บท 7: Chapter 7
After lunch, the girls went to the Nelsons' house to help catalog the new additions to Mr. Nelson's mineral collection. The girls loved visiting the neat little cottage next door, with its carefully tended gardens and bright open kitchen.
Due to his wife's condition, Mr. Nelson was responsible for running the house. His flair for cooking rivaled Aunt Flory's, especially when it came to baking, but Mrs. Nelson was a light eater. So the girls were often invited over to share fresh loaves of bread or steaming croissants. Aunt Flory didn't mind as long as they didn't spoil their dinner. Though she secretly considered herself the better cook, she was happy for any help satisfying Celeste's particular palate. Surprisingly, she had taken to Mr. Nelson's plain vanilla cookie. He always had a jarful on hand.
The girls bounded through the door, stopping briefly to greet Mrs. Nelson. She sat on the couch knitting baby bonnets for premature babies at the local hospital where the Starling triplets were born. Using her strong hand, she deftly drew the yarn over and around each new stitch in a smooth figure-eight motion before snapping it off the needle. She used her weak left hand to support the shrinking row of stitches on the other side.
Zoey watched the tight, tidy stitches slowly gather into a bright yellow bonnet. "Did you knit anything for us when we were babies?" she asked.
Celeste, impatient, slipped down the stairs to find Mr. Nelson.
Mrs. Nelson laid the needles in her lap and gave Zoey one of her crooked grins. "N-nothing would have given me more pleasure," she said. "But I'm afraid my arm was still m-much too weak at the time. I took up knitting later as part of my therapy."
"Is it hard?" Zoey asked.
Mrs. Nelson's laughter sounded like a fresh brook. "M-my skills are limited to this one pattern. I manage it fine after all these years."
"She wants to ask if you know who our father is," Ruby interrupted. "Could you tell her you don't know, so we can get on with our day?"
"Ruby!" Zoey gasped, her face burning. Mrs. Nelson looked surprised and disturbed at the same time.
"My g-goodness," she stammered. "I...uh."
"That's okay, Mrs. Nelson," Zoey said. "You don't have to answer. Ruby is obnoxious lately."
Ruby scoffed. "No, I'm not. Zoey wants to ask you herself, but she's too afraid. It's all she thinks about lately. I figured we might as well get it over with." She gave Mrs. Nelson an apologetic look. "I wasn't trying to be rude."
"Of c-course you weren't, dear," Mrs. Nelson said. "But you certainly caught me of-ff guard."
"Hurry up, Zoey," Celeste called to her sisters from the basement. "Mr. Nelson is ready to unwrap the crystals."
Mrs. Nelson laughed softly and picked up her needles again. "Don't forget to take some of Mr. Nelson's cookies down with you," she said, signaling that they were free to go. "There are chocolate chip for you two," she added.
The girls each grabbed a cookie and a vanilla one for Celeste and disappeared down the basement stairs to Mr. Nelson's study. Ruby's tap shoes clattering on the bare wood.
"Knock off the racket," Zoey hissed over Ruby's shoulder. "You've caused enough trouble for one day."
Ruby turned and stuck her tongue out. "You know you wanted to ask her. I figured why waste time? I was trying to help."
"Next time, mind your own business," Zoey said. She was glad Aunt Flory had stayed home rather than having coffee with Mrs. Nelson, as she had considered before realizing there was laundry to fold. Aunt Flory would have bristled at the commotion Ruby's shoes alone were inflicting on Mrs. Nelson.
Tossing a satisfied look at her sister, Ruby skipped the final step at the bottom of the stairs and landed squarely on the cement floor with a clatter.
Mr. Nelson was at his desk with Celeste, a large package wrapped in brown paper in front of them. "Glad you girls could join us," he said warmly. "I think you're going to be impressed with these samples."
"Do you think the amethyst came?" Celeste asked, keeping her gaze on the box.
"I believe it did," he said, checking the packing slip. "The citrine too. I bet they're beauties."
Last week the girls had pored through mineral catalogs with him, choosing stones and helping him write the order. Mr. Nelson had been generous with his time, allowing each of them to order a stone for themselves.
