Steering the Stars Read online

  To friends, coffee and Girl Scout Cookies

  With love,

  Autumn and Erica

  XOXO

  chapter one

  chapter two

  chapter three

  chapter four

  chapter five

  chapter six

  chapter seven

  chapter eight

  chapter nine

  chapter ten

  chapter eleven

  chapter twelve

  chapter thirteen

  chapter fourteen

  chapter fifteen

  chapter sixteen

  chapter seventeen

  chapter eighteen

  chapter nineteen

  chapter Twenty

  chapter twenty-one

  chapter twenty-two

  chapter twenty-three

  chapter twenty-four

  epilogue

  To: Hannah

  From: Caroline

  Date: August 24

  Subject: Leaving on a jet plane…

  Or more accurately, just left on a jet plane…

  I just got home from the airport but I already miss you! Message me when you land and take lots and lots of pictures. Remember that I’m living vicariously through you.

  -Care

  ____________

  It was raining.

  This shouldn’t have been a surprise because the first thing I’d read about England when I started doing my online research was that it rained, like, all of the time. But as I looked out the curved plane window over a sludgy sky and a tarmac slick and black with rain, my throat grew uncomfortably tight.

  The flight attendant’s voice came over the intercom. On behalf of the airline and the entire crew, I’d like to welcome you to London, where the local time is eleven oh seven.

  The plane wheeled closer to the gate and I felt the woman next to me lean over my back, crowding my space. I could smell her perfume and feel her breath creeping across the skin of my neck.

  “It’s raining,” she said like this wasn’t totally obvious. We’d been next to each other since New York, and by now I knew that her name was Deena. She was from Rhode Island and she had three grandkids and a dog named Pugnacious. He was a pug and according to her, he loved to dress in wool sweaters and even in pants. Pants on a dog? I had my doubts.

  “Yep.”

  “I was hoping for good weather,” she said as though offended. She was patting down her grey curls and sniffing.

  What could I say? “Mmm-hmmm.”

  Before she could push the weather issue, the plane came to a full-stop, the seatbelt light clicked and everyone on board, including Deena and I, started to pack up.

  I gathered a rainbow of colored pens and balled up my sweatshirt and stuffed them into my messy backpack. Deena bent over to put away a half-eaten pack of Tic-Tacs and a book on the history of saltwater taffy that she’d barely even looked at.

  She turned to me as we stood, both of us slightly stooping so we wouldn’t bump our heads. “It was good to meet you. Good luck with your sister and your new school.”

  “Thanks and you too,” I said, cramming into the center aisle.

  The rest of deplaning was a slow and silent ordeal. We dragged ourselves and our neck pillows and pudgy carry-ons past the cramped seats and through a twisting florescent-lit loading bridge until we spilled into a busy customs terminal. I blinked, trying to adjust to the new space, and took a breath. When I turned my head to tell Deena goodbye, I saw that she was already walking away, pulling her red rolling suitcase behind her.

  Suddenly alone, I rubbed my thumb across the star-shaped pendant hanging from my neck and started reading the signs. I needed to figure out where I was supposed to go next.

  Was it only two days ago that Caroline had asked me if I was scared to be moving for the whole freaking year? At the time, I’d been cutting tags off all my new clothes and had been too amped about London and my new school to feel anything but excitement. But, as I navigated the customs line, answering questions about whether or not I was smuggling meat or dairy products into the country, my stomach began to slither and hiss like a pit of disturbed vipers. Yep. What I was feeling was something close to scared.

  A guard in a dark blue uniform stamped my passport and shooed me along. I shifted my bags, swallowed, and walked through a set of sliding glass doors. They whooshed shut behind me and I scanned the crowd, not knowing exactly where I should be looking. I was anxious. Uptight. Dad had said that Felicity would be the one picking me up from the airport, but would my half-sister even recognize me? Should I have made a sign or worn a flashy red hat? What if she didn’t show and I wound up homeless and living down by the Thames in a cardboard box?

  “Hannah!”

  My out of control thoughts screeched to a halt and I spun around. Felicity, my father’s daughter by a first marriage, was walking toward me with a purposeful stride. She was easy to recognize with her wide pool-blue eyes, perfectly sloped nose, and even features. Her fashionable suit and heels hinted that she had come straight to the airport from work. That’s when I realized that I had no idea what she did for a living.

  How strange was that?

  We shared DNA.

  This was technically my sister and I couldn’t tell you her job title or her favorite animal or what kind of music she liked to listen to.

  Hell, I didn’t even know her middle name.

  “Hannah!” Felicity called again. The sleeves of her tailored green jacket bunched in at the shoulders as she lifted an arm to wave me over.

  I took in a deep breath to feed my nervous lungs and walked a little faster. “Hi!”

