YOUR NARRATOR:  

Hello, my friends.

How was your day? 

How is your day? 

How is your week? 

How are you?

I wish I could hear you. 

I wish I could hear your answers. 

I wonder what you sound like. 

I had a wish granted to me this week. 

I met someone. Someone I've been waiting to meet for a long time. And yet, there is something familiar in the story I am currently living out, so I feel that there is something familiar in this person, too. Person. Creature. Thing. No, not a thing. I'm sorry. Spirit, maybe. Not thing. 

I was walking in the woods. How quiet they were. How soft and how lovely the breeze through the trees and through my hair. 

I came upon a little pond. One I've seen many times. It's a secret place; one that, if visitors were to find it, they would immediately ruin, for it's so cool and calm and clean and serene that it was like a treasure, waiting to be found and pillaged. But no visitors could ever find this place. It is so deep in these forests, and the path is so treacherous to reach it. I am confident in this. 

It seemed the perfect place to sit down and take my time shuffling my deck of cards, right there in the moonlight. 

I thought about everything that's happened to me over the last several weeks. 

I thought about what I remember from my life before. I tried to remember if I was happy. I tried to decide whether or not I'm happy now. 

And I realized the futility of that thought. Because happiness is fine, and happiness is fleeting. We cannot stay in a state of joy forever. But we can be at peace. I feel that I am. I feel that, mostly, I have been. 

But always, there is a persistent feeling bubbling underneath the surface of my skin. Something that keeps my glowing, yellow eyes wide open at night, and my feet always moving. 

Anyway, I drew a card.

I drew The Star. Reversed. 

The Star is such a positive card, so of course when it is upside-down, it is devastatingly negative. Or, so it seems, since every card has a positive message, remember. 

Quickly I will say that, reversed, The Star indicates despair. Tragedy. Being lost and hopeless. Feeling alone and abandoned by the Universe.

I do not feel that. 

I do not feel any of that. 

who is this card for? 

In the water, I saw orange, red, fire light. It took me a long moment to realize the light didn't come from within the water, but rather, from the surface. 

For, standing by the water's edge, up to his knees in the pond, was....well, it was him. Obviously. 

I had been waiting to meet him, and here he was. 

But he wasn't what I expected. 

Very tall and very thin, in stature, he seemed quite familiar. And something in his bright red eyes was familiar, though I'm certain I've never seen eyes quite like that before. 

I expected him to be completely alight with fire, from the outside, from the inside, a fire that could not hurt him but rather that made him thrive the more hot it burned. 

It's hard to describe. In my mind, he was a bright, burning flame. A creature of ferocity and light. A creature who I feared, walking through my woods, but has only proved to me time and time again that he will not burn me. That he has no desire to destroy. 

Anymore. 

But he was not on fire. 

He was, instead, charred. Burnt. His skin, an aching wound. No longer flame, though embers burned brightly within him. It was beautiful, but it broke my heart, for he had been hurt, it seemed. 

No. 

He had done this to himself.

He was soaked through, having plunged himself in the water. 

And water is the only thing that can wound fire. 

Steam rose from his skin. Rose from his skull, like a great mane of beautiful grey hair.

He tried to speak to me. 

He opened his mouth, but his voice was so dry and hoarse that only crackling air came out. 

Tears fell from his eyes, but they scarred his skin as they did. 

And he collapsed, submerging himself in the water.

It's all right. 

He's with me now.

I ran to him and I rescued him and I pulled him to the shore. He was warm but not burning, and so he did not hurt me. And as I held him, he smiled, and that smile was in his eyes as well as his mouth, for I believe he was genuinely happy. 

We're together on this shore now, and I am not afraid of him. Because, you see, he did this for me. 

He did this so that he would not burn me. 

You seem so familiar, my friend. 

Who are you? 

No, nevermind, don't speak. 

This is why you were afraid to introduce yourself, isn't it? 

Creature of fire. 

Who are you, I wonder? 

And why do I feel as if we've met? 

Ah, I see. You are the Star, the overturned, reversed Star, aren't you? 

You are alone and lost and hopeless? 

No. Not alone. Not hopeless. And no longer lost. 

I've found you. 

You are here, and I can tell you a story. 

He's growing warmer and warmer, and his light is slowly returning. 

He extinguished it for this moment with me. 

