The moon was already brimming into fullness that night. The flower moon, they call it. The moon (Kason says) of rebirth and renewal.
But the moon was the last thing on my mind then. I doubt I could have seen it, anyway—not through the cloudy strips of glass that passed for windows in the study hall, not through the glare of the overhead lights in the parking lot, and definitely not through the haze of my own anxiety.
See, we were in the middle of our first meeting for what Mr. Heston, the English teacher, had described as a group project.
You know what a group project is like if you’re a straight-A student, the way I was? It’s like being on a four-person rowing team, and you’re the only one with oars. You paddle frantically against the current pulling you toward bad grades and public dishonor, while the kids who are on a first-name basis with D’s and F’s lie back in the boat and get a free ride. When a teacher announces a group project, I feel seasick faster than you can say cooperation and teamwork.
And so the moon was not a priority as I gritted my teeth, again, and stared at our mostly-empty shared Google Doc, again, and asked, again, “Okay, so who’s finished reading 100 Cupboards yet?”
“Uh—” Adam scrubbed at his shaggy dark hair. “Was that mine or was it the other one?”
For just a minute, I considered throwing my laptop straight at the AC/DC logo on his shirt. “That one was yours, and the reading deadline we agreed on was last weekend.”
“Last weekend?” Adam’s eyebrows disappeared under his hair. “Nobody told me.”
This was why I always ended up as the leader of any project group. And why I always hated the role with a passion. “It’s on the Google Doc.” I’d shared it with all three of the others two weeks ago, along with a calendar reminder about this meeting and even a list of discussion topics to consider while they read.
“She’s right, dude.” Blake bumped Adam’s shoulder lightly and tipped his head at me. “I just have a few pages left in The Horse and His Boy.”
He was looking at me like an apology, and it was enough to make me feel all shivery inside. “Thanks, Blake.” I glanced back at my laptop. Anything to keep my face from changing from fearless group project leaderto lovesick puppy.
“Can you tell us the directions again?”
Adam’s question scraped nails on the chalkboard of my frustration. “The instructions are on the Google Doc.” How many times had I repeated that by now? I tried to purge the impatience from my voice. “We’re supposed to compare and contrast two similar works of children’s literature. Blake and I took The Horse and His Boy, and you and Jasmina have 100 Cupboards.”
“Where is Jasmina, anyway?” Adam scanned the room, as if he were truly concerned for her whereabouts rather than simply searching for any distraction.
“Um—” Jasmina was the member of our group I knew the least. As far as I could remember, we’d never even traded hellos. All I knew was she sat across the room from me in English and wore riotously crazy graphic tees every day.
I glanced at my phone, but she hadn’t texted anything to our project group chat. “It doesn’t matter.” Probably Jasmina’s attitude toward her schoolwork was as chaotic as her clothing choices. “Um, let’s make some notes about what we want to discuss in our presentation.”
“Themes of the two books, maybe?” Blake was leaning forward, fully engaged. Such a good guy. The kind of old-fashioned good guy that a girl could hope would buy her flowers and carry her books to class.
Except that he already did those things for a girl. And it wasn’t me.
“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “That’s a good place to start.”
Adam fidgeted. “Well, I’m not gonna be much help here, since I haven’t read the horse book yet, so—”
“Adam, your book is 100 Cupboards.” He’d been Blake’s best friend for years, so how had none of Blake’s charm rubbed off on him? “And you can still listen and get ideas.”
Adam slumped back against the wall with a groan. “Fine, but—”
The door suddenly exploded inward, catching Adam in the elbow. His grunt of protest was overridden by a cheery voice. “Sorry I’m late! But hey, better late than never, am I right?”
And with that, Jasmina Jones barreled into the room like a midwestern tornado. She tossed her multicolored braids over her shoulder and slid a Styrofoam container onto the little table. “I brought jalapeño nachos for all of us.”
Okay, that sounded worse than terrible. From the look on Adam’s face, he agreed.
“They’re the absolute best. I get them from that food truck down the road. You know, Fijosi’s? They have seventeen different spices.” She smoothed the front of her shirt—cartoon citrus slices and tie-dye bubble text reading ORANGE YOU GLAD YOU’RE ALIVE?
