Quantum Constellations

 

My battered fingers stretched for the Big Dipper as if I could lift it out of the night sky and drink from the ladle. Every muscle I had ached from the bruising ride down the mountain, but my soul ached more. The very same constellation I used to love now taunted me from the very same shoreline of the very same lake where I lived, but the town with my home and my father and my sister just wasn’t here. Did the stars just remain the same, but the earth changed underneath them? How could I find my way back up the miles of that rocky slope to the gelatinous seam, the invisible gap between the world where I was motherless and miserable and this place, where I was simply no one at all?

Far away from the circle of flames keeping me warm, I saw the woman, Willow, who retrieved me after my fall out of the fire tower window and the wise woman of this village, Kaheya. Both leather-clad outlines stood out edged in silver by the spotlight of the full moon. They still spoke in hushed tones about prophecies and girls with fiery hair.

I wasn’t a prophecy. I was just looking for my mother at the fire tower when suddenly I was on top of Shadow Mountain, but I wasn’t in my Shadow Mountain. The race down to this village where my town was supposed to be; Willow full of mysterious looks and whispers that I would have to wait for the wise woman before she could tell me anything; I just didn’t know what I could believe.

I gnawed at the jerky from my backpack and sipped from my water bottle. I was consuming objects from another world. Were they proof that my life, my other life, really existed? These modern items had no place in the leather and carved society around me now. Would I ever see my sister again? What would my family do without me?

I’ve got to get home. I shoved my jerky and water back in my pack. What had I been thinking?
I slid out of the firelight like a comet silently slipping over a horizon. Already I focused my eyes up toward the fire tower, toward my future. Whatever happened to Mom, I could figure that out later. My little Holly needed me. I placed each foot as if the path were loaded with pressure-tripped mines, hoping for stealth as I moved through the village.

When I reached the outcropping overlooking the village, I looked back. Low fires dotted the shoreline around the lake in their own constellation. I couldn’t make out the women who called me a prophet who was brought down from the stars nor the fire where I was supposed to be waiting.

Above me the Cassiopeia bent in her “W,” a reminder of mother’s who voiced their strong opinions and paid the consequences. Was that what happened to my mom? I was no Andromeda, a beauty in need of rescue. Maybe closer to a Virgo full of innocence. But, if I was going to get home to my family, I would have to forge my own way. Maybe have a constellation named after me. I could be strong. I could be brave.

I strode up the trail when a figure stepped in front of me.

“Hanah, I told you to stay by the fire.” Willow held her heavy stick loosely, as if it wasn’t a massive threat, as if I hadn’t seen her knock someone aside with it just this afternoon.

“I have to get home. My family needs me.” I shifted my backpack and did my best to glare at this older and stronger woman.

“They can wait. We need you more. You are the Firefly we have been waiting for.”

My shoulders rounded in defeat. So much for forging my own way. Suddenly my backpack felt like a big bag of biology textbooks as I turned back toward the village.

Above me I’m sure the gods and goddesses twinkled their laughter. A mere mortal struggling against the gods, I awaited my fate.