Twelve Days of Stella

The Twelve Days of Stella

Stella looked around the room that had been her home for

all eighteen years of her life and thought of everything she

would miss when she went away to college next Fall. The

white canopy bed with sheer pink drapes and orchid silk

bedding. The full-length mirror surrounded by twinkling

white fairy lights that made her feel like a princess every

time she checked her reflection--like she did now. The

mural she and her mom had started the winter before she turned ten. It was the one

thing she could not take with her and the one thing she would miss the most.

"You're being silly," Stella told her reflection. "Oxford is months away. Besides,"--she

smoothed an errant strand of honey-blonde hair--"you can always autoport home

whenever you want."

Her gaze shifted to the reflected view of the unfinished forest scene on her wall. A

happy composition of deep green pine trees, rainbow colored songbirds, smiling

woodland creatures, and the glow of tree faeries among the branches. That winter they

had spent hour after hour painting, while Daddy worked tirelessly on his new

curriculum for the Academy. Hours of laughing and sweating and painting each other

on the nose. The memories were that much sweeter because they were the last she

would ever have of her mother.

After the funeral Stella had never picked up a paintbrush again.

A knock at her door startled her out of her sad thoughts and she quickly wiped at the

tears stinging her eyes. How foolish she was being, crying over a past she could never

change. The Christmas season must be making her nostalgic.

"Um ... Stella?" her new stepsister Phoebe called out.

She sounded nervous. Never good.

"I have an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny problem and I could use your help." She paused

before adding, "You might want to bring an umbrella."

teralynnchilds.com

© Tera Lynn Childs

The Twelve Days of Stella

2

Stella took a deep breath. With Phoebe, the problems were never itsy-bitsy, teenyweeny. Shaking off her melancholy memories, she mentally formed a waterproof

hydrokinesis shield around her body and pulled open the door.

***

“Ow!”

Stella winced as something small, round and hard pelted her in the

head. And then another. And another. Before a fourth could sting

her scalp, she neofactured an umbrella and held it overhead.

She would not admit that she should have heeded Phoebe’s

warning.

“Phoebe,” she snapped above the roar of thousands of brightly

colored objects raining down on the living room, “what in the name

of Hera is happening?”

“I don’t know,” Phoebe shouted back. “I was just sitting on the couch, daydreaming

when these started falling from the sky.”

Phoebe was pressed against the near wall, holding Daddy’s oversized hardcover Atlas of

the Ancient World above her head. The little colorful objects bounced off the book,

springing into the center of the room. Stella held out her hand and captured a few. She

studied her handful, noting that the red, yellow, and green balls each had a little white

S printed on one side.

“Are these--” Stella squinted at her hand. “--candy?”

“Oh shoot!” Phoebe edged away from the wall to stand next to Stella. “They’re Skittles. I

was daydreaming about my favorite candy store, and how they have these beautiful

rainbow colored displays, and how they always remind me of the rainbow of fruit

flavors, and ...” She gestured at the raining candy, as if that should explain it all.

Stella had no idea what Phoebe was talking about. Of course, Stella frequently had no

idea what Phoebe was talking about. She chalked it up to the cultural differences

between girls raised in Greece and California.

But, intrigued by the daydream and the idea of a rainbow-filled candy store, Stella lifted

her hand to her mouth and popped the candy inside. Her tongue exploded in a burst of

flavor. She didn’t think she had ever eaten anything quite as overpoweringly sweet.

She loved it!

teralynnchilds.com

© Tera Lynn Childs

The Twelve Days of Stella

3

“Stella?” Phoebe shouted.

“Right,” she said, pulling herself out of the candy-induced reverie. With one wave of

her hand, the downpour ceased, leaving them standing in three inches of Skittles.

***

Stella stirred up the blueberries from the bottom of her

yogurt while watching Phoebe shovel the Skittles into

garbage bags by the bowlful. Maybe she should give

Phoebe a hand, but she was having too much fun

watching her stepsister labor over the results of her

misfired powers.

“I don’t see why you won’t just zap them all away,”

Phoebe complained. “I know you can.”

“Of course I can,” Stella replied between spoonfuls of blueberry yogurt. “But you would

hardly learn your lesson if I make your problems disappear. You’re just lucky Daddy’s

not here to see the mess.”

She smiled with satisfaction at the look of horror on Phoebe’s face, even if it wasn’t

really justified. Although Daddy could be a bit of a stern disciplinarian, he had a soft

spot for Phoebe that made Stella’s ears itch. He never let her get away with half the stuff

Phoebe did. If Stella had been the one who visiomutated all the water in the house into

glitter, she would still be grounded. Just like they were still finding glitter in the

bathroom.

Hrmph. Stella would let Phoebe struggle a little longer with the manual Skittles removal

before reversing the results of her misfire.

“Hey, what’s this?” Phoebe asked from where she was digging rainbow candy from

beneath the sofa. “They feel like paintings.”

Stella froze.

She had forgotten about the paintings she’d hidden away so she wouldn’t have to face

the reminders of bittersweet memories. Paintings she hadn’t laid eyes on in years. And

now Phoebe was pulling them out into the light.

“Wow,” Phoebe said as she set the paintings onto the sofa and studied them. “They’re

beautiful. Who painted them?”

Stella set her half-eaten yogurt on the kitchen counter and went to stand next to Phoebe.

There were four canvases. The first three were goddess portraits, commissioned by

teralynnchilds.com

© Tera Lynn Childs

The Twelve Days of Stella

4

Hera, Athena, and Artemis. The fourth was a portrait of a hematheos woman with looseflowing blonde hair, soft gray eyes, and a joyful smile.

“My mom painted those,” Stella answered, pointing at the goddess portraits. Then,

facing the painting she could never bring herself to destroy, she said, “And I painted

that one.”

“Stella ...”

Phoebe’s voice had taken on such a strange tone of awe and surprise that Stella couldn’t

help turning to meet her steady brown gaze.

“That’s amazing.” Phoebe shook her head, like she couldn’t quite fathom the situation.

“I didn’t know you painted.”

Stella looked back at the portrait she’d done, the portrait of her mother.

“I don’t.”

***

As Stella flicked her hand at the room, sending the sea of

Skittles back into oblivion—except for the jarful she

zapped onto her desk ... for later—she wished she’d just

cleaned up the mess in the first place. Then she wouldn’t

be facing Phoebe’s questioning look about the paintings.

But it wasn’t like she had to stay and answer those

questions.

“I’m going out for a while,” Stella said as she snatched the portraits off the sofa and

headed for her room. “Try not to bring any more plagues to the house before I get

back.”

She could practically hear Phoebe’s teeth grinding behind her. That almost made up for

her discovering the paintings.

Stella quickly slid the canvases under her bed. They should be safe from Phoebe’s

curiosity—and her powers—until Stella could decide what she wanted to do with them.

Now that they’d come out of hiding she couldn’t just put them back and forget.

When she heard Phoebe’s door slam—not an unusual occurrence—Stella stepped into

her silver ballet flats. Seconds later she was walking the path to the village, heading for

her favorite refuge: the pantheon temple. Perched on a cliff overlooking the gorgeous

Aegean below, the pantheon temple was built as a tribute to all the gods and goddesses

teralynnchilds.com

© Tera Lynn Childs

The Twelve Days of Stella

5

of Olympic descent in an attempt to diffuse any arguments about preferred patron

deities and the like. Not that anything could prevent the gods from arguing.

The temple was rarely used anymore. The gods didn’t visit the island with any