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It was a crisp and cold night, the sort that you could almost shatter with a careless wave of the hand. There was something I had to do, so I trudged out into the windless and chilly night to do it. I had one gift to find, and there was only one place to find it.

I wandered down to a special place I know.. a secret place, hidden from all eyes except my own. I stepped off the finely paved road, crossed a shallow ditch, frosted over with the night's chill and entered the wood.

Trees parted before me as I found the path I wanted. The full moon shone down it's approval and I made my way through the Darkling woods to the Village of Shopkeepers once again. I was looking for a very special place.. not a shop. I was not there to buy magic trinkets or toys that became something else the second time I looked at them. I was not there to buy a gift that made my loved one ooooh and awwww and cuddle me till tears ran down our faces. I was not there to buy any thing you could hold in your hands. I went searching that which cannot be bought. I went searching for something not made yet, but had already been done. I went searching... a story.

I found the little three story house, just as I knew I would. Left of the Dragon's gate, nodding at the statue of the little girl sitting with a tear in her eye (a story for another time, I fear), Past the Village square, which was neither square nor the center of town, remarking how the stone in the center and it's white rose never aged, never changed. Further on down I found the alleyway and made my path through the mazes of buildings with their own special magic and their own special way about them, making them seem to call out to me. I had no time to stop and wonder and wander and gaze and gawk. I was in search.

I got to the front door of the house, and I pushed it open. The buildings in the Village had no locks. They were not intended to keep things out, only to keep things in. Magical things. Some magical things can be wicked, left unattended, but they aren't very bright, so a common door will tend to stop them.

I climbed the rickety, twisty turny stairs and listened as the boards creaked and crittered and chitterd out to each other. Past the first floor, past the second floor I climbed, knowing where I was going, and knowing where I was at. My footsteps made not a sound, instead relying on the boards of the stairs to give my announcement.

At the top of the stairs, where they suddenly ended and the rest of the world began, I stopped to catch my breath. The spiderish spiders glared down at me from their silken and cobby webs, wondering if I were their next hasty snack. Things skittered and skattered amongst the floor that I didn't recognize and didn't really want to. I had not been here for a very long time, and I wondered if I would be welcome. I looked at the door that invited and demanded a knock, knowing full well that it would not receive it. Having been here too many times to put up with such foolishness, I stared back at the door, who chose to ignore me anyway.

The door was the same as it had always been, in it's sullen way. It looked back with it's peeling paint of a grayish greenish brownish color, with hints of blue and spots of yellow. For those curious and must know these things (I know you are out there), the door knob was red.

I pushed the door open as far as it would go, and the door, groaning and complaining gave way just enough to let me in. I slid past the door, which moaned and groaned shut again, as if it was truly hurt by me not knocking on it and paying it's due. I ignored it best I could, as I knew it ignored me.

The room I stood in was not large, and by many standards could be said it was rather small. On the other hand, it was immense, because everywhere I looked were stacks of books and papers and old ink wells and old pens and bed sheets and .. and.. well.. words. Words filled the walls, they filled the ceiling, they filled the floor and I almost believed they floated and past before my eyes, dancing on the air. Around one of the shelves off to my right, I heard the sound I was listening for. Scritch, scritch. Unmistakable, undeniable, it was there. I was where I was supposed to be at the time I was supposed to be here.

I cleared my throat and loosened my voice. It had been a while since I had used it and the air had dried it out. The scritching stopped.

"Storyteller?" I called out.

"One moment". came the reply. "Shhhh. I'm almost done"

I waited silently. Scritch, scritch went on for a few more moments and then stopped. I heard a creak of old wood against wood, and a shuffle coming closer.

Around the edge of the bookshelf peered a face I have known forever. Little round glasses, ears with tufts of hair, craggy face. It was my old friend... and I shed a tear at the site of him, how long had it been?

"It's YOU!" he cried. He near danced a jig at the sight of me. "Where have you been all these years? Stories and stories I have written and told to the walls and the floor, but you have not come to see me or hear any of them!" He looked at me reprovingly, a hint of glee in his bespectacled eyes. "Well, well, and well.. no matter, no matter. You are here now, just as you should be. Come closer, let me read you." He roped his old arms around me and near squeezed me to a nubbin before letting me go.

"Oh my," he said, "sorrow, joy, pain, love, hurt... such a story you have in you! Someday we shall have to sit and swap." Which meant that he'd tell me the stories that I'd written in my own life, without words, and I'd listen as he made them better than I could, stronger than I might, and most definitely fancier by far than I hoped.

"Storyteller.. I come for a story", I said in a whisper. At the words, he misted over, and a single tear ran down the side of his face. He took his spectacles off and blew his nose on the tail end of his shirt, mussing up some of the words that had been written there.

"You have been missed." he said. He took a long, long look at me and hummed "Hmmmm.. hmmmmm.. and hmmmm. What story is it you are searching for? Shall I guess, or shall I let the walls tell me?" I did not know the story of his walls, but I suspect that someday I will, because he is, after all, a storyteller.

