All around the house, laurels had been set out, planted in plaster, blooming forevermore, made out of felt and wire. The original hedge in Unity was said to be the tallest in the Commonwealth, unflagging and hardy, growing taller each year. Jenny ran her fingers over the tiny bees that were attached to the blooms and felt a thrumming in her fingers. She could smell wild ginger and lake water, a rich, damp scent that got into your clothes and your hair and stayed there, stitched to you with muddy thread.
Seeing it all again, the hedgerows and the frayed rugs, the memento case full of arrowheads and the garden gate, Jenny Sparrow realized that all things really did come back to you. Action brought reaction; salt thrown into the wind flew back into your own eyes. It stung more with each passing year; it could blind a person who wasn’t careful. Like it or not, time had passed. What Jenny had feared most of all had already occurred, and there was no way to prevent it or ignore it or deny it had happened.
Stella had turned thirteen.
II.
ON THE WAY TO SCHOOL, Stella hiked up the blue skirt of her uniform and loosened her braids, so that her hair fell down her back, nearly to her waist. Her one and only friend, Juliet Aronson, had informed her that her ashy hair was her best feature. As far as Stella could tell, it was her only good feature, so she might as well flaunt it. Anyway, braids were worn by the kind of girl her mother wished her to be, the sort who wore pink sweaters and was voted class president, who excelled in after-school activities, from the drama club to the Mathletes. Clearly, that was not the sort of girl Stella happened to be.
As soon as she turned off Marlborough Street, Stella stopped on the corner and took a tube of lipstick from her backpack. The shade was called Cheap, a scarlet tint that made her look sullen and out of sorts. It was perfect. Juliet Aronson had told her she looked ten years older when she wore it, and Juliet was an expert when it came to matters of rebellion, makeup, and fate.
Stella rubbed at her temples as she approached the Rabbit School for girls, a place she had despised since kindergarten. She probably would have hated the school even if she hadn’t been a charity case, one of the few scholarship students, an outsider from the time she was five. She forced herself to push through the crowd outside the heavy oak doors, and went to hang her coat in her locker. Standing there, under the fluorescent lights, Stella realized it wasn’t exactly a headache she was experiencing, more like something fizzing inside her brain. All through homeroom she felt exhausted, drained, perhaps, from the fight with her mother, who continued to pry into every aspect of her life, allowing her not the slightest bit of privacy, not even in her dreams.
It had always been impossible for Stella to keep a secret from her mother, or to even attempt to have a private life. If Stella dreamed about walking on the ledge of a tall building, the following morning, over a plate of waffles Stella was all but forced to eat, Jenny would turn the conversation around to a study that documented the fact that everyone had a few irrational fears. If she dreamed about one of the boys at the Cabot School after a dance, one of the many who never even noticed her, the very next morning her mother would announce that Stella did not have permission to date until she was sixteen, as if anyone would ever ask her, as if she’d say no if they did.
“Are you sleepwalking?” Juliet Aronson called to her as Stella made her way through the corridor. “Wait up!”
Because Stella had skipped fifth grade, Juliet Aronson, although in the same class, was a year older. She had short brown hair and gunmetal eyes and enough audacity for two people; she had a knack for getting her own way. There are lessons to be learned in a ruined childhood, and Juliet had learned these well. She had, for instance, convinced the headmistress that a physical therapist had insisted she must wear high heels because of a defect in her spine. The dark fuchsia lipstick Juliet had on? Much needed, due to a reaction to the sun, which caused her to break out in blood blisters without the deep shade to shield her delicate mouth. Now Juliet was clip-clopping after Stella in her two-inch heels; she was out of breath by the time she’d reached her friend by the stairs. “I’ve been calling to you all the way down the hall, birthday girl.”
“I wish I was thirty,” Stella said. “Then I’d be running my own life.”
“You do not wish that. You’d have wrinkles. You’d be all worried about why you weren’t married yet, and why you were wasting yourself on some crappy job or some dopey man who was already married and playing you for a fool. Enjoy your youth, kiddo. Trust me, you’ll be fourteen before you know it. From experience I can tell you it sucks. Here. This will help.” Juliet handed over a shopping bag. “Happy thirteen.”