Stargirl of the Edge

Ch 41 - A Guiding Light

“You do know, don’t you? You what’s going to happen in the future! Oh please tell me!”

“Oh no, no, very sorry, I cannot tell you, that would be bad, very very bad!”

“Oh Esther, I just hope he is safe and that he’ll be released soon.”

“Oh yes, I hope so too. But all I can say is, using the powers I have, I know I will see my father again. When you say you hope, you are using the same powers.”

“How can you say that, to hope and to know are the same thing?”

“For me, yes. Livvy you have to learn how to hope.”

Olivia shook her head. It was too much. 

“So why did your father go to this country?” Esther asked.

“I thought he had gone there to make money for our family. But Mum said he’s there to do good, to help the people, to build a system to bring drinking water, but the bad people took him hostage. Maybe they will ask for money, a ransom?”

“If he is there and he is doing good for the people, and there is a fight between good and bad, I feel sure that good will win and he will soon be free.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Oh yes, I really do.”

“I hope you are right!”

“I want to help you feel better! Just hope, Livvy, hope!”

Esther shifted a little forward and leaned towards Olivia.

“Olivia, I have another favour, if you could help me, please?”

“Oh yes, please, just tell me what the favour is?”

“The crew, they are repairing the junk, and they are nearly finished. It will take a little bit more time, maybe one month, or two, and then we are ready to set sail for China. But we have a problem.”

“A problem, what problem?”

“When the storm blew us from China, we lost our charts. Our navigator, Chu Jiang, he was lost overboard, same as Zhu Gwang Ming, but in our time, during our dynasty, we saw a star, a very bright star. If we could find the star, and if we knew where it was in the sky, then we know which way to go.”

“A star, a very bright star?”

“Yes, look let me show you.”

Esther did something she had not done before. She turned not to the left, the side with the bubble, but pointed up to the right. Suddeny the daylight grew dim, as if it was nighttime. Olivia turned round and looked up through the trees and held up her palm.

Up there, just visible in the sky, there was a star. It could have been one of the usual stars you would see, maybe Venus, but it was in the wrong part of the sky. The star grew brighter and brighter, with an eerie, green light, casting shadows in the woodland.

The light grew in magnitude, until it was several times brighter than the brightest star, and it seemed to be hovering just above the trees, casting its thin, pale, high-pitched light down into the woods, lighting up Olivia’s face. Its bright points were reflected in her eyes and in Esther’s. The green light seemed to make the grass an even more vivid green, and it lit up the leaves on the trees. The light remained steady in the sky, not moving, not flickering, just solid, constant, strong. It was a benign light, a comforting light, a reassuring light, a light that was like a friend,  a guiding light.

And then the light slowly grew dimmer, the shadows in the grass grew fainter, until the star had diminished in brightness, slowly dying away until it finally disappeared, and the bluish dusk light returned.