A Lion in a Flower Field

To Mira’s knowledge, based on a combination of what Magic was willing to tell and her own observations, the first two weeks of school saw better results than expected.

Her brother’s sweatshirt hood proved a decent deterrent to his peers and the older kids were too stressed figuring out the start of the semester to make Magic’s life hell. It was an artificial peace, one that wasn’t likely to last, but Mira was grateful for it nonetheless.

Mabel showed up more often, too, attuned to the routine of being cuddled and fed at the beginning and end of each day. They made sure the stray was significantly pampered and calmed before toting her along to Magic’s house where, perched on Magic’s shoulder like a preening bird, she provided a good deal of emotional support.

The first day Mabel came with them—on the second day of school—Amelia was too shocked to give a timely response or even question the cat’s presence. She did stare at Mira with a slightly raised eyebrow in question as her son walked past without a single word, only cuddling the tabby and making a focused beeline for the stairs.

Mira, with her arms full of extra fabrics they had taken from Miss Flannise, had bumped elbows with Amelia and said, “Support.”

Amelia opened her mouth in a silent “Ah,” nodded, and retreated to the sewing room, a small, extended room that was attached to the main living space, as Mira followed Magic to the second floor of the house.

She didn’t do much with the sewing process of the scarf; over the course of the two weeks, Magic seemed perfectly content to work on it in silence while Mira did her homework on the opposite side of his bed. Occasionally she reached over to scratch Mabel on the face, risking being swatted away by her brother who claimed she was ‘interrupting his work flow.’

It was a decent piece of handiwork, that scarf, elaborately stitched along its edges, the change in fabrics making it take on a more quilt-like appearance, an elaborate recipe with multiple ingredients. Mira even suggested that he add little bits of embroidery to the plain parts. Magic shot the idea down immediately.

“Why not?” she asked, chewing on a pen cap. “It adds little bits of flare to it. Makes it look more … personalized.”

“No,” Magic replied, pausing in his work to scratch at Mabel’s ears. The tabby was pressing her face against his temple, peering over his shoulder like an invasive, curious sibling. “Takes too much time.”

“How so?”

“Because I have to figure out where I want it to be. What the right side for it to go on is or if it’ll even show up when it's worn. The added plaid is fine. Mom said that Dad used to wear a lot of it. Leave it alone.”

“Okay. Then can you tell me why it’s a weighted scarf?”

Her brother rolled his eyes, wedging the sewing needle between his teeth as he lifted the fabrics up and down in his arms. He considered the question for a moment and dropped the project back into his lap, the needle delicately wedged between his fingers again. “Practice,” he said simply. “I want to make a blanket with the weights in it—like the ones you have. I want to make one myself, but I have to be okay using the weights first before I do that.”

Seemed sensible enough. Mira reached to brush the bridge of Mabel’s nose, but Magic pushed her hand away. Too close to his space, she figured. “That’s a good idea,” she said, clasping her hands together to rest in her lap instead. “How do you feel about the way it’s coming out?”

“Hasn’t fallen apart yet. That’s a good sign.”

“Are you gonna consider bringing it to the Art Club next week when it starts?”

Magic flicked the sewing needle back and forth, a restless metronome ticking side to side. Eventually he dropped it on the unfinished scarf and scratched Mabel’s neck. He shrugged the other shoulder. “Don’t know. She seems nice.”

“I told you, Miss Flannise is one of the best.”

“She always tells me I have a choice of working with people or working alone. I always do it by myself. But I like that she doesn’t force me to work with people. I left Prehistory to sit in her room yesterday.”

That was a turn. Mira raised a brow, shuffling her papers back into her bag. “You can’t cut class, Mags. The year just started. That’s a bad look on your attendance.”

Her brother frowned, pausing mid pet on Mabel's cheek. “I wasn’t cutting class. I was avoiding it.”

“That’s what cutting class is, Magic. Why’d you leave Prehistory?”

