Stella stood at the rail on the uppermost deck of the tall, stately white ship and looked down—it was a long way down—to the dark grey waves below. How strange that they pounded and pounded against the boat but they hardly rocked at all! Mother had said that an ocean voyage was not what it used to be—that it was safe, that Stella should not worry—should not even think of the song that father had used to sing, Husbands and wives, little children lost their lives…It was sad when that great ship went down.
Father had delighted in teasing her, but Stella was a sensitive child, and she did not like to be teased. She roiled over memories of little embarrassments for weeks, and her pale, moonlight-fair skin would flush over rememberings that tormented her—but that everyone else had forgotten. The slightest remark could make her lilac eyes fill with tears, and some of the more cutting ones—your father isn't like other fathers—could send her into a fit of secret weeping. Stella often thought that perhaps the other children would not tease her so much if she had been allowed to stay in one place for more than a year or two, but Father had always wanted them to move around. He always said that there was so much in the world to see.
In her eleven years, Stella had lived in eleven countries. She had been born in Rome. She had spent her formative years in a pagoda-house in the far East—a hut on the Serengeti—a cabin in the Australian aboriginal outback—a cottage at the foot of the Swiss Alps—a thatched roof dwelling in England that had existed in the time of Queen Elizabeth—a rather tame ranch house in the Rocky Mountains, in the States—a houseboat on the River Nile—a lonely converted lighthouse off the Gibraltar straits—an adobe dwelling in the Castile region of Spain—and an apartment in the heart of Paris. That is where Father had died. Stella remembered the day as though it were yesterday, and not a full three months ago. In his last days, he had liked to stare out the window at the busy street below while Stella sat beside him with her sketchbook. She had been drawing the street scene—a gaily-dressed gipsy with floating shawls, the striped awnings of the pattiserie and boulangerie, and had been trying—and failing—to capture the exact color of the sky above everything—more than blue, oh, so much more than blue! Finally she had gotten something right and she had held up the book for Father to see.
"Look, dearest," she said, but she saw that his eyes had closed, and that his head on the pillow had turned to the side. He seemed to be smiling, and she realized with a shock that he had gone.
What would any other child have done in a situation? Her mother was out, so Stella could not call for her. She did not run away and hide, either. She did not even cry. They had known the end was coming for some time. She had simply sat down and made a quick sketch her father's face—the happiest she had ever seen it, since he had gotten so sick—and then she leaned over and kissed his lips.
"Rest peacefully, darling," she said, and pulled the blanket up to his chin so that he would not be cold.
Stella was surprised to find that with Father dead, things were not much different. Oh, she missed running in to his room to tell him about her day, but he had been so ill for most of her life that he had not been able to go out, to have meals with them, to do fatherly things like carry her on his shoulders or take her to the seashore. It was Mother who did those things—dear Mother, who was everything that Stella wanted to be when she grew up. Mother, who was so quick and clever and proud—who could write the dearest fairytales, which she read at bedtimes—who was beautiful, so beautiful that a famous picture of her hung in the Louvre, only a few wings over from that other eternal woman, the Mona Lisa. Mother, who had decided, only a month ago, that she would pack up the flat in Paris, and go—home, she said, but Stella could not imagine what that meant.
When Mother said 'home' she meant Canada—she meant the Island—she meant New Moon. Stella had heard stories of New Moon, and felt like she knew its inhabitants very well, though she had never met them, really. Tall, stately Aunt Elizabeth—dear Cousin Jimmy, who wasn't a bit as queer as everyone said—and beautiful, sentimental Aunt Laura. Stella had a card from them every year on their birthday. They wrote often to Mother, too, and once Stella had espied a letter from Aunt Elizabeth: Emily, do take the child and come home. We miss you. Stella had jumped when Mother caught her reading it, but Mother only smiled, and said, "That coming from Aunt Elizabeth, is an outpouring of the utmost order." But then Mother's smile had faded and she had cried, "Will I never—never again—see the moon rise over Lofty John's bush?" She went into her study and Stella could hear her writing, her pen scratching over the paper, for what seemed like hours. Stella felt sure she was writing about New Moon and she longed to read it, but Mother never showed it to her. No matter—she would see the place soon enough, for herself.
Oh, she was getting cold! She should not have been out on the deck for so long. Mother would be wondering where she had gotten to—and indeed, at that very minute, Mother's sweet voice came floating to her ears.
"Stella! Stella Priest, where are you?"