The Secrets of Lost Stones

by Melissa Payne

  STAR

  The clock read seven o’clock. Star smiled and poured herself a mug of coffee. It was only her second morning of school, but she couldn’t wait to start the day, hopping out of bed as soon as her eyes opened.

  She wandered out to the front steps to take in the sunrise and sat down, placing her mug on the step beside her. The eastern sky was cobalt except for a sliver of raspberry across the horizon. She sipped her coffee and thought about Chance. Every Saturday they used to meet in the fort. It was the only thing she had to look forward to, and Jazz was always there. Except once.

  She’d made him a card for his birthday. One she’d decorated at school with markers and glitter and colored glue. She’d never given anybody a birthday card before, and she remembered how her chest had puffed up with pride. She couldn’t wait to give it to him.

  But her father had stopped her from leaving. If you’re lying to me, Star, we’re both dead. His eyes bugged wide open and darted between her and a pile of baggies and money on the couch. He inhaled a cigarette, and the red embers danced up and down in the bluish dark.

  She looked away. It was always better to look away.

  Her father grabbed her chin between his fingers and squeezed until she met his eyes. The skin around his fingertips was yellow and cracked, and his fingers smelled gross. She tried not to wrinkle her nose.

  We need the money, understand? If I don’t get the money he owes me, we’re dead either way. So tell me again, are you sure?

  He squeezed her face so hard she felt something pop in her cheek, and her eyes filled with tears. She didn’t want to answer him because her father was mean and the man was nice. Please don’t hurt him.

  When he released her, she grabbed her card and one of the bonsai trees and ran out of the apartment, feeling sick and looking over her shoulder in case he chased her. Chance wasn’t at the fort, so she sat on the quilt and waited, hiding the card and tree behind her. When he finally showed up, it was only for a moment, and what Star remembered the most was how his smile stretched from ear to ear and that her throbbing cheek hurt too much to smile back.

  I can’t play today, Star. My mom’s taking me to breakfast, and then we’re going to a movie. Can you come over later and make cookies with us?

  He looked so happy that Star almost started to cry. She pushed her stupid card under her legs and shook her head.

  His face fell. Oh, okay, but if you change your mind, come over. And he left.

  Happy birthday, Jazz, Star called softly, except the door had already closed, and he didn’t hear her.

  The sky had lightened, and Star wiped a hand across her eyes. She did change her mind, but it had made everything worse.

  The sun arced above the horizon then, shattering the night sky with rays of color. She kept fooling herself thinking that Chance would want her to have anything to do with his mother. She knew better. And sooner or later she was going to have to face the truth.

  She sipped the last of her coffee and stood. Jeremy would be here soon, and Star wanted to go to school.

  She was heading for the kitchen to refill her cup when Lucy’s muffled voice called to her.

  “In the library, Star,” she said.

  When she reached the library door, it swung open before her fingers touched the wood. Star breathed out and took a step inside. Lucy sat on the couch, the curtains on the window behind her drawn tightly closed. The chandelier burned bright, thick fingers of light reaching into the corners.

  “You’re awake early,” she said, and sat down opposite Lucy, stuffing her hands under her thighs to hide the shaking. Lucy knew something; otherwise, Star and Jess and Chance wouldn’t all be here together, and it was only a matter of time before it would all come out.

  “Do you have any questions for me?” Lucy said.

  Star shrugged.

  Lucy folded her blue-veined hands loosely in her lap. She wore the black dress Star remembered from the first day they met. Her hair was not in its typical bun but was brushed out until it lay flat against her head. She raised her eyebrows. “I’m not going to ask the questions.”

  Star cleared her throat. “I’m a loose end.”

  Lucy nodded.

  “And m-my friend is one too.”

  Lucy nodded again.

  “But how do you know when the loose ends are tied up?”

  Lucy threw her hands in the air. “What a wonderful question!”

  Star waited expectantly, but Lucy didn’t say anything more. Her nerves felt shot. “Well?”

