From the rooftop above the laundromat, Priya knew the night sky cold. So she spotted it at once: a tiny blue dot inside Cassiopeia's crooked W, sitting where nothing should be. She checked her star atlas twice, then three different apps. The dot was real to her eyes and to her phone, but it wasn't on any map. Her hands went cold. New stars don't just show up overnight.

Priya decided to stop guessing and just watch it all night. She set her phone to snap a photo every ten minutes. A satellite or plane would streak away fast. A real star would drift slowly with the rest of the sky. She wrapped up in a blanket and waited to see which one it was.

By 2 a.m. the photos told the story: the dot drifted with the real stars, exactly in step. So it wasn't a plane or a satellite. It was fixed up there, like something parked in the sky on purpose. Then Priya noticed the note taped under her own telescope, in handwriting she didn't recognize. "You finally looked. Bring this to your mom."

Priya's mom read the note and started to cry, then laugh. "He always swore he'd find a way to talk to you, even after he was gone." The fake star wasn't counterfeit at all. It was a message from a grandfather Priya never got to meet, finally delivered across years. She watched it through her telescope every clear night after that.