A Lion in a Flower Field

The request for Magic’s headphones was delivered to the capital by horse transport two days later.

Mira found her father on the phone with an old business partner in Droidell two days after her conversation with Magic on the florist shop roof. The request had been penned and mailed with the only thing left being to wait for a response from the Council. Since then, Mira found herself asking the same question every day like an annoying small dog nipping at its master’s heels.

“How long will it take for us to know?” she would prod, poking at her father’s arm while they sat on the couch after closing hours or during lunch break cleaning crumbs off the countertops.

Benji gave her the same response each time. “When Amelia or Magic calls to tell us they got an acceptance or rejection letter in the mail,” he’d said. One day, he’d leaned over the top of the display cases with a long, hefty sigh through his nose that Mira knew only came from exasperation. “It’s out of our hands now, Bella,” her father added. “Only the capital can decide what to do with the appeal. We just need to count our blessings and hope they make their decision correctly.”

Correctly.

As if there were any other “correct” options besides giving Magic what he needed to live a normal life.

She hated that. “What if they don’t?”

“Then I give Blake another call and have him send another. I won’t have the Council make a fool of them. The persistence alone should count for something, otherwise they’ll be hearing from me myself.”

Mira didn’t think it was reassuring enough. In fact, it irritated her down to the bone and her mind immediately went back to Peony and her sparkly, purple headphones. Headphones she hadn’t seen since Grade 5. What if the Council decided that Magic didn’t need them, that giving them to him seven years after the fact would be counterintuitive? That he’d gone through life so long without them that he didn’t actually need them, even though he desperately did?

Would they assume he was faking it? That his condition wasn’t that serious—no, they couldn’t. Yet the voice inside her knew damn well that the Council would overlook it if they felt it wasn’t significant enough. It was a thought that kept her up at night far more than it had any right to.

And why did it?

Because she knew how badly Magic needed them?

Or because without them, she knew he couldn’t attend school with her?

The stress of it all knotted her stomach; Mira couldn’t bear to sit still with it, so she found her relief in the air.

For the seven days of silence from both the Council and the Coopers, Mira spent what little she had left of her summer afternoons and nights masquerading as a shadow, scaling the rooftops to overlook the town, its jagged spine, and the school building located further out in the distance, noticeable only by its flagpole flying the town’s seal. She’d hoped that the consistency of soaring at night would ease her nerves, that the routine of having something to do instead of sitting with her thoughts would set her restless mind at bay.

To her annoyance, it didn’t.

Instead, the lack of news droned over her like a massive, looming rain cloud. Every single phone call the bakery received sprung her into action, a gas fire beneath her feet. But every single time Mira checked on her father while he spoke with someone on the other line, the shaking of his head and the professional tone of his voice was all she needed to know that there’d been no updates.

By the middle of the week, Benji had gotten so aggravated with her hogging of the walkie and standing by the phone line that he restricted her access to both.

Not that this stopped Mira from taking the walkie to her room while he was asleep or peering around the corner of the staircase to spy during his shift.

“Bella,” Benji said after hanging up the phone with a customer and walking with her upstairs to the living space, “you need to stop being so antsy about it. Playing a waiting game will only make you more anxious than you are.”

“I don’t see how you can be so calm about it,” Mira shot back with a bit more venom than intended. Her father, if he noticed it at all, didn’t correct or reprimand her as she continued, laying down on the floor between the couch and glass table. “And for the record, I’m not anxious.”

“Tell me that again when you’re not sprawled out on the floor like that.”

Picking up a pebble from the carpet—tracked in by one of their shoes, she figured—Mira tossed it into the air in an attempt to keep herself busy. The activity was short-lived; the tiny rock came down faster than she anticipated and poked her in the eye. She winced. “Okay, so maybe I am. But I’m worried, Dad. Amelia is usually running errands by the time I call, and if Magic is home—which I know he is—he won’t answer them.”

“And I understand your concern,” Benji said, sitting on the couch beside her. She pulled herself up into a sitting position, knees propped up, arms wrapped around her shins. “But I don’t want to push them for answers they may not be ready to give us. Do I want to check in with Amelia and the kid? Yes. But if they won’t answer your calls, what makes you think they’ll answer mine?”

