Starfall

“‘Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight.’”

I gazed up at the night sky as I walked down the street. This wasn’t exactly peace, but it was the closest thing I’ve found, and I savored the experience. Not many stars were visible above the houses, trees, and streetlights. But that made the dozen or so specks of light all the more precious. 

“‘I wish I may, I wish I might’”

I tried to tell myself that this was a good moment. The neighborhood was empty, quiet, and safe, and the weather was perfect, but my footsteps still faltered outside my family’s house. I could see movement through the windows. They must be making dinner. I should go in and see if they wanted any help. I hesitated another moment, whispering the final line of the nursery rhyme.

“‘Have the wish I wish tonight.’”

As I stared, frozen, at the front door, I had to face the truth that I did not want to go inside. I did not want to face my loving, frustrating, bewildering family. I did not want to sit down and eat good food that I had no appetite for. I did not want to stop walking, did not want to sit with my own restlessness. I didn’t know what I wanted exactly, and that thought unsettled me. I hurriedly turned back to the stars and spoke again, as if my own voice would help re-anchor me.

“I wish…”

My voice trailed off. What could I possibly wish for? I stared pleadingly at Orion, the only constellation I could reliably identify.

“Make it stop.”

I didn’t know what I meant by that wish. But the stars twinkled as if they knew.

I focused on them, willing the rest of the world away, if only for a few seconds. To have nothing in my head but stars seemed the best possible thing right then. I stared unblinkingly until they blurred into a sparkling shadow. They seemed to brighten by the second, finally winning their war against light pollution. I blinked and turned to see if the neighborhood lights had gone out; perhaps there was a power outage.

I couldn’t see the street or the houses. This at first made sense to me. If there was an outage, my eyes would have to adjust before I could see the neighborhood in the darkness. But what didn’t make sense was that I could see stars at the angle I was looking; they should’ve been blocked by the houses. I looked from side to side; stars. I looked down; impossibly, stars.

With a sickening jolt, I realized I could no longer see the world I had been so desperate to block out mere moments ago. Now there was only sky and stars, bathing me in a strangely sharp glow. One star seemed much softer and much, much closer. In fact, it was approaching at alarming speed. Before I could get over the fright of losing my world and start being afraid of losing my life, the star engulfed me.

I fell through silvery softness. Dimly I concluded that these were clouds, and this was not a star, but a planet. But for the most part I was preoccupied with the incoherent mixture of horror and relief from suddenly losing access to every familiar and frustrating thing I had ever known. The clouds gave way to open sky, and below appeared the lights of a town off to the side, a shadowy texture that must be a forest, and in the middle of the forest some sort of stone ruin atop a hill, which I was heading straight towards.

The starlight seemed to follow me down, distracting me from my impending death by gravity. I studied my hands and arms calmly as the wind shrieked by like a banshee. How strange, I thought, I seem to be glowing.

                                        ~~~~~~~<><><>*<><><>~~~~~~~

Eva hummed brightly as she wove her way between rocks and around undergrowth on the hillside. She was simply and completely happy, because she had finally seen the garden of the ruins. Every flower in that garden bloomed at night, and she had begged her parents since she was a little girl to take her there to see it. Understandably, her hardworking and frequently exhausted parents could not find a good night to take her. But as the years had passed and she had grown, they trusted her more and more on her own out in the forest; not to enter the woods after dark, to be clear, but to return slightly after dark. Thus, today she had gone to the ruins while it was still light out, and waited for it to get dark. She had only allowed herself a very brief time after sunset to enjoy the garden before hurrying home so her parents wouldn’t worry, but what a glorious time it had been! Gardenias, moonflowers, jasmine, night phlox, evening primrose, their petals and leaves all shimmering in the moonlight. Time passed all too quickly, and thick stormclouds abruptly formed, so she hurried home along the trails she knew by heart.

Getting down the hill was always the slowest part, so she was still quite close to the ruins when she saw a shadowy figure and froze. The figure likewise froze, then relaxed and called out.

“Sorry to startle you, miss. I won’t bother you.”

Eva peered through the darkness. A boy, around her age, with a hunting bow at this time of night? Maybe he was poaching. But it was odd she didn’t recognize him, they rarely had strangers in the area. The sky lightened and she could see his face more clearly. Dark hair, dark eyes, and a guilty nervousness in his face as he attempted to smile reassuringly at her. Yes, definitely a poacher. Anger blazed within her, but she knew it unwise to confront him, so all she said with frigid politeness was “Be careful, a storm might be coming and this hill gets slippery in the rain. Although I think the clouds are clearing-“

There was definitely more light now, a rather strange light, and both she and the poacher looked at the sky just in time to see a fiery shooting star hit the ruins with a sound like thunder.

They were both knocked flat, whether from the wall of sound that hit them or from fright was unclear. The poacher scrambled to his feet first and hurried over to offer Eva his hand.

“Are you hurt?”

She distractedly took his hand and let him help her stand. He barely heard her horrified whisper.

“The garden…”

And then she was rushing back up the hill to see what, if anything, had survived the impact. The boy followed right behind her without a word, and they crested the hill to see an unearthly sight.

It was hard to tell what the original layout of the ruins had been, but there was something like a main hall or great room in the center of the rubble, and from that spewed a fountain of blue sparks, casting the perfectly unscathed garden in an entirely different light than Eva had seen only a short while ago. Mesmerized, the two slowly walked around the ancient walls to an opening.

Slightly inside that opening was a crater, filled with swirling blue flames. Sparks filled the entire room like hot snow, and they sizzled and smoked as they hit patches of grass and weeds. If there had been any roof left, it would have been burning. Their eyes were drawn to the center of the crater, where something was moving.

                                        ~~~~~~~<><><>*<><><>~~~~~~~

I unsteadily got to my feet, half-blinded by the dancing lights and shadows. Nothing around me made sense except for two people staring at me, so I focused on them. A girl with dark eyes and light hair, and a boy who looked ever so slightly familiar to me. Grasping at that familiarity, I addressed him first.

“Who are you?”

He gulped nervously. He seemed unaware that he had nocked an arrow in his bow and had it pointed vaguely in my direction.

“Orion. Who…what are you?”

I opened my mouth to say my name, when a wild, almost frantic thought struck me. I still didn’t understand what had happened, how I got here, where “here” was, but I knew with more certainty than I had ever felt before that this was my chance to escape my old life. Giddy and reeling with this impossible chance, I shoved my old name down into the depths of my memory and smiled at Orion.

“You may call me…Wish.”

The fair haired girl cleared her throat.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Eva, but, um…”

I turned to her. She looked very on edge.  “Yes, Eva?”

“Your clothes are on fire.”

We all proceeded to panic.