Winter’s cold breath brushed against Eden’s cheeks, a chill that she drew down her throat and into her chest with every soft breath in and out. Dim street light’s illuminated her face, just barely catching the shimmer of gold in the back of her brown eyes. With one hand she twisted a loose curl of brown hair between two fingers delicately painted purple with a shimmering polish, and with the other, she tugged at her white sweater sleeve. Two nervous habits no one in the crowd surrounding her noticed. Excited chatter filled the air as people from all across town poured into a square far too small to house such a gathering. At the center stood a huge evergreen tree strung with lights that had yet to glimmer. In one corner, a countdown clock ticked down bold green numbers that the crowd kept commenting on, their words blending into a garbled background hum.
It was the day before December, and triumphant Christmas music poured from the speakers surrounding the tree. “Jingle Bell Rock”, “What Child is This”, and the classic “Little Drummer Boy” added to the noise becoming little more than fuzz in the back of Eden’s mind. Her thoughts, as always, were elsewhere. To her right, she could see her friends posing for photos, and laughing with a few faces she didn’t recognize in the dim light of night. Friends new and old, from all across Williamston Falls annually gathered in the square for the Christmas tree lighting. In their small town, when there was little to celebrate, even the smallest of events gathered great amounts of attention. The events weren’t the only thing that caught prying eyes; newcomers always drew the sights of the townsfolk. Though an unfamiliar face may only be that of ones’ cousin visiting for the holidays, it always garnered attention. In the center of her friend’s circle, Eden noted one such unfamiliar face. There was a bashfulness to his expression, one that came from just a bit too much teasing. The tips of his ears burned red under a cap of wavy black hair, parted like ocean waves to the side. It seemed he was looking for a way out of the commotion, and Eden pitied the poor soul. He’d be stuck in the center of attention all night if her friends had anything to do with it. Yet, while he seemed mildly uncomfortable with the excessive teasing, he played it off as naturally as if he’d expected this all along.
Eden’s eyes lingered on him for a moment longer, he served a small focal point among the chaos of the gathering crowds. Their laughter, words, and the dimly lit light blurred around her, creating a general fuzz that pulled at the corners of her mind. She knew she was spacing out, and didn’t care. A friend would come help her snap back into reality whenever she was needed again. A daydream flitted through her mind, images of shooting stars falling like snow and landing upon the tree like silver ornaments. Stars always filled her dreams, and she liked to imagine them as her companions. Perhaps each one was a guiding light, a symbol of hope, or a faraway friend. Eden smiled to herself, imagining she alone stood before the star-covered tree and that that crowd dissipated into nothingness. She had the entire scene to herself, the world was bright, and she was safe, but also… lonely.
A single star fell far away from the tree, landing in a river at the base of the famed Williamston Falls the town was named after. It sank into the current and glistened under the frozen waters, lost, alone, and cold. A small ache formed in the pit of her stomach and Eden shook her head. She tried to restructure the vision, willing the illusion back into the order she asked for. She tried to imagine the lost star returning to the tree, rejoining its friends from the heavens, but it remained separated, stuck, alone.
Whether surrounded by water or a crowd, they were both so close to company but still alone.
A hand on her shoulder snapped her out of the fantasy. Eden blinked, as a roar of cheers sprung up from the townsfolk and the tree was suddenly illuminated in golden light. But her attention wasn’t drawn to the tree so much as the hand resting on her shoulder, and the new face glowing in the golden light.
“Sorry, but I didn’t want you to miss the big moment,” the stranger apologized, removing his hand from Eden’s shoulder. “It can be lonely being lost in your own little world.”
“How did you-” Eden never finished the phrase, as her friend scurried between the two of them.
“Eden! Did you meet Atlas?” her friend asked excitedly, gesturing to the newcomer as the same bashful grin she’d seen him wear before crossed over his face. In an instant, she recognized him as being the stranger her friends had surrounded in a giddy crowd. His dark hair had begun to lose its wave-like shape, but his eyes shone with intrigue, and were surprisingly quite fixated on her own. With a blush slowly crawling across Eden’s face, she realized she found him quite handsome.
“Y-yeah, we just met,” Eden stuttered, her eyes quickly flickering away from Atlas’s as she realized she’d been staring for a few seconds too long.
“Oh perfect!” her friend continued, oblivious to the unspoken exchange filling the space between them with a nervous tension. “Atlas was just telling us that he’s new here and apparently he’s looking for lost treasure in Williamston Falls. Tell her about the map you found, Atlas!”
“It’s a real mystery, but I happened to stumble upon a map that appears to be one of Williamston Falls,” Atlas explained, rolling a gray backpack over his shoulder and pulling a faded piece of parchment from beneath the front zipper pocket. Unrolling it, he revealed an unlabeled map with dark shapes and grooves penned in black ink. A soft waterfall pouring from the edge of a mountain range was etched into the right corner near a compass rose, and in the center of the map lay a town with a wide square and a tall tree at its center.
“This is where we are,” Eden mused, pointing to the tree at the map’s center before allowing her finger to brush down the familiar trail of the town’s streets to a mysterious star drawn at the town’s edge. It was a marker of sorts, though not the typical X that one would expect to mark the spot of lost treasure. The star fell in what looked to be a narrow body of water, perhaps a small stream or river directing run-off from the falls.
Eden’s finger paused on the spot. “I know this place,” she whispered, the breath quickly fading from her lungs with astonishment. She’d seen the site just moments ago, felt the cold of the river, and imagined the exact stream.
She’d thought it was just another daydream.
