Pathway to the Stars

They looked at me with wide eyes, daring me. I had borne their taunts easily, when I first told them what I intended. How could they have known I was deadly serious? To their minds, what I intended was impossible, and what I intended to do it with didn’t exist. They had laughed at first, and then jeered, and most had said they would only come along tonight to make fun of me when I failed, but now their voices were silent. They watched warily, searching for any hint of backing down. They talked in low voices, trying to keep their nerves at bay, with the occasional uneasy laugh breaking the hush.

I sat among the leaves of a tree in my garden. My eyes scanned them all, pausing for a moment on each face before moving on. I tried to remember everyone present, imagining how each of them would react when I did what I planned. They had all laughed. They had all jeered. They had all made stupid jokes. Even the ones who had tried to be kind had whispered in the ears of others, or giggled behind their hands, when they thought I couldn’t see.

Now they’d learn.

I pulled myself up, and jumped to the ground in one swift movement. Immediately, all the talking ceased, as every eye in the small garden focused on me. I felt a flash of embarrassment at everyone watching, but pushed it away. It didn’t matter. I wanted them to see. I wanted every one of them to know what I could do.

It had been building in me for weeks, the desire to let them know. We had talked about it once, in school, and they had acted so maddeningly superior. “Magic’s just for little kids,” they’d said. “It’s like Santa Claus. A fairytale. A story someone made up so that kids wouldn’t get thrown into reality straightaway. It’s not real.”

That had made me so angry. I’d wanted to say something, anything, to show them it wasn’t for little kids, it was for anyone with enough intelligence and power to find it. I had waited, my blood boiling inside me, until the bell echoed through the classroom, and once we’d left the door I had bubbled over. I’d meant to tell them quietly and reasonably, but I ended up shouting, my voice carrying along the halls and reaching half the people in the school. They had heard, and listened, and then their taunts had filled my ears.

It was then I knew it took more than words to prove what I said – it took something real, something they couldn’t deny. So I’d said I’d show them something worth seeing. I’d said I would open a pathway to the stars.

I wasn’t lying when I told them I could do it, not really. I knew how to do it. I’d traced the patterns of magic often enough to see how they worked, and from the depths of all the magic I’d wrought over the years I created a new spell. Every spell I worked, every charm, every touch of magic to make everyday tasks easier, had been created inside my head – where else was I going to learn them? There’s no such thing as a magic school. So I knew I could create this spell, just like I’d created all the others.

I’d worked out every single thing that I’d have to do, for my spell to work. It wouldn’t need much besides my own power – most of the work would happen inside my head, and it would be only to transfer the spell to reality that would need a boost.

Finding something to boost my power, however, was a bit of a struggle. It took me forever to come up with something easy-to-find that would give me enough extra magic, and finally had come up with something relatively easy to get. I had scoured every jewellery shop in the town, and had finally found it – a pentagram necklace, made from pure silver. It had put a fairly large dent in my bank account, as pure silver will, but it was worth it, to finish the spell.

Now the necklace hung around my neck, and I felt its power beneath my own as my eyes roved through the crowd.

People began to get uncomfortable, ducking their heads to avoid my stare, shuffling their feet, rubbing their arms. I still said nothing. It was only when I had seen every face that I spoke, quietly so that they would need to be silent to hear me.

“Do you still think I can’t do it?”

A couple of braver people near the back murmured “yes”, but otherwise there was no response.

“Let me show you. Watch. Don’t make a sound.”

I took one last look at their watching faces, then smiled and closed my eyes.

I calmed my breathing, relaxing until each breath was long and slow. I withdrew into myself, ignoring the uneasy murmurs of the crowd that stared at me. I let my mind wander for a moment as I sought out complete calm, and then turned my thoughts to the magic I was about to perform.

The first task was to assert my own identity and my own power. This was, I knew, the most important part of the spell, and it was crucial to get it right. If I lost myself in the magic, I would never be whole again, never be me again.

I am Michelle, I declared in my mind. I am fourteen years old. I have brown hair and blue eyes. I seek the stars, and…

When I was sure that I knew who I was, every part of it, I focused on the spell. It took a while, but I formed the image of part of my pathway in my mind, and held it while I focused on another part. It took me an age to finish, but it was beautiful.

Now, very slowly, my fingers reached up to my throat. I half-heard the stirring of the crowd in front of me as I scrabbled around my neck for the chain of the necklace, and then I slid my fingers along the chain and touched them on the pentagram. I felt its power stretching back through history, to the time when magic was common and people knew to fear it, the time when the symbol of the pentagram was at its strongest. I dragged all the magic I could from it, my mind grasping the strands of power that the ancient symbol gave me, and pulling them, drawing in the magic. When I had all I could get, I tingled with magic, my blood on fire with the power in my soul. Then, still moving slowly, I held both hands a few inches apart, in front of my heart, and pushed all my power into causing the image of the pathway in my head to create itself between my palms.