  “How was your flight?”

  “Fine. I mean, not really. It was cramped and horrible and way too long but you know how that goes. By the end I was hoping the flight attendants would just hand us all parachutes, open up the door and let us jump out.” I tried to smile but it was all wonky on my face. My cheeks felt weird and I knew the amount of teeth I was showing was downright obscene.

  Her forehead wrinkled as she looked me down and up. “You’ve certainly changed since I saw you last.”

  “Ah, gaining a few cup sizes in the boob department will do that,” I said as I patted my chest. This was a total joke. I was flat as day-old soda and I figured I always would be. My mother was a dancer turned dance teacher and she’d passed on her hipless, buttless, boobless body to me, but not her grace or athleticism.

  Felicity looked confused.

  “I’m joking,” I clued her in.

  “Of course.” She forced out a laugh. Can you say AWKWARD? “Well, it truly is great to see you.” More uncomfortable laughter.

  “Um, you too.” The snakes in my stomach hissed.

  “Well then…” Felicity leaned forward and we did one of those hugs where your bodies don’t really touch. When she pulled back, one of my duffel bags was swinging from the crook of her arm and she was shaking her head. “I’m sorry Michael and the girls aren’t here to meet you.”

  Michael was Felicity’s husband, and “the girls” were Grace and Chloe, their five-year-old twin daughters. I had never met any of them.

  “That’s okay. We have the whole year to get to know each other.

  “I assure you that everyone is looking forward to having you stay with us. The girls haven’t been able to stop talking about it, and I should probably warn you that they’ve started decorating your room with their latest artwork. It’s quite abstract.”

  “I’m sure I’ll love it,” I said, fidgeting with a loose thread dangling from the hem of my wrinkled t-shirt. Her suit and perfect hair were making me feel all kinds of shifty. Like I should have trie
d harder and worn a nice blouse or put on lipstick or at least fixed my ponytail. “This is… just… thank you again for having me. I still can’t believe that I’m actually here. In London.”

  “I’m looking forward to it. I’ve never really had a sister and I suppose neither have you.”

  With these stilted niceties out of the way, we got busy situating my suitcases on a sort of rolling cart, finding a SIM card that would work in my phone, and exchanging some of my American dollars for pounds.

  Felicity warned me the car ride from the airport would be a long one so I settled into the front seat, trying not to be freaked out by the fact that she was driving from the right side of the car and I was sitting on the left without a steering wheel in front of me. But it was weird and I caught myself cringing every time a car passed us.

  “How are your parents?” she asked, shifting the car into third gear and jerking her left foot off the clutch. Even in heels she seemed to know what she was doing with a car.

  “Good I guess. My mom’s studio has taken off. She started to offer aerial dance and it’s become, like, the thing,” I said, using air quotes, “for middle age women in Libby Park.”

  “What’s aerial dance?”

  “Basically, these ladies wrap themselves in sheets and hang from the ceiling like they’re part of Cirque du Soleil. Kind of like yoga but a foot off the ground.” I shrugged. “It’s weird but at least she’s busy. And Dad’s company opened up a new development in Missouri last month. It’s been a bit of a mess so he’s been travelling a lot to get things in order and make sure the foreman on the project knows what he’s doing.”

  “Is astronomy still his hobby of choice?”

  “Yep,” I told her with a nod. “He’s nerdy as ever and has been known to wake me up at three in the morning to ask if I’m interested in seeing a conjunction or Neptune in opposition. The answer is always a resounding no.”

  We shared a quiet laugh. “And what about Henry?”

  I thought about my brother, who, I realized with a start, was Felicity’s brother also. “Oh, you know… he’s Henry. Since he’s going to be a senior this year he thinks he knows pretty much everything. The reality is that he knows about as much as a slice of banana bread.”

  Felicity’s blue eyes darted to mine and back to the road. The car lurched into fourth gear. “Which is?”

  “Absolutely nothing.”

  She humored me with a chuckle. “And your boyfriend? Dad mentioned he was some kind of big hockey star?”

  “Lacrosse,” I corrected before twisting to look out the rain-splattered window. I definitely did not feel like talking about Owen. Not now. And definitely not with Felicity. “So, where are we?”

  She bobbed her head. “Brentford and Gunnersbury Park are up ahead.”

  Whatever that meant. “Huh.”

  A weighty silence stretched out between us. The snakes inside of me had calmed, but I was still nervous. I scratched my elbow. I coughed. I studied the other cars on the road for a while. Then I sifted through my bag and pulled out my phone to double check that the new SIM card was in working order. When my email loaded, there were two new messages from Caroline and one from Mom. Nothing from Owen.

  Felicity cleared her throat. “You must be excited about your new school. Dad tells me you want to be a writer.”

  More than anything in the whole world.

