A Lion in a Flower Field

Amelia arrived no later than five minutes after Magic fell asleep. She barged through the front door and up the steps with a duffle bag packed to the brim slung over her shoulder, a quiver of arrows waiting to be used. It dropped like a heavy sack of bricks once she spotted her son, everything abandoned in favor of sitting vigil by Magic’s side while he slept. Once she’d gotten settled, Benji took Mira for her long-awaited clinic trip to get a splint for her left wrist. A hairline fracture, nothing more.

By the time they returned, Amelia was sleeping by her son’s side on the couch. It was the only time in the last week and a half that Mira could remember the seamstress looking that peaceful.

Even Magic looked calm. He had been changed into a more comfortable set of clothes, his spare set of headphones snuggly on his head, the metallic blue paint sparkling under the light. Gauze covered both of his hands; Mira could only imagine that Amelia’s efficiency in being able to do this in the short amount of time that she and her father were gone were the result of seven years of training for something very similar to this.

The only words that ever left Magic’s mouth for the rest of the day were their names, apologies and the occasional noise of agreement or refusal. For the first time in seventeen years, the bakery had a full house in its upstairs living space. Amelia didn’t have the heart to bring Magic back home, so Benji agreed to let them both sleep over, giving up the space in the living room to them.

That night, the screams started.

The factory bells had awakened something in Magic. He screamed and wailed continuously all night completely inconsolable—even by Amelia—until the fit died down and left him weary and fatigued. No matter the reassurance they gave him, no matter what they offered or said or sang to him, Magic didn’t seem capable of responding to any of it, reacting only to the images and sensations his brain had decided to torture him with in his sleep. He ate nothing and drank nothing, not even as a form of soothing. If he managed to eat anything it all, it came right back up with his forceful fits of screaming and apologetic pleas.

Mira spent the earlier portions of Saturday night in her room; she couldn’t bear sitting in the same space as Amelia or Magic anymore, but not even the sanctuary of her own four walls were enough to block out the endless noise from her living room. What made it worse wasn’t the sobbing that followed the screams or the murmurs floating down the hall of what was going to happen after this, but the silence. Magic could be settled for hours between his fits resulting in an uncanny bit of quiet Mira knew would never last. But it was impossible to tell what would set him off again until it did which made it incredibly inconsistent. When her brother’s fits happened for the fifth time that night at only twelve-thirty in the morning, Mira settled for laying awake in bed with a pillow over her face.

Sunday morning was the same.

That day, Amelia pleaded with Benji to let them stay. Mira watched the entire conversation from her spot lingering around in the hallway and, though her father had repeatedly warned her about the looks she’d get from leaving and going upstairs, allowed them. It wasn’t until he passed Mira in the hallway that she grabbed her father by the hand. “Why?”

“Why what, Bella?” he asked and Mira could hear the exhaustion in his voice, the hoarse scratch of someone who hadn’t slept for more than a few hours.

“Why do you sound so hesitant to have them stay? I thought you and Amelia were friends?”

“We are. Very good friends and nothing more. But I don’t want her getting stressed out if people start making comments. She doesn’t need it, not with Magic in the state he’s in now. I just wanted to make sure she knew.”

Mira sighed and looked over her shoulder, watching Amelia attempt to get her son to drink water. Magic didn’t budge, didn’t so much as lift his head to even acknowledge his mother’s presence with anything more than a horrid croak that resembled the word “mom.” She turned back towards Benji to avoid seeing the dejected look on Amelia’s face. “What do we do now?”

“What we always do,” Benji said, taking a deep breath through his nose. “Run shop. Keep things normal. Not answer questions. Come with me and grab your apron. I want you to help.”

She didn’t bother arguing. Mira desperately craved some kind of outlet, a way to ignore the mess going on in her house one floor up.

Light Festival preparations brought an onslaught of people to the bakery’s front door. It was a rush like Mira had never seen; waves of people went in and out, a back and forth pull of satisfied customers and ones looking for what they wanted. Occasionally, nosy customers leaned over the counter to ask Benji about the screaming one floor up and she watched her father evade and redirect customers to avoid giving details and specifics. Only to some of their trusted customers (which Mira knew they didn’t have much of to start with) did Benji give even a sliver of the truth to. When they pressed for more, Benji only replied with “That’ll be all for today.”

Neither of them were prepared for the rush of townsfolk looking for their materials and by the time the crowd settled, died, and left the bakery as a shell of its former self (Mira had never seen the pastry cases cleaned out so quickly), Benji walked to the front window, flipped the sign and locked the door, resting his head against it, panting as if he’d run across town.

