Page 29 of The Seven Rings
“No, no, it’s passing. It was the desk, this chair. I went where they were. They were Lissy’s. I went to Lissy’s room. Deep pink flowered wallpaper, windows facing the garden. Her room.”
“You can tell me, but let’s go downstairs anyway. Your color’s better. I bet you could use some air.”
“Yeah, I could.”
She got up, but didn’t mind the support of Cleo’s arm around her waist.
“I took longer than I thought,” Cleo began, “then I went down to stir the sauce again, let the pets out. When I came up, I saw the mirror, and I knew you’d gone through.”
“I can’t stop myself.”
“I know.”
“I saw Lissy. She was writing a letter to a friend. The same stationery I found in the desk. She’d just gotten engaged. She was so happy.
“Let’s go out front. I want the sea.”
When they went out the front, the air whisked away any trace of dizziness.
“I found things in the desk—her things. Photographs, too. And I thought how we’d use that desk and chair for the guest office. Then… then the mirror was just there.”
Sitting on the seawall, with the dog racing joyfully to join them, Sonya told Cleo the rest.
“She felt you.”
“I think so, yeah. Me at first, then Dobbs. Because at first she just looked puzzled, you know? Then she looked shaken. I felt Dobbs, too. I wonder, did she feel me?”
Sonya looked up at the windows of the Gold Room.
“I hope she did. I hope it worries her. I’m fine now. I guess you didn’t notice the desk.”
“Not really, no.”
“It’s beautiful and it’s perfect. I think I was meant to find it, and find her things in it. Hairpins, ticket stubs, photographs.”
Clover tried Tom Petty’s “American Girl.”
“Yeah, she was.” And for some reason the song, the connection made Sonya smile again. “Probably very typical for her age and time. Something very sweet about her, with some sass built in.”
She glanced over as she heard the sound of a truck coming.
“It’s Trey. I guess I have a story to tell again.”
She got up and trailed behind Yoda’s joyous run, and the happy wrestling match when Mookie leaped out of the truck.
“Owen’s a couple minutes behind me.”
He leaned down, kissed Sonya. “How’d the day go?”
“Productive, and with some mirror time at the end. Don’t jump to worry.” She lifted a hand to his cheek.
“Too late.”
“I’m here, I’m fine, and I learned a little bit more.”
“I’m calling for cocktails on the deck. I’m making my mama’s serious lemonade—it includes gin. Trust me on it,” Cleo added. “Go on around back, and I’ll bring out adult beverages.”
When Cleo walked off, Trey took Sonya’s face in his hands and gave it a long look.
