Lucy took a pencil from behind her ear and scribbled something across the paper. Then she brought the paper close to her face and read out loud. “A six-letter word for accidental, serendipitous. Do you know the answer, Star?” she asked without looking up from the puzzle.
Star hadn’t been in Pine Lake for twenty-four hours, yet in some ways it felt like she’d always been here. And that it was here she should stay. She rubbed her arms. One night, she repeated silently, because once Lucy figured out why her friend had died, she wouldn’t want Star anywhere near her.
“Star?” Lucy said.
She breathed out, squared her shoulders. One night with the feel of her body sinking into a mattress and the warmth and security of a heavy comforter. “If I’m going to sleep in your house tonight, Lucy, I need to be honest about something.”
Lucy raised her eyebrows. “Go on.”
“I hate crossword puzzles.”
“Too bad,” she said, her attention drifting back to the newspaper in her hand. “They make you smarter.” She gestured toward the stove. “Jess left you a dinner plate. I hope you’re not disappointed.”
“By what?”
Lucy smiled. “Her cooking.”
“I heard that, Lucy.” Jess’s voice drifted from somewhere on the second floor.
Lucy made a face, and Star smiled.
She wolfed down three tacos and a bowl of rice and beans in silence, washing her plate in the sink and setting it into the rack to dry. “Um, Lucy?”
Lucy set the paper aside, folding her hands on top of the table. “Tired?”
Star nodded.
“Well, don’t stay awake on my account.” She winked. “Top of the stairs, first bedroom on the left.”
Star wandered out of the kitchen and had one foot on the first step when she heard Lucy’s chair scrape across the floor.
“Do you hate reading too?”
She turned. “I love to read.”
Lucy pointed past the staircase to a short hallway. “Then you’ll like the room at the end of the hall. It’s full of books. Take whatever you like. Books are good company.”
Star’s face burned; the offer stirred something deep inside, reminding her that her only company in the long months she’d spent on the streets had been the occasional book she found left behind on the free shuttle. And books reminded her of her mother, who’d often read to Star when she was too sick to do anything else. She mumbled, “Thanks,” hurried up the stairs, and locked the door behind her.
She studied the room. It was nice, with old polished furniture. Small trinkets straight out of a history book adorned bookshelves and side tables. She traced the edges of a wooden jewelry box, the top inlaid with a thin strip of pearl. Lucy’s antiques must be worth a lot of dough.
A length of thin white fabric had been laid across the middle of the bed. She picked it up and held it to her shoulders. A nightgown with a hem that reached her ankles. It looked like something a settler living in a one-room mountain cabin might have worn. The voluminous folds of material brushed against her skin when she pulled it on.
A few minutes later, Star snuggled under the comforting weight of the quilt. Her body sank into the mattress, and she stretched out her legs, wiggled her toes, and tried to absorb the sensation of something soft beneath her bones.
The floor outside her door creaked from labored footsteps, and her eyes flew open, her body tensed. She curled her hands into fists and inched up into a sitting position with her back against the headboard and her eyes trained on the door. She didn’t fall asleep until the house had been quiet for hours.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
STAR
In the morning, she pushed the covers aside, yawned, and wiggled her toes. Sleep hadn’t come quickly, but when it had, she’d slept hard without waking until her eyes fluttered open to the glow of an early-morning sun. That kind of sleep didn’t happen on the streets. Not when the nights were fractured by voices raised in anger or frigid air that froze her fingers or the stinging heaviness of a numb foot.
She yawned, stretched her legs long in front of her, and shook her head; without the weight of her hair, the air brushed easily across her scalp. Her eyes roamed, taking in the dark wood wardrobe, an antique mirror, and heavy silk curtains that covered the floor-to-ceiling window.
From the door came a soft rustle, and she scooted her feet back onto the bed. A yellow square of paper inched under the door and into the room. Lucy was a big fan of notes.
