By Pamela Love
Although she’d finished smoothing soil over her seeds and was growing wetter by the second, Gerda was in no hurry to leave her garden. She savored the rain. Too little had fallen the year before, resulting in meager fare ever since.
I’m lucky to have that much. She smiled. Well, I do have a good luck charm.
Out of the corner of her eye, Gerda spotted something tumbling toward her. She blinked in surprise when she saw what was collapsing by the fence.
A blixt.
Gerda had grown up by the shore, and the first time she saw a blixt, she had thought he was a sea star grown to her size and standing like she did. “Mama, it shines like the ones in the sky.”
Her mother had chuckled. “That is a blixt, not any kind of star, despite his shape. And he is male. There’s a female splashing in that tidepool over there. While he is the blue of a sunlit wave, she is the white of seafoam. See how they reach out their limbs?”
Gerda had. Those arms stretched out ten times their length or more, waving in the breeze, before shortening to the length of their other three.
“During thunderstorms, they catch lightning with them. They feed on it, as we humans eat food. That’s why their bodies shine.”
Now, decades later and a week’s walk from that shore, Gerda knelt beside this blixt, frowning at his condition. His eyes were closed, and his body was now a dull gray, with the blue scarcely visible. She covered her mouth with her hand, horrified when she realized what the drought meant to him. “You must be starving.”
At the sound of her voice, the blixt opened his eyes. Gerda scanned the sky, seeing no spark in the clouds. Nor could she hear any rumbling in the distance. “I’m afraid there’s no lightning in my cupboard, but I’ll try to find something you can eat.”
She searched her pantry. These days, she lived mostly on beans, sourdough bread, and potatoes. Filling her apron’s pockets, Gerda returned to her unexpected guest. She crouched beside him and, one by one, offered what she had: a handful of chickpeas, a crust of bread, and a few dried apple slices she’d been saving for a treat. She even tried some salt. He wouldn’t open his mouth.
Gerda sighed. “Well, you’re welcome to bide here till the next thunderstorm, blixt. I’d bring you indoors, but I don’t want to chance you missing a stray lightning bolt. I’ve heard that one of those will feed you for a month.”
Inside her cottage, Gerda drummed her fingers nervously. “Might as well make bread.” As she kneaded, she considered the dough’s ingredients. “If only lightning were in it, he might have tried a bite.” Then another childhood memory came to her mind.
Leaving the dough to rise, she hurried to her bedstead. Under it was a box of keepsakes. She looked through it until she found a hollow piece of dark glass with a clear center and a rough, sandy surface. It was the length of her forearm and shaped like a stem. She could just fit her thumb and forefinger around it. My lucky charm, made from lightning.
She’d found it on that same childhood beach. Her mother had sent her to collect seaweed washing up onto the rocks. Nibbling on that tasty plant, Gerda hadn’t noticed the storm clouds gathering.
When lightning flashed overhead, she had fled to a cave, where she’d flung herself flat. Moments later, a thunderbolt had struck the beach only a few paces from where she lay.
“Once the storm passed, I found you where the lightning hit,” Gerda whispered to the glass. “Is it trapped inside you? Or is it only what created you?”
Hope flickered within her heart as she offered it to the blixt. He licked it desperately with a triangular tongue, but then his eyes fluttered shut.
“Not enough? Maybe you need more than just a taste.” She bit her lip. “You need it more than I do.” Reaching for a fist-sized rock, she hesitated, and then smashed the glass.
The blixt tried to scoop up fragments, but Gerda had to guide his limb to his mouth. He didn’t swallow the glass, which slid off his face. Still, he began to glow faintly.
She watched him closely over the next two days, seeing no change in his color. Then came a fierce, red dawn which was followed by a summer-hot morning and oncoming thunder at noon. Gerda dashed into the garden in time to see the blixt stand and stretch his top three limbs higher and higher. She worried about his balance, but although he swayed, he didn’t fall.
Gerda retreated to her doorway, clenching her fists. “Please, please, please…”
Shielding her eyes with her arm, she didn’t watch when the lightning struck, fearing that she might lose her vision altogether. But she knew, oh, she knew that the blixt was feasting on the storm’s brief, bright banquet. He hummed a sweet, joyous melody and shone like the North Star.
He left abruptly after the storm, rolling over and over, point to point. Gone too were the pieces of her good luck charm. Where they’d lain was another piece of glass. Thunderbolt-shaped, it shone as blue as the well-fed blixt.
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