In rummaging through the old books and documents earlier that day, she had discovered something that she definitely wanted to look at more closely. It was an unbound manuscript that showed many similar script patterns and features as the Voynich. Not identical, but similar. She would examine it first.
Late that afternoon, on their way back to the Granchelli farm from the villa, she had noticed a woman walking toward the gypsy camp carrying a basket. If the gypsies living in the camp were the black tribe, then it just made sense that Carolina should go visit them. Maybe they could tell her something. Did people even go visit gypsies? She wondered.
She also wondered, as she sometimes did, what her mother would think of her now, practically grown up, studying in Italy, soon to graduate from the Wood Rose Orphanage and Academy for Young Women. With the memory of ditch water tickling her feet, You wait right here, I’ll be back for you soon, she fell asleep.
* * *
Jennifer finished brushing her hair and pulled it back with a scrunchy. They had gotten a lot done that day. The job they had set out to do was more manageable now. It was nice of Lucia to bring them lunch. She wondered if she had talked to Carolina any more about her adoption.
Early that morning, before Carolina and the other FIGs had gotten up, she went out to the barn where Papa was milking a cow. She had never seen a cow being milked before; she had never been on a farm before, as far as that goes. Her parents had always lived in the city, close to where they worked. That evening after supper, Mother Granchelli let the FIGs help her make a big pot of soup, something she called zuppa di primavera. Jennifer had never cooked before, either. There had been hired people to take care of those things. She was experiencing so many new things.
Not that it worried her, but ever since arriving at the Granchelli farm, she hadn’t heard the cadence—other happy sounds of family and farm life seemed to take its place—until earlier when they were returning to the farm after working in the library all day. Suddenly she heard it again—loud and distinct. She had already sketched it in black and white—charcoals—and painted it in water colors. Now there was only the strong, defined beat. There had been nothing unusual going on at the time. Only a woman walking along the road, probably going to that gypsy camp judging from the way she was dressed.
Jennifer got out her portfolio of blank, eight-stave paper and climbed into bed. The beat was insistent; the notes were revealing themselves in musical bars, phrases, and movements—like inflections in speech. The dissonance was strong and restless. Rapidly she began writing down the notes.
* * *
Mackenzie pulled the feather pillow over her face and giggled. Dara was already asleep, and Jennifer was writing musical notes—something she hadn’t done since they had arrived at the farm.
Alfonso had told them a little about himself. He had worked as the rector’s administrative assistant for one year. Before that, he was a student at the university. Dara had been right to think he was originally from one of the islands. Like the Granchellis, he came from a large family. She wondered what kind of fish his dad caught, and what kind of crafts his mother made. Maybe she would get a chance to ask him tomorrow. Of course, Dara would have to translate.
She giggled again and softly repeated his name several times so she could get the final syllable perfect. He was just so nice. Everyone was. She had never felt so much love.
She thought about what they had accomplished that day. She had found a couple of loosely-bound notebooks that looked promising. Tomorrow she would take the copy of the Voynich and Carolina’s page with her so she could compare them with what she had found. There were definite similarities; the mathematical quotients were similar, as was the sequence of letters that she had identified as part of a sophisticated cryptosystem.
What if Carolina’s page turned out to be both significant and valuable? What if they discovered that Carolina was descended from an ancient gypsy tribe, and she was the only surviving ruler? A princess even? Maybe she and Carolina were related—after all, no one knew where she had been born or who her parents were.
But then the “what if” game stopped. That was where it always stopped, because Mackenzie simply couldn’t bring herself to think beyond that point. With no more “what ifs” she turned on her side, telling herself it didn’t matter. Soon she would be graduating from Wood Rose and moving on to bigger and better things. The MIT research program was one of the best in the nation. She just wished she didn’t have to leave Carolina and the other FIGs to go there. What if Carolina got a job there? And Dara and Jennifer were there? What if…
And then she fell asleep.
* * *
Larry punched his feather pillow into a ball and flopped back. He probably should tell Carolina that he was in Frascati, but he knew if he did, she wouldn’t feel free to do whatever she needed to do. She would worry about him. No. She needed to do this on her own with as little interference from him as possible. He would tell her later after he had a chance to investigate some things.
The head of the department where he taught wasn’t very happy when he told him he needed to take some time off, especially during exams. But his graduate assistant could easily take over his classes. He had done the right thing coming to Frascati. At least he could remain objective. He wasn’t sure Carolina could. Then, once she learned the truth, he would be there for her—if she even wanted him. It was risky, he knew, but he had been waiting a long time already. She would either come to terms with her past and move on—with him—or stay lost in some sort of cursed gypsy warp zone. If he had anything to do with it, she would move on and the two of them would build a life together.
His contacts had already confirmed that the gypsy woman he had been watching was Carolina’s mother. Apparently, the father had died when she was a baby. The death certificate had stated influenza as the cause of death. Oddly enough, he had worked on and off at the Villa Mondragone, whenever the tribe traveled to Frascati and made camp nearby. That might explain the special paper Carolina had. Either her father had stolen it, or it had been given to him. He doubted the latter. Normally ancient documents with value weren’t split up in order to give away. It was much more likely that he stole it, knowing it was of value, and that was why it was included in Carolina’s parik-til. Sort of an insurance policy.
