Starfall

The star fell on the longest night of the year. Tomas saw it from his hut on the mountainside: a streak of white fire across the sky, then a hiss and a cloud of steam rising from the lake below.

He took his lantern and went down to look.

She was standing waist-deep in the black water, glowing faintly, like moonlight through mist. Her hair floated around her shoulders in strands of pale fire. When she saw him, she smiled.

'I have until sunrise,' she said, as if they were continuing a conversation. 'Then I go back. Will you show me things?'

He gave her his coat, which steamed where it touched her skin. He showed her his hut, and his goats, and the bread he had baked that morning, which she ate with an expression of astonishment. He showed her snow, which she had only ever seen from very far away. She held a handful until it melted and laughed with delight as the water ran through her glowing fingers.

She asked about everything: about hunger and cold, about music, about what it felt like to be touched. He answered as well as he could. Then she asked if he would show her that too.

He asked if she was sure. She told him she had watched the world for ten thousand years and had never been surer of anything.

Her skin was warm, warmer than any fire. The hut glowed all night like a lantern on the dark mountain.

At dawn she walked back into the lake, rose with the sun and was gone. But every year, on the longest night, Tomas sees one star burn brighter than the rest, and he goes outside and waves.