Chapter Twenty-Four

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

From the Kitchen of Tessa Jane Fullbright

If the ingredients for a sugar cookie were in a play, the butter would be the star of the show. Butter is what helps the cookie spread, gives it a soft bite, and fills it with flavor. I never skimp when buying butter, because the better the butter quality, the better the cookie. And also because someone near and dear to my heart taught me that butter is sacred.

Tessa Jane

Addie had told me once she believed that rooted in every woman's DNA was the right to pick and choose the traditions and societal conventions she followed. That it was especially true for southern matriarchs, who, after years of living, of giving, of conforming, now played by a set of rules carefully crafted from experience.

This theory had proven true when it came to my grandmother. And Gigi had taken it a step further by twisting those rules even after she was gone.

It had been seven months since the bakery's reopening and that fateful phone call from my mama. The day Mr. Stubblefield informed us that he had discovered that the trust my grandfather had inherited was revocable if he cut off Mama and me, something my grandmother had buried in the provisions my grandfather hadn't bothered to read.

The trust that had once been Granddaddy's—which included the mansion on the hill—now belonged to my mama. Granddaddy was now the one who would receive a stipend, a modest one at that, but only if he abided by a strict set of rules set forth by the terms of the trust.

It was also disclosed that Gigi had set up separate trust—a secret one—for me. One that would be revealed only if I kept the starlight field on my twenty-fifth birthday. If I had let the land go, allowing my grandfather to buy it, the windfall would've gone to charity.

I wasn't at all sure why she'd set up her estate the way she had but thought it had something to do with her wanting to believe Granddaddy would change—and hoping I'd use the backbone she'd passed on to me.

And once again, I wished she were here to see me being true to myself. Because she'd been right. It truly had brought happiness.

Addie and I were currently sitting on the starwalk, atop a blanket, sharing a picnic lunch on a sunny Monday afternoon. It was the end of September, and the land was awash in late-season wildflowers, pollen-drunk bees, and dust from the tractors working behind us.

We'd broken ground on the café and gift shop last week.

Addie was watching the starlings, who were watching us, from the rope railing near the entrance to the starwalk. They'd been creeping closer and closer all week. "I wish I could tell who was who," she said. "Which one is Charity? Clara? Granny?"

"I think about that sometimes, too." But it was enough for me to know who they were, as a whole.

Family.

We were avoiding talking about their nearness. I suspected it was because we both knew why they'd begun creeping in, toward us, as if trying to prepare our hearts for what was ahead.

Aunt Bean's pacemaker had been implanted a few months ago, and there had been complication after complication. We were taking every day we had with her as the gift that it was.

We weren't the only ones.

She was currently in Alaska with Stan, where she'd been hoping to see the northern lights—and finally had, last night. She'd texted pictures, plenty of which were of her with a big ol' smile on her face. It filled my heart right up to think about her and Mayor Stan, and I wondered if she'd ever told him the truth about her admirer. Somehow I doubted it—she was living life her own way now.

Addie tucked her sandwich wrapper back into the basket and pulled out her phone. "How about another picture for the hallway wall?"

Months ago, we'd hired Ty to convert the upstairs of the big red barn into a two-bedroom apartment and we'd been busy filling the hallway with family pictures now that we'd finally moved in. I wasn't sure how long we'd be living together, though. On our date last night, Ty shared a secret with me—Sawyer had been looking at engagement rings.

I had to wonder if news of an engagement would finally elicit a phone call from Addie's mama—there had been no contact between them since February. Addie seemed at peace with the estrangement, but I knew way deep down she still wished her mama would come around.

Addie scooted next to me, swiped her phone screen, and tipped her head next to mine.

I said, "Try to get the tractors."

She captured two shots, then held up her phone so we could decide which one was better.

However, as soon as we looked at the first photo, we both shifted to look behind us.

In the shot, there was a wave of blue light along the curve of the crater, halfway up the bowl, between the starwalk and the entrance.

But I didn't see anything there now.

Addie swiped the screen to look at the other picture. Sure enough, there was a shimmer. It looked like the starlight aurora but on a smaller scale. A much smaller scale.

"You don't see anything, do you?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder again.

I was already standing up. I held out a hand to her. "No."

We backtracked to the entrance, where I ventured off the walkway.

"Are you sure you should be doing that?" she asked.

The starlings watched our every move. "This isn't the time to be a nervous nelly. Get down here."

Her eyebrows dropped low, narrowed in concern, but she carefully stepped down and made her way to me.

"I still don't see anything. Do you?" I asked.

"No. But hold on." She took a picture of the area where we'd seen the shimmer, and it glowed on her screen, clear as day. I bent down, brushed aside a clump of clover, and picked up a small blue stone.

As I did, the starlings silently swooped in even closer, landing on the rope right next to us. This close, they were a sight to behold, with their glittering feathers and kind eyes.

Addie nodded to my hand. "What is that?"

I rubbed it on my shirt, taking off the haze of dirt, and held it up to the sunlight. It sparkled and glinted. I held the stone out to her. "I'm not sure."

She lifted her phone to take a picture and the birds trilled a warning.

"I'll delete it as soon as we're done," she said to them. "I promise."

The birds quieted.

She took the picture and did an image search. The results came in instantly. My jaw dropped as I read.

Blue rough diamond.

Natural blue diamond.

Rough uncut blue diamond.

