The Light of the Midnight Stars

by Rena Rossner

Genres: Historical Fantasy; Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology; Jewish Fiction

Synopsis

Experience an evocative combination of fantasy, history, and Jewish folklore in this lush and lyrical fairytale-inspired novel from the author of The Sisters of the Winter Wood.

Deep in the Hungarian woods, the sacred magic of King Solomon lives on in his descendants. Gathering under the midnight stars, they perform small miracles and none are more gifted than the great Rabbi Isaac and his three daughters. 

Hannah, bookish and calm, can coax plants to grow even when the weather is bitterly cold. Sarah, defiant and strong, can control the impulsive nature of fire. And Levana, the fey one, can read the path of the stars to decipher their secrets. 

But darkness is creeping across Europe, threatening the lives of every Jewish person in every village. Each sister will have to make an impossible choice in an effort to survive—and change the fate of their family forever.
 

Praise for The Light of the Midnight Stars:

"Storytelling as spellcasting. Rossner has conjured something vivid and wild and true."—Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Mercies

"Rossner creates a lush, immersive world through which the sprawling plot meanders, punctuated by moments of intense grief. The result is as lovely as it is heartbreaking." —Publishers Weekly

"Rossner's tale is as lyrical as the slow growth of roots, the quick dance of fire, and the stately procession of the stars. Blending folktale with history, hope with tragedy, its touch will linger on your heart long after you put it down."—Marie Brennan

For more from Rena Rossner, check out The Sisters of the Winter Wood.

Release date: April 13, 2021

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 416

Sample

There was a time when everyone knew about Trnava. Once, it was a bustling market town that sat at the crossroads between the kingdom of Poland and the rest of Bohemia. Once, the king of Hungary, Charles the First, visited the town and conducted important negotiations there. But there are stories you don’t know. Stories the residents of the town like to keep secret.

If you listen closely, sometimes you can still hear the old stories whispered. Legends about Trnava and the people who lived there, about the great forests that once surrounded the town. There are tales of red-haired mountain men and women who could work miracles, of a people who could trace their lineage all the way back to the great King Solomon himself. Tales of a people who kept to themselves, who lived in a tiny quarter of the city of Trnava where they built their own house of worship. They say that on the ceiling of their synagogue there were a thousand tiny stars.

There are stories told that the congregants who worshiped in the synagogue could work miracles; that the oldest among them could fly cloud dragons in the sky. It is said that when the Black Mist spread over the kingdom of Hungary, these people were the only ones who fought and didn’t flee.

But the real story is much more complicated than that. It is the story of a people who forever lived at the edge of others’ kindness and yet still found a way to thrive. It is the story of a family that survived, and of three girls who, when faced with unimaginable tragedy and impossible odds, did what they had to do even though it wasn’t what was expected of them.

Some say they were just an ordinary family who lived in an extraordinary time.

But I know the truth.

This is the story of the Black Mist which swept through the Carpathian Mountains on the wings of a black dragon. Some say they can still feel it when they touch the trees, in the rich black sap that runs down to the roots to the rot that’s buried under the ground. Despite the beauty of the trees and the crystal-clear waters of the lakes and the incessant babble of the rivers and streams, the mist still carries its echo. The animals feel it in their bones.

It could return at any moment.

Once, Trnava was a village like any other village. It was made up of brick houses, a town square, large wooden churches, a small synagogue, a fortified wall that surrounded the town, and a river, named the Trnávka for all the thorny bushes that lined its banks. Once, there were three different forests around the town of Trnava: the Šenkvický wood, the Král’ovský wood, and the ancient Satu Mare which once stretched all the way through the Kingdom of Hungary until it reached the Şinca Veche forest, right on the border of Wallachia. Strange things happened in these forests, things that nobody liked to talk about, but everyone did. There was a saying that was popular in the region once, and some still whisper it, even today. “Do not speak of the forest, for it will remember your name.”

But that is another story, for a different day.

It’s just after sunset. I can still see the bare oak branches, black against the deepening blue of sky, that make up the forest beyond Trnava’s wall. Eema takes a coin out from her pocket and clears her throat. “Girls, candle lighting,” she says. I look away from the window and my heart skips a beat. It’s time.

