Born of starlight and shadows

~Part one: Stella~

           Six years ago

My hand shook as I wrote the words "Dear journal, you're not going to believe what just happened," across the paper.

If anyone read what I was about to write, they wouldn't believe a word. I wouldn't believe it, either, if I hadn't just lived through it.

How? How had I gone from the eight year old girl whose only real worries were what to wear to school, what book to read next, and when I could next talk to my friends to this in the space of a day? Whatever this was...

Abnormal. That's what this was. That's what I was now. Different from the rest, and not in a good way. I shook my head, thinking about how movies and books portrayed people with superpowers as heroes. How they always saved the day, or, perhaps, the world.

But movies weren't real life. They were fiction, pure and simple. Nothing more than entertainment. Books, too, at least, the books I read. Words on paper, that was all they really were. Products of someone's imagination. Fun to read, a distraction from life, but not real.

My hand went to the mark on my forehead. Now that was definitely real. Over the past hour, I had rubbed it many times, as if I could make it go away. It didn't.

The silver, star-shaped marking, could not, would not, disappear.

Like a scar that refuses to heal. Or a tattoo. Permanently etched on my skin, I thought.

Still, I would gladly accept the strange marking if it meant the other thing that had showed up at the same time disappeared. The...the power.

For years afterwards, I would be able to recall exactly how it had occurred. How my life changed completely in the blink of an eye.

I had gone to bed at the usual same time I always did, eight-forty five. Then, exactly three hours after I fell asleep, at midnight, I woke up. I couldn't help but notice the moonlight that spilled into the room through the blinds. I had never before appreciated just how beautiful moonlight could be. It illuminated the dark, it-

I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts.

I need to sleep.

I laid back down in bed and closed my eyes, but I couldn't shake the feeling that the moonlight was calling to me.

The moon is calling to me, I thought. How would that sound if I told it to someone?

They'd think I was crazy.

It's not real, I repeated to myself, over and over. I'm imagining things. The moon is thousands of miles away. It is a piece of rock orbiting the earth. The light from it is reflected from the sun. It definitely does not have a voice. It cannot call to someone.

In a book, perhaps, or a movie...now that would be interesting to read about, wouldn't it be? A girl who could hear moonlight...

Hear. But you hear with your ears. I wasn't hearing the moonlight the way I heard someone talking. No, it was more like a feeling.

Sleep, my brain told me. You have a math test tomorrow.

I tried to bring the properties I was supposed to be remembering to the top of my mind, thinking that reciting them would make me tired. But I couldn't think of what any of them were at the moment.

After an indefinite period of lying there, unable to sleep, I glanced back over at my alarm clock on the nightstand. The glowing red digits read: 12:30. The only time I could remember staying up this late was at New Year's Eve. And if I couldn't sleep after at least half an hour of lying in bed, then maybe I should try to figure out why this was happening. Maybe it would stop, and I would be able to dream the normal dreams of a normal girl.

It was safe to be normal. It was easy. But 'normal' was not an option right now. I couldn't explain how I knew, but something, something was about to change forever. And there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it.

Come, the moonlight seemed to say. You will thank me later.

No, part of me thought. Don't do it.

Why not, though?

The more I thought about it, the more I yearned to step into the moonlight. Finally I saw no reason to continue resisting. I slipped out of bed and stepped into the light. For one moment I felt completely invigorated. Then the soothing touch of the moonlight became painful. My forehead burned.

I could sense a transformation taking place in me. The old me, that little girl who was too afraid to answer a question in class even if it was the right one, was no longer. I had been changed into something I didn't fully understand yet. Something I was afraid to understand.

All I knew was that there was no going back to how things once were. I could either embrace or hide this power. The choice was mine, and mine alone.

Hide. I could hide. I could pretend nothing had changed. That I was the same as I'd always been, even if it would mean keeping the truth from everyone I knew. Or, I could show the world who I had become.

The very thought of openly sharing what I had become terrified me. No. That could never happen.

You're a coward, Stella, I thought.

But my secret remained safe. I told myself that, but I couldn't shake the nagging voice at the back of my mind that whispered, For now.