“I left in the middle. The kid next to me was flicking my headphones when the teacher’s back was turned. She never saw. Not that she would do anything if she did. And it’s not like I could say anything. So I left. Miss Flannise was teaching—she didn't seem to mind though. I sat at an empty table. She came over and gave me a paper and marker. I stayed.”

Mira pressed her hands tighter against each other. Part of her was grateful that Magic had a place to go when he felt he needed to escape. But he couldn’t keep leaving his classes whenever that happened and the idea of brute forcing freshmen into compliance felt wrong to her. “They’re still causing problems?”

“Not all the time.” Magic resumed his work on the scarf. Mabel kneaded her paws into his shoulder, an uncertain shuffle of her feet, though he didn’t appear fazed by it. “It’s not a big deal.”

The tiny whisper he used was a blaring siren in Mira’s head that it was a big issue. He just wanted to sweep it under the rug, not cause problems, lurk beneath the radar. That was how the bullies got you, though. They bend people until they break. And Mira didn’t want to know what would happen if Magic broke. “It is if they’re teasing you.”

“Let it go, Mira.”

“No. That’s not—”

“It’s not. A big. Deal.” He gazed at her, green and hazel eyes wide, pleading. “Stop.”

Mira frowned. Torn between standing down and pushing through his evasive tactics, she settled for the former. Magic didn’t need to say anything about how annoyed he was with her for prodding. She could see it in the rigidity of his arms, the way the needle vibrated from the force of his fingers clamping on it; the prospect of her brother lashing out and turning his sewing needle into a weapon was mildly frightening enough for her to back down and reconsider another mode of attack. “Fine. Do you want to at least take a break and go downstairs for a snack?”

“No.”

“It’s been almost two hours and the last thing either of us had was lunch. I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.”

“Go eat.”

“You’re not gonna come?”

“Not hungry.”

Mira pursed her lips, eying the doorway to his room. She considered going downstairs to bring something back up for him, but what difference would it make? He’d still deny it anyway. It wouldn’t be the first time he put off eating for the sake of finishing a project. “Positive?”

Magic closed his eyes, grit his teeth. Mabel paused, her fur standing on end. “Stars, Mira—”

“Just checking on you,” she said quickly, “that’s all. You did a lot today. You deserve a break.”

“I want to finish this part. Then I’ll stop. I want it done, Mira. Done, and done well. I can’t mess it up now.”

There was nothing else for her to say after that, so Mira let him work quietly from that point on, the only sound in the room being Mabel’s content purrs and the traitorous rumbling of Magic’s stomach.

One week later, rumors of rats in the lockers circulated the school like wildfire.

Thalia mentioned it in the lobby at the start of the week and Mira couldn’t help but laugh. It was absurd; the rat rumors were spread at the start of every year, a way to scare the younger middle school kids that wandered into the unknown territory of the high school floor. The locker entity changed every year. Her sophomore year it was mice. Last year it was snakes. Her freshman year it was ghosts—although that rumor made a grand resurgence with Magic’s presence in the building.

Janie had been convinced each time that it was a demon, but Thalia was quick to deny her.

“Jane, if it truly was a demon, they’d close the whole school down for the rest of the year. At least this year someone actually saw a rat climbing out of someone’s locker.”

“You don’t know that!” Janie said, her grip on her backpack straps tightening. “These people would lie to your face telling you you’re pretty. What reason do you have to believe them?”

Locker antics were the last thing Mira was interested in discussing though and had she not gathered her friends to discuss possible attacks against her brother, she would have gladly let them continue. She waved her hands in front of them. “Rumors to scare the little kids away aside, have we heard anything interesting?”

“Nothing,” Thalia replied, scrunching her coiled curls. “And nothing from Callie either, though no one’s really shocked about that.”

Mira pursed her lips. “Does she talk to you?”

“Not often. Only when we’re alone.”

The hope inside her deflated. “You, too, then?”

Thalia rolled her eyes. “Look, Mira, if she wants to ignore us all day, then that’s her damn issue. I’m not gonna bug her and she won’t bug me. If that’s the way it is, then so be it.”

