A certain kind of starli.., p.28
A Certain Kind of Starlight, page 28
A tear spilled down my face. “I don’t want you to go.”
Her gaze slid back to the birds. “I won’t ever be far, peanut. I promise you. One day I’ll be watching over you same as them. And I want you to remember that I love you and your sister more than anything in the world. Even more than all the stars in the sky.”
I just kept shaking my head.
“I reckon the birds are making a fuss because I’m going to show you something that you’re not supposed to know until after I’m gone. I’m bending the family rules, and I don’t care a whit if it ruffles their feathers,” she said loudly, banging the cane twice against the ground for good measure.
When she started walking again, I followed, wiping my eyes. “Showing me something at the crater?”
“Near the crater.”
We walked in silence for a stretch. I was having trouble catching my breath, all tangled up in grief. I tried telling myself over and over that she was still here, but it seemed like my heart wouldn’t listen to reason.
“Here we are,” she said ten minutes later, coming to a stop a stone’s throw from where the star had fallen so long ago.
I glanced around expecting some sort of aha moment. But all I saw was tall grass, weeds, and an old hand-cranked water pump.
Bean said, “Last night your mama shared with Addie and me that your granddaddy pressured you to bake cakes like mine and you failed time and again. I hadn’t known. So today, we’re going to bake a cake together.”
The thought alone made my stomach hurt. “I don’t think that—”
“Hush now. Did you use one of my bottles of vanilla extract when you made your cakes?”
“No, ma’am. But I used a similar kind my mama ordered in special. It didn’t make any difference.”
“That’s what I figured. Well, today I’ll show you why those cakes never tasted the same as mine. It starts with me teaching you how to collect a special ingredient, the one you didn’t use in the cakes you made for your granddaddy.”
I smiled despite myself. “Unicorn tears?”
She laughed, and I lost myself in the sound for a moment. “Not quite. It’s the taste of magic.” She beamed. “Starry magic.”
I was intrigued by her tone, a mix of wonder and delight.
She slipped a silver hip flask from her coat pocket and handed it over. “Hold this.”
I took it from her and watched her every move. But as she strode toward the pump, something in the tall grass distracted her and she took a detour. “What’s this now?” She bent down and picked up what looked like a silver stick. “Well, I declare!”
“Is that a mouth mirror? Like a dentist uses? How’d it get out here?”
“It is indeed. And I know exactly where it came from. Last night, when Addie was trying to keep my mind off … things, she shared that Sawyer told her how the starlings had scared off several men this week sitting on the edge of the starlight crater at twilight, all of them holding one of these doohickeys. One of the trespassers must’ve dropped it when he ran off.”
As she tucked the mirror into her coat pocket, a shaft of sunlight hit the glass and flashed back at me. I blinked against the light and nearly gasped as the truth hit me.
A flash of light at twilight. A wink. A blink.
The reflection of light off the mirror had to have been the sparkle I’d seen from the attic window. I felt so foolish that I hadn’t questioned the timing of seeing a glint after all these years. I should’ve known my granddaddy would do and say anything to get his hands on this land. Including using my fascination with Abner’s journal against me.
I couldn’t help wondering why he’d go to the trouble. Did he think that if I saw a sparkle, I’d be eager to dig for diamonds? Or be willing to let others pay to do it?
Most likely, which showed how little he truly knew me.
I hadn’t been looking for a twinkle because I wanted to sell the stones. I’d been looking because I’d felt as though Abner had been a kindred spirit. A kind soul in a hard world.
Because no one else did, I’d chosen to believe him when he said there were diamonds.
And now I wasn’t sure what to believe.
Bean said, “What I don’t rightly understand is why Winchester would be sending men out here to sit and play with a mirror. Because you know this had to have been one of his schemes.”
“I’m done trying to figure him out,” I said, too embarrassed to admit that I knew the reason why.
