At the question of nine‐year‐old Arishka, her father was at a loss. He had no answer…
He wasn’t some priest to expound on God. Vasily was known in the district as a stove-maker, skillful and always eager to work. Assembling a stove was a breeze; but answering such complex questions was beyond the capacity of a peasant’s wit.
The young man himself longed to know why life was so unjust to him. A teetotaler, hardworking, and utterly devoted to his daughter, yet misfortune had not spared him either.
After childbirth, his young wife fell ill and passed away within six months—neither city doctors nor village healers could save her. After the funeral, Vasily and one-year-old Arishka were left completely alone. The young widower had to be both daughter and father, even mother. But he managed, and the little girl grew up a delight to behold—clever and beautiful.
Although they lived in harmony, at night Vasily was tormented by his longing for his wife and by his pity for his daughter. His little girl had already reached the age of ten, yet she grew wild, lacking a mother’s tender care and the attentive gaze of a woman.
But to wallow in sorrow before Christmas was a sin—in a bright holiday one must rejoice, not remember the dead.
Vasily sighed heavily and began to speak to Arishka, trying to distract her from her sad thoughts:
“You see, my dear, the ways of the Lord are inscrutable. Let me teach you how you can always find your way home. Do you see that largest star shining in the sky?”
Arishka lifted her head and admired the beautiful star, which glittered like a large jewel amid a scattering of tiny pearls on the black, velvet sky.
“It is called the Northern Star, or the Midnight Star, because it appears in the sky after midnight. It guides all tardy travelers to their homes. With its help, we shall soon be home, sit down to dinner, and celebrate Christmas,” reasoned Vasily as the steady creak of the sleigh on the paved road accompanied his words.
A little light in the sky seemed to wink at the entranced girl – “Don’t be afraid, I am always with you.”
The father continued to instruct his daughter in wisdom:
“When the Northern Star shines directly in your face, you will surely find your way home. No matter where you are, following it will always lead you there.”
The girl laughed and extended her little hand, trying to touch the shining beauty:
“Little star, bring my beloved mother to me!”
Vasily didn’t even have time to chide his daughter for such an impossible wish. He hadn’t even begun… because something terrible befell the tardy travelers on the deserted road.
Suddenly, in the half-light, a daring whistle sounded, and dark figures surrounded the sleigh. Their twisted, grimy faces, axes in hand, and wild, malevolent glances in the darkness left no hope.
Vasily immediately realized—they had been attacked by robbers who prowled the main road.
He barely managed to yank his daughter from the sleigh into a snowdrift; the dumbfounded Arishka didn’t even understand what had happened. The old man shouted briefly:
“What are you doing, you ruffians!”
and with a groan, he fell under the blow of an axe before his daughter’s eyes—the poor girl, struck with horror, fell silent in the ravine by the roadside.
The white snow instantly darkened from the flow of his blood. The robbers then began to rummage through their victim and his sleigh in search of loot. They quickly stripped away his warm trousers, felt boots, and coat from the motionless Vasily, and tucked away a bundle of money—his earnings for the day—hidden in the stove-maker’s boot.
They stuffed the craftsman’s tools into their bottomless sacks, unhitched the horse from the sleigh, and vanished into the darkness.
The road became quiet and deserted once again, as if the robbers had never been there. Only empty sleighs stood without a horse, their straw bedding in tatters. Nearby, Vasily lay, stripped to the skin, in a pool of scarlet.
Choking on sobs, Arishka climbed out of the snowdrift and rushed to her father:
“Daddy, daddy, wake up!”
He croaked in his final breath:
“Follow the star to the house!”
with that, in a spasm, he collapsed forever on the icy ground of the roadside ravine.
In vain, the girl rubbed his face with her little hands and shook him. He lay heavy and unresponsive to his daughter’s bitter weeping.
When Arisha no longer felt her legs from the cold, she gave in. All she could do was shove bundles of straw under his cooling body, trying to make him lie a little more comfortably.
Then she wandered in the darkness, almost groping along the white track of the winter road, where no traveler remained. Everyone had long since settled in warm huts and houses, celebrating the bright holiday of Christmas.
Tears ran down the girl’s cheeks and froze into icy dew on her lashes. The cold and exhaustion had drained all her strength; she felt an unbearable urge to lie down on the road and sleep under a snowy blanket of frost.
Yet through the cold veil, the guiding star shone, calling to the girl, leading her home.
Arisha staggered, with her remaining strength, toward her village, though she did not understand why. No one was waiting for her there… She was no longer needed or loved by anyone. In an instant, she had become an orphan without both father and mother, destined to be sent to a state orphanage run by strict nuns.
And as if confirming her dark thoughts, the Northern Star blinked and was then obscured by advancing clouds. The world around turned utterly black; the last point of reference for the unfortunate girl had vanished.
In terror, Arishka flailed along the road, awkwardly slipping with her iced-over felt boots along the roadside, and tumbled waist-deep into a deep snowdrift. Helplessly she struggled in the snowy thicket, barely managing to clamber onto a firm surface, and froze in confusion.
Where should she go? In which direction? She had completely lost her way! Her guiding star was gone, and now she would never be able to return home.
Exhausted, the little girl curled up in a ball on the ground and began to await her death. Let her life end here, in the darkness and cold of the deserted road.
After all, nothing good would ever come into her life again. No merry Christmas in a warm home, no festively decorated tree, no gifts crafted by her father’s own hands. No one would ever pat her head, offer a piece of something sweet—no one needed the orphan wretch. She would freeze to death, and no one would even notice…
Then, suddenly, in the pitch darkness, a bright dot flared up again and burst into a white, round star.
