Stardust Miracle

by Edie Ramer

  Stardust Miracle

  a Miracle Interrupted novel

  Book Two in the

  Miracle Interrupted series

  A miracle is prophesied in a small village...

  And everyone secretly believes it’s meant for them.

  Copyright © 2012 by Edie Ramer

  All rights reserved by author

  Excerpts from Miracle Lane and Miracle Pie

  Copyright © 2012 by Edie Ramer

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarities to real persons, living or dead, are coincidental and not intended by the author.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including the Internet, without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Acknowledgments

  I’m blessed to have wonderful friends who are also wonderful writers. Thanks to Dale Mayer, Michelle Diener and Liz Kreger for supporting me on this journey. And to Leigh Morgan and Mary Hughes for our monthly lunches where we share information and laughter.

  Many thanks to editor Pat Thomas for her wisdom. And to my fabulous cover designer, Laura Morrigan, for her vision.

  Chapter One

  A MIRACLE IS COMING

  Becky Diedrich finally came across something that could silence the parishioners of the United Community Church of Miracle, Wisconsin, for more than two minutes.

  It wasn’t her husband’s sermon.

  Two hundred twenty-nine adults and sixty-five children stared at the rear windows of a complete line of parked cars. Some stared in shock, some in disgust, some with hope. Still others stared in sheer awe, as if they saw Jesus walking on water. And all because on the back of each rear window was a white letter. Each one perfect, as if done with a stencil. The prophesy started with the A on the rear window of Carly Mishler’s Mini Coop that looked as shiny and cute as her, and ended with the G on Tim and Ardell Schauer’s station wagon with the dented backseat door that didn’t open.

  Only the G on Tim’s car was a little ragged, since he’d dragged his fingertip through it, licked it, then said – with all the surety of a man who’d put a lot of things in his mouth during his fifty-some years on earth – that it wasn’t chalk or paint.

  No one else offered to taste it. A few stragglers walked along the row of cars. The crowd stood back just far enough to leave a path for them. The lookers gawked and took photos with their cell phones. Seeing was believing, after all.

  But Becky was having a hard time believing.

  For a long time, she’d been having a hard time believing.

  Murmurs began, the silence broken. Hushed sounds, like fairy whispers on the wind. But these whispers were all too human, and heads leaned toward their neighbors, all the better to hear.

  Becky wasn’t surprised. Even a Jesus sighting wouldn’t keep this gang quiet for longer than a few minutes.

  One clear voice rang out. “What’s that, Mommy?” a boy asked.

  Of course, Becky thought. The clearest questions came from children.

  “Letters,” a woman said.

  Becky recognized Tina Genz’s voice. At fourteen, Becky had babysat Tina. And now Tina had one child of her own and another on the way. Becky was twelve years older than Tina and had...no children.

  Becky crossed her arms and hunched her shoulders.

  “How come our car doesn’t have a letter?” the boy asked.

  “Because it’s not in a word,” one of the Schilling girls said. They all had voices like goats, as if they were going to ‘baaa’ any moment.

  “That’s silly,” the boy said. “None of the cars are words.”

  “That shows what you don’t know.” The girl’s raised voice sent a half dozen sparrows flying off of the church’s roof, finished a year ahead of schedule because Becky’s father had matched the donations.

  “The letters on the car windows make words,” Tina told her son, whose name Becky couldn’t remember, though she tried hard. Remembering names was expected of the pastor’s wife. During her fifteen years of marriage, she’d gotten good at faking it.

  Faking other things, too.

  “When the word stops,” old Mrs. Jantze said, “there’s a space. Your car is a space.”

  “I’d rather be a word,” the boy said.

  “Spaces are important,” Mrs. Jantze said. “Otherwise the words would be running together without stopping.”

  I’m a space, Becky thought. I’d rather be a word, too.

  The thought sat like a rock in her chest.

