Family

It was late summer. The air was thick and humid. Elizabeth lay on her bed, even though the sun had been up for hours. Every day she chose a different place to zone out—her beanbag chair, the couch, a chair at the dining room table. It didn’t make much difference. Every night she cried herself to sleep, soaking her pillow, which was already stiff with tears. She didn’t even bother to turn it over to the fresh side. Every day the sun rose, but it couldn’t light her world now that her mother was gone. Elizabeth stared at the ceiling. When she was little, she and her mom used to lie on their backs, finding shapes in the ceiling plaster and making up stories about them. She picked them out now—the lion, the goat, the spaceship, the otter, the dragon, the wine glass—but they didn’t mean anything anymore. They were just splotches of plaster. It was hot. Sweltering, actually. The hot air pressed on Elizabeth’s lungs, making it hard to breathe. At last she couldn’t stand it anymore—the shapes on the ceiling, the heat, the awful, muffled stillness of the house, the endless hours, passing unnoticed. She jumped off her bed and ran down the stairs and out the front door. She paused on the doorstep, listening to the cicadas chirping in the sleepy silence. A mail truck was turning the corner at the end of her street. She ran to the mailbox, not really expecting to find anything interesting but needing something to do. “Watch out!” Elizabeth screamed. “Watch out!” Elizabeth screamed Back in the house, she flipped through the mail, a lump forming in her throat when she saw that several letters were addressed to Alice Benson, her mother. Most of it was for her dad, but one envelope had her name on it. She almost smiled when she saw the stamp with the queen’s profile on it. The letter was from her brother, James, who was in England for the summer. Elizabeth tore the letter open and read: Dear Elizabeth, I couldn’t believe it when I heard that Mom had been killed in a car crash. I miss you and Dad like crazy. Hang in there, Liz. I know this must be really hard for you. It is for me. Tell Dad I’m coming home on the eighteenth. See you soon. Love, Jimmy The next day, when Elizabeth got up, she thought, Seven days since it happened. She was surprised she’d lasted this long. After eating breakfast with her dad, who barely acknowledged her presence before shutting himself in his office for the day, Elizabeth decided to take a walk. The sun hadn’t had time to heat everything up yet, so it was almost cool as she started down her street. Half an hour later, she had walked further than she ever had before, to a part of town she’d only seen from the window of a car. The road sloped down, and as Elizabeth started down the hill, the door of a yellow house opened and a girl and a dog came out. The girl seemed to be blind—she gripped the dog’s harness and walked cautiously as she started up the hill toward Elizabeth. Elizabeth was so fascinated that she almost didn’t hear the whir of a bike tire. Almost. When she looked up, she saw a man on a bike coasting swiftly down the hill toward the blind girl. Elizabeth expected him to steer clear of the girl and her dog, but the man was listening to music and didn’t see her. “Watch out!” Elizabeth screamed. The girl looked up, confused. Her dog barked and tried to pull her out of the way. The biker looked up but it was too late for him to change course. He was going to crash! Without thinking, Elizabeth leapt into the bike’s path. She felt it collide with her body, knocking her down on the rough asphalt. Her head slammed against the ground and she blacked out. *          *          * The first thing she noticed when she woke up was the music. It was piano music and at first she thought it was her mom playing. But she had never heard this song before. All the songs her mom used to play were worn into her brain so that she could easily recognize them. She opened her eyes. She was lying on a cream-colored sofa and it was the blind girl playing the piano, not her mom. Elizabeth tried to raise herself on her elbows, but her head was throbbing and she fell back on the pillows with a groan. The girl stopped playing. “Mom, she’s awake!” she called and then hurried over and knelt next to the sofa. She moved so easily through the room that Elizabeth wondered it she was really blind. Just then, a tall woman with long blond hair like her daughter’s hurried in, holding an ice pack. “How are you feeling?” she asked. “Lousy,” muttered Elizabeth. The woman gently laid the ice pack against Elizabeth’s head. “My name is Maria Belmont. This is my daughter, Ramona.” “What happened?” asked Elizabeth. “I just remember jumping in front of the bike and then…” Maria smiled. “Yes, the biker said so. He was quite worked up. Didn’t even say sorry. He seemed to think it was your fault you got hit. At least he helped me carry you in here.” “I had to jump in front of him, otherwise he would have hit her,” Elizabeth explained, gesturing to Ramona. Ramona laughed. “Are you always this noble? The biker wouldn’t have hurt me any worse than he hurt you.” Elizabeth giggled. “I guess you’re right,” she admitted. “But I couldn’t just stand there and do nothing,” she added. “It wouldn’t be fair.” Ramona laughed again. “So what’s your name anyway, Miss Nobleness?” “Elizabeth.” “Should I call your parents?” asked Maria. “They might be worried…” “No,” said Elizabeth quickly. “I’m sure they’re not.” “All right,” said Maria

