Mom set out a plate of summer sausage on fluffy rolls to tide us over until dinner. They weren’t as good as Cousin Mildred’s bread, but the butter was sweet and the sausage from the Nelson farm was rich and salty. Mom shooed us out of the kitchen with one stern look, and Mary and I slipped outside, a roll in each hand. Dad disappeared to his shed the moment we got home. The phone that normally hung on the kitchen wall had recently vanished, my father’s presumed project for the weekend.
Magda retreated to her bedroom for a nap and liquid fortification. She had shown up three sheets to the wind and full of fire for a visit from the Ridders before, tired of defending our business to the family that had seemed so innocuous when she pushed Jacob Ridder on my mother all those years ago. Their spats were entertaining to me and Mary and, secretly, to our father too. He could never say so in front of his parents, though. My mother kept her head down, more than usual, during those meals.
Mary and I sat around the fire pit on the side of the house. We had a good view of the lake, which was starting to churn with crests of white on choppy waters. I felt Mom’s eyes on us through a window in the side door, watching as we were blown to bits by the wind, worrying we would no longer be presentable to the in-laws. Mary’s braided crown barely moved, but my own braids were whipped loose into a fine tangled mess.
I glanced at Mary, deep in her own little world, a dreamy smile between deep dimples.
“Anything you want to tell me?” I asked, wincing at my false-casual tone.
She straightened up and shrugged as if to say, Of course you would ask.
“No,” Mary said firmly, but her smile held firmly in place. “Tim is just a friend.”
“Sure, a friend.” I rolled my eyes. If she wasn’t ready to tell me, I wasn’t going to press.
The first raindrops fell then. With an undignified squeal, Mary and I sprinted to the kitchen door as the sky split open and the rain—much needed in what had been a dry spring—came down hard and fast.
Inside, the air in our old house was damp with rain already. I could feel the wooden joists swelling around us, and out of a deeply ingrained habit, I whispered a fortifying charm under my breath. I pulsed my hands outward, and the house instantly stood straighter around us.
Mom glanced at the kitchen clock and sighed heavily as Mary and I took turns evaporating water and wet grass off each other by the door.
Mary said gently, “They’re already halfway here.” As if this sudden torrential rain might have been enough reason to cancel dinner.
Mom sighed and nodded.
Mary surprised me then. She closed her eyes and cast out the ice floe. Curious, I followed along through the ice floe past the edge of town. Mary found Grandpa Ridder’s sensible Buick on the edge of Renville County and surrounded it carefully. Gaume sia, gaume sia. Tuesch sia Parabli, Parabli gisch, I felt her whisper through the frozen energy currents, clear as day. I did the same, adding my voice and energy to Mary’s sunny yellow.
I opened my eyes and gave Mary a quizzical look.
“Just a feeling,” she said, shrugging.
Mary stepped forward to put her arm around Mom’s shoulders as Mom fussed over the potatoes. Mary sighed dreamily and leaned her head on top of Mom’s head, a natural fit with their almost-six-inch height difference.
As Mom softened under Mary’s embrace, my chest tightened with jealousy. What is happening here? It was suddenly impossible to breathe in the sweltering kitchen.
I retreated into the living room and collapsed on the stiff floral davenport. I tucked a brightly colored afghan around my legs and sat idly for a few mindless minutes. Mary followed me after a while. She nudged me with her knees to sitting and automatically began to loosen my braids, reworking them to make me proper for Grandma Ridder. I was too tired to fight her. I felt, once again, like the little sister and not the elder example that I was supposed to be.
But the rise and fall of the wind and the steady drum of the rain and the pervasive smells of blueberry cobbler and roast beef had a soothing effect. After a hypnotically calm hour, Mom appeared in the doorway to the living room. Without so much as a blink from our mother, Mary announced, “Mom wants us to set the table. And call Dad.”
I rolled my eyes but stood to help. Is everyone reading each other all over the place now?
I knew I was being unfair. Mom was spent after her weekly chats with Father Kevin. It might take her two full days before she mustered the strength to speak again. Still, the secret language between Mom and Mary was unbearable.
The formal dining room on the north side of the house was mostly unused. As far from the kitchen as possible, it was ludicrously impractical for levitating the heavy Thanksgiving turkey to the table. Maybe that had been intentional when the house was built. The Watry women belonged in the beating heart of the house in the kitchen to the south, so the dining room was never intended for use anyway. Except on Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving and for dinners with Grandpa and Grandma Ridder.