With great effort, Arisha got to her feet—she must not give up; she had to get home, just as her father had told her. As long as the star burned, as long as it showed her the way, she would continue through the bitter cold and dreadful darkness.
Step by step, the freezing girl slowly made her way toward the radiant light. How unexpectedly it began to multiply, to grow, flashing new little sparks.
At the sight of the shimmering cluster of stars, a strength arose within Arishka, as if someone had gently taken her hand and led her toward the starlight. Through her frosted lashes she could barely make out these sparks. But they did not fade; they only grew with each step, becoming brighter and larger.
With her last strength, the poor girl veered off the road and followed a path toward the yellow sparks. Life was almost leaving her; her arms and legs would not obey, and her whole body felt as cold as stone.
She managed to pry open her tear-frozen eyelashes, and gasped—the enticing sparks turned out to be little lanterns on a Christmas tree. Before her, in a grand courtyard, stood a tall, lush fir tree. Its green boughs were adorned with shimmering baubles, tiny lanterns with candles inside, long golden strands, sweets, and exquisitely beautiful ornaments.
Arishka swayed, unable to keep her unsteady legs, and fell right into the soft needles. The shining light glimmered above her through the long green branches.
Suddenly, the girl smiled and whispered with her frosted white lips:
“I’m dead! And I’ve gone to heaven.”
She croaked in a hoarse voice:
“Mother!”
In the warm light, a beautiful face with a neat hairstyle appeared above her. A scent, as befits heaven, of sweet ambrosia filled the air. Gentle, feminine hands tenderly embraced the little girl, lifting her from beneath the tree.
“Mother!” Arishka pressed her cheek against something soft and warm, and then sank into a dark, impenetrable abyss.
When she awoke, those gentle hands were still stroking and warming her. It was warm and peaceful to lie under a soft, downy blanket on a featherbed, as if made from a little cloud.
Arisha reached out to the woman who was sitting beside her on the bed:
“Mother, did I die and go to heaven? Will I always be with you now? And is Daddy here too? After all, the robbers on the road killed him. Who will now bury him, Mother? And did I freeze to death on the road?”
The woman in the silky black dress shook her head, her face filled with sorrow:
“Don’t speak so, little one. You are alive—you are at my home.”
Arisha’s once happy eyes dimmed with disappointment, filling with tears; she lowered her head and burst into sobs:
“Was it all a dream? Both the guiding star and the festively decorated tree? It was nothing?! I’m an orphan… a lonely wretch… The half-moon star led me nowhere. What will happen now—will they send me to an orphanage?”
The woman suddenly embraced her warmly and tightly:
“Listen, listen. I do not know your name, but I know that you managed to get through the darkness and the cold to my home. And that is a true miracle! I had prayed to God for this, begging Him long ago to send me His mercy.”
Overwhelmed by tears, Irina choked and fell silent, holding the little foundling close, not knowing how to explain everything that had happened. For before Arisha’s arrival in her estate, the well-to-do lady Irina Gulyaeva considered herself cursed. Anyone in her place would have thought the same.
Her parents had left the young woman a good inheritance, and she had married for love. But her life turned into a series of nightmares; first, her beloved husband was consumed by a painful illness, and then Irina buried her five-year-old daughter—the only joy in her difficult life.
Grief turned Irina into a dark shadow. She wandered for days in her empty house, praying to higher powers for mercy, for someone to give her a purpose in life, to bestow upon her even a drop of happiness amid a string of terrible losses.
On Christmas night, overcome by melancholy, the young woman retrieved bright ornaments and toys from her chests and began to decorate the huge, century-old fir tree growing in the estate’s courtyard.
She hung garlands, lit candles, and smiled. “Let the little lanterns shine as brightly as possible, so that my little daughter in heaven might see this beauty.” Irina lifted her head and gazed hopefully into the dark vault of the sky.
In the firmament, the Northern Star shone brightly, and its light warmed the heart of the inconsolable mother. It seemed to Irina that her daughter was seeing the decorated tree and rejoicing, sending a message from that other world.
The woman hurried back to the house, gathering a bundle of toys and sweets to place under the tree in keeping with tradition. But when she stepped onto the porch, bright, sparkling packages fell from her weakened hands—and along the path toward the warm glow of the lanterns, a thin figure staggered.
Irina gasped:
“My daughter!”
and she dashed, running as fast as she could to the tree.
She scooped up the unconscious little girl and carried her into the house.
By the following evening, after the doctor and the constable—who had been called in the night—had left the estate, Irina already knew the girl’s story: that she had become an orphan the previous night after her father was slain on the road by robbers, and that, by some miracle, the little one had managed to reach the decorated fir tree in the manor’s courtyard in the midst of the bitter cold.
When Arishka awoke, the young woman burst into tears of joy. She suddenly realized that the incredible rescue of the orphan was the mercy for which she had prayed.
Her prayers had been answered, and on Christmas a true miracle occurred—the guiding star led the orphan, who had lost her parents, straight to her home.
At the sight of the child’s tears, Irina held the little one close and whispered:
“You will not be sent to an orphanage and remain an orphan. I will handle the paperwork and adopt you. I have waited for you for so long; you are my miracle!”
For a moment, Arinka was taken aback, then she threw herself into Irina’s arms:
“Mommy! You have finally returned to me! The star has granted the wish!”
Drowning in tender embraces, she wept with overwhelming happiness.
In the dark sky, the bright Northern Star shone once more. It peered through the window of the now-quiet estate, where the young woman and the little girl lay embraced. The tender light of that celestial beauty seeped through the glass, enveloping Irina and her adopted daughter, forever intertwining their destinies.