Writing: Where the Fireflies Wait

At the very bottom of the yard, far past the garden beds and the rusted wheelbarrow left leaning beside the compost heap, a young woman lay flat on her back atop the family trampoline. The black mesh sagged just slightly beneath her weight, like the soft give of a childhood mattress. Her arms were stretched out at her sides, palms facing the night sky, and the quiet hum of early summer wrapped around her like a warm, invisible quilt.

It was late enough that the last traces of the sunset had been tucked away for the night, leaving the sky wide open and honest. No streaks of gold or lavender to soften the dark. Just the heavy velvet of midnight blue, punctured by stars—sharp and steady, scattered like seeds across the firmament. The stars had always made her feel small, but not in the way that frightened her. In the way that reminded her she didn’t have to carry everything.

The house was nearly an acre away, and it might as well have been a hundred. Its porch lights, its quiet whir of air conditioning and television glow, were distant and dim enough now to be forgotten. From here, there was only the steady croon of cicadas, the sweet scent of pine resin, and the stillness that settles over a place when everyone else has gone inside.

She hadn’t meant to stay out this long. But the air was soft and soupy with humidity, clinging to her bare legs, her temples, her collarbone, in that way that made everything feel a little heavier, a little slower. Normally she hated that. Normally, she’d run from it—back to cold tiles and ceiling fans and the promise of refrigerated air. But tonight was different.

Tonight, the air was holding something.

All around her, just above the rise of the trampoline’s netting and stretching high into the trees, the fireflies were dancing. Not in the grass, where she’d usually find them flickering just above the blades, but higher—perched like sparks on the pine branches. Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. Little pulses of greenish-gold light blinking in and out, in no hurry and in no pattern, like the trees themselves were breathing light.

They looked like ornaments, strung by hand and hung with purpose. Or like tiny sentinels, keeping watch in their hush of a glow. She could almost pretend they were fairies—tiny, glimmering spirits flitting just out of reach, wings beating so fast they vanished.

When she was younger, she’d been sure of it. Not in a playful or imaginary way, but in that quiet certainty children sometimes have, when logic hasn’t yet dulled their wonder. They weren’t bugs to her then. They were the forest’s welcome. They were the magic.

She remembered watching FernGully curled up on a scratchy sofa, feet tucked beneath her and a bowl of cereal balanced on her knees. And she remembered thinking—hoping—that maybe the fae lived here too. Maybe they were everywhere. Maybe they whispered in the tall grass and sang from the trees and waited, just waited, for someone to notice.

And so she had.

Even now, lying there with her grown-up limbs and her grown-up logic, she couldn’t help but believe a little. Not in the way she used to, maybe. But in the way a part of her still wanted to. That part never left. That small girl who watched for wings in the branches and listened for laughter in the wind.

She exhaled softly.

The sky blinked overhead, endless and open. A firefly pulsed just above her toes.

She knew she should go back. They’d be calling soon. The lights would flicker on across the yard. Her name would stretch across the dark, and she’d have to explain where she’d been, why she hadn’t answered, why her phone was still sitting on the porch rail. But for now, just for this one quiet breath, she was alone with the night.

With the trees.
With the stars.
With the fairies.

She didn’t speak aloud—there was no need. But inside, where her wonder still lived, she whispered her goodbye.

Not a dramatic farewell, not some tearful parting. Just a soft promise. A remembering.

That even when she returned to the world of schedules and screens and ordinary things, she would carry this moment with her.

She would not forget the fireflies.

And she would not forget the magic.