Before
From birth to age nine, Kestrel and her mother, Jill, had spent Christmases at her grandmother’s house in Idaho. After moving to Farm Home, Kestrel’s first real shock besides being separated from her mom had been the lack of Christmas. How did a Christmas-less world still turn? It felt apocalyptic.
Four months after she got out of Farm Home, Kestrel was at the grocery store with Grandma and stopped dead in the aisle.
“What’s the matter?” asked Grandma, in a hurry to finish shopping.
Kestrel pointed to the seasonal aisle, overflowing with candy canes, gift chocolates, and red-and-green plastic stockings. She breathed out the word “Christmas.”
“I know, isn’t it ridiculous? It ain’t even November yet. They want to get you spending your money earlier and earlier every year.”
But Kestrel wasn’t offended on behalf of Halloween getting short shrift. She was sincerely amazed that Christmas still existed. Her heart lit up like a buzzing firework, and magic itself seemed so possible that surely mermaids were also real and wanted to be her best friends.
On December first, Grandma let her bring the dusty plastic tree out of the basement and start decorating.
As the days clicked deeper and deeper into December, the fantastical part of Kestrel felt certain of some kind of Christmas miracle.
Perhaps her mother would realize how much she missed Kestrel, leave Farm Home, and show up at their door Christmas morning like the perfect gift.
That did not happen. But Grandma must have sensed Kestrel’s need, because for a certified curmudgeon, she leaned in to string lights and carols and gingerbread.
On Christmas morning, there were a few wrapped gifts, including a set of Jane Austen novels.
Post–Farm Home Kestrel was still way too weird to make close friends at school, and so she spent Christmas break reading.
She’d already devoured Austen’s books at Farm Home.
Kestrel’s basic needs included an imperative to move and a yearning for variety, and when her environment hadn’t offered those, books had kept her sane.
While her mind was exploring, it tricked her body into thinking she wasn’t trapped.
She’d read and felt herself existing long ago and far away.
She’d been able to create an imaginary place that could be her home and family until she could grow old enough to find real ones.
So in a way, reading Austen over Christmas break had felt like coming home again—at least to some part of herself. Thanks to her fierce stubbornness, that core of her had miraculously remained intact despite everything that Farm Home had done to break it.
Every Christmas after her fifteenth, Kestrel made a tradition of rereading the novels, and now Austen felt as Christmas as Santa Claus. If only Kestrel could live inside one of Austen’s stories. Live inside Christmas itself. Perhaps then she’d finally feel safe.