27 Magic Words

by Sharelle Byars Moranville

  Norman gazed at her. “That’s because she writes under the name Beatrice Bonnard.”

  Kobi watched Lily’s mouth come open, then snap shut. “Oh, you’re saying that to save her. Because she’s your girlfriend!”

  This morning Norman’s shirt was black-and-white-striped, and Kobi watched in agony as his neck and face turned as red as an apple.

  “Could we look it up, Ms. Carlson?” Norman asked.

  Ms. Carlson was watching Kobi. “Is it okay with you, Kobi, if we look up the name Norman mentioned?”

  Kobi nodded. She was not Norman’s girlfriend. She felt her own face turning red.

  “Do you want to give me the spelling, Norman?” Ms. Hancock asked. “If you know it.”

  “Oh, I know it,” Norman said. “I have an autographed copy of one of her books and I’m going to read it when I’m grown up.”

  As he spelled for Ms. Carlson, a feeling of dread, like a fog, filled the room. Ms. Hancock’s sad installation of faded chairs flashed through Kobi’s mind, as did Grandmamma’s voice and Brook’s hysteria over the unmatched sock.

  Kobi tried to remember all the magic words, because somehow she knew she was going to need them. Phyllo bundle, razzmatazz, squelch . . .

  Beatrice Bonnard came right up. There was a picture of her mother. Kobi couldn’t help but smile, and her hand went over her heart.

  There were dates by her mother’s name. 1973–2011.

  “This can’t be ri–” Ms. Carlson was saying, looking over her shoulder at Kobi.

  “She’s dead?” Lily cried.

  “She’s not!” Kobi said. “That’s wrong.”

  Now even Norman was looking at her like she was a freak.

  “She’s on a sailing trip with my dad, the Great Alighieri!” Kobi looked around at the faces. “I hate you! Hogwash!” she spat at Lily. “Hogwash! You’re stupid and jealous. I hate this school! I want to go home! Hogwash!” She was crying. She didn’t want to cry. “I want Grandmamma,” she sobbed. “Or somebody. Call my uncle.”

  She waited in the nurse’s room until Uncle Wim got there. The nurse asked questions Kobi didn’t hear. Kobi was a stone. Uncle Wim would pick her up and put her on a piece of furniture at his house and she would sit there. Stones didn’t have feelings. Stones didn’t need anything.

  Uncle Wim held her hand as they walked to the car. They went to Sally’s. It was raining, and Uncle Wim said hurry or they would get soaked, but Kobi didn’t hurry. But she was terribly thirsty. So thirsty she could catch all the raindrops from the clouds in her mouth and swallow them.

  Somehow Sally knew she would be thirsty and gave her a glass of water, which Kobi downed in one great, long series of gulps. Sally said she would go to Brook’s school and get Brook because they should all be together.

  While Sally was gone, Kobi sat by Uncle Wim on the couch. Ms. Hancock sat in a chair looking at them.

  When Sally and Brook got back, Brook shrugged out of her raincoat and ran to Kobi. When Brook tried to take her hand, Kobi pulled it away.

  “I have to hold it,” Brook said, finding it and hanging on. “We’re a pair. That’s what the Great Alighieri told us.”

  Sally said they needed to eat—that people in shock needed food.

  Kobi shook her head.

  But Sally spread bean dip on nachos and sprinkled cheese and put them in the microwave, then held them in front of Kobi and Brook. Kobi’s hands went straight to them. Her face and hands were wet from her tears. Sally handed her a warm washcloth, which made Kobi cry more.

  Brook wrapped her arms around Kobi. “Do you remember the therapist Grandmamma took us to see when we first moved to Paris? Madame Alarie?”

  Kobi remembered that Madame Alarie knitted clothes for her dog. She nodded.

  “Madame Alarie told Grandmamma this would happen someday.”

  Kobi felt cold and tired, as if she weighed a million pounds. She curled up against Brook, and Sally spread a cover over them. It was a dark afternoon, and Sally turned on lamps. Kobi felt Brook’s breath on her forehead, and Brook’s knee dug into her side.

  “Why did you keep thinking they were alive, Kobi? Grandmamma told us they’d drowned in the storm. We saw the urns with their ashes go into the ground.” Brook sounded almost angry.

