THE STAR TELLER

There used to be these lights in the skies. The kind that must have made people wonder why- and ask big, big questions. Questions like what could be, and how to follow maps, and dreams, and where to begin when you don’t know the end. They were called stars. Scientists have lots of theories on what once fueled these lights in the night sky. And scientists have even more theories- theories about where the stars went. They have been written into books, drawn into pictures they’re easy to remember, or at least imagine. Stars did exist. Speckled light across a night sky- wouldn’t it be a dream to see?

Science textbooks have lots of ideas about them- like stars having been big balls of gas, flickering in the sky light years away. And then there are theories written in other kinds of books. Were stars the fireflies that flew too far and perhaps never stopped flying? Is that why the stars have disappeared altogether? Did they fly farther than we can see? Or were stars only ever a legend? Simply a tale as old as time?

It’s hard to say where they came from or where they went, but people don’t question it much anymore. At the end of the day when the sun sets and darkness spills like ink into the sky- the world carries on. Very few pause to even wonder at the night sky. 

Very few… very few… perhaps only one or two.. Perhaps, just Emmaline.

Emmaline looked into the deep, dark blue of the only night sky she had ever known, and she looked at the book in her lap. Beautiful pictures of lights in the sky, swirls of color called galaxies and constellations. She wondered if it could have ever been true. She wondered how, she wondered why. She wondered where they had gone and why they had left. Emmaline had a big imagination like that. Where others never questioned, Emmaline wondered. Emmaline dreamed. I can’t really blame her for dreaming, after all Emmaline almost always had her eyes on a book if she wasn’t gazing dreamily at flowers, the skies, or butterflies. She read about castles, wishes, and worlds of magic, and it was just hard to know what was true in it all. It’s not that Emmaline was scared to discover magic did not exist or that perhaps the shoe had never fit Cinderella at all. Rather, Emmaline was curious because if it was true- the possibilities were endless! What could happen in a world where the cow really jumped over the moon and stars really danced in the sky- whatever it is they were! And so often Emmaline got lost in her thoughts, dreaming days away.

And it wasn’t that Emmaline’s mother was worried about her perse… but she did worry that if Emmaline kept wandering away with her imagination, she may get lost or never come back. So, one day in the midst of her books, Emmaline’s mother gave her a pen and a stack of paper. It was all ordinary really- a blue pen from the store on the corner and paper from the office supplies section. Emmaline’s mother told her to tell the stories swirling in her mind, to write down the ideas she had about the world and all it could be. Write the words like a map, she said, show us the world you know and how we can all go. And so, on that sunny day, Emmaline wrote.

She wrote of all the things she dreamt and imagined. Of orange trees that grow to touch the sky, tales of how giraffes came to be and how they got their spots. There were enough pages to tell stories she had always dreamt of telling- ships sailing to sea and roads that lead to mysterious, magical places. Emmaline wrote all day until the sun began to slip from the sky and the darkness spilled in. In the darkness, Emmaline saw something she couldn’t have seen during the day…. Each of the pages with words so carefully crafted were glowing. A warm, soft glow that stood out against the darkness in the evening. Emmaline’s eyes grew wide as she looked at the pen in her hands- what had caused this? What had brought these pages to life?

 She called for her mother and her mother came running. She was as shocked as Emmaline and could hardly believe what was before her eyes! Taking the pen, her mother carefully wrote words on a new piece of paper- but nothing happened. Emmaline’s mother looked at her with a smile and eyes that just knew (the way mothers often do), “Emmaline, I think the magic is in you.” 

Emmaline’s heart leapt, grasping the pen she wrote again… and instantly the page began to glow. Both Emmaline and her mother drew in a breath. It was simply marvelous! Ink stained pages- glowing! But why? Why did they glow, Emmaline’s ever curious mind wanted to know. And to that, they didn’t have an answer. The same way we never can tell what is truly at the end of a rainbow- is there a pot of gold? Is there truly no end at all? Or is that what we’ve been told to keep us from searching for gold?

All Emmaline knew is that she felt the curiosity bursting inside her. Her heart beating and leaping in her chest like acrobats at the circus. She couldn’t stop staring at the light! It’s soft glow in the still night! The wonder inside her ran so deep, she knew this was a night where she could never fall asleep. So instead, she sat with her pages as they softly glowed by her side. And she wondered what it would be like if other things glowed? Things like birds, bears, and maybe even pears! Smiling widely she began to take the pages filled with her marvelous stories and fold them into the origami shapes she had learned in school. A crane, butterfly, tiger- oh if only you could have seen it! The way the pages came alive! The way the tiger looked with light inside, the butterfly that seemed as if it could just up and fly away. As though being only words on a page were not enough to make it stay. Emmaline lay on her back, surrounded by all the words she had said, the pages she had read, the stories swirling in her head, and all the glowing creatures on her bed. She could just imagine the places a glowing butterfly could go flitting across the inky sky. How the tiger might perch up above in a jungle of galaxies all its own. And Emmaline fell asleep like that, without meaning to- dreaming as she always does without even trying. With her eyes closed she dreamt of words coming alive. She dreamt of fairy tales- Jack and the beanstalk, climbing into the sky, Cinderella rushing by. 

