Making Magic by Donna June Cooper

farm into a model of sustainability. The entire mountain belonged to the Woodruffs—actually to Grace now—along with the family herb business that had begun with Granny Lily. There were also Daniel’s thriving apiaries, one here in the hollow and one up on the farm.
    Grace rented out cabins up there and used what Pops had called plant walks to educate people about the flora and fauna of the mountain with a folksy kind of charm. Daniel had taken up where Pops had left off and he and Mel planned to publish a book of Pops’s old stories and fables, called Firefly Tales .
    Thea smiled. Pops would be proud. But their father would be furious if he ever remembered that he had intended to break Pops’s will and parcel up the mountain to developers. She picked up the plate of sweet rolls Ouida had sent over for them.
    “ You’ll let us stay on the mountain with Pops and you won’t make him sad anymore! ”
    And he had. He had left the mountain alone until Pops’s death had broken that compulsion. If he hadn’t been in the midst of the worst legal battle the company had ever faced, he would have gone after the mountain with a vengeance even before the funeral. It didn’t matter what the will said if you could keep throwing lawyers at the problem.
    But this time her father would not remember. This time she was not a desperate, grief-stricken child, but an angry, experienced lawyer who knew how to wield words like a weapon. This time, he would forget how much he hated this mountain.
    “Hey, Sissy! Quit hogging those,” Daniel said.
    Thea almost dropped the plate. Daniel was hanging over the railing holding out his hand. She quickly handed the plate to him.
    Nick joined them, sitting down on the porch steps with a glass of orange juice. “We hard-working wedding designers deserve some refreshments. And a break.” He wiped his forehead.
    “I want to know about that nickname, ‘Sissy’.” Mel said. “Sister, I assume?”
    Daniel laughed. “Nope.”
    “Daniel had trouble with his ‘th’ sounds when he was learning to talk. ‘Thea’ came out as ‘see.’ He would run around after me yelling ‘SeeSeeSee’.” Thea said.
    “Ah,” Mel said. “Got it. Cute.” She reached over to ruffle Daniel’s hair and he swatted her hand away.
    “So…Sissy-in-law,” Nick said.
    Thea rolled her eyes. The thing about nicknames was the less you liked them, the more they stuck.
    “Any news from Hartford we should know about?” Nick asked. “Not that we own any stock in the company.”
    Thea had seen him poring over online stock reports and business news back at the farmhouse. It had only been a matter of time before he asked. But now?
    “I was planning to update you guys after the wedding,” she said.
    “Yes, Nick. No business talk before the wedding,” Grace said. “Today is all about Mel and—”
    “Why not?” Daniel chimed in. “Is this about the…that case you were working on?”
    Thea looked at Grace, who shook her head. Her siblings had kept their word not to talk to anyone about what she’d been up to. She’d been right to trust them.
    “It’s over,” Thea said. How simple that sounded. Five years of her life and very little to show for it.
    “Four billion worth of over,” Nick said, eyes on his wife. “I thought it might be more than a coincidence that you got freed up to come for the wedding.”
    “Four billion?” Mel repeated. “Those guys got Hartford for four billion ?”
    Thea stood and put Bailey carefully down on the porch. “Four billion is nothing.” She leaned back against the railing. “It’s less than the money they made off their illegal activity in the first place. They still made a profit.” She couldn’t say what she really wanted to. And people died. How’s that for justice?
    Mel looked suddenly upset and Daniel put a hand on her arm.
    “I’m sorry,” Thea said. “This is why I didn’t want to talk about it. It didn’t… It wasn’t enough.” It will never be