Star set her feet on the wood floor and tiptoed across the room. A sticky note with black script in Lucy’s unmistakable handwriting read:
Open the door
She put a hand on the knob, hesitated. What would today bring? There was only one way to find out. She squared her shoulders and opened the door. Another dress hung from the doorknob. She pulled it into the room and shut the door, twisting the lock closed.
Stuck to the dress was a sticky note.
For you, it read.
The dress was blue with tiny green flowers scattered across the cuffs and hem and cinched at the waist by a thin leather belt. She swallowed. She understood suspicion and mistrust. But this? She shook her head. She had little experience with kindness. After her mom died, her dad was lost, unable to pay all the hospital bills. The bits and pieces she remembered were soaked in the sweet musk of liquor coming from her dad’s breath. It didn’t take long before he stopped being kind the minute the bottle was empty, and then later, when the drugs wore off. The foster homes weren’t all bad, some better than others, but there were so many of them, fifteen in all by the time she decided to run.
She looked at the dress again, shrugged. Then again, who was she to turn down free clothes? The dresses were impractical for the streets, but she would change back into her other clothes before she left that afternoon.
She tightened the belt of the dress, slipped the rock and the note into her sock, and opened the door. From downstairs came the clink of pans and the hiss of popping grease. The sweet aroma of frying sausage made her mouth water. She hurried to the stairs, but a soft thump, followed by Lucy’s muffled voice, stopped her. She pulled herself away from the direction of food and walked lightly toward the bedroom where the noise had come from. She peered inside.
Lucy stood beside a huge four-poster bed. Her hair floated around her head, and a black nightgown draped her stooped frame. It looked very similar to the white one Star had worn last night. Lucy bent over, one hand resting heavily on a side table, her other hand reaching toward the floor to where an oblong eyeglasses case lay half under the bed by her feet.
Star moved swiftly into the room. “I can get that for you,” she said.
Lucy eased her body into a chair by the bed. “Be careful, then.”
Star narrowed her eyes at Lucy’s odd warning. But the old woman had busied herself with a crossword puzzle, and when Star bent down to pick up the case, she gasped. It was gone.
She pulled up the red-and-gold bed skirt to look under the bed. There it lay, just out of reach. Lucy must have kicked it when she sat down. Holding the bed skirt up with one hand, Star slid her fingers under the bed, feeling around for the smooth leather case. But all she felt was empty space and the carpet beneath her fingertips. She bent lower to get another view, but the case appeared to have moved farther away.
Some trick of the light, she figured, ignoring the way her scalp prickled. She lay on her belly and stuck her head and then shoulders under the frame. But the distance lengthened like in one of those mirrors where the proportions were all wrong, and the floor beneath the bed felt cold through the thin fabric of her dress.
She fought the urge to retreat, but the case was within reach now, so she moved forward, propelled by a sudden desire to do one good deed for Lucy.
Something slid over the scratchy wool rug. Her ears tickled with the sound. She wasn’t alone. Her head shot up and banged against the metal support of the bed. “Ow!” she said, and the sound of her own voice made her feel silly. Why was
she acting like such a child? She and Jazz used to play hide-and-go-seek all the time, and her favorite place to hide was inside a small space. She was so small then that she could curl up into a tiny ball. Jazz almost never found her. But she was bigger now, and the confined space and darkness suffocated her, made her pulse beat in her ears. It was so dark that the only light was a thin line shooting out from under the dust ruffle. Silly or not, she wanted to get out of there.
She scrambled backward, unmindful of her skull cracking against the heavy side rail. When she finally emerged into the warm light of Lucy’s bedroom, she rolled onto her back, one hand to her chest, her breath coming in ragged huffs. Lucy stood above her, staring at her with bright-blue eyes.
“Thank you,” Lucy said.
Star stared up at her, dumbfounded. “For what?”
Lucy pointed to the floor. “My case.”
She turned her head to the side. The glasses case lay beside her on the floor.
Lucy chuckled and reached for the case. Star handed it to her with shaking hands as she sprang to her feet and backed away from the bed.
