“Where is everyone today?” Ellen asked.
Her question was answered when the Lexus turned right at the diner. Lining Second Street all the way to the Treasure Chest were dozens of cars and trucks. A horde of people bottlenecked at the front door, which was propped open by a large rock to ease the flow of customers.
“What in the world is going on here?” Ellen asked. “Mary said Barney was busy, but I didn’t think he’d be this busy.”
Allie leaned forward in her seat to get a view through the windshield. “Holy wow, Leah. You done made Mr. Barney famous.”
Leah pulled her back and whispered, “He’s huh-here.”
“Who’s here?” Allie asked.
“The muh-man I’m supposed to tuh-talk to.”
“Well, of course he is, silly. It’s Mr. Barney’s shop.”
“Nuh-not Mr. Buh-Barney,” Leah said.
Allie looked down at the sound of crinkling paper. Leah scrubbed at the hole in her thumbnail.
2
For Reggie, Tuesdays were set aside for visiting the sick and shut-ins of his congregation. His first stop was always to see Mabel, and he’d decided that morning not to deviate from that routine. Regardless of Barney’s moral lapse—not to mention his questioning of Reggie’s knowledge of God’s will—he was still a friend. And Reggie had always cherished Mabel’s company, however faint that company might be. He’d expected to find her in her accustomed place and form—in bed and nearly catatonic. What he found instead could only be described as miraculous.
The Treasure Chest was hopping. Many were town residents—Reggie counted over a dozen members of First Church—but more than a few were from Away. Shopping. Buying. All in a frenzy of arms and legs and hands, a growing chorus of “This is wonderful” and “Wouldn’t he/she/they love this” and, upon more than one occasion, “Give me that” and “I was here first.”
Barney stood near the far wall by the basement door helping Allison Summers, who waitressed at the diner and filled in as church organist whenever Lila McKinney’s arthritis flared up. Allison spoke to him in a low voice that wasn’t necessary, given the commotion. Barney nodded and offered her an odd smile that was half joy and half disappointment. He scribbled something on a white pad of paper and tore off the top sheet. Allison gave him a peck on the cheek and carried the slip of paper to the front, where Mary Granderson cranked the lever on the old register. The bell on the cash drawer rang for the first time in a long while.
Mayor Wallis shook hands and wagged his tongue. Trevor Morgan took notes. Deacon Spicer prowled the aisles with the same scowl that had been present at church when Barney had given his witness. And there was Mabel herself, not running on all eight cylinders but on at least four of them, hunched in her wheelchair and within Mary’s reach. She discharged a thick, phlegmy cough and drummed her fingers on the hand rest.
“Morning, Reggie,” Mary said from the register. “Come to join the fun?”
“Came to visit Mabel.” He stepped around a group of shoppers. “Guess I’ll be visiting with more than her.”
Mary laughed and helloed her next customer, an elderly man in a stained white shirt and tan pants with holes where pockets once were. He handed Mary another of Barney’s white slips of paper and smiled.
Reggie moved to Mabel and crouched to see her face. The frail woman’s eyes barely recognized him.
“How are you feeling today, Mabel?” Sweat gathered above her upper lip. Her cheek was leathery and warm. And though the crowd was boisterous, Reggie could hear the faint whistles that accompanied her exhales. “Mabel doesn’t seem well, Mary.”
Mary thanked the man with the holey pockets and waited for the next in line. “I think she’s fighting a bug,” she told Reggie. “Doc March is gonna stop by this evening. Barney gave her some medicine earlier. He’s worried.”
“I am too.”
He patted Mabel’s arm and straightened to take in the moment. It could be said that Reverend Reginald Goggins had recycled his share of sermons over the years, but the few times he had done so had been out of necessity rather than laziness. Certain things deserved a repeated going-over. None was as important as hearing God’s voice. No other aspect of the Christian life was so misunderstood (Reggie mourned those poor souls who believed God spoke through such human foolishness as epiphanies and coincidence), and as shepherd of a town whose people connected nearly every happening to the voice of God, it fell upon his shoulders to set things right. It was a voice that had comforted Reggie through the years and had drawn him ever closer to the face of God. And it was a voice he listened for now as he beheld a once-dying business springing back to life and a once-cursed friend enjoying what he believed was his blessing. But that voice would not come. In the end, that was how Reggie knew before anyone that a dark trouble was approaching and that its first stiff breezes had already arrived. All he felt was a tiny sore spot on his head, the kind that meant someone was staring. His eyes settled upon the open door, where Leah Norcross stood with her mother and Allie Granderson.
