Chapter two
Jessica
Waking up the morning after a bad sprain is hell.
I open my eyes, feel absolutely fine for exactly one second, and then I try to move my leg. "Nope," I announce to the ceiling. "Cancel it. Send it back."
My ankle has swelled overnight, and my scraped palms have stiffened into two useless little claws.
Getting to the kitchen is a production of crutches and undignified lurching, and by the time I arrive I've decided I'm eighty now.
That's just what's happening. I skipped six decades overnight, and I should probably start buying velcro shoes.
Hopefully a couple of extra strength Tylenol will drop my average age to sixty, I think.
The kettle doesn't care how old I am. I fill it, lean against the counter, and wrap both aching hands around that first too-hot sip. Then I check the horoscope.
Sagittarius. "Persistence surrounds you. What you dismiss today may return tomorrow. The universe rarely takes no for an answer."
I go still with the mug halfway to my mouth, because that one's pointed.
I don't know yet what's supposed to be so stubborn; this morning the only thing surrounding me is a mountain of chores and physical pain flaring all over my body.
But I tuck it away anyway — what you dismiss today may return tomorrow — and get on with it, because being eighty doesn't pay rent.
I'm halfway to the door, dressed and armed with crutches, when I remember the mail — a little pile fanned across the mat. Electric bill. A pizza flyer. A dentist postcard. And one that doesn't belong.
It stops me. Heavy cream cardstock, the kind of paper that costs money, my name on the front in dark, elegant script.
Ms. Jessica May Miller.
Not "Occupant." Me. Full name, middle and all. I flip it over — an embossed crest, a mountain and a crescent, raised under my thumb.
Luftis Academy.
Never heard of it. My first, extremely reasonable assumption is that it's one of those absurdly expensive private schools that mails glossy brochures to convince parents to spend a mortgage on tuition.
The only flaw in that theory is that I don't have kids.
I have plants, and I've killed two of those.
I slide my thumb under the flap.
Dear Ms. Miller, It is our distinct honor to inform you that you have been selected to receive a full scholarship to Luftis Academy, one of Europe's most distinguished institutions. Your placement has been secured. We ask that you contact the admissions office at your earliest convenience...
I read it twice, and then I laugh, because it's genuinely funny.
A full scholarship. To me. For a school I've never heard of, that I never applied to, for a program the letter doesn't even name.
Someone has a mailing list with a very wrong entry on it — or this is one of those stunts where the "scholarship" turns out to cost forty thousand pounds and a kidney.
"Nice paper, though," I admit, and drop it in the recycling on my way out.
The store smells like new hiking boots, which is, hands down, my favorite smell in the world.
Trail Point isn't big, but it's my job. I've barely tied my apron when a man in stiff, box-fresh boots comes in looking lost — his daughter talked him into a three-day trek in the Lake District, and he has no idea what he's doing.
Oh, I love this part. "Those boots — worn them yet?"
"Bought them yesterday."
"Then we're breaking them in this week, or you'll hate your daughter, the Lake District, and me personally.
" By the time he leaves he's got proper socks, a pack that fits his torso instead of just being the biggest one, and a helluva lot more confidence.
That's the whole job, honestly. Nobody needs me to sell them the most expensive anything.
They need somebody to make the thing they're scared of feel possible.
"You have crutches," says Nadia, materializing from the stockroom like a nosy ghost. "What did you do."
I give her the good version — the wet rock that looked like every other rock, the graceful two-thirds of a second before I stopped being graceful, the paramedic who saved me.
"You called mountain rescue," she says, delighted. "You. Who lectures customers about trail safety."
"I contain multitudes." I hold up a scraped palm. "And I read the historical plaque before I fell, so at least I nearly died an educated woman."
"You're annoyingly cheerful about almost breaking your leg."
"No break, it’s all good."
The second letter shows up three days later. Same cream cardstock, same crest, same deliberate ink. "Persistent," I mutter — and the word snags, because a horoscope used it recently and I don't love the coincidence.
This one's more urgent. Politely urgent, the language still impeccable, but with an undercurrent the first didn't have. We have not yet received your response... your placement remains reserved... certain opportunities cannot be extended indefinitely. And then, twice:
Please do not disregard this letter.
Please do not disregard this letter.
Okay. Now I'm curious. Not convinced — curious.
So I look them up, expecting a donate button, and instead I get a real-looking website: decades of history, photographs of a campus cradled in actual mountains, a crest that matches the one under my thumb.
Too legitimate, frankly, to be bothering with me — and that's the part that doesn't fit.
Schools that old and that grand don't send full rides to twenty-two-year-olds who sell headlamps.
They don't need me. Which means it's a mistake.
A misfired mail merge — some other Jessica May Miller out there, wondering where her scholarship went.
"Sorry," I tell the crest. "Wrong girl." Into the recycling, right on top of the pizza flyer.
By the time I get home that evening, my ankle's gone beyond sore — and there's a third one on the mat. Cream. Elegant. That crest. Except this one's thick, a packet straining at the seams, like a page and a half of please do not disregard this letter finally wasn't getting the job done.
"Oh, come on," I tell my empty flat. Three in under two weeks, escalating, refusing with impeccable manners to take a hint.
The universe rarely takes no for an answer.
I hear it in my own voice and downright refuse to be freaked out by this.
My thumb finds the flap — for one second I actually consider it — then my ankle throbs and the couch wins.
I drop it on the counter, unopened, next to the fruit bowl.
The packet sits there for three days. I walk past it a hundred times. I eat dinner next to it. I do not open it — every time I reach for the flap, some stubborn part of me says if you open it, you're taking it seriously, and I refuse to take it seriously.
By the third week my ankle's downgraded from crutches to one of the store's trekking poles, which makes me look like a very confused hiker who forgot she's indoors. I'm reorganizing the headlamp display when someone walks up beside me.
I glance up, ready with hi, let me know if you need anything, and forget the rest of the sentence.
Because the man walking in is tall and gorgeous, with dark hair going a little silver at the sides and his sleeves rolled to the elbow.
I have never in my life been undone by a forearm. I'd like that on the record.
"Hi," I manage again, louder. "Let me know if you need help finding anything."
He looks straight at me. "Jessica?"
Customers don't know my name. I'm not even wearing a name tag, I forgot it today.
"...Yes?"
"My name is Jon Matthias." He stops a polite distance away. "I'm from Luftis Academy."