The Magic of Closing Your Eyes

Every night, just before the world grows dark and quiet, Luna would lie in her bed and think the same thought. It was a thought so big and so puzzling that it had been living in her head for as long as she could remember. The thought went like this: "What happens to me when I close my eyes?"

Luna was seven years old, with hair the color of midnight and eyes that sparkled like the stars she loved to watch through her window. She lived in a small cottage at the edge of a village where the forest began, and she had a habit that her mother called "wondering." Luna wondered about everything. She wondered why the sky changed colors. She wondered how birds knew where to fly. She wondered what made the ocean taste salty. But the thing she wondered about most of all was sleep.

"When I'm awake, I can see my room," Luna would tell her stuffed rabbit, Mr. Whiskers, every night before bed. "I can see my toys and my books and the moonlight on my ceiling. But when I close my eyes, everything goes dark. Where do I go?"

Mr. Whiskers, being a rabbit made of button eyes and soft gray cotton, never answered. But Luna didn't mind. She knew that wondering was the first step to discovering wonderful things.

Tonight was special, though. Tonight was different. Luna could feel it in the gentle breeze that drifted through her open window, carrying the sweet scent of night-blooming jasmine. She could feel it in the way the stars seemed to twinkle just a little bit brighter than usual, as if they were trying to get her attention. And she could feel it in a tiny flutter in her tummy, the kind of flutter that happens when you know something magical is about to begin.

The evening had been perfect. Luna's mother had read her three stories about brave princesses and talking animals. Her father had tucked her into bed with her favorite quilt, the one with the moons and stars pattern, and had kissed her forehead while whispering, "Sweet dreams, little moon." Her grandmother had called from the kitchen to say goodnight, her voice warm and gentle like honey tea.

Everything was ready for sleep. The day had been tucked away like a letter in its envelope, waiting to be opened again in the morning. Luna yawned, feeling the day's adventures settling into her bones like sand sinking to the bottom of a river.

She snuggled deeper into her pillow and looked at her window one last time. The moon was full and round, hanging in the sky like a silver balloon. Luna waved at it, because she always waved at the moon before going to sleep, and the moon seemed to wink back at her, just for a moment.

"Okay, Mr. Whiskers," Luna whispered to her rabbit. "Let's close our eyes and see what happens."

She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the sweet night air. She could hear the gentle hoot of an owl somewhere in the forest, and the soft chirping of crickets playing their tiny violins. She could smell the lavender sachets her mother had placed in her closet, and the faint chocolate from the cookie she'd had after dinner.

"Now," Luna said softly, "I'm going to close my eyes. And I'm going to pay really close attention."

She let her eyelids grow heavy, the way they always did when sleep was coming to visit. They were like little curtains, she thought, pulling themselves closed at the end of each day. Luna let the curtains fall, and the world went dark.

At first, nothing happened. Luna lay there in the quiet darkness, waiting. She could hear her own heartbeat, a steady drumbeat in her chest. She could feel the warmth of her blankets, and the coolness of the air on her nose. She was still in her bed, still in her room, still in the world she knew.

But then, just as Luna was about to open her eyes again, something strange began to happen.

It started at the tips of her fingers. A tiny tingling, like the fizzing of lemonade bubbles. The tingling traveled up her arms, across her shoulders, and down her back. It felt like being wrapped in a warm blanket made of starlight. It felt like giggling but without making a sound.

Luna wanted to open her eyes, but she couldn't. Not because she was trapped, but because something was pulling her deeper, like the undertow of a friendly ocean current. She wasn't scared. She felt safe, actually, safer than she had ever felt before. This was a good pulling. This was an adventure pulling.

The tingling grew stronger, and Luna felt herself becoming lighter and lighter, as if she were made of a thousand tiny feathers. She couldn't feel her bed anymore, couldn't feel her pillows or her blankets. She was floating, rising, drifting upward through a darkness that was not empty but full of swirling colors—silver and gold and deep purple, like the aurora borealis dancing in the far northern sky.

Higher and higher she went, through the darkness that was not dark at all but luminous with its own inner light. And then, just when Luna thought she couldn't rise any further, she felt herself tilt forward, like going down the first drop of a roller coaster, and she swooshed through space with a feeling of pure joy.

When she opened her eyes—and she could open them now—she gasped.

She was no longer in her bedroom. She was no longer in her house. She was standing in a place that looked like nothing she had ever seen before, and yet it felt like a place she had always known, like a home she had forgotten until this very moment.

Luna stood on a path made of silvery stones that glowed softly underfoot. Above her, the sky was not dark but a beautiful shade of twilight purple, dotted with more stars than she had ever seen in her life. The stars were different here, though—they twinkled in colors, blues and greens and pinks and golds, like a giant's box of sparkly crayons had exploded across the sky.

The air smelled like vanilla and cotton candy, and a gentle breeze carried the sound of distant music, like wind chimes playing a lullaby. All around Luna, things were growing—not plants from the earth, but floating flowers that bobbed in the air like balloons, their petals soft and glowing. Some of them were shaped like moons, and some like stars, and some like tiny sleeping cats with their eyes closed in contentment.

"Where am I?" Luna breathed, her voice coming out as a whisper of silver mist.

"Welcome, little dreamer," said a voice behind her.

Luna turned around and saw a creature unlike anything she had ever imagined. It was a fox, but not an ordinary fox. This fox had fur that shimmered like opals, shifting through every color of the rainbow as she moved. Her eyes were the color of moonlight, round and kind and full of ancient wisdom. She had wings—not bird wings, but wings made of flowing silk that seemed to be sewn from the fabric of dreams themselves. And she was sitting on a toadstool that glowed like a lamp, watching Luna with a gentle smile.

"Who are you?" Luna asked, not feeling afraid at all, only curious.

"I am what you might call a guide," the fox said, her voice like the purring of a very old and very wise cat. "My name is not important right now, but many who come here call me Aurora, because I help travelers see the beauty of the night. You may call me whatever feels right in your heart."

"I'm Luna," Luna said, because it seemed only polite to introduce herself.

The fox—Aurora—laughed, a sound like wind bells chiming. "Luna! The little moon herself comes to visit! How wonderful. That is no coincidence, little Luna. Names have power here, and yours is written in the stars."

Luna looked up at the star-filled sky and realized that the stars were arranged in patterns, just like the constellations she had learned about in her picture books. But these weren't the same constellations. These were new ones, ones that made pictures she had never seen before. There was a constellation that looked like a friendly dragon sleeping on a cloud. There was one that looked like a library with books floating around it. And there was one that looked like a little girl with her ey