To Capture a Star

The last vestiges of sunset, brilliant layers of pastel pinks and oranges layered atop one another, sank beneath the horizon. Down went the sun, and up came the crescent-shaped moon. Two more weeks would pass before it was whole again, before the stars dotted the sky as far as the eye could see. This was how it had always been, high up on the frosted tips of Yalira’s Ridge.

Baline tugged the wool blanket tighter around her shoulders, her breath coming out in visible, wispy white puffs. She reached a hand toward them, clamping cold fingers upon the air, but when she glanced at her palm, she saw nothing but her pale skin. Even her palms had lost their pinkish hue, the blue and green veins more visible.

A long, wrinkled finger traced the long line stretching from her wrist to the space between her thumb and forefinger. “The goddess has blessed you with a long life, little one,” the man with a gray beard and small, dark eyes said.

“You read palms?”

“Since I was younger than you.” He traced another line branching from the first. “This one breaks in two, you see.”

Baline glanced at the space he tapped upon, dipping her chin lower as she squinted her eyes to see better. The line didn’t look broken to her. It looked like a road with two paths.

“What does it mean?” she asked.

“That is up to you to decide. Two choices, two roads. One could be smooth, the other rough.”

“I’d prefer the smooth one.”

“Wouldn’t we all?”

The man laughed, puffs of air billowing out from his mouth. Could she bottle the air in a glass jar? Maybe she could try bringing one the next time she came up the peak. One of the small ones inside the kitchen, emptied of its pickled contents, and not yet needed by her mother.

It had taken deceptive smiles and pleading when she’d been found out to be granted permission to take an old, torn cloth sack. What use did it have being torn? She had tried to argue this point, only to be met with a stern gaze and a smack of a wooden spoon to her upper arm.

Foolish, her mother called her.

No person in their right mind would believe the stories told by the old crone who lived high up on Widow’s Hill, away from the rest of the villagers. Rambling, half-mad, barking beast; Baline had heard these words used for the woman, but they didn’t steer her away. They made her curiosity grow and grow until she climbed the hill, pressed her cheek against a dirty glass windowpane, and tried to make out the inside of the cottage. But no amount of rubbing at the glass from the outside with the sleeve of her cotton gown removed the grime.

When she sighed and turned around, she’d been met with the sight of the old woman hunched over a cane, long white hair being blown in all directions by the wind. Bright green eyes stared at her, and Baline held her breath, her heart thumping in her ears until the woman invited her inside for tea. Three turns of the moon had passed since then, and each day she could sneak away, she made a habit of going up the hill to sit with the woman named Lamila.

It was Lamila who told her of the time in winter when the stars hung lowest in the sky. That if she sat on the highest peak and waited for night to come, the first stars in the sky would be close enough to reach out and grab. The serious look in Lamila’s gaze and her revelation of a piece of a star gathered by another had dispelled any doubts Baline had.

When she told her mother the story, however, the woman smacked her lips and shook her head. “You’ll believe anything, won’t you? You foolish girl. Go on then, go see if you can’t catch a star.”

Baline hadn’t corrected her. It wasn’t that she would be catching it, because the star wouldn’t fall, nor would it be inside a pool of water like a fish. She had to pluck it out of the sky as soon as it appeared. But how did she carry a star? It surely was bigger than a bucket, as the piece Lamila showed her had been the size of a loaf of bread.

She’d thought herself rather ingenious to think of using the cloth sack. With it, she could drag the star down from the peak and show her mother she wasn’t as foolish as the woman believed.

“You’re here about the stars, aren’t you?” the man asked.

Baline nodded and lifted her cloth sack. She had patched the large tear with a piece of red-checkered cloth leftover from when her mother sewed her a new gown in spring. The stitches were jagged; Baline had never been good at sewing. Her fingers bore the wounds of her failed attempts at threading the needle.

“Why do you want to capture a star?”

“To prove to my mother I’m not foolish,” she said, pressing her chin to her shoulder and sneezing. If the stars didn’t come out soon, she might not get the chance to prove her mother wrong. She might freeze. “She doesn’t believe in anything magical.”

“And you do.” The man rubbed his hands together.

“Don’t you?” Baline shifted closer to him, offering a portion of her blanket. He didn’t have one. He wasn’t even wearing a cloak.

The man leaned nearer to her, accepting the blanket. It only covered half of his body, and the absence of half of the blanket allowed the wind to send an icy chill throughout Baline’s body. She shivered and shut her eyes.

Too cold. It was far too cold. How could the man withstand it without a cloak or blanket?

“Are you not warm yet? Maybe I need to make it larger.”

Warm? Why, she did feel as if heat had flooded beneath her skin, but she’d chalked it up to a rush of blood. The body trying to keep itself warm.

Baline opened her eyes, gasping as she saw a flame hovering before her. She leaned back from it.

“Careful,” the man said, his hand on her back to prevent her from tumbling backward. “The flame won’t hurt you.”

“Where did it come from?”

He laughed again, the flame making those puffs of air more visible and starkly white. His dark eyes shimmered a bright gold, and she brought her hands to her mouth to cover another gasp. 

Magic.

Just stories, her mother’s voice said.

Not stories, she refuted her mother. The proof was before her in the form of a flame suspended in the air and an old man who had been seated on the mountain long before she arrived. Stories of magic and creatures and stars hanging low in the sky were real.

“You used magic.” Her voice came out as a whisper, hands falling from her mouth.

“I would think something was wrong if I couldn’t.”