What a lovely gift. 

I have the perfect story for you, my new friend. A story about love. A story about pain. And a story about water. 

Don't speak. Just listen. 

[A simple, gentle tune on piano is played, like a music box]

Once upon a time, there was an old inventor.

He lived in a little cottage in a little town by a little lake.  Little more than a pond, really, not unlike the one we find ourselves by right now. 

And he didn't live alone, not for most of his time in this place. He had someone he lived a full life with. The greatest love of his life. The two men met when they were youths in the town, and they made a life with each other in the little cottage and in the little shop where they developed ideas and inventions. They both had a love of creating beautiful things; whether they were useful things for the townspeople who had been their friends their entire lives, or whether they were beautiful little toys for the children in town - every little thing that they created was created out of love and joy. And the two men had love and joy their whole lives on their side. 

Until the old inventor's husband died. 

It was a tragedy to the inventor, of course, because he had been happy for so long. I said that happiness is fleeting, and so it is difficult to seek happiness for every moment of our lives - but this inventor had been so happy for so long, that the loss of his husband was a deep tragedy to him. Of course it was. But, the man had lived a long life in love and happiness and peace, too. He had lived to a ripe old age. He had no regrets. He was at the lake's edge, a few feet deep, fishing - which was his favourite thing to do on a beautiful summer morning - when he passed, suddenly and painlessly, and we should all hope for such peace when our time has come. So, to he who died, it was not a tragedy. Not really. He left the world as gracefully as he had lived in it, and he had a smile on his face as gentle as his soul. 

I think it is an idiosyncrasy of humanity, that death often hurts those who remain alive more than it does the person whose time has ended. And this is where the real tragedy lies. 

And that is where our story begins. 

The inventor was heartbroken. Heartbroken for the loss of the vibrant, smiling soul who had been in his home every day before now. Heartbroken for the silence that echoed through his little cottage, which now felt so empty. Heartbroken for his own lonely soul, now. He closed down the shop. He refused to answer the door when concerned visitors and friends and customers came to check in on him and bring him flowers or meals. He could not face the world without his love by his side anymore. They had such a small corner of the world, together, and now...he felt the little he had was completely stolen from him. When your North Star is taken from you, you can so easily lose your sense of direction. And that's exactly what happened with our devastated inventor.

How can I say what he should have done? How can I say what would have been best? I know no better than he did. And while I have felt terrible loss before, I cannot say that it has ever felt quite like that. I have not lost a North Star, before. Even when I lost myself. I was still there. But what this inventor faced, was something quite different. Something awful. 

He didn't know where to begin, but it started with pain, and it ended with him...creating. 

Inventing. 

He was an especially skilled dollmaker. He made lovely little figures and figurines that adults loved to collect, and he made toy dolls with lifelike hair and eyelashes and fingers and toes that children loved to play with. He made marionettes so lovely that they made people stop and gasp as they walked by. He had a knack for faces, and a love of detail. 

Before his beloved had been put in the earth, he had taken a little lock of his hair - white and shining - thinking he would keep it in a locket, or a picture frame, or some kind of memento. As he held it in his hands, he felt himself making a terrible pledge. The words came out of his mouth before he even understood them...but he cursed whatever world would allow him to lose that which meant more to him than his own life. He cursed the moon for watching passively as it happened. He cursed the air for letting him still breathe so long after he lost the desire to. He cursed all the bright and beautiful things that he had loved his whole life, for they meant little to him now.

And he swore, from the depths of his soul, without speaking a word, that he would bring his beloved back. Whether it was in one form or another, he would bring him back. He wanted nothing other than to be haunted by the man he had spent his whole life with - after all, anything would be better than this. 

He left his door open. He opened all of his windows.

And he sat at his little desk, and he began to carve a figure from wood. 

A little doll. A marionette, it looked like, but it had no strings. It was a little wooden figure. Simple and plain, but charming and sweet at the same time. It looked just like his love had looked when he was a young man, strapping and strong. It had the same dark hair he did in his youth - but, through that black horsehair that he lovingly placed on the poppet's head, he also wove those white hairs that he'd clipped right before closing the casket. 

