Luna pushed through the tall lavender at the edge of her garden and stopped dead. Beside the wooden fence, something small and golden lay crumpled in the damp grass. It flickered with a sickly grey-green light.
She crouched low, fingers hovering just above the little star. The air smelled like wet earth and crushed mint. It looked tired — smaller than she thought a star could ever be.
Luna gathered a velvet rose petal from her garden bed and wrapped the star inside it. She held it against her palm and waited. Nothing happened. The star stayed dull and cold.
She placed the star inside a mason jar with a tiny hole punched in the lid and set it on the warm patio stone. Above, the first real stars were beginning to appear in the darkening sky.
A single drop of rain splatted against the jar and rolled down the glass like a tear. Luna picked it up and carried it under the porch roof, heart sinking.
She set the jar beside a basket of evening primrose. The white flowers curled outward like sleepy hands. Luna leaned close and noticed the star was barely breathing now — its light nearly gone.
Luna sat cross-legged on the porch steps and told the jar everything — about racing a snail across the driveway, about fireflies dancing in spirals, about her wish to grow tomato plants as tall as her mom.
As she spoke, the star gave a soft ping — a single bright note of gold. Then another. Like a match being struck, again and again.
By morning, the star blazed so brightly that Luna had to squint. Its light bounced off every dewdrop in the garden until the whole yard looked sprinkled with sugar.
The star rose slowly, drifting toward the fence post. It paused just long enough to tickle Luna's nose with warm golden dust, then shot upward into the sky.
Luna stood in the garden and counted the new stars — one, two, three — and kept going. The sky was fuller now, brighter, as if it had been waiting for her all along.
She smiled, breathed in the smell of wet earth and crushed mint, and went inside to dream about what else might be waiting in the tall lavender.
