The Sky Behind the Sky

Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky.

They arrived from the East, billowing or scattered in threads, each changing shape with seemingly rhythmic intent. Sometimes they sped through their movements, other times they savored each slow twirl but more often it was a mixture of both, weaving a story like a symphony would. The students of the University’s Musical Arts program composed songs inspired by the midnight clouds for this very reason. Few were ever very good.

“That man on trumpet really thinks he has talent,” Joslyn mused from their low-budget couch in their outdated student apartment.

The loveseat was tucked in the corner of the room with one window over its arm and the other at its back. It was the only seat in the room save for the stool by the window where Maeve had perched, letting the warm breeze wash over her through the open window. She wrinkled her nose at the racket that accompanied it. Along the riverbank to the south, a collection of the University's aspiring musicians had gathered to pluck at string instruments and breathe into carved flutes or gleaming brass. The rising cacophony was crude in comparison to the beauty of the midnight sky it failed to mimic.

“You haven’t answered the question,” Maeve sighed. Her ankles rested on the windowsill and a textbook lay open in her lap.

“1998,” Joslyn guessed.

“You’re not even trying.”

Joslyn groaned and threw her head back against the couch cushions. “What was the question again?”

“In which year did the Philologist Norbert Thornman publish the paper Lilac Light which attempted to connect the existence of purple clouds to more than two dozen religious texts?”

Joslyn stared blankly at her sister. “Wasn’t that paper a bust?”

Maeve rolled her eyes and closed the textbook as her sister began to inspect her nails. She had a headache anyway and the musical arts students seemed more enthusiastic than most nights. To Maeve, they sounded like a dozen radios all turned on and blaring at once, not a single one in concert with another. Of course no one had warned them when they’d signed the lease. Tilting her head back, she peered up at the thin sliver of sky that could be seen between the eavesdrop and the neighboring apartments. The few purple clouds she could see made her frown.

“They’re thick tonight,” she said of the arriving clouds and sighed. “I suspect it is going to get loud down there.”

Joslyn turned in her seat and tried half-heartedly to drag one of the windows closed to no avail. “If only we could block out the sound somehow, wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

“You know I tried to talk to Jack,” Maeve said.

“Did you complain about the sound? Or the rain that comes in? Or the bugs?”

Maeve exhaled loudly, refusing to turn and meet her sister’s insistent gaze. Instead, she watched as thin tendrils of purple clouds began to morph into thick plumes in their slice of sky. They seemed different than most nights, heavier, perhaps. More imposing. On the riverbank the music students attempted to capture mass with a building crescendo.

“Jack doesn’t care about the sound or the rain or the bugs,” Maeve said loudly after a moment, competing with the racket. “He said fresh air was good for students.”

“That’s not his real reason,” Joslyn said back. “He’s just too busy doing immoral things to do his job.”

Maeve’s brow furrowed as more of the pink sky was swallowed by purple clouds. “How would you even know that?”

“A little light eavesdropping isn’t illegal, is it?” Joslyn said sweetly. “We really should know if our landlord is a Heret…”

“Jack’s not a Heret, Jos,” Maeve snapped. “You just don’t like him.”

Her words were suddenly very loud in the room as the musicians on the riverbank fell silent. Without warning, the music had sputtered for a split second and then stalled, leaving only the humming of crickets and a prickling eeriness in its place. Joslyn glanced anxiously around them. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Maeve said in annoyance. “Maybe you shouldn’t talk about things that could get us in trouble.”

“Oh, like the music stopped for me?”

Joslyn climbed over the couch to join her sister at the window. She tried to peer East past the other apartment buildings to see the musicians on the riverbank, but there was no line of sight. Then she looked up and gasped.

“I can’t see the sky at all!” Joslyn squinted, tilting her head. “Are those clouds purple or black?”

“Obviously, they’re purple,” Maeve scoffed. “Don’t be stupid. It’s just a lot of purple piled on top of each other.”

“If you say so,” Joslyn said slowly, thinking for a moment. “I heard Jack talking about black clouds the other day.”

“There’s no such thing as black clouds, Jos.”

A sudden commotion in the streets drew Joslyn’s attention and she seized Maeve’s arm. “Look!”

A long row of tall apartment buildings stood on the other side of the cracked tarmac street and several of their neighboring students were pouring out through their front doors. A split moment later, Joslyn was up and yanking her shoes on.

“We have an exam in the morning,” Maeve said in a motherly-tone, but she was already rising to follow her sister.

The sisters left their apartment and took the stairs down two flights before exiting their three story walk-up. The heavy glass door gasped and sighed as they passed through. Outside the weather was still balmy but a chill now kissed the usually warm wind and goosebumps rose on the sister’s arms. Beyond the sunbaked sidewalk, the road had filled with nearly four dozen students and each of them were staring at the sky. Tilting their heads, Joslyn and Maeve looked up.

A silent moment passed between them. Bewilderment crossed their faces, competing with dread and awe and fear. Joslyn could feel her heart thundering as they stumbled over the curb into the street.

“Have you ever seen that before?” She gasped.