  Kobi sat up, disentangling herself from the cover. That was crazy. “We did not!”

  “Yes, we did,” Brook said, her face wet with tears.

  “I was there, kiddo,” Uncle Wim said, moving their feet so he could sit down on the end of the couch. “We interred their ashes right before Thanksgiving. I came to be with you and Mom.”

  “That’s why I said we’d seen Uncle Wim before,” Brook said.

  How could Kobi not remember something that had happened? Though lately she’d been having a strange, niggling feeling that Uncle Wim had been in her life before. “You’re sure I was there?” she said to Uncle Wim.

  “I’m sure. You were so little—only five. You didn’t cry or say a word. It was kind of like you were being operated by remote control. Your Alighieri grandparents were there, too.”

  Kobi could hardly believe what she was hearing. “Who else?”

  Uncle Wim thought a minute. “A few other family members. It was private because . . .” He stopped and looked at Sally. “Because you girls were so young.”

  He pulled Kobi against his side. He was warm.

  Sally was making chamomile tea with chamomile Kobi had helped her dry. “Were you there, Sally?”

  “No. But Wim told me about it. What troupers you girls were. He wondered if you understood what was happening.”

  “Mom explained to you girls what happened. Brook, you were brokenhearted and wouldn’t let Mom out of your sight after that.” He squeezed Kobi. “You acted like you’d lost your hearing.”

  She had cracked the magic of Avanti! and seen her parents on the island. She knew they were okay.

  She looked around the room. Ms. Hancock must have gone upstairs to nap. Sally, Uncle Wim, and Brook were looking at her like she might break into pieces right in front of their eyes.

  She needed something to hold on to. She reached for a magic word, then shoved the thought away. The magic words were trickery. Her mother had lied to her.

  Sally brought over four cups of tea and squeezed in between Kobi and Brook.

  “Tell me everything,” Kobi finally said.

  “Well,” Uncle Wim said, “do you remember that your dad was gone on a lot of trips because he was an oceanographer?”

  “I mainly remember his doing magic.”

  “That too,” Uncle Wim said. “But this was a work trip on a large research vessel.”

  “I thought it was a sailboat for the two of them.” That was what she saw bobbing in the surf with a hole in the side.

  “No, it was a big ship with several scientists and students on board. Bea wanted to go along to do research for a book, so she got a job as crew. They flew from San Francisco to New Zealand to get aboard the boat.”

  “We didn’t stand on the pier and wave goodbye as they sailed out of the bay?”

  “No,” Uncle Wim said.

  Then how could she remember that her mother was wearing a blue shirt as she waved at Kobi—the same shirt she kept wearing on the island, the shirt that got more and more faded? Kobi couldn’t believe they weren’t on the island. How could they not be? She saw them.

  Sally handed her tissues and Kobi wiped her face.

  “They sailed on September twenty-eighth,” Uncle Wim said. “They planned to be gone for about two months. But in the middle of October, they ran into bad weather. The weather is supposed to be calm in that part of the ocean during the fall. This was an unprecedented storm. Their communications went out and they collided with another ship. Your parents and three others were lost at sea.”

  Grandmamma had said that. They were lost at sea. Lost things could be found. The flower words were good for finding lost things. Kobi pressed her hands to her ears, to keep the magic
words away.

  “Do you want me to stop?” Uncle Wim said.

  Kobi shook her head and put her hands in her lap.

  “The accident happened on October fifteenth, but Mom wasn’t notified for a couple of days. The chance of survival wasn’t good, but it wasn’t hopeless, either, so Mom didn’t tell you girls what was going on. But about a week later, bodies were found.”

  Kobi cried silently, letting her tears wet Uncle Wim’s shirt. Sally rubbed Kobi’s knee.

  “About a week after that, DNA showed that two of the recovered bodies were Bea and Al’s.”

  Sally stopped rubbing Kobi’s knee, but she left her hand there. It kept Kobi from floating away.

  “Is there more?” she asked.

  “I was in grad school at Drake, but I went out to be with Mom when she told you girls, and I stayed a couple of weeks. It took that long to get through the red tape and get their bodies home. Their bodies were cremated and we had the memorial service right before Thanksgiving.”

