I feel my lips quirk as I turn away from the window. While I wait for my life to upend, I can at least clean up my mess.
Chapter Three
“Be the boss of your stars—or someone else will.” —Indigo, age 39.
INDIGO
I try not to drag them along by their ears, really I do, but it’s nearly noon and the patience I was trying to cultivate evaporated shortly after the really good breakfast I had at the coffee shop this morning. “It took you two forever to get here.”
Blue steers Violet around a lamppost. Keeping Violet’s brains from being rattled is a job we both take seriously. I try to slow down. I know I’m not helping. I should have had them meet me closer to the store instead of sitting at the coffee shop trying to read a book.
I was on page 132 when they arrived, but I have no idea what happened in the first 131 pages.
“We got here as fast as we could.” Violet is a little breathless and full of laughter, probably because this town has a lot of lampposts. “Blue wanted to take an earlier ferry, but we would have been stuck in rush-hour traffic.”
Which is a nightmare for someone who feels the emotions of everyone around her as easily as she hears them breathe. “Doesn’t matter. You’re here now.” I tug them off the curb at the same place I crossed the street yesterday, holding firmly to their hands. Blue’s boots clump along beside me, and she actually bothers to check for traffic. Violet just stares at the bend we can’t quite see around.
Something inside me relaxes. She can feel it.
We slow as we walk the curve of the street, almost like we rehearsed it.
Blue thunks to a stop first.
I grin. I’ve already seen the evidence, and Violet has never needed to see anything to believe it, but for Blue, this is the moment. The one where she knows for absolutely sure I wasn’t kidding—and that we all have a really enormous choice to make.
Except it doesn’t feel like a choice at all.
I can feel it in my bones. We made it thirty-five years ago.
Violet stares at the purple storefront, her eyes drinking in the details. Her soul is probably drinking them in, too. She gets her nutrition in ways I don’t begin to understand. I don’t rush her. Violet has always bloomed at exactly the speed she chooses. When she finally nods, her eyes are shining and her voice is entirely calm. “Yes. It’s ours.”
I’m not feeling quite so calm, but I don’t walk through the world expecting my random premonitions to come true. Not that this one has been random. Violet’s first drawing of the building that she’s staring at happened a week after the three of us met. There’s been one every year or two ever since.
Blue tilts her head, assessing the structure. “It’s sturdy. I like it.”
I stand quietly in between them, waiting as their hearts do the walk that mine did yesterday afternoon.
Violet’s head lands on my shoulder.
Blue’s arm wraps around both of us.
I smile. They’ve arrived.
DREW
They’re stunning. All three of them, strong and bright and as united as three separate souls can be. I have no idea why they’re staring at Jeannie’s store, but I’m finding it hard to care. They walked down the street and the whole energy of the town bent to meet them.
The charcoal pencil in my hand moves, sketching on autopilot, trying to capture a taste of the three of them.
The one on the left, solid and true.
The one on the right, pure spring waters.
And the one in the middle.
She’s here.
Chapter Four
“That’s not how you use a hammer, idiot.” Blue, age 14.
INDIGO
Blue pulls open the shop door and herds us inside.
The older woman behind the counter looks up and smiles cheerfully. “Welcome to Shenanigans. I’m Jeannie. Let me know if I can help you.”
Violet exhales a small sigh of pleasure as she looks around. She spends her life making spaces right for the people who inhabit them. This one apparently has good bones.
Blue nods quietly. It’s got the right kind of bones for her, too.
And I’m portable. I look at the woman behind the counter. “Are you by any chance looking to sell your store?”
Hazel eyes blink at me from under a fringe of hair well-sprinkled with gray. “Perhaps.”
The tone tells me more than the words. We’re being measured.
“I’ve dreamt of this place.” Violet speaks quietly, but her words fill the cozy space. “Since I was