“You really know where it is?” Atlas grinned wide, his eyes shining with a strangely familiar silver glow. “Could you take me there?”
“Yes. Yeah. I-I’ll lead the way.” Eden nodded, struggling to find the words she wanted to say. Too close to be coincidence, she hesitated to believe these events and her daydream could be connected. Yet, it seemed to be more than a possibility.
“Have fun, you two!” Eden’s friend called in a teasing, sing-song tone as the two of them began to trail down the familiar roads of Williamston Falls. Eden gave a wave back, before turning her gaze to Atlas’s map. The shape of the star reminded her of the familiar lonely ache she’d felt, like it was asking to be saved, perhaps even begging for help.
“Where did you find this map anyway?” Eden asked, her gaze flickering between the paths they followed and the eyes of the strange treasure hunter.
“I’m not sure you’d believe me even if I told you.” Atlas laughed, tugging at the sleeve of the navy blue coat he wore, a nervous habit Eden recognized all too well. “It’s a little crazy.”
“I like crazy.”
Atlas took a breath and smiled. “Well, it started with a daydream.”
Atlas opened the map again and pointed to a little farm out in the distance, somewhere in the expansive suburbs around Williamston Falls. “My grandfather lives on a small plot of land over here. It’s a ranch that’s been in my family for generations and we always meet there for the holidays, but since my grandfather had some medical difficulties, I came to visit early this year. I was helping him fix a section of fence that had lost a few posts in a storm when I started spacing out. I had the strangest daydream, and imagined a star falling on this exact corner of my grandfather’s property.” He tapped on the edge of the map, emphasizing the position. “I decided to visit the spot later out of curiosity and found a marker with this map buried underneath.”
“That’s not possible,” she breathed, hardly able to believe his tale. It was too precise, and matched her own daydream far too closely to be a coincidence.
“I warned you it was crazy.”
“In more ways than one.” Eden muttered under her breath, catching a questioning look from Atlas. Before she could elaborate, the two found themselves already outside of town and facing a small stream that ran under a short wooden bridge.
“This is the spot, isn’t it?” Atlas asked, spotting a note of recognition in Eden’s eyes as she gazed upon the stream’s current bubbling over the smooth stones. The waters had yet to freeze, but just by the look of it, Eden could already tell it would be frigid.
“It should be here somewhere,” Eden replied, following her instinct rather than the map. She recognized the winding curves of the stream from that of her daydream, and could practically envision the silver star that fell from the heavens laying under a cool current up around the next bend.
Atlas followed her, map in hand, searching for the little star shape that dotted the parchment’s design, using a more logical approach than intuition. Eden could hear his soft mumbling behind her speaking of how the “bridge wasn’t on the map” and his pondering about the small inaccuracies he noted. She watched as he twisted and turned the map, holding it close to his face as if he needed to inspect every line and crevice. Strangely, the vision of Atlas’s began to blur as Eden noticed her concentration start to fade. She felt her head lighten and her body begin to slowly sway. Eden recognized the pull of a daydream before she unintentionally fell into it, her mind softly slipping away into a familiar haze.
“Wait-” she breathed, casting a glance back at Atlas before the daydream overtook her, her thoughts unconsciously moving outside of her control. This experience differed from previous daydreams in which she chose when to slip in and out of her imagination. This feeling gripped her mind and drew her in, causing the faint light of night, the sound of the stream, and the vision of Atlas’s hands suddenly reaching for her to fade to black.
“Eden!” Atlas’s panic laced voice was the last thing she heard as her imagination cleared the scene, the riverbank she once stood by turned to an endless night sky dotted with stars as even Atlas faded from her view. She was floating on air, feet dangling in inky space where there was neither up nor down. Her only directional cue was a gentle stream of starlight with something glowing within it, just around a bend. With startling clarity, Eden realized this was the stream they were looking for all along.
“I found it.” Eden whispered in wonder, attempting to float her way over to the stream by propelling herself through the space with a swift forward stroke as if she were swimming. Though odd, the motion worked, and Eden soon found herself face-to-face with the shimmering object in the stream. Small enough to fit in the palm of her hand, a silver star shone a brilliant light as it twinkled all alone.
“I know you,” Eden said, gazing down upon the lost star from her previous daydream. Reaching into the stream with gentle hands, she scooped the star up into her hands and cradled it close to her. Remembering the words Atlas first said to her, she smiled. “It can be lonely being lost in your own little world.”
With those words, the vision faded, and Eden found herself gazing up at the sky once more. However, this time the stars were far away and out of focus, and a strong set of hands were lowering her slowly onto the grass next to a gentle stream. She was back in Williamston Falls once more.
“Oh, thank God you’re awake.” Atlas’s worried face loomed over her own, his cheeks flushed with cold, turning redder as he seemed to notice their nearness. With awkward concern, he started rambling.
“I think you fainted. Did you eat today? I might have some ibuprofen in my backpack. Does that do anything for fainting? I don’t know what to do actually.” Atlas paused, his brow wrinkling with concern. “I guess what I mean to say is, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Eden laughed, finding she was somewhat fond of this new side of Atlas. “I found the treasure, actually.”
“You- what?”
Eden opened her hand to reveal a shining silver fragment that immediately illuminated the night. “I’m not sure what it is, but I suspect that it didn’t want to be left alone this Christmas.”
“How would you know that?” Atlas inquired.
Eden felt a bashful smile creep up her face as she took Atlas’s hand. “Because I found it the same way you found me, lost in a daydream.”
Written by: Naomi Hernandez
Image Credit: Naomi Hernandez
Owl Things Considered 