I cleared my throat. “Uh—it’s good to have—”
“And Jenna! Hey!” She tumbled into a heap on the couch beside me and squeezed an arm around my shoulders as if we were best friends instead of just prisoners in the same project. “So glad to finally get to meet you! I’ve only seen you in class.”
“Um, yeah. You too, Jasmina.”
“Jaz.” She flicked her hand. “Nobody calls me Jasmina except my Auntie LaRita, and trust me, that’s not because she loves me.”
“Okay—Jaz.” Her exuberance was spilling into my personal space. I edged slightly away. “I texted you in the group when you weren’t here…”
“You did?” She snatched her phone from her pocket, eyes darting over the screen. “Oh yeah. I see that now.” She shrugged, smiled. “I was at the Youth on a Mission meeting, and it ran long.”
I didn’t need to know what that was. “Okay, well—”
Jaz reached for the Styrofoam container. “Here, try one of these.” She snatched one of the shapeless wedges of cheese-covered something for herself and nudged the box toward Blake. “They’re so good.”
“Uh, okay.” Blake gingerly lifted one of the slices and studied it with the same caution he might have given a grenade.
I shook my head. “I’m not hungry, so—”
“You sure?” Jaz took a big bite of hers and shrugged. “Well, I know not everybody likes spicy food.”
A perfect excuse, yet somehow one that made me feel like a wimp. “Well, I mean—” I took a deep breath, grabbed one of the nachos, and steeled myself for a first bite. The cheese was still warm enough to be stretchy, but whatever was underneath had the texture of cardboard. And, I immediately realized, the temperature of the surface of the sun.
“Good, right?” Jaz was still chowing down on hers, apparently oblivious to the fact that my mouth was on fire.
My face had to be as red as my auburn hair by now. I could feel the heat glowing from my cheeks. Stinging my eyes. Scalding my throat. I reached for my bottled water and tried to drink it in a non-frantic-looking way.
Jaz was offering Adam the box now, but he glanced between Blake and me and shook his head. “Nah. I’m good.”
“Um, Jaz—” The water hadn’t helped enough. I cleared my throat. “We’re just discussing the themes of 100 Cupboards and The Horse and His Boy.” If discussing was the word to describe any of the endless circles into which this meeting had devolved.
“Yep! Two great books.” Jaz tucked herself into a crosslegged position as if settling into the conversation.
I blinked at her. Maybe she wasn’t going to be as bad as I’d expected. “You’ve read them both?”
“Oh, yeah. Long before this class. Haven’t you?”
“Well, yes, but—”
She reached for another nacho and laughed, the light glinting off the stud in her tongue. “Magic, swords, runes, travel to other worlds. Any reasons to not read books like that?”
I shot a look at Adam, hoping some of Jaz’s enthusiasm might rub off on him, but he was scrolling his phone, dark hair screening his eyes. “We’re talking about themes now.”
“Themes?” Jaz rolled her eyes with a snort. “That’s how you ruin two perfectly good books.”
Then again, maybe my first impressions were correct after all. “What do you mean?”
“What I said.” Her tone wasn’t belligerent, just matter-of-fact. “Teachers always want to boil a story down instead of just enjoy it.”
Blake crossed his arms. “Mr. Heston says the theme is the most important part.”
I gave him a grateful glance, but Jaz jabbed a purple-painted fingernail his direction. “Would you rather eat a pie or read the ingredients list?”
Adam groaned. “Do any of you realize the Cavs game is coming on in, like, twenty minutes?”
“All right.” I held my hands in the air. The migraine ache was getting stronger. “Maybe we can talk about theme later.” Although later was running away from us, given that the project was due the first of next week. Probably I’d have to a pull an all-nighter and finish for all of us. Row, row, row your boat. “What are some things we love about each book?”
Blake was still holding his nacho awkwardly, the way I was. Probably, like me, he didn’t know how to get rid of it. “I like the way The Horse and His Boy portrays friendship.”
“Agreed.” Jaz nodded with a sudden, surprising grin.
