Like a veil cast over Christmas lights, the party rippled and curled around its own glow, oscillating with the chill breath of the dark. Come nightfall on her birthday, Rebecca Colton always marveled at her home's transformation: these familiar rooms assumed a bioluminescent quality—herself immersed in a plane all its own, alive with soft pockets of vibrant light set adrift in the thrumming ether. She'd phase through the walls, eavesdropping on the grown-ups who'd yet to depart into the night. Most of the other kids had left, and she sought out those few friends who remained for want of a new adventure. 

Where's Riley? she mouthed to her father, tugging on his pant leg. Sam's arms overflowed with crumpled wrapping paper, and his head blossomed with several shiny bows, stuck there endearingly by his daughter, and worn with the air of a king and his crown. 

"I last saw her over on the stairs with Miss Kate. I think she was overwhelmed by the volume earlier. I checked in, made sure everything was alright. She just needed some space, but she might need a friend now."

Rebecca threw her hands in the air, emboldened. "It's an Amanda Mission!"

"Sure sounds like it," Sam chuckled. "Let her know we saved a slice of cake for her, okay?"

His daughter gave a curt nod, and darted into the dark, weaving through the tall legs of conversing grown-ups, and making a beeline for the foot of the stairs. Her destination neared, when suddenly—

"Oomf!!" Rebecca collided with an unseen obstacle—a figure moving with a haste to rival her own. 

"—S-sorry! Oh my gosh, are you okay?"

Rebecca rubbed her nose with her palm, and gave a dramatic gasp.

"You're one of the guards sent to stop me!!"

The figure stuttered, taken aback by the accusation. "What?! ME? How could you—" Then he paused, thought for a moment, considered the darkness, and laughed. "Well, it seems you must be sorely mistaken; I know of these guards you speak of, and I've been evading them myself, you see? To reach you, birthday girl, and relay an urgent message!"

Rebecca shook her head, unconvinced. "Nuh uh, you're working for them—I saw it! You can't lie to me: I have magic eyes!!!"

"Magic eyes, you say? Just what can they see?"

"They see the most hidden thing of all—the Truth!! Eons of wizards and witches have tried to hide it, but I know where it is, all the time!"

"You fancy me a wizard, then?"

"I fancy you a hider, that's for sure! And you're trying to hide my way to my friend."

"I'm not holding you here, Amanda; you may depart at any time!"

"Then why are you still in my way?"

The man blinked, perplexed. He couldn't tell which part he was meant to play—

"Some guard you are," she huffed, "you haven't even given me a riddle to solve!"

"I—ah... a riddle?"

"Yeah, or you could just let me through, and save us both some time," she shrugged. "I am on a mission, you know."

They both sensed the fantasy diminishing. Rebecca was indifferent to it, but the man in the doorway scrambled to salvage the script. Granted, they were technically writing as they went, but his scene partner was prone to breaking character. And they just couldn't have that now, could they? 

"No, Amanda, I remember now!!"

"What?"

"I'm thinking of an animal that looks like the clouds who block the stars—"

"I beg your garden?"

"I'm thinking of an animal guided by a crook!"

"That doesn't even make SENSE!"

"An animal you count to fall asleep?"

"My daddy's stories take care of that."

Exasperated, the man conceded, "... Little Bo Peep lost one of hers."

Rebecca lifted her pointer finger. "Actually she lost eight of them. Maybe nine. Maybe even ten..."

"Ten what?"

"SHEEP!!!"

The man broke into applause. "That's it, Amanda! You're great at riddles!"

"So, you admit it... you are one of them." 

"Amanda, I—"

"Only a true guard would give me a riddle!" She aimed her pointer finger toward him triumphantly, and the man slowly backed away, beyond its range.

"No—wait! It's a wizard thing, see? A simple misunderstanding—"

Rebecca suddenly covered her face with her hands, and a deluge of muffled sobs seeped through her small fingers. Mortified, the man knelt down to her level, and drew a white tissue from his pocket. "Oh, please don't cry, I didn't mean to upset you—"

At this height, he could make out a solitary brown eye peeking through a gap in her fingers. Her sobs subsided for a moment as they met each other's gaze... only to ensue again when the gap snapped shut.

"Amanda, I promise, I'd never lie to you!" The man knit his hands through his curls in frazzled desperation. "It's just—I just wanted to have fun, play pretend, that's all! Out of all the pretenders I know, you're one of a kind, Rebecca."

"O-one of a kind?" she whimpered.

"More than that... you're a star!" 

Rebecca wailed, and the man covered his ears. So that, as the sound descended into a fit of laughter, he finally realized the ruse when her hands fell away.

"Wow, that's the only birthday gift I couldn't guess!"

Apprehensively, his palms departed from the sides of his head. "What is? What did I—" the man gasped as Rebecca wrapped her arms around his neck.

"You... told a truth!" A giggle escaped her lips, yet he sensed her shake her head as he moved to hug her back.

"Please don't lie to me again," she whispered, her grip tightening, almost to the brink of an asphyxiating hold. The man's head swam for lack of breath, and he wondered why she still refused to release him—

"You can let go now, okay?"

—ecstatic celestial bodies sprung from the dark and fell like needles through his eyes—

"I said you can let go," Rebecca repeated. Her hands wrinkled the skirt of her star-studded dress, and her inner eye sought a new hiding place in the folds of fabric constellations. Her hands had kneaded the sky this whole time—arms stuck to her sides by the strange constriction of unfamiliar bones. She didn't like to be reminded of how wrong a hug could feel. 

Of course a child's arms were too small to encircle a man's neck! Of course the only man she'd embrace was her own father—

But (as the Guard already realized) anything can ring true in the dark, and some such as himself would sooner believe it was she who anchored him in the doorway, and not his own arms enfolding her. It's all a matter of perception, you see? Like blue Curtains cast over a scene, memory obscures our self-spun lies. And we forget it's just a play we're putting on—a mask we call our true face.

Many may mourn a child deceived, but where fall the tears for small hands who gather the stars in their palms, and with all the ire of the stolen skies, aim their newfound fire to the architect of the fourth wall...

... who awoke to a nose spilling blood, and the sound of footfalls echoing through the dark. 

She got out. 

Incredulous, he brought the unused tissue to his fractured visage. A sliver of white light seeped through the cracks; the source of deception, exposed—!

How dare she.