A Lion in a Flower Field

Magic vanished the following day.

Phone calls to the house were unsuccessful and even Benji, on his delivery trips to houses in the south, was unsuccessful in getting someone to answer the door when he knocked.

No one answered.

No one replied.

It was complete radio silence for the rest of the week and throughout the weekend.

“Any news?” Mira asked after school one day. She’d hoped that maybe by Wednesday—a full week since the incident—there would be better updates.

To her immeasurable disappointment, Benji shook his head, sliding a loaf of bread from the brick oven. “None,” he said, depositing it into a basket and it was then that Mira realized the kind of bread her father was baking. It was sweet bread and, as far as she knew, the only people who could clean their stock of it were Amelia and Magic. Which, based on the size of the loaf and the basket, meant that Benji was preparing to deliver it to them. “No calls, no requests for a delivery … Nothing. So I figured I’d take up the task myself. Give them something just in case.”

Mira’s heart pounded in her chest. She didn’t want to accept the fact that they could be walking a tightrope on one of her worst fears: Magic and his mother leaving town as they had that fateful day after the mine collapse.

No, they had to be okay. They needed to be.

Because if they weren’t …

Then you failed.

Mira crossed her arms atop the glass display cases, resting her chin on her knuckles. “You … you’re certain they’re still home to even take the basket?”

“Their lights are on, Bella.” The words enabled her to breathe a little easier, but it didn’t chase the demon in her head away. “I checked this morning during my errands. They’re home—unless they’ve left without turning anything off, which I doubt. But Amelia won’t answer my calls and she won’t answer the door. Which means there’s something going on in the house.”

“It feels like the phoenix wake all over again, Dad.” Benji looked up at her with a start, like she’d just slapped him in the face with a towel. Her father took particular care to avoid any mention of the wakes after both her uncle and Bennett’s passing, but it couldn’t be avoided this time. Unable to bear the hurt and shock in her father’s face for even mentioning the wake, Mira looked at the floor. “Sorry. I know you don’t like talking about the wakes. I don’t either. But it’s all I can think about.”

“It’s not so much the resemblance to what happened during the wake itself that frightens me, Bella. It’s something else.” He motioned for her to grab a seat at one of the front tables and she did as she was asked, dropping her backpack to the ground as Benji flipped the Open sign to On Break and sat in a chair opposite her.

The pensive gaze in his blue and brown eyes made her nervous. Mira painted her father in several ways. Some days, he was a tired old man. Other days, he was the despondent drunk. But despite the many pictures Mira had for him in her mind, “fearful” was never part of that. Benji was rarely ever fearful—maybe when she was little, but not in her more recent years.

“Do you remember,” Benji said, “what they looked like the day of the wake? And after?”

Mira blinked. She did. Vividly.

At least, she remembered what Magic looked like—it was burned into her memory despite her attempts to clear it. He’d been thin in the face with sharp, jutting cheekbones that were unfitting for a seven-year old and an expression in his eyes that felt like he’d seen far too much in a short amount of time. His clothing had been large enough to fit two of him inside of his outfit, a neatly pressed gray suit with a burnt orange shirt that went past the trim of the jacket, with a pair of matching gray slacks.

Mira had been tasked to watch over him that day and it felt more like keeping tabs on a skeleton than on a child with how fatigued and unwell Magic was. He could hardly stand on his own—let alone upright—and was so exhausted from either lack of sleep or some kind of raging illness that merely walking to the chapel had tired him out. Mira remembered how much it had pained her to even sit beside him, to carry him to her house.

Yet the more she thought about it, the less Mira was able to remember about Amelia’s appearance. She knew what her brother’s mom was required to wear: a metallic, burnt orange gown with the black heels to go with it despite the winter chill—the only defense Amelia had against it being an old parka that went to her knees—but there was nothing in her appearance that Mira could remember being worried about.

