The Angels' Mirror Pack 2: Books Four through Seven

by Harmony L. Courtney

  I see new miracles in your eyes, your smile, and

  I am pleased with you, because you are a work of art

  God has given me to see, day after day,

  A work of art that He used to lift my heart to the sky

  And to reflect on the stars once more

  I pray for the best that He can give you the life and

  Watch, amazed, as He responds to my prayers

  In His divine time and communion with us

  The teakettle was just beginning to whistle as she finished Mama Wishart-Laurent’s song and Shannen quickly turned it off. To her delight, Shannen Rose had fallen asleep, and so she moved with great care to retrieve a cup and some of the loose tea she kept tied in cheesecloth to make the ritual of tea-making more easily accessible when she was holding the baby.

  Dare she put the baby back to bed and hope the movement didn’t wake her up so she could drink her tea in peace, unencumbered? She tested a shift with her arms, slowly moving Shannen Rose from one shoulder to the other, without waking her up before tiptoeing back toward the makeshift crib they’d set up for her.

  With great care, she held onto her breath and gently lowered the baby toward her thin grey blanket. Sweat formed on her upper lip as she set her little one down, making sure the blanket was out of the way so she could use it as a coverlet. And just when she thought she had accomplished the impossible, Shannen Rose opened her bleary eyes in the near-dark room and opened her mouth, her face scrunching in effort.

  Nothing but a yawn came out.

  And, thankfully, she fell back asleep within moments.

  Shannen waited a few moments in the darkness before daring to cover the child and then, hearing not a whimper, tiptoed out to where her tea – likely quite strong now – awaited her.

  Thirty Five

  Perpignan, France… August 1, 1702

  Galya watched the kind man – she believed his name was Gaspar, if all his saying of it as he pointed to himself was any indication – with interest as he made his way to the other side of the room where she and the children were studying with their odd little teacher.

  The wrinkled, nearly bald man – not more than four and a half feet tall - had been kind enough to teach her some words in these foreigners’ beautiful tongue. Whether it was one or two different languages, she wasn’t quite sure.

  He pointed back to the item he’d placed in front of her.

  She still didn’t understand where she was, but was thankful for kindnesses. All she knew was that one minute, she had been watching her Great Uncle Timothy create one of his fascinating mirrors as her cousin Eustace played her harp, and the next, she was falling into that very same mirror.

  She had gotten too close, and a storm – rare for that time of year – had begun to come upon them.

  Not just rain, but the hard clap of God in the sky, and light flashing like a sword through the tense air.

  And she hadn’t meant to fall; she hadn’t meant to be frightened.

  She had only wished to protect Timothy’s masterpiece. He’d worked so hard on it, and he was so very old… it would have seemed a waste for it to fall over, tilted as it was against the table as the wood was being added.

  For Timothy, a mirror sometimes took a year or more to create.

  They were his masterpieces; his leisure after so many years of travel. He had begun to tell her who this mirror was dedicated to as she had fallen, and never got the answer. Instead, she had the memory of hearing he and Eustace yelling at her to come back; to be still; to stop her foolish falling – as if she could have helped it. She had the memory of seeing the harp in Eustace’s arms toppling toward the ground as she scrambled forward.

  Their fingers had touched for just a moment… barely… and the next thing Galya knew, she was inside this very room face to face with a kind and handsome man who kept speaking gibberish.

  The man she supposed was Sir Gaspar.

  And when she fell through the mirror… when she moved from outside in the fresh, scary rain to inside a room, she still heard God’s clap and sword racing through the air. Yet, what had she done when she saw a strange man, and a stranger harp before her?

  She had panicked.

  Her heart had beat wildly within her and her prayers had become fervent… more fervent than she’d ever known.

  Fervent, like Great Uncle Timothy had always encouraged, and like Cousin Eustace had tried to persuade her, nearly daily.

  Gaspar walked toward her, a smile on his face. “Comment pouvez-vous aujourd'hui tariff, Galya,” he asked her.

  But what did it mean? It wasn’t the first time he had asked this question. She just didn’t understand.

  She knew vous was you; she knew her name, but what was the composition trying to convey?

  She shrugged her shoulders… every day, she shrugged her shoulders, uncomprehending, wishing she could understand; dreaming of the day they could speak and both know a common language.

  A common place for the heart to alight.

  “J'aimerais que vous puissiez me comprendre,” the man said, trying again. “Whether in French, whether in English, I truly do… I want to know what you’re thinking; I want to know what you feel,” he continued, making her even more confused. “I want to know more than your name and that you believe in God.”

  There was a passion in his voice; a hesitant yet chasing nature to what he said. He didn’t speak that way to everyone else, no matter what she heard him saying, and it surprised her.

  Even though they spoke different languages, was his speech toward her intentionally so varied from the tone he used with others?

  And yet, she thought, I speak in a different tone to him, as well. If I were being truthful, it is so.

  For a few moments, she considered telling him so….

