Where the Forest Meets the Stars

An eight-year-old girl who mysteriously appears on Jo’s property one evening. Ursa is a “changeling” who’s “almost invisible [with] her pale face” (1), according to Jo, who quickly recognizes “[t]he intelligent glint in [Ursa’s] gaze” (3). Ursa claims to be an alien who came to Earth and took the body of a dead girl to witness five miracles, or “things that amaze [her]” (21), and return to her home planet to teach others what she learned. She stubbornly maintains this origin story despite evidence of her previous life.

Ursa shows a natural curiosity for the world around her. She reads War and Peace, Shakespeare, and Jo’s college-level ornithology textbook. Every character who interacts with Ursa notes her striking intelligence. Ursa explains that she uses “the dead girl’s brain to do things, and she was smart” (41). Ursa claims to have the ability to “make good things happen” (9) through a power she refers to as her “quarks” (136). Ursa claims her quarks are responsible for many of the good things that happen to her, Jo, and Gabe, such as Jo getting to live in her dream house, Jo and Gabe falling in love, and Gabe spending the night at Jo’s.

Eventually, Ursa’s past catches up with her, revealing the story of the human girl Ursa Ann Dupree. Born to teenage parents who used drugs and alcohol, Ursa has an IQ of 160, and she often got bored and acted out in class. Ursa’s father died when she was five. After her single mother brought shady men into their apartment, they murdered her in front of Ursa. What happened next is left open to interpretation. According to the alien Ursa, the human Ursa escaped the attackers and jumped out a window, but they soon caught and killed her. That’s “when [the alien] went in Ursa’s body, because [it] hated that she had to die” (281). It’s unclear whether Ursa’s alien origin story, which she adamantly maintains, is her way of handling the trauma of that night. The other possibility is that Ursa’s claims are true, as evident in the way her “quarks” bring good fortune to her loved ones. By the end of Ursa’s arc, she unites her identities, acknowledging that “the alien [is] kind of like Ursa’s soul, so Ursa and the alien could be a whole person” (318). This unification implies that Ursa is ready to move on from the trauma and work toward a normal life with her foster parents, Jo and Tabby.

Originally introduced as Egg Man, Gabe starts as Jo’s foil but becomes her love interest as the plot progresses. Gabe, who lives on the property next door to Jo’s forest cottage, is “about six feet tall and muscular from daily hard work” (15). He has a “heavily bearded face,” and his eyes are like “shattered blue glass” (16). Jo misjudges him, thinking a backwoods man selling eggs on the side of the road could be “a bit slow” (15), but as she gets to know him, Gabe reveals the many layers of his intelligence and personality.

Gabe’s arc follows his journey toward managing his mental health condition and allowing people to get close to him. This involves confronting his childhood trauma, when he witnessed his mother’s affair with the neighbor, George Kinney, and learned he was George’s son. In the first half of the book, Gabe has a hot-and-cold relationship with Jo and Ursa. He gets involved, begins to care about them, and then pulls away. Gabe tells Jo he deals with “social anxiety, depression, and a touch of agoraphobia” (79). Later, he explains that he “didn’t know how to be with girls in high school” because of his anxiety, and as a result he’s never kissed a woman or had a relationship. Jo changes this.

Jo helps him work through his tendency to push people away and resent his family. When Gabe tells her about his childhood trauma, it’s “the first time [he’s] told anyone” (184), showing how Jo helps him open up. Later, Jo encourages him to shave his beard, which he keeps because of his resemblance to his biological father. Jo’s presence helps Gabe face his trauma and his lineage. He has a face-to-face conversation with his biological father and clears the air, which allows him to accept the relationship between George and his mother. In the end, Jo’s love helps Gabe forge a new perspective on his parents, and he grows to love her, explaining that “he would rather have died the night the guy pointed the gun at [Jo] than watch [Jo] die. He said love like that can’t be stopped by anything, and he was happy he was born of that kind of passion” (297).

Facing his trauma and allowing Jo to become close to him helps Gabe get to a good place with his mental health. He says he’s “afraid to trust how good it is” (314), but Jo assures him that she and the others who love him will help keep him afloat. Gabe’s arc and relationship with Jo develop the theme The Healing Power of Love.

Tabby is Jo’s best friend. The two have been friends since their sophomore year of undergrad. Tabby’s favorite color is purple. She wears an amethyst nose stud and purple boots, and she regularly dyes her hair bright colors. Both Jo and Ursa admire Tabby’s free spirit, and Ursa declares Tabby her third miracle because “[s]he didn’t know she was supposed to grow up, and that makes her more fun than other grown-up people” (101).

The bond between Tabby and Ursa forms quickly after their first meeting. Tabby shows Ursa the “Purple People Eater” song and dances with her in the pizza restaurant. Tabby’s wild nature makes her a valuable friend to Jo. Jo recalls the days after her double mastectomy, when Tabby snuck a lamb into the hospital so that Jo could bottle-feed it. Tabby showed Jo that “[t]here are other ways to give milk” (256) to console her about the loss of her breasts. The way Tabby cares for her friends and for Ursa makes her a perfect candidate to help raise Ursa, which is why Ursa ends up in the care of both Jo and Tabby at the end of the story.

Gabe’s older sister, Lacey, is 19 years his senior and has “always been more like [his] mean stepmother” (109) than a sister to him. Gabe thinks Lacey exacerbates his illness by keeping him in bed. Jo notes, “She almost seemed pissed that [Gabe could] get up” (120), to which Gabe replies that he thinks “she enjoys it. It’s some power thing with her” (120). Lacey’s resentment toward Gabe stems from her insecurities about failing to live up to their father’s literary talent and suspecting Gabe had a different father. When Gabe was young, Lacey would “play games with [Gabe to] crush him and tell him how dumb he was” (122). Her antagonistic relationship with him is a source of conflict between Gabe and Jo.

When Lacey is introduced, she acts as a barrier between Gabe and Jo. She thinks Jo will just abandon Gabe at the end of the summer and confronts her, saying, “Do him a favor and forget him now instead of later” (105). However, after Gabe expresses his love for Jo to his family, Lacey softens her stance, realizing that Jo helps Gabe emotionally the same way her husband helps her. Lacey becomes an important ally toward the end of the book when she asks her husband, Troy, to represent Jo. Because of Troy and Lacey’s help, the felony charges against Jo are dropped, which leads to Jo’s becoming eligible to foster Ursa.