Juniper Bean Resorts to Murder (Happily Ever Homicide, #1)

by Gracie Ruth Mitchell

There’s nothing keeping us here, I guess, but two Bean siblings at rest will stay at rest until acted on by an outside force—and so far we’ve been outside-force-free. Inertia is a tricky thing to overcome.

I’m clearly imagining things. Or hallucinating. Or turning paranoid for absolutely no reason. All good signs, I’m sure.

“You walk around looking like someone who’s just checked the weather and discovered it’s supposed to rain for the next week.” “I love the rain,” he says blankly. Of course he loves the rain.

“There are probably a few photos buried at my parents’ place,” he says musingly. Then he looks up from his book, his gaze finding mine. “But you’ll never see them.” I will see those pictures if it is the last thing I do.

And there’s a little bit of darkness in all of us. I’m convinced that’s true. We couldn’t shine so brightly as human beings if we never knew the shadows.

But I’m here. I’m alive. And I’m going to do great things in this life of mine. I don’t need to leave a huge legacy; I don’t need to change the world. But I’m going to make my little corner of life a really excellent corner.

I don’t like the way we teach objectively things that are so subjective. One person might read the same book five times and come away with five different interpretations, based solely on what they were going through each time they read the book. So I try to teach my students the importance—and the value—of subjectivity. I don’t know if the carpet was blue because the author wanted to portray something sad. But if that’s how it seems to you, what can you take away from that? If you’re finding hints of sadness in everything you read, what can that tell you about yourself at this point in time? Those are the lessons that are going to help you in your day-to-day life anyway. In fifty years you’re not going to need to know about symbolism in classical literature. But you’re definitely going to need lots of tools for figuring yourself out, for deciphering your own emotions and understanding your own mind.

I don’t know that a quiet life is in the cards for Juniper Bean. She is the stone in the stream that the water must rush around.

Any time your presence causes people to change, you’re making history. Sometimes small history, sometimes grand—always worth paying attention to.

“This man might be more pretentious than you,” I say over my shoulder to Aiden, who looks affronted. “I’m not pretentious—” “Bust of Shakespeare, Hamlet on the weekends, collector’s editions,” I say, ticking items off on my fingers.