The boy stood in the garage of his parents’ house. Darkness was leaking through the windows and under the crack of the door, carrying the chilly dew scent of 3:00am with it. The boy was standing on top of a chair, an old wooden antique that was practically falling apart, and was entirely capable of doing so under his feet. He was reaching for the top of a shelf, and the battered leather handle of an oblong case, straining and wondering if it were indeed possible to stretch one’s arm an extra few inches if one just reached hard enough. Then he felt a lurch, and his heart stopped for a beat or two -- and then he had it, the handle of the case gripped firmly between his sweat-dampened fingers. With a grin, he pulled it from the shelf and hopped the three feet or so from the chair to the cold, smooth concrete beneath, grunting with the effort of not dropping the heavy case when gravity had its say.

Kneeling beside the chair, he laid the case before him with an air of religious ritual, playing the robed boy lighting the candles on the altar at the beginning of a church service. His fingers ran over the length of the thing, leaving bare streaks of clean leather where there had been dust, and then moved to the latches, of which there were two, both a dull, tarnished brass that held little luster in the moonlight filtering through the garage windows. With twin snaps that broke the silence like hammer blows, he flipped them open, and reverently pushed back the lid. It opened with a creak of hinges in need of oiling, revealing the contents of the case.

Glittering like new in their showcase of red velvet lay the three disparate pieces of his grandfather’s ancient tenor saxophone. Just the sight brought back waves of bittersweet nostalgia, and the smell of wax and oil and metal that rose from the instrument sent him tumbling back years. He was kneeling at his grandfather’s feet, amusing himself with a puzzle on the living room carpet while the gaunt old man lounged in an armchair with the saxophone cradled like a newborn across his thigh. His long, thin fingers stroked the white-lacquered keys, caressing the notes from the instrument as his cheeks swelled, bullfrog-like, with every inhalation of breath; the room was full of jazz and memories that predated the boy by decades, and there was a beautiful antiquity lingering in the air that he was too young to name, but certainly not too young to feel.

They had buried his grandfather weeks ago. The boy had seen his father take the saxophone, seen him cleaning it with bright tears pricking at the corners of his eyes, seen him storing it high up in the garage, in the corner where things were forgotten and spiders had long ago left their webs. And he had been roused in the small hours tonight by a hint of scent, just the faintest whiff of wax and oil and metal that seemed to carry him through the house, out the door and to the garage without the aid of his legs.

He didn’t assemble the instrument yet. Instead, acting on the sort of  reckless, pre-dawn spontaneity that grievers must indulge themselves in, he shut the case, snapped the latches shut again, and stood up. He felt his knees pop as he hefted the case in one hand, turning toward the side door. There was a very faint light licking at the edges of the garage windows now, a hint of what might soon be an electric sky-blue; sunrise, much sooner than he’d thought. He walked to the door, and carried the saxophone outside, into the thick layer of February snow that had laid siege to the house.

There was a ladder around the side of the garage, desolate and abandoned, a leftover of his father’s failed attempt at repainting. The bottom rungs were already submerged in snow; the boy kicked through it, and began the precarious business of climbing the ladder one-handed, carrying the case, which was not of inconsiderable weight, in the other. It was slow going, and by the time he reached the top, beads of sweat had begun to freeze on his forehead, and his palms were slick and cold, making it hard to hold both ladder and case.

He managed it, however, swinging the case up to the roof  in a movement that made him grunt with effort. He paused, standing on the top of the ladder with his forearms on the shingles and the case still clutched in one hand, catching his breath.

And suddenly, he noticed the light.

It was not dawn breaking early, as he had thought inside the garage. Over the pinnacle of the garage’s roof, he could see the light: dancing light, electric light, a full spectrum of silent glory that tore at the heavens like wind-blown curtains.

“The Aurora.” He remembered the name from his Earth Science class, and found it slip from between his lips like a promise or a prayer. He had never seen the Northern Lights, except in pictures; the sight took his breath away, left his body tingling with the excitement and wonder that new discoveries bring. Like Moses in the presence of the Lord, however, he had to look away after a moment; the dazzling play of light above was about to rob him of his balance, and he knew now that he had come up here to do something.

He knelt on the gently slanted shingles of the roof, moving with caution and precision lest he slip and fall. The wind made him shiver, but the numbness was yet another form of prayer; he felt it was right that he should be so bare to nature in this moment.

The latches were harder to open, because his hands were shaking; when he opened the case, he muted his breathing as best he could, feeling it would be sacrilege to fog the freezing metal of the instrument.

And there, on the roof of his parents’ garage at 3:16am, he began to assemble his grandfather’s saxophone. He tightened the screw of the neck, making sure it was secure, before inserting the corked end into the mouthpiece; the wax of decades had soaked into the cork, making it oily and easy to slide into the black plastic. Next was the reed, positioned with care against the beak of the mouthpiece, and then the neck strap to hold the awkward thing against his body. And then he stood.

He fixed his eyes on the tangling, intertwining sheets of light above him, watching them for a long time. It felt as though he could lose himself up there, like if he only stared hard enough he would find himself in the midst of that shifting, broken rainbow. He felt himself smiling, and he felt the tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. And then he pressed the mouthpiece between his lips and blew.

He played Silent Night. His chilled fingers moved clumsily on the keys; his grandfather had only ever succeeded in getting him to sit still for a few basic lessons. He played Silent Night on an ancient tenor saxophone, watching the most beautiful display God saw fit to gift our planet with, and holding in his mind the memory of the room in the past that had contained his grandfather, and the sleeping gift his grandfather had given him: the gift of music, and a permanent memory.