Eema kisses the coin and says the word “esh,” and to me, it seems like the word crackles and hisses like flame. She puts the coin in the box that sits on the windowsill. Then she transfers fire from her lips to her fingertips, then to the wick of the candle that sits atop her silver candlesticks. “The soul of man is a lamp in the darkness,” she says as I watch the flames she sets on the windowsill—a sign in our window for all those who are lost and weary, and I hear the echo of my father’s voice in my head, the benediction he says over each of our heads on Friday nights—“Only light can hold back darkness. We are the children of Solomon, children of the light.”

Every week, I stare in awe at how my mother does it. She weaves a prayer of words in the air and turns the strands she weaves into fire in the same way my father manipulates air. Eema lights a candle and suddenly everything is brighter. Abba raises his hands to the sky and the clouds lift and clear. “This is the law of Solomon,” Eema chants. “Man and woman, ish and isha: without the yud and the heh, they are esh—fire.” She places a coin in my hand. “Here,” she says. “Now it’s your turn.” The coin is warm—like her hand, like the fire.

It’s my turn. I’ve waited a long time for this moment. I am twelve now, a bat mitzvah, a daughter of Solomon, blessed by his commandments. I am a part of it now. A part of everything. A wielder of the flame of Solomon—like my father and mother and grandmother and all those before me leading back all the way to the great King Solomon himself. I hold the coin in one hand and twist a dark red curl around one of the fingers of my other hand.

Eema opens a small prayer book and hands it to me. She doesn’t need it—she knows the prayers by heart. I’ve been mouthing the words along with my mother and Nagmama and older sister Hannah as they said them together each week. This is the first step. The beginning of my journey into the world of my ancestors. There is so much I have yet to learn.

After today, I’ll be able to start studying with Abba. I know that once the light of the ner tamid burns within me, I’ll start to follow the ways and read all the books and practice all the exercises so that one day I’ll be as powerful as my father. So that one day I’ll be able to lead a community myself—not as a wildflower tamed back, but like a fireweed that lights up everything around her. I want to be someone—or something, that cannot be put out.

Fire-singe tingles at my fingers and mixes with the heady scent of chicken soup and challah bread. Everything feels right about this moment.

Eema points at the words and with a trembling hand I place my finger on the page. “Esh tamid tukad al ha-mizbeyach, lo tichbeh—an eternal fire shall be kept burning upon the altar; it shall not go out.” I close my eyes and feel the heat within me. I imagine the lighting of a spark which will now grow each day. I write the stroke of each letter of the word—esh—in my mind, strokes of white fire in the darkness. I imagine the wilderness of Sinai, like Eema taught me, the place where Abraham and Sarah met Hashem for the first time. I see the fire of the white letters they saw painted across a dark desert sky.

I kiss the coin and whisper the word “esh,” imagining the word composed of letters, the letters composed of strokes, the strokes twining around each other, the flame burning inside me, now shoved out of my chest by my breath, up through my throat and out past my lips into air. My lips are warm. The coin feels hot. Even though my eyes are closed, I see it happen. There is a crackling, like lightning running up and down my arms and legs and to the ends of each strand of my hair. I quickly open my eyes and place the coin in the tzedakah box on the windowsill.

“Power demands sacrifice and the holiest form of sacrifice is giving alms to the poor. What we take from the universe, we must give back.” My mother’s lessons buzz in my head like the hiss of flame. Her words twin with my father’s words, “children of the light,” and I touch the candle-wick quickly. The spark transfers from my fingers. Lightning fast, the candle bursts into flame. I feel wild and a little bit dangerous. Pure power and potential. I want to see what else I can light. I know in that moment I could burn our house down in a flash.

But then I hear Eema’s voice.

“Baruch,” she prompts.

The prayer. I almost forgot. I close my eyes and concentrate on forming the strokes of the letters in my mind again. This isn’t two letters that form a word—this is a whole blessing. “Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to light the Shabbat flame,” I say, loud and clear and true. This time I weave the letters into words and place the words into a white void—the words reassemble themselves into burning white fire made up of three holy letters——Shabbat. An emptiness which is full of heavenly light. I usher it in. The fire dissipates and shrinks to the size of a spark. It’s still burning inside me, but now it’s just a spark and nothing more—a smoldering ember. I feel a different kind of energy now—something cool and soothing. Relief. I did it! My chest heaves and I smile, tears prickling in my eyes.

