This story, that is, the story I'm about to tell you, begins and ends with the stars. Well, a star. The sun.

Every day, the sun shines down, down, down on the people who live on the earth. Every night, she surrenders her post to the cool moon, whose soft beams penetrate few shadows.

One cannot go a day without seeing the sun, hanging in the cornflower blue sky that is adorned with those white cotton banks of cloud.

Some despise the sun, for bleached corneas, for raw, red sunburns, for unbearable heat. But the sun brings light and growth and warmth, and without it, everything would freeze over and die.

Hello. My name is Nikki Frampton and I live with my family in a big rambling, noisy house full of animals in the mountains of Virginia. I live with my younger sister, Willa, and my brothers Nolan and Z, who is Willa's twin. Z's real name is actually Zachary, but he doesn't like the nickname Zach, so he goes be Z. My parents are named Martin and Jeanne, but we call them Dad and Mother.

It was a cold, wintery Saturday in Trainor, Virginia. Snow lay thick on the ground and on the Frampton house. Z and Nolan and Dad and I shoveled off the driveway earlier while Willa and Mother went out and delivered groceries to the shut-ins that Mother's friend circle had befriended. The driveway virtually sparkled now, thanks to three hours of grueling, sweaty work.

I walked out of the kids' bathroom where I had taken a shower after shoveling the driveway and proceeded down the hallway to my room.

My room was about normal sized, with pale blue walls and a bookshelf crammed with books and old toys and things. A few posters and pictures hung on the walls. My bed was covered in a large quilt decorated with stars. A stuffed old bear sat on the pillow.

I sat on the bed, pulling a book off my nightstand. My tangled, soggy hair needed to dry, so I wanted to kill time until it did.

I unwrapped my hair from the towel and sprayed on the conditioner to clear out the tangles. The bottle was halfway empty. Willa must've gotten into my things again.

"Willa! Quit using my hair stuff!" I yelled.

Mother walked past my room. "Who bought it? I think Willa can use it. Just tell me when you're out and I'll get more for you. Be kind to your sister."

I frowned.

Willa ran up to my door, holding the guitar. "What is it? I was in the middle of an Andrés Segovia! Hey, you know, I finally managed the barr chords! You just stick your finger right-" she held her finger tightly over a fret- "and press down hard, but not too hard..." she trailed off, drifting towards her room, muttering about guitars.

I frowned more deeply.

Willa ran back to my doorway, looking excited. "Did you know Christmas is tomorrow? I'm so excited! Aren't you?"

"Sure." I was sort of excited. But... ever since Grandmother died last summer, Christmas hadn't been the same. It wasn't as bright and happy anymore. There was a quiet silence, one only I seemed to notice, where Grandmother's pretty voice no longer sang.

When Nol and I were little, before Z and Willa were born, she used to pull us both on our laps and sing lullabies and old opera scores to us to help us get to sleep quicker.

I still missed Grandmother, but not so terribly that it was weird. I just missed her. I didn't want to forget her. That was all.

"Sure?" Willa asked incredulously. "I'm super excited."

I repressed a sigh and plastered on a smile. "Yeah, I'm really excited," I told her.

Satisfied, Willa beamed back and bounded away.

Willa and Z were both twelve, but very different. Willa was outwardly smiley and happy and very outgoing, much more than I. Z was really quiet and introverted like me, and he preferred to read over many other things that involved people. When he and Willa were babies, Mother was exhausted with just taking care of screaming, fussy Willa, and begged me to take care of calm, quiet Z for a little bit. Z practically attached himself to me, and he cried whenever someone else other than Mother held him. This naturally made me feel very proud, and my friends were all jealous. Now... well, those friends are out of the picture.

I brushed my hair and got dressed, putting on a heavy blue sweatshirt and wide legged painter's jeans.

It was a very cold winter for Virginia that year, with piles on piles of snow and ice. The whole creek behind the house was frozen solid, and all the neighborhood kids brought out their skates to play. The surface of the ice was too bumpy and uneven to ice skate much, by there were a few smooth spots that the kids monopolized.

Mother invited all the children in for cocoa after they were finished skating, so I had to dodge more than a few icy little shrimps as I went to the kitchen for a snack. Once I'd snitched a handful of crackers, I went to the piano to mess around and annoy Nolan.