“Rightly so,” she said after a moment that stretched, as though she wanted to say more. Then she walked over to the pump. “Now, this is easy as pie to operate, peanut.” Aunt Bean pushed down the lever, then lifted it back up. After a few pumps, water started trickling out, and she motioned to the flask in my hand with her chin. “Fill ’er up, Tessa Jane!”
I twisted the cap off the flask and held it out, angling the mouth under the spout. When water started to overflow onto my hands, Aunt Bean stopped pumping. “Whoo-ee. It’s been a long time since I’ve done that. Usually Sawyer collects the star water when I need it.”
I capped the flask. “Star water?”
She kicked the stem of the pump, which sat on a cement ring. “This here is the head of an old well, hand dug after one of your ancestors realized that when they drank runoff water from the starlight field, life seemed a whole lot brighter.”
My eyes widened. “You use this well water in the cakes?”
“I use it in the vanilla extract—after filtering and boiling of course. No need for anyone to get any stomach nasties. And I’ll let you in on another secret as well.” She slid a glance toward the starlings, then dropped her voice. “Suppose when you were just a wee baby, a teeny tiny thing with delicate pink lips and big blue eyes, someone maybe, might’ve, possibly bathed you in the star water, downy head to tiny toe, a Fullbright custom that goes way back. And perhaps that bath is what’s believed to give the women in our family the ability to see bright sides.” As the starlings started trilling, she added loudly, “Hypothetically, of course.”
It took me a moment to fully understand what she was saying. All our gifts were from the water. No. From the star that had fallen so long ago.
Bean reached over and lifted my pendant, balancing it on her fingertip. “And because sometimes the dark side of life can overwhelm us, we’re given extra help to see the light. Yours and Addie’s necklaces have been soaked in the water, the same way my mama dipped my watchband in it.”
My eyes widened, and I latched onto my pendant. No wonder my ability to see bright sides had waned after I stopped wearing it. Without it, my shadow truly had taken over, only allowing me brief glimpses of brightness.
“How come I’ve never heard all this before? About the power of the star water? Does Addie know?”
She looped her arm around mine and we started back to the farmhouse, the wind blowing gently, the flask of water in my pocket.
“She doesn’t yet. Traditionally, this is information that’s passed down in death from one generation to the next, but I decided today’s the day we break the rules. You needed to know, to set your heart at ease about those cakes.”
Learning about the water had already helped, but I knew it was going to take time, and a whole lot of cake baking, to remove my granddaddy’s derisive comments from my memory.
“But we’ll tell Addie, too?” I asked.
“Of course, peanut. As soon as we get back.”
We walked for a while in companionable silence before I said, “Do you—” I cut myself off, not sure what I was doing. I hadn’t thought this through enough. Or the impact of it, or the ripple effect it would have on others. Then I gave myself a good mental scolding. For so long I’d put myself last. It was time I put myself first and hold true to what I wanted. “Do you think I could use the big red barn’s kitchen for a cookie business once the cake company moves back to Market Street?”
“Do I mind?” She whooped. “I thought you’d never ask! But I’d like to make you a counter offer.”
“What’s that?”
“I’d love for you to join us at the Market Street location. Become a partner. The kitchen’s plenty big enough to make cakes and cookies.”
I squinted at her, wondering if she’d made the kitchen extra large on purpose, somehow knowing this day would come.
She lifted her eyebrows innocently.
But no. How could she have known? The plans for the renovation had been in the works for a long time now.
I scratched a hive on my neck. “Would I have to bake cakes?”
She smiled. “Only if you wanted to.”
Working alongside her and the Sugarbirds every day was a tempting offer, but right now it felt a little overwhelming. “Let me think about it a bit.”
“You just let me know.”
As we approached the back fence, Hambone and Pepper saw us coming and started barking hellos. We gave them love and pats as Addie came out the back door, holding a mug. “Where’d you two go off to?”
“Secret mission,” Bean said.
