Stella gingerly touched the back of her head. “I’m fine. It left a knot, but that’s not the interesting part. When I came to, Arnie was there, but the people were gone, and he said there was no one else in the library.” She stopped talking and waited for Ariel to comment.
Confusion moved across her friend’s face. “What does that mean? The people had already left by the time you came to?”
Stella shook her head. “Arnie said there hadn’t been anyone there, so maybe I... dreamed it?”
“Dreamed it?” Ariel’s face scrunched. “How could you have dreamed people being there if that’s the reason you fell?”
Stella shrugged. She’d asked herself the same question. “It’s notlike I could prove there were people there. But theyseemedreal to me, and when I tried to ask Arnie about it again today, he diverted.”
Ariel reached for her stir-fried veggies and ate with rapt attention. “You think he’s hiding something?”
“Maybe. Then there’s the words.”
“What about the words?”
Stella frowned, wondering how to explain the heightened frequency and intensity of how the words interacted with her. “There’s a lot more of them recently. Ever since I burned the journal.” Her chest tightened, and her eyes widened. “What if this is happening to me because I”—her voice quieted—“murderedthe words?”
Ariel choked on a slice of glazed carrot. After drinking a huge gulp of water, she cleared her throat. “You didn’tmurderanything. But you might be on to something about this happening after the journal.” She put her container on the table and wiped her hands on a napkin. “Change usually comes after a rock-bottom moment, and I think burning the journal was you hitting bottom and making a decision to change. Maybe the words are trying to tell you something.”
Stella leaned back on her hands and stared up at the fan blades spinning above them. “Trying to tell me what?”
“Maybe it’s time you use them for more than your journals?” Ariel asked.
Something akin to inspiration quivered in her chest. “Percy would laugh me out of town if I told him I wanted to be a writer.” The realization stunned her.Didshe want to be a writer? She’d never thought of herself that way, but she’d filled hundreds of pages and not just with random words. She’d written poetry and short stories and even a few novel-length ideas she’d started but never finished.
Ariel rolled her eyes. “Who cares what Percy thinks? He loves you, but he has no clue what kind of life is best for you. If he thinks you should be sitting behind a desk crunching numbers and balancingspreadsheetsin Miami, then he doesn’t know diddly-squat about you. There’sno waythat’s your life path.”
Stella picked up her container of chicken and broccoli. She poked the chopsticks around the pieces of meat. “I did work as an accountant for a while, though.”
Ariel huffed. “We’ve all done thingsfor a while, but that doesn’t mean it’s what we’re supposed to keep doing. Do you want to be an accountant?”
Stella’s stomach rolled. “No.”
“That was easy,” Ariel said. “You’ve never said anything before about being a writer, but do you want to be one?”
Stella slowly chewed a piece of chicken. “Maybe,” she said. “I never thought it was a possibility.”
Ariel nodded. “If itwerea possibility, would you be interested?”
Tingles spread over Stella’s skin so quickly that she shivered. Could she gather together thousands and thousands of words and form a story? It was a daunting idea, moving from writing down phrases here and there, creating colorful art in her journal with words, to writing a complete novel.
“Possibly,” she said. She put down her take-out container. “My mother used to tell me that my words were a glorious gift that would guide me toward my dreams.”
“You never told me that,” Ariel said.
Which wasn’t a surprise since Stella rarely spoke about her mother, the topic too awful for discussion. “Do you think my words are a gift?”
Ariel nodded. “I don’tthink. Iknow.”
Stella often saw words around people, even patrons in the library. She’d never thought about deciphering their meanings and using them to assist somehow. “Aside from writing, maybe I should be using my words to help people.”
Ariel’s expression shifted to surprise. “The other day in the van, you knew I was interested in dating before I said anything. That was because of the words, right?” Stella nodded. “Can you hone that kind of focus on other people?”
Stella grabbed her take-out container again. She stabbed a piece of chicken and popped it into her mouth. “I don’t call forth the words. They normally just show up.”
“Have you ever tried to call them?”
Stella stared at Ariel and blinked a few times in the silence. “No, not intentionally.”