When her lack of a response had reached an uncomfortable length, Benji sighed and pushed his chair back, crossing on leg over his knee, shaking his head. “Between them,” he said, “it’s the kid I remember the most. I didn’t understand how Magic was still conscious let alone living, but that’s beside the point. Amelia, though …” Mira watched her father pause with a long huff through his nose, as if recalling the memory was a physically painful task. For all she knew, it could be. It certainly made her stomach hurt remembering it all. “The last time I had seen her look that … distraught was after her mother passed when we were kids. When I found her after the wake, she didn’t even have the strength to walk up to me so I sat beside her on the bench instead.”

Mira gazed out the window. Someone was riding on horseback down the street and two kids were tossing a frisbee back and forth. It was so … normal when, by all accounts, everything felt quite the opposite. “I don’t remember that,” she said. “Just the stuff she wore.”

Her father must have gotten up to finish the basket because the sound of plastic crinkling wasn’t too far away. Most of the time she enjoyed the sound because she liked wrapping the baskets. Now, it was grating to her ears. “I mean, they both looked like crap that day, Bella. But I do remember Amelia specifically breaking down in tears when she realized we’d gotten Magic to eat something. She said that, before the day of the wake, he’d gone nearly four days without eating.”

Gears turned in Mira’s head and she turned to watch her father ruffle the plastic, tying a string at the top to hold it closed. Her father’s fears over Magic and Amelia’s silence finally made sense.

Mira pushed her chair out, propping one foot on the seat. “You don’t think she’s not answering because he isn’t eating, do you? Because if that’s the case, then—”

“Bella, it’s the only thing I really can think about. But, for both our sakes, try not to consider the worst case scenario. At least for now.”

“But Dad, if that is the problem and it does get worse, then—”

Her father waved his hand and cut her off. In four steps, Benji was beside her, lean arms wrapped around her shoulders. Mira gingerly held onto his forearms, lowering her face so that her nose collided with his wrist. He smelled like flour and charred wood and she closed her eyes, relishing the safety that came with it.

Benji pressed his lips to the top of her head. “I’m going to run by the house again and see if I can get Amelia to open the door. That’s what the basket’s for. I’ll even bring my walkie to call you with updates if that would make you feel less …?”

“Worried?” Mira ventured. “Anxious? Whatever the word is for when you think about only the bad news?”

“Pessimistic?”

“Exactly.”

Benji tightened the hug and Mira wished he would stay there for a while, but the weight and pressure of his arms around her vanished along with the comfort as he patted her shoulder and approached the basket he was preparing. The plastic was drooping, slowly peeling away from the top of the handle. “What homework do you have today?”

Mira rubbed at her nose, gathering her hair into a short ponytail. “Math, Finance, and Geography.”

“How long will that take you to do?”

“A few minutes each at most. Maybe a little more for Geography.”

“Think you can run the shop for me while I’m out? It’s the middle of the week and some people might be picking up baskets I have off to the side prepared for them. But I doubt they’ll be coming in swarms, so you should be able to do your homework and that at the same time.”

“What about the restock?” Mira asked.

Her father shrugged, tying the plastic together with string, crafted into a bow. “Don’t worry about it. I can handle that when I get back, but if you want to start that, feel free. Sound like a plan?”

Mira nodded and took up the space behind the counter as Benji carried the basket on his shoulder. He had gotten one foot out the door before he turned around. “Oh! One last thing. If anyone asks where I am, all you have to tell them is that I’m out delivering supplies and running errands.”

She frowned. She hated having to lie—really, it wasn’t a lie so much as it was lacking the full truth. “And if they ask me who you’re delivering baskets to? Since some people’s parents are really damn nosy.”

Benji laughed at that. “Tell them you don’t know. You came back from school and I left to deliver things not long after. The less details you can give to people the better. Word spreads fast. Parents gossip naturally, but the kids take it and run. You know that.”

Mira hated that she did. She just gave a small half-hearted smile, nodding.

“Just do what you normally do,” continued her father, “and you’ll be set.”

“Smile and make friends?” she asked bitterly.

Her father grinned and Mira could only hope she was mimicking it well enough as she looked down at the counter. The fear of blowing her father’s “cover”—when it wasn’t really a cover for him so much as it was for Amelia and Magic—made her nervous. “In a very, very loose sense of the term, yes. I’ll be back in a little over an hour. Hey.”

