06 Dec Something Keeps Removing the Star From My Christmas Tree

I’m typing this from a hospital bed with one good hand and bandages across my face, the injuries still too raw for me to look at without spiraling.

The staff here thinks I had an accident. They keep using that word. Accident. As if I bumped something or left something on. As if the part where my house turned into a fireball has a neat, tidy explanation that matches the one in the incident report and lets everyone sleep a little better.

I’m putting this down because I don’t think I’m going to be sleeping much anyway.

The doctors say I’m lucky. The firefighters said it, too, when they came by earlier to ask a few final questions. They stood at the foot of my bed and told me most people don’t walk away from a gas explosion like that. Then they corrected themselves, because technically I didn’t walk away. I was carried. They smiled when they said it, like they were trying to soften the edges of something they still pictured when they closed their eyes.

I keep thinking about the details lately. The little details. The parts of a story people call coincidences until there are too many of them.

I’m going to tell this as clearly as I can.

My name is Marcy. A week ago, I put up my Christmas tree. Three days later, my house exploded.

And it wasn’t an accident.

I moved into that little rental house in late summer. One bedroom, tiny backyard, a kitchen that the landlord described as “cozy,” which meant I could reach the fridge, stove, and sink without moving my feet. It was the first place that felt like mine. No roommates leaving dishes, no parents asking me when I was going to come to church again or bring someone to dinner.

I told myself I’d really decorate for Christmas this year. I’d never had the chance to do it my way before.

Normally, I don’t even think about the holidays until December, but this year has been rough. Work stress, family drama, the usual conglomeration of nonsense that ends up forming a larger, unpleasant picture. By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, I decided I was done waiting for joy to show up on its own. I would drag it into the house myself, in the form of an artificial tree and too many lights.

That Saturday, I dragged the box in from the garage and called my best friend, Becca, on FaceTime. She’s one of those people who can make folding laundry sound like an adventure and uses stickers in text messages like it’s her job, all because she knows it brightens people’s day.

“You’re doing it early this year,” she said, as I pointed my phone at the pile of branches and the instruction sheet on my floor. “You finally joining the ‘Christmas starts in November’ cult?”

“I need something nice to look at that isn’t my laptop,” I told her. “Also, I had a coupon.”

“Ah,” she said with a laugh. “The true spirit of the season. Fiscal responsibility.”

She stayed on while I assembled the tree, section by section, and fluffed the plastic needles until they didn’t look quite so much like oversized pipe cleaners. I wrapped the lights just the way my mother used to, in even spirals from bottom to top, and hung the box of ornaments I’d collected over the years. A ceramic snowman from my childhood, a glass ball from a work Secret Santa, a cheap little silver bell I’d picked up at a dollar store my first year out on my own.

The star went on last. It was gold plastic with a textured surface to make it look more expensive than it was. I climbed onto a chair, slid it onto the top section of the trunk, and stepped down carefully.

“It’s crooked,” Becca said, squinting on my screen.

“It has personality,” I answered.

She stuck her tongue out at me through the camera. “Well. Personality aside, it looks good. You did a nice job. Now all you need is someone to make out with under it.”

“I have cocoa,” I said. “Cocoa doesn’t fight over blankets.”

She sighed dramatically. “Fine. Send me a picture when it’s done. I have to go wrestle a turkey out of my freezer.”

After we hung up, I made myself that cocoa, turned off the overhead light, and sat on the couch just to look at the tree. The whole living room glowed in points of soft color. It felt…right. Not perfect, not magical, just like a promise I’d made to myself that for once, the season wasn’t going to be about anyone else’s expectations.

I brushed my teeth, scrolled social media for longer than I should have, and finally put my phone on the nightstand.

I was almost asleep when I heard the noise—a tiny clatter, just loud enough to cut through the quiet. Not the thunk of something heavy, but that crisp little sound that glass or plastic makes when it taps a hard surface. For a minute, I lay there trying to place it, convincing myself it was nothing. The heater. Pipes. A neighbor slamming a cabinet. Then I swung my legs out of bed and padded down the short hallway to the living room.

The lights on the tree were still on. The outlet timer hadn’t shut them off yet, so the room was still swimming in warm color. Every ornament I saw was where I remembered putting it.

Except the star.

It lay on the floor next to the tree, face down, a good foot away from the base.

I frowned, rubbing the back of my neck. The top section leaned slightly to one side; maybe I hadn’t pushed the star down far enough, and gravity did what gravity does. It made sense that it would fall. It didn’t make sense that it had bounced that far, but it was late, and I was too tired to worry about that.

I put the star back on. This time, I pushed it down until the plastic edges dug into the faux trunk. I stepped back and looked at it, making sure it was secure.