In some stories, I would tell you that he was a powerful sorcerer and that he performed a spell. Or, perhaps he found a mysterious book and he read an incantation from it. Or, perhaps a demon whispered infernal words into his ear while he created the thing. But not this story. Because sometimes, all that a spirit needs is pain. Sometimes, pain can be an invitation, in and of itself. 

[A short strain of the melody from earlier fades in and out, like a memory]

Staring at the finished product, tears came to his eyes when he realized how like his love it was. How perfect. And he felt that perfect, red-hot pain once more. 

And that's when all of the doors and windows slammed shut, all at once. 

Why had he opened them in the first place, the old toymaker wondered? 

Perhaps he had, in some dark corner of his mind, known what he was doing after all. 

He set the little puppet on his work table, and stood in the centre of the room.

"Hello?" He whispered. 

And he heard footsteps from the back door, as if someone was entering from the side of the house that faced the little lake. 

Wet footprints with the markings of the underside of handmade boots began to appear on the wooden floor, though no one visible was walking. 

The old man shook, as much from fear as it was from elation. Whatever he had done seemed to work. 

He whispered his love's name into air. 

And then all of the glass cupboards where the most precious, delicate creations the two had made together slowly opened themselves, all at once. 

He whispered the name once more. 

And then, all of the glass cupboards slammed shut so quickly and forcefully that they smashed in a rain of broken glass, all around him. And many of the collectibles were broken as well. 

The old man cried out and held his hands over his ears. Silence resumed its course in the little home for some time. But, when he heard a thud to the ground and looked over and saw the puppet, lying on the wood among the glass, he cried out and made his old, tired legs run to his bedroom where he shut the door and sat on the bed. He held a blanket around him - a blanket that still carried the memory of the other man who used to live here - and he found it a comfort. 

Whatever has come to haunt me, whatever I have invited here, it is not him, he thought to himself. It is not him. Something else has come and possessed the puppet. I was careless. And I invited something else into our home. 

He had heard of such things happening before. Misguided or malevolent spirits who masqueraded as people we knew in life, so that they could get closer to us. Whatever power existed in his old hands and in his broken heart had brought something demonic into his house. 

He heard a knock at the bedroom door. 

He whispered over and over for it to go away. 

But instead, the door slowly - very, very slowly - pried its way open. 

And no one stood there, waiting. Instead, on the ground, lying sprawled like the inanimate object that it was, was the puppet. 

The old man moaned in agony. What a cruel, cruel poltergeist indeed, to use the image of his lost beloved to torment him. 

He picked it up and thought about destroying it. Burning it, chopping it into pieces, taking it far away from this place that was so sacred to him. But, as he looked at it, he realized that he couldn't. It looked too much like him. He couldn't dispose of such a thing. Even if something had commandeered it for its own dark purposes. 

He kissed the top of its little wooden head and sat it in the window with the other toys. 

Now, a week or so passed. The old man couldn't bring himself to clean up the glass and repair the damaged valuables. His grief was still too strong. He still did not answer the door for visitors, though they were clearly growing more and more concerned. And that puppet...that beautiful little doll without strings...never stayed in the window. The old man would often find it on his nightstand when he woke in the morning (After whatever very little sleep he was able to steal). He would find it in the kitchen sink when he went to make a cup of tea. Wherever he went, it followed, and it was always accompanied by violence. Violence towards the store, the cottage, anyway. Whatever spirit haunted this doll, it seemed to delight in wreaking havoc; sending chairs flying across the floor, throwing toys up in the air and dropping them to the ground so they shattered, ripping up fabrics and tearing hair out of other dolls' heads overnight. And the old man bore it, simply because he could not bring himself to get rid of the puppet. And in a way, the chaos around him, the noise, the destruction, at the very least meant that he was not alone. It was, perhaps, a distraction from his grief. 

One night, however, he was woken up from a deep sleep by the sound of one door opening. And then another. And then another. And then, all of the windows, as well. Just as the old man had done the first night, when he created the puppet.

And he heard those footsteps, wet and weary, once more. 

And he rose up from his bed, but he didn't dare enter into the little shop, still a mess of broken glass and torn-up toys and shattered knick-knacks. Tonight, he just peeked his head out of the door, fearfully looking out. 

He saw the doll, sitting on the workbench.