"Guess.", I said. I knew that would bring him the greatest joy. What sort of a storyteller wants to be told the hows and the whys and the wheres of a story, when it's so much better to build it out of whole cloth?

"All right! Let's start over here.", he said, fair dancing over the mounds of paper and books that littered his floor. He was rubbing his hands together so fast that I thought he would catch them on fire, and while he hummed and hawed, I could see his eyes flit from shelve to shelve to pile to pack. Eventually he settled on one spot and with an Ah He!, he flew to one of the shelves and pulled a yellowing book from the darkness of brown shelving. I didn't see it very well, but I could have sworn it said "1959 Manhattan Bell" on it. He took the book and flipped it open to anywhere it wanted to go (which is the fastest way to find what you truly need), and said "Ahhhhhh.. I think I have what you came for." He then took the book and shook it something fierce. As he shook it, he muttered "Come on, come on.. give it up.. ".

Amazingly, then and there a rain of dark spots started to rain from the book. They were... letters... and not just letters, but words and streams of ink and numbers.. all piling up on the floor at his feet so fast it looked like he would be unable to pull himself from them.

He shook the book till there seemed there was nothing left to shake in him or it, and then he stopped. Then he glanced over at me, nodded his head to where I knew his desk was and motioned for me to follow him. He pulled himself from the literary muck that was knee deep around him and led me around the mounds and stacks and piles of paper that he called home. Just as we turned a bookshelf corner, I looked back, and saw the dark mound of writing stuff being pulled back into all the other books, like children being called back home after staying out far past their bedtimes.

He sat down at his old desk, in his old chair. The desk was as familiar to me with it's stains of ink and it's hundreds of bics, sharpies, quills, fountain pens and every possible writing implement you can imagine, and probably a few you can't.

When I found my spot, a corner of the desk that had the fewest stacks of paper on it, I settled down, and set myself to listen to him. It was like sitting down at your favorite place in your favorite chair. I won't pretend it was terribly comfortable the old bones on my backside, but it was the most comfortable place in the world to me.

Since finding the story, the Storyteller had not said a word, as this is the wont of Storytellers. Once a story is in their head, heaven help those that shake one single idea from his head, because the story blooms so hard, so fast, that to distract him would be like taking a bone from a hungry dog.

"This is", he began," the story of The Night the Stars fell to Earth" Exactly what I was looking for. How did he know? Who cares? He's the storyteller, I'm the storylistener.

And this is the story he told:

Long, long ago, in a land far, far away, in a Valley, nestled between two mountains, and situated at the fork of a river, there was a village. Now, it wasn't your typical village with shopkeepers and merchants all trying to get you to buy their goods. Nor was it your typical village where folks rambled about without ever knowing what was going on in reality. Nor was it your typical village where people thought they were better than every one else and worked oh so very hard to prove it.

No.. this was a Village, with a capital V, of Shopkeepers, with a capital S. And what they sold, well it was magical things. Things for doing ordinary work, and things for doing extraordinary work. Things that would bring luck, good and ill, and things that would bring love, good and ill. It was a Fine, Fine Village, with a capital F, and all the people in it knew what was going on, and nobody thought they were better than anyone else. All the children knew that, in time, they too would become Shopkeepers, and that was just fine with them, because, after all, it meant they would be part of the Magic, with a Capital M.

This is not to say that there wasn't any sadness in the Village, oh my no! This Village, like any other village, had it's share of sadness and anger, and jealousy and any number of things that you can find whenever you put folks in a basket and shake them up. It's just that this Village had a way of... fixing things, of making them right again, of taking the rust and dust and grit and grime and shining it all up and soothing the hurts and bandaging the cuts and letting whoever it was know that it really and truly would be all right in the end. The folks in the village just knew that, in time, all things would be all right.

One night though, a man left the Village, as the Magic in the Village could not fix him, could not make him better, could not convince or explain or show or hold him in it's arms and let him know that it would be all right. He left quietly, in the Dark of the moon, so that no one would see him go.

It was a cold and crisp night, and the air was the sort that, if you waved carelessly, you could almost expect to hear it shatter. Into this cold and crisp night came something colder, something more empty, something that had no warmth.

It was a heart, turned inward on itself, full of self loathing and lacking compassion for anything. It had turned so bitter towards itself that if it were a tea, not even the strongest of folk could drink it without having their lips pucker so to almost go 'round their heads. It was a heart so sad that the saddest melody made would seem a lively jig next to it. It was a heart that had no place, it thought, no right, it believed, and no love, it knew.

Out, out, out into the night wandered the man, up the crooked street where the Cobbler used to live, down the alley way behind where the Toymaker made his toys. Past the Bakers where you could buy cakes that danced and sang for your birthday, and past the Jail with No Door, which had only held one man in all the time it had stood.

Out into the night he went, seeking no solace from anything or anybody. Out he went with full intent to be done with it all, to end his story and his pain. He wandered blindly out, out, out, tripping past the small grove of trees where the small ghost dragons danced, and stumbling, he wandered up a small knoll and fell, near frozen at the base of a tree.