We laid out silver and the good china, which had belonged to Great-Grandma Dorothy’s mother Clara, and folded napkins. When Mom’s pewter goblets were secured on the table, I asked Mary, “Should I call Dad, or do you want to?”
She gazed at me across the table with the same dreamy expression that had followed her since mass. “Oh, go ahead,” Mary said.
I clucked and shook my head at the smitten teenager before me. I threw my energy like a lasso wide around the house, tightening it as I navigated the familiar topography of the backyard and the shed. Snaring Dad’s orangey marigold energy, I tightened the loop and pulled him toward home. Chunsch nooch Huus, nooch Huus chunsch, I beckoned. Ish cheldi dusse, chunsch. I saw his light start to move toward the house at a quick pace as he jogged through the rain in his church clothes. Moments later, we heard Dad burst into the kitchen.
“Can you at least help me fill the water glasses?” I asked with more sting than intended, snapping Mary from her daydream.
She shot me a look with lips pursed into a practiced pout—Fine—and waved a hand over a goblet in front of her, her palm flipped up toward the ceiling over the bowl. Her fingers drew together and downward, pulling invisible purse strings over the lip of the goblet, pinching water from the air. There was an abundance of water to be had, as the storm hung heavy over the house, the wood and walls damp with it. As Mary pulled her fingers down five, six, seven times over the cup, cool, clear water slowly rose from the bottom to the brim of the goblet.
“Good,” I said, wowed by her efficiency.
“I’ve been doing this for sixteen years too,” Mary said plainly as she filled the goblets on her side of the table.
“I know,” I said quickly, turning away to hide my face as I filled the goblets on my side of the table. Mary’s skills needed some polishing, but I suddenly felt guilty that I had missed her recent improvements, that I had only noticed her skills when they were on public display at the beach.
If Mary is so skilled, why does she get to do what she wants all summer? I felt my cheeks burn as the question quickly supplanted any feeling of guilt. I turned my back and hustled from the room so Mary wouldn’t see the tears spring to my eyes. Why am I the only one without a choice in this family?
I heard the sound of Grandpa Ridder’s Buick in the driveway, saving me from my thoughts. I took a deep breath, rearranged my face, and straightened my dress. Mary followed me into the foyer, smoothing her hair and dress. Only a raised eyebrow from Mary indicated that I wasn’t all that good at hiding my feelings. I wondered if I could shield myself further as we stood together to silently await Grandma Ridder’s judgment.
We watched through the front windows as Grandpa Ridder got out of the driver’s side and walked stiffly to open the passenger door for Grandma Ridder. I could barely see him through the thick sheets of rain, but feeling the need to show off, I parted the sky just a little, as if there were a protective dome, an invisible umbrella, over his head. Grandma Ridder glanced up nervously at the water parting over her head, but she made it to the front door completely dry, even if she wasn’t all that happy about it.
Grandpa Ridder, a nearly six-foot-three Dutchman, bent awkwardly to kiss me on the cheek.
“Elisabeth,” he said, pronouncing the hard t like my father and Magda did.
I heard Dad mutter over my shoulder, “Sure, you keep them dry, but not one of you could have done that for me?” I flashed him a grin, catching the twinkle in his eye. He wasn’t really mad. Dad liked to tell us there was already enough magic in the house—literally holding the place upright—but he complained when there wasn’t enough magic either. I rolled my eyes and turned back for my judgment.
“Hi, Grandma Ridder,” I said as she embraced me lightly, her hands like crayfish on my back.
“Elisabeth,” she said with a downward glance that told me she had indeed noticed my lack of stockings in mid-June. In spite of myself, I felt my face flush with shame. Grandma Ridder had a special way of doing that.
Grandpa Ridder bent with a kiss on the cheek for Mary and Mom and a firm handshake and shoulder clap for my father, who stood almost as tall as his beanpole of a father. Grandma Ridder, meanwhile, continued her tour of disapproval. Magda was noticeably absent.
After Mary took Grandma Ridder’s handbag, Mom announced in a forced, halting voice, before we could make our way to the living room, “Dinner’s ready.” Get them in and get them out, I read on her face quite plainly. I smiled, and Mary and I followed her to the kitchen to help serve.