I really felt like staying up in my room, but Mother called me out once for hiding away from the family, so I was trying to be a little more social.

Once I'd successfully wasted a solid twenty minutes annoying Nolan by my terrible playing, who was sitting in the living room on his phone, I left and put on my boots and coat. I would take a walk, I decided, to get away from all the noise.

Mother saw me about to leave, and said to me, "Nik! Take Z with you, won't you?" She looked downright pitiful, surrounded by all those messy children and Z, who was lurking in the kitchen corner. Besides, I almost always took Z with me on walks. It was almost a tradition we had.

I sighed, consenting with a nod. "C'mon, Z. Put on your coat. We're going for a walk."

Z shrugged. "Sure," he murmured and went to the coat closet to put on his winter gear.

When we got outside, we walked to our favorite place- the huge spruce tree at the edge of our property, sitting on a tall hill that you could look out and see everything, pretty much.

The spruce tree was beautiful, tall, and erect, with its sharp blue needles that felt soft if you stroked them down, but spiky and sharp if you brushed the needles up.

I broke one of the tiny needles in half and held it up to my nose. The sharp, minty scent escaped into the air, tingling my sinuses. Z did the same, smelling the sweetness of the air.

"This would be good to write about," he said, quietly and plainly.

Z wrote poetry but was very secretive about it. He very rarely showed any of his poems to anyone, and made me promise not to tell anyone where he kept them when he showed me his stash once. His poetry isn't what you would expect from a twelve year old boy. You wouldn't expect that someone so young would think so deeply about anything. But, well, it never hurts to look a little deeper than the surface. People are always a lot more than you see them as.

For example, when Z was seven, he asked Grandmother if she believed in heaven. Grandmother, being puzzled and amused, said simply, "Do you believe in heaven?" And Z replied, "Well, yes, Grandmother. Because if there wasn't a heaven, then all the nice people would go to hell. I don't think God would allow that, do you?" Grandmother had chuckled softly and patted Z on the head. "What makes up a nice person?" she asked. Z went quiet and thought. While he was still coming up with an answer, though, Willa had bounced over and said to Grandmother, beaming, "Sparkly stuff?"

I sat down in the snow, gazing at the treeline that was starkly silhouetted against the ice blue sky. Z sat down too, leaning against the blue spruce.

"Nikki?" he asked quietly, leaning back into the tree.

"What?" I asked, looking over at my little brother. His blue eyes were so serious sometimes... it made me sad for a reason I wasn't quite sure of.

Z tilted his head to the side and lay down in the snow to make a snow angel. "I was wondering... you still miss Grandmother, don't you?" He paused. When I didn't answer right away, he continued: "Because, you know when you get that look on your face- the one that means you're thinking deeply about something- the one I get too? Well, you get that when you're sad, I've noticed. And you've had that look ever since last summer." He was silent for a moment. "I can feel her, Nik. Her spirit is still with us, sometimes, even though she's... you know. I can sometimes feel her here... can't you?" He pressed a hand over his heart, screwing up his face in concentration.

"Yeah." I stared at a drifting snowflake, spiraling, spiraling, spiraling down. Just like it's felt ever since Grandmother died. "I guess it's stupid, but I still miss her." I sniffled and tried to keep the tears down unsuccessfully. "It's so hard to talk about her like this- like she really is gone. I suppose she is, but I don't think I'll ever stop thinking that someday, she'll come back to me."

"It's okay," Z said. "These things take a long time to heal."

I sniffed again, wiping my eyes. "How do you know?"

"I just do," Z replied. "Hey, remember that time you broke your glasses on that bouncy slide that you weren't even supposed to wear them on? Mother and Dad were so angry at you. You had to clean the bathrooms for a month!" He laughed softly. I could tell he was changing the subject, but he was trying, anyway, so I followed along.

"Yeah. But then I got those supercool new ones, the round wire ones that looked like Harry Potter glasses."

Z nodded. "You got really cool ones. I was... actually jealous." I could hear the smile in my brother's voice as he continued to talk, taking my mind off sad stuff.

I grinned up at the sky. "Thanks Z. You're pretty cool for a baby brother."

"I know."