  Kobi shut her eyes. She was a stone.

  That night, she woke up. Using the pool of streetlight spilling across her desk, she found the key in her keepsake box.

  In the closet, she unlocked the footlocker and lifted the lid. Her hand found the soft sack of words. When she loosened the drawstring and shook the bag, the bits of paper tumbled out.

  “What are you doing?” Brook whispered from the doorway.

  “Nothing,” Kobi whispered back.

  Brook sat down by her. One of her knees touched Kobi’s. “I woke up,” she said.

  “So did I,” Kobi said.

  “Do you want to turn on a light?”

  “No.”

  “What are these bits of paper?” Brook asked, feeling around on the floor.

  “Magic words,” Kobi said. “Mama gave them to me when you were at school. Certain words were good for making the rain stop or finding things. Others worked well in airports and cathedrals. The cafeteria at school. Others made me feel good.”

  “Did Mama tell you that?”

  “No. She just said the words were serious magic. I had to figure out how to use them. Some of them I never did. The best one was the one that let me visit them on the island where they were shipwrecked. I could walk around with them, hear their conversations. I could smell Mama’s hair. I could see how close Daddy was to having the boat fixed. All I had to do was say Avanti!”

  She expected Book to say that was crazy. But Brook said, “A psychologist told Grandmamma not to rush you. He said we should show by the way we acted that they were never coming back, but that we shouldn’t try to force you to accept it. He said someday you’d be ready. I dreaded this day so much, Kobi.”

  The furnace came on with a belch of air that stirred the slips of paper. Kobi began to gather them up and put them in the bag.

  “How many magic words did Mama give you?” Brook asked, helping.

  “Twenty-seven.”

  Brook was silent.

  “Is that a bad number?” Kobi asked.

  “It’s a wonderful number. Twenty-seven can be divided by nine and three, and nine can be divided by three three times. It’s like the snake eating its tail.”

  “And that’s good?” Kobi asked.

  “That’s very good. Especially with threes.”

  They kept patting the floor for pieces of paper until Kobi thought they had them all.

  Brook said, “You know why I have to do that thing with numbers? Why I have to line things up perfectly? Why I need symmetry? Why I have to keep checking and rechecking things?”

  “To keep bad things from happening. Things you worry about.”

  “And do you know what I worried about most?”

  “Grandmamma?”

  Kobi waited, but Brook didn’t say anything. Finally, she realized Brook was crying. Kobi touched her sister’s leg. “Tell me.”

  Brook took a deep breath and said in a shaking voice, “Your understanding someday that Mama and Daddy are dead. Because it’s so hard.” Brook started to sob, and Kobi pulled her into a hug.

  “Well, I know now.” She hardly recognized her own voice. It sounded old.

  The carillon pealed out four o’clock.

  “I’m going to throw away the magic words,” Kobi said. “They’re fake.” She felt suddenly, flamingly angry with her mother for playing such a trick.

  Brook sniffed and wiped her face with her pajama sleeve. “Don’t say that, Kobi. Have you read any of Mama’s books?”

  “No. Have you?”

  “Isabel and I are reading one now. But you’re not old enough.”

  Why did Brook think she was so grown up?

  “The words Mama gave you let you create a world where you could escape and be happy. That’s pretty magical.” Brook yawned deeply. “Come back to bed. Get in with me.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Kobi sat in the darkness, aching with loneliness. Angry. Sad. Not really believing.

  EIGHTEEN

  THE days passed. Sometimes Uncle Wim brought her a homework folder from school. Both Ms. Carlson and Ms. Lake sent bright cards saying they missed her and looked forward to having her back when she was ready. One night, in the homework folder was a fat envelope with a Post-it that said To Kobi, from Norman. Kobi knew it was a story. She put it in her keepsake box. She would read it sometime.

  Most days, she called Grandmamma. Grandmamma sounded both sad and warm, telling Kobi that now the worst part was over and she could truly start to heal. But mainly Grandmamma sounded tired. One Saturday, Kobi realized it was the day of Lily’s party. And she felt bad because she’d insisted that Norman be invited. She hoped he had forgiven her.

  One day, she called Grandmamma and begged to come back to Paris. Grandmamma cried and said she was sorry they were so far apart, but the best plan was for Kobi to stay a little longer with Uncle Wim, especially since Brook was settled in school.

