My restlessness consumed me until I crawled into bed and melted into music. Sometimes I feel that there is so much inside me that I might burst at any moment, a shock of dust in a firefly-lit grotto and then nothing. A tremble of thick August air on curled fern, a whisper of crickets high in the dark tree tops.

But with the music, it comes out in a dream, a swirl of red and green on my closed eyelids, a breath of cool air on my burning skin. It pulls it out and dances with me, touching faraway spaces I thought I lost. It leaves me with sleep, with dreams, with the distant memory of a waking world that never seems to have enough for my restless bones. And somewhere deep inside my heart, I can touch the fairy tale I'm too afraid to live, the one I believe to be fragile, the fairy tale that might turn me into dust.

These melodies reach inside and take me away. These songs touch my heart in a way this worried mind never could.

Mars and I had a late-night whispered conversation a few days ago. He was red, twinkling in a glowing navy-black sky and I was a pale shade of flickering blue, hiding behind curtains hoping to catch a falling star. We waited together, speaking in rhymes of heartache and fairy tales, my eyes upwards and his eyes down.

And just as the pain in my legs was too much, just as I was ready to say goodnight, a moon-bright star fell past the shadow-trees and deep into the forest. And this, this was the most magical, most dazzling thing I had ever seen. It was more than a streak of pale-white on a dark star-speckled sky; it was a ball of white fire burning from the inside out, it was an incandescent diamond tumbling for the horizon. It left an imprint brighter and bigger than most shooting stars; it left an echo on my dream-filled mind.

I gasped and Mars smiled. I sat back, drew my fingers to my lips and wondered how something so beautiful could be made of space rock, how something so surreal, so movielike, could flash before my eyes. How could that moment be mine? How could I ever dream that I would not only capture a falling star, would not only whisper to Mars and find fireflies in the heavy heat of August, but capture a fireball?

It was like a wish magnified and wondered if maybe, maybe if I believed, that if I wish on this particular shooting star, a silver fireball all my own, if would come true. Because that moment, it really did feel like magic. In that blue room, with the red light of Mars fluttering above, it felt like magic.

I looked at the stained ceiling. Hidden beneath the shadow was a water-stain shaped like a sea horse, a sea horse with a giant white eye, a hole into the sky. I shut my eyes.

Come away with me, come on. What are you waiting for? Just let go of tomorrow and you'll be free. We'll take a balloon ride to a kingdom made of crystal spires and sea foam towers and roads paved with pollen and honey. Way up here, in our ribbon and tulle balloon, you can see the sea, a cornflower sheet of glitter connecting the waves to the clouds. And, look! The clouds are alive, lions sleeping on mountain ridges and silver-lined bicycles skimming the rooftops. On the valley edges you can see the tiny houses made of clay, clay of every colour, smoke spinning from chimneys where tiny cakes are ready to be served. You'll find flying machines soaring with the birds, jars of candy behind every window and a song in every heart. It only rains when you miss the the thunder and the silence, rain drops on tin tops, and the snow only falls when you need a snowman, long to sled, wish to fall and find an angel when you stand. The magic still flows in our rivers, the wonder never leaves us as we age and adventure beckons from every dark forest of every foreign land. This place is built on dreams, shaped by wishes, drawn from every heart left with a reason to believe. You can come away, you can have the place you always missed upon waking. Just let go.

I opened my eyes. The sea horse gazed down at me, welcoming my return. I breathed in and sighed, touching the wall and hoping to find something wispy and dreamlike. It stopped me, cold, a barrier to the outside. I stared at the ceiling again, at the sea horse, and before dropping down into sleep, realized that where the sea horses eye was once empty and white there was now another stain shaped like a tiny hot air balloon.

Maybe there's a part of me that wants you to see what I see. To still see a sky past the rain drops falling from the tree tops, to feel a dance when no music is playing. Maybe I want you to find the magic I do every day, the mushrooms in the garden winding down to a fairy hide-a-way. To taste the nightsky and not be afraid to follow the dusty roads where the lights to not glow. Maybe I want to take you to the city where hanging garden meet ashy roads and tall buildings are strung together with glass beads. Maybe I want you to see the electric colours, the faded-polaroid hues, to understand the twinkle and shine. Maybe I want these words to echo in your heart until you learn to see with your eyes shut, to dream with your eyes open.

But maybe what I want more is for you give me your own magic, to paint a world and invite me in, candles lighting the way. Maybe you'll build a home in flowering apple tree or maybe we'll sled down the iced stairways of stained-glass churches. Do you talk to the sunflowers, do you sing with the seagrass? Maybe the birds are all bejeweled, weightless anyway, and the moon and the sun hang together in the sky every hour of every day. Is the carnival always in town, the scent of sugared dough heavy in the air, lightning cracking in the distance? Maybe you spin your own lullaby and the words echo in my own heart, the hum sweetly ringing even as I sleep. Maybe I want a heart that still believes.

