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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