  She shivered. She needed to get over this self-pity. She couldn’t even blame it on sun deprivation. Not with the day so bright and shiny. The younger crowd had their jackets open. A few even took them off. It was the beginning of May in the Village of Miracle, Wisconsin. The grass was green. Lilac buds were unfurling. Spirits were rising.

  And according to the letters on the car windows, a miracle was coming.

  “There’s Pastor Jim,” someone said, and heads shifted, Becky’s with them, her eyes catching Jim’s still-golden hair. Not any grays showing.

  Of course not. She’d tweezed a half dozen out for him yesterday.

  “What’s going on?” Jim looked at Becky’s father, Carl Hoffman, for information. Carl stood in the middle of the group, about ten people away from Becky.

  Carl gestured at the cars. “See for yourself.”

  “It says there’s going to be a miracle,” the Schilling girl bleated.

  “Thank you, Mindy.” Jim nodded his approval, and though Becky couldn’t see Mindy’s face, she knew the girl beamed. Almost everyone with two X chromosomes reacted that way to him...except Sarah, Becky’s sister, who thought Jim was bossy and boring. But as their father would say, look at the loser Sarah married.

  Men respected Jim, too. Didn’t that say everything?

  Another reason she needed to snap out of this funk. She was a lucky woman. Jim didn’t even blame her for not being able to get pregnant – though the way he looked at her when they found out the results of the fertility tests...

  Her eyes burned, prickled by tears she held back.

  I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry.

  After all, she was a lucky woman, she reminded herself again. With no reason to feel as if strands of sadness were coiling around her. No reason to lie next to Jim in bed at night, every muscle in her body stiff as she listened to his snores while she held back screams of frustration.

  The murmurs started again as Jim paced down the parking lot row, checking out the letters. Carl strode at his side now. If this were an old Western movie, the two men would be the rancher who owned all the land and the sheriff who made sure no one gave him any trouble. Instead, they were the rich cheesemaker who employed half the village and the minister who led half the village.

  The crowd watched them like they were entertainment. Becky felt the shift in mood as they waited for Jim’s pronouncement. Jim finally stood in front of Diane Lofy’s car with the dents and the broken left brake light. Carl took his place in the front row of parishioners. As if Jim were going to give a sermon in the parking area.

  Jim put his hands on his hips and grinned, shaking his head. “You don’t really believe this, do you?”

  Mumbles started. “’Course not,” a man said, his voice half-hearted.

  “I guess not.” Sue Feucht hefted a sigh loud enough for Becky to hear, though two people stood between them.

  Jim frowned, a look of disappointment on his face that was familiar to Becky. “You did believe it.”

  “Look at the uniformity of the letters,” Mike Klink said, a waver in his old voice. “No one I know w
rites so perfect. Hell, teachers don’t even make letters like that anymore.” Someone started to say something, and Mike yelped. “Heck! I meant heck not hell.”

  A few people laughed and Mrs. Braun, who’d been Becky’s third-grade teacher, said, “Mike’s correct. The few of us who can still print like that were sitting in church while this was done.”

  “And I don’t see any handprints on the cars,” Amy Loosen said. The oldest of the six Loosen kids, Amy was taking college classes online and working part-time at Miracle Cheese Factory. “They’re filthy. If someone wrote the letters, he would’ve had to put his other hand on the cars to keep his balance. There would’ve been handprints, and I don’t see anything.”

  “Yeah,” someone else said, this voice elderly and sharp – qualities that matched quite a few characters in the village. Of both genders. “’Sides, no one can do anything in Miracle without someone else knowing about it. We sure as heck don’t need one of those Twitter things in Miracle. We’re not used to something that slow.”

  That drew a few chuckles, the loudest from Jim. He stood with his legs slightly apart, letting people get a good look at him with his golden hair catching rays of the sun and the jacket of his gray suit jacket unbuttoned. The pose gave his figure – that had gained two waist sizes these last few years – the illusion of slimness.

