So many times before, Ling had thought about what she would say—how she would say it. Now she prayed that her words would be understood and accepted by the daughter that had been taken from her and that she had never stopped loving. “My mother died first, then my father soon after. Your grandparents. That was when I closed up the zhuang yuan, not knowing if I would ever return. By then I had been living and working in Washington, D.C., for many years, and Old Dragon was running Yellow Sea Laboratories. But when she told me they were running short of funds, I saw an opportunity for the United States and China to work together on something that would impact the world in a positive way. And, then, it was time for you to graduate from Wood Rose—it just seemed like the right time. The need for secrecy was no longer there.”
At first Mackenzie just listened, from a distance, like an interested bystander looking through a window and then passing by untouched by what she saw. Gradually, as more of the story was revealed, Mackenzie allowed the words to get a little closer and started to examine each one and its meaning, holding it up against her body like clothing, as though deciding whether to try it on to see if it fit. Deciding if the pain was too great. Then, slowly, like ripples in a pond eventually reaching the shore, or a far-away echo finally being heard, the words became clear and their meaning understood. All of those years of calculating her numbers to find the answers, of wondering, of wanting to know; now she did. It was real, and it was true. It was her story.
There would be more questions in time, when she was ready to hear the answers, but for now Mackenzie knew what she needed to know. That her mother hadn’t wanted to put her in an orphanage, and she had always loved her. And a father who tried to show his love by taking care of her, even when she was far away and living in an orphanage where numbers were her friends.
As the sun’s first rays cast sparkling glitter over the Yellow Sea heralding the arrival of a new brilliant day, Mackenzie and her mother sat quietly on the wooden seat in an ancient pagoda, loving one another as only a mother and her child could, while the delicate scent of lotus embraced and comforted them, offering reassurance.
Back inside the house, in the wing where Carolina and the FIGs were staying, Jennifer impatiently threw back the bed covers and went to Dara’s room only to find Dara sitting up in bed, also unable to sleep. Without saying anything, Jennifer climbed in next to her best friend, careful not to wrinkle the neatly folded spread, the blanket, and the top sheet, knowing that was how Dara liked it. There in the quiet darkness, the two FIGs sat side by side, one foot touching the other’s, waiting for the black of night to once again give birth to the light of day.
“What I want to know is about that guy’s birthmark he had on his arm—Fu Wang. It was definitely a dragon, and the symbol below it meant ‘Dragon King Ruler,’” said Dara because she was a genius in foreign and obscure, as well as obsolete, languages.
“Yeah, I saw that. It was fake. Not even a good tattoo—it was just painted on,” said Jennifer, because she was a genius in music and art.
Silently, the first early-morning rays of the sun tentatively reached through the latticed window forming a crisscrossed pattern on the dark, polished wooden floor. “You finished the musical composition you were writing.” Dara said it as a matter of fact rather than a question.
“Yeah.” Then after a moment, “I call it The Clock Flower.” Another moment, “It is Mackenzie’s story.”
“That’s great, Jennifer.”
Then, as though Jennifer knew Dara was thinking about the painting and wondering what it meant, “Ling is Mackenzie’s mother. She is the blue lotus. The yellow dandelion is the research—Yellow Sea Laboratories, and the red dandelion is Mackenzie.”
Dara didn’t ask any questions because in a strange way it made sense. Certainly in Jennifer’s mind, it all made perfect sense because she was a Female of Intellectual Genius.
After another pause, “Dara, Mackenzie has one on her shoulder.” Jennifer didn’t need to explain to Dara what she meant—that Mackenzie had the dragon birthmark.
“I know,” Dara answered.
Chapter Twenty Four
Because, as with most closed communities, information could be sent and received through osmosis within the stone walls of Wood Rose, everyone knew everything that was happening, especially whenever there was a “situation” on campus. Therefore, it was no surprise to the student-residents or the faculty and staff of Wood Rose Orphanage and Academy for Young Women, as winter break came to an end, that the FIGs had decided to return with Carolina for a couple of days before the new semester began.
For the student-residents of Wood Rose, there was once again a breathless excitement on campus; an eager anticipation of “What if” and animated speculation of “What was to come.”
For the faculty and staff, brisk group walks and passionate, soul-searching conversations once again started to occur at various impromptu times and places on campus during the day and night.
While in the administrative offices of the headmaster, on several occasions Mrs. Ball found herself being startled out of her wits when without warning Thurgood burst into song, only to be immediately admonished by her grouse, “Oh for pity’s sake!”
Invigorated, eager to continue with their projects, and brimming with brilliant new ideas that came from being Females of Intellectual Genius, the FIGs left the small village of Puli feeling they had accomplished a great deal, and filled with the expectation of much more still to come.
