So it wasn’t her father’s history Stella needed to hide. Now she understood: it was Rebecca Sparrow’s.
“She’s the reason I shouldn’t tell people who I am.”
Hap nodded. “The witch of the north.”
“Absolute bullshit,” Stella said.
Hap looked at her and grinned. “Absolute and total crap,” he agreed.
They had reached the high school; once they went past the crest of the hill on Main Street, it rose up from the athletic field like a mirage. Several school buses idled; masses of students streamed inside the building.
“It’s a lot bigger than my old school,” Stella said. Yikes, she thought. I’m a goner. I can sneak out at lunch and run through the woods and take the three o’clock train back to Boston.
“You’ll be fine.”
“Promise me that.” She tried to laugh. No use.
“Just remember it’s all bullshit,” Hap advised.
He had a way of saying things that made them sound as though they were true. And, in truth, she was fine, at least until lunchtime. As Stella waited on line in the cafeteria, a room that appeared to be larger than the entire Rabbit School, several boys behind her began to whistle and make obnoxious tweeting noises. The song of the sparrow, Stella presumed. Absolutely juvenile.
“Hey, Miss Bird Girl. Let’s see you fly,” someone called out as they waited in the lunch line. There were a few chuckles and several people stared to see what Stella’s reaction might be. Her response: she fervently wished the boys taunting her would fall into Hourglass Lake, headfirst.
The wiseguy approached her. “Seen any dead horses lately?” he asked.
“Only in the burritos,” Stella said evenly. She herself had bypassed the burritos, opting for salad, and now she smiled at the wiseguy’s full, meaty plate. “Watch out. You might choke on that,” she warned.
A second boy, quite handsome, a few years older, with black hair and a bad attitude, came forward. Jimmy Elliot. “Are you threatening him?”
“Me?”
That was a laugh. Stella had spent the entire morning getting lost in hallways that appeared to be endless, trying to make up notes for the half of the semester she’d missed, borrowing loose-leaf paper and pencils from students who hadn’t given her the time of day. At least she’d been partnered with Hap Stewart in earth science for a field project, a good thing, since Stella had never attempted research in the real world before. Now she glared up at the boy with the dark hair; she recognized him as the one who’d called out the window of the car that had nearly run her and Hap off the road. Thankfully, she didn’t see anything about this boy’s future, no death, no tragedy, only his dark eyes.
“Let me guess. You’re a moron who needs tutoring in English and science? You like to offend people and run them off the road? You must be Jimmy Elliot.”
Instead of stalking away or lobbing back an insult, Jimmy Elliot smiled. He seemed surprised and somewhat pleased by her response.
“Good one.” He nodded approvingly. “I guess you do take after old Rebecca.”
Stella had no idea if this comment was meant to be an insult or a compliment. “I’m just a good judge of character,” she informed Jimmy, feeling more flustered than she would have liked.
“I don’t think so,” he told her as he grabbed a serving of burritos. “You’re talking to me.”
INSTEAD OF SETTLING DOWN to her homework when she got back to Cake House in the afternoon, Stella made it her business to find some answers. Her grandmother was preoccupied with a delivery of mulch, which gave Stella the freedom to search the house. She rattled through the pantry, examined the contents of dresser drawers, mucked about in the overstuffed hall closet that was piled high with old rain gear and boots. Still, after several hours, Stella had found nothing worthwhile. Or at least she hadn’t until she came to the parlor. There was so much dust in the room it filled up the streams of light which filtered through the green-tinted windows with small, linty whirlwinds. Stella went to the corner where the bookshelves were. Here, there were editions the library would have loved to place on display, but the books hadn’t been opened for a hundred years, the leather bindings were cracked, the gold letters faded, the crumbling pages gave off the powdery scent of beetle dung and mold.
Stella ran a finger over the spines of the books, then took down an old seashell. She held it to her ear. No sound. No far-off seas. Only spiderwebs and a few dead flies within. She replaced the shell and turned to the draped piece of furniture to her right. The embroidered shawl that cloaked the case was decorated with a thatch of hand-stitched weeping willows and nesting birds, in black thread and brown, surrounded by a border of red cross-stitching, red for protection, and loyalty, and luck. Stella pulled off the coverlet and stood where her father had once been stopped cold, back when he was a wild boy, shocked by what he’d found. Stella rubbed off a circle of grime with the palm of her hand. On a yellowing piece of parchment a date had been written: 1692. In beautiful, curling script were the words: Saved so that we remember Rebecca Sparrow.