I took advantage of a reason to lay the nacho down on the stack of paper napkins and typed friendship on the Google Doc, in the righthand column of the chart I’d carefully inserted. I didn’t have any comments to add there. I’d never had a real friend. Certainly not one who would steal a talking horse and run off to Narnia with me.
“Family, too.” Blake took a tentative bite of his nacho and barely suppressed a face. He cleared his throat. “In 100 Cupboards, Henry is a foundling. No family.”
Jaz tipped her head. “It’s not that he doesn’t have family. He just has to find them.”
Her words touched the tenderest part of my soul, but before I could wince, she kept going. “And Shasta in The Horse and His Boy is looking for his father too. What do you think, Jenna?”
My gut clenched in a surge of nausea unrelated to the weird food I’d just consumed. “About—”
“About the family aspect?”
“Um—” What could I say? That’s why I read these books. Because it gives me hope for myself. Because I think that maybe, somewhere out there, my father—
I shoved the emotions down, trapping them beneath a standardly bland reply. “I think that’s very interesting and contributes to the story.”
“Me too.” Jaz tilted her head. “I think both characters really just want to know where they came from.” She shrugged and grabbed her third nacho. “So they know where to go next.”
I couldn’t let any of them see how the words knocked me sideways. “Yes, all right.” I fumbled frantically for a topic change. “Um, also, there’s the adventure aspect.”
“Yes! That’s awesome.” Jaz nodded. “Moving beyond the ordinary into something—unexpected. Like life.”
Adam snorted. “You think life is that exciting?”
Jaz shrugged one shoulder and adjusted the funky bead bracelets that rattled on her wrist. “If you let it be.”
“We’re all about to get more adventure than we want with graduation coming up.” Blake grinned. “Less than two more weeks!”
“I can’t wait to graduate and get out of here. Blow this joint.” Adam stretched his hands over his head.
Jaz narrowed her eyes at him. “Then maybe you should get to work on a project worth twenty percent of your grade for this class.”
I choked, but Adam just shrugged lazily. “I’ll get it done on time.”
Sure. Disney would do a Narnia remake with a house cat for Aslan before Adam Farr would get anything done on time.
“Speaking of graduation—” Blake glanced around the room—“what are we all planning to do afterwards?”
Jaz gave that grin again. The one that made it seem as if she’d just heard the world’s greatest news and couldn’t wait to share it with you. “I’m looking at some internships.”
Before I could begin trying to picture Jaz in an office internship setting, she pointed at Adam. “How bout you, Mr. Blow-the-Joint? Grand plans?”
“Yeah.” For the first time, a flicker of interest was an undercurrent beneath his bored expression. “Me and Blake are gonna travel.”
If we didn’t get this project done, the only place we’d be traveling was to the principal’s office. But the conversation had unspooled enough that I had no idea how to collect the loose ends, so—“Where to?”
Blake smiled. “We haven’t decided yet. We wanted to head out west somewhere. See the country.”
“Out west?” Jaz leaned forward. “There’s gonna be an incredible solar eclipse in California this summer. Kason’s been researching about it.”
Adam frowned. “Kason?”
“My twin brother.” Jaz waved her hand in the air. “Space nerd extreme.”
Understanding suddenly struck. I’d heard other kids talking about “the JK twins.” Jaz and Kason. It made sense now.
Jaz was still talking. “He’s definitely going out to California this summer to see the eclipse. It’s the best one in eighteen years, or something like that.”
“California is actually where we were thinking about heading, too.” Blake shrugged. “But airfare is so crazy, and then the price for hotels—it adds up fast. Especially since I promised Brooklyn she could go with us.”
Brooklyn. My heart slid through a funnel as Jaz frowned. “Who’s Brooklyn?”
“My girlfriend. I’ve been promising her this trip for a while.”
Looking back, you can see it all so clearly, how a single word or look or decision changes your whole life. But at the moment, you don’t know. Like a meteoroid pulled off course by the sun. It was right then, in the middle of deciding if the jalapeño nachos had truly left my mouth with third-degree burns and wondering if Adam was even capable of reading a book and shoving the questions Jaz had raised back under my resolve and trying not to hate Brooklyn just because Blake had promised her a dream trip, that I blurted out the sentence that changed the whole universe for me. “What about an RV?”
