Harriet Wolf's Seventh Book of Wonders Read Online Free

Although I had already wrapped Tilton in a blanket, I tucked her under my coat, a winter coat that beaded rain. Ruthie wriggled her hand loose from my grip and ran to her daddy, grabbing his arm.
    It was quiet now. Oddly so. A white kite drifted down and settled in the upper reaches of a distant tree. A kite? It seemed like an odd moment for a kite.
    The old man shouted to us, “Did you see it? Did you see it?”
    But I looked down at Tilton’s face—her wet mouth, her round eyes, the small soft cloud of her breath. The scene was slowly gathering meaning. This was a disaster. But we were alive. We were safe and alive.
    And then I lifted my eyes. That’s when I saw the handle of a suitcase—not attached to a suitcase at all. It sat there on the earth as if the suitcase were buried below it, as if it were the handle to a trap door. It seemed like it belonged in one of my mother’s novels—a handle in the earth that would open a door to a different world for Weldon and Daisy to enter. It didn’t have any logical meaning.
    And then, not far from the suitcase handle, something shiny glinted. I leaned toward it and squinted—a jewel-studded buckle.
    “Look, George,” I said.
    And he turned. “No, Eleanor,” he said to me. His voice was gentle—a softness that I hadn’t heard from him in a very long time.
    It must have surprised Ruthie too. She said “Daddy?” as if suddenly she wasn’t sure that it was him at all.
    The buckle, I realized, was still attached to a woman’s shoe. A modest high heel, black and shiny, it had at first blended into the mud, as had the dark-stockinged foot within the shoe, and the leg that ended abruptly just above the knee in bloody flesh with an exposed bone.
    I pulled my hand to my chest and gripped Tilton tightly. Now, as I ran my eyes over the field, the scattered remains of other body parts were clear. Most startling was a hand, not five feet away, that seemed to be resting on the surface of a dark lake. I tore my gaze away and stared up into the tree—at the kite. It wasn’t a kite at all. It was a man’s dress shirt that had, most likely, popped from a suitcase in the cargo hold. The shirt sagged, wet and weighted with rain.
    Ambulances, fire trucks, and police cars began to arrive. Reporters—rumpled and darty-eyed—showed up shortly thereafter. A young but jowly cop named Stevenson ushered me, along with Ruthie and Tilton, across the field into the old man’s living room, which was opposite the side that had been flattened by the plane’s wing. Another policeman, tougher and older, took George and the old man to his cop car for questioning. Stevenson asked me a few questions, and then joined the other men in the field. I sat on the plaid sofa. Tilton fell asleep on my shoulder, and Ruthie put her head in my lap and picked at the sofa’s nubby fabric while she kicked the armrest.
    The cornfield was flooded with the swirling lights of cop cars. Men trudged around, pointing, jotting notes. There were soldiers with torches. Unmistakable torches! I felt forgotten. Ruthie fell asleep too, and I was pinned by the children, unable to twist into a comfortable position—not that I would have been able to sleep. The old man had a large collection of decoy ducks, wood-carved and nicely painted. They sat on shelves, each casting an eye on the room.
    Finally, a woman knocked on the front door and walked in. She was tall and stalwart, with a hefty chest.
    “Red Cross,” she said, as if that were her name, and she extended her hand.
    I shook it while remaining as still as possible so as not to wake the children.
    “You’re doing okay?” the woman asked. She clearly wanted the answer to be affirmative, and so I nodded. “Well, the victims’ families will be notified. They’ll want to come and identify…” She didn’t finish the phrase. We both understood. “And we’ll be looking for volunteers to house them during that process. They’ll be grieving and tired. It’s been