I look up. There are tears in my mother’s eyes too. I’ve waited years for this moment, for her approval. There are so many things I’ve done wrong over the past years, so many mistakes I’ve made. Not listening to my parents, fighting them at every turn. Sziporka, they always call me, little spark. But this time, I did something right. My face glows. Gold and bright, like the light of a thousand flames.

“Amen,” Eema says and leans down to kiss my forehead. Her hands smell like smoke and the nettle tea she prepared for Nagmama’s joints right before we lit candles. I wonder if I will always remember this moment. If I will always associate lighting candles with the scent of nettle tea.

I am a bit like a nettle—stinging others in all the wrong places—but I know: something that can sting can also heal. Something that can burn and destroy can also light up the night and keep the darkness at bay. I am a spark of light now, no longer bursting with flame and words I can’t contain. I close my eyes again to make sure that for once I did everything right.

There is only white space inside me.

I take a deep breath and open my eyes.

“Welcome, Sarahleh,” Eema says. “You are a daughter of Solomon now. I’m so proud of you.” She embraces me and I smell dough and lavender, nettle and flame, and everything is crisp and clean and bright.

“Brucha haba’ah!” Hannah says. “Welcome, sister!” She’s waiting next to Eema. When she embraces me, I close my eyes to savor the feeling. Her thick auburn hair smells like grass, like fresh air and rosemary. Maybe now I can be more like her. Maybe Eema and Abba and Nagmama will look at me the way they look at her—with pride and respect, not frustration and anger, doubt and regret.

“Nagmama!” Her arms are waiting to enfold me. But when she touches me I see only darkness, and smell something burnt and rotten, like smoke. My heart skips a beat. I quickly kiss her cheek and turn away. I don’t want to ruin this moment. I have to keep the light shining bright.

I remember how jealous I felt when I watched Hannah enter into the covenant. I remember how I felt like my turn would never come. I look over at Levana to see if she feels the same now, but she is staring out the window, looking at the stars. One year from now seems like an eternity, but I know her turn will come sooner than we expect, and someday I will pass the light on to my daughters.

Levana turns her head and grins at me—her pale copper hair surrounds her head like a halo. I lift her in my arms and twirl her around. “Shabbat shalom!” I say, and she giggles. I put her down and Hannah picks her up. I watch and laugh as they spin themselves dizzy. Then Levana holds a hand out to me and we spin until we fall down, over and over again. It’s easy to feel safe here, with a thick thatch of roof over our heads, a fire burning in the hearth, and holy candles lit on the windowsill for all to see. Easy to forget what I saw when I hugged Nagmama.

For the next spin, Hannah doesn’t join us. I see her stand taller, holding herself differently. Now that I’m a bat mitzvah, she is a woman. We are both wielders of the flame of Solomon, but soon she will marry and join her fire with another’s. It’s a burden I’m happy not to have to bear yet, but Hannah wears it like a crown on her head.

There is a knock at the door. Abba bursts in, home from synagogue. He dusts the snow from his big red beard and stomps his boots on the mat by the door. Eema takes his coat and whispers into his ear and his big green eyes find mine. “Mazal tov, Sarahleh!”

I cross the room and leap into his strong arms. I see the pride in his eyes and his face lights up with a glow that comes from the same source as the flame inside me.

Later that night, I lie in bed and even though it’s Shabbat I reach out to the fire that now burns freely within me. I play with it on the inside—not daring to light up the room I share with my sisters, and arguing in my head that I’m not really breaking Shabbat if I’m only playing with a fire I already lit. I stare out the window above Levana’s bed and I wonder what she saw. If she felt the layer of wrongness like I did when I hugged Nagmama—something infected and rotten curling at the edges of everything bright.

I must fall asleep at some point because the next thing I know, I’m dreaming of darkness. There is a black mist winding its way through the trees, creeping along the earth. Everything it touches turns black as tar and then withers, shrinking in upon itself. The mist creeps its way from the edge of the forest, down the stone-strewn muddy streets of town, up the street that runs through the Jewish quarter of Trnava, and through the cracks in the wall of our house. It feels like the darkness is coming for me.

As it starts to drift its way through the window, I sit up in bed and conjure a flame. I’m awake now and fully conscious of the fact that it’s Shabbat and I’ve set fire to my bed. I frantically try to put it out, but before I manage to smother it with a blanket, it rises up and takes the thin shape of a serpent, then slithers up from my bed and out the window. It chases the mist, which shrinks back into itself and goes away. I get up and look out the window—but there’s nothing there. I rub my eyes and keep staring, looking for the light snake and wondering if it was only a dream.