And then all three faces were watching me, and I stumbled through the rest of it. “I mean, I’ve seen RVs for rent. You could get one of those and go on a road trip.”
“That’d actually be amazing.” Blake’s eyes glinted.
“Yeah.” Adam sat up straighter. “If we got some other friends to come along, we could split costs.”
“What about this?” Jaz held out her hands. “Kason and I would love to do that. He wants to get out to California to see the eclipse, and I want to visit some places and check out their internship programs. We could both chip in.”
Adam and Blake swapped glances that immediately let me know what they thought of that idea. For just a minute, I felt sorry for Jaz. I knew what it was like to be unwanted, to be—
But then I looked at her, and she was still smiling. If she’d even noticed their looks, she clearly didn’t read the meaning behind them.
Blake shifted and nodded reluctantly. “Okay. I mean…that would help with cost.” His eyes flicked toward me. “Good thought, Jenna.”
Basking in his praise kept me from seeing what was coming next until Jaz tapped me on the shoulder. “And you’re coming too, of course.”
“What?” I jerked back and stared at her. “I don’t—I mean—”
“Oh, a hundred percent.” Jaz rolled her eyes. “It was your idea. You have to come.”
You know the feeling when you think you’ve done something brilliant, and all of a sudden it turns around and stares at you? Yep.
“I mean, I don’t know if I’m free this summer.” A total lie. I was free every summer. And spring and fall and winter. “What I mean is—”
“Aww, for a trip like this you get free.” Adam was actually looking at me for once. “C’mon.”
“Seriously, Jenna.” Blake leaned forward with a welcoming smile. “We’d love to have you.”
Blake’s heart-stopping smile notwithstanding, the absolute last thing I ever wanted to do was load into a metal box with five kids I didn’t even really know and be rattled across the United States to California. I selected one of the many creative ways I said no: “I’d have to ask my grandma.” Actually I never planned to mention it to her. And I already knew what her answer would be if I did.
“Well, let us know, girl.” Jaz rubbed her hands together eagerly. “This will be fun!”
I looked back at the Google Doc. All my notes from reading other people’s adventures, and for just a minute, a longing I didn’t understand pricked at me.
The next moment, Adam was once again groaning about the basketball game, and Jaz and Blake were offering similarities between the characters, and I was typing notes. The first flush of adventure was gone.
But whether I knew it or not, the almost-full moon was still throbbing outside the window. And my own adventure story was just about to start.
#
By the time I drove home from the high school that evening, with the Google Doc at least marginally more complete, the talk of the road trip had already drifted downstream of my thoughts. Weird, isn’t it? In the moment, the things that change your whole world usually seem as fleeting as clouds flirting with the moon.
But other words were still ricocheting around my brain. Jaz’s.
They want to know where they came from.
The ache that often lived right behind my ribcage swelled again. How many years had I asked myself that question? Since I was first old enough, I guess, to realize all the ways my family didn’t match the ones around me. Long before Gran’s house.
Paused at a red light, I glanced over at the curling cover of The Horse and His Boy in the seat next to me. How many times had I read that book as a kid?
As many times as I’d imagined that I was Shasta, escaping north to Narnia to find the father I’d never met. The one who was a blank on my birth certificate, a big question mark in my mind. The one who was out there somewhere. Maybe—maybe—
They want to know where they came from.
The light turned green, and I moved forward again. When I was little, I’d imagined my unknown father as something like Santa—older, jolly, able to grant wishes and bestow toys and dispense hugs. Then I’d fit my imaginings into the shape of book characters—Captain Crewe from A Little Princess, Charles Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie, Mr. Murry from A Wrinkle in Time.
And yes, King Lune from The Horse and His Boy.
But after Mom—and Gran’s house—well, after all that, it was hard to imagine my father at all. Especially since, on the rare occasions I’d dared to ask, Gran’s face had always pinched as if she’d smelled spoiled food at the church potluck. Her answer was always the same. Your mother never told me. Don’t worry about it, dear. It’s water under the bridge.