Her eyes flicked up to catch her dad’s gaze. Sunlight danced in the lenses of his glasses, creating a glare that rendered his expression nearly unreadable. And while she couldn’t see it in his face, Mira heard the warmth in his voice.

“Chin up, Bella,” he said, so softly she almost would have missed it if he hadn’t gotten her attention earlier. “Don’t psych yourself out. I’ll call later, alright?”

Before she could even muster the words to speak, her father vanished out the door, closing it behind him.

The bakery was a messy library within a half an hour.

Aside from one or two visitors that swung by to pick up baskets, Mira was free to do as she pleased. Rather than focus on the schoolwork, she turned the old radio up, hummed to its tune and, with her notebooks sprawled out and abandoned on the front counter, danced across the tile floor with flour in her hair.

She’d taken up the responsibility of the restock, craving movement and a chance to drive the nagging voices out of her head if only for a while. Mira stocked the cases with freshly-made pastries, rolled out dough for loaves of bread, fed wooden logs into the brick oven to grow the fire. She could hear her father’s impressed silence when she scraped the metal peel against the marble counter to roll a slab of dough inside the oven.

Her feet pivoted, twirling on a beat. On her own inside the bakery it was easy to swap from one side to another, exchanging an old mask for a new one. Here, she ran on automatic, a machine going through motions. Calculated and precise. It was an easy bit of separation running the bakery because it was a necessity—one Mira had learned several times the hard way. Eccentricity caused fires. Missteps caused incorrect measurements.

Everything was meticulously done in a specific order, her father used to tell her growing up. She’d disliked it at first, annoyed with the prospect of having to be patient for her results. But when she eventually learned early in her teen years that the payoff was far worth the trouble, the adjustment became easier and taking part in the fruits of labor was a hefty reward for Mira’s trouble.

In her tunnel vision, she almost didn’t hear the phone ring.

She hurried to turn off the radio and dust most of the flour off her palms before snatching the telephone from its rung, sandwiching it between her shoulder and ear. “Arbesque residen—”

“Mirabellis?” asked the voice on the other line, soft and familiar. And nothing like her father.

“Amelia?” Mira replied, leaning against one of the small tables.

A pause on the other line, the brief muttering in the background drowned out only by Amelia clearing her throat. “Yes. Your father caught me while I was downstairs putting things away and knocked on the window to get my attention.”

“Is he there? My dad?”

“Mhm. He’s taking apart the basket he came with and suggested I give you a ring. I hadn’t realized we scared you that much.”

Mira’s grip tightened on the phone, willing tears back. She wouldn’t do that, not now. If she was going to break down in tears, she would do Amelia the courtesy of doing so in person. Not from her spot all the way across town. “A little bit,” Mira replied, despite the knowledge of it being a massive understatement. “I—We were worried you guys left without turning your lights off.”

“Oh, Stars, no,” Amelia replied, relief in her tone. “He’s been a bit … fatigued, but I think he’ll be okay. This is what normally happens.”

Mira drummed her nails along the table, gnawing her lip. So Magic was sick—if sick was even the right word for it. “How’s he doing?”

Amelia took a breath, exhaling in a slow steady stream that made the receiver crackle. “I told your father this, so I’ll loop you in, too. The Headmistress phoned us the other day—I want to say it was about three days ago. They’re granting him a week and a half to two weeks at the latest of sick leave.”

“Will Magic be okay in two weeks?”

“Assuming that he does what he’s supposed to and sicknesses don’t creep up on him like they normally do this time of year, he should. Unfortunately, he got my stubbornness in the genepool.”

Mira snorted.

“I will say, some days are better than others. Magic still hasn’t left his room, but there are some times when I go up to check on him, he’s awake and sewing with the cat instead of huddled under the covers and sleeping with the cat.”

“Mabel is doing her job of keeping him company, then?” Mira asked.