Addie held up a hand. In a voice that sounded a lot like Eliza Doolittle before she met Henry Higgins, she said, “Pardon me, but I’m going to stop you right there. I love you both dearly, but I don’t want to hear about anything secret. Lalalala!” And she turned around and rushed back into the house.
Aunt Bean and I looked at each other and started laughing at her delivery.
But as we followed her inside, it wasn’t her humor that was filling me with warmth and happiness.
It was the part where she said she’d loved us dearly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
From the Kitchen of Verbena Fullbright
Baking is a messy business, no two ways around that fact, especially if flour, powdered sugar, and cocoa powder are involved. Lordy mercy. Best way to clean those spills is keeping them dry. Resist using a vacuum—it’ll clog its filter right up. Instead, use a bench scraper or hand broom for a quick clean up. A tidy kitchen is a happy kitchen.
Tessa Jane
As I walked a piece of cake and a cold drink from the patio to the duck coop, I heard Ernie Underwood say, “If I had my druthers, I’d send her packing. Don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya!” She sat at the outdoor table, the open umbrella shading her thin face.
The sentence was punctuated by hammering, as if Ty was driving home the statement rather than simply shingling the roof of Lucy and Ethel’s coop, one of the last steps before the pair of ducks could move in.
From around the table, Bean and the Sugarbirds murmured their agreement.
I was certain Addie would’ve agreed, too, but she was in her studio trying to catch up on auditions. Tonight, she had plans to walk in the starlight since she was still conflicted about building near the site, and I’d volunteered to go with her, since I was looking for some clarity myself about my new bakery business. Did I want to start small? Or jump into the deep end with Aunt Bean?
“Who asks a man to give up the dog he raised from puppyhood? It ain’t right,” Pinky said, her high-pitched voice carrying easily.
I wished my mama was here to weigh in, too, but she’d had to leave this morning—there was a fundraising event tonight in Savannah that she couldn’t miss. But she promised to be back for my birthday.
The Sugarbirds, Ernie, and Aunt Bean were, of course, talking about Petal’s ultimatum. As was most everyone in Starlight, because apparently at the gala, Petal had gotten tipsy and talked an ear off Graham Doby, telling him about the demand she’d made of her new husband. With him being a blabbermouth and all, it hadn’t taken long for word to spread. People were taking sides, but it seemed to me that most of those sides belonged to Dare.
Between that gossip, my paternity shocker, and Granddaddy’s arrest, the town was in a tizzy. I’d been grateful the bakery had been closed yesterday and today. A brief respite from the onslaught of busybodies about to descend on me under the pretense of buying cakes.
As I made my way toward Ty, I looked back at the ducks and the dogs as they trailed after me, wanting to see what I held. “This isn’t for you,” I said to them.
None of them seemed particularly convinced.
The cake slice I carried came from the cake I’d baked yesterday with Aunt Bean. The recipe was the one she had created to benefit the Starling Society. She called it the Darling Starling cake, which I adored.
Much to my surprise, baking the cake had been comforting—because being alongside Addie and Bean in the kitchen, laughing and listening to my daddy’s records and reminiscing about him, had been exactly what my soul needed to accept that they were my family, always and forever.
As soon as the cake was done, Bean, Addie, and I had shared a slice. They both declared that it tasted just like Aunt Bean’s had. Their compliments hadn’t been overly effusive, which I appreciated, because then it would’ve seemed like fake praise. Empty words spoken to try to quickly rebuild what my grandfather had broken.
Instead, it was as if they understood that rebuilding would come slowly, one compliment at a time. And when I took a bite of the cake for myself, that mix of raspberry and cream and Aunt Bean’s special vanilla, I knew my shadow had finally given way to the light.
No, I hadn’t quite found my way back to who I used to be like I’d originally wanted when I came to Starlight. But now I was someone better. Because I knew exactly who I was. I was a mix of the dark and the light. I’d learned that my shadow was what helped me to shine brighter.