While my sisters are in the kitchen with Eema and Nagmama, I connect the stars. It’s a game I like to play. My eyes trace the shapes the stars make as they emerge.

Halfway through the meal, I pretend to fall asleep on the bench under the window. Now that everyone’s cleared out of the room, I’m free to open my eyes and stare up at the sky.

Nothing gets in the way of the stars—not the Šenkvický wood, nor the long wall around Trnava—not even the four church spires in our town. The stars shine as brightly in the Judengasse—the Jewish quarter, as they do anywhere else in our town.

Even if I could light candles the way my sisters do, I prefer the fire that shines in the stars. Inside our home, Shabbat is a day of rest, but outside, the stars don’t sleep. I feel them, shining bright like pinpricks on my skin. They want to be seen—like me. They want me to see them—I do. They have things to tell me.

I listen.

Today is an auspicious day. Sarah is bat mitzvah, and the skies are more restless than usual. She conjured flame and transferred it, but there are flames in the sky she doesn’t see.

I trace them now again—the arcs they make. One star leads to another, and another. Left, then right, and around in a curve that splits in three.

Three stars. Three sisters. Three paths light the sky.

The stars don’t lie. They change with the seasons, but they tell the truth.

Eema sits down next to me. She runs her hand softly through my hair. “What do you see out there, little one?” she says.

I am not little, I want to say. “Just stars,” I say instead.

“We are a nation of twinkling stars. Have you ever tried to count them?” Eema says.

I shake my head no.

“Hashem told Abraham to count the stars. He made him a promise that his children would number as many as the stars. Do you know the story?”

I shake my head.

“Come.” Eema gets comfortable.

I curl up on the bench and place my head in her lap.

The night that Abraham was born, a star fell from the sky. “It’s an omen,” everyone said. “Look how it swallowed all the stars in its path—this child will devour nations.”

Abraham’s father, Terach, said it was nonsense, that stars fall every night. But one of his guests went to tell King Nimrod how a star rose in the east, darted across the heavens, and swallowed all the stars in its path.

“What does it mean?” Nimrod asked.

“It means this star will conquer time. It will destroy your empire. You must kill the child so the prophecy will not come true,” his advisors told him.

Nimrod gave Terach three days to bring the child to him.

Terach told his wife, whose name was Amsalai, for she too was born of the heavens.

“I will not allow the king to kill our son,” she said. “Take another child and offer it to the king in his place. He will not know the difference, and I will take our son into a cave and go into hiding until there is a new king who knows not of this prophecy.”

So Terach took an ill child from the village and brought it to Nimrod, and the king killed the baby with his bare hands.

Amsalai took Abraham to a cave in a forest.

Terach visited his wife and son often, and when Abraham was ten years old, they let him out of the cave.

But Abraham had not been raised among the other children of the village, so he did not believe in their gods.

“It is clear to me,” Abraham said, “that the only things worth worshiping are the bodies that bring light into our world—the sun, the moon, and the stars. But who put the light into the sky? Perhaps that is who we should worship.”

Abraham asked his father this, and Terach told Abraham to ask the idols.

But when Abraham asked them, they had no answer, for they did not speak.

When Abraham asked his mother the same question, she told him everything he needed was already in his grasp—there was no need to look to the stars for answers.

But Abraham spent all his time looking at the sky, trying to read what was written on the face of the moon and the stars.

“Like me,” I say to Eema.

“Yes, just like you, my love,” she says, and kisses the top of my head.

But one day Abraham broke all the idols in his father’s shop, she continues. When he was blamed, Abraham said, “The largest idol devoured all the smaller ones.”

The news that he’d broken all the idols reached the king, and Abraham was summoned. The king demanded to know who broke the idols.

“I did,” Abraham admitted. “Because they have no sense.”

Nimrod said, “Then you should worship fire.”

“Water can put out fire,” Abraham said.

“Then you should worship water,” the king replied.

“Water disappears into the clouds,” Abraham said. “And wind can blow clouds away, but when the wind blows, the stars stay fixed in the sky.”

The court magician realized what had happened.

“You are the star-child!” he said.

“Is it true?” King Nimrod asked. “If so, cast him into the fire.”

And so they put Abraham into a fiery furnace.

But Abraham was not consumed.

King Nimrod was scared. He said he would bow down to Abraham, for clearly his god was stronger.

