by Amy Neftzger
“Why won’t anyone give us instructions?” Jovan asked in a frustrated tone. “It would be so much easier if they did.”
“The easy way is not always the best way,” Maggie answered him. She had heard it said before, but couldn’t remember where. She didn’t really understand what it meant, but it sounded wise.
“If miracles were easy, they would be everywhere,” Nicholas agreed. “They’re difficult, but not impossible.”
They continued searching through various storerooms. Occasionally they came across a member of another group looking for supplies, and the person would try to hide whatever it was they were getting from the storeroom so that Nicholas and his friends couldn’t see it. However, as soon as the person left the room, Maggie would go to where the person was standing and figure out what they took.
“If they didn’t want us to look, they wouldn’t be so secretive. They would just act ordinary and take what they needed,” Maggie said. “They’re practically telling me that they want me to pay attention to what they’re doing.”
“Maybe it’s a trap to mislead you,” Jovan suggested.
“I think they’re just being foolish,” Nicholas said dismissively. “Let’s finish this up so that we’re ready to get started tomorrow.”
When they had finally completed the task of looking through the supply rooms they made a list and put items together into groups to help them organize the potential ingredients. The groups had titles like magical potions, elements and metals, chemical compounds, edibles (anything that could be eaten), building materials, plants, sea life, flying things, land animals, and explosives. There were also different tools available, and they classified these items as building tools, demolition supplies, scientific gadgets, baking and cooking supplies, gardening tools, and household items. Maggie drew a heart around the label for demolition supplies.
“Explosive things are so exciting,” she said as she completed her drawing. Jovan rolled his eyes dramatically. When she saw his reaction, she continued, “It’s not my fault that you can’t appreciate some of the beautiful things in life.”
“How is destruction beautiful?” he asked in a challenging tone.
“You may think that a broken egg is ugly and messy,” she answered, “but the cake it goes into is beautiful and won’t hold together without it.”
“Eggs don’t get blown up. They get broken.”
“You’ve never seen me bake,” she replied with a smirk, and Jovan gave up the argument.
They stayed late to finish categorizing their lists and then went directly from the lab to dinner. They sat together at a table in the corner of the large dining room, hoping to gain more information from Taro when he came by to check on them. Maggie wanted to write down a long list of questions to ask. She had so many and was afraid that she wouldn’t remember all of them. However, Jovan and Nicholas convinced her they would be better off conversing with Taro instead of interrogating him. They explained that if they confronted him with too many questions Taro might feel like he was under attack and stop talking to them. After all, no one had volunteered any helpful information up until this point. It didn’t make sense to risk losing the only source of information they had, and it would be best to try a friendlier approach by coaxing it out of him slowly.
“I don’t know what ‘coax’ means,” Maggie announced, “but if it means to hammer him with questions until he bleeds, then I’m all for it!”
“It means to use patience and gradually get him to talk by being nice to him,” Jovan explained. “I’m pretty sure there’s no bloodshed involved in the process.”
“Patience and fun just don’t go together,” Maggie sighed as she sat at the dinner table.
The dining hall had separate rooms for each group of apprentices belonging to a mentor. A mentor could have anywhere from 40 to 60 apprentices, although there were one or two mentors who had assistants, and each of these are allowed to take on their own apprentices. Nevertheless, there was always one primary mentor, and this person reported to Mr. and Mrs. Pontiff, the guardians of the orphanage. The guardians were occasionally seen, but they rarely talked to the children. The mentors and work supervisors gave the children all the guidance they would receive. Sometimes the children would share information among themselves, but apprentices from different mentors didn’t eat meals together or interact socially. They were courteous to one another in the hallways, but they didn’t mingle. Nicholas never quite understood why, because there were some very interesting looking children that he would have liked to meet.
Taro stopped to talk with some of the other children on his way to the table. He had the fewest apprentices of all the mentors, and this made Nicholas think that Taro was fairly new to the role. It also made Nicholas wonder how many other jobs Taro had been assigned to before this one. Did the orphanage assign their best workers to be mentors? And, if this was the case, did this mean that Taro was exceptionally good at making miracles? Taro had never scheduled a specific time to talk with him before, and he usually ate dinner with the Pontiffs and other Mentors. Since Taro was making it a point to check on them, Nicholas was optimistic about the conversation they were about to have. After all, they were in the most advanced job in the orphanage, and surely Taro wanted them to be successful. He must want to help them.
“Good evening,” Taro greeted them with his usual smile as he sat down at the small round wooden table. His manners were just as formal as they had always been. Nicholas could see that they would need to build a friendlier relationship with Taro to get him to talk more openly. They needed Taro to see them as more than just his apprentices. He would have to view them as colleagues or friends in order to open up to them. Nicholas thought rapidly and decided that the best approach would be to make Taro feel appreciated.
“We really enjoyed the lab today,” Nicholas said with as much sincerity as he could. It wasn’t that difficult because it really was interesting work. “We appreciate you giving us this assignment.”
