The Stars

By Hailey Huntington

“I still don’t understand why you had to drag me out here to the literal middle of nowhere,” I muttered, staring out the window at the expanse of the Namibian desert.

There was nothing to see for miles but sand, a few trees and bushes, and an occasional animal that might have been an extra in The Lion King. Mountains rose on the horizon, creating some contrast to the landscape. But still. We were in the middle of the desert bush. My phone had stopped working ages ago. I could feel dirt and sand working their way into my pores.

“I told you already. You needed to get away. See the Stars,” Jess said, taking her eyes off the road to glance at me. What could we hit out here anyways?

I crossed my arms. “I can see the stars just fine back in NYC.”

“No. They’re too far away for you to see. Smog keeps them from getting close. But out here”—Jess flung an arm out the Jeep window—“the Stars dance among you.”

I rolled my eyes. My older sister had always been the fanciful one with her head in the clouds. We broke the birth-order stereotypes. She believed in fairies; I lived in the real world. She trotted the globe; I studied at law school.

Jess let out a deep breath. “This will be good for you, Liz. You need some wonder. You need a little magic.”

The Jeep went over a mini crater in the dirt road. My seatbelt was the only thing that kept me from banging my head against the dash.

Gritting my teeth, I tried to get comfortable in my seat once more. “Yeah. Middle-of-nowhere Namibia is just full of magic.”

I should have seen this coming. When Jess first visited Namibia last year, she raved about it. I hadn’t listened, preferring to read my textbook while pretending to hear her. I’d just nodded and hmmed politely. Jess must have thought my feigned interest was real.

The plane ticket had arrived during finals. In the short note also tucked into the envelope, Jess said that I needed something “inspiring, eye-opening, and wondrous.”

So here I was, three weeks later, in a country with a population that was a little over a fourth of my hometown, despite having an area over one thousand times larger.

Jess looked over at me, her eyes twinkling. “Oh, just wait, Liz. You’ll see.”

We arrived at the NamibRand Nature Reserve around sunset. Rather than checking into our lodge and letting me take a much-needed shower and nap, Jess kept driving deeper into the wilderness. I’d finally managed to doze off at some point.

Jess shook me, wrestling me out of my dreams. “Liz!” she whispered.

Groaning, I blinked. It was dark. Like, really dark. I couldn’t see anything—not even the windshield, Jess, or my own hands. My pulse raced. “Wha—”

Jess pressed a finger against my lips. “Quiet! You don’t want to scare them away. Just watch,” she murmured, sitting back in her own seat.

I rubbed my eyes, stifling another groan. Was Jess waking me up for some sort of night safari experience at a waterhole? If she was, she had better be prepared for the lawsuit I’d bring against her for interrupting my beauty sleep. Jetlag was a beast. And I still couldn’t see anything!

No, that wasn’t entirely true.

Small pinpricks of soft light covered the sky. My eyes had adjusted to make out the stars.

I couldn’t hold back the gasp. Jess had been right. I couldn’t see the stars back home. There were so many of them. The sleepy haze vanished.

Jess’s breath was warm against my cheek as she whispered again. “Just wait.”

Wait for what? The dazzling array was enough to make me forget any irritation.

I blinked. The stars—were they getting bigger? No. They were falling. But they weren’t vanishing—they were coming towards us.

I sat up, my seat belt locking at the sudden motion. “Jess—”

Everything disappeared in a blinding flash of white.

Then, as the spots faded from my eyes, I could see them. And they were beautiful. They were awe-inspiring.

They were magical.

Creatures made of starlight roamed the red sand in front of us. The soft glow they cast illuminated the desert, the light just reaching the Jeep.

I stared wide-eyed, hardly able to take it in. Various types of birds swooped through the air. One of them flew past a star-giraffe, which was walking next to a massive celestial bear and cub. Two dogs chased each other around the bushes. And was that… a unicorn?

This was a dream. I had to be dreaming. I’d fallen back asleep after Jess had woken me up.

But Jess’s hand gripped mine. And it was too real, too firm, to be in my head.

“How? What?” I stumbled for words, unable to look away.

“The Stars, the constellations—they’re more real than most think. You can’t see them most places now, so they stay up in the sky. But they still come down in places like these.”

Something wet slid down my face—was I crying?

“It… it’s magic,” I breathed.

“Yeah.” Jess squeezed my hand. “It’s still around. You just have to be willing to look for it—have your eyes open to the wonder around us.”

A school of starry fish somehow swam through the sky in front of us. I let out a breathy laugh and wiped the tears off my cheeks.

I wasn’t a rash person—that was Jess’s signature trait. But there were still three months before school started again. And I could take a semester off if I wanted.

“Jess. I want you to show me all the magical places you’ve found.”

“Oh, Liz. I’d love to.”

I could tell my sister was already creating a mental itinerary. I smiled. “But right now, let’s just enjoy the Stars.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hailey Huntington loves adventures, and she’s always ready for another one—whether it’s discovering Narnia, traveling across Middle Earth, hiking a mountain in Iceland, or simply going on a walk with her family. Aside from adventures, Hailey also loves board games, music, ice cream, laughter, witty characters, fantasy, emojis, and Jesus—though not in that order.

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