Sell diamonds online!

She quickly deleted the picture from her camera roll, and her eyes were wide as she looked at me.

I was shaking my head, disbelieving, as I recited part of Abner's poem. "The stone in reach, but for the screech, of the silver bird."

Addie recognized the words immediately—I'd told her all about Abner's journal and the poem. "But the stone he'd described wasn't blue . It was gray."

Suddenly I grabbed her arm—mostly to steady myself because I was woozy from my thoughts spinning round and round. "A lot of the Wingrove men are color-blind, Addie. I bet Abner was, too."

"This is, it's… What does all this mean ? The glow, the diamond. Obviously they're connected."

I was at a loss, too. "I don't know." Then I recalled something buried deep in my memory. "Wait, wait. My mama and I went to the Smithsonian once when I was a teenager and they had a blue diamond on display." I racked my brain trying to think of its official name. "The Portuguese Diamond. One of the reasons why it's famous is because it glows bright blue under ultraviolet light. It's some sort of fluorescence or phosphorescence. I can't remember which."

Addie looked upward. "UV light like the sun has?" She gasped. "Do you think the diamonds were here all along and the force of the star hitting the ground brought them up to the surface? That must've been what happened, Tessa Jane. Closer to sunshine, they were then able to start glowing. But what gives the clarity? Is that from the star?"

She was talking so fast that I could hardly keep up. "I mean, the clarity has to come from the star. It's why the star water makes the cakes magical. It's what gives us our ability to see bright sides and inner light."

Addie nodded. "They work together."

One of starlings trilled and suddenly the field lit up with the aurora. I looked all around and realized that there was a break in the light, like a section was missing—right where I'd picked up the stone. I also noticed the rest of the light was dim. It had lost some of its luster.

I glanced at Addie. "They're stronger together."

"Like the starlings," she whispered.

"Like us."

Addie nodded. "We need to put the stone back."

Of course we did. It had never been about keeping the diamonds for ourselves. Not now and not back when the star had first fallen.

The beautiful light from the diamonds combined with the clarity from the fallen star was priceless . The value much greater than what the stones could ever sell for.

I closed my hand over the stone, tears in my eyes, realizing that the diamond tale had been true. Abner hadn't imagined what happened, and I was flooded with a sense of relief that I'd believed him.

I bent down and using my fingers, I dug a hole as deep as I could, then dropped the stone back into the earth. Once I patted the dirt down, colorful light bloomed, linking seamlessly to the rest of the aurora, which glowed brightly like nothing had ever dimmed its shine.

Then the birds squawked and all the light disappeared completely.

I dusted off my hands, glanced around. "I didn't see anything, did you? Nothing to see here at all!"

Addie's eyes were wide with alarm. "How am I ever supposed to keep this secret?"

I put my arm around her. "It's only a secret if two people know. And by my count there's a good twenty of us here."

She glanced at the birds on the rope, eighteen in all.

"You're right," she said, nodding. "Plus Aunt Bean knows, too."

"How do you know that?"

She smiled and held up her star pendant. "I bet you anything these stones aren't sapphire at all. Or the blue stone in her watch, either."

I sat down on the grass. "But how? There would be a section of light missing if our stone had come from the crater. Unless…"

I tried to recall Abner's words about finding the stone the night the star had fallen. He'd written that he'd discovered it just beyond the crater. Near the woods.

"Unless the stone had been an outlier, never part of the aurora." I told her what I was thinking. "What if that starling took the stone out of Abner's hands and gave it to Charity? Her daughter?"

Addie sat down next to me, her eyes wide, as she followed my line of thinking. "And eventually the raw diamond was cut into many gemstones and passed along to the women in the family to help them see light when life was at its darkest."

Aunt Bean had told me it was the star water on our jewelry that provided that assistance, but now I suspected it wasn't the whole story. The water gave clarity. The stones gave light. Together, they gave comfort, warmth, peace, calmness. The same feeling I had every time I stepped into the starlight. The same feeling I had every time Aunt Bean gave me a hug.

The birds trilled, a beautiful melody.

"You know," Addie said, "there have been times I could've sworn this pendant glowed."

"Me, too! I always thought I was seeing things, though."

"But why didn't Aunt Bean just tell us about the diamonds?" Addie asked.

I glanced at her. "I bet it's one of those family secrets that she mentioned to me the day she showed me the star water. One that's passed down in death from one generation to the next."

Then I'd realized what I said, and my heart started pounding.

The birds chattered, then went quiet.

We both looked at them, still lined up on the rope railing.

She quietly said, "Does it feel like they showed us the diamond on purpose?"

I nodded, a lump lodged in my throat.

Suddenly, I heard a loud trilling coming from above. We both looked upward as another starling came swooping in, its feathers glinting as it landed on the rope next to the others. Number nineteen. As silvery and beautiful as the others but whose poofy head feathers seemed to have a burgundy tint.

My breath caught. A tear slid down Addie's cheek.

The new bird chirped at Addie and me and stamped a small foot twice on the railing, two short raps.

Then in a great commotion, the flock flapped their wings and took flight, heading back to the woods. I reached for Addie's hand, and our fingers twined together, holding on tight.

Tears flooded my eyes as I heard Aunt Bean telling me to remember that one day she'd be one of the birds watching over us, and that she loved Addie and me more than anything in the whole world.

Even more than all the stars in the sky.