“Stay,” I murmured.

I returned to bed and, this time, managed to fall asleep more or less immediately.

But in the morning, the star wasn’t on the tree.

This time, it wasn’t on the floor or leaning somewhere it could have landed naturally. It was on the couch, right in the center of the cushion where I’d been sitting the night before, angled toward the tree as if placed with intent.

I stared at it for a long time. That first moment, when your brain is still sorting through options, is strangely calm. There’s a kind of checklist. Do I sleepwalk? No. Does anyone else have a key? Just the landlord, and I would have heard the door. Did I move it and forget? No.

I picked it up and turned it over, half expecting to see… I don’t know, something. A sticky piece of tape, a weird mark, a bug. But there was nothing unusual or out of place about it. It was just plastic.

My phone buzzed. Becca.

I answered and held the phone up so she could see the tree. “Guess what fell off my tree not once but twice in the past eight hours?”

She laughed. “Told you it was crooked. Maybe it’s trying to run away. Did you slam the door or something?”

“It was on the couch when I woke up.”

“So it bounced.”

“On the couch, Becca. Like, neatly placed.”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s physics, babe. That’s all. Maybe the thing hit a branch on the way down and launched itself?”

I forced a smile and shrugged.

“Yeah. Maybe. Probably.”

I replaced the start again, for the third time in twelve hours.

I told myself that would be the last time I needed to worry about it.

It wasn’t.

* * * * * *

That night, I turned the lights off earlier. Part of it was an effort to be practical; the utility company had just sent a reminder that heating an entire house wasn’t cheap. The other part was because the lit tree made the living room feel exposed. Leaving it on while I slept felt like inviting gawkers and perverts.

I woke once from a nightmare, settled, and almost drifted off when a faint sound reached me.

Tap.

Then again. Tap-tap.

Then a subtle rattle, like beads brushing together.

This time, I didn’t wait. I reached for my phone, used its flashlight, and walked down the hall.

The tree stood in the dark. The colored bulbs, unlit, looked dull without their glow. I swept the light across the branches.

Several ornaments trembled, as if recently disturbed.

I stood very still.

My gaze rose to the top of the tree.

The star was gone.

I turned in a slow circle until the phone beam struck a glint of gold.

It lay in the hallway, exactly halfway between the living room and my bedroom door.

It hadn’t fallen there. I knew better. It had been positioned.

My mouth went dry. Nervously, I picked it up and set it on the kitchen counter.

I stood and listened for quite a while, phone at the ready in case there was an intruder and I needed to dial 9-1-1.

After several minutes, I had just about convinced myself it was all in my head. What did I have that was worth stealing anyway? The idea was laughable. If someone intended to burglarize my home, they had to be the stupidest robber alive.

Just to be safe, before I headed back to my bedroom, I grabbed the largest kitchen knife I had from the butcher’s block beside my fridge and cautiously set it on my bedside table.  I locked my door and propped a chair against it for good measure, double-checked the locks on my windows, and fell into a restless slumber.

* * * * * *

In the morning, the star leaned against my bedroom doorframe, just outside my room, upright and angled with impossible precision.

I called Becca.

“That’s… unnerving,” she admitted. “Okay, I’m done joking. Are you absolutely sure you’re not doing this in your sleep?”

“If I’m sleepwalking, I have bigger things to worry about than misplaced ornaments,” I sighed, exhausted.

She hesitated. “Maybe take the star off the tree entirely. Put it away. See if that stops it.”

I agreed.

That evening, I placed the star in my nightstand drawer, shut it firmly, and tugged it, confirming it was sealed.

Hours later, wood scraped.

The drawer glided open.

The star gleamed in the television’s glow.

Before my very eyes, it rose, hovered, and then finally dropped sharply onto the floor.

The crack of plastic meeting hardwood echoed through the room.

I stayed frozen until morning, until finally, sometime after dawn, I slipped into unconsciousness for an hour or so.

When I woke, the star was no longer in my room. Even though my door and windows were still locked, it was gone.

I found it standing upright in the exact center of the living room floor, with its top point aimed deliberately toward my room.

“This isn’t possible,” I murmured.

* * * * * *

Over the next 24 hours, things only escalated.  I heard scratching in the walls—long, measured, purposeful. Clusters of ornaments fell together. Lights on and near the Christmas tree flickered.

I recorded audio that night. In the morning, beneath the hum of the furnace and my shifting in bed, something else moved—a faint rising and falling hiss, too intentional to be random noise. I decided then and there I wasn’t staying at the house a moment longer, not until my landlord, or the police, or someone, figured out what was going on.

Becca was kind enough to let me stay at her place, and so I made plans to head there as soon as possible.