Mira dug another rock from the carpet, rolling it around her fingers. Benji had a point. She knew this. But her fears for the school year, which rested on Magic receiving his headphones, were suffocating her, driving her nerves up a wall. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this stressed over something and she was hoping that the suggestion of even starting school hadn’t thrown Magic and Amelia into more trouble than it was worth.

And if it had …

Mira suppressed a shudder.

Her father sighed and leaned back against the couch. “What’s bugging you, Mirabellis?” he asked. “You’re quiet.”

“What about it?” she said.

“Everything. You’re never quiet. Not unless you’re thinking about something.”

“Have you gone by their house recently?”

“No. Why?”

“Are their house lights on?”

Benji raised a brow, peering at her from above the rectangular frames resting on his nose. There was a lingering wariness in his sea of blue and brown and he sat up a little straighter. “Why?” he repeated.

Mira wrung her hands. “Because sometimes when they have these moments of complete silence, I think that they left without telling anyone. It wouldn’t be the first time that they’ve done that, either.”

Her father ran a hand through his scraggy auburn curls, dragging it down to stroke the scruff along his face. It wasn’t quite a beard, but it wasn’t clean shaven either, although Mira desperately wished he would keep it that way. She disliked the way it pricked her when she hugged him. “That was a different time,” Benji said after a moment’s thought. “It’s also one Amelia would prefer not to repeat. You know that, Mirabellis.”

She did, but the thought still sat uneasily in her gut. “I know. But it still isn’t like them to ignore calls. Can’t you bring a basket over or something?”

“What good would it do? If they won’t answer calls, Bella, they probably aren’t answering the door, either. Running a basket would draw attention. Don’t you remember the hassle the patrons gave me the last time we delivered baskets when they weren’t home?”

Mira did. She ran the shop while her father dropped off the bereavement baskets—a courtesy they extended to coal mining families who lost relatives in the collapse—well beyond the typical week and a half to help Magic and Amelia cope with the loss. When the Light Festival preparations began, three weeks after the accident, Mira and Benji had gone to invite them over to spend the holidays only to find the house lifeless and dark. Despite the emptiness of their home, her father continued to run baskets.

No one knew where they went or why at the time, but Mira kept a tally mark in her journal to count the days until they returned. And on each tally, she kept a separate, anger-inducing column of stars. One for each time customers asked Benji, who often made these deliveries in the evening for the sole purpose of avoiding notice, when he planned on “dropping a knee.”

It should not have bugged her that the town was more concerned about her family’s personal business than they were for the wellbeing of two of their own. In fact, Mira expected it. But it disgusted her that strangers who didn’t know the first thing about either of their families were persistent in getting her widowed father to marry Magic’s recently widowed mother. The suggestion alone was repulsive.

Not that it mattered to other Chromians.

All they cared about was drama, anyway.

Mira didn’t say anything in response. Benji rested a heavy hand on her shoulder. “If we get nothing by the end of this week, I’ll run a basket over. Just be evasive with their questions.”

On the seventh day with no communication, Mira was at peace with allowing the same, slow schedule to repeat itself. She lounged on her bed, plucking at the blankets, listening to her father enthusiastically greet customers one floor down.

Like it had been all week, the morning was slow. Tiresome. Painfully stagnant. By the time she’d gotten herself dressed for the day and picked out a leftover pastry on the kitchen counter, she was distraught to find that only an hour had passed. Mira didn’t have the stomach to eat anything after that, so she threw herself onto the sofa and laid down with her feet in the air, cycling on invisible pedals in the air.

She’d been half paying attention to everything, focused on the bumps in the ceiling. Her eyes closed as the phone rang. This time, she ignored it while her father answered, remembering his words of warning and every false alarm. Had she zoned out completely, she would have missed Benji’s shout from below.

“Mirabellis!” he called, voice carried by the hallway of the stairwell. “Grab the walkie and tune it to the house line! It’s for you.”

Her nerves exploded. She shot upright and propelled herself off the sofa, gripping onto the kitchen counter to temporarily combat the blood rush. Clumsily, her hands scrambled for the walkie and, once tuned, Mira placed it to her ear in time to hear Magic from the other line.

They’d gotten accepted for the headphones.

Mira squealed so loudly into the speaker that she’d forgotten for a moment that she was shrieking directly into her brother’s ear on the other line and he went silent aside from a groan of pain. She could picture him now, holding the phone at a distance, dramatically rubbing at his ears. “A warning before you pierce my eardrums would be much appreciated.”