And for most of my life, I’d accepted that advice. Kept putting one foot in front of the other in hopes that ultimately I’d stop looking over my shoulder. The way Gran seemed to have. But now…
Now the predictable road I’d followed was ending anyway.
I watched my headlights, the way they cut only so far into the darkness ahead of me. I’d be graduating in twelve days, and then what? I had no plan. No idea of what I should do, where I should go, how I should—
Hear all those should’s? They stack up fast.
So they know where to go next.
Jaz’s words flashed across my mind like a street sign. Was that really true? Could knowing what lay behind me free me to step ahead?
If so…then maybe it was worth asking Gran. One more time.
I formed the decision just as I reached Gran’s little ranch-style house. The early dusk was draping velvet curtains around the world. I pulled up under the little carport and stepped out into the heavy sweetness of Gran’s prize rose bushes. She must have been out working in the garden tonight, because the tickling scent of fertilizer mixed with the rose perfume, and three of those purple bug-zapping lights hummed and crackled from hooks in the front yard. Gran hated bugs of all kinds. The minute she saw the first mosquito or fly, out those lights went.
I pushed the door open, closing it behind me with the extra tug, just like Gran had taught me. “Gran? I’m here.”
No answer, but I knew she was home. Her schedule was as predictable as moonrise. Two nights a week—Sunday and Wednesday—she was at the church for evening service or ladies’ Bible study. Otherwise, she spent every evening at her house.
Her house. Funny. I’d lived with Gran for nine years, yet I still thought of the house as hers, not ours. Maybe it was because her personality glimmered from every corner. Quiet. Steady. Unchanging. Every day as deliberately predictable as the ticks of the grandfather clock at the base of the carpeted stairs. Every inch clean and tidy, as if the whole house were merely holding its breath, waiting to be lived in. And Gran’s days were as orderly as her house, a predictable machine in which every part obeyed her expectations.
Even her granddaughter.
I noticed the stack of mail on the counter and flipped through it. A few bills, a letter from one of Gran’s friends, a couple advertisements for low-cost phone plans for seniors. And—oh, yeah. The Harvest Hill envelope. I bit back a grin. If you wanted to get Gran riled up, all you had to do was start her off on the apparent evils of the nondenominational mega-ministry. Yet somehow, she’d gotten on their mailing list, which meant about once a month I had the diabolical joy of watching her reaction to receiving the envelopes.
“Gran?” Carrying the contraband, I headed for the living room. “You have some mail.”
“Jenna?” Gran glanced up from the floral loveseat as I entered the dim living room. The TV was playing low in the background, her worn King James Bible on the couch beside her. “I thought I heard you come in.”
“Yes, I’m back.” I held out the Harvest Hill envelope with as straight a face as I could muster. “Mail for you.”
Gran adjusted the beaded chains of her bifocals, peering at the address, and then her expression turned to irritation. The wrinkles around her lips deepened as she snatched the envelope from my hands. “Jenna, why are you bringing me this?”
I fought to keep myself looking innocent. “Just sorting the mail.”
“Well, there’s no need.” She leaned over the arm of the loveseat and dropped the envelope onto the junk-mail stack on the end table. “I don’t know who thinks those false teachers have a real ministry. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Agreement was always the path of least resistance. I glanced at the TV again. One of her televangelist programs. The kind where guys with plastic-looking hair and cavernous voices thundered about Heaven and Hell and the narrow space in between where we were supposed to live. And, of course, the address to send checks to.
“Do you have homework?”
“No, ma’am. I finished it at school while I was waiting for the project meeting.”
“That’s good. Was the meeting productive?”
“Uh—yes, ma’am.”
“Good.” She turned her attention back to the TV but must have sensed me still behind her. She glanced over her shoulder. “Was there something else?”
The idea that had seemed so grand on the way home was rapidly dwindling under the no-nonsense gaze of Gran’s bifocals. “Um—I was wondering if—if you could—” The words clogged in my throat.
“Speak, Jenna.” Gran raised an eyebrow, waiting.