  “It’s not my job to tell you, only to bring you together. But I can tell you with certainty that you already know.”

  A bead of sweat ran down her back. “Know what?”

  “What he wants.”

  “I’m not sure I do,” she said. “Does he t-talk to you?”

  “Not the way you think. I know very little about him. But he’s shrouded in shadow, which means he’s angry about the way he died.”

  “It was an accident,” she said, and her voice shook.

  Lucy pursed her lips. “He disagrees.”

  She hunched forward, chewed on a nail.

  “Questions, Star.”

  She sat up straight. Fuck it. It was time she stopped being a coward. “Am I supposed to tell Jess—”

  Lucy held up her hand. “Not yet.”

  Star wrinkled her forehead, angry that she was being silenced after she finally got the nerve to ask, but also relieved. “Why not?”

  “She was cut so deep, poor thing. It takes time to heal.”

  She inhaled through her teeth. “But I’m ready to talk about Chance.”

  “Of course you are.” Lucy waved a hand as though to dismiss Star’s protests. “I was wrong to be so rash. These things take time.”

  A soft knock on the door interrupted them.

  “Come in,” Lucy said.

  Jess poked her head around the door. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, yes. Bring it here.”

  Star narrowed her eyes.

  Jess entered the room, a frown tugging at the corners of her mouth. Lucy opened her palm, and Star watched as Jess laid something silver and shiny in her hand.

  “I only made the one copy,” Jess said. “So don’t lose it.”

  “Lose what?” Star tried not to sound defensive, but she felt oddly exposed, vulnerable. She squinted, trying to see what Lucy held, but Lucy closed her fingers around the object.

  “Close your eyes and open your hand, Star,” she said.

  She did, trying to push down a swell of anticipation. Don’t be silly, she chided. It’s probably a bus ticket back to the city. But Lucy made everything exciting, and Star couldn’t stop her toe from tapping the floor. Something cold and light dropped into her palm.

  “For you.”

  She opened her eyes, and her skin tingled. A key. Small and silver with tiny grooves along the top. It hung on a short key chain that connected to a tiny charm of a blue star.

  “A key?” she said, looking from Lucy to Jess. “What does it open?”

  Lucy laughed. “The house, silly girl! So you don’t have to wait for me or Jess to open the door for you.”

  Jess stood above them, her arms crossed, a slight wrinkle in the space between her eyebrows. “This doesn’t change anything, okay? At some point we’ll need to contact somebody—”

  Lucy interrupted her with a long, winded sigh that came out with surprising volume and seemed to grow as it traveled up the library’s high ceilings. Star had to press her lips together to keep from giggling.

  “Enough of that for now, Jess, please,” Lucy said. “I think we all get the point.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  Star let her eyes fall back to the key in her hand, felt a lump inch its way up her throat until she thought she might choke.

  “I’ve never had a key before,” she said.

  Lucy patted her knee before rising slowly to her feet.

  Star fingered the tiny medallion. “You put a star on it
too.”

  Lucy smiled. “I only asked for a key. Jess is the one who dressed it up.” She turned, and her skirts whispered around her when she walked out of the library.

  Star let her eyes roam back to Jess, who hadn’t moved from where she stood by the couch. But Star saw something soften in her eyes, a brightness that quickly disappeared. “Don’t lose it,” she said, and left the room.

  She ran upstairs to her bedroom with the key still grasped in her hand, liking the way the metal felt cool against her skin. A pink-and-green camo backpack rested against her doorframe with a sticky note attached to the front. For school, it read. Star picked it up, slid her arms into the straps, and pulled it snug to her back. Her heart pushed against her chest, like it might grow too big for her body. She breathed in and tried to get a grip on the excitement that made her rock back and forth on her heels. Time for school.

  She turned to leave, hesitated. Out of habit she still put the rock from Chance in her sock, but today it felt heavy and uncomfortable. She held the key in one hand, the rock in the other. The key made her smile. She squeezed her palm around the rock until it felt like the bones of her hand might splinter with the effort. Then she opened the drawer of her bedside table and tossed the rock inside. It landed with a thump on top of the note.