“I told you to be careful,” Lucy said, and settled into her chair.
Tremors racked Star’s body, and she tried to make sense of what had happened.
Lucy perched her glasses on the tip of her nose and read from the paper in her hand. “A six-letter word for an unnatural ending . . .” She pursed her lips, looked up at Star. “Oh, that’s right. You don’t like puzzles.”
Star’s tongue felt swollen and stuck to the roof of her mouth. She pointed to the bed. “I-I thought something was under—”
“Someone,” Lucy said.
Star rubbed her arms. The room felt electric. “What did you say?”
“A boy, to be exact.” Lucy tilted her head to the side. “Do you know what he wants?”
Star backed farther away until her hips touched the doorframe. Her leg muscles twitched. “What he wants?”
Lucy tapped the eraser end of her pencil on the newspaper. “He’s here because of you, Star.”
“B-because of me?”
Lucy sighed, tapped the tip of her pencil on the arm of the chair. “A loose end is always more complicated than it first appears.” Her attention fell back to the paper in her hand. With another sigh, she scribbled letters into a row of small boxes. “I can help you find out,” she said.
Star clenched her jaw. She should run—flee from this woman and her haunted house and from whatever Lucy thought was hiding beneath her bed. If she were a normal kid like Jeremy, maybe she would. “H-how can you help me?”
“He wants something from you.” Lucy’s eyes were trained on her crossword puzzle. “I can help you find out.”
“What does he want?”
Lucy tapped a finger on her chair. “Exactly!”
A coppery tang stung the tip of Star’s tongue. Without realizing it, she’d ripped a fingernail past the quick. Star bent forward, placed her hands on her knees. An image popped into her mind of the boy playing hide-and-go-seek behind Lucy the first time she met her and the boy who threw a rock at Shred and then disappeared behind the dumpster. She shook her head to try to shake the stupid thought loose.
But then she recalled Lucy’s words from the day before. It’s your loose end. Lucy claimed to see things. But what kinds of things? Star shivered and glanced at the bedside clock. Enough time to catch the morning bus if she left now.
“You’re safer here, Star, than out there.”
“Safer here?” Her finger shook when she pointed to the bed. “From what?”
Lucy waved a dismissive hand at the bed. “From all of it.”
Star opened her mouth. Then shut it just as quickly. How could Lucy promise her that? Her options were limited. She thought of the attack and the boy, Shred, who wouldn’t leave her alone now if she went back. She’d been so stupid to think she was better than those kids. Her father hadn’t been. What made her think she was any different? Her eyes darted to the bed. Lucy said she could help find out what the boy wanted. Star shook her head. Impossible. There was no boy. Star had just scared herself under the bed, and Lucy obviously had a screw loose. There was nothing more to it than that. Except how could she explain the note? You watched your best friend die.
Star breathed in, lifted her chin. “How did you know about my friend?”
Lucy stabbed her pencil into the air. “That’s the right question!”
Star sucked in her bottom lip. “Did you talk to my caseworker?” Brenda had been the latest one, young, shiny red hair, stylish black-framed glasses, wore a new outfit every time they met. Nice enough and convinced she could change the world, or at least Star’s world. She felt a little bad for Brenda. But she didn’t know about Jazz. At least Star didn’t think she did.
“I’ve already told you,” Lucy said, interrupting her thoughts. “It’s what I do.”
“What is?”
Lucy sighed and set the paper in her lap. “The loose ends.” She tapped her temple. “I see them. And you have more than one. Now that one”—she nodded toward the bed—“is nothing to worry about. At least, I don’t think so.” She raised her eyes to look at Star over her reading glasses. It made the wrinkles in her forehead spread up and out. “But if you’d like some advice from an old lady, stay a little longer and see what happens. I’d like to help you if I can.” She smiled, then lowered her eyes to the puzzle, her lips moving as she read herself a clue.