  I put the phone face down in my lap and flopped back against the seat. “Yeah, Warriner is supposed to be the best. I’ve thought about it every day for the last three months and I still can’t believe it’s real.”

  Last spring, I’d stumbled upon an essay competition for aspiring teenage writers based in the London area. The prize was a partial scholarship and a position at The Warriner School, a school with a killer creative writing department.

  It was a longshot. It was such a longshot that I didn’t tell anyone—not even Owen or Caroline—when I sent off the essay and my application packet.

  Then it happened.

  In May, I received an envelope in the mail—the big, fat, good kind of envelope—and it was time to come clean. Mom and Dad were furious for about five minutes and then they were sad and then they started talking logistics. I suggested looking for a boarding house or some kind of city dorm (if that even existed), but they straight-up laughed in my face. Staying with my half-sister was the only option.

  I knew I had a great thing going at home, where I had the perfect boyfriend and friends and I was a shoo-in for assistant editor of the school newspaper. But, the truth is that getting into Warriner and making the move to London was an adventure. And after a lifetime in Oklahoma, an adventure was exactly what I wanted.

  Yep. This whole thing felt like the plot twist I needed—like a golden ticket to another kind of life. A more exciting life.

  “It will certainly be different from Oklahoma,” Felicity observed.

  I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the car window. I was smiling softly. “That’s the plan.”

  ****

  To: Hannah

  From: Caroline

  Date: August 25

  Subject: Hello?

  omgggggg!!! Not to sound pathetic or anything but, WHY HAVEN’T YOU MESSAGED ME?! It’s been well over a day. Were you whisked away by an Ed Sheeran look alike? Or better yet, Ed himself? *wink, wink*

  Can’t wait to hear about what your sister is like! Write me soon. And by “soon” I mean RIGHT NOW!

  Caroline

  ____________

  To: Hannah

  From: Cecilia

  Date: August 25

  Subject: Checking in

  Hi Jellybean!

  I hope you’re settling in and getting to know your sister. So proud of you.

  Love you,

  Mom

  ____________

  To: Hannah

  From: Caroline

  Date: August 26

  Subject: Earth to Hannah

  Testing…

  Is anyone out there?

  ____________

  To: Caroline

  From: Hannah

  Date: August 27

  Subject: Hannah phones home

  Sorry! I know I promised to email every day and I officially suck. My only excuse is that it’s been crazy getting settled and figuring things out. Supposedly, English is our common language but everything is confusing. For instance, cookies are biscuits, pudding seems to be more like bread, chips are called crisps, and french fries are called chips. What gives?

  The city is both amazing and scary. It’s so much bigger than we even imagined and I’m almost afraid to go out and get lost. Yesterday, I did brave a bus and check off some big things like Harrod’s and Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. And, yes, I tried to distract the guards by picking my nose but they didn’t take the bait ;)

  So far no Ed sightings, though I am vigilantly on the lookout as promised.

  Hannah

  ____________

  To: Owen

  From: Hannah

  Date: August 27

  Subject: hi

  I made it. Just thought you might want to know.

  ____________

  To: Hannah

  From: Caroline

  Date: August 28

  Subject: Details please

  Sooooo jelly!

  How’s your sister? Her husband? Your nieces? The house? Your room?

  Have I mentioned that I am stuck in Libby Park and am living vicariously through you???

  #sorrynotsorry

  ____________

  To: Caroline

  From: Hannah

  Date: August 28

  Subject: Re: Details please

  My sister (that is s
o weird to say) seems great but we haven’t actually spent much time together. Things are a little awkward which I guess is normal considering we’re strangers. Her hubs, Michael, seems nice enough but he works a lot. Chloe and Grace are LOUD and STICKY but the cutest. You know how I wondered how I’d be able to tell them apart? Well, Chloe just got hot pink glasses so that solved that. Both of the girls are in love with my makeup case and my nail polishes and have been trying to talk me into painting Professor Pufferton’s nails.

  And, the house is this really cool Georgian style walk-up, which basically means it’s like a two-story apartment.

  #yourewelcome

  Hannah

  ____________

  To: Hannah

  From: Caroline

  Date: August 28

  Subject: Re: Re: Details please

  Ummm… Who is Professor Pufferton?

  ____________

  To: Caroline

  From: Hannah

  Date: August 28

  Subject: Re: Re: Re: Details please

  The cat.

  ____________

  To: Owen

  From: Hannah

  Date: August 29

  Subject: Seriously?

  The silent treatment is getting old. I know that you’re hurt but call me or email me, okay? At this point, I’ll take a smoke signal or even an owl. ANYTHING.

  And, before you even ask, I haven’t told Caroline what’s going on. Please, please don’t talk to her until I have a chance to explain. You know how sensitive she is.