  But what words could she use in order for him to understand? She there were none that came to mind that would help at all.

  She could try to express it with the harp, with a flute, neval, or kinnor, if there were one around… but the harp was all that was familiar. Even at that, the one in this home was much more detailed and refined than her uncle’s wooden one had been. Touching it made her heart sing, but she fretted she might somehow break it.

  There was something that might be a kinnor, too, in this room full of mysteries and delights, but it looked so different than those she had been used to… could it even be the same thing? And if so, why was it so very changed in appearance?

  Someone had painted flowers and ribbons on it. She had never seen such a thing.

  Aside from the harp, kinnor was the one instrument that stilled her heart when its rhythm mirrored that of the cheetah as it runs across the plains after its prey.

  The harp and kinnor helped steady her; she thrived on them as the ibex and oryx craved calm and steady water.

  She knew too little yet.

  Too insufficient a number of words that Gaspar would understand… too few words that could communicate her heart.

  She could tell him with her body, too, but would he understand the language even then? She saw so little embracing here… so few people smiling back at her when she shared one with them. Perhaps even those customs were different.

  “Galya,” the tiny old man, Alain-Basile, said, redirecting her attention. “Try “Je ne sais pas.””

  Try.

  She knew that word now.

  “Je ne…”

  “Je ne sais pas.”

  “Je ne sais… Je ne sais pas?”

  “Good,” Alain said, his timeworn face wreathing into a smile. “Good. You do not know. Je ne sais pas…. I do not know.”

  “Je ne sais pas…. I… I… I do not…”

  “Je ne sais pas. I do not know,” the man said again, shaking his head and pointing to it.

  She shook her head.

  What did it mean?

  She didn’t understand.

  “Je ne sais pas,” she tried again. “I do not… I do not know.”

  “Very g
ood,” the man told her again before turning his attention to the children who sat staring at her.

  Galya dared a glance toward Sir Gaspar, and saw him smiling.

  “Vous ne sais pas. Good. At least, now we’re clear on that,” he said to her.

  If he was saying vous – you – was Je, me?

  Was it I?

  She smiled at him, happy to have been pleasing, but still as confused as ever.

  Would the Good Lord above ever help her to understand and learn enough to feel less like an outsider and more like she really belonged?

  Once Gaspar had walked away, out of the room, she allowed her eyes to drift toward the window. She could see the remnants of a blackened tree, split in two.

  The remnants had been her first glimpse of the outside world, here and now. She had seen it in the pouring rain, and smelled smoke. It had been terrifying, but it had been her new reality.

  Gaspar, the harp, the mirror, and the tree. These are what kept her grounded now.

  These, and Yahweh, Himself.

  She does well, for someone who has been thrust into the French and English languages unawares, Sir Gaspar thought as he left the music room. Thrust into a whole world different from what she grew up in and is used to…. Would I be as brave about it, or as calm as she, now that she has begun to relax.

  Galya, his three nieces and five nephews, along with their decrepit, kind, odd little tutor, Alain-Basile Sylvain, remained behind, their chairs in a circle halfway between the angel-topped mirror and the window.

  It seemed that Galya always made sure to face the harp, which surprised him until the day he found her playing it… beautifully and hauntingly so.

  When she noticed him watching, she had stopped; he had gently taken her fingers in his hands and strummed across the chords a single time, and smiled.

  She understood, and she played.

  She played from the time he saw her at midday until the sun was nearly set. And then, he played. He had food brought in to them in the music, room, and they spent time living together in the vibrations of the music.

  And it was there… it was music… where they learned they could speak to one another, when words failed them.

  It was there, at the harp, that she had begun to shine.

  And it seemed that day that she recognized other instruments, as well… his grandfather’s kinnor, brought from Israel, and the drums he’d found in Paris through an antiques seller.

  But she never touched them.

  He prayed she would… but she merely looked longingly, her eyes filled with silent tears, from where she sat near him as he’d played the harp and sang songs he knew she wouldn’t understand, but which rang out from his heart.

  Love songs.

  Songs of thanksgiving.

  Songs of joy.

  It didn’t matter why she hadn’t gone to explore the other instruments, at least right then. He was just solaced and pleased that there was something here… something in her midst that she was comfortable being around.

  And he thanked God he was becoming part of that something; that they were building a bridge through their fingers upon the strings of the harp.

  It didn’t matter to him, either, that she chose clothes that were out of fashion to the rest of Perpignan, or that she spoke only a handful of words in French or English… she spoke music. And with Alain-Basile’s help, Sir Gaspar prayed she would soon speak in words, as well.

  Words and phrases he could understand, and then she would understand him in return. And that, when she realized what he’d been singing to her, her heart would cry out for more and she would realize he was there to love her, even if it was from afar.

  Her tutor – the children’s tutor, really - had been with the family for two generations now: first, teaching him and his sisters Suzette and Solange, and now, Suzette’s children. The man was short in stature, full-bearded, square-jawed, long on words, and short on patience in teaching writing and reading.

