Stardust on a Summer Night

It all started with her, I guess. I’m certain, actually. She wasn’t… normal. I don’t just mean it like she had a screw loose. I mean… What did I mean?

It’s probably easier to start at the beginning. Even though I really don’t want to. I haven’t been able to process all this yet. Well, no time like the present, right?

I met her on the afternoon of midsummer eve. Immediately, she felt kind of whimsical, in a strange way.

“Hi,” She’d said airily, without any of the awkwardness kids our age generally exhibited when meeting new people. “Do you want to play?”

She had stark blonde hair and the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen. Her demeanor was always playful, her face tranquil and yet a hint of mischief in her eyes. I often wondered what she was thinking.

Anyway, she introduced herself as Willow, in that accent that even now I can’t place my finger on. She told me that she knew the coolest place in the woods, where at night you could go and watch the fireflies, and pick wildflowers.

I let my guard down around her. She was so charming, and easy to talk to. In just a few hours, it felt like I’d known her my whole life.

That’s when I noticed it the first time.

I didn’t think much of it, I’d guessed I was just tired, but then it kept happening. When I saw her out of the corner of my eye… she didn’t look right. It was small things. Her eyes sometimes seemed colder or darker, or her fingernails seemed longer, or her skin seemed paler.

It got worse, over time, as it started to get dark. Soon, whenever I wasn’t looking at her head on, she seemed more animal than human.

She caught me staring once. I’d irrationally worried she’d do something if she did. Hurt me, maybe. But she just giggled.

It was dark, at that point. It was one of those rare nights where it felt like you could see every star, although I know I couldn’t. But the sky was clearer than usual, to be sure.

And then she started acting weird.

“I don’t have a lot of time now,” she’d told me. “I want to show you one more thing before I have to go.”

It was strange, but like I said, I trusted her. She was my friend, despite the fact I’d only known her for a day.

So I followed her even deeper into the woods. The gnarled tree roots seemed to shift beneath our feet, as if desperate to drag us down to whatever horrors lay below the soil.

Eventually, we reached it. This is where it gets harder to explain. It was just the moon, really, but it wasn’t the same moon. I could feel the difference, the unnatural tension in the air.

Silver powder drifted down from the sky.

“It’s stardust,” was the only explanation she offered when I asked.

And then she’d looked me straight in the face with those huge emerald eyes and asked me if I wanted to go any further.

Some instinct, deep inside of me, said no. I was terrified, and not sure why. Because, honestly… I wanted to see. I wanted to get lost in the woods and find more unexplainable things. So I bit back the part of myself that protested and told her yes, that I wanted to explore every inch of this forest.

And she took me by the hand and we skipped along an imaginary trail and for the first time in my life I felt free. There were dangerous things here, I could sense, but Willow seemed to cast a beacon, warning all of them away. I knew, if need be, she would protect me from anything that came after us.

She changed more as we wandered. I didn’t have to look from the corner of my eye anymore to see her animal features. But it didn’t frighten me this time.

Her eyes still had that playful edge, so I knew it was still her, even after she was practically unrecognizable. And I knew I’d changed too.

Maybe not on a physical level, like her, but something was different. My eyes were open and I could see things I’d never bothered to look for before. A long time had passed, I was sure, but I wasn’t paying attention.

Stardust coated my skin and a blanket of it encompassed everything we passed, like fresh snow. And now, I could see them, the creatures I’d been frightened of before. And, god, they were beyond explanation. It wasn’t a deer and it wasn’t a bear or a wolf or a person. It just was. And it was beautiful.

They were faeries, just like Willow. And I found myself overwhelmed with the desire to be just like them, an incredible, ineffable being, but of course I couldn’t. Because, unfortunately, I was only human.

I lost track of how much time passed, endlessly exploring that dark forest. At a certain point, Willow began to glow, though it was gradual enough that it took me a while to notice.

After some measurement of time, be it hours or days or years, I finally managed to ask her.

“How long can I stay?”

And that mischievous glint grew ever brighter as she replied, “Forever, if you want to.”

And I did. I really, really did. But I knew it was wrong, and I missed my family, and I missed my moon, and my stars, and my forest. So I said goodbye to her there, even though I hated to.

I also asked her if I’d see her again, but she said I wouldn’t. I left alone this time, going somewhere she couldn’t follow, and leaving myself completely vulnerable to the beasts that I’d at this point learned not to be afraid of.

But the forest and everything in it resented me for leaving. It was dead quiet as I walked, until eventually I found myself back outside my house and walked inside and collapsed into my bed.

Things have been different, since then. I look around every corner for a glimpse of magic. Sometimes I find it, but usually it’s just my mundane, ordinary world.

When I look in the mirror, occasionally I’ll see who I could’ve been, had I stayed, and to this day I still don’t know if I regret my decision.

I miss the other realm, and the delusion that I could be a part of it, but at the same time, things finally feel right again.

But that doesn’t stop me from picking flowers every midsummer eve and leaving them at the edge of the forest.

Hoping that maybe… Willow will come back to whisk me away again.