Stardust

Trigger Warning: This story contains themes of grief, loss of loved ones, and suicide.

It was still dark when she went out to the beach, equipped with nothing but a flashlight and a small ceramic urn in a leather bag. The urn was a gift from her grandmother, magic pottery all the way from the Orient to hear the old woman talk of it, and it had held her ashes when she died.

"There's power in these things," her grandmother said to her once. "Old, old power. Look, child. See the patterns on the belly? See the pale stars twinkling round about the neck like jewels in the sky?"

"Yes," Jeannie had whispered, looking up at the painted urn with deep and wild-eyed fascination.

"When someone dies a new star is born." Her grandmother paused, pointed to the patterns etched deep in the ceramic, traced them one by one with a wrinkled finger. "Their soul goes up into the clouds, up into heaven, but for those of us left behind and grieving we can call them back once, child, with the right methods...to offer us some comfort."

That was years ago; Jeannie was twelve. But she'd never forgotten the lessons, and a few years later her grandmother died and Jeannie had scattered her ashes out over the sea as the old woman's final request. She could still remember the wind that morning, the way it carried the ashes over the waves just as the sun rose and turned them to streaks of golden dust that hung in the air for a moment. Jeannie could have called the old woman back then. The power was in her, old and strong as her grandmother's lessons, and it had sent chills running down her spine and had made the urn flash as the rising sun caught the patterns on its belly. But then she'd hesitated, and the moment passed. Her grandmother's remains went up into the clouds. Vanished. And Jeannie stood alone on the beach, thinking of the old woman's words from long ago, the painted ceramic jar a sad and hollow shell in her hands.

Her father never liked her spending too much time alone with her grandmother, though the old woman had been the last living remnant of Jeannie's maternal family line. At least of the ones she knew of. "They're too superstitious, that side of the family," he often said to her. "And you know what I mean, sweetheart. Those people are into a whole lot of stuff I don't want you mixing in with or learning, young as you are."

"But grandma is really nice," Jeannie would say to him in protest, tears brimming in her eyes as she pleaded. "And mummy liked her too, didn't she?"

"Of course she did, and look at what happened to her in the end. You know your mother would still be alive if we'd just gone to the hospital like I wanted."

"That's mean."

"I know, but it's the truth. I miss her a lot too, Jeannie. But there are consequences to our actions, and I want you to know that."

In life her father had been a practical, level-headed man, and he'd done his best to ensure Jeannie led a good childhood after her mother's death. Now, with him gone too, she'd spent the last two months in a stupor of numb grief that bordered on depression, unable to think clearly or even to sleep well at night. There were ghosts all around her, closing in, tightening their grasp on her soul like ropes about her neck. Everything was grey. And all the stars were black.

Use the urn. Make a wish. Call a soul from heaven.

*****

Jeannie crossed the empty road and stood by the pier, looking down at the beach. A breeze was coming off the sea in the distance. It blew faint eddies of sand along the shoreline and rustled the loose fabric of her clothes. It came up the pier too, stirring the leather bag hanging from her shoulder and blowing a few discarded candy wrappers her way. Jeannie sighed. By her side her grandmother's urn sat safely in its bag, and she switched off her flashlight before glancing up at the dark sky.

"The stars are as much a part of us as we are of them," her grandmother had said in one of her lessons. "We are stardust made flesh, each one of us, and when we die we go back up into the clouds to take our place among the stars. So look up into the sky, child, and tell me what you see..."

There were a few clouds in the sky over the beach today, but Jeannie still could still see Sirius, the Dog Star, glowing brightest in the inky blue ocean that stretched forever like a mantle above the world. The hottest days of the year had just begun, the star said. "An important one, that Sirius," her grandmother had called it.

Jeannie descended the pier and walked slowly down the beach, thinking first of her grandmother, and then her mother and her father as she went, her grief as deep and as boundless as the sea.

The breeze was still moving, and the sand of the beach was crossed all about in drifting shadows that mirrored her mood. But bright Sirius was in the sky tonight, like a sign, and Jeannie thought she could call up on the old power when the time came at last.

*****

By the water's edge she took off her sandals and let the waves lap gently at her feet. The sun hadn't come up yet, but it was quite warm where she stood, and if Jeannie knew anything about weather it was that the next few days promised to be hot. This was mid-July, after all, and right at the peak of summer too.

July. Her father's birthday would have been in a few days but for the cancer that had eaten him from the inside out. Jeannie hadn't cried for him, at least not yet, but she'd grieved in silence, and her melancholy fed the ghosts that swirled like a grey fog all around her. Yesterday she'd considered taking pills to put an end to her grief, had counted the pile of painkillers out onto her open hand, thinking maybe her soul would go up too, into heaven, when she was done. The stars were black and hungry. And she was alone.

At the end she hadn't been able to bring herself to do it after all. Jeannie had tossed the pills away and downed a bottle of alcohol instead. Afterwards she lay in bed in a quiet darkness like the inside of a tomb, unable to sleep, her mind a painful, grey mess of jangled thoughts.

Then she remembered the urn.

*****

Jeannie set the flashlight and the leather bag down by her feet and lifted out the urn, the painted ceramic jar smooth and cool to the touch. The urn had an unassuming weight to it; Jeannie turned it slowly in her hands, looking down on the same old patterns her grandmother had once traced with her wrinkled finger. The stars twinkling like jewels round the neck and the silvery cloud formations below them. On the belly a line of jagged mountain peaks rose beneath the clouds, like a crown of midnight incised deep into the ceramic.

As a child Jeannie had sometimes wished she could enter into that painted world herself. She would climb up those jagged peaks till she reached the highest rock, and there she would lie back under that ceramic sky and watch the stars, studying them like she always did with her grandmother.