As I approached the coop, Ty looked down at me from the top of a ladder. I said, “Your mama says it’s time to take a break.”
We both glanced toward the patio.
Ernie finger-waved, a grin on her face.
Ty shook his head. “There’s probably no use in arguing.”
I squinted against the sun. “It’ll be easier for the both of us if you just play along.”
He cracked a smile and slid the hammer into a loop on his tool belt. He came down the ladder, skipping the last few rungs as he jumped to the ground. It reminded me of a misty day at the Market Street bakery nearly a month ago. We’d come a long way since then.
“Thank you,” he said, taking the plate and drink from my hands. He threw a look toward the patio, as if weighing whether he should eat at the table, then turned and walked behind the coop to sit on one of two sawhorses.
I sat on the second one to keep him company. The ducks waddled around us, and Hambone and Pepper sat at Ty’s feet, blatantly begging, tails wagging.
Ty set his glass down next to him on the sawhorse and nodded at Pepper, who was still wearing a cone. “She seems to be doing well.”
This spot behind the coop had the added benefit of being out of sight of the patio. It was nice not to have all those eyes on us. “Just a bit of a limp still. She took to the cone a lot better than I thought she would. Hambone probably would’ve eaten straight through it to get it off.”
Hambone looked over at me, his eyes full of outrage that I’d think such a thing.
“I’ve seen him try to eat rocks, so yeah, he probably would.” Ty smiled, and it lit his brown eyes, making them look like warm honey. “Once he ate a whole box of earplugs. Those squishy orange ones? And Mama hadn’t realized it until all these orange dots started showing up in the yard.”
Hambone bayed and trotted off.
I laughed, watching him go. “None of us like our most embarrassing stories told, I suppose.”
Pepper wandered over to me, licked my hand when I patted her head, then followed Hambone. Then the ducks chased after them both, trying to start trouble.
I was going to miss the dogs when they went back home. Well, in Pepper’s case, if. But for Hambone, I suspected it wouldn’t be long. Ernie was gaining back her strength by leaps and bounds.
“What’d you end up naming your kitten?” Ty asked, watching me watch the pets.
I picked a feather off my jeans. “Her name is Lovey.” I mumbled the rest of the sentence under my breath.
“What was that?” He leaned forward carefully, as to not tip the sawhorse.
“I said, her name is Lovey.”
“The part after that.”
“Short for Lovebug.”
He laughed and I rolled my eyes. Which only made him laugh louder.
“What’s so funny?” Willa Jo shouted.
“Lovebugs!” I yelled back.
“Oh! Okay then.”
Ty and I shared a smile. He said, “I’m going to get the third degree on the way home.”
“You might get it before you leave. We both might.”
The dogs started barking, then the ducks quacking. There was a loud splash, then they all quieted. Ty used the side of his fork to cut a bite off the cake. “So, do I need to start looking for a forever home for Lovebug?”
“Start?” I asked. “I thought you already were.”
He shrugged. “Had a gut feeling I might not have to look far.”
“You know a sucker when you see one?”
“I know a gentle soul when I see one.”
My eyebrows went up. “Do you now?”
With a guilty smile, he nodded. “But sometimes it takes a while. I’m a slow learner.”
I could only shake my head at that and wonder if he had any clue I could see the good in him.
He took a bite of the cake, closed his eyes, and sighed. I could practically see the glimmers of hope and optimism working their magic. “Miss Verbena’s outdone herself with this cake.”
Inwardly, I did a little jig. “She sure has.”
He didn’t need to know I’d been the one who made it. It was enough for me to see his reaction. It healed another piece of my heart.
“I overheard everyone talking earlier about you quitting your job,” he said, shoveling another bite of cake into his mouth. “That’s a big change.”
I dug my toe into the ground, made a small hole. “There’s something terrifying about starting over, but it’s time.”
I’d called my boss this morning to let him know. Then, I’d called a real estate friend to get the ball rolling on listing my condo.
