Page 43 of Eye on the Ball

I leaned over. “Who are you talking to?”

“It’s the babies,” she said, as the hats softly floated back down and onto their respective owners’ heads. “They love the feeling of peace in your church, and happiness is making them active.”

Alejandro put his arm around his wife when the hats started floating again. “Rose! Can’t you make them stop?”

She put her head in her hands and sighed. “If I could, I would. Give me a minute.”

But it was too late. Pastor Nash looked up from his Bible and dropped his notes. Then everyone turned around to find out what—or who—he was staring at with his mouth hanging open.

The hats, which had been trembling in the air a couple of inches above heads, as if the babies and Rose were playing tug of war, suddenly shot up into the air and exploded into clouds of multicolored butterflies.

I took one look at Alejandro and Rose’s mortified faces and shot to my feet, hands in the air. “It’s a miracle!”

Chaos ensued.

* * *

By the time we’d solved the butterfly problem—Rose finally magicked them back into hats and Alejandro returned them with profuse apologies to their respective owners—it was almost time for church to be over.

Pastor Nash, who’d been grinning like a kid during all this, clapped his hands together. “Well, I think we can skip the closing song today?—”

“No!” I leapt up out of my seat for the second time that morning. I was not wasting my charm. “Let’s singAmazing Graceto celebrate the magic of new life!”

Everybody stared at me, bewildered, even Uncle Mike and Aunt Ruby. Pastor Nash looked surprised, but then shrugged. “All right.Amazing Graceit is.” He took a deep breath and, with a resigned and almost hopeless expression on his long face, like he was marching to war, he courageously said: “Tess, will you lead us in song?”

He was agreatpastor.

“You bet I will.”

Everybody around me flinched, which I tried not to take personally. And then I opened my mouth and sang.

“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound …”

And it was. All of that. Amazing and graceful and the sweetest sound I’d ever heard, and it was coming out of my mouth. I closed my hand around the polished piece of jade in my pocket and sang my heart out.

Not a single person sang along. Instead, they all turned to stare at me with matching expressions of total shock.

When I finished the song, there were even some people with tears running down their faces because my singing had been so beautiful.

I was one of them.

It was one of the best days of my life.

There was complete and utter silence in the church for almost a full minute, and then somebody started clapping. I was shocked to see it was Mr. Russell, and he was grinning at me. Then everyone was clapping, and I couldn’t stop smiling. Jack jumped up and hugged the stuffing out of me.

“It’s a miracle,” Pastor Nash proclaimed.

“It’s magic,” I admitted. “And it will probably never happen again, so thank you for letting me sing what’s in my heart this one time.”

Then everybody hugged everybody—but not me, of course—and they all gave me huge smiles and thumbs ups. We floated on a tide of good feeling all the way out of church. When we walked outside, Aunt Ruby’s phone buzzed. She looked at it and took a few steps to the side to take the call. By the look on her face, I knew the news wasn’t good.

She ended the call and then rejoined our group. “That was Susan. Probie Truckman has now disappeared, too, and the Riverton sheriff is sure it’s linked to Ace. He’s trying to arrest Brenda Pennywhistle.”

21

Tess

Everybody started talking at once, but I drew Rose aside. “Rose, I don’t know how to thank you. This is one of the best gifts anyone has ever given me in my entire life.”