“Thalia has a point, Mirabel,” chimed in Janie, who wrapped her arms around Mira’s shoulders. The gesture was normally kind, but today it had a mocking kind of air to it that made Mira push her friend lightly to the side. “Forget what Callie does or doesn’t—or won’t—tell us. She was never going to be a useful resource anyway. It’s just the three of us.”

Again came the familiar desire to deny. But defeat was an oppressive force. She tossed her head back, lightly tapping the wall. “So, what I’m learning here is that we all got played for fools?”

“You got played for a fool,” Janie corrected her. “I was at peace knowing she wouldn’t help us. So was Thalia. Including her was your doing and your doing only.”

Mira felt her whole body flush. At the sight of it, Thalia broke out into a series of loud giggles and Mira resisted the urge to slap the girl on the shoulder. “Callie aside,” she snarled, hoping to get her friends back on track, “if the rat lockers become ghost lockers, tell me. The freshmen are getting bold; it wouldn’t shock me if one of them decided to acquaint Magic with the inside of his locker at some point.”

“We know,” Janie said, picking at her nails. “You said as much over the phone the other day. What are you doing about the Prehistory kids?”

“Nothing. Magic doesn’t want me to confront them.”

“Brave kid,” muttered Thalia.

“Or stupid,” offered Janie.

“He isn’t stupid,” Mira said with a slow shake of her head. “He’s just fucking stubborn.”

Janie shrugged, twirling a long strand of her blonde hair around her left index finger. “The difference between stupid and stubborn is knowing what you’re up against. And I don’t think he understands exactly what’s at play here.”

“He does. He’s trying not to draw attention.”

“Which is a surefire way of getting them to keep going. They only learn their lesson one way.”

“I can see it,” Thalia interjected. “If Mira fights Magic’s battles for him, it just shows that he can’t defend himself. Neither option is a good one, but you have to figure out which is worse, doing nothing or hooking a fist into their jaws.”

Only throw your punches as a last resort.

She’d promised Benji she’d keep herself and Magic out of trouble, but as for pulling her punches … Well, Mira didn’t know how long she’d be able to keep her word on that. “Can we at least still keep an eye out? I need him safe.”

“Aye-aye, Captain,” said Janie and Thalia at the same time.

“Good,” Mira said, feeling validated. “We regroup at the end of the day to see what we’ve learned, if anything.”

All went well until the fourth week of school.

Magic did not show up to lunch that Tuesday, nor did he meet her by the alleyway outside of the building. He did not open his door Wednesday morning—Mira stood on the porch risking frozen fingers for several agonizing minutes until she realized he wouldn’t be answering. He did not open the door on Thursday. Or Friday.

Even Benji tried going to the house to get a response and came back with nothing. When it became clear that neither Magic nor Amelia were around, Mira began running baskets after each school day to the Cooper house, surprised each time to find the previous basket waiting on a chair outside of the house, the contents emptied out.

It was always hard to tell if the food was delivered to its rightful recipients. Regardless, Mira felt a sour taste in her mouth at the mere idea of having to leave baskets on the front porch. The whole thing reminded her far too much of the bereavement ones she and her father made after the mine collapse and it left her feeling hollow on the inside, like something had carved her heart out.

That week, Magic’s truancy was whispered among the hallways of the high school floor like an omen, a prophecy of warning.

Hold your breath in town. I hear a ghost is haunting it.

The graveyard must be full today.

Mira couldn’t count on all ten fingers the names she’d heard in reference to herself and Magic within that time span. Ghost. Witch. Mine rat. Medium. Duster. The list went on. Eventually, she started finding rat poison slipped through the grates of her locker that made her sick to the stomach from the smell, eyes tearing as she withheld a gag. Off in the distance she spotted Bentley and Julia Harsyle staring at her, wide, cocky grins on their faces.

She should’ve known. In fact, Mira was half tempted to open the locker, take a handful of the shit and shove it in their faces. Sure, it would have some adverse effect, maybe put them both in the clinic or something. But it would be deserved, Mira was sure of it. Because people like the Harsyles never see this kind of retribution coming.

