|||Of Stardust and Star Fragments|||

But the dust could not dull those enigmatic, sparkling, black eyes—so full of warmth, full of life. Nor did it leech any color from the blonde hair that framed her face in ringlets, so much like her mother’s.

Charlotte’s lip quivered and her breath came out in ragged gasps, face wet with tears she had not yet realized were there. As she rocked back and forth slightly, a habit formed with her childhood tears, her uneven breath punctuated with the occasional quiet sob was the only sound to accompany her in the slowly darkening room.

The tears continued streaming down her face and she remembered something Ivy had said, not three days before her accident; it was all rushing back, as though her sister were sitting right beside her…

“Hey, Char?”

Charlie rolled her eyes at the pet name she’d been bestowed by Ivy and Ivy alone.

“What is it, Vi?”

“Why is everyone so scared to die?”

The pair had been sitting on the roof whilst mapping the stars with their eyes, a favorite pastime of Ivy’s. The chill wind that had been knotting their hair had ceased, and save for the crickets, and the pair of them, the world seemed to stand still.

“Why? Well…” 14-year-old Charlotte struggled to come up with an answer that would placate her sister’s need to have her morbid question answered. “Well, they’d be leaving loved ones behind, for starters.”

The younger sibling was oddly silent, as though digesting what she’d heard.

“But they won’t be.”

Charlie sat up, peering down at Ivy curiously.

“Whadyou mean, Vi?”

“Well,” she said sitting up as well, though not as quickly as her sister. “All things in the universe were once one thing, right? Before the Big Bang?”

Charlie nodded, not sure what she was getting at.

“Then that means we’re all part stardust and star fragments, right?”

Again, the elder sibling nodded, slower this time.

“Well it make sense that once we’re no longer alive, we won’t be us, right? We’ll just have gone back to being stars, or stardust or whatever.”

Even the crickets seemed to quiet as a smile played across Ivy’s lips, eyes shining brighter than ever.

“Why would we be leaving loved ones behind? We would be watching them from the night skies, and they could always look for us up there. If they don’t know which exact star we are, they could pick one at random. A little piece of that person is bound to be inside that star, right?”

Charlotte watched in awe as Ivy leaned back, completely content with the knowledge she had sleepily expelled into the summer night.

“Right,” Charlie whispered, leaning back as well.

A smile began to bloom upon her lips as well.

“We can just look for them at night.”

Still sobbing, Charlie crawled up onto Ivy’s unused bed and curled up into a ball atop the neatly tucked sheets and blanket. How long she’d been there, she didn’t know; the passing of time was marked by her cries fading into hiccups and the tears drying on her face.

Oh, Vi, she thought, I’ve looked and looked, and none of the stars remind me of you. Which one are you? Which one?

She found herself climbing out Ivy’s window, onto the roof, settling in the same spot they’d shared those many years ago, frantically searching the dark sky. After what seemed like hours of searching, she gave up, and curled into a ball, wrapping her arms around her legs, and tucked her legs to her chest.

A while later, she heard Ivy’s window open. Her mother climbed out and joined Charlotte on the roof. After a moment, she said, “You know your father and I heard you sneaking up here almost every night?”

Charlie scooted closer to her mother, almost crying in relief when she felt the warmth of her arm behind her back.

“You know, I always thought we were being so sneaky about it.”

Her mother laughed, a sound that was hard to come by.

They both sat there, studying the darkness, when, in a flash of light, a shooting star streaked by, there and gone—in a heartbeat.

Neither of the two said anything. But they knew.

Ivy.