"I will teach you how to breathe," you whispered, "And then I will take it away. I'll show you how to fly and then I'll break your ivory wings."

That was the last time I saw you, in a dream, peering between the bars of my rusted bird cage. I wondered, long after you left, if you'd remember me there some day, and how I used to sing for you.

Maybe you trapped me there knowing I could fly. Were you jealous that I could taste the atmosphere, that I had followed corn field lines across the country and found myself in a city made of ivy and sunflower roads? Maybe this was how you wanted to keep me, yours, a memory locked in a metal box.

But I didn't believe any of this. These were the lies that I told myself to fill the silence, to keep the truth far away. If I flew away from here, if I escaped these chains, it would only be in hopes of chasing lies. I would fade into dreams and lose myself to a place where the truth could be tamed.

That was where my story began, at the end of you.

My hands shook as I slammed the diary shut. Rain streaked down the dirty window pane and I wondered if maybe if that was how this place had looked to you every day.

I hated her for doing this to you, I hated that she made you run away. I hated that this tiny book was all that remained of you. It was just the echo of you, abandoned under the mattress of a bed you'd long left behind.

I listened for the sound of footsteps and then slipped the last peice of you in my bag. With one last glance, I saw the tiny glass elephant she had given you two Christmases ago. You'd put it at the front of your collection where it would catch light and cast rainbows on the paisley papered walls. Now it sat dusty, catching nothing in the faded light.

I opened the window and threw it, hoping it would find a rock and smash into a million glittering peices, scattered by the wind and caught in rivers of rain. If you ever came back, I didn't want you to find the memory of someone who had forgotten you.

We spoke in whispers, afraid of the morning, afraid of the light. We were ghosts of the night, tracing constellations with our fingertips, connecting the darkness in between. We followed the satellites, the plane lights, the murmer of fireflies. We were night blooming, collecting dew and echoing the soft flutter of evening breezes. And when they switched the sprinklers on, soaked the dirt and fed the trees, we jumped up screaming, laughing, spinning, dripping, singing, hands tight, knowing even the chill couldn't drag us apart.

The nights were ours, the headlights on a grey highway, the moon on the rocking tide. We drew the curtains and tasted the moon. We hummed with the crickets, the cicadias, the frogs slipping into the pools. We knew shadows, it was the place we'd been kept alone, apart for so long. But somewhere along the way we found a way to glow, twin lights in a navy room. A flicker of yellow, a ring of red and we were promised our castles would never go abandoned.

I know you when the thunder rolls in, when the moon overtakes the sun. When the dream starts playing, you find my hand, across a desert, across the darkness. And this is where I know you, this is where I'll find you.

The need to run was ever-present in my heart. Our home in the country was flanked by nothing but space - corn fields and deserted highways and dandelion hills - and yet I was confined to the backyard, to building houses in trees and watching the distance for any sign of escape.

I never let loneliness touch me, even while surrounded by silence. I imagined the shadow of my imagination twirling beside me, cartwheeling in the long shadows I cast as I watched the birds jealously. Her stories filled the silence, her voice a singsong serenade erasing the dull hues of the real world with vibrants shades of magic.

Even with real friends, I preferred her company to theirs; it was a habit of mine, at home, on the playground, to call up impromptu games of hide and seek, yelling as I can for them to find me. I could imagine I was being chased my monsters or spies or warlords from another land.

I was never caught.

I always wondered if it was a secret wish to be caught, if this was why I ran and hide, moving along quietly with only my imagination to keep me company. In the back of my mind, maybe I wanted someone to grab my wrist and demand that I stay still, stay there, stay with them. But when the bell rang, or night fell, I slipped out of shadows, left only with my lonely triumph.

There is a sea in the sky tonight, she thought, watching the clouds curl over the moon.

"What is the sky but the constant reflection of the sea?" came a voice from the darkness. The girl jumped and looked around, finding only darkness and the gentle sway of her grandmother's sunflowers in the distance.

"Hello?" she whispered, voice cracking, hands shaking.

Nothing.

I... It's my imagination again, she thought, pressing her hands down on the cold, damp earth to ease their shaking. There's no one here.

"Of course there is," came the voice again, clearer than the words echoing in her head. The girl felt movement next to her hand and pulled it back instinctively, jumping to her feet as her heart raced painfully in her chest.

Still, she found nobody as she looked around.

"Did it occur to you," the voice said somewhat lazily, "To look somewhere other than up?"