Larry also managed to get some information on the background of Lucia De Rossa, head of the adoption agency. She was sixty years old, and she had lived in Frascati all her life. Her husband ran a small bakery. She hadn’t been working at the agency very long when Carolina was adopted. The head of the agency, a man named Liruso, had actually arranged the adoption, but Signora De Rossa might have been involved when Carolina was first taken. Because Liruso believed that Carolina was one of the stolen children, he tried, unsuccessfully, to locate her natural parents. Then, concerned about the gypsies and what they could do if Carolina were to be placed with an Italian family, he contacted a private agency in the United States and arranged for a couple by the name of Branson to adopt her. Liruso died shortly after that.
Pretty much all of it was straightforward. The story was a familiar one. Carolina’s parents were black gypsies, and because Carolina didn’t fit the gypsy profile, she had been taken by the State agency and put up for adoption. These things happened, and continued to happy even today wherever gypsies camped. The only thing that remained a mystery was Carolina’s manuscript page. If she could just find out what that was all about, then maybe—just maybe…
He sat up and pummeled the pillow again. From what his sources had told him, the gypsies had set up camp only a few days before Carolina and the FIGs arrived. So far, Carolina had spent all of her time either at the Granchelli farm or the Old Villa. He was sure Carolina wasn’t aware that her mother was so near. He had made it a point to meet Mrs. Lovel, and there wasn’t any doubt that she was the real thing. A true choovihni. Carolina had inherited her mother’s strong instincts, possibly other natural gifts as well.
He would ta
lk to Mrs. Lovel again. She was the only one who could give him the answers he needed. Then he would know how best to help Carolina.
Chapter 16
There was one other time in Lyuba’s memory when the signs had been dark and conflicted. That was when her loving husband, Balo, came down with the sickness and died. Days later, her beautiful child was taken from her. Now, once again the signs were black and evil and crossed. She had nothing left to give except for her knowledge. Was that it? Was her knowledge of life and healing to be sacrificed? But how could that be? She had used her knowledge to do good, just as it had been passed down to her by her mother, and her mother’s mother. It was what she was born to do.
And then she remembered. The one time she went against all instinct, all knowledge. The one time that she allowed the forces of evil to overtake all that she knew to be right and good. A man had died as a result. The man who was responsible for taking her child.
Lyuba sighed. So it had come back full circle, as all things did, and now she must pay for her one transgression. With heavy heart, she gathered her herbs and oils, her crystal and Tarot cards. She would spend another day in the village of Frascati, but it would be at the mercy of zee.
Milosh watched Lyuba leave her hut and walk toward the village. His father had left in the darkness of night, and his mother had gone that morning in the truck. He went back inside the trailer and searched under his bed until he found the jar. Angrily, he shook the jar, once again mixing the contents of ephedra and flitwort and hair. The tingling sensation he felt in his hands and arms was stronger this time but, unlike before, this time it spread to his torso. The curse was working.
* * *
With more effort than usual, Carolina got up and dressed. The FIGs had already eaten breakfast by the time she got downstairs.
“My daughter,” Mother Granchelli greeted her. She hugged the young woman and felt her forehead. “You feel warm. Perhaps you should stay here and rest today.”
“I am fine, Mother Granchelli, really. I think I am still getting over the flight. It’s just jetlag. I’ll be all right.”
Jennifer poured Carolina a cup of black coffee, and Mackenzie served her a plate with pancakes she had made. “Jennifer made the coffee this morning,” she told Carolina.
“It’s the first time I have ever made coffee,” Jennifer admitted. “So it might not taste good.”
Carolina smiled and sipped the hot black liquid. “You are a natural chef. It is perfect—just strong enough.” She began picking at the pancakes. “Mackenzie, these are delicious. I’m just not very hungry.”
Mother Granchelli shook her head in disapproval. “Tonight you will eat my zuppa di primavera which Dara, Mackenzie, and Jennifer helped me make.” She couldn’t bring herself to call these three beautiful girls FIGs. Figs were a fruit, not her children. “It will make you feel better.”
When they arrived at the villa, Alfonso was prepared for them with a pot of fresh black coffee, sugar bowl and creamer, and some hard rolls in case they got hungry. Dara immediately went to the manuscript she had pulled from the shelves. Based on what she had been able to find out about the Gypsy language, there was no question in her mind that the material was written in Romany. She compared each of the pages. Not all of them were from the same time period, but they each had been written in the same hand.
“What did you find, Dara?” Jennifer sat down next to her with some hand-drawn illustrations she had discovered. Mackenzie and Carolina stopped what they were doing as well.
