Excited to see what the day would bring but slightly worried about what Liv had in store for me, I stretched my arms over my head as I walked by my open window, which overlooked the back yard and the thick canopy of trees making up the dense woods surrounding the dead-end street where I’d grown up, on the edge of our very small town.
A cool breeze was flitting in through the thin curtains, bringing with it the scent of damp grass and leaves. Though it was still weeks away, autumn already hung in the air. So strange to think that soon I’d be starting my last September of high school. This would be my very last autumn in this quiet, uneventful town. By this time next year, I’d be heading off to college to study and meet new people…and probably coming up with excuses for why I couldn’t go out and party with them.
After an all too quick shower, I raced back to my bedroom and threw on a pair of jeans, a gray t-shirt and hoodie. I yanked open my bedroom door and marched downstairs, pausing on the landing to tidy my long ringlets of curly, dark hair in the silver-framed mirror hanging on the forest green wall.
I wasn’t generally a fan of mirrors, probably because I wasn’t generally a fan of my face. I’d never liked my combination of prominent cheekbones and my hybrid complexion of orange and mocha freckles thanks to my mother’s Kenyan roots and my father’s Irish skin, which was so pale my mother had always joked that just thinking about being in the sun turned him fire-engine red.
The thick, dark eyebrows arching over my oddly-large hazel eyes and my slightly pouty lips tended to make strangers think I was perpetually annoyed, which was fine with me. I considered it a natural defense, like the scales of a brightly-colored lizard or the jagged thorns of a pufferfish. “Come close and you’ll regret it,” my features said. It was what Liv called Resting Screw-You Face, but I suspected that was only because she didn’t actually want to call me a bitch.
When I was little, my mother told me a thousand times how each of my perceived imperfections was really a mark of beauty, but I’d never treated her comments with anything other than skepticism. “It’s your job to say stuff like that,” I told her when I was twelve. “It’s not like you’d say if I was hideous.”
“Yes, but…” she’d replied. Then, when her argument had stopped dead in its tracks, she’d let the subject drop for a few months until she felt it was time to bring it up again.
Now, of course, I missed her words of motherly reassurance. I missed everything about her. Her face, her scent, the way she laughed every time my father told one of his terrible jokes.
I missed those terrible jokes, too.
As I scrutinized my reflection, I felt all of a sudden like I was staring at someone I’d never met. Maybe it was the way the morning light was hitting me, but for some reason my face seemed to have thinned out since yesterday, as though I’d magically managed to shed the last remnants of my nebulous childhood puffiness. My eyes looked brighter than usual, the green in my irises kicking it up a notch from their usual dull shade, like someone had turned on a light inside me.
Well, I supposed it made sense. The face staring back at me, I reminded myself, was now seventeen years old. Maybe it was the accelerating sprint toward adulthood that had altered me overnight. Or maybe it had been so long since I’d really bothered assessing myself that I’d forgotten what I really looked like.
With a deep exhalation, I plodded the rest of the way down the stairs. When I reached the foyer, I was greeted by the sight of a large yellow envelope sitting on the floor by the mail slot. I reached down and grabbed it, flipping it over.
The tidy handwriting read:
Miss Vega Sloane
12 Cardyn Lane
Fairhaven, MA
The return address indicated that the envelope had come from my father’s mother, who lived in Cornwall, England. She sent me birthday cards every year. Usually they featured cutesy pictures of sparkly unicorns or prancing teddy bears, and pithy quotes like, “You’re a magical squishy-wishy granddaughter!” or “Hugs to a very special girl who’s about to turn moody and grow hair in strange and surprising places!”
Okay, so those weren’t the exact words. But the end result of those my-how-you’ve-grown cards was usually profound mortification on my part.
So I was surprised when I tore the envelope open and pulled out this year’s offering only to find an eerily dark painting on the cover of the bleak card.
The image was of a foreboding forest path. A series of spindly trees stretched out over it, their branches looming like deadly talons above the overgrown walkway. Far in the distance at the trail’s end was a mysterious source of light that looked even more terrifying than the trees themselves. I couldn’t help but wonder if Nana’s eyesight was failing and she’d accidentally bought me some kind of grim “Condolences for the death of your beloved parakeet” card.
When I pulled it open, a silver chain slithered out and landed with a succession of delicate clinks in a coil on the kitchen counter.
That’s odd, I thought. If she wanted to give me a necklace, why wouldn’t she wrap it or put it in a box or something?
When I picked up the chain and held it under the sunlight beaming in through the large window above the sink, it seemed to take on a strange glow, as though its links were covered in tiny diamonds that picked up every subtlety of the sun’s rays.
Puzzled, I set the chain down on the counter while I scanned the inside of the card.
Instead of her usual “For a very lovely girl on her birthday,” Nana had written an enigmatic note in her tidy script.
Happy Seventeenth Birthday, Vega.
Today marks a turning point: the end of an old life and the beginning of a new one. There are challenges and danger ahead. Wear this silver chain at all times. It will never tangle or break. Perhaps it will save your life as it once saved mine.
Love,
Nana.
My mother had always referred to my grandmother as an “eccentric character.” Will and I had always half-jokingly speculated that she was some sort of sorceress who made potions out of eye of newt, tail of squirrel, or liver of the neighbor’s pet goldfish. Her cottage in Cornwall was a veritable museum of strange and wonderful artifacts, ranging from unidentifiable animal skulls to medieval-looking weaponry to vials of substances I’d always imagined were magical balms and tonics, but which my mother had pointed out were probably just standard kitchen sauces and seasonings.
Still, sending me a “life-saving” silver chain was a little out there, even for Nana.
“Well,” I muttered, tucking the card back into the envelope and fastening the chain around my neck by its delicate clasp, “Today I learned that my grandmother has gone completely bat-crap crazy. Happy Birthday to me.”
The Boy and the Book
I had just picked up the army surplus satchel that served as my purse when the doorbell rang. The second I yanked the front door open, Liv pounced, squeezing me so hard I was sure I’d pass out from the loss of circulation.
“Hello, Birthday Girl!” she shouted when she’d pulled away, strands of jet-black hair bouncing as she hopped up and down. “Let’s go! I want to hit Perks for a mochaccino after my little surprise. All my parents had at the cottage was instant coffee that tasted like dirty puddle water funneled through an old sweat sock.”