The clamor inside the Treasure Chest ceased in that moment. Hands that reached for Lincoln Logs or toy guns or across the counter hung suspended as if fixed in time. Their focus settled upon the tiny girl with knobby knees and long black hair. Leah’s focus seemed upon Reggie alone.
Barney left his spot by the marble rollers and made his way around the ogling customers.
“Little Leah. Come in, come in. Hello, Ellen, and there’s little Allie too. How are you?”
“H-hello, Mr. Buh-Barney,” Leah whispered. Her eyes were still on Reggie. She held up a rolled section of paper in her hand as Allie went behind the counter to give Mary a hug. “I huh-have a new puh-painting for you.”
“A new painting?”
Barney’s question unstuck the crowd and set the tempo in the room back into its former forward motion. They moved in unison toward the door and formed a loose circle around Leah and her mother.
“Yuh-yes,” she said, and now the sore spot on Reggie’s head really did feel sore. It felt like a burrowing, as if Leah’s eyes were not so much looking at him but feeling him, his thoughts as plain to her as his face. “Wuh-would you luh-like to luh-look at it?”
“I sure would,” Barney said.
“Wuh-would you luh-like us to show you, Ruh-Reverend?” she asked. “The R-rainbow M-man and me, I muh-mean.”
“The rainbow man?” Reggie asked. “Is he here now?”
Leah said, “He’s always huh-here, Ruh-Reverend.”
Reggie listened for the Still Small Voice to direct him, and received more silence instead. The crowd waited. He felt he had no choice in what he said next.
“Sure, Leah. Come on over here.”
She held the painting in her hand and parted the crowd like Moses waltzing through the Red Sea. Ellen followed her. As did everyone else, who now circled Reggie. Leah handed the paper to him and took her place beside Mabel, who opened her eyes long enough to mumble, “I love you.”
“I luh-love you tuh-too, Muh-Miss Mabel,” she whispered. And then, as if a little girl whose momma and daddy were spiritual-but-not-religious could know such things, Leah added, “Everything’s guh-gonna be okay n-now.”
There was an audible gasp from the crowd as Reggie unrolled the page. Even he was not able to keep his eyes from swelling. The emerald field and rainbow of her previous work had been replaced by a nighttime scene. A pale, full moon hung in a sky of stars, each swirling clockwise in an almost musical effect. In the distance, dark clouds gathered and spread. Shadowy trees scattered at the outer edges of the paper, their limbs gnarled and reaching—some downward toward the firmament, and others outward toward a representation of their town painted in the middle. On the tip of a giant twisted branch at the bottom of the page sat a mockingbird so lifelike its feathers seemed to ruffle in the unseen wind of an approaching storm. Its eye stared through the page with a clarity Reggie could not fathom. Musical notations emanated from its open beak, whole and half notes
that morphed into the numbers 34720625 as they fell over the town.
“I think it’s wonderful, Leah,” Barney said. His voice was soft and church-like. “Truly so. These different numbers, are they?”
Leah nodded and put an arm around Mabel. She looked at Reggie and asked, “Duh-do you luh-like it, Ruh-Reverend?”
Reggie said, “I think it’s beautiful, Leah,” and his heart could not betray that truth. There were those in town now convinced this little unbelieving girl was a vessel through which God spoke, that her art was nothing short of some holy paint-by-number. Reggie was as sure that wasn’t true as he was that God did not speak through wind and fire, but there was no denying Leah had a gift. A gift that would no doubt throw fuel on an already mounting blaze.
“Let’s go hang this in the window,” Barney said. He looked at Reggie. “Looks like I was right about the Lord’s will, Preacher. He’s gonna spread the wealth around.”