Mira untangled her apron from her waist and hung it on the rack. “Dad?”

Benji didn’t reply, but she watched him slowly do the same, pressing the cleaner side against his face.

“Dad?” she pressed, making quick, short steps towards her father to prod him on the arm. “Are you okay?”

“Trying to be,” he said.

“That’s not the same thing.”

“No, it isn’t. You’re right.” Benji wiped his forehead with the back side of the apron and plopped himself down in the chair by the small tables. Above them, the screams had started up again and Mira found herself wishing for the crowd of people in here if only to drown it out. “Am I okay? No. And there’s no point in hiding that. Am I trying to be? Yeah. I don’t know how to do that and succeed with everything going on.”

She sat in the chair opposite him. “So what do we do?”

“I don’t want people sticking their nose where it doesn’t belong. And I know it’s Festival prep, but … I don’t think it benefits us or them”—he motioned to the second floor with his hand—“if we have strangers trying to figure out our business—or thinking that they know our business.”

“What are you thinking, then?”

“We close early. Sporadic hours. Hope and pray that Magic wakes up. See what happens from there.”

There were no improvements the rest of the day.

The screams continued to travel to the first floor of the bakery; passersby knocked on the front door to ask if everything was okay, to which Benji only promptly replied that they leave and not bother. Not everyone took it lightly. Mira watched several people call her father a myriad of vile names that corresponded with their assumptions about the temporary cohabitation between her family and Magic’s.

By late Sunday night, Mira was at peace with staying up and requested her father call the school to take her out so she could stay at home to help. Benji was skeptical of it as he often was whenever Mira asked him something a little out of the ordinary—he’d given her the same confused squint when she requested sticky gloves for her birthday one year to help her work on climbing—but the judgment didn’t last for long.

Besides, Mira did not trust herself to go through a school day—or week—and pay attention, let alone wake up on time. Her sleep schedule had not been kind to, nor had Magic, and risking slumber during the week preceding testing for the end of the semester was not how she envisioned getting into trouble with her teachers.

Beyond that, Mira felt bad leaving her father and Amelia to care for Magic on their own. She had to find some way to be of use. It was her who got Magic into this problem. Running from it now would just make her a coward and Mira was the furthest thing from that. She called Janie and Thalia early in the morning, waking them in the middle of the night just to inform them of her absence before seating herself in the living room to relieve her father and Amelia’s overnight shift to supervise her screaming brother in their stead.

“I’m sorry,” Magic whispered into the covers, calming from one of his terrors. The sun hadn’t fully risen yet, but the last Mira remembered from checking the kitchen, it was only four in the morning. His third night terror in the last fifteen minutes. “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” Mira replied, rubbing her eyes to try and keep them open. “I know you are. I forgive you.”

“I’m so sorry …”

“I forgive you, Mags. It’s okay.”

Mira didn’t remember falling asleep, only waking up on the floor of the living room to her father shaking her by the shoulder. The sun had risen by then, peering through the windows of the house and, without being asked, got up to help her father run the bakery. The respite didn’t last long; her father closed the bakery early again, just before noon to prevent prying eyes and ears from acting witness to the screams from above.

At least, that would have been the case if there was noise.

It was strangely quiet on Monday morning. Even Benji cast several confused glances in his daughter’s direction and, while she was rolling out a kneaded slab of dough, she caught her father’s silent question: What’s happening?

All Mira could do was shrug. She didn’t know what had caused the change, but she assumed it was good. She imagined that not being kept awake at night from demons in your head would be a particularly good thing and a sign that things were getting better. But her father didn’t seem to share her thoughts. His frown only deepened, the crease between his brows deeper and his attention seemed to be everywhere, never once stopping on a single feature of the bakery for more than a couple of seconds.

When the rush petered out, the shelves cleaned and the counters wiped, Mira followed her father upstairs to find Amelia at her spot by the couch, her shoulders shaking.

“I can’t do this,” she sobbed as Benji crouched beside her. Mira lingered by the countertop, sitting on one of the tall chairs. She felt bad intruding seeing as she had no words to comfort anyone. “Benj,” Amelia went on, “I can’t—I don’t want to lose him.”

“You aren’t going to,” Benji replied, his voice barely a whisper. Had Mira not been actively listening, she would’ve missed it. “I’ll make sure of it.”

“No Benj, you don’t get it, he hasn’t woken up or said anything since dawn!”