They always opened his orders together. If one of them was sick or unable to join the group, he insisted on waiting until the four of them could be together again. He reminded them frequently of the importance of putting each other first. He'd even shown them several different crystals fused into a single stone. "Like these crystals, you girls formed together," he said. "That means, no matter what, you'll always be connected. You can never be truly separated, not by time or space. Always remember that. It's what makes you special."
"Can we open them now?" Celeste asked, still focused on the box.
"I can't wait to see mine," Zoey said. "I picked tanzanite. It looked so beautiful in the picture. It reminds me of the ocean."
"Mine's iron pyrite, fool's gold," Ruby jumped in. "Right, Mr. Nelson?"
"That's right," he laughed. "It looks like gold, but I'm afraid it's not worth much."
"It's pretty, though," Ruby gushed. "At least I think so."
"Like your Aunt Flory always says, beauty is in the eye of the beholder," Mr. Nelson replied with a smile.
"Can we trick people and tell them it's real?" Ruby asked. "Just for fun," she added when Zoey gave her an exasperated look. "I can't help it. I'm excited."
"Show me excited," Celeste said. It was a game they played. Celeste picked a strong emotion, and her sisters did their best to express it in a physical manner that Celeste could process.
Ruby and Zoey considered the question. Ruby sprang up first. "Got it," she cried. "Close your eyes," she commanded. Plumping up her cheeks, she blew gently in Celeste's face, making her hair flutter like feathers on a baby bird.
Celeste smiled and inhaled deeply. "It feels fresh. Like anything can happen."
Mr. Nelson nodded at Ruby with approval. "That's a very clever illustration."
Ruby shrugged. "Celeste does better with feeling than feelings."
Mr. Nelson sliced open the box with a letter opener while Ruby and Zoey moved aside to let Celeste go first. She reached into the box and picked out an amber crystal. "Citrine," she said softly to herself, turning it in the light.
"It looks like sunlight," Zoey said.
Ruby fished around in the box to pull out a large chunk of iron pyrite. "It's even prettier than I imagined. Better than real gold," she breathed.
Zoey scanned the box for her tanzanite, but a black stone with a white-flecked pattern caught her eye first. "What's this?" she asked, pinching the smooth ebony stone between her fingers. The salty taste of sunflower seeds tickled her tongue.
A faint smile crossed Mr. Nelson's face. He took the specimen from her and held it in his palm for Celeste and Ruby to see as well.
"That's obsidian. It's formed from cooled volcanic rock." He handed it back to Zoey. "It was your mother's favorite stone."
"It was?" Zoey asked. "I didn't know she was interested in crystals." It wasn't news to her that the Nelsons had known her mother. They'd been neighbours for several years before she died, but from what Zoey gathered, it had been limited to friendly greetings over the fence and occasional lemonades in the yard. As Aunt Flory had explained, at the time, the Nelsons were preoccupied with their own problems.
"From what I remember, your mother was curious about many things," Mr. Nelson said. "She admired the last piece of obsidian I had so much that I gave it to her. She said it reminded her of walking through a snowstorm at midnight."
"It sounds like she had a good imagination," Zoey said.
"You certainly come by it naturally," Mr. Nelson said, smiling.
"I drilled a hole in it so she could keep it on a chain around her neck. I've wondered many times over the years what happened to it. It would have been nice for one of you girls to have it."
"It's not in her things," Ruby said. "At least not that I've seen. Aunt Flory kept them all for us."
"Perhaps she lost it," Mr. Nelson mused.
"It's so interesting how every pattern is different," Zoey noted, examining the white patches on the stone before handing it back to Mr. Nelson.
"Like snowflakes, no two crystal patterns are exactly alike," Mr. Nelson said, placing the stone on the shelf behind him.
"Is Zoey's tanzanite in there?" Ruby asked, diving into the rest of the box.
As everyone's attention turned away, Zoey impulsively dropped the obsidian into her pocket. It wasn't stealing. She had every intention of returning it. She just wanted to look at it alone.
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