Star smoothed the dress that Lucy had given her, thought of the walk around the lake yesterday, the full night of sleep, and—her stomach rumbled—the food. Lucy might be a little off her rocker, but Star knew for a fact that there were crazier people on the streets. With nothing good waiting for her in Denver, why would Star leave the one person in the world who wanted to help her?
She bit the inside of her cheek. The truth was that she didn’t want to go back. Even the thought made her stomach turn. Despite everything she couldn’t explain about Lucy, Star didn’t want to sleep under another bench tonight. Not yet, anyway. “Okay, I’ll stay for now,” she said. “But only for a little while.”
“You told her she could stay?” came Jess’s stunned voice from behind her.
Star turned to find Jess standing in the middle of the hallway, clutching a white tray with a plate of scrambled eggs and sausage and a glass of orange juice. Jess stared past Star, her skin pinched into frown lines around her mouth. “You don’t know anything about her, Lucy.”
Lucy’s face lit up, and she laughed. “I know!”
A chill rippled across Star’s skin.
She was staying.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
JESS
She scrubbed at the frying pan, pushing hard against the metal to dislodge bits of sausage stuck to the bottom. She was speechless after hearing Star tell Lucy she wanted to stay. Just that morning, before Star woke up, Jess had made a point to talk to Lucy about the girl. To convince her that there was a system in place for kids like her and that it would be in everybody’s best interest to call the authorities.
Somebody’s worried about her, Jess had argued. We should encourage her to contact her family. Or at the very least, let them know she’s okay. Any mother deserves at least that, she’d said, and her voice sounded small and broken when she said it.
But Lucy just shook her head. Nobody’s missing that girl, she’d said almost cruelly, and turned back to her crossword puzzle. Matter closed.
And now Star wanted to stay, and from the way she flitted about the kitchen, she was happy with her decision. After wolfing down her breakfast in minutes, Star paced about the kitchen in a restless dance. She fingered the Post-it notes on the fridge, pulled at the phone’s long cord, and finally paused in front of the calendar.
“What’s the Mountain Market?” she asked.
Jess scrubbed harder at the pan. She had mixed emotions about Star’s presence. She couldn’t send the girl back to the streets, but legally she was a runaway, and Lucy could get into trou
ble for not calling social services. Besides, someone had to be looking for Star. Like her mother. The thought made Jess’s eyes itch.
Lucy was offering Star a safe place to stay, and while Jess had no problem getting the girl off the streets, she hated that Lucy was misleading her. Star couldn’t stay here. To Jess it felt wrong to dangle the promise of a home in front of a kid who’d hit rock bottom. Especially when that promise couldn’t be kept.
She felt a tap on her shoulder. “Hard of hearing, Jess?”
Jess turned the faucet off, wiped the pan dry, then set it on the rack next to the sink. Star stood behind her, leaning her hip against the counter. Despite her rough existence, her skin still had the vulnerable glow of youth.
“I asked you about the Mountain Market.”
Jess nodded. “It’s a small grocery store on Main Street. You must have seen it when you came into town yesterday. Lucy owns it, but today is the only day of the week she opens it for business.”
“That’s weird.”
Yes, it was. Jess had been to the market only once more since she first arrived. Lucy had taken her for a couple of hours on Friday morning to give her the lay of the land before the big day. Jess had spent the time cleaning, organizing shelves, and wondering how many customers came into the rustic market. Judging from the amount of dust and the expiration dates, not many. But a few did trickle in, acting surprised but happy to find the store open. Like the woman in a blue winter hat and sunglasses who’d entered through the back door when Jess was making coffee. Jess had jumped, spilling the coffee grounds across the white counter.
Sorry, the woman had said, frowning, then entered Lucy’s office without even knocking. She’d left thirty minutes later without the hat or sunglasses on and her face split into a grin. Jess had given her one blueberry muffin to go, wrapped in a paper towel as Lucy had instructed her to do with all her customers. Except, like that woman, not a single customer who came in that morning purchased anything.
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