But Abraham said, “Do not bow down to me: worship the god who created the sun and the moon and the stars. For it is His glory that lights the heavens.”

“You are my star-child,” Eema says, kissing the top of my head again. “But never forget who it was that made the stars. Come, it’s time for bed.”

She reaches her hand out for mine. Reluctantly, I follow her. She tucks me into my small feather bed under the window in the room I share with my sisters.

I want to tell her what I see in the stars. All is not well. All will not be well. There are stars falling every night and I know something is coming, something is about to happen that will split the shining star that is our family.

I’m scared, but it doesn’t stop me from looking at the stars. I keep hoping they will tell me more, that I will look at them and see something different. But I don’t.

Eema starts to sing the Sh’ma—“Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One,” I repeat after her.

May the angel who redeems me from harm bless the children and call them by My name and by the names of My forefathers, Abraham and Isaac, and may they multiply like fish in the midst of the earth.

I think about Abraham and the stars as I drift off. I am not a bat mitzvah like Sarah is, not yet a woman like Hannah. I am only me, Levana, Reb Isaac’s youngest daughter—still a child, or so they say, and so I stay silent. No one else sees what’s coming. No one wants to hear the story I have to tell.

7 Nisan 5119

I went outside as soon as Shabbat was over and counted three stars in the sky. I said the right prayer—Blessed is He who separates light from darkness—even though I know Abba prefers we say Havdallah with him, when he comes home from synagogue. But the garden had waited untended since sundown on Friday, and it called to me like a dog might bark for attention from its owner. It’s Eema’s garden, and it was Nagmama’s before that, but now it feels like it’s mine in a way that was never theirs.

I am connected to this land, to the earth. There is restlessness here—the soil shifts uneasily. It grows darker each day. Lately, I can’t drown out the sounds of the garden—the pops plants make when they burst through soil, the sound of leaves unfurling to light and freedom. I’m only able to silence the hum when I’m outside—my toes curled in the soil and my hands touching the red shoots of the dogwood and the green shoots of horehound, when purple flowers curl around my fingers at my command.

I hear Abba’s sonorous voice in my head: “Lest you should say in your heart—my power and the might of my hand did this wondrous thing.” I know it is not me who controls what grows—it is God, the Borei Olam—father of all living things. My hands channel His will. That’s what Abba would say. Still. Out in the garden, where every green thing responds to my touch, it is hard to think that it’s all divine energy.

I need to start documenting what I see. Eema writes down the recipes for her poultices and remedies, she writes down the stories she tells. Abba writes down everything lately as well—and I’ve become his scribe. It’s time for me to write down my own observations, but there is no room in a spellbook or a holy book for a young woman’s thoughts.

These are the things I know:

Our house sits at the edge of town in the Jewish section of Trnava.

Four gates and thirty-six towers make up the brick wall that surrounds the city—the Malženická gate is not far from our house and it leads to a road that takes you to the Šenkvický forest and the mountains, and eventually all the way to the kingdom of Poland.

I was a baby when we came here, to Trnava, and I’ve never left our town.

Though it’s large, and the brick wall and her guardians keep us safe, sometimes I want nothing more than to walk beyond the gate, to keep walking and never stop.

That’s also a fact, but perhaps it doesn’t belong in this list.

Still, lately I can’t help but think—There must be more to see out in the world than this village. Maybe these things are happening elsewhere too. I don’t know if it’s my own mind speaking, or the whisper of a trail I should follow.

Abba has been traveling more often lately to consult with the other Solomonar families in neighboring towns, Reb David Ben Zakkai in Nitra, Reb Daniel Bezalel in Bratislava. My father himself was born and raised in Vienna—a place I only dream of seeing one day.

The last few times he traveled, I wondered if he’d come back with a name—a son of one of these illustrious families who he’d hand-picked to be my groom, someone steeped in the Solomonar tradition. But he never did, and he’s never offered to take me with him. Perhaps my future is not the purpose of his visits. But that makes me want to know what is.

I know everything happens for a reason, every blade of grass has an angel that tells it to grow. But can’t he take me with him just once?

I also know that as quickly as King Béla granted free market privileges to our town, which he calls Nagyszombat—named for the very market that gives us so much freedom—those rights could be taken away again. Maybe that’s the reason Abba doesn’t take me with him. It’s not safe. Our town’s charter and protection could be revoked in . . .