“It’s nothing special,” Taro responded after a brief pause. Those few seconds, however, were enough for Nicholas to see that Taro was surprised at the gratitude, if not a little happy about it. “It’s an assignment like any other.”
“Yes, I know,” Nicholas continued as Jovan stared at him cautiously. “You could have put us to work in the lake or given us jobs somewhere else. I just wanted you to know that we liked where we were today.”
“We can’t always like our work. But it is nice to be able to do something that you enjoy,” Taro agreed. He appeared to relax ever so slightly, and he dropped some of his formal demeanor as he continued. “Tell me, what did you like most about the lab?” Nicholas watched Jovan’s expression become less tense as they both saw that the approach was getting some results with Taro. Maggie didn’t seem to notice that there had been any cause for concern.
“Well, we spent most of the day examining the supplies,” Nicholas explained.
“There were a lot of them,” Jovan interjected. “But we wanted to get a good idea of what we had to work with.”
“Very smart,” Taro nodded with approval. “And what did you find there?” Nicholas wondered if they were being tested to see if they were looking at the right things. On the other hand, Taro may not have spent much time in the lab before. Maybe he didn’t know what was there and he was curious. Nicholas tried to read Taro’s face, but it was polite and expressionless.
“We classified them into groups,” Maggie explained as she pulled a stack of folded papers out of her pocket and showed him her diagrams. Taro took the papers from her and looked over the lists they had created. “We made one list for supplies and one list for tools. It took us all day.”
“I know it doesn’t look like much,” said Nicholas, “but we wanted to get some understanding before we started work. And there’s so much there.”
Just then dinner arrived at their table. The soup smelled wonderfully rich with tomato, garlic, and basil. Along with the soup, they had roast beef,
potatoes, and asparagus. Nicholas didn’t realize how hungry he was until he caught the aroma of the meal placed before him.
All the food in the orphanage was prepared and served by some of the older children who had been unable to create miracles. They were, of course, dressed appropriately for kitchen work. The servers wore black pants with starched white shirts and they had been trained in table manners and proper serving techniques. They looked and acted as if they had been serving food all their lives. Nicholas wondered why the servers were trained so precisely when he had never received training on any of his jobs.
Taro handed the lists back to Maggie. She carefully folded the papers and put them back in the pocket of her lab coat before starting to eat. They were all silent for a few moments, and Nicholas nervously stared at the plaque over the dining room door. It said “Humilitas.” The word looked sort of like “humorous” or maybe the word “humiliate” to Nicholas. Either one sounded like a ridiculous phrase to put over a dining room door, and like so many other things in the orphanage, it didn’t make sense. Nicholas looked out the window at the gold and orange leaves drifting toward the ground. The leaves were always falling.
“Does anyone remember when the trees were green?” he suddenly asked out loud, but he was really thinking to himself when he said it. This remark startled Taro, and he nearly dropped his soup spoon. The weather was never discussed because it never changed. The fact that it never changed made people feel awkward, so it was considered impolite to bring it up in conversation. Despite this little social blunder, Taro quickly recovered and ate a few bites before responding and when he did, Nicholas was surprised.
“I do,” Taro replied quietly. “And I remember spring flowers blooming and also cold winters, when most of the trees had no leaves at all.” He glanced out the window. “The autumn is beautiful, though.”
“I once walked to the edge of the forest,” Nicholas continued the conversation. “The leaves keep dropping, but they’re never gone. The trees are never bare. I wanted to know why because I’ve never seen anything like this before. So I got as close as I dared and studied the branches.”
“What did you see?” Maggie asked with a look of intrigue on her face and a mouth full of potatoes. She had not attempted to walk too closely to the forest for fear of accidentally walking into the enchanted part.
“As soon as a leaf falls, a little yellow or orange bud appears, and a new one begins to grow,” Nicholas said. “But it doesn’t grow a green leaf like other trees. It grows in the color that it’s going to fall. It just gets bigger and bigger until it’s too heavy to stay there and it drops off the tree. Then it starts all over again.”
“You always struck me as being very observant,” Taro remarked. Then he smiled, and his expression was less formal and more genuine. “It’s a good quality to have.”
“Thank you, Taro.” Nicholas did not have any trouble sounding sincere when he spoke. He felt as if he was beginning to make a friend.
“I barely remember the green leaves,” Jovan said reflectively. “I don’t know how old I was when I came here.”
“You were five, Jovan. You’ve been here for seven years,” Taro answered. “It’s in your file.”
“Why don’t I remember when I came here or what my parents were like?”
“You were very young,” Taro explained. “And some places have that effect on the memory. Some places have such a powerful impact on a person that they wipe everything else out. Miracles are powerful things, and you’re surrounded by them here.”
“I don’t even remember seeing miracles before I came here,” Maggie added. She had barely seen them in the orphanage because they were kept in the garden and children weren’t allowed in there unless they were working. The Pontiffs worried that someone might accidentally crush the miracles. Most children saw the miracles only through the courtyard windows and at a distance.