Always, they think they’ll be off the hook.

Always, they think they’re immune. Invincible. Golden.

Fuck everyone else if they get stepped on or hurt or humiliated in the process.

Mira settled for closing her lock, slamming it against the metal door of the locker and storming off to a lunch period she would spend alone.

That weekend, though, she woke up to news.

Benji greeted her when she walked downstairs and seated herself at one of the window tables, her legs crossed at the ankle as she sipped from a mug of pre-prepped hot cocoa. It was lukewarm, the marshmallows already melted; Benji had likely made it a long while ago waiting for her to rouse, but Mira didn’t want to toss it away even if it tasted horrific. Her father took the time to make it. The least she could do was pretend to make him happy.

She watched him turn the Open sign over to On Break before pulling out a chair and sitting opposite her. “We got a phone call while you were asleep.”

“Good news?” Mira asked, leaning forward.

“It’s something,” Benji replied, and Mira felt her heart sink a little. She wasn’t used to her father sounding so resigned. “Amelia didn’t exactly explain anything in detail aside from the fact that he wasn’t feeling well. I don’t know how much I believe her.”

“Why’s that?”

“She asked to borrow the weighted blankets.”

Mira bit into her lip. Magic used the weighted blankets whenever he was over as a calming mechanism for his anxiety—for his flare-ups. She watched her father carefully. He was rubbing the metal band of his wristwatch, the clinking of the individual chains grating against her ears. It made her palms sweat just looking at him.

“I brought them over to her before you woke up,” Benji continued, his eyes drifting over to the window as though he couldn’t bear to see the expression on his daughter’s face. “She looked … stressed.”

“How do you define stressed?” Mira asked, regretting the words the minute they left her mouth.

“I haven’t seen her look that worn down since Bennett’s wake. I don’t know what’s going on in that house or what’s really wrong with the kid, but I do know that I’m hoping it isn’t bad enough to warrant a trip next door.”

Mira winced. “Can we not entertain the possibility of them going to Grimmshollow?”

Her father wore the same grimace. “I don’t want to, but given—”

“They’re not gonna go back to Grimmshollow.” The words came out fiercer than she thought they would. Benji looked at her with a raised brow as she continued, unable to find a way to stop the rest from coming out. “You know how broken Amelia was when she told us about their trip.”

“I know—Bella, I was there, too,” Benji replied with a frown. The twisting of the wrist watch stopped in favor of rubbing at his temples with both hands. “I know how much it pained her to bring him there—obviously not firsthand, but I know it wasn’t easy for her. Or the kid if he remembers.”

Come to think of it, Mira didn’t have the faintest idea what Magic did or didn’t remember about his stint in Grimmshollow’s clinic. He was admitted a week and a half after the collapse following intensive fatigue and malnutrition. Much of his time was spent sleeping; each time Mira had gone to visit the house he was napping. On his birthday that year, he’d been so lethargic he couldn’t even greet her. All she remembered doing to celebrate Magic’s eighth birthday was read him a story—one she was fairly certain would have been his last. He’d fallen asleep halfway through, his breaths so calm, so still, so silent, Mira thought he’d died.

It had frightened her so much that she didn’t go back to the house for another two weeks, but by the time she and Benji visited to invite Magic and Amelia to join them for the Light Festival, the house was dark. Amelia had already traveled one town over by foot in a desperate attempt to treat her son’s condition—an event they only learned about two years later.

Now, Mira tapped on the ceramic table, drumming her nails against it with a chaotic rhythm. “If he does, I doubt it’s anything good.”

Benji stretched his arms up, arcing backwards as he stood and reached to flip the break sign back to Open. He placed a hand on her shoulders, standing behind her. “Either way, good or bad, she promised she’d call me tonight with any updates. Want to prepare some of the stock?”

She wanted to. Desperately. But she found herself rooted to the seat, throat dry, words lodged in her throat, unable to get them out. Instead, they raged like venom in her mind, unbridled and taunting.

