Junonia Read Online Free

set into motion and Junonia would materialize and intervene. Alice’s face was so tightly scrunched, spots and sunbursts pulsed across her eyelids.
    She was at number seventy-three when she heard a car approaching. Her heart drummed in her chest. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t keep her eyes shut.
    â€œKate!” Alice yelled. “Aunt Kate!” She raced to the car. Kate was sitting on the passenger side of the front seat. For a moment Alice blotted out the fact that there were two other people in the car with Kate. Alice opened the door before the engine had been turned off.
    â€œYou’ve grown three feet since the last time I saw you,” Kate said, rising.
    They hugged. Kate! thought Alice happily. Kate, Kate, Kate, Kate, Kate! When they broke their embrace, Alice’s parents and Ted and Mallory had joined them. Introductions were made. And just like that, there were two new people in Alice’s world, and her excitement evaporated into the swampy air.
    Ted Rumbelow was a tall man with a bushy mustache and a slow, deep voice. His handshake was so firm Alice thought her fingers might break as he gripped them.
    And Mallory. Mallory Rumbelow had a round face, round cheeks, round eyes, round knees, and a round nose. When Alice looked at her, she saw circles.
    Mallory was clutching a limp doll made of pale blue corduroy, worn and dirty. The color matched her eyes perfectly. When she lowered her head and kissed her doll, Mallory’s two yellow pigtails jiggled. One damp, loose ringlet clung to the skin above her left eyebrow like an upside-down question mark.
    â€œMunchkey wants to see the ocean,” were the first words Alice heard Mallory say. And that’s how Alice learned the doll’s name.
    The group meandered to the beach together. Kate played with Alice’s hair and held her hand part of the way. Alice could feel Mallory staring at her, but when she turned to look at her, Mallory either averted her eyes or covered her face with Munchkey.
    On the sand, they took in the view, then formed a little knot. Alice’s mother and Kate leaned into each other, whispering. Alice’s father and Ted were laughing about something. Mallory stood on her father’s foot, grasping his shirt with one hand, her other hand holding Munchkey. Alice was between her parents but felt disconnected. Invisible. She stepped away just a few feet from the group.
    She watched the endless procession of long waves rolling toward the shore. The crests were white and foamy. The hollows between the crests were deep, like trenches scooped out by a huge shovel. After a while, she saw the crests as strips of lace laid out on folds of steel blue cloth.
    Alice turned back. When she was close enough to be heard, she asked Mallory, “Do you like the ocean?”
    Mallory glanced up, then burrowed her face into her father’s shirt.
    Alice tried again. “Does Munchkey like the ocean?”
    Mallory let go of her father’s shirt and approached Alice cautiously. They walked slowly together along the tide line.
    â€œMunchkey’s mother went to sea in a pot, and she’s been missing for weeks,” Mallory said, her voice high and thin. “She might never come back.”
    Alice didn’t know how to respond. There was a lengthy pause. Into their silence entered the squawk of a bird, snatches of the adults’ conversations, the pounding of the waves. “ I like the ocean,” Alice finally said. “Aunt Kate—Kate—likes it, too.”
    â€œI think the ocean smells bad,” said Mallory.
    The warm breeze did carry a fishy smell, but to Alice it wasn’t a bad smell, and it came and went lightly as the breeze quickened and lulled.
    Mallory sniffed, jutting her head this way and that way. “I think it stinks,” she said. She wrinkled her nose. “And Kate is not your aunt.” Her eyes grew wide and became blank and shiny; she looked as if she