Benji went still and Mira slowly slid down from the chair she’d perched on, hovering off to the side as her father just … sat there. She half-expected him to move, to do something and act, but he didn’t. He just stared at the sickly boy on the couch without a single movement.

Mira forced herself to sit closer to her brother and their parents, one ear turned towards Magic. He was breathing, though it was faint. She gave him a small shake. “Mags,” she whispered. “Magic.”

He made no sound. After the third or fourth time of Mira jostling him from side to side, his eyelids twitched.

Amelia made a small gasp and held onto her son’s face in a manner that, were he fully conscious, he would have swatted at her for. “Magic, kiddo,” she pleaded, her thumbs rubbing the space just beneath his bottom eyelid. “Please get up.”

Still he said and did nothing. Mira shoved him more aggressively this time. “Magic, get up,” she demanded. It sounded more harsh than she intended for it to be, but she couldn’t help it.

Magic’s eyes fluttered rapidly, slivers of green and hazel just barely visible through his oil-black lashes. His glasses caught a glare in the sun, hiding most of the fatigue in his expression. Amelia, ecstatic, kept her hands on the sides of Magic’s face and pressed her forehead against her son’s, laughing silently through her sobs.

Unsettled by her brother’s lack of a response, she prodded her father who flinched. “He needs to eat something, Dad.”

“I know,” he replied, pushing to his feet. He motioned for her to follow and, with a final glance back at Amelia and Magic, she did. “I don’t think he’s had anything in his system other than tea since Saturday. He’s ignored everything Amelia and I put in front of him.”

Mira winced. It wasn’t the first time Magic had self-destructively avoided food, though she supposed the mixture of being sick wasn’t helping his appetite. “What if it was something sweet? He’s always had a bit of a sweet tooth. Maybe that would work?”

“Is he big on fruits?”

“Whenever we go on errands, he’s usually spending whatever free money he has on fruit. Again: sweet ones.”

“A smoothie could work,” conceded Benji, resting his arms against the counter, eyes held steady on the clock as Mira took her spot beside him. “It’ll be different from the dirty-looking water we’ve been giving him a lot of.”

She frowned, tapping her nails lightly on the marble. “Dirty-looking water that keeps him calm at night.”

“He was up every hour last night, Bella.”

“Okay. Dirty-looking water that kind of keeps him calm at night. Do you want me to handle doing that downstairs?”

“I don’t know if we have the fruit for it. I don’t remember the last time we stocked up on fruits. I think we might have used what we had left. Do you mind running the errands for them?”

Mira shook her head. She didn’t want to say it, but it would be nice to have some sort of excuse just to get out of the house. The whole “lending support” thing wasn’t sitting with her as well as she anticipated it to.

Suddenly her father perked up, eyebrows raised as he looked over his shoulder. “Actually,” he said, “y’know what might be good? A little help on the trip. Someone else in this house could use the distraction, too.”

Oh.

Oh, no.

Mira slowly looked over at Amelia who she could faintly hear humming a tune she’d once heard Magic whisper to himself. As much as she adored the seamstress, enough to consider her the closest thing she had to a real mom, Mira wasn’t sure if she would be able to handle Amelia’s persistent gloomy nature. It was bad enough she had to deal with it at home.

In the end, she consented with a shrug. “Is she going to be able to leave Magic alone with you?”

“She’s gonna have to eventually. I know Mill’s worried about the kid, but she can’t stay there forever.”

“So what’s your plan?”

Benji sat in silence for a while before rubbing at his chin. An idea settled on him, though he didn’t look very pleased with whatever it was. “We ask. Mill!”

The woman spun around; Mira could see the shiny track marks on the seamstress’ face, the red pigment in her eyes, evidence of silent sorrow. It wasn’t befitting of her, Mira considered silently to herself. Amelia was always this figurehead of calm and elegance in her mind. The everpresent tears dampened that significantly.

“We’re gonna get a smoothie together for him,” Benji went on, each word landing in Mira’s stomach like tiny pebbles sinking in puddles. “It might help him eat if it’s something sweet and it’ll be easy for him since all he has to do is drink it.”

Amelia blinked several times as if she were clearing a haze from her eyes. The night shifts were clearly taking their toll—on top of how many other nights she’d spent awake caring for her son. “Do you have the fruit?” she asked.

“Which fruits?”

“Jyan berries. Flickerfruit, too, and mangos—when we can afford mangos. Sometimes we’re lucky if we can get even just basic flickerfruit.”

