-grandfather that started it all, so they put it down in a book that nobody could go out after night.  The monster crawled off and died a hundred years ago, but no one ever came outside to see if it was gone.  They just stayed in there, all sealed in, and made up a lot of demon stories to scare little kids with."

"Yeah.  But I bet they still believe it, about the demons.  Like their parents told them, and their parents' parents told them.  Aunt Esther believes it.  I can tell just by the way she talks about 'em; how they're all fire-tongued and bulgy-eyed."

Gordie made a snorting noise.

"Your folks believe it.  Mine, too.

"They're all crazy."

We listened to the stars sing for a long time then, and one of the moons crawled down toward the ground and got swallowed up. The stars got so much brighter after that, I couldn't believe this was the same sky I'd looked at so often in the daytime, when it was nothing but a boring bunch of cloudy blue.

After a long time, Gordie said, "If there aren't any more monsters, why should night still be Forbidden?  If there weren't ever any monsters, why'd they put it on the list of the Forbidden to begin with?"

I told him I couldn't guess why, except that night always was on top of the list of the Forbidden, way higher than lying and stealing and just one notch above something called war that I could never get my folks or Aunt Gert or anybody to explain.

"I'll bet I know," Gordie said suddenly.  "I'll bet I know where they keep all the answers hidden."

I knew what he was thinking, because I'd been thinking it too.  "In Schlessinger's barn, you mean?  I figured that too.  That's why they keep it sealed up even in the daytime.  Something Forbidden's gotta be in there."

"We can find out.  Tomorrow I'll mix up some more powder.  Barn's got glass eyes, too."

"Maybe there's a monster inside it."  The idea excited me.

"Nah.  Not unless it's a dead one.  Just his bones, maybe.  We'll find out."

"Yeah." I leaned back and was almost lying down across the furrows when I felt Gordie go all stiff and rigid and draw in a breath.

"What is it?" I asked him, and sat up straight to look where he was looking, out across the plowed field into the stand of birch trees.  They swayed back and forth and muttered to themselves, all dark and black and shadowy.  I didn't see anything else out there, and started to say so, but Gordie shushed me.

"Listen, " he hissed.  "Something's moving out there."

I listened, and there was a kind of rustle and crunching noise from somewhere among the trees.  It was getting louder, coming toward us.

Gordie was on his feet and I was halfway up when we saw it come out of the bushes, tall and black and stalking straight at us.  We didn't stick around to become some monster's dinner.  We made for the fence at a dead run and I swear I could hear my heart thumping louder than both our feet.  We were almost to the fence before I realized there were more than four feet tearing up ground on the way there, and something was behind us, running too, and probably reaching out to grab for us.  I could even hear it breathing, but I was way too scared to look back, scared I'd miss getting over the fence if I tried.  We both hit the wood rails at the same time, but halfway over I saw Gordie jerk backwards just like something had yanked him by the collar.  He hollered, or started to, but something strangled it off and I heard him fall, kicking and whimpering, back into the dirt. I'd've hollered myself if I could, only the sound refused to come.  I had the sudden stupid idea that if I pinched my backside I could wake up safe in bed and everything would be okay.  But it wasn't okay.  I got over the fence and landed hard on the other side, scrambling to get up and run again, even if I would be leaving Gordie behind.  When I stood up, though, I got a really good look at the "demon," and instead of running I just sat back down in the dirt and let my breath out.  I almost wanted to cry.

It was Grandpa Samuel.  No scaly, clawed, fire-eyed monster, but Grandpa Samuel with his hand clamped over Gordie's mouth, still trying to shush him, because Gordie had his eyes squinched shut and was fighting for all he was worth.

"Quiet!" I whisper-shouted at him, and climbed back over the fence.  "Be quiet, you idiot.  It's only Grandpa Samuel!"

Gordie opened his eyes then, and stopped fighting when he saw it was true, though his struggling hadn't been getting him anywhere anyhow.  Any demon worth its salt would have gobbled him down a long time before this.

Gordie started stammering again when the hand let go of his mouth.  "D-did you follow us?"

Grandpa Samuel chuckled the way grown-ups do when they know something you don't.  "I was about t'ask you boys that same question.  What are you doin' out here, and better asked, how'd you get here?"

"Gordie fooled the eye," I confessed, and felt more like a tattler than a criminal owning up to his crime.  "We opened the seal on the southwest window."

"Hm.  That's pretty smart, fooling the eye.  How'd you do that?"

"Made a powder that burns bright enough to fake it out," Gordie answered.  Then, rather than explain any more, he asked, "How'd you get out?"

"Me? I get out most every night, boy, while you're safe asleep in bed.  I keep those eyes all workin'.  Didn' you know that?  I take care of the windmill, which runs the generator, which runs the lights and seals and eyes.   I know right how to turn one off when I want."

Gordie hadn't even heard that last part.  "Every night?" he echoed.  "You come out every night?"  He'd gotten up on his feet, and was brushing the dirt off his dungarees.

"Since when?" I wanted to know.  "Since you fell off your horse in the woods?"

"Never fell off no horse.  Just made that up to explain why I stayed out.  Wanted to see the sun go down all the way and watch the stars come out.  But I'd been sneakin' out for a long time before that -- since I was younger 'n either of you.  Ain't nobody else I know of in all that time ever tried it but you.  Ain't nobody else ever knew I did -- till now.  We ain't gonna tell on each other, now are we?"

With a whole new kind of respect for him, Gordie and I both said, "No  sir.

"Do you stay out all night?" I asked him.  "All night every night?""

"Not always.  Gotta sleep some time y'know.  But if I do spend all night out, ain't nobody cares I sleep late next day.  I'm old, see, so they don't wonder.  You now -- with you they'd wonder.  Maybe even start to suspect."

"The demons," Gordie piped up.  "Did you ever see the demons?"

Grandpa Samuel looked a little like he wasn't so sure how to answer.  "No, he said at last.  "Can't say as I ever did."

"Then I was right.  There aren't any monsters.  No monsters at all."

"Hold on there.  I never said there weren't none.  I said I never seen 'em.  There's a difference."

I climbed back on the fence and straddled it.  "Were there demons once?  Didn't you ever see one, not even a long time ago?"

He leaned on the fence beside me, and his voice all of a sudden got sad.  "Never did," he said.  "But I heard about the worst one, from my grandpa.  His name was Evan Merrill and he was one of the very first colonists.  He could still remember Old Earth and how come we left it.  Ain't nobody wants to talk about any of that no more.  It's what they call taboo."

Gordie's nose wrinkled.  "What's that?"

"It's anything you can't do," I answered.  "Like the Forbidden."

"So?" said Gordie.  "What's it got to do with demons?"

"Everything, son.  You want I should show you?  You sure you really want to know?"  I guess both our eyes lit up then, because he said, "All right, come on," and started walking off toward the Schlessinger place.  While we trotted along after, he went on talking.

"Demons on Old Earth had lots of names.  And when my Grandpa Merrill and the first Donahues and Vincis and Schlessingers and Kams and some others who ain't here no more all come out to New Earth, they made the demons taboo: the ones named lie and steal and cheat, deceive and adulterate and murder... and war.  That was the worst one, that war one.  They say it come after us.  Followed us out into the stars and a long while after we was here, it was still lookin' out to devour us.  I reckon it almost did, too, and that's how night got to be Forbidden like it is.  That's the 'how come?' you was gonna ask me next, wasn' it?"