Maeve’s reply was barely a whisper. “No, I… I don’t know what’s happening.”

Above them, a phenomenon was unfolding. The purple cloud the sisters had viewed from their window was much larger than they could have imagined, devouring the entirety of the warm, pink sky as it stretched from North to South and East to West. Usually, the purple clouds arrived in a scattering of violet plumes that tumbled and vaulted in different shapes across the sky but this singular cloud had no shape at all. Worse, it hardly seemed purple.

“They’re barely dancing,” a woman exclaimed to their left. She had her hands stretched above her, using her phone to film the sky like so many of the other students.

“Why aren’t they moving?” Someone else called out. “It’s not going anywhere!”

“And why are they so dark? Has anyone ever seen black clouds?”

“They’re not black!” Maeve shouted suddenly, panic building in her chest. “It’s just a lot of purple clouds on top of each other!”

The people in the streets began to argue with her. Stunned for a moment, Joslyn watched as Maeve desperately attempted to cling to the things she had read in her books but she knew her sister had no explanation for a cloud so vast, or so dark or so still. By the time Joslyn dragged Maeve away from the other students and back to the curb she was splotchy in the face. Red and pink blotches bloomed across her neck.

“Clearly, I fell asleep on the couch again,” Joslyn joked in an attempt to calm their nerves. She reached for Maeve’s hand and squeezed it gently. “Why don’t you be a doll and wake me up?”

Maeve wove her fingers between Joslyn's, pale as a ghost as she turned to face her. “I think we should go back inside,” she said.

“They’re getting darker!” A student screamed.

Joslyn’s eyes darted around them, taking in the street, the apartments, the towering trees. Breathless, she whispered, “Everything’s getting darker.”

The shadow falling over the streets thickened as they watched, turning colors to grays and grays to dark shadows as the chill on the air grew colder. When Joslyn looked up again she realized, for what seemed like the first time in her life, that her sister was wrong. The clouds weren’t purple anymore. They were black.

Suddenly an alarm began to blare through the streets and the students ducked like a bomb had gone off. A moment later they heard the eerie broadcast fill the streets. “This is an order from the Mayor. Please return to your homes immediately.”

Maeve clutched at Joslyn’s arms as she saw the street posts for what felt like the first time. She hadn’t even known there were speakers built into them. She hadn’t known a yellow light could emerge from the top like a beacon to throw yellow light in a wide circle, spinning and spinning in warning. She was already dragging Joslyn towards the apartment when the second instance of the message began. Inside the doors of the apartment, they found their landlord waiting. Joslyn dug in her heels as Maeve tried to drag her past him.

“What’s going on?” she demanded, glaring at Jack.

“C’mon, Jos!” Maeve yanked on her arm. “He doesn’t know anything.”

“Yes he does. I told you, he was talking about black clouds.”

“They’re not black. They’re just…”

Jack’s sigh was long and annoyed, interrupting the sisters. “I wasn’t talking about black clouds,” he said quietly. “I was talking about a black sky.”

The landlord didn’t look at the sisters. He was staring out the window towards the looming white church at the end of their road. The streets were quickly emptying, the whole world still growing darker by the minute, but he didn’t look away from the towering spire as outside the alarm continued to blare.

The sisters exchanged a glance. “A black sky?”

“So glad you heard me right that time,” Jack sighed.

“What is that even supposed to mean? The sky is pink, the clouds are purple. You know what’s black? Soil! Chia Seeds! Maybe some types of stones or something.” Joslyn glanced back at her sister, eyebrows hitched. “Back me up here.”

“Just stop,” Maeve pulled on Joslyn’s hand again. “Let’s. Go.”

Joslyn wrenched herself from her sister’s grip and squared her shoulders to their landlord. “You know something and I want to know what it is.”

Jack met her eyes. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

Joslyn glared firmly at Jack as he glanced at her. She was use to getting her way and after a moment their landlord relented.

“They say there's a sky behind the sky. A real sky beyond the pink one." He thinks for a moment and then sighs again. "They say it's black and if the clouds fall, we'll get to see it."

"If the clouds fall?" Joslyn couldn’t help but bark with laughter. “That’s plainly mad…”

“Mad, is it?” Jack’s eyes flickered past her to the church down the road. “Then what would you call that?”

Joslyn heard her sister gasp in the same moment her eyes darted to the white church spire at the end of the road. It was a classic church, with a bell hung in the spire and two wooden doors with black steel handles above three concrete steps. She should have been able to see its full height, even in the faint light. She should have seen the gold of the bell and the triangular top, but both had been consumed by falling clouds.

“You should go.” Jack’s words startled Joslyn when Maeve gripped her arm she finally let her sister drag her up the staircase. Jack’s voice followed their ascent. “When they come for you, you should go with them.”

“When who comes?” Joslyn called back but the thundering of their footsteps drowned out whatever answer he called out.

By the time the sisters re-entered their apartment it was cast in shadows. A chill had crawled into the small rooms and it took all their might to drag one of their dressers in front of the front door.

Then the black clouds began to pour in through the windows.