When The Stars Answer

One

Rowan Winslow
November 12, 2026

The bell above Spruce & Swaddle’s door jingles as I walk in, its bright cheer bordering on hostile. Coming here feels like progress, though. Then I lift a pink chenille baby blanket from a shelf and its softness calls out what I’m pretending has healed. As if pretending has ever spared anyone a thing. I rub the blanket’s satin trim between my fingertips, praying my sister’s kids never suffer the hurts that changed me.

The shop smells like lavender and cotton. I breathe it in, wishing for a reset. God knows my life could use a glow-up.

Colorful strollers, car seats, and Diaper Genies surround me. Piper already owns these things. The way my love life is going, I’ll probably never need them.

For a second, I visualize myself as a mother-to-be. I imagine myself pasting alphabet decals on the walls of a baby-pink-and-beige nursery. Sinking onto a plush yellow rocker, I picture myself obsessing over an infant’s tiny nose and feathery eyebrows. My arms ache with emptiness as reality barges back in. Some things aren’t meant to be.

I skipped my sister’s wedding and first baby shower. Piper wanted me there, but I couldn’t sit in a room where she and the man I used to love were smiling at each other like their relationship didn’t cost me nearly everything.

Then, four years ago, my adorable nephew Jake’s birth gave me a reason to extend an olive branch. He has become a bright spot in my life. Baby number two—­a girl this time—­is nudging me to try harder with my sister.

I rise and continue browsing, scanning the baby books. Better make this quick.

The door chimes again. I glance up. Mara Delaney walks in with her mother. Mara and I played soccer together growing up. After my mother bailed on our family, Mara lent me her algebra notes when I skipped an entire week of school. She’s always been compassionate. I haven’t seen her since the days following college graduation, before I moved to Boston. Back then, I never expected to be living here again.

Mrs. Delaney fusses with Mara’s hair the way moms who stick around would do. Or so I’m guessing.

Mara spots me, her eyes widening. “Rowan? Oh my God-hey!”

With no easy escape, I smile and offer a quick hug. “Been a while.”

“Years.” She laughs. “I heard you were back from Boston.”

Of course she did. Pinebridge is too small for gossip not to reach all its corners faster than the wind.

“Yeah,” I say casually, hoping to avoid questions about my former job.

“Regrouping for a bit.”

Mara nods, her gaze dropping to my flat abs. “Shopping for Piper? I ran into her and Liam at Battenkill Brews last week. They looked good. Tired, but good.”

My smile holds, proving practice makes perfect. “They’re doing well. How about you?”

Mara pats her swollen tummy. “Great. Nervous.”

“Aw, you’ll be fine. You’ll see.” I finger a lock of my hair, aware of her mother’s impatient gaze.

“Good to see you, Rowan,” Mrs. Delaney says politely before steering her daughter toward the linens. “Come on, I want to show you those ducky crib sheets.”

“See you around,” Mara calls as she disappears down the aisle.

Their affectionate relationship pokes me right where I’m weakest. I turn away, willing the hole to reseal, certain my mother never feels that void.

In the next aisle, tiny cotton onesies hang in neat, pastel rows. Mini socks. Patterned bibs. A tan plush bunny with a simple stitched smile sits atop a basket of stuffed animals. I picture my future niece dragging it around the house, slobbering on its ear, and sleeping with it mashed against her cheek. The little movie in my head prompts a genuine smile. Back in the blanket aisle, I reach for a cream-colored one with pink scalloped edges. It doesn’t say the things I’m not quite ready to voice, like I forgive you or I miss you. But it does offer warmth. That feels honest, which is always my aim.

I carry it and the bunny to the counter and skip the fancy gift bag and curly ribbon.

Outside, dusk settles over the village. Two teenagers walk past me, intensely debating the best place to watch tonight’s meteor storm. I envy their excitement. They “get” to watch it. I not only have to do so, but then I also have to write about it as if it were important news.

I shake my head and glance up at the sky as it drains of color. For a second, its edges flicker like someone is adjusting the light. When blue turns to violet, a little chill overcomes me, as if something up there wants my attention. I watch for a sign.

