The clock chimes midnight and Regina sighs to herself.
It’s that day again, why must it come every year?
Once again she’s alone and miserable, just like all the other birthdays that have passed so far, except for a couple when Henry had decided to wish her in the last few years, before it all went horribly wrong.
She sighs again and counts the chimes: nine, ten, eleven…
And then there is a soft tap on her bedroom window which startles her, and a bright golden halo flares outside and flutters like Regina’s heart in that moment. She is too cynical to believe in angels, and even if she did, she knows no angels are ever coming this way — but the light moves, and grows steadier, warmer.
Her heart suddenly pounds, and it’s ridiculous, positively ridiculous! She’s a grown woman — she shakes her head to clear it and strides towards the window and opens it with determined hands, and she had been expecting a lot of things but not this.
Out there on the windowsill is a small chocolate cupcake covered with swirls of vanilla icing, and stuck in the middle is a little, blue, star-shaped candle, and on top of it dances a bright golden flame. And there’s a tiny card which fits snugly in the palm of her hand.
In a loopy, careful script, like the writer tried to make it ornate but failed, it says: Many happy returns. PS. They say that the wishes made upon a blue star are the best and truest wishes.
Regina looks at the little flame on the blue star and the warm light lifts up her heart as the flame flutters in the wind, and she feels it clench inside her chest. Someone remembered, but—
There’s the subliminal rev of an engine and she peers out to see a stout yellow blur speed past her hedges and vanish into the night.
So Regina closes her eyes and makes a wish, her thoughts fixed firmly on the yellow blur as she blows out the candle.