Shooting star

They say anything is possible in the Witch’s garden: magic; enchantment; even love. So that’s where you go that night – the night of the new moon. You wander up along the garden path that slips and slithers between black leaves. You go slowly, slowly, even though you want to run. Your heart is quiet, as your ears strain to hear any sound of something…dangerous in the dark. Spider webs catch your lips. Sharp sticks scratch your skin, and for a second a slick, sharp thought strikes: what if there are snakes here? Ice crawls down your back as the thought sinks in – it makes goose-bumps as it spreads. So you stop, and you breathe and you listen. You remember how your father used to sing to you when you were little and scared. It’s the same song you still cling to now that you’re grown. A song that soothes you; it makes you feel less alone. You decide to sing it, now. At the bottom of the Witch’s garden, under the dark, you begin to hum the old melody. Almost immediately the bushes seem less wicked. A charming breeze flurries around you and lifts your spirits – you look up at the sky where the stars lie in the Milky Way river. They twinkle as they flow. You sing to the stars, louder, because their light brightens the dark, and you smile: this is magic. Out of the deep, dark river a shooting star burns and leaps over your head. You sing as you make your wish.

The shooting star blazes across the earth, carrying its wish to a house on the other side of the world. The wish flares as it drops through the dark and smoulders on the window ledge. Inside the house, a young man wakes, as the echoes of an old melody waft around him like smoke.