  Almost immediately her breath seemed to flow easier, like the rock had sat on her chest. She closed the drawer with a smile, readjusted her backpack, and hopped down the stairs. In her heart she knew she couldn’t ignore Chance forever, but for now she had to get to school.

  “Star, what do you want to be when you grow up?” Maryellen Foster asked the question from where she stood by the window of the classroom. If it could be called a classroom, since it was like no class that Star had ever seen. The walls were painted a vivid purple with hand-drawn flowers in bright orange and soft pinks. Beanbags covered the floor, along with yoga mats and blankets. There were desks, too, but as Mrs. Foster had pointed out on her first day, desks were for writing, not for learning. There was even a small trampoline in the corner where Jeremy said Luke jumped up and down while multiplying numbers in his head.

  “Mom,” Jeremy pleaded. “We’re not toddlers.”

  Mrs. Foster smiled warmly. “I’ll rephrase. What career path are you considering?”

  Star hadn’t come up with an answer yet, because she hadn’t given that part of her life much thought. “I don’t know,” she said at last.

  “Then answer this question first: What do you love?”

  Without hesitation, Star said, “To read.” And then a thought came to her that made her lower her eyes, suddenly shy. “A writer?” she said so quietly she hardly heard herself.

  “The kind who writes books?”

  “Um, maybe? Or maybe someone who does the news or writes the news.” She reddened. “Whatever that’s called.” Star looked down at her hands on the desk, unsure and a little embarrassed by how stupid her answer sounded.

  “A journalist?” Mrs. Foster said, tapping her finger on her chin. “Do you mean someone who interviews people and writes articles?”

  Star shrugged. “I guess.”

  “I can see that,” Jeremy said.

  “Me too. You’ve got the curiosity and I suspect the tenacity for that kind of job.” Mrs. Foster clapped her hands. “Okay, your assignment then. I want you to read articles. And not the kind you find online. I want you to read articles from actual newspapers.”

  “Mom, what do you have against the internet?”

  “Not a thing. But if Star wants to be a journalist, then she needs to have an appreciation for how it used to be done before tweets, news bites, and Facebook.”

  Jeremy groaned. “Facebook, Mom? Who even uses that anymore?”

  Star giggled.

  Mrs. Foster ignored her son and looked to Star. “I bet Lucy has a bunch of old papers lying around in that house of hers.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  JESS

  The days since Star’s arrival had melted into one another, creating a routine both natural and bizarre. The front door opened, then slammed shut, rattling the dishes Jess had set to dry on a rack by the sink.

  “Sorry!” Star called, appearing in the kitchen. She flopped into a chair, flinging her bag onto the table, where its contents spilled across the surface.

  “Algebra already?”

  “I know!” Star giggled. “Apparently I have”—she curled her fingers into air quotes—“a natural ability.”

  Jess had reservations about Star going to Jeremy’s homeschool, knowing that it was only one more attachment that would hurt the girl when she had to leave. But Lucy had shamed her when she brought it up.

  You’d deny the girl an education?

  Jess had reddened, and she’d tried to switch tactics. What if Jeremy’s parents find out who Star really is?

  Lucy shook her head, looking disappointed. Star is happy. Can’t you see that?

  Jess couldn’t argue with her. Lucy was right. Star was happy. When she came home from school, she attacked her books, often reading and studying until late into the evening. When Jess asked if she’d always been this serious at school, Star had shrugged and said, “I don’t know.” Last night she had fallen asleep sitting up with a pencil in her hand. Jess had woken her with a tap on the shoulder, sending her off to bed with a gentle admonishment to get more sleep.

  Jess set a bowl of popcorn and a can of soda on the table beside where Star sat hunched over her mess of papers, her finger tracing the lines of text in her math book.

  A few papers slipped off the edge and fluttered quietly to the floor. As Jess knelt to retrieve them, she studied Star. Sleep and regular meals had filled in the hollowness of her cheeks, erased the dark smudges beneath her eyes. Apart from her hairstyle, she looked much like any other teen living in this mountain town.