"We study the stars, child, because there's an old kinship between us, like fish and water, or birds and trees," her grandmother had said. "We study them as they swing high above us in their silent arcs, lighting the road to heaven and holding the secrets to life, to the universe itself. Our ancestors watched the stars too, as did their own ancestors before them, so whenever you feel lost or alone, child, go out to a quiet place at night and watch the stars. Unburden your soul. Make a wish..."

Jeannie sighed and clutched the urn close to her chest. Above her the sky had lightened a bit with the first fingers of dawn, and the breeze walked alongside the beach in a warm murmur that matched the gentle crash of the waves against her feet.

Daddy would have loved it here, she thought, looking up at the Dog Star that sat high and bright at the pinnacle of the world like a beacon to heaven. Mummy would have loved it too. She always said she wanted to see the ocean for herself before she died. She always said she wanted to travel out too—

But the ghosts were closing in again and Jeannie screwed her eyes shut against her memories, shaking her head from side to side, and making a desperate effort to clear the fog from her mind.

*****

The sun was rising when she opened the urn. Jeannie dropped the lid in the sand by her feet and stood a while by the water's edge, trembling in silent anticipation. Once again the old power was in her, and the thought that her father might not even approve of what she was about to do only faintly crossed her mind. She glanced into the urn, looked quickly away. She looked at Sirius instead, at the fading Dog Star that marked days of heat up ahead.

The trembling in her bones grew steadily as the sky lightened. When the sun crested the horizon at last the urn flashed as its patterns caught the ruddy light, and Jeannie took a deep breath and a step forward in the wet sand. She cast her father's ashes into the morning breeze. The rising sunlight caught them at once, turned the ashes into streaks of golden dust that hung in the air for a moment. And then Jeannie spoke, like her grandmother had taught her long, long ago. Her voice was clear. Crisp. It cut over the waves as she made her wish, as she called her father back from heaven.

The urn flashed even brighter and became dust in her hands. The breeze died down. The waves stilled.

And her father came.

He was there before her like a mirage, like a figure seen through a wave of shimmering desert heat. But he was whole and real, and Jeannie choked back a sob at the sudden sight of him, her hands flying to her mouth and her eyes filling instantly with tears.

"Daddy," she sobbed. "Daddy!"

He looked hard at her, and her grief broke then. Jeannie sank to her knees in the the wet sand and cried like she'd never cried before, her body wracked all over with great tearing sobs that betrayed her vulnerability at last. She cried for her father, for her mother and her grandmother too, and then he was there beside her in the sand, holding her with hands that were not hands at all but stardust somehow made flesh...

*****

Later that day she went down to the beach. It was mid-afternoon and hot. Crowds of people were about. Jeannie passed topless children running around in the sand and adults sprawling under the sun like lizards on spread towels. A volleyball game was going on near the base of the pier. At the other side of the pier a lifeguard sat up in his tower, reading a book and eating ice-cream from a cone.

Jeannie bought one herself. The vendor was a portly man with a straw hat and a charming smile.

"Now don't you look real happy lass," he said to her as she paid and took the biscuit cone from him. "What's the secret? Promise I won't tell a soul, not even my wife, even though she's got detective powers like a cat."

Jeannie laughed at that. She screwed up her face and pretended to think about the question a moment, then shrugged and said "Dunno. I guess you just need someone to love you, is all. I mean to really love you, you know what I mean."

"Uh-huh," the vendor said, and gave her a knowing smile.

*****

Jeannie stopped a few feet from the water's egde and stood licking her ice-cream, watching the surfers in the distance and thinking of her grandmother and her mother who had gone on before. She thought of the urn too, her grandmother's magic gift all the way from the Orient, and she thought of the old woman's lessons. Lastly she thought of her father, of the way he'd smiled down on her and of the gentle warmth that came off his shimmering figure and had burned away the fog in her mind.

"It's okay, sweetheart," he'd said as he comforted her. "I want you to know that we're proud of you, your mother and I both. You've gone through so much already, but you don't have to go through it alone anymore. We'll always be with you, in your heart, so you need to pick yourself up, and you need to keep on living. Can you do that for us, Jeannie?"

She'd nodded up at him through her mist of tears, sniffling, wiping her eyes with the back of her hands and unable to form coherent words.

"That's my girl," her father said, and kissed the top of her head. "Oh and by the way your grandmother says hello. She says to give you a kiss from her."

He'd kissed the top of her head again, a final farewell from her family that had gone on to the stars. When he leaned back Jeannie looked up at him, and a peace she'd never before felt or even thought possible shone through her father's eyes and warmed her soul like the light of heaven. He'd nodded. Smiled down at her. And then he was gone, and the breeze came back in, wafting his ashes out over the waves and filling the space left behind. On the horizon the sun had risen in a haze of golden light that touched her about her face and sent the last of her ghosts running from its warmth. Off to her side on the beach a few gullls had landed on the wet sand, looking curiously at her with their heads cocked.

Jeannie stood up the and walked back home and slept throughout the morning. Now, standing by the water with her ice-cream beginning to melt in the heat, she looked off into the distance and smiled. Somewhere, she knew, her father was smiling back.

*****

At night she came out to her balcony to watch the stars. The day had been sweltering, but with the sun gone the heat had lessened considerably, and where she sat a soft breeze blew out over the city, stirring her hair and tinkling the new chimes she'd hung out just that evening.

Jeannie sipped her iced tea delicately, looking up into a night sky deeper and bluer than any she ever remembered. There were no clouds tonight. Sirius was out again, bright as ever, her good omen.

And beside it something new.

A star that had not been there before.

A fresh soul in heaven.

Jeannie smiled.