  Jim stopped chuckling and shook his head in the chiding way that he had. If there were one thing about Jim that irritated Becky, it would be the way he had to be right all the time.

  Sometimes she just wanted to kick him.

  “You can’t tell me that we don’t all have our secrets,” he said. “I bet the prankster’s friends know who it is and are laughing at us for falling for it.”

  A murmur rose again. Julie Lindemann on Becky’s left leaned close to Becky’s ear and said, “I won’t let my kids to know how often I partook of your uncle’s weed pile.”

  Becky smiled at her, though Julie’s fondness for smoking pot wasn’t much of a secret to anyone except her kids. “I know just what you mean,” she lied. She bet her sister Sarah had partaken, though. Not that Sarah had been overly wild, but Becky had been the reliable one. By necessity, not choice. She had to take care of her mom and her two-year-old sister when she was only ten while her mom fought to stay alive.

  When Becky was at school, a nurse took care of her mom, and her father paid extra for the nurse to watch Sarah. Carl couldn’t help around the house. He had to be at the cheese factory all day and sometimes into the evening.

  “And kids these days...” Jim waited for everyone’s attention before continuing. “You know how inventive they are. They probably used a laser and didn’t need to touch the car. I wouldn’t be surprised if they programmed it to make the letters look perfect. They picked today for the weather and because of the church’s car wash. They knew everyone would leave their cars dirty for today.”

  Becky nodded, and others nodded, too. The villagers of Miracle were known for their cheapness. If they gave the Girls for Christ three bucks, their cars would be washed, the money would go to the church’s furnace fund – and a few cheapskates would even deduct it on their taxes. That always made them happy. Nothing like feeling virtuous, saving money, getting a clean car and sticking it to the government. A deal for three bucks.

  The crowd split up, saying their good-byes and smiling. Women hugged women, and a few men were huggers, too. As Becky said good-bye to a few parishioners, she noticed the dullness in eyes that had glittered only moments before. Before their brief hope for a miracle had crumbled.

  It was a silly hope. The most exciting thing that happened in the Village of Miracle recently had been a lost cat and the vicious death of another one. Only three weeks ago, everyone was watching out for coyotes.

  The Kerns’ car slowly backed up, and Becky stepped to the side to give it room. On their car was the M for miracle.

  As she watched it disappear, an odd thing happened. The M sparkled as if covered by fireflies. Hundreds of fireflies. Their little twinkling caught the sun and shone so brightly it hurt Becky to look at it.

  But the body part that hurt most wasn’t her eyes. It was her heart. As if a big hand reached inside her chest, grabbed her heart and squeezed too hard.

  She sucked in her breath, stepped back and bumped against someone. “Sorry,” Becky said, but didn’t look behind her, too busy glancing at all the different cars and all the different letters that had one thing in common.

  Now all the letters sparkled in the sunlight.

  Yet, the talk and laughter around her didn’t change. No one else stared. No one else seemed to notice. They exchanged last-minute gossip and said their good-byes. Some of them made plans to eat lunch together afterward. Then they got into their cars. Still ready to go to the car wash and wipe off the letters and the dirt and the oddity of what had just happened.

  Lori Schwister, who always walked to church unless it was storming or snowing, stopped and looked at Becky. “Are you okay?”

  “Do you see that?” Becky motioned at the letter on the back window of Ivy Cantrall’s van.

  “It’s an A.” Lori frowned at Becky, as if she wondered about Becky’s mental stability.

  Becky wondered the same thing. “Anything else?”

  “It’s dirty.” Lori frowned. “Is this a sneaky test? What am I supposed to see?”

  Though Becky knew the answer from Lori’s lack of reaction, she asked, “Do you see any sparkles?”

  Lori’s frown lines deepened. “Sparkles?”

  “Never mind.” She gave Lori her ‘everything is wonderful’ smile. “The sun was in my eyes and one of the windows sparkled.”