I carried the roast beef on a bed of carrots on Mom’s good silver serving platter, usually reserved for Thanksgiving turkey and Easter ham. Mom followed with mashed potatoes and spinach salad with warm bacon dressing—Grandpa Ridder’s favorite. Mary carried fresh butter and more silver-dollar rolls enveloped in a warm linen napkin in Great-Grandma Dorothy’s silver bread basket. I knew the inscription on the bottom by heart—Für Brot und Glück—for bread and happiness, or love, or luck, depending on whose translation you believed.
When I realized Magda hadn’t shown herself, I slipped away during the hectic settling into chairs and filling of plates. I found her lying on her bed with a lavender pillow over her eyes, fully dressed in her good green church dress, shoes, stockings, and all. A shiver ran up my spine. Her hands were folded serenely over her chest, and it made me deeply uncomfortable.
I reached out a tentative hand to shake her. Her arm was warm and solid as ever, I realized with relief. Magda rumbled slowly awake, then stretched all at once, raising her arms above her head and making the screeching yawn shared by all the women in our family. She whipped the lavender pillow off with one hand and rolled her eyes at me in an exaggerated way that immediately recalled where I had picked up that particular habit.
“Let’s get this over with,” she said.
I smelled whiskey on her breath and was jealous.
Grandpa Ridder led grace, our full plates growing cold under bowed heads.
“Mm, doesn’t this look good,” Dad said from the head of the table when everyone had crossed themselves. “What a treat for a stormy day.” He loaded his fork with gusto.
Mom beamed around the table with a smile that faltered only slightly at Grandpa and Grandma Ridder. On the other side, Mary tried to make small talk with Grandma Ridder about lifeguarding.
I heard Grandma Ridder ask, “Are you planning to run around in a bathing suit in front of the whole town, then?”
Mary’s face blanched. “I saved someone yesterday,” she muttered into her potatoes, then fell silent and sulky.
After a few minutes of all of us chewing in near silence, the only sound in the room the rain pounding down on the house, Grandpa Ridder leaned in with purpose from the other head of the table.
He turned to me and said, “Elisabeth, we wanted to come by today to congratulate you in person on your high school graduation. Well done.” He parted his lips in what might have been a smile. “Now that you’ve finished, you might come work in the front office of the mills. If not here with your father, with one of your uncles, Joseph or Daniel.”
Oh hell no, I thought.
Dad’s face went beet red at the other end of the table. “Pop, that’s enough. I told you she wasn’t going to come work as an office girl,” he said before I had the chance.
Magda, on the other side of Mom, chuckled to herself.
“What’s so funny?” Grandma Ridder snapped. Mary shrank next to her. “What’s so funny about the idea of Elisabeth having a normal job like a normal girl until she marries her sweetheart like everybody else?” She practically spat the word. Normal.
That I certainly was not.
Magda viciously jabbed a long, slim finger in Grandma Ridder’s direction. “I know it’s hard for you to understand, but this girl has a gift. There is nothing normal about it. She is extraordinary, and she’s right where she needs to be, so you can shove your office job.”
I can speak for myself, I thought, even as I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.
Magda shoved her chair back from the table and stood in a huff.
Grandpa Ridder stood too, carefully, as if to not waste any energy.
“Now then,” he said in his formal Dutch way, “I think we should all take some breaths and consider what is best for Elisabeth.”
Magda let out a pointed “Ha!” and then everyone was on their feet, except me and Mary, who was quietly observing this all with a mix of wonder and horror, mouth agape.
As my father began to raise his voice, Magda cackled with abandon, Grandma Ridder’s voice rose to a shrill above the din, and my mother sighed beside me, managing a quiet “Oh for Pete’s sake” under her breath, I found my feet. To Mary’s obvious delight, I slowly levitated the contents of the table, another favorite party trick with little practical application, until forks laden with pot roast and Mom’s heavy pewter water goblets danced at eye level. I held everything just so until the room was completely silent, save for Magda’s hiss: “Elisabeth Ann Watry-Ridder, so help me if you break my grandmother’s china!”
“I think I am the best person to decide what is best for Elisabeth,” I said, speaking in a clear voice, quietly so that everyone had to lean in a little to hear me. “My place is here.”
I said the words confidently, but I didn’t know if they were true. I knew my place certainly wasn’t at the Ridder Family Company offices, twiddling my thumbs until I married John. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted, but an office job wasn’t it.
With a wink to Mary, I gently rested everything back into place. Grandpa Ridder’s mouth hung open. My father looked prouder than I had ever seen him, a familiar twinkle in his eye.
Magda dropped heavily into her chair. “There,” she said. “It’s settled.” She picked up her knife to cut a bite of roast beef, laboring to saw through the gristle.