Magic is like a little puppy. Curious and frolicsome, it bounds throughout the world, unbidden and free. It pauses, sometimes, to explore or play. It’s that breeze that makes the nape of your neck tingle delightfully, that lifts you way off your feet, then sends you tumbling into warm, soft grass. It usually shows up when you don’t expect it—but sometimes when you do. Sometimes you know what it is the moment it touches you, other times you don’t realize until much later. Sometimes it’s just curious, other times it has a more serious cause. You never really know, with magic. Carissa Berlin had learned that lesson. She knew that magic, while amazing, wasn’t always dependable. It had a mind of its own. It chose when to appear, when it would help—and when it wouldn’t. Her pa said there was a reason behind everything. He said magic could sense when interfering could mess things up, so that’s why it kept away at times. It couldn’t be just random. Carissa wasn’t so sure. That freakish storm the other night, for instance. Her friend Lou’s barn roof crashed in, but Carissa’s house was untouched. “A miracle,” her ma had said as the family stood out on the porch, watching the neighbors fix and clean after the damage. “A right-and-regular miracle.” Carissa had agreed and felt thankful that they were all fine, and their home was too. “Why, Aria? Do you think it was really magic?” Now—a day later—as she sat on her bed, deep in thought, she knew it was more than a coincidental happenstance. It was more. Magical, it had to be. The exciting thought made Carissa’s legs jiggle. But why us? she wondered. We’re doing great this year with Pa’s business, so fixing wouldn’t have set us back much at all… why not somebody who needed the protection more? She thought about asking her older sister, Ivy. Ivy always had good ideas, even if she could be bossy sometimes. But these days, Ivy often seemed preoccupied, and she snapped at or ignored her younger sister more than usual. No, Carissa decided. This was something she wanted to figure out herself. She flopped back on the bed so that she was looking at the ceiling. There was a crack on it that she liked to stare at when she was thinking. If you tilted your head at the right angle, it looked like a thin, tall girl with floating hair and large butterfly-like wings. When Carissa was six, she had decided that the ceiling-crack girl was a fairy and had named her Aria. “Why, Aria?” Carissa asked aloud, staring up at the figure. She often talked to Aria like this. Obviously, she couldn’t answer, but it made it easier for Carissa to think of ideas when she felt like she was brainstorming with another person. “Do you think it was really magic?” The curtains fluttered, and a shaft of sunlight danced, just for a second, over Aria. Carissa took that as a yes. “You know how Pa says there’s a reason for everything, especially with magic, so what’s the reason here?” No answers popped into her mind. She got no bright ideas. Carissa sighed and closed her eyes, wondering about the whys and hows of magic. *          *          * Carissa sat up in bed. Something was different, though she wasn’t sure what. She looked around, panic growing. Her eyes darted from her bookcase to her plush blue chair and around again. The window was wide open, and the yellow curtains streamed in the breeze. Carissa could hear the chirps and whistles of the birds outside. The things in her room looked as if someone had sprinkled a fine silver powder throughout the room— they glittered like diamonds in the sunlight. Then Carissa noticed something that made her jaw drop in astonishment. Aria was gone from the ceiling. Where there was a crack, there was now smooth white ceiling. Suddenly, Carissa was aware of a sweet, high voice singing a soft melody. She stood up, entranced, and walked through the window. She floated out and seemed to glide through a world unlike the one she knew. Then! On the top of a hill, stood the figure Carissa had dreamed about for so long. The girl’s hair was golden like sunlight and flew behind her though there was no breeze. She had deep blue eyes and wore a dress that seemed to shift and glow, like it had been woven from the spirit of nature itself. Most remarkable of all, two bright blue, gossamer wings extended from her back, like those of a butterfly. She was the one singing, and the closer Carissa got, the more beautiful it seemed—clear and pure, delicate and sweet. “Aria?” Carissa breathed, and moved slowly toward the girl. “Come, Carissa,” she sang, smiling and holding out her arms, “I can show you the secrets of magic… Come, Carissa!” She stepped forward, her face welcoming. *          *          * “Come, Carissa, I said!” Her ma’s voice rang out in her ears. “It’s time for dinner!” Carissa blinked. She must’ve fallen asleep. What a lovely and strange dream she had. Just to be sure, she checked that Aria was still on the ceiling. Once again, the girl’s enchanting shape was imprinted right over Carissa’s bed. Carissa climbed off her bed and stretched. She glanced quickly at herself in the mirror—short, slim ten-year-old with auburn hair and bright green eyes. Carissa began walking toward the kitchen. Oddly, she still vividly remembered every detail of her dream. Usually, they vanished the moment she awoke, leaving only hazy traces. This one was different… “There you are!” her ma scolded, placing a plate of spaghetti in front of her youngest daughter. “I called and called… what were you doing up there?” “Oh,” Carissa began, a forkful of noodles already poised to be eaten, “I fell asleep this afternoon, I guess.” She stuffed the pasta into her mouth. Mmm, there was nothing like her ma’s