  Lori’s forehead cleared. “One of us needs our eyes checked. Most of the windows are so filthy, I’m surprised anything would reflect off them.”

  Becky laughed dutifully. Lori winked and strode on. When Becky glanced back, half the cars with letters were headed toward the back of the church where the Girls for Christ were ready with their hoses and their sponges. The remaining letter-free car windows looked like...windows. No sparkle, no shine.

  Maybe there was something wrong with her eyes. Maybe seeing the tiny twinkling lights was like hearing a sigh no one else could hear. Just for an instant, and then gone.

  She should check the Internet, type in her symptoms and see if she had a disease. Even though it didn’t feel like a disease. Today’s occurrence felt...magical.

  “Miracles,” a child’s voice rang out. Making it a song. “We’re gonna have a miracle, a miracle.”

  “Stop it.” Tiredness dragged down Diane Lofy’s voice. She’d worked at the cheese factory for the past ten years and in that time she’d had four kids. “You heard Pastor Jim. There is no miracle.”

  “I want one! I want one!”

  “Me, too!” another small voice called.

  Me, three. Becky crossed her hands over her baby-free belly and prayed that Jim was wrong.

  Chapter Two

  At least the squabbling kept Becky awake.

  This would be her last year on the village board, she promised herself. She’d made the same promise the last two years, but this time she meant it. It was almost as boring as being back in high school listening to Mrs. Petersen talk about algebra. A subject that Becky had worked her fanny off for a B- when she was sixteen – and had never used in the twenty years since.

  Gloria was giving Earl the evil eye, the look that said ‘I don’t care how many years you’ve been village president. It’s about time you had a pointy high-heeled shoe shoved up your ass.’

  “Don’t change anything,” Earl Raasch said. The owner of Miracle Taxidermy and Reupholstering, Earl spoke slowly and loudly. With his grizzled beard and hair and thick body, he reminded Becky of a bear who’d recently come out of hibernation.

  “Everything changes.” Gloria Ehlke shot the words out like bullet points. “The trick is to take advantage of change.”

  “When you get to my age, you’ll know more people c
omplain about change than those that don’t.”

  “Not everyone in this town is your age,” Becky said. Besides, Earl had changed last year, too, when he gave into complaints grudgingly and repainted his shop sign so it no longer read: You Shoot ’em, We Stuff ’em.

  “And not everyone wants to stagnate.” Gloria gestured dramatically, as if the cold and bare room in the Miracle Village Hall were her stage, they were her audience and she was about to break out into a passionate song. “The world is changing. Either we keep up or we disappear.”

  Earl scowled at her from across the table. “You’re talking about your business. I’m talking about government. You change one little thing and someone will complain.”

  “They’ll complain more if we don’t fix the potholes.” Gloria glared at him as if she wished he were one of his own stuffed animals to be mounted on a wall on one of the houses she sold. Though perhaps not. Earl’s mounted body wouldn’t be a selling point, and Gloria was all about the deal.

  “She’s right,” Becky said. “Angie Newhart was complaining at church about the one on First Street being as big as a baby gorilla, and a dozen other people chimed in.”

  “Maybe fixing the pothole is the miracle that’s coming.” Gloria narrowed her eyes at Earl.

  “They’re going to like it less if we raise taxes next year.” Earl turned to Derek Muench. “What do you think?”

  Becky exchanged a glance with Gloria. It was like Earl to want Derek’s opinion over theirs. Just because he and Derek had the same plumbing.

  “Well...” Derek rubbed his chin, putting off the moment to give an opinion.

  Becky crossed her legs. She suspected the only reason Derek had run for the village board was to get away from his mother for a few hours on a regular basis. Elaine was a sweet woman – though a tad controlling – who had muscular sclerosis, and he didn’t like to leave her alone too long. He even managed to work from home, doing tech things that no one else in the area could do.