Forever Twelve

The first book in the Evers series introduces twelve-year-old Ivy Stewart, an ambitious sixth grader with a carefully mapped future. She plans to attend West Archer Academy, an elite boarding school where students can complete high school in two years. From there, she intends to attend Duke University, then Columbia Law School, and eventually sit on the Supreme Court, inspired by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. This ambition is rooted in a promise she made at the graveside of her mother, Dorthea, who died of cancer when Ivy was in third grade. At a school information session, Ivy is joined by Ronan Haywood, a smart but unmotivated classmate who secretly wants to escape being known as the son of his mother, Margery, a locally famous psychic.

During admissions weekend at West Archer, Ivy meets a girl named Abigail Young who runs toward her calling the name "Grace," then stops short upon realizing her mistake. Abigail marvels at the resemblance, examines the back of Ivy's hand, and encourages her about the entrance exam. After they part, Abigail's perspective reveals she is far older than she appears. She texts a group she calls her "family" to announce she is enrolling at West Archer. When Ivy takes the entrance exam, she discovers someone has faintly circled correct answers throughout her test booklet. She agonizes over whether to report it, ultimately working each problem independently, but finishes feeling guilty and nauseated.

Before Ivy leaves for West Archer, her father hosts a small going-away gathering attended by their elderly neighbor and Ivy's great-grandmother, Gigi, whose real name is Betty. Gigi lives at Pine Grove Assisted Living and has dementia. On a good day, she encourages Ivy not to "water down" her dream and claims she once met Albert Einstein on a train to Boston. Before leaving, Gigi gives Ivy a plastic bag of miscellaneous items, including an old notebook filled with cursive writing and marked with the number seven on its cover. Ivy finds the handwriting hard to read and sets it aside. Separately, Ronan's older brother Dean reveals that psychic abilities run in their family and that Ronan may develop them on his thirteenth birthday.

At West Archer, Ivy discovers Abigail is her assigned roommate. The night before classes, Abigail sneaks to the roof to meet three other students: Estella, known as Este, a severe dark-haired girl; Dom, a friendly boy; and Timothy, a quiet, neatly dressed boy. Ivy follows and overhears them discussing historical events as though they lived through them, including the Wright brothers' bicycle shop and the sinking of the Titanic. During the first weeks of class, Este aggressively challenges Ivy during a history presentation, citing racism within the women's suffrage movement to embarrass her. Abigail later apologizes, explaining she was trying to demonstrate the group's depth of knowledge.

Abigail escalates her efforts to prove her claims by cutting large chunks of her own hair in front of Ivy. The next morning, Abigail's hair has fully regenerated. She presses Ivy to believe and asks for help finding her best friend, Grace, who disappeared from West Archer in April 1944. Ivy refuses. Meanwhile, Ronan's thirteenth birthday passes uneventfully, but three days later his psychic abilities manifest when he collides with a student during a soccer game and sees a vision of a stairwell and an ambulance upon contact. Despite his warnings, he cannot prevent the student from falling down the stairs.

Ivy searches the school library's yearbook collection and, with Dom's help, finds a candid photograph in the 1955 yearbook unmistakably showing Abigail, identical to her present appearance. Convinced, Ivy tells Abigail she believes but still wants to change roommates. Abigail proposes a deal: She will tutor Ivy if Ivy helps search for Grace. A flashback to January 1819 reveals how Abigail became an Ever, a person frozen in perpetual youth. Twelve-year-old Abigail and her younger brother James lay dying of consumption (tuberculosis). Este breathed an icy, life-restoring breath into both children, saving them but binding them to live forever as children. Working together as roommates, Abigail demonstrates her photographic memory and explains that Evers build neural pathways more efficiently than ordinary people, need almost no sleep, and possess great physical strength.

A breakthrough comes when Ivy realizes Gigi's story about meeting Einstein matches details from Grace's life. She video-calls Gigi, who reveals she was adopted after being found alone in the woods near Walnut Cove, Pennsylvania, on August 8, 1944, just months after Grace's disappearance. Gigi was approximately eleven or twelve, painfully thin, and remembered only her first name, Betty. Ivy finds a 1944 newspaper article with a photograph of the found girl that looks unmistakably like Ivy herself. Grace and Gigi are the same person: Somehow, the ageless Ever grew up.

Over fall break, Ivy brings Abigail and Este to visit Gigi at Pine Grove. Este cannot enter the room and waits in the lobby. Abigail gives Gigi a roll of Necco wafers, and Gigi exclaims she called them "knuckle wafers" as a girl. Abigail whispers, "I know," confirming a shared history Gigi cannot recall. That night, Abigail tells Este she saw the same V-shaped scar on Gigi's hand that Grace once had. Este insists that without her memories, Betty is no longer Grace.

Back at school, Ivy remembers the notebook Gigi gave her but discovers it has gone missing. She learns Este stole it, and a confrontation reveals a darker truth: Este planted the exam answers in Ivy's test booklet, not to help her but to hold leverage over her. Este issues ultimatums: Return the notebook, move away from Abigail, and cut contact with the Evers, or be exposed as a cheater. Este allows Ivy one hour with the notebook. Grace's entries describe her life from the late 1930s through 1944 and reveal she knew she would lose her memory. Ivy finds no explanation of how Grace reversed her Ever status but suspects Este was involved.

Under Este's pressure, Ivy moves to a single room and writes a painful note ending her friendship with Abigail. The cheating investigation quietly resolves when the school attributes the marked test to a clerical error. Abigail, hurt and confused, reads Ivy's admissions essay through the school librarian, Rebekah Strange, a long-time ally of the Evers. The essay reveals Ivy's promise to her dying mother. When Abigail announces she is leaving West Archer to spend time with Gigi, a class discussion about heroes and sacrifice crystallizes Ivy's resolve to tell the truth regardless of consequences.

On the roof, with Ronan present, Ivy confronts Este, declaring that Este can reverse the Ever transformation. Dom then confesses that he, not Este, turned Grace mortal. A flashback reveals Grace made Dom an Ever after saving him from a house fire, then asked him to reverse the process by taking back the breath of life. Dom complied, and Grace lost all her memories. Este placed Grace with a family in Pennsylvania and kept the secret for over 80 years. During the confrontation, a rainstorm breaks out. Ronan pulls the fire alarm, but Ivy stumbles against the low wall and falls five stories. Abigail reaches Ivy on the ground and breathes the icy breath of life into her, turning Ivy into an Ever to save her life. When Ronan touches Ivy afterward, he senses only darkness: She registers as what his family calls a shadow person, a being whose future psychics cannot read.

In the aftermath, Dom leaves the school with only a note of apology. Este admits everything to Abigail and Timothy. Ivy confesses to the entrance exam cheating and is suspended. Over Thanksgiving, Abigail visits Ivy and offers to reverse the transformation, warning that Ivy would lose all her memories. Ivy agonizes through the night: Remaining an Ever means never growing up, never becoming a judge, and watching her father age. Becoming mortal means losing every memory of her deceased mother. The novel ends without revealing Ivy's decision. She tells herself she has made her choice and waits for Abigail to wake so she can share it. The story continues in the sequel, Never Thirteen.