Barney took Leah by the hand and walked to the front of the store, where Mary and Allie waited with four strips of tape. The crowd followed them only as far as the door and then headed outside to fan out in front of the window. Pens and scrap paper appeared as the numbers on Leah’s painting were scribbled down. Only Reggie and Ellen remained behind.
“That’s quite a talented young lady,” he said.
“Talented?” Ellen chuckled. “Not really. Leah’s always liked to draw, but it was never anything like . . . that.”
Outside, several shoppers who hadn’t managed to find a pen took photos of Leah’s painting with their cell phones. Leah and Barney stood guard on the other side of the window. The pad of paper in Barney’s hand went into the front pocket of his overalls. There was a soft crinkle as it rubbed against his lottery ticket. Mary and Allie went to check on Mabel, whose cough had worsened. Leah looked from the crowd outside to Reggie and smiled.
“Maybe some sort of latent talent,” he told Ellen. “Such things have been known to lie dormant and suddenly spring to life.”
“I thought that too at first,” she said. “Guess I was just scared to think otherwise. I’m not anymore.”
Reggie looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“Allie says Leah has the magic, and I think she’s right. I’ve always believed in magic, Reverend. Tom makes fun sometimes when I go on about it.” She touched the crystal that hung from her neck. “The Universe has touched my daughter. Leah’s somehow tapped into something. If anyone should see that, I’d think it’d be you.”
Reggie leaned on a barrel of Lincoln Logs and smiled—so “the Universe” had touched Ellen Norcross’s daughter. In that one simple statement he understood the woman in front of him as one of those wayward souls who found more joy in pondering life’s questions than in discovering its answers, who found comfort in keeping God broad and undefinable—the sort who would find no impropriety in praying to Jehovah while facing Mecca and sitting in the lotus position.
“The magic,” he said. “That’s what folks say when referring to some occurrences that have happened here in the past. Others call it ‘the Higher Things.’ I don’t care for either term myself. God isn’t magic, Ellen. He doesn’t fly over people—that’s what they say happens from time to time—and He certainly isn’t ‘the Universe.’ He’s God. And though I believe He can and does touch people, I don’t believe He’s touched your Leah.”
“You sound like Tom. He didn’t want me to bring Leah down here this morning. He’s a good man, Reverend, despite the opinion you may have formed of him. I think he was just trying to protect Leah from too much attention.”
“I think that’s probably a good idea, given the circumstances.”
“I did too. But do you know what I’ve been thinking about all morning? How I met Tom. We were in college. I was in the dining hall one night. He literally bumped into me in line and said, ‘I’m so sorry.’ Just that, nothing more. But I had an epiphany in that very second. It was like I was hit by a beam of light. There was a crack of thunder in my head that said, You’re going to marry this man.”
“Thunder?” Reggie asked, then had to force his head not to shake from side to side. “Was there fire and wind too?”
“No,” Ellen said. “It was surreal, though. And it happened again a few months ago. Things weren’t so good. Tom was working such long hours, and . . . well, something had happened between us, something hurtful that I did and I’m still trying to apologize for. Leah was withdrawing even from us. Tom wanted to move here, but I didn’t think it was a very good idea. That’s when I felt it again—You need to move and start over. I didn’t think it was the voice of God, whoever he was. But I know it was now, because I heard it again this morning when Leah showed us her new painting. Your daughter has been touched by God. That’s what the thunder said.”
“That’s not how it works, Ellen.”
“I think you’re wrong, Reverend. It’s happened. It’s happening to us. And you know what else I think? That maybe if God’s touched Leah and I help her, He’ll touch me too.”
Ellen excused herself and went to her daughter. Barney asked her and Mary if maybe the girls could drop by later that evening. He had something special for them. The crowd trickled back inside the Treasure Chest. Leah stood in their midst, answering their questions with Allie’s help, telling them about the Rainbow Man and how the painting was more his than her own. But it was the numbers they most wanted to know about. They hung on Leah’s every word in the middle of the store just as they’d hung on Reggie’s every Sunday morning. He tried to watch her and listen despite himself, but found he could not. Leah was too still, her voice too small.