  Gaspar - like his parents before him – had had difficulties explaining why Alain-Basile and his wife, Therese – who worked in the kitchens – were in their employ at all.

  Dwarves were not a common or traditional part of French culture, even in terms of employment. The King had only made it a popular thing in the last twenty years or so; he’d made treaties and trades with King Charles, and then King James of England; dwarves had occasionally been included as part of the package.

  Several comments had been made over the years as to why the Aitons had assumed what, to many, was an English custom. “After all,” the whisper was, “it’s those English who maintained a high number of dwarves in their castles and palaces… why should we, of France, mimic their behavior? It’s scandalous that anyone should do so here… and so far from the King’s court.”

  After many years of trying to come up with a satisfactory answer that portrayed his belief that all people, including those who were dwarves, should have something to pride themselves on – something they were skilled at which gave them confidence – he had finally just given up and let gossips be gossips.

  After all, it was his household; not theirs. They could do as they pleased, and so why should he not follow that same privilege?

  His sister Suzette’s husband, Michel, had died before their youngest was born; died a horrible death at the hands of a Spaniard who had escaped into France after committing crimes against his own people. And when he’d died, Gaspar had vowed to help Suzette and Michel’s children with education and housing as long as he was able.

  It’s what he would have wanted Michel to do, were things the other way around. Continuing the children’s tutelage through Alain-Basile had been part of that.

  It had been a balancing act; keeping everyone happy, and having a good tutor for the children. A tutor he hoped would still be around to teach his own children, should he have any.

  He thought about Galya a moment before his thoughts shifted toward Marguerite. Had he done the right thing, introducing them to see how both would respond to the stimulus of interaction?

  Or had it been foolish?

  Well, he thought, either way, it is in God’s hands now, and the woman who has truly captured my heart sits near the mirror she fell through into my life. There must be something that draws her to it, as well, though I cannot imagine what. I would think she would be terrified to be in its presence at all. Instead, she glances at it and seems to ache. She yearns for it as much as she does the harp during her lessons with Alain-Basile. I just know she does….

  Gaspar walked outside and headed toward the charred remnants of his formerly favorite oak tree. He had put off the chore of cleaning it up long enough.

  Though others had offered to do so, he’d wanted to get what he could finished on his own.

  It was only proper, considering it was the last thing he’d seen before turning around to find Galya staring at him wildly with those liquid amber eyes… eyes that mesmerized him, even in his sleep.

  Now was the time.

  Before he went and made a fool of himself more today, now was the time.

  He could no longer contain himself around the woman, the silence between them thin and reedy. It was a silent longing. A silent craving to be in one another’s presence… and he prayed as he began to toss bits and pieces of blackened and crumbling wood aside into a pile that the craving for closeness was mutual.

  He prayed that soon, they could speak with more than the brilliant silence of the eyes, and the tongue of the harp…. He prayed that God would work a miracle between them beyond any words he could speak.

  Any words to Galya, to God, or himself.

  Thirty Six

  Vancouver, Washington… August 1, 2020

  Paloma exited the offices of Amethyst & Alabaster, joy exuding from every pore of her being. Joy that filled her up and overflowed as she went to check on the chickens, then headed inside to get dinner going for her family.

  They had done it!

  She and Mariana – as well
as their small staff – had been nominated for three fashion awards in less than a year.

  Awards that, yes, required attention, travel, and other preparations to accept, should they win, but which also showed recognition for all the hard work they’d done in their planned objective to raise awareness of how differing women’s bodies were shaped. How clothes should fit the woman, and not the other way around; especially, in their case, the plus-sized woman.

  They aimed from the beginning to create lines that would be beautiful, comfortable, sexy and still modest for women over size twelve. And with a bit of trial and error, they had done it.

  True, there were three or four true flops within their designs… but almost everything else had sold off the racks quickly, in part likely due to making sure all of their outerwear was exclusive. Their lingerie, shoes, and accessories, they had made available through eight different stores.

  These were the mainstay of Amethyst & Alabaster – what helped make them a household name across not just the Pacific Northwest, but now, across the country and on into Europe.

  They only had one true nemesis.

  One man who criticized and complained about everything that he saw which was marked with their label.

  And for whatever reason, Amethyst & Alabaster was one of only three labels he continually disparaged, not just privately, but now, in the past few months, publicly, as well.

  The son of a more well-known designer, Kristof Sage had fought every step of the way to keep their business from succeeding.

  At first, Paloma had done what she could to ignore it. Most of the time, she didn’t even think about it, it had been so petty and ridiculous. But now, all of a sudden, the man had stepped up his hate game… or had he?

  He now wanted a meeting, but what was his motivation?

  Kristof had, at one time, worked with Paloma’s former boss, Ethan Peacock, and his wife, Vanessa. They had been among the initial hires at a handbag designer’s flagship company, but the man had been fired quickly.

  She, herself, never knew why, and hadn’t really thought about it very much until recently.