A vote we lost?
“Matilda, what year will that little boy be in?” Mrs. Mackelroy whispers loudly, nodding toward Miles. He shoots me a look, steps behind a display of evaporated milk, and pretends to choke himself. I stare pointedly to the right of him and pray he stops before anyone else notices, but instead he escalates with an imaginary arrow to the neck. Only Miles would react to the most earthshattering bombshell of our lives by pretending to off himself in the middle of the canned goods aisle.
“Fourth,” Mrs. Cliffton answers, and I send Miles my most murderous glare. But then something makes me change my mind.
Perhaps it’s because he is the only person in the world who could possibly understand how I feel today. So instead, I look him squarely in the eye, take a deep breath, and stab an imaginary dagger into my heart. I even dabble a spurt of fake blood down my dress for extra effect.
Miles gapes.
“The finishing word is unprecedented,” I whisper.
He breaks into a grin. “You win,” he whispers back.
“Matilda, you wouldn’t believe the things I hear as head of the Library Preservation Society,” Mrs. Mackelroy is saying now. “Mrs. Belinda Babcock was found in quite a predicament last week. Let’s just say it involved her famous baked cinnamon apples and quite a bit of rum. If I were a Harvest Fair judge, I’d march right over and demand that she return every one of those tainted blue ribbons.”
“Oh?” Mrs. Cliffton says wearily. As she moves to pay, I glimpse a collection of small pouches in the shadows of her pocketbook.
Mrs. Mackelroy is undeterred. “Well, if she’s won all those blue ribbons for spirit-filled apples, then we just can’t stand for it. Think of the children.”
Miles’s attention is now caught on the row of newspapers, and I step in front of him to block the headlines: U.S. FLIERS BAG 42 PLANES AND HIT 2 CRUISERS IN THE SOLOMONS: NAZIS ADVANCE ON RIM OF STALINGRAD.
I imagine Father, safe in a ship’s hull, and am caught off-guard by a fierce swell of anger. How could he send us here without even warning us?
But somehow I know he wouldn’t have.
I swallow. Could Mother have kept all this even from him?
“Oh, Agatha, I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation,” Mrs. Cliffton says. “I hate to be rude, but I feel a headache coming on. Tell George hello.”
“Of course. Aila, do look for my George at school,” Agatha says. “Matilda, I hope the headache passes soon.”
I nod at Mrs. Mackelroy and paste a smile on my face, certain that Mrs. Cliffton’s headache will go away as soon as she does.
The bell above us clangs as we step back out into the sunlight with our shopping bags. “Though it was my intention for you to know the town a bit better today,” Mrs. Cliffton says, rubbing her temples, “I’m not sure I wanted you to know it quite that well.”
“But Mrs. Cliffton,” Miles says impatiently, as if his question’s been building. “The rolls we had at dinner last night—?I could smell them.”
“Yes, you could. And that, dear,” she says, “is where this story takes a more pleasant turn.” She rummages through the depths of her pocketbook, retrieving the small plump pouches I’d glimpsed. One is made of dark chocolate leather, the other a maroon velvet.
She holds them out to us in the palm of her hand. “Let me show you.”
Chapter Six
Mrs. Cliffton leads us down a side street and stops in front of a large window shaded by an awning. A sign with an arrow points to BLOOM’S HARDWARE.
“You were able to smell the rolls last night because Genevieve applied a touch of these,” she explains, holding the pouches out to us. “The Variants.”
She dips her hand inside the chocolate-hued pouch. When she opens her palm, it is filled with thousands of tiny crystals, as fine as dust. Depending on the way the light hits, they are as dull as sand or they sparkle like diamonds.
“I’m not supposed to do this in public,” she says, looking furtively around us. “It draws too much attention to have reflections appearing and disappearing for any of our occasional visitors. Otherwise, you’d be surprised how many people don’t pay much attention to the world around them.” She looks at our faces and smiles. “Ah well. This feels like a worthy exception.”
Mrs. Cliffton gestures toward the window of Bloom’s. The surface is clear, as though the glass isn’t even there, as if we can reach right through it to select a coil of hose or one of the stacked rakes. Then she flicks her wrist and sprinkles a dash of the dust onto the windowpane.
“And just like that,” she says, “here you are.”
The Variants hit the glass like pebbles rippling the surface of water. My reflection suddenly materializes in the resulting waves.
I step forward in awe. The girl looking back at me is clearer than any image I’ve ever seen. I stare at the contours of my cheekbones, the flush that is appearing on my cheeks, the sharp gray of my widened eyes. I’m surprised to realize that I actually look quite pretty.