Now, trees are anything but slow witted. Even in the midst of Winter, with it's cold and frost and ice, trees think terrible fast. They are just very slow to do anything about what they think about. So when this man, this sad, sad man, fell at the base of this tree, the tree noticed, don't think that it didn't.

And so deep was this man's sorrow, and so empty was his heart, that it created a spot in the Universe that just pulled and pulled and begged and cried to be filled. So miserable was the song of his heart, that it went up, up, up and out into the very fabric of the Universe to be heard by the very stars themselves.

Stars, as anyone knows, are not just balls of gas, forever just hanging in the sky. They have hearts and souls and songs and dreams, just as you and I. There are little stars which burn very brightly and dancefully play in the skies and there are large stars which burn ponderously and march across the heavens as if they were generals on parade.

One of the littlest stars heard the song from the man's heart, and wept to hear it, so sad was it. The little star called out to it's friends to come hear, and they came, from far and wide across the galaxy. They came from their playgrounds and their cribs and their houses and their constellations to hear the song, for they had never heard such a sadness in all of their long, long lives.

The song was so sad that every little star that heard it bent closer to see where it came from. The song was so miserably empty that every little star wept with compassion. The bigger stars just shook their heads in the knowledge of the old and said "Hmph.. let the song be where it is, children. It will find it's way, or it will just die out. Leave well enough alone."

But the little stars could not leave well enough alone. They had to Know, with a capital K, where the song came from, and why, why, why it was the way it was. What had caused so much pain, so much hurt, so much emptiness.

And so, and so.. one by one, they came, drifting, falling like snowflakes, down, down, down, through the skies. They followed the song to it's source and they found at it's source a man, laying at the base of a tree.

"Oh oh oh", they cried. "How terrible this is! Whatever has caused this man to be so sad?"

The tree, answering in true tree fashion (trees can talk, they are just very careful about what they say), said "He didn't say" The windless night blew through the leaves and said, "he just showed up here, curled up and is preparing to die"

"Oh oh oh", they cried! "How terrible this is! To have a sadness so great that it puts out the light of a life! We must do something!"

So they drifted down, down and down till they near covered the man, dampening their light so as to not hurt him, to not blind him. The little stars created a blanket that surrounded and covered and bathed the man, and there they worked their own magic.

Some circled his chest, some rested upon his arms, some down his legs, and a few near his heart, pushing and pushing all they could afford of themselves into the man, to let him know that he was not alone, that he was loved, that he did have worth. They felt his pain, they knew his mind, they saw what was wrong, and they knew they could not, could not, could not fix it, make it better, make it go away. Still they stayed and loved and hugged and tried. Oh! how they tried till their little star hearts nearly broke from it all. They pushed and they pushed love into the man, and they pushed healing into the man, and they pushed all they could push. The stars blanketed the man with all they had throughout the night, giving all the comfort and love they contained in the small and yet very great star hearts. One by one, they started to wink out, having given so much of themselves that they just simply merged and faded. The ones that were a bit larger stayed the course, they held their place, they continued to love and to comfort, even as they saw their companions blink out. All through the night they pushed their starry lives into the man.

When the sun came up the next morning, all of the little stars were gone, as happens when the sun comes up. So was the man. The tree looked as it always had, but at the base of the tree there grew an odd flower. Tall and straight and solid and green of stem and leaf, but broad with a face of yellow with pointed petals, like a star that fell to earth. It's roots reached deep, deep, deeper than deep into the earth, and some say they grow all the way back towards the Village to a small house where a child died one very cold winter's night.

No one ever saw the man again. However, there are stories told of a new constellation in the night time sky. The stories tell of a constellation in the shape of a man, broad of shoulders, raising one arm, with little star lights for his belt and tobacco pouch. If you look up in the winter's night sky, they say you can see it, and you know.. I believe they are right.

And that, children is the story for tonight.

"hmmm, hmmm, hmmm.", Said the Storyteller. "I don't know if it's the story you came looking for, but it's the story that was told. It will have to do, because it's the one you found."

"It's way too sad," I complained," it may not do."

"Well, then," said the Storyteller, "I suppose you won't be quite so long coming back next time, will you?"

And with that, he pushed me out his door, telling me that he had other stories to write. The door still ignored me, as I ignored it, but I could almost swear I heard it ask "You will be back, won't you?" and so I knew that it too missed me. And so, I almost answered back "Of course I will, door", and I think I heard a satisfied little groan as it settled into it's hinges.

I didn't want to leave, but I knew that I had to, so down I went to the streets, and back past the dragon's gate with the statue of the little girl, back through the darkling woods where the trees closed up behind me. Back I went to the Finely paved road, and back I went to my apartment, where I sit now and tell you the tale the Storyteller told me, knowing that I would soon be back, sitting on his desk, listening to his stories of the Village of ShopKeepers.

And that, children is my story for tonight. Specially you, Esme. Merry Christmas!