I heard the collective gasp, and my eyes flickered open in time to see a flash of pure darkness between my hands. Despite my promises to myself that no matter what happened I wouldn’t be afraid, my hands began to shake slightly, but I stilled them, annoyed at myself. Then I watched, as spellbound as the rest of the crowd, though not as surprised – I knew, more or less, what to expect. After all, this was my own spell.

The flash of darkness came again, but stayed this time, flickering for a moment and then growing stronger. It grew, and soon was pushing against my palms, so I widened the space between them, but was careful to keep the dark under control.

My darkness ate away at the air, growing larger until it pressed against my hands again. Slowly I moved them, shaping the dark like a sculptor shapes clay, until a rectangular doorway stood before me, slightly higher than my head and as wide as my outstretched arms. I smiled then, and stepped to the side of it to survey my audience.

They were staring in open-mouthed wonder, fear mixed with awe in their eyes. My smile widened, and I called softly, “Do you believe in magic now?”

Someone at the back – I couldn’t identify the voice – called out, “It’s not real! She’s faking it somehow!”

Those at the front bowed their heads, watching their feet, as if they were embarrassed of the voice behind. They thought, I guess, that I’d be angry. I was, for a moment; but then it passed, and I laughed gently. “Come up here, and let me prove it’s real.”

Whoever had called out seemed suddenly shy, for they didn’t respond, but then there was a whispered, “Go on!” and a boy with sandy hair was pushed to the front.

I knew him, vaguely; he was in a couple of my classes, but was shy and quiet in school, and I couldn’t even remember his name. But it was outside one of the classes we shared, I remembered, that I’d made my announcement. He must have decided to come along, and see if I would go through with it.

“Hello,” I said, still speaking in the same soft tone, and I reached out and took him by the wrist. His eyes flooded with fear, and he tried to struggle free, but I was strong, made stronger by the magic that still burned in me, and he couldn’t get away.

I pulled him slowly forward to the darkness I had created. It was a strange darkness; it swirled and fluctuated, and ripples danced across its surface. In the heart of it, the very heart, pinpricks of light shone steadily – the stars I loved so much.

I said to him, “I’m going to let go, if you promise not to run. I’m not going to push you in or anything like that. I just want to show you it’s real.” His nod was weak but there, and I laughed softly as I let go of his wrist. He made a half-step backwards, but I didn’t move, and he stopped.

“Put your hand in,” I whispered.
 
His mouth hung open, and he managed to stutter out, “N-no!”
 
I rolled my eyes. “It won’t hurt you! It’s just darkness. Are you scared of the dark - ” I searched frantically for his name, and found it, “ - Kian?”
 
He shook his head, and slowly, so slowly, stretched out his arm and slipped his hand into the dark space I had made.
 
I must admit, I was slightly nervous as I watched Kian put his hand into the dark. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t that there was any danger out there – it was the cold between the stars, filled with emptiness. There was nothing out there that could hurt him, simply because there was nothing out there. I didn’t doubt my spell either – I knew how much power I had, and how much the necklace had given me, and I knew that both together were more than enough.
 
No, the reason for my nervousness was that I’d never tried one of my spells on anyone else before, not like this. I had done some magic that affected others – but I had never tried an independent spell like this on anyone but me. I didn’t know if the spell would react to someone other than its creator trying to access it.
 
But Kian’s hand slid easily through the doorway. His fingers sent a ripple of light across the surface of the darkness as they touched it, and he gasped, but pushed his hand on, and soon was flexing his fingers in the darkness on the far side.
 
“It’s cold,” he said to me, with wonder in his voice.

I laughed. “Of course it’s cold. It’s the space between the stars – there’s nothing out there to heat it up.”
 
I think it was then that they started to really understand what I had done. The crowd, which had been relatively quiet since I came down from the tree, began to all talk at once. My best friend Isabel, who had been watching all of this with wide eyes, and was standing at the very front of the crowd, moved forward tentatively and asked me, “Can I feel it too?”
 
I nodded, delighted, and she took a deep breath and then pushed her hand in next to Kian’s. She gasped, then smiled, and turned back to the crowd, calling out, “It’s real!”
 
They all wanted to feel it after that. There was a queue stretching out the garden gate, along the side of my house and out onto the path in front of it, as I made them line up to put their hands through. One by one they touched the cold between the stars, and one by one they turned to me with smiles on their faces and wonder in their eyes. The queue was loud, filled with laughter and happy voices, but the people who had put their hands into the darkness came away silent, and stood quietly in little huddles around the garden, talking in low tones. They weren’t sad, or upset: they were just overwhelmed.
 
I waited until the last of them felt the dark I had linked them to, and then I turned towards the dark myself. I took a hesitant step towards it, and then stopped. Despite my longing to feel at last the cold between the stars, I was afraid. More than afraid – I was terrified.
 
I don’t quite know what I was terrified of. It was partly that my spell would fail me, let me down at the last minute, and not let me through; but mostly that I would feel nothing, on the other side of that barrier. I had spent my life longing to be closer to the stars I loved, the stars I had felt watching me every day, the stars that had given me so much of my power – and now that I was to come closer to them than I ever had in my life, I was terrified that I would feel no different there than I did on earth.
 