“Sorry,” Mira said, “but this is good news! Why don’t you sound as happy as I thought you’d be?”

His reply was deadpan. “I am happy.”

“That’s not what I’m hearing. Hell, I sound more ecstatic about it than you do and I don’t even need them.” She paused, tapping her fingers on the counter. “Is there a catch or something?”

“They’re a rental. The Council is giving us two for me to use for the rest of my high school career. Apparently, they’re under the impression that I’ve gone my entire education in the building without them.”

“Whoever got hold of your file obviously didn’t read correctly then, because if they did, they would’ve seen the absolute hell the Council put your parents through just to get you homeschooled.”

Magic went silent on the other line, the only noise being his breathing and the tapping of fingers against something hard. Like there was something he wanted to say, but lacked the ability or courage to do so.

A misstep. Mira backtracked. “So what happens to the headphones at the end of your senior year?”

“We mail them back,” he replied, voice so small Mira had to try harder to hear him. “They gave us two in case something happens to the first, but the Council wants them both by the time I’m eighteen.”

“Okay, but what if you didn’t have to give them back?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m sure there’s something in that letter that can be carefully overlooked.” She couldn’t help the grin on her face. It would be so nice, just this once, to stick it to the Council and its committee of stuck-up aristocrats.

There was a small silence as Magic processed her words and then, with a scoff, he said, “You are crazy.”

Mira only shrugged her shoulders, breaking off a piece of a pastry and popping it into her mouth. “You’ve called me worse. And I don’t see how finding a loophole would be a problem. You get to avoid the noises by keeping one of the spares and the Council still gets one of their headphones back. Win-win scenario for both parties.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how that works.”

“That sure?”

“Nearly positive. But,” he added, “as mad as the idea is, I … do kind of like it. I wouldn’t mind keeping one around.”

“We’ll figure out a plan closer to the return date. One big, important thing at a time. When are you getting them?”

“Two or three days before the start of the school year.”

Anxiety drummed a restless beat in her chest. Her lips twisted and she paused, swallowed her food and lightly dragged her fingers along the countertop. “Did you talk it over? With Amelia?”

“I did. We actually got on the phone with the Headmistress the other day after we got the acceptance letter in the mail. She said that I can wear the headphones in all my classes and leave them early if I decide to go into the building. Mom had a whole meeting with her and the teachers the day after she spoke with the Headmistress.”

“So you’re going?” she clarified.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m going.”

“Okay … but how do you feel about it now that the noises and the crowd are taken care of? I know I brought it up to you and would be really excited if you did, but I only want you to do it if you’ll feel comfortable, Magic.”

Static rippled through the phone, the sound of something rubbing against it. “I … I feel like I can do it. I don’t have to talk to people. I don’t have to talk at all. The teachers will know this, too, so there isn’t a lot of pressure and Mom thinks I’ll be okay because the teachers are on board. But I still feel … weird about it. My stomach has been hurting for three days. My heart keeps having palpitations. I don’t know why.”

Three days. Mira furrowed her brows. “Mags, how long have you known that you were approved to get the headphones?”

“Since Wednesday.”

“So you knew for almost four days? Why didn’t you say anything? My dad and I were getting worried.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. Just curious, that’s all. But it sounds to me like maybe you’re a bit nervous about going to school for the first time?”

“I don’t think the school is the problem,” he said. “It’s something else that’s making me sick, but I don’t know what it is.”

Mira looked around her kitchen as though it would give her a sign. There was no way to accurately judge his words, not from this distance. She tapped her foot on the carpet floor. “Have you got your schedule yet?

“Yeah. Mom brought it back after her meeting. Why?”

“Would you like to walk laps around the school building to find your classes on the high school floor?”

A long pause followed; Magic went so still on the other line that, for about a minute, Mira thought he’d left. It wasn’t until she heard his breathing that she was more aware of her brother’s presence. “Magic,” she said again, a bit more gently, “do you want to use your schedule to find your classes with me?”

“When?” he wheezed. “Today?”

“Today, tomorrow, whenever you want. We could do it every day until school starts if that’s what makes you comfortable.”

“Yes.” The word came out hoarse.

Mira didn’t bother to press him for answers over the phone. That, she decided, would be better done in person. “Alright. Get yourself ready, then. I’m on my way.”