“I don’t know if we have jyan or flicker,” Benji said, “but we have a few other fruits we can add in there for protein. You can help Mira pick out what you need at Will’s.”

Mira watched realization dawn on her. Amelia’s mouth went from a confused twist to a slowly opening ‘o.’ “Wait, Benj—”

“You need to take a break, Mill,” Benji said, his voice a soft whisper. “Go with Mira. Get some air.”

The seamstress’ hands twitched, half tucked to her chest, her fingers wiggling up and down. She looked like she was actively resisting the urge to fix and fuss over her son’s covers on the couch, as if her meddling would somehow return Magic to his natural state of being. Amelia straightened and, from the angle Mira was at, she looked sharp. Like she hadn’t eaten anything in days, either. Or maybe it was stress.

“I’m his mother,” was all she said, the implication lingering in the silence.

I can’t leave him.

“I know,” Benji said, approaching his friend to kneel beside her on the carpeted floor. She leaned to rest her head on his shoulder, one hand shielding her face like a visor. “And you’re trying. It’s all any parent can do.” Mira caught her father’s brief glance that looked almost like he was apologizing to her as much as he was trying to comfort his friend. “But you can’t do anything for him like this. For example, when was the last time he had his hair washed?”

That was a weird question. Mira held her hands out, bent at the elbows with an interrogative stare. Benji placated her by holding out his palm in her direction, allowing Amelia the space to answer without anyone—namely Mira—jumping in.

But not even she seemed to have a clear answer. The seamstress shrugged. “I don’t know. Last Tuesday?”

The last day Mira had been at Magic’s house. She felt anxious prickles on her skin.

“He stopped having the energy to even move himself to the bathroom from his room, Benj,” Amelia went on. “I had to start dragging him out of bed to get him to the bathroom, to the kitchen … Eventually, I just moved him to the couch because he had easy access to everything on the first floor. All of my orders were through the phone; I couldn’t have anyone inside the house with the way he was.”

“All the more reason for you to get out of the house and do some shopping,” Benji said. “You need the down time—cooping yourself up like this will hurt you more than it’ll help. And you can’t help Magic like that. Let me handle him—I’ll even carry him to the tub. Take your break.”

Mira cleared her throat. Both her father and Amelia turned to look at her. “What about you, Dad? When do you get your break?”

“When you get back. I know Will’s got the fruit in stock. He’s usually very good at keeping tabs on the hot sellers. It should take you no more than fifteen minutes to get there, and no more than five to get what you’re looking for. You won’t need to do any additional spending.

“By the time you both get back,” continued her father, “another fifteen minutes will have passed and an additional few minutes blending the fruits together into one cohesive smoothie that he can easily drink through a straw. Then, by the time you get up here, I’ll have used the last half hour—and then some—to give Magic the bath he so desperately needs. And, when you guys walk up the steps, he’ll be right here on the couch like he is right now.

Amelia sat up, rubbing at her eyes before reaching over to run her fingers through her son’s hair. Magic mumbled incoherently—his speech had regressed to nothing more than sounds that resembled words rather than words themselves—and his mother took a deep, steadying breath. She cupped Magic’s face and, without looking at Benji, nodded. “Fine,” she whispered. “But just be careful with him, Benj. Please.”

“I will be,” replied Mira’s father. He waved his hands around, shooing Amelia away as she unsteadily got to her feet like she were a hovering horsefly. And, if she were given the opportunity, Mira had no doubt that the seamstress would have done just that. “The zirca pouch is underneath the register.”

Nodding, Mira made a few hesitant steps towards the stairs, looking over her shoulder. Amelia was following at a snail’s pace, her stride interrupted as Benji groaned behind her. Even Mira jumped a little, watching as her father hoisted Magic off the couch, his disoriented mumbles the only eerie noise in the thick silence of the living space. His arms were wrapped around Benji’s neck, his head tipped forward to rest just beneath Benji’s chin.

Mira felt ill. She’d tried to keep her brother’s condition in the back of her mind, tried to fill the rest of the spaces with some kind of hope that he’d recover. That this was just a living nightmare that would eventually end. But the sight of him carried in her father’s arms shattered every bit of that and she knew then that her brother’s chances were slim. One glance at Amelia confirmed that she, too, thought the same.

She didn’t miss the tears that the seamstress hastily wiped off her face as she sped towards the steps. “Keep going, Mira,” Amelia said, her voice in the same rough tone as it was the other day. “I’m right behind you.”