Looking down, she found a hare sitting where her hand had been moments ago. The panic that had constricted her breathing gave way to confusion. Her first thought was that she had finally gone crazy.

"You're not crazy," the voice, which she presumed was issuing from the hare said, "You're just-"

The girl cut him off. "Then I'm dreaming," she whispered, mostly to herself. She looked back at her house and, though she was rather far away, expected to see herself fast asleep under the billowing curtains of her window.

The hare looked up at her, blinking slowly. Shaken, she sat down, although she kept some distance between the hare and herself.

"Animals don't talk," she said, looking at the clouds that continued to wash over the moon. The hare looked at her as though he agreed. "I talk to my cat," she continued, "And like to think she talks back but I know full well she doesn't." The hare did not look surprised. "At least not with a voice," the girl added as an afterthought. She sighed and thought to herself, I used to believe she could talk to me, though.

"Why would you stop believing?" the hare asked. The girl jumped again. The hare had been so quiet as she had rambled on that she had hoped he would stop talking and she could chalk it up to the wind.

"Because," she said indignantly, "That's silly and childish. Animals can't talk no more than... than that rosebush can sing!" She looked over at the rosebush as she said this, half-afraid that it would begin to sing just to spite her.

"Well, if you don't believe it can sing, then why are you afraid it will start just to spite you?"

She looked down at the hare, a chill prickling down her scalp and into her spine. "Are you reading my mind?" she asked. The hare said nothing. Are you? she wondered.

"Perhaps you're reading mine. After all, animals can't talk." There was a hint of humor in the hare's voice.

"I can't read minds. If I could I'd have..." she trailed off, her eyes suddenly shimmering in the faint moonlight. If the hare found her amusing, he wiped it off his face and looked up at her with a concerned sort of pity. As she wiped her eyes, she found it completely insane that she thought there was any sort of emotion on the furry face of a hare.

"Of course I care," said the hare, "I wouldn't be here if I didn't."

"Why are you here?" she asked, her voice thick and slightly tempered. The hare shifted in the long grass but did not answer.

"Why-" she started to ask, but paused. Her eyes connected to something distant and unseen. The hare looked up at her with a shadow of pride on his face, waiting for her answer.

Why are you here? she wondered.

"You asked for me." he answered simply. As if to prove this as the truth, a star tumbled out of the sky and disappeared behind the trembling sunflowers.

When? she asked.

The hare looked at the sunflowers, trying to figure out what she meant. A light began to glow where the star had fallen. The girl understood.

I mean, when did I ask? I don't understand.

"When you saw the mirror."

She looked over where the starlight was beginning to burn brighter. A tear formed behind her eyes again but this time, she did not attempt to wipe it away. It fell from her face and landed on the soft ground as the star illuminated night as day. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that no one could see this.

"That's right," the hare said softly, "Only you."

Why? she asked. The light seemed to melt inside her and began to dissolve the pain that ached inside her heart. The tears continued to form, continued to chase one another down her cheeks, hot against cold.

The hare looked to the tears, then to the sunflowers. "I can't tell you, exactly, only you know that." She looked at her dirty hands. "You are different, though." The hare added, sensing her distress. "Only someone very special could have seen it."

I don't want to be dreaming, she thought, closing her eyes tightly, the last of the tears breaking free and dropping silently from her chin.

The hare struggled with something and then, upon seeing her opened eyes said "There's more to life than waking and dreaming."

The girl nodded, understanding completely. From where she sat, between the reflection of a distant tide and the flickering light of a fallen star, she saw the space in between, something often distant and unseen.

We grew up together, sisters, living in the hills and capturing daisies. Where we once shared Barbies and secrets, fought over crayons and the front seat, we now shared a quiet friendship brighter than the sun.

But we still fight over the front seat of the car.

In a world full of villians and monsters, we spent our days running and hiding, our breaths caught in our chests as we watch shadows roll silently pass the doors. High above the world was an escape route but with heavy legs and weak arms, we knew only the balloons ever made it that high.

Long after the footsteps faded away, we slowly drew the curtains back and allowed ourselves to face the day. Was he gone, we'd wonder, or were the dark spaces in the basement hiding his distorted form? Is this old house just sagging under its age or are there demons in the attic?

We lived with frayed nerves and hearts constantly pumping with fear. But most of us found solace somewhere, most of us melted into safe arms and a lulling voice. For me, that was you and when I crawled out of the dusty cabinet to find you, my heart skipped two beats and my silent lungs allowed for a joyful sigh.

Those moments you held me tight erased every moment I had spent feeling alone and afraid. Somewhere far away was a monster who killed, who sent us running for concealed spaces but all of that washed away in your presence.

You kissed my forhead, my fingertip and asked me how I was before a ringing telephone pulled me from sleep.