This is your fault.

She crossed her arms on the table. Put her head down.

“Bella?”

Her fingers found threads of hair and grasped them.

“Bella.”

Should’ve kept your mouth shut.

She knew that now. If something had happened to Magic, it would be because of her suggestion. She should have known better than to even give him the idea.

Something scraped against the floor to her right, the pressure on her shoulders gone. “Mirabellis.”

Lifting her head ever so slightly off her arms, Mira stared at the blurred form of her father through the congregating tears in her eyes. Through the water, she could see a softness in Benji’s expression that felt so undeserved, even though a part of her wanted the comfort. The other, though, knew she should be punished for this. Unable to bear it anymore, Mira put her head back down, sniffling back her tears.

“Mirabellis,” said Benji, sitting beside her, his tone warm, gentle. The voice he used when he sat on her bed to comfort when she’d gotten upset over a nightmare when she was a kid. “Something’s going on in that head of yours. You wanna tell me what it is?”

“What does it matter?” she said in an attempt to be spiteful. She didn’t want the pity. “It won’t do anyone any good.”

“I don’t believe that. What are you thinking about?”

“That I should never have brought the school thing up to him. You don’t have to beat around the bush, Dad. I know something happened.” Mira lifted her head, dragging her fingers down her face to clear the old tears. “But he won’t tell me anything. And it sucks. He’s pushing himself through the motions as if he’s got something to prove to me and he doesn’t!”

“It’s not just you he’s trying to prove himself to.” Her father rested an arm on the table, placing a hand on her elbow. “You’re part of it, but you’re not the only one.”

Are you worried that Bennett would think you’re weak?

She remembered asking him that before the school year started. When Magic had attempted to go to the building on his own and couldn’t. The inadequacy he felt because of it.

The urge to hit her head against the table was so, so strong.

Mira settled for knocking her forehead into her forearms. “You stubborn jackass,” she whispered to herself.

“What?” Benji asked.

“Nothing.” Mira sat up straighter in the chair. “Is he gonna go back to school?”

Her father only shrugged. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up, but if the weighted blankets helped him, then it’s a possibility. Once Amelia gets back to me, we’ll know for sure.”

Magic returned on Wednesday.

He was sluggish—more sluggish than usual. For the first few days, Mira allowed him to be without bugging him for details about his absence. She assisted him during lunch and without much convincing, encouraged him to meet her in Miss Flannise’s art room to fill in the blanks of his classes. Art Club had started; it was never a popular club to begin with, so space in the wide room was abundant.

Mira and Magic occupied one corner of the classroom, coating an entire table in papers—crumpled and flat—so that Magic could catch up. Between bouts of schoolwork they worked on the scarf. Miss Flannise circled around occasionally, making small conversation with Mira (seeing as Magic wasn’t yet comfortable enough to speak) and offering her assistance (which Magic also denied).

But as the days went on, so did his fatigue. It was persistent; Mira’s attempts to coax an answer or explanation out of him was shot down by snappy remarks and the occasional light push. Sometimes he turned his headphones off completely to ignore her. They were warning signs: big, flashing red lights that flickered through the spaces of the locked safe where Magic kept his heart. Mira had known him for seven years, and sometimes she fell short of figuring out the combination to its ever-changing lock.

Magic’s lack of energy was most noticeable at lunch and when she questioned him, he only shrugged.

“Didn’t feel well,” he said, pecking at his sandwich like an uninterested quail.

Mira flicked her pen from side to side. “Do you know what with? Thalia called me the other day and said that a stomach bug was going around.” That whole conversation had left her feeling demoralized; Thalia’s absence, while upsetting as it was for her to have no one in Economics, meant she had one less person to spy until Thalia recovered. She sure wasn’t about to ask Callie to take Thalia’s place.

“Wasn’t a stomach bug.”

“So, do you know what it was?”

“No. Stop.”

Mira dropped her pen, masking her exasperation by slouching in the chair beside him with her arms crossed, ankles stacked on top of each other. Her gaze slid over to his food, untouched and barely unwrapped. “Are you gonna eat that?”