Grandpa Ridder remained standing, unsure of himself, debating whether to speak again. Finally, he pinched his lips into a straight line until they nearly disappeared altogether. But my magical display was too much for Grandma Ridder—she fainted, missing her chair entirely. Grandpa Ridder made an ineffective attempt to catch her, barely snagging her wrist to soften her fall as she went down.
“Oh!” Mary exclaimed. Her eyes caught mine across the table. Something’s wrong with Grandma Ridder, they telegraphed.
“Mother!” Dad shouted from his end of the table. He made a move to go to her but stopped and looked to me. “Lisbett?”
I closed my eyes and cast out, feeling simultaneously Mary’s sunny yellow energy and Magda’s amethyst—her interest piqued. But they were waiting for me: the Watry-Ridder girl, the special one who would inherit the empire, called to action at her own supper table.
I heard Mary say aloud, “Oh my,” as we both realized the problem. Grandma Ridder’s blood pressure was so low, her heart so weak, I could barely believe she had been standing at all a moment before.
Panic rattled in my chest. I took a deep breath to clear my field. I had very rarely treated people I knew so intimately, let alone an actual family member. The pressure nearly swallowed me whole. Breathe, Magda pulsed at me.
“I know!” I snapped.
But then my training kicked in: I took another deep breath, cast out the ice floe, and sent my energy through Grandma Ridder’s. I was relieved when instinct took over from there.
I tapped rhythmically on everything in my path—one-two, one-two. Tub-thump, tub-thump. I pulsed the sound of a healthy heartbeat throughout her very small, very still pale-green energy field. Folge mir, mir folge, I urged, the words coming to me from God knows where. I felt her heart give a weak attempt to pick up the pace. It sputtered for a moment but slipped into its old tempo after a few beats. Grandma Ridder’s heart wouldn’t be able to take many more surprises.
Knowing there was nothing else I could do, I wrapped my energy around Grandma Ridder’s and whispered the words of protection. Bisch wiff. Bisch wusle. Bisch gliebt. I felt Mary and Magda following behind to do the same, wrapping Grandma Ridder in layers of protection. You are safe. You are whole. You are loved.
I urged her, Wachst auf. Come back to us. Wake up, stay a while.
I opened my eyes and waited. A moment later, Grandma Ridder opened hers from the dining room floor. She blinked hard and shook her head. Mary crouched beside Grandma Ridder and helped her slowly back into her chair.
Grandpa Ridder at her elbow pushed a goblet of water toward her. “Take a sip of water,” he said.
“I feel … wonderful,” she said, with a pointed look at Grandpa Ridder. She turned to scan the table slowly in wonder. Her eyes landed on me. “You. You did this, didn’t you?” Grandma Ridder asked.
I didn’t know what to say. Was it an accusation or an accolade? I sucked in my cheeks with an upward flick of my eyes that said, Guilty as charged.
“Well,” she said. “Well, then.” Her cheeks flushed, but she looked as pleased as I had ever seen her.
Magic did this, I wanted to tell her, but I didn’t think she could take it.
We finished the meal in near silence, typical for passive-aggressive Dutch families after a blowout-knockdown-drag-’em-out fight, only the sound of rain above the tinkle of silverware on china. As Mary cleared the plates to the kitchen—by hand—Grandpa Ridder reached into the breast pocket of his brown gabardine blazer. He produced an envelope and presented it to me with a sigh. The envelope said Happy graduation.
“We hoped this would be used for a new wardrobe for the front office,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said firmly, biting my tongue. Even after a firsthand show of my capabilities, he had to make one more dig at me. I didn’t have the energy to state my case further and simply pressed the envelope into my lap.
“That’s enough, Pop,” Dad said from the other end of the table.
And no one said any more on it, the conversation turning blandly to the weather and the much-needed rain over coffee and cobbler. But after Grandpa and Grandma Ridder departed under still-dreary skies, Mary hugged me tighter than ever before.
“That was incredible,” she whispered.
Something nagged at me later that night as I waited for sleep. Mary’s protection spell wasn’t bad, I thought. In fact, it had been pretty good. Thoughtful. Skilled, even, to cast over such a distance. When Mary said she had a feeling, had she known something was up with Grandma Ridder even before they arrived? Could Mary sense something I couldn’t?
A quiet resentment started to take hold in me: Why, if Mary is so perfectly capable, is this my sole destiny? Why is Magda excluding her? And what in the world happened that Mom didn’t want this?