  Star cleared her throat, her forehead wrinkling. With a start, Jess realized she still knelt on the floor, the papers grasped in her hands.

  “What’s wrong with your mouth, Jess?” Star slid a pencil behind her ear.

  “What do you mean?” She pushed to her feet, dropping the pages on the table.

  “The corners. They started to curl upward.” Star’s hands flew to her chest. “I-I-I think it was the beginning of a smile. Quick! Run to the mirror! You might catch the tail end of it.”

  “If only I’d known that school would make you an even bigger smart-ass.” Jess swatted her playfully with a dish towel, and Star threw her head back with a laugh.

  With a lingering grin, Star turned back to her work, the tip of her tongue peeking out from between her lips as she concentrated on a math problem. But Jess found herself rooted to the floor, wringing the dish towel between her hands and staring at the back of Star’s bent head. Star was fifteen. An in-between age, she could tell from the days she’d spent around her. How she flipped so easily between a wisecracking young woman to a girl who giggled like a child. She brought the dish towel to her heart, held it there in a crumpled ball.

  And then she was standing behind Star’s chair, looking down at the spiky ends of her hair, the smooth skin of her neck. Jess tried to turn away, but her hand was already reaching out, her fingers brushing the hard curve of Star’s bony shoulder.

  Star jumped, and her pencil clattered onto the table. “You scared me!” she said, turning around in her seat.

  Jess gently took hold of Star’s thin arm and pulled her to her feet until she stood opposite her.

  Star narrowed her eyes. “This is weird.”

  It was. But Jess couldn’t stop herself, and without a word she put her hands on either side of Star’s shoulders. Star stiffened, but Jess only wrapped her arms around her, pulling her in until she enveloped Star’s small frame in an awkward hug. They stood like that, frozen, stiff armed, until after another moment Star relaxed, leaning her full weight into Jess.

  Jess exhaled and laid her chin on top of Star’s head. They didn’t move or speak, the light plink of water dripping slowly
from the kitchen faucet the only sound in the small kitchen.

  Their breathing synchronized. It felt natural: the feathery weight of Star in her arms, the sinkful of dishes behind them, the math book lain open across the worn kitchen table. She squeezed her wet eyes shut and fought an overwhelming urge to tell Star that everything was going to be okay. But that would be nothing more than a cruel joke, because she couldn’t promise her anything. And Jess was not the type to lie.

  “You were a great mom, Jess.”

  Star’s words, spoken into her shoulder where her face rested, doused the intensity of her thoughts like she’d slipped into an icy snowbank. She pulled away, wiping her hand across her face, and turned her back to Star, busying herself with washing a bowl she’d already cleaned. Lucy must have said something to Star, and Jess couldn’t help but feel violated by it.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  Jess turned. Star leaned against the counter by the sink, her arms folded, her chin raised slightly, and her face echoing the toughness from when she’d first arrived. Jess softened. The girl could have no idea how much it hurt, and she certainly couldn’t blame her for Lucy’s blabbermouth. “It’s okay. I didn’t tell Lucy to keep it to herself. It’s just . . . it’s hard for me to talk about him.”

  “Well, thank you,” Star said softly.

  “For what?”

  “You know.”

  “You looked like you needed a hug,” Jess said, her voice hoarse. “Algebra can be frustrating.”

  Star glanced down at the floor and then back up, looking almost shy for a moment. “I want to show you something.”

  Jess followed her into the sitting room, where she stopped in front of the large window by the antique radio.

  Star fidgeted, her eyes big and dark, face devoid of emotion, and Jess realized that she was nervous. Then she moved to the side, and Jess gasped. Chance’s bonsai tree and Mr. Kim’s, all three of them, were alive. More than alive—they looked like they had made a marked improvement. She looked from the trees to Star, but she found she couldn’t speak right away, so she cleared her throat. “Did you do this?”

  Star nodded, biting her lip.