The next day she woke up- surrounded with the stories by her side and all the stories she had dreamt inside. And she wondered as Emmaline does… maybe, just maybe, if she planted one of these magical pages it would grow… and maybe, just maybe, she’d be able to touch the sky. After all, hadn’t Jack done it? Emmaline didn’t know how to build a rocket but she had once planted seeds she found in her pocket. They had been flowers and hadn’t grown very tall… but they also weren’t magical at all. Maybe these pages could reach much, much higher places. And… if she could only touch the sky however high… then she could place each one of the marvelous pages into its depths- like the stars in her books! They could glow and not just as round lights but as the most beautiful sights! A crane flying through, origami wings glowing too!

Emmaline, full of dreams and light wishes, planted a page folded carefully as a flower into the earth. The day passed slowly from dawn to dusk. Emmaline willingly went to sleep that night, ready to see how high the seed would grow by morning! 

When morning came, something had indeed begun to sprout from the page below! But it wasn’t very big or wide, and certainly not tall enough to touch the sky… Emmaline frowned, this wouldn’t do. This wasn’t enough. Maybe there were other ways to reach the sky, besides beanstalks and astronauts. Maybe she could build a ladder? Or stack giraffes one on top of the other. If she could get to the top of a mountain and jump high enough… or maybe get a trampoline! That's it! To the top of Mount Everest! Or build extra tall stilts? Emmaline scrunched her brow up, with her hand on her chin… what could be done… where to begin…

Emmaline decided all of it must be tried! She pulled out glue, she pulled out ropes, she pulled out crayons with every last one of her high hopes. But her mom wouldn’t let her climb Mount Everest. Or uproot the pine trees for tall stilts. Emmaline drew maps of her ideas. Each one glowed just like all the rest, but her mother doing what mothers do best- wouldn’t let Emmaline do all the tests. Giraffes couldn’t be shipped in from Africa, she told her dear daughter Emmaline. Flamingos could not be stacked to the atmosphere. The acrobats could not be thrown to space without any landing place. Emmaline didn’t understand, why couldn’t she be shot from a volcano like a water spout to just test it out? Emmaline had a dream- she could just see the origami filled sky. Emmaline’s mother just sighed, in time my dear, in time, she chimed. So it turned out that all Emmaline could really do was wait. But as she waited she turned page after page, filling line after line, as she continued to dream and wait for time to pass by.

It’s possible that the little origami flower may not have grown or that the paper seed may never have shown, but it did. And it’s possible that it may have only grown the way most flowers do- just a little taller than your shoe, but it didn’t. The little flower grew and grew, perhaps fueled by the stories Emmaline told and perhaps fed by its own dreams when each night it went to bed. For the flower grew past the tall trees, farther than any flower should be, until one day it touched the sky. 

It happened slowly but the flower always knew as it grew and grew, exactly what it could do. For Emmaline though, the time passed even slower. So slow, that after a few weeks she stopped looking up- to the flower that is. Emmaline still always looked to the sky and still almost always tripped over her shoelaces lost in her why’s. But Emmaline’s mother didn’t miss a day. She noticed every way the flower stretched and kept count of each word Emmaline’s pen sketched. Every page with a fold, every page given a story to hold. 

So when the flower stretched through the day in its way, Emmaline’s mother shook her gently. “Look,” she said. And Emmaline leapt out of bed- could it be?! Was this the seed?? Running to its side, Emmaline looked to her mother, “Can I?” Her mother nodded with a smile, “Go, try.”  And with that, Emmaline began the climb, from the ground to the sky. It was much shorter than one would think. Emmaline made it to the clouds in no time at all! When she did, she smiled big. Just as she thought, there would be plenty of space, each one of her stories would surely have a place! Climbing back down, she readied the pages, and waited for the sun to fall asleep.

As the inky night spilled in, Emmaline climbed all the way to the sky with every last one of her wonders and whys. She reached and she stretched, placing each one into its inky depths. And each, just as she suspected, equally stretched and leapt. The tiger coming alive, the dolphin going for a dive, creating an origami sky! With flutters and flecks of light it was quite a sight! Especially from where Emmaline sat up above.

Down below, something was happening too... It began with one, two, then a few… people stopping in their tracks… Twinkling stars in the sky, all aglow! The people shouted, the people whispered, one to another, “They’re back! They’re back!”