The Huguenot Thief
Page 31
“No, not anytime soon,” said Thompson, rubbing his face. “My mother will come next week. Ava has an entire extended family that wants to know her. We’ll take it slow.”
“Is there any hope of Amarintha recovering?” asked Kate.
“I don’t know. The CDC is keeping her comfortable. She’s in an isolation chamber, hooked up to brain scans. Something is going on in her brain, but no one knows what. Her cancer hasn’t come back, but the doctors don’t know why she won’t wake up.” Thompson stopped talking and put his hand over his eyes. “I don’t know why she went to see the monsignor, but I believe what he told us—that she collapsed.”
Kate put her hand on Thompson’s shoulder but said nothing. Jack walked over and the three of them left the terrace, the sight and sounds of Ava’s keening becoming fainter.
The landscaper had created the bones of a beautiful garden behind the house. The pink camellias, purple azaleas and white roses were small, but one day they would cover the beds, grow up the brick walls, and encircle the garden with fragrance. A small table sat in the middle of a tabby patio. Blue pansies and white petunias bordered the little square made of seashells pressed into cement.
Ava had insisted that Amarintha would want a gate between her house and Richard’s, and that gate creaked as Richard walked from his garden to Amarintha’s. He cradled a ceramic pot, a plant sprouting from it. The plant was about a foot tall and was bright with red blooming flowers. Richard carefully placed the pot on a teak table.
Thompson heard the French doors open.
Richard said, “Please, come and see this.” Ava, Sara and Fannie joined the group, all of them standing by the table staring at the plant with the red flowers.
Kate whispered, “Oh my God.”
“Yes, exactly.” Richard said. “This must have germinated from a seed Amarintha dropped when she opened the reliquary. I’ve been watching it grow by my patio since it sprouted. It bloomed yesterday.”
Richard caressed the flower, saying nothing. “I don’t know what this means, do you?” He said this to no one in particular.
Ava leaned over and breathed. “It smells wonderful, and look,” she said, touching the petals, “it already has seeds.”
The End.
Acknowledgments
The hardest task I’ve ever taken on was writing this book. It’s also the most rewarding accomplishment of my life other than my family.
Thank you to Dave Walch who encouraged me to write a novel during a dinner at Ted’s Montana Grill in New York City. It’s a fitting city in which to begin a writing career.
Writing coach, Maureen Ryan Griffin, read an early manuscript, told me I could write, but that I had lousy punctuation skills. I hope she sees an improvement in both.
Editor Mary Johnston did a masterful job with editing. When we met, she asked me if I could take criticism. I told her I had sold software to New York bankers, and there wasn’t anything she could say that I hadn’t heard, and with profanity. She performed her job flawlessly with no four-letter words.
Kathy Tuten provided me with a reader’s viewpoint, suggesting small changes that made a huge difference in the book.
Thank you to the beta readers who gave so many wonderful suggestions for improving the book. That’s friendship!
Family members Katherine Marks, Lisa Rodgers, and Jay Johnson were also early readers, and even though they are related, held nothing back and gave me constructive advice about how to make this book better. Encouraging me every step of the way was my loving mate, Rick Denton, and siblings, Jabos Clement and Sandy Durham. My granddaughters Ava and Sara, and their mother April Johnson, were a three-woman cheering squad. Having a supportive family is invaluable to a writer and I deeply thank you all.
The folks at Gatekeeper Press were fantastic, and guided me every step of the way. Thank you, Rob.
My family does indeed have a Huguenot twig on its tree, Jean Postell (Potel), who escaped France sometime in the 1680s, arriving in what became Charleston, South Carolina. For those of you who are interested in the Huguenot experience, especially in South Carolina, I encourage you to visit the Huguenot Society of South Carolina’s website: https://www.huguenotsociety.org
The letter that Amarintha memorized for a third grade project is authentic. The heat in South Carolina can still be unbearable, although with the advent of air conditioning, we modern South Carolinians have become thoroughly spoiled.
Although the characters are fictional, the experiences described in 1685 are accurate. The battles between the Protestants and Catholics during the 16th and 17th centuries are regarded as one of the darkest periods in French history, a period France calls the Wars of Religion. The events were gruesome and the atrocities, on both sides, deadly.
The tales about relics are also true.
The events described in Constantinople connected with the Fourth Crusade are accurate, except for the reliquaries seeded with disease. That part I made up. The book 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West by Roger Crowley is a deeper look at this city, now Istanbul, and details the events leading up to the fall of Constantinople. It’s one of my favorite books, and exposed me to a history I did not know. According to Wikipedia, it was eight hundred years before a Pope apologized for the Fourth Crusade, and in 2004, on the eight hundredth anniversary of the deeds in 1204, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I formally accepted the apology.
Both the Fourth Crusade and the Wars of Religion are an eerie parallel for what is happening today within Islam.
Human beings seem destined not to learn from history, but to repeat the same play with different actors.
Pray for peace.