That evening, while packing to stay at my friend’s, a metallic odor drifted from the kitchen. A foreign, chemical tang.

One stove burner hissed, the knob set to LOW, steadily releasing a flow of natural gas into the house. I had no idea how long it had been like this, but the smell was overwhelming, and rapidly giving me a headache, and I began to feel nauseous.

I shut it off, opened the windows, and called the landlord from my porch. He didn’t answer, and so I called Becca.

“I’m coming to your place,” I told her. “Right now.”

“Good,” she said. “Hurry.”

A minute later, I heard the stove click.

I shot a glance at the oven and saw that every burner was set to HIGH, rapid-fire igniter sparks jumping in all directions.

Without thinking, I rushed back inside in a panic and quickly shut off the burners, grabbed my overnight bag, and stepped back onto the porch for air, preparing to leave shortly for Becca’s. The cold steadied my nerves.

That’s when I realized I’d left my keys inside.

I reentered.

As soon as I crossed the threshold, the front door slammed shut behind me, and the deadbolt locked—by itself. I reached for the lock. It wouldn’t budge.

Without thinking, I flipped the hallway light switch.

All I remember was a spark and a blinding white light.

* * * * * *

The blast destroyed everything. My home was a total loss.

First responders said the shockwave appeared to have thrown me into the yard, apparently propelling me through my picture window, thus saving my life. They explained burn patterns, gas concentrations, and thresholds for ignition. I could hardly pay attention.

What I remember most is what I saw in the final image they showed me of what remained of my home’s interior, and of the only thing left standing in the apocalyptic remains of my living room:

The tree, mostly intact, devastation all around it.

With the star back on top, unblemished and gleaming.

I nearly choked.

I hadn’t put it there.

Beside the tree, on the nearby wall, alongside scorch marks, there was a black smudge, different than the charred drywall around it. Darker. In my drug-induced haze, I could have sworn it looked like a person. Or something like a person, inspecting its handiwork.

I answered the police’s questions as best I could as I slipped in and out of consciousness, and they were apparently satisfied I was not an arsonist and that the entire thing was a freak accident.

I never told them about the star.

* * * * * *

Three days later, nurses brought a small decorated tree into the hallway outside my room. They shaped the branches, hung ornaments, and placed a gold star on top, one very similar to the one I’d put on my own tree at home. I shuddered involuntarily at the sight of it.

Becca visited that afternoon. She told me the fire marshal blamed faulty piping.

She followed my gaze to the tree outside my room.

“It’s fine,” she said gently. “Just a decoration.”

But fear isn’t always erased by reassurance.

Later that night, everything was quiet in the ward, with the exception of monitors beeping and the occasional cough at the nurse’s station. There were no carts rolling, no muted conversations. It was still.

Then—

A small clink.

I turned toward the doorway.

The star no longer adorned the tree in the hallway.

It lay on the floor at its base.

A nurse noticed it a minute later, picked it up, and replaced it.

She didn’t notice that it had fallen farther than was possible on its own.

She didn’t notice the hallway lights flickering as she walked away.

But I did.

I didn’t sleep.

Hours passed. The lights dimmed. The silence thickened.

Another clink.

I looked around, and soon found the star, sitting inside my room, centered on the threshold, once again placed with precision.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, as I suddenly felt as if I was being observed.

I scrambled to hit the call button. A minute later, a nurse arrived, and I pointed out the star. Without hesitation, she picked it up and put it back on the tree, never once questioning how it had gotten into my room in the first place. I stammered briefly, trying to express what was happening, but it came out jumbled, and I was told to rest, and that her shift was ending shortly, and to “have a Merry Christmas.” That her replacement would be there shortly to check in with me.

I don’t think I’ll bother telling anyone else about what’s happening. No one will believe me. Even if they do, I’m in intensive care, probably for weeks. What am I supposed to do, ask to be transferred to another room? Another hospital? Another State?

I look around nervously.

In my house, the star moved closer every time, testing its boundaries, before whatever was moving it struck.

Floor. Couch. Bedroom door. Bedside table drawer.

Now it’s here, inside the room.

I don’t know what it wants, but it’s not wasting any time.

The lights just flickered again.

I don’t know where the star will be next.

But I know this: Whatever began in my house didn’t end with the explosion.

And it isn’t finished with me.

Down the hall, in the staff breakroom, I hear the familiar, now ominous click, and I fear the worst.

I reach for the call button and press it as fast as I can.

If I’m able to send this in time and you’re reading it, it wasn’t an accident.

Please, you’ve got to believe me. There are other people here, lying sick and injured. Innocent people with husbands and wives, kids, and friends.

And it doesn’t care how many people it hurts to get to me.

I don’t know what I did. I don’t—

Oh, God.

I smell gas.