I was about to draw back, to turn away, but then a voice inside my head whispered: How will you feel, knowing how close you came to feeling their power so near by, and knowing you chose not to? And before I could think, before I could react, before I could change my mind and let my fear rule me, I flung my hand through the barrier, and into the cold space between the stars.
 
I needn’t have been afraid: the effect was immediate. My fingers began to tingle, to burn with a power I half-recognised: the power of the stars, but stronger than I had ever felt it before. The feeling ran up my arm and spread through my entire body, until I felt like I was on fire. I was breathing hard, my eyes wide, my heartbeat pounding in my ears. I had never felt anything like it.
 
At first I merely stood there silently, thrilling in the sensations of power and magic that were more incredible than anything I had ever known; but slowly my thoughts awoke, and the first thought that entered my mind was: follow…
 
I wondered immediately where the word follow had come from. What was I to follow? I thought at first that maybe it meant to follow my hand through the darkness, to the world between the stars, but then I became aware of something.
 
The emptiness between the stars was not empty.
 
I had always thought it was in the stars where all the magic was, that beyond them and between them lay nothing – an empty expanse of space. But now, as my fingers stretched out to the darkness, I realised that it was not just in the stars that the magic lay.
 
Beneath my fingers, in that cold space between the stars, beings of magic moved. They were invisible, I suppose, but only in the way that the glass in a window is invisible when the sun is out; and anyway, it wasn’t by sight that I followed their movements, but by instinct. They raced through the dark places of space at breakneck speeds, calling to each other in faint musical voices, chasing the trails of magic through the hearts of stars.
 
I could hear their voices even here, although my head was a million miles away from them. They came to me through my magic, not through my ears. Their voices were soft and sweet, like summer rain; their laughter was a song in itself; and when they did sing, as they so often did, their songs were the most beautiful music ever made.
 
I knew every eye in the garden was on me. They probably hadn’t noticed at first when I put my hand through, but I had been here for a long time, and although my eyes were fixed firmly on the darkness around my fingers, I could see them staring out of the corner of my eye. It didn’t really matter – the magic in the dark was pulling me too strongly for me to care for the world where I was born. I had longed for a more thrilling world; now I had found it.
 
I ached to join the beings of magic in the darkness. I couldn’t resist their lure, and didn’t want to. What pleasures did this world hold for me, compared to the endless joy of falling through the hearts of stars and moving with the magic of the universe? What was there to keep me here?
 
I took a deep breath, and my heart began to sing with excitement as my mind settled into the familiar calm of preparing a spell. This one had to go beyond all I had ever done before. It had to make me one of them – a being of pure magic.
 
I tried for a while to make a spell of transformation, and failed miserably. I was on the edge of giving up, and falling into hopelessness, when I realised I didn’t need to transform anything. I just needed to give up my body, my human shape, and leave only the magic in my soul. It was so easy I laughed aloud, and heard the movement of heads turning towards me.
 
I smiled, and my eyes flickered away from the darkness to scan their faces.
 
“I’m going to go through,” I told them simply. “I won’t be back.”
 
I don’t know how I thought they would react. I didn’t think they’d try to stop me. They knew I had power now: they could never force me to stay. But they did try. Or at least, Isabel tried.
 
She came to me with eyes full of concern. “What do you mean, go through? It’s empty space, Michelle, you’ll die out there!”
 
I smiled softly. “No, I won’t.”
 
“What?”
 
“I won’t. I’ve got powers you can’t imagine, Isabel. I’ll be okay.”

“What about your family? Your parents? Can you just leave them?”
 
This time my laugh was bitter. “They don’t care what I do. Besides, I can come back.” That was a pure lie, but I was getting desperate. The pull of magic and stars got stronger by the second, and staying away was breaking my heart.
 
“Can you? Will you?”
 
More lies. “Of course.”
 
“And you’ll be safe?”
 
This time I didn’t need to lie. “Yes. Please, Isabel, let me go now.”
 
She bobbed her head once in consent, and stepped back, hands clasped before her. “Go.”
 
I smiled so widely it almost hurt, and laughed a laugh of pure joy. “Goodbye, Isabel!”
 
My power was ready and waiting, the spell framed in my head already. I knew what I was doing.
 
It took a breath, a step, and a flicker of power. I breathed in deeply, and felt the power surge inside me; I released a jolt of it, and in that moment I let go of everything that kept me human. Humanity fell away from me, and I became something else – something greater and far more beautiful. A single soul, enriched with a shining, perfect magic.
 
Then the moment I had been waiting for since my hand had passed through the path for the first time. I left our earth, our world behind. It ceased to be a part of me; I belonged to the stars, of the currents of magic that chase through space, of the pure cosmic emptiness between the stars.
 
Joy exploded in my soul, and I found myself singing in the enchanting voice of magic. I discovered a magic current and fell into it; it carried me across half the universe in moments. I felt the electric thrill of starfire touching my soul all over, as the current passed through the heart of a glowing red star. Whatever about school, family, Isabel – this was living, true living, pure and simple.
 
I was home.