Eli’s Star
The little boy believed that someone was watching over him . . .
IT was late afternoon. Thick smog, yellow from the gaslight, hung in the air. The clipped sound of hobnail boots on cobbles, mixed with the rumble of cartwheels and calls of hawkers selling their wares, filled the streets.
Seth held his little son’s hand tight as they made their way through the crowds.
The boy was shivering and his father steered him into a bright doorway where they might enjoy a little warmth before they were moved on.
Not so long ago they had lived in a small cottage. Seth and his wife mended clothes for the townsfolk until typhoid had claimed
her, and an infection took his hand six months later.
With Seth unable to stitch and thread, the money dried up and bailiffs kicked down the door.
“Meat pies, a penny a pie,” came the cry of a hawker wheeling his barrow.
Seth looked at his little son eagerly sniffing the air as if the rich smell alone could satisfy his clawing hunger.
He began to tell a story in the hope Eli might forget his empty stomach, the cold that pinched his bones and the faces that flinched at the sight of such poverty.
Eli listened with wonder to his father’s tales of faraway castles and ancient kingdoms, brave knights and beautiful princesses, singing mermaids and fire-breathing dragons, broken curses and golden treasure.
Sometimes, as now, passers-by stopped and listened, too, parting with a coin before disappearing into the yellow half-light.
“God bless you,” Seth would call after them.
Tucking into his hot pie,
Eli smiled up at his father.
“Your stories are always magic, Papa.”
His father smiled sadly, glad that one of them believed.
Some who didn’t believe were the shopkeepers who arrived with the first light of dawn.
“Be gone with you,” they would snarl as they swept the dust and sleeping bundles of rags from their doorways.
The days continued much the same as Seth and Eli travelled from one town to the next.
One particular day, Eli tugged his father’s ragged sleeve.
“Mama said she’d always watch over us, didn’t she?”
“She did,” Seth replied, blinking away a tear.
“Well, she is!” Eli pointed to a star in the pale blue winter’s sky. “Look, Papa!”
From then on they followed the star.
It took them through open fields, along rutted tracks into towns and through busy streets thronged with people.
Along the way Seth told his stories, and on the days people stopped to listen
they kept hunger at bay.
“She’s showing us the way, Papa,” Eli would say, his hand in his father’s.
The star had taken them through a town and was leading them across frozen fields when the sky became heavy with cloud and snowflakes began falling thick and fast. Winter had arrived.
“We’ve lost the star, Papa!” Eli cried.
“There’s a village over there, on the edge of the forest.”
But the blizzard blew harder and soon they couldn’t see which way to turn.
They awoke, not in an icy bed of snow, but wrapped in thick warm furs beside a roaring log fire. An old woman bustled about. “Where are we?” “They call this the Frozen North. Lucky the woodcutters found you when they did. Like two logs in the snow, you were.”
She ladled out a thick stew.
“You must eat, and then you must rest.”
She had a kindness to her but there was no smile.
The next day was Christmas Eve. Seth and Eli tucked into the hot stew whilst the old woman sat in her chair knitting, the clickety-clack of her needles the only sound.
They looked out of the window as snow continued to fall.
“The star’s gone,” Eli said sadly.
“It’s still there,” his father told him. “It’s waiting for the snow clouds to clear.”
“What star?” the old woman asked.
So Seth told her of their journey; how his stories had saved them from starvation and how they had followed the star.
“This village hasn’t heard stories for a long time.” She sighed. “Would you share them?”
When Seth nodded the old woman pulled on a fur cloak and hurried out into the snow.
She returned not ten minutes later with more villagers than Seth thought could squeeze into her tiny cottage.
Some pulled up chairs or perched on stools, others sat on rugs or stood soldier-like in spaces that looked smaller than themselves. Not one of them smiled.
Seth told a story, followed by another, then another. Stories of intrepid heroes and fearless heroines; glittering palaces and frozen lakes.
When he finished the room erupted with applause so loud it caused the wooden beams of the house to shake.
Yet it wasn’t the clapping Seth noticed but the broad smiles of all the villagers.
“You have brought stories back to our village,” the old woman said.
“When we ran out of stories to tell, the palaces, rainbows and dragons you speak of faded. You’ve brought all of that back to us.”
“How can we ever thank you?” the villagers asked.
“You have already given us gifts of food, shelter and kindness. We could ask for no more.”
“Then you must stay for Christmas,” the old woman told him.
Christmas Day brought with it the perfect blue of a winter’s sky and, high above, the star shone brightly once again. But in the cottage there was no sign of the old woman.
“Come on, Eli! Let’s find her and wish her a happy Christmas.”
They wrapped themselves in warm furs and pulled on thick furry boots that stood by the door. The snow was so deep that Seth sat Eli on his shoulders to save him from disappearing into snowdrifts.
No-one was about, just clusters of wooden houses half buried in snow and a trail of lanterns.
They followed the trail to the edge of the forest where they saw, glittering in the sunlight, a palace carved from ice with a dusting of snow.
Seth and Eli stared in amazement at the palace. The door was ajar and together they stepped inside, where there was the largest Christmas tree Eli had ever seen. It was decorated with garlands of winter berries and laced with frost, whilst candles cast a twinkling glow.
They saw the villagers sitting at a long table with the old woman at its head.
“You gave us your stories,” she said. “Here is our gift to you.”
The villagers had worked through the night to bring the palace from Seth’s stories to life.
“It’s magic!” Eli clapped his hands.
Seth looked out of one of the windows at the star that had brought them here. He thought it twinkled brighter for a moment.
“Yes, it is magic! Merry Christmas, Ellen,” he whispered before joining Eli and the villagers for a Christmas feast like no other. ■