On the clearest night of the year, when the sky was so dark and deep it seemed to go on forever, a little star lost his grip on the edge of the heavens and tumbled, spinning and sparkling, down toward the earth below.
His name was Pip, and he had never been so frightened in all his short, bright life. Stars, of course, do not usually fall. They cling to their places in the sky the way children hold on to their father's hand in a crowd. But Pip had leaned too far out, trying to count the fireflies in the meadow below, and one moment he was there among his brothers, and the next he was falling.
He landed softly, as it happened, in a meadow full of tall silver grass that cushioned him like a pillow. When he sat up and shook the dew from his points, he found himself looking into the bright amber eyes of a fox. He was a slim, handsome creature with a tail like a plume of rust-colored smoke, and he regarded him with calm curiosity.
"You are not from here," he said, which was obviously true.
"I fell," said Pip, as though this explained everything, which perhaps it did.
The fox, whose name was Fenwick, sat down beside him and tipped his nose toward the sky. Far above them, the stars sparkled in their familiar arrangements — the dipper, the bear, the crown — and among them was a small, dark gap where Pip used to be. It looked like a missing tooth.
"I need to go back," Pip said quietly. He could feel himself dimming even as he spoke. Stars needed the high cold air of the heavens to keep their light. Down here in the warm earth-air, he would gradually go out like a candle in the rain.
"I know someone who might help," said Fenwick. He led him through the meadow and into the edge of a wood where the trees smelled of pine and rain. There they found a badger named Brock, who was known throughout the wood for his remarkable bravery. Brock was stout and gray with a stripe down his nose, and he listened to Pip's story without blinking.
"The old hill at the center of the wood," said Brock immediately. "The one they call Highwatch. On a clear night, from the very top, you can almost touch the sky." He did not hesitate, did not ask if it was dangerous, did not say he needed time to think. He simply turned and began walking, and that, Pip thought, was what true bravery looked like.
The three of them walked through the wood together. The night was full of sounds — the creak of branches, the call of an owl, the distant murmur of a stream. Fenwick knew the paths, and Brock led them bravely past the dark hollow where wolves sometimes rested, and past the old stone wall covered in moss where the shadows pooled deepest. Pip walked between them, growing a little dimmer with each step, but he did not give up.
When they reached the top of Highwatch Hill, Pip looked up and felt the cold pour down from the sky above. It was like looking up from the bottom of a dark, perfect lake. The stars blazed white and silver and gold, and among them he could see his own empty place, still waiting.
"Thank you," he said to Fenwick. "Thank you," he said to Brock. And then he rose. It was not dramatic. He simply lifted, the way a balloon rises when you let go of the string, and he climbed back up through the cold dark air, growing brighter with every passing second.
When he settled back into his place, the stars around him rippled with light as though waving. From the top of Highwatch Hill, Fenwick and Brock watched him go. He was the brightest star in the sky that night, and he always would be — because he knew, now, what it felt like to have friends who would walk through darkness to help you find your way home.
The fox and the badger sat together on the top of the hill for a long time, watching the sky, and neither of them felt cold at all.