I focused on the three-piece suit of the man on the screen rather than on my grandmother and forced the rest of the words out in a rush. “Isn’t there anything you can tell me about my dad?”
Silence settled between us. So quiet that I could hear the low rhythm of the man’s voice on the TV. Something about the blasphemy of omission. When I dared a look back at my grandmother, a new rigidity seemed to have settled over her. Her hands were folded in her lap, arthritic knuckles whitening.
“Jenna—” She cleared her throat. “We’ve had this conversation. There isn’t anything more I can tell you. Your mother chose—your mother was making some bad decisions. She was straying from the Word.” Absently Gran reached for the worn Bible, fingered the peeling cover as if reassuring herself. “By the time she knew about you, she was living—elsewhere, and we weren’t speaking.”
That part did make sense. Mom had never mentioned Gran to me. And I could envision Gran cutting off her prodigal daughter with as much calm precision as she trimmed the gangly sprouts on the hedges.
“But—” I bit my lip. Why did every conversation with Gran back me into a corner? “You never knew anything?”
“Dear, I didn’t know about you for—well, for a long time. I certainly don’t know who your father was. Your mother never said.”
“But didn’t she tell anyone—any of her friends—”
On TV, a flock of white-robed choir members filed onto the platform. Gran sighed and punched the remote, cutting off the hallelujahs, then turned her full attention to me. “Jenna, your mother’s friends—” hardness edged her tone—“were very—undesirable. I certainly have no way of contacting any of them. And her friends that she had before that—well, she didn’t stay in touch with them.”
“So there’s no way to find out?” Desperation made me bolder. “Could I—you know, check with the hospital where I was born, or—”
Gran blinked as if she’d just heard an off-key note at church. “You weren’t—were you thinking of trying to find out?”
Gran had never told me no to anything since I came to live with her.
She’d never had to, because I told it to myself.
“Well, I mean—”
“Jenna.” Gran’s look carried the fullness of her reproof. “Dear, there’s no way to know, at this point. And I don’t want you wasting your time and energy on a wild-goose chase. You have finals next week, and graduation after that, and then a lot of new adventures.”
Adventures was a figurative term for Gran.
Her forehead creased. “You’re not going to keep worrying about this, are you?”
“Not really.” Her eyebrows were still creased, so I shored up my answer. “No, ma’am.”
And like that, the crease vanished. The topic was gone. Equilibrium restored. “All right.” She stood, gathered her Bible and the little paper notebook where she handwrote prayer requests and the notes she took during Sunday sermons. “Don’t fret about it, dear.”
Don’t fret about it? As if I’d come to her with a concern about a class or anxiety over a bad dream instead of a giant question mark about my parentage. A question mark she seemed happy to walk around.
She paused at the doorway, as if sensing my struggle, and turned. “Jenna?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
She hesitated. “It’s only natural to wonder sometimes, dear.” She took off her glasses, rubbed them on her blouse. Studied the lenses, frowned, rubbed them again. “I just don’t want the past to consume you. Whoever your father may have been, he would certainly not be the kind of man to enrich your life today.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I understood her words, but I couldn’t look at them. Not when I was still picturing Captain Crewe and Pa Ingalls and King Lune.
“It’s important in a moment like this that you be looking toward the future.” Gran replaced her glasses and turned to go again. “Don’t dwell on it, dear. It’s—”
Here it came.
“—water under the bridge.”
See? Every time.
And with that, she left the room, contentedly clasping her Bible. I flopped down on the sofa and glanced at the end table, at the still-sealed Harvest Hill envelope. How was she okay with leaving so many things unopened?
Things were easy for her. Clean-cut. Black-and-white. Sharpened silhouettes of truth and righteousness marching toward Heaven, balancing on a tightrope across the ever-widening territory of what was considered sin. Like questioning one’s elders. Or reading mail from a nondenominational church.
Or asking questions with blurry answers.
Why couldn’t I find the lines the way she could? For me, black and white faded together in confusing chaos. And none of my questions ever fit into the TV preachers’ formulas.
Water under the bridge.Yes, but the moon pulls strong on water. And sometimes, that’s enough to bring the tide back in.