But then, he saw pale, wet hands, almost grey-blue in appearance, reach out and grab the thing. They squeezed around its throat. They tore at its hair and clothes, or at least tried to, but they couldn't destroy it. With a loud, rumbling cry, they tossed it aside and it hit the bedroom door with a loud knock of wood against wood. The old man jumped, but he was transfixed and dare not make a sound. 

The figure, in a tattered coat and wet boots, with shining white hair, moved around the room, picking up whatever it could find and smashing it. Though they couldn't destroy the puppet, they were certainly able to break anything else. In a fury, they shattered anything that was not already broken - plates, cups, paintings on the wall. They tangled the strings of other marionettes and tore off their limbs. They roared and they ranted and raved, clasping at their head with tormented hands. 

And then they dropped their arms to their sides and began to weep. 

And the sound that came forth was one the toymaker had heard before. 

It was him. 

It had been him all along.

He was the malevolent spirit. 

The pain in the old toymaker's chest was almost too much to bear. No, it's not possible, he thought. Why would he want to hurt me? Why would he want to destroy the shop? It didn't make sense, and it was dreadful to realize. 

Finally, the blue-grey spirit with white hair, still moaning and weeping, began to walk out towards the back door, towards the lake. His heavy footsteps were still wet, and left their mark against the wooden floor once again.

The old inventor, keeping a distance, followed. But not without picking up the puppet first.

The ghost stood by the lake, and he stared out at the water. 

The old man came and stood beside him, the puppet in hand, up to his knees in water but not feeling the cold.

"Why would you do this?" He whispered to the ghost of his beloved.

And the ghost turned to him with sorrow in his eyes, and then glanced at the puppet. "Why would you do this?" He turned the question on him. 

The old man looked down lovingly at the thing. He stroked its hair. "I don't know. I didn't know what else to do." 

And the ghost looked out at the line where the lake met the moon. "It is why I cannot leave. You've bound me here."

The old man looked out at the same spot too, and he wept. "I want you to be bound here."

The ghost nodded. "I see." 

They looked out at the water for some time, and the sound of crickets and birds around them was a welcome change from the banging, the footsteps, the broken glass, which had been their symphony over the last week ever since the toymaker's husband had died. Silent together again, things felt a little like they had been before. 

"But I don't want to be bound here," the ghost said finally. "I have no reason to be. I was so happy."

The old man nodded now and replied, "But so was I." 

The ghost smiled. "Isn't that nice?" 

And the old man smiled too. 

He held the puppet in his hands and sighed. He knew what he had to do. "I will destroy it. For you." 

The ghost put out his hand and gently placed it on the doll. "Wait just a moment longer," he said. 

And the two of them watched the moon on the lake and felt the wind and listened to the crickets one last time together.

The ghost sighed, finally, and said: "All right." 

[The melody from before returns, a little more quick and rounded out and hopeful]

And the old man, without hesitation, threw the little toy as far as he could into the lake. And he finally turned to look at his love. 

Who looked at him back.

And, as he began to shine and ripple like the surface of the water, and soon start to dissolve and float away into the air, he smiled too. 

They each whispered love into the wind. And they knew that love would always find each other.

Though the doll sat at the bottom of the lake, you see, it didn't really mean anything. not anymore. 

And though the cottage still stands there, it has been repaired.

Someone else lives there now.

The two men who used to live there in joy and, for a brief moment, sadness, but then joy once more, no longer dwell there.

They have no need. 

Great joy is, sadly, fleeting. 

But so is great sorrow. 

In the middle of those, there is peace.

And that, my new friend, is where I want to be with you, you see. You cannot burn me. We can rest here in peace, at least for a little bit. 

And I think that is the meaning of the Reversed Star. 

The Reversed Star has brought us to this pure place of water so that we can do away with our pain and hopelessness, and instead, find our own peace. 

Have you found that here, with me, tonight, my poor, lost friend? 

I don't know who you are. But you've helped me feel less alone here tonight. 

It is nice to share this beautiful place with someone.

Even if they are a Stranger. 

My Dark Stranger. 

Go to sleep now. 

I'll be here when you wake.

And dream sweetly.

(Host speaks out of character, as Kristen:)

Hello, dear listener, and welcome to Episode 108 of On a Dark, Cold Night. This is Kristen, your host, writer, composer, podcaster, etcetera etcetera. I hope you're doing well out there this week. It's great to be here with you again.