Wind rips through the screen mesh of the open window. The zzzzzzzzz wakes me. Oh, a thunderstorm. The first one since my big move out of the city. Lying in bed, I enjoy drifting in and out of sleep in sync with the glare of lightening strikes. I hazily think I should get up and close the windows but I don’t. It’s warm and comfy here under the covers.

The wind gusts. A melodic burst…the tinkling of a glass waterfall, shattering shards cascading with the most delightful melody of stream burbling. Suddenly very awake, I wonder, “ What WAS that?” My dogs quietly sleep in their accustomed places. Their somniferous breathing settles me back down. I conclude I’ll deal with whatever it was by the light of day.

Day dawns and I feel as if I’m dreaming. The Irish crystal from Sligo, so important to me that I had hung it immediately in my new home, the Irish crystal is gone. The fisherman’s line and thumbtack lie on the sill, directly below where the crystal used to catch the sun’s rising light. I look on the floor. Not there. There is a heating grate below the window and I lift that out and take it apart. Nope, not there either. I look through the hole in the floor left by removing the grate which covers an air vent to the room below. Book case is down there so I run downstairs and comb through my already dusty books…No crystal.

No shards.

No glass dust.

No nothing nada.

Running back upstairs, I remember my bureau to the left of the window. The gust had been very powerful. Maybe it flung the crystal off to the side, maybe it fell into a bureau drawer since I rarely push hard enough to close them completely. I empty every drawer of its contents. No crystal.

Now, glancing at the bureau top, I gasp. No crystal, but wonder of wonders, my etched, blue glass barrette, a treasure bought in Galway, is split cleanly in two.

Over the next few weeks, I invite friends to help me search, to puzzle out an answer. Nothing. One friend suggests that the crystal had served its purpose and gone back home to Ireland. That makes mythopoetic sense to me. I purchased it as a talisman while on pilgrimage to Ireland and England. About two days after finding it, I knew when I returned to Montana, I had to find my country retreat center. I had to. That momentous decision came on Spring equinox. Almost exactly six months later, having found the place and made the move, the crystal disappeared.

Ten years later, I’m moving away. As I empty rooms, I remember the crystal. I think it might be found but I hope it won’t be…The mystery inspires me to remember the invisible forces shaping my life.