“I just can’t get over the feeling that what we are trying to identify is associated with gypsies. Basically, gypsies use the Indo-European family of languages that comprises the mother tongue of Romany. Within that family are several dialectal sub-groups that include Vedic Sanskrit, which is the language of the most ancient extant scriptures of Hinduism. Grammatically, Sanskrit has eight cases for the noun, three genders, and three voices for the verb. Then there is the subfamily of Indo-Iranian which consists of three groups of languages—the Dardic, the Indic, and the Iranian. To complicate things even more, gypsies were known to borrow considerable vocabulary from the languages of various peoples the came in contact with. I think some of these pages I have here—in fact, all of them—and Carolina’s special page is a combination of the various sub-groups and perhaps borrowed vocabulary. That is why it is so difficult to pin down. With so many different sources, many of which no longer exist, it is hard to associate what might be gypsy writings with an already established language.”
Mackenzie handed Dara the loose-bound notebooks she had discovered the day before. “These look like they are part of the same manuscript.”
Dara looked up and smiled. “I believe what we have here, and what Carolina has, is probably the only known gypsy literature in existence. Do you realize what that means? There has never been any important literature in Romany except for some biblical translations where the Roman and Cyrillic alphabets were used. These pages that we have found are definitely a written history of a group of gypsies called the Kaulo Camloes, which also translates to “Black Comelies.” All three FIGs looked at Carolina.
“And, not only that, like the Voynich Manuscript, it has been written in sections. In addition to the section on the history of the Kaulo Camloes, there are sections on medicinals, religion, botanicals, astrology and astronomy, cures and curses.”
“Just like the Voynich,” said Jennifer.
Mackenzie pulled out her copy of Carolina’s page she had brought with her and handed it to Dara. “Look, it is the same handwriting as what is on these library documents. Carolina’s page isn’t a history, though. It seems to be a letter.”
Carolina sat down, her head spinning. “Can you make out any of the script, Dara?”
“I recognize some of the words in Sanskrit. Daughter, love, beautiful…” Dara grew quiet. “Carolina, it is a letter from your father. He must have written it right after you were born.”
Mackenzie started sobbing, and when she did, Jennifer put her arm around her, flipping her ponytail as she did. Dara remained stoic. “It is just so nice,” Mackenzie managed to choke out between sniffles.
For the next several hours, Carolina and the FIGs looked through the other materials they had removed from the shelves to see if there was anything else similar to what they had already discovered. There was nothing else.
“I just don’t understand.” Carolina leaned back in a chair, her stomach feeling a little queasy. She reached for a roll and nibbled on it. “If all of this was written by the same person who wrote the letter to me, and that person was my father, then that must mean my father is responsible for writing this gypsy literature.” She looked up at the FIGs. “Is that how you figure it?”
All three nodded. “He had to be well educated,” said Jennifer, flipping her ponytail.
“Maybe he worked at the villa,” suggested Mackenzie, her problem-solving skills kicking in.
“That’s it,” said Dara. “Alfonso told us yesterday that the university has always hired its students, but before the university took it over, the Jesuits hired the locals who could read and write, especially to help in the two libraries. They must have hired your dad, Carolina. Come on. We need to check it out with the rector.”
The four young women once again found themselves comfortably seated on the purple velvet-upholstered antiques. Rector Catoni seemed pleased that they had sought him out. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the answers to their questions. “I know who might, however,” he said smiling broadly.
After a flurry of telephone calls, Signor Guido Fabiani, Jesuit priest and rector emeritus of the university, was located, and he happily accepted Rector Catoni’s invitation to join him and four delightful young women for lunch that day at the Old Villa.
Carolina and the FIGs returned to the library. Some of the material they examined didn’t have any connection to the main body of works they had uncovered, and they returned it to the shelves where it had been found. Even then, the sh
eer amount of work that had been written by one person was enormous. “Two hundred pages,” Mackenzie counted.
“The illustrations are similar to the Voynich as well,” said Jennifer, looking at the colorful sheets spread out in front of her.
Meanwhile, Dara was busy translating Carolina’s page and writing it out in English. It was just as they had said; it was a written expression of love to a daughter from her father.
* * *
Larry knew where he would find Mrs. Lovel. He had been observing her for several days and was familiar with her routine. He stood in the doorway of the government building and waited. She would come soon.
Within minutes, she arrived at her favorite place, and spread out her cloth in the shade of the large maple. If she realized he was nearby, she didn’t indicate it. Instead, she concentrated on arranging her bags of dried herbs, the jars of creams and ointments, and bottles of oil for display, taking her time, making sure everything was exactly just so.
“Mrs. Lovel.”
She looked up quickly. She hadn’t known he was nearby.
“Ah, my American friend. You wish another reading from the Tarot?”
She recovered quickly.
He removed another 100,000 lire note from his pocket and placed it on her spread. “I have questions that only you can answer.”
The zee presented itself in many shapes and forms. Lyuba knew them all; she knew when to feel fear, when to feel sadness, and when to feel happiness. This young man did not threaten. There was also no need to be sad. Yet there was something mysterious about him. Somehow he was connected to her.
Like before, she motioned for him to sit across from her. She would answer his questions.
“You have questions about love, perhaps? Fortune?” She knew it was neither that he wished to discuss with her.
The Cadence of Gypsies Page 12