———––——

"Hey! Wake up!" Someone jumped onto my back. I was lying in bed Christmas morning, just trying to get a little sleep, when Willa assaulted me like a hyper baby hyena.

"Get. Off. Me. Right now."

I was, decidedly, not a morning person.

Willa paid no heed to my grumpy words. "It's Christmas Day! Nikki, can you believe it? Ohmygosh, I'm so excited!" She bounced around.

"Get. Off." I shoved my sister off my bed and onto the floor, where she bounced over to my beanbag chair. She plopped down too hard, and a plethora of tiny foam balls shot out of the split seam that I'd never bothered to sew up.

Willa looked at my anime poster. "Ooh, he's so hot," she said, pointing to a character and making smooching noises.

"Get, you creep," I told her. My early morning grumpiness was losing steam too quickly and I found myself tiring quickly. "I want to sleep."

"You can't!" Willa exclaimed. "We're going to the party!"

"What party," I mumbled absently, wiping a string of drool off my cheek.

"Gross! You drool?" Willa stared at me disgustedly.

"Not as much as you."

Willa clapped a hand to her mouth, turning red. She shot me a death glare. "The party with all our friends? The one Mom said we could have?"

"Mother said we could have a party. I didn't." I decided not to mention the rather embarrassing fact that it couldn't be a party with all our friends, because I had no friends. And no, siblings and siblings' friends didn't count.

"You don't matter!" Willa cried triumphantly, flashing me a grin.

"Ouch," I muttered absently, too tired to care. "And I'm not going to the party."

"Oops, I didn't mean it that way." Willa looked genuinely worried at possibly hurting my feelings. "But you have to go to the party! Who would I talk to? I'd be all alone!"

"Huh. That's funny. Last I checked, you had, like, a million friends. And you all invited them, didn't you?"

"Well... I invited your friends too! So now you have to come!"

"What?" I sat up in bed, no longer tired. "But I— who'd you invite?" I asked suspiciously.

"Well..." Willa grinned. "Since you don't have very many friends, I invited those twins from the new house in the neighborhood! They're about your age, right? And the girl twin looks nice. You three could be good friends!"

"No, we couldn't. Has it crossed your mind that maybe I don't want friends?"

"Yes you do. I heard you talking to Nol about it. You said, 'How do you have so many friends? I can never seem to make any.' "

I scowled at Willa. "Still. You should've asked first."

She beamed. "If I'd asked, you'd've said no. So I didn't! Now get ready! This party is nice, so put on something pretty."

"Yeah, right."

I headed to my dresser and pulled out a pair of black jeans and a clean green sweater. That was about as fancy as I got.

"Oh, come on," Willa groaned. "Uh-uh. You're letting me do your makeup."

"No, you will not do my makeup. I don't need any, I won't wear any, I hate makeup." I glowered at my sister.

Willa was the prettiest of the family, even at an awkward twelve years old, with her silky auburn curls, her cornflower-blue eyes, and an abundance of cute freckles slashed across her button nose. Z looked very similar to Willa, seeing as they were identical twins, but he was less pretty and more awkwardly quiet. Nolan was tall and gangly, with glasses like mine and dark brown hair with red undertones. I had too long hair that frizzed up in humidity and a plain face bordered with heavy, wire framed spectacles. I had some of my brother and sister's freckles, but they were faint and hard to see.

Long ago, I had come to the conclusion that I wasn't pretty, and I might as well not pretend that I am by wearing thick, heavy powders and creams on my face and eyelashes.

Willa raced into her room and zipped right back, carrying a big, three-tiered makeup case filled with tubes and wands and powders. I spotted a scissor-like thing that had blunt, flat ends. It looked like a cross between a garlic squeezer and a torture device.

"That's an eyelash curler," Willa explained. "Okay, now let's make you pretty!"

"No," I said firmly. "No makeup. Nyet, nihil, non! I'm not wearing any."

"Hmph." Willa frowned and rummaged in her case of doom. She pulled out a hairbrush and a spray bottle. "Can I do your hair then?"

I rolled my eyes, deciding that Willa would never stop bugging me until I let her do something. "If you must."

Willa smiled prettily. "I love you, Nikki."

"Love you too. Now hurry up and leave me alone, okay?"

"'Kay."