“I’m not hungry,” he said, putting the sandwich back on the table. Magic reached for the juice instead; even as he shook it lightly between his hands, he dropped it back down on the table as though he’d gotten bored of it. “I don’t really feel like eating.”

“Or drinking, apparently. You’ll dehydrate yourself that way, y’know.”

“Stop. I’m tired, Mira.”

Tired. A word that meant two things in Magic’s vocabulary: exhausted and upset. “Tired of what, Mags?”

“In general. I want to go back to sleep.”

“I mean, we did do a lot of Science in the last ten minutes. You have every right to be tired, but you should at least have a bite out of your sandwich. It’s good brain food.”

Magic crossed his arms, resting the side of his head against them, readying himself for a nap. “No.”

“You sure?”

“Stars, Mira, how many times do I have to tell you to stop? Listen to me every now and again, would you?”

She stared at him, unsure how to respond. Mira was listening—rather intently at that. She was listening and seeing through every lie and deflection that came out of his mouth. There was something going on he wasn’t willing to tell and, when Magic closed his eyes, she shook him gently at the shoulder. He cursed beneath his breath, opening one accusing, green eye. “What?”

“Why are you avoiding my questions?” she asked.

“I’m not avoiding your questions,” he said.

“Yes, you are. My job is to make sure you’re okay. That’s part of the deal.”

Magic stared at her long and hard; his eyes, fogged over and tired, were distant, cold. An autumn forest coated in frost. She scooted her chair a little away from him as he spoke. “I don’t need to be hovered over. Mom does that enough as it is every day after school. I don’t need you doing that, too.”

“I’m not trying to hover over you, Mags. Trust me, the last thing I want to do is nag you. But sometimes you don’t do a great job of taking care of yourself, so I want to help you.”

“I know you do. But there’s nothing for you to help me with.”

Because you won’t let me. “Fine. Can you at least eat a part of your lunch, though? I promise you, I’ll shut up if you do.”

With a quick drum of his fingers over the table, he yawned and sat up, rolling his neck with a pained expression on his face. “If I eat my sandwich, will you leave me to do my Chemistry assignments in peace?”

“If you can eat the entire thing,” Mira said, propping an elbow against the table to rest her face in her hand, “then yes, I will leave you alone to make up your Chemistry assignments.”

“Deal.”

Mira watched him in agonizing silence while he took small bites out of his sandwich as though the food were too old to be edible. It was abnormal behavior for him considering only a few weeks ago he was devouring the food as if he’d been starved. His appetite worried her but he managed to finish the food in front of him—Mira breathed a sigh of relief when he sipped from the juice and ate the granola bar that it came with, neither of which were part of their deal. Magic’s hunger must have come back to him and for that, Mira was grateful.

They spent the last ten minutes before Magic’s grace period working on labeling chemical bonds and their properties. When he left for his five minutes, Mira spent the remainder of lunch pondering her brother’s absence. It should not have annoyed her that Magic would withhold information. That’s what Magic did all the time whenever he was stressed or upset. She’d need to find a way to break down his walls before whatever it was that kept him out of school for nearly a week and a half escalated. And it would escalate, Mira knew with certainty.

A bit of crumpled paper bounced on her table, remnants from a straw wrapped that was just odd enough to grab her attention. When she looked up, gazing between the tables to see where it had come from, she froze and sat a little straighter.

The Peppers were staring at her.

Mira was no fool; she knew how she looked sitting at a round table by herself. Pitiful. Pathetic. Absently, she wondered how long they’d been staring and if it was her they were looking at or Magic. She should’ve paid better attention.

Their eyes held hers for a long while; eventually one by one they fell away, turning to something on the table or to a girl beside them.

All except Callie, who challenged that glare back.

Mira slammed her fist on the table, the ricochet of loose bolts clattering together. Callie jumped in her seat, eyes darting elsewhere before Mira gathered her books and left, just mere seconds before the bell.