  “I could come by myself,” Kobi said.

  “No, my dear. You’re too young to travel alone.”

  Kobi stared out the window at the chairs. They made her feel so sad. If she went back to Paris, even if Grandmamma would allow it, everybody here would be without her, and she would be without them.

  Sally came in from raking leaves, her cheeks red. She yanked off her hat. “Did Mom go upstairs to lie down?” she asked Kobi.

  Kobi caught her breath. She had no idea where Ms. Hancock had gone. She had been in her recliner only moments ago.

  “Kobi?” Sally said sharply.

  Kobi stared at Sally. She listened to Grandmamma’s voice in her ear.

  Sally ran upstairs and Kobi heard her call, “Mom!”

  “What’s all the commotion, sweetheart?” Grandmamma asked.

  Kobi knew in her heart Ms. Hancock wasn’t upstairs. “I have to go. We’ve lost Ms. Hancock.”

  “What do you mean you’ve lost her?”

  “She’s dotty, and I was supposed to be keeping her company while Sally raked leaves and now she’s gone.”

  Sally was in the kitchen now, putting her hat back on. She glared at Kobi.

  “Patricia is dotty?” Kobi heard the horror in Grandmamma’s voice.

  “I need to go,” Kobi said. “Bye.”

  She hadn’t watched Ms. Hancock properly and she’d told Grandmamma Ms. Hancock was dotty. She ran outside without her jacket. The wind made her teeth chatter.

  “Mom’s coats are all in the closet,” Sally said. “She’ll be freezing. You go that way around the block.” She pointed. “I’ll go the other way.”

  Kobi ran as fast as she could, calling Ms. Hancock’s name.

  When they met up, Sally was huddled in the shelter of a tree calling 911. Then she told Kobi to go back to the house and wait in case her mother came home. “All you had to do was watch her, Kobi,” she said.

  As Sally turned and walked away, tears scalded Kobi’s cheeks.

  Inside, she waited. She nearly leaped out of her shoes when
the phone rang. It was Uncle Wim. She told him what had happened. “It was my fault,” she said.

  “Oh, Kobi. It wasn’t.”

  “Sally said it was.”

  “Well,” Uncle Wim said. “It wasn’t.”

  Sally burst through the door then. “Who’s on the phone?”

  “Uncle Wim.”

  Sally huddled over the phone as if it could keep her warm. She turned her back on Kobi. Kobi went to stare out the window at the chairs. She didn’t want to hear what Sally was saying.

  When Sally got off the phone, she came to the window, too, and stood looking over Kobi’s shoulder. Tears were running down Kobi’s cheeks, but she couldn’t wipe them with Sally standing there. She wished Sally would go away.

  Sally put her hands on Kobi’s shoulders and turned her around. Kobi couldn’t meet her eyes. Sally wrapped her arms around Kobi and held her close, rocking from side to side.

  “I’m sorry. Looking out for Mom is my responsibility, not yours. Of course it wasn’t your fault she wandered off.”

  “Yes, it was,” Kobi whispered into Sally’s shoulder.

  “No, it wasn’t. It kills me, Kobi, that I’m not anybody’s little girl anymore. That’s all.”

  “I know,” Kobi whispered.

  In the early afternoon, the police found Ms. Hancock and took her to the hospital because she was suffering from exposure. Sally called Isabel’s mom and asked her if Brook could go there after school. Kobi and Sally spent the afternoon at the hospital watching Ms. Hancock sleep.

  “People will think I’m a bad daughter,” Sally said, staring out the window.

  When Uncle Wim arrived after work, Sally wouldn’t leave to go with them to get food. So Uncle Wim and Kobi went to the lower level of the hospital and got a burger and fries and coffee for Sally and took them back to Ms. Hancock’s room. Then they picked up Brook at Isabel’s house and went home.

  “It’s looking like you have to go to school tomorrow,” Uncle Wim said. “Think you can?”

  Kobi shook her head.

  Uncle Wim sighed. “I hate to put it this way, kiddo, but you pretty much have to. I’m scheduled to be in court and have no choice. Sally will be at the hospital with Patricia. And you probably don’t want to spend the day there.”