Nothing.

Typical.

Two

Midnight, November 13

If anyone had predicted my twenty-eighth birthday would be spent in professional disgrace, I would’ve asked for a different horoscope. Yet here I am, ankle-deep in frosted leaves, filming a meteor shower for a newspaper that features lost cat notices. Not exactly the “greatness” my mother foretold for my future. Her first broken promise, but it’s just as well. In a world full of liars, greatness doesn’t protect you from getting played. Truth does. Still, some stubborn part of me keeps hoping she was right and that the universe will soon show its hand.

That minor (major?) delusion has resulted in my Delulu Diaries: a catalogue of birthday wishes made upon the Milky Way for everything from making my mother regret leaving to winning a Pulitzer. Any shot at that prize died when I blew the whistle that blew up my career after my editor in Boston nixed my investigation into that paper’s biggest advertiser.

Now I’m back in Pinebridge, watching my dreams fade faster than these shooting stars.

Seated on a chaise outside the guest cottage behind my dad’s house, I peer through the camera lens, my breath fogging around my face, wondering how I’ll ever restore my reputation.

God, I wish I could share the truth without facing backlash. Is that too much to ask?

I snort. Another entry for the diary.

Suddenly, the inky sky brightens to near daylight as a fireball arcs overhead, appearing close enough to kiss the Green Mountains. The wind dies as if the universe is holding its breath. A feverish sensation sweeps through me, sending a high-pitched ringing to my ears. If my feet weren’t on the ground, I’d swear gravity lost its grip on me. The scent of damp earth and decaying leaves sharpens. Then, for a haunting moment, my erratic heartbeat feels like it’s fueling that bolide.

Thump, thump, thu—

The meteor abruptly burns out, and with that, a final pulse of energy prickles through my limbs. I stretch my arms out, staring at them until the hum in the air dissipates.

Bizarre. One second, I’m making a wish, the next—“Ow!”

Something hot clips my thigh, crashes on the patio, and splinters like glass.

A gunshot? Panic flattens my thoughts, seizing every muscle until I can’t move. Alone outside the guest cottage, I scan the dense tree line of the national forest edging the property. No ear-splitting crack sounded beforehand. So, not a gun. But whatever hit me came out of the sky with the speed of a bullet.

I glance at my bloody, torn sweatpants leg. “Oh, shit.”

The sight of any blood is nauseating; the sight of my own blood makes me dizzy. This feels bad . . . seriously bad. Shredded-my-quad-and-damaged-my-mobility kind of bad. Gripping the chaise, I wiggle my toes and bend my knee, then almost melt with relief when everything works.

As shock subsides, pain intensifies and radiates up my leg. I turn on my phone’s flashlight, then lean forward to gather a tacky, blood-soaked section of the sweatpants. Stomach tight, I pull back the fabric for a peek at the wound, then recoil with a whimper from the jagged red gash. Fighting the urge to vomit, I shrug out of my old USC sweatshirt and tie its arms tightly above the wound. The makeshift tourniquet stanches the blood flow, giving me a second to settle my stomach.

Beneath me, a dusty starburst pattern of debris has painted several flagstone pavers. A bullet wouldn’t do that. I bend closer to the rubble with my flashlight, noting bits of reflective material. Reaching out with my free hand, I run my index finger through the remnants.

Unlike ordinary debris, it clings to my fingertip like iron shavings on a magnet. Iron . . . Could it be?

I frown. Fragments usually land in remote locations.

But there were those recent pieces in The New York Times about small meteorites smashing onto a front stoop in a Canadian suburb and through a roof in Houston.

Rising on unsteady legs, I reach forward as if feeling through my dizziness for balance. The chances of being struck by a fragment must be a hundred million to one. Why couldn’t I beat long odds for something like the Pulitzer instead?

The situation sends a tremor down my arms. Or maybe that’s from blood loss. I need my dad.

I take one step toward his farmhouse, then another, but it’s impossible to see straight when my field of vision narrows to a dark tunnel with a single point of light. Stumbling, I crash into the small side table, tipping it over. Then everything goes black.