She could hear the grin on Amelia’s face—a reluctant one based on the small huff from the other line. “Look, I’ve never really been an ‘animal in the house,’ person if only for the fact that I work with boiling water and I’d fear for its safety. But if it helps Magic heal, I’ll gladly have that cat over every day.”

“Mabel’s a good cat,” Mira said. “And she likes him a lot—Magic and I feed her before and after school starts.”

“I can tell,” replied Amelia. “Mabel hasn’t left his side. Which is reassuring because his nightmares started up again since he came home, so he’s on the aerityne medication again. Hopefully it helps to keep him calm at night.”

“I … Nightmares?”

A long pause. Then, a sigh. “He … The nightmares have been a constant since Bennett passed. They come and go and flare up more during certain times of the year. December is usually pretty rough for him.”

Mira glanced outside the bakery, heart thrumming in her chest. In glimpses, all she could recall was Magic’s panic in the stalls. If she truly wanted the answers to her questions, now would be the time to do it.

But all she said was, “I know it is.”

“I’m just hoping that with everything going on, it doesn’t—”

A muffled, second voice suddenly crackled through the phone. Mira couldn’t make out the words, but she recognized the tone of her father’s voice and the stuttering from Amelia on the other line made her chuckle.

“Benj,” came Amelia’s faint voice, as though she’d moved further from the phone, “what are you—? No, leave him alone. Benj—Benji!” Her voice went briefly back to normal. “Hold for a second, Mira.” The clattering was loud in Mira’s ear, made slightly more amusing by Amelia’s scolding, which followed soon after. “Benjamin! Knock first!”

Mira couldn’t help her laughter. When the phone clanged and crackled to signal Amelia’s return, she fought to keep herself under control. “My dad went up already?”

“Yeah.” She could hear the woman’s eye roll. “Your father has a bad habit of doing the opposite of what you ask of him. Almost reminds me of someone else I know.”

Mira grinned. “I couldn’t imagine who that could be.”

“Watch yourself, Mirabellis.” It was phrased like a warning but had all the seriousness of a well-timed joke. “Sometimes it’s good to listen before you act.”

“I know. Dad tells me the same thing sometimes.”

“He should take his own advice then.” Mira shook her head, laughing softly to herself. “Speaking of, how is your father doing?”

“He’s been okay. He hasn’t been very stressed, so that’s a big help.”

“And the box?”

Mira pursed her lips. It shouldn’t have made her heart race at the mention of it—her father hadn’t looked for that box in years. And yet she still felt the childlike panic that closed her throat and hammered in her chest. “Locked. I still have the key. And we had our three year celebration in August, so … I’m hoping it stays this way. It’s the longest he’s ever gone.”

“You and I both, Mira. You and I both. I assume Benji’s put you on front door duty?”

“Kind of. We were supposed to have people come and pick up baskets today, but only two people showed up to grab theirs. It’s been pretty quiet all things considered.”

“I’ll let you go tend to things in case anyone else decides they want to swing by and grab their things. Your father should be leaving soon”—Amelia’s voice grew in volume as if to reach the second floor of the house—“so that you’re not by yourself. Sound good?”

Mira nodded, then remembered that Amelia couldn’t see her. “Yeah. Tell Magic to take care of himself.”

The woman on the other line chuckled. “I will. Repeatedly. Have a good night, Mira.”

“You, too, Amelia.”

Mira hung up not long after, feeling slightly ill. It mingled a little with relief, though it was short lived. Impulsively, she swept the baking tools into the sink, closed her books, and flipped the sign to Closed despite the early evening hours. Benji would be annoyed by it but Mira wasn’t in the mood to care and she lugged her backpack up the steps, depositing it by the sofa before rolling onto the cushions with her face buried in them.

A wild scream tore from her chest into the fabrics, an assortment of tangled emotions. Fear. Relief. Anger. Some she didn’t have the knowledge to name. Within that mass, Mira thought there might have been hope. A fragile bit of it, but hope nonetheless. And though she never counted herself among the faithful, she prayed to the stars above hoping that if they had any plan at all, they damn well better be good ones.