“You may not have seen one,” Taro replied. “They’re rare on the outside, and that’s why we’re here. The king commissioned this orphanage to be a place of miracles, and we’re all doing our best to meet that goal.”
They ate silently for a few moments, and Nicholas was pleased with himself for getting Taro to open up a little with them. He didn’t want to push him too far all at once, but he wanted more information. He was still trying to decide what he would say next when Maggie jumped in.
“We really want to make a miracle,” she said eagerly.
“We all do,” Taro answered, reverting to his usual formal tone as he continued to eat his dinner.
“What she means is that we’re taking our assignment very seriously and we’re going to do our best,” Nicholas replied.
“You should always do your best.”
“Yes, we should,” Nicholas continued. “But it’s difficult to work hard when you don’t really believe in what you’re doing.”
“And you didn’t believe in what you were doing before?” Taro raised his eyebrows as he asked the question, and Nicholas saw Jovan become tense with apprehension. They had no one else to talk to who might know something that could help them, so they wanted to stay on Taro’s good side. Nicholas knew the next part of the conversation could determine whether Taro would help them. He decided to take a risk, and instead of being what he was told to be - obedient and complacent, - he decided to be honest. Something inside him told him that Taro would respect his honesty.
“We didn’t know what to believe, and we felt silly because we didn’t understand why we were doing those things,” he explained. “First we were sent underground to mine the earth for miracles. I don’t know how long we were there, but it went on for weeks and weeks, and we never found anything. Then we had the job of setting traps in the fields, but every day we would check the traps, and there were no miracles. Finally we were told to catch them with a net. We waited and waited, and then finally we started playing games because nothing was happening and we felt like failures.”
“Please don’t mention failure. The guardians are very sensitive to the word,” Taro interrupted.
“I’m sorry,” Nicholas said. “But now we finally feel like we’re in a job where we can do something, and we just want you to know that we’re going to try our best because we appreciate being there.” Taro set down his spoon and studied each of the children with his dark eyes. He was thinking deeply, and Nicholas hoped that he was thinking about telling them how to make a miracle. After a quick glance around the room to be certain that no one was listening, Taro began to speak. He leaned forward and addressed them quietly.
“There’s a reason I put the three of you together in a group.” He looked at each of them in turn as he spoke about them. “Jovan, you’re the smart one. The brain. You think things through carefully, and you have excellent reasoning skills. Maggie, you’re the risk taker. You’re mostly spirit. No one would ever get anywhere without taking a risk, and some of us need a push. That’s why it’s important to have someone like you around.” Taro paused when he looked at Nicholas.
“And what am I?” Nicholas asked.
“I’m not sure what you are.” Taro’s response brought laughter from Jovan and Maggie. “I’m not trying to be funny. Nicholas is different, and it’s not easy to say why. People and other living things respond to him. His plant is doing far better than anyone else’s.”
“It takes care of itself, really,” Nicholas insisted.
“No, it doesn’t,” Taro insisted. “Nothing really does. Everything needs to be cared for in the world, at least a little bit.” He glanced down nervously at his watch and then started to get up from the table. “Which is why I must check on a few of my other apprentices.”
Nicholas felt a wave of disappointment, although he was glad for the little bit of progress they had made with Taro. He had become friendlier with them, and future conversations might lead to the information that they needed. It was difficult to wait, but Nicholas knew it was the best course of action.
“Taro, how did you make your fi
rst miracle?” Jovan suddenly asked. Taro sat back down in his chair. There was an awkward pause as Taro folded his napkin and gently placed it on the table next to his plate. Nicholas held his breath as he waited for the answer.
“I’ve never created a miracle,” Taro admitted with some embarrassment. Then he stood up said goodnight and left. Nicholas was too shocked to speak.
Chapter Four
Silence is Kept
Kelsey struggled to gain back the wind that had been knocked out of her lungs as her mind raced to put the situation together coherently. She felt very wet and slightly confused, with the sweet smell of pepper melons sticking to her everywhere. She scowled as she examined the boy with the honey-colored eyes. He was wearing clothes that looked like they had once been beautiful, but were now fading and threadbare. Either he had worn them out, or he had found them after the owner had worn the clothes too thin. Likely the latter. The only thing he carried was a satchel draped over one shoulder, and it also appeared worn and tattered. He was probably an orphan from the war. Kelsey had heard stories about children who lost their parents or were abandoned by relatives who should have been caring for them. Some of these kids turned to thieving while others found work to support themselves or went to orphanages. This boy appeared to be on his own.
“You followed me!” she screamed as she suddenly gathered her thoughts and assessed the situation. She charged at the boy, hoping to knock the wind out of him, but something held her back. Something strong.
“He saved you,” the melon vender said, shaking his head disapprovingly at Kelsey’s aggression. He tightly gripped the back of Kelsey’s melon soaked shirt so that she couldn’t reach the boy. “Those memories should never be taken all at once. What was someone your age doing with all those bad memories, anyway?”
