Stella Starshine's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Stella Starshine wanted one thing more than her own skeleton hands could hold: a boutique that wrapped every bony resident of the Freshhold in soft, cute dresses. For three days she had searched the whole hold for fabric. She found only burlap sacks, dusty curtains, and coffin linings. All of it was gray, stiff, and sad. None of it was cute. She stood inside the little greenery-wrapped shop she had claimed for her dream. Vines crawled over the storefront windows. A pink clothing rack waited in the corner, round and cheerful, with tiny hearts on every curve. It was empty. It had been empty since the day she wheeled it in. Stella pressed her finger bones to the glass. Outside, skeletons rattled past in their drab shrouds. She wanted to dress them in ruffles and bows. But a dress needs fabric, and the Freshhold had none worth touching. The shop door burst open. A human girl tumbled in, pink pigtails bouncing, cheeks flushed. She dragged a bulging sack behind her with both arms. "Stella! You have to see this!" the girl said. She dropped the sack and grinned up at her. "I'm Sakura. I heard you were opening a kawaii shop. I've been dying to help someone like you." Stella had never met her, but she already liked her. The girl's cardigan had a heart stitched on the pocket. She wore her kindness out loud. "I have no fabric," Stella said. Her jaw clicked. "I've looked everywhere. There's nothing soft in this whole hold." Sakura knelt and tugged the sack open. "You looked in the wrong places." She pulled out a fold of cloth. It spilled across the floor like spilled cream. Pale pink. Soft as a cloud. Stella bent and touched it, and it did not scratch. "Where?" Stella whispered. "The old burial stores, past the lowest crypt," Sakura said. "Nobody goes there. It's wrapping silk. Boxes and boxes of it, saved for the dead." She beamed. "But the dead don't need it. You do." Stella ran the silk through her fingers. It was exactly what she needed. Her first dress was already forming in her mind: puffed sleeves, a ribbon at the waist, a skirt that floated. Then she saw the stain. A long brown mark ran down one edge of the cloth. She pulled more free. Every piece carried the same mark. Years in the damp crypt had soaked the silk through. "It's water-damaged," Sakura said, her smile sinking. "All of it. I didn't see until the light hit it." Stella held the ruined silk against the empty rack. She finally had soft fabric. She also had the only soft fabric in the Freshhold, and it was stained the color of rot. Clean it, or sew nothing at all.