“Did you capture a star? Did a star give you magic?”

She had wondered—guessed—magic could come from stars. They hung so high in the sky, illuminating the night even when the moon hid behind dark clouds; if one captured one and held it in their hands, some of its light could trickle into them.

Lamila didn’t have magic because she hadn’t captured her star when it was warm and glowing. But Baline would have magic.

The man shook his head. “No, little one. I made the stars.”

Baline’s brows furrowed as she contemplated how it could be possible for a man to make the stars.

“I’m a god,” he said, as if he were privy to her thoughts, “the god of the night.”

Impossible. No God of the Night existed. She only knew of the goddess who had created all manner of living creatures. The priest never mentioned any other gods or goddesses. Maybe the man gave himself a nickname. He could use magic, yes, but she believed in the stories of those to the south of where she lived who could use magic. People who were not like her or any of the other villagers. This man was one of those people, not a god.

“Will you believe me if I pluck a star for you?” he asked, rising from the snow-covered ground. He brushed off his brown pants, cleared his throat, and held a palm toward the sky.

Baline watched, transfixed, as a glimmer of light grew closer and closer until it hovered in the man’s palm, and he turned to present it to her. A star. Only, it didn’t look like the star Lamila showed her. This was a ball of light so bright she had to shield her eyes, not a yellow chunk of rock.

“Quick. Your sack.”

She reached for the sack in her lap, held it open, and kept her eyes shut, safe from the blinding light. The sack became heavy enough that her arms slumped. Fear the patch would not hold up brushed at the edge of her mind, but it couldn’t match the mixture of confusion and excitement swirling. 

“There you are. Your own star.”

Cautiously, she opened one eye, then the other, and looked down at the sack. The light from the star glowed through the cloth, warming her from the waist down. A tinge of dismay enveloped her, because she hadn’t captured it herself. What magic she might have gained from it had gone to the man instead. Unless-

She dug one hand into the sack, reaching for the star and feeling nothing.

“I can’t feel it,” she said.

But it was there. Otherwise, she wouldn’t see the glow, and her arms would not ache from the weight.

“A star is light. Can you hold light?”

“You held it.”

“Because I’m a god.”

Baline looked up at him, still feeling around inside the cloth sack for the star. She felt the bottom of the sack, the jagged stitches she’d made with the patch, but no solid piece of a star. The warmth should have burnt her skin down to the bone, but it only felt as if she’d pulled on a thick wool glove.

With a sigh, she released the sack, its thud softened by the snow.

“I thought if I captured a star, I’d have magic. That would show my mother I’m not foolish. Now, I can’t even show her a star without blinding her. She can't hold it. She won't believe me.”

“Oh, little one.” The man knelt before her and placed a large palm atop her head. “Your heart is made up of magic. Is that not enough?”

Although she felt greedy for thinking it indeed wasn’t enough, her lower lip jutted outward. “What good is a heart of magic compared to magic you can use?”

She couldn’t make flames as he did. She couldn’t pluck a star from the sky. She couldn’t even thread a needle. Lamila had given her false hope, and she had been—well, foolish, as her mother would say—to believe in it.

“A heart that believes in what eyes can’t see, a heart willing to give others a chance, a heart full of kindness. That is what you have. It is far greater than magic. Far more powerful. One day, you will know it.”

Baline looked up into the man’s dark eyes, devoid of their shimmer. Though disappointment hung over her, his soft smile invigorated her, reigniting her belief in herself. He was right. She believed when others did not; she had spoken to Lamila and learned of the stars, and because of that, she met a god. Or a man like a god.

A desire to have magic lingered, but she knew it was not hers to claim. It had been a wish, one unfulfilled. A lesson learned. Baline understood. She did not need magic, not so long as she kept her belief.

Magic would live in her heart.

“Do I get to keep the star?” she asked.

The skin to the corners of the man’s eyes crinkled, and his forehead lines deepened. “It is yours. A god captured it for you. Take it back to your village and let them know a god watches them. You, little one, shall be my messenger.”

Baline scampered down the mountain half an hour later, leaving the man—or god—behind. When she arrived in the village, villagers were still milling about, and they stared in shock as she dragged the gleaming cloth sack right through the large, singular street. Along the way, she told them of the god who had plucked the star from the sky and given it to her. She didn’t stop at her home, not even when her mother called for her, but went up the hill to show Lamila, who had believed before any other.

No one ever again questioned her beliefs. The God of the Night became a mythical figure villagers swore they saw on nights when the moon hung in a crescent shape for years to come. While the star eventually dimmed and disappeared, Baline knew where to go for another. And she did, once a year, while greeting an old friend who never changed, never aged, and continued encouraging her to hold tight to the greatest magic.

She always promised to do her best.

Whispers of her spread long after her death; Baline, the girl who captured a star, they called her. Years passed by, a mere blink in the eyes of a god, until Baline became as mythic a tale as those she’d believed in.

“Did Baline use magic?” asked the little girl with curly blonde hair. 

“No, she was made of magic,” said her brother. He kept his arms wrapped around her to keep her warm as they waited for the stars to appear. "Wasn't she?"

The gray-bearded man beside them had just finished his retelling of Baline, though they both heard the story in the village. Their mother recited it to put them to sleep. Each had their own opinion about Baline, whether she had ever existed or been made up. They were determined to find out, to see if they could also capture a star.

The man looked up at the stars, his eyes shimmered, and he smiled. “You’re right. Baline was made of the most beautiful magic.”