3
Tom watched through the bedroom window as Leah and Allie chased three butterflies that skimmed above the backyard’s green grass. Thus far, they’d come up empty. Allie had been close once, but the orange-and-black Monarch she was after looped just above her reaching hands. Leah had spent much of her time watching and only joined in when Allie forced her. Leah had never been much of a chaser, Tom thought. She preferred hiding.
But his daughter seemed to be getting the hang of things. Allie was a good teacher. She knew just when to prod Leah onward and when to give her space. She demonstrated the proper way to hold one’s hands and how it was best to creep up rather than run toward. Tom thought Leah’s new friend had the makings to be a good therapist one day. Leah made another attempt at a butterfly resting upon the edge of the small swimming pool Tom had inflated earlier. Allie guided her in. Leah almost made it, but at the last moment the insect flitted into the sky. Tom thought she would be disappointed at her failure, but the girls laughed instead and walked away from the pool to the hill at the end of the yard.
The hallway floorboard creaked. A shadow appeared out of the corner of Tom’s eye. He didn’t think it was Leah’s imaginary friend but thought it would perhaps be better—much better—if it were.
“Hey.”
“Hey yourself,” he said.
Leah and Allie reached the hill. They snuggled under the hanging pine limbs and disappeared.
“Are you still mad at me?” Ellen asked.
Tom didn’t know. A part of him, the part that ran contrary to much of what he once told his marriage therapy couples, still smarted from Ellen’s decision to drive Leah to the Treasure Chest. He’d been adamant that she not. Okay, too adamant. And he hadn’t meant to yell, especially within Leah’s earshot. That was not Tom’s way, and he had been more shocked than anyone when he heard the echo of his own rage. It was more than anger that had spilled out onto his wife, it was a pleading to keep the painting out of sight, because people would go crazy, they always did. It was the numbers. Didn’t she see it was the numbers? Didn’t she want to protect their child?
“I guess a part of me is,” he said. “I’m sorry I yelled, Ellen.”
“That’s twice in the past few days, Tom. Me earlier, Reggie Goggins Saturday.”
“I know.” He tried to spot Leah and Allie and couldn’t, though he saw a bit of Le
ah’s shoes peeking out from beneath the pines. What were they talking about up there? He looked from the window to Ellen, who moved to the edge of their bed. “It wasn’t so much that I felt angry, Ellen. I felt threatened. I just wanted to protect my family. I know it might not have looked like that to you, but I want you to believe me.”
“We need to talk about this,” she said. “That’s what you always say, right? ‘A good marriage is built on a solid foundation of communication.’ The first commandment of the Gospel according to Dr. Thomas Alan Norcross. So let’s communicate. I don’t want to risk another fight, Tom. I’m so tired of it, and I know you are too. Sometimes it’s just easier to swallow things or close your eyes and hope they go away. But sometimes I think the only place doing that will lead is back to where we were, and I won’t let that happen.”
“I’m better now,” Tom said.
“No, you’re not. And I’m not. And I’m sure Leah’s not either. She was devastated when you didn’t come with us this morning, especially after you weren’t there yesterday.”
“She set this town in an uproar over that first painting,” he said. “She and Barney, anyway. You just threw gas on the fire, Ellen. Can’t you see it did more harm than good?”
“Leah has a gift, Tom, and it’s something I’m just trying to understand. God’s touched her.”
Tom smacked the windowpane. He turned to Ellen, trying but not succeeding in holding in check the rage locked inside himself. “What do you know about God, Ellen? If you only knew how much sanctimonious god-talk I have to hear, you’d know not to say anything like that. My job is to keep Leah safe, to keep her well, otherwise she’ll end up”—like Meagan Gladwell, he wanted to say—“broken. She’ll end up broken, Ellen. And you buying into the fantasy these people are building around her isn’t helping.”
Ellen did not back down this time. There was no forgive and forget, no letting the next sunrise take care of things. She matched Tom’s voice decibel for decibel. “How can you keep her safe if all you’re worried about are your precious patients? Why’d we move here, Tom? Remember?”
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