Dr. Wu was beside himself when Dara told him about the underground markings and symbols she had seen beneath Grand Central Terminal that were similar to the ancient oracle bone markings on the burnished earthenware pottery from the excavation site, perhaps even being precursors to them. She would continue to investigate that theory, and at some point she would go back to New York where, hopefully, the two guards who had been so helpful before would let her go back underground to where she had first seen the markings in order to confirm her findings. Carolina, Mackenzie, and Jennifer had said they would like to go with her as well.
Jennifer was looking forward to meeting with her faculty advisor in order to set up some classes—perhaps on musical composition—now that she had completed the yayue ceremonial music she called The Clock Flower. She had also contacted Dr. Andrew Whatley, Director of Special Events at Carnegie Hall, to tell him about The Clock Flower, and he was already making plans for a special performance of her newest musical composition later in the year, tentatively scheduled over Thanksgiving. That way, Carolina, Dara, and Mackenzie could attend. Of course, Miss Alcott was once again planning to reserve tickets for herself along with Mrs. Ball and Headmaster Harcourt. And Mrs. Killebrew was busy looking through her favorite recipes and making a list of special dishes she would prepare for a post-performance late-night gathering for her friends. Ling wanted to attend as well, and had offered to put Dr. Whatley in touch with several Chinese musicians who played the ancient wooden instruments. It would be a wonderful cultural event for both countries.
Mackenzie had never been happier. By substituting the molecular structure of the red dandelion in place of the yellow, it was only a matter of time until Yellow Sea Laboratories would be able to present something to the FDA for final approval. She and her mother had grown quite close during their time together in Puli, and they were even thinking about making a trip to Scotland to see where Mackenzie’s father had lived and worked as a sheep rancher, something Ling had never been able to bring herself to do on her own. They would invite Carolina, Dara, and Jennifer to go with them. Eventually, that land and all that was on it would belong to Mackenzie, but that would come later.
As Headmaster Harcourt promised, the suite the FIGs had used while living at Wood Rose was ready for them. Ms. Larkins, the dorm mother, personally cleaned their rooms and made up their beds with fresh linens—dark blue sheets and pillow cases, dark blue blankets, and dark blue spreads. Even though it was against the rules, she also took it upon herself to put a small flas
hlight under each of the FIG’s pillows, which she knew they had done surreptitiously while living at Wood Rose.
Because it was so late by the time Larry delivered them from the airport, she had turned back their spreads and left a light on in each of their rooms. This, of course, was strictly against Wood Rose rules which stated all lights had to be out by no later than 10 p.m. But seeing that this was an unusual and somewhat special occasion, Ms. Larkins saw no harm in it. Neither did Headmaster Harcourt who had noticed the lights being left on as he watched through his window to make sure Carolina and the FIGs arrived back at Wood Rose safely after their long overseas flight.
In addition, Ms. Larkins felt confident there was no possible blame she could get sucked into for anything the FIGs might do now that they were no longer student-residents at Wood Rose. Therefore, she had removed her somewhat crude, home-made alarm consisting of a string and small bell that was meant to wake her whenever the FIGs tried to slip out in the middle of the night. It had never worked anyway.
The next morning, the FIGs dressed and cut across the lawn to Carolina’s bungalow, ignoring the “Stay off the Grass” sign and leaving footprints in the light dusting of snow that had fallen during the night. Larry had said he would take them all out to Wolfie’s for brunch, for he had much to tell them as well as messages to deliver from Lyuba, Lucia, Mother Granchelli, and Mrs. Killebrew.
Even though they had been away from Wood Rose only a matter of a few months and nothing had changed, somehow it had. Everything seemed smaller within the ivy-covered stone walls—the grounds, the buildings, even Carolina’s bungalow looked slightly diminished. There was one other noticeable difference. The old pickup truck Jimmy Bob drove on his rounds each night during the witches’ moments that he always kept parked at the east end of the administration building was now parked in front of a single-bedroom bungalow normally reserved for one of the unmarried faculty members, just down from where Mrs. Ball lived. Sprawled in a blissful state of sleep on the small enclosed front porch of the bungalow was a big hound dog.
“Headmaster Harcourt decided we needed 24-hour security,” Carolina told the FIGs when they asked about why Jimmy Bob’s truck was parked where it was. “By living in one of the bungalows, Jimmy Bob will be right here should anything happen.” Jimmy Bob had told her the news himself when she got in at that late hour the night before. “That’s old Tick—from Jimmy Bob’s poem—‘Beneath the Swags of Spanish Moss’—I told you about,” she then explained when the FIGs asked her about the enormous hound that appeared to have commandeered the porch. “Jimmy Bob convinced the headmaster that Wood Rose also needed a guard dog.”
The three FIGs made themselves comfortable in the home where they felt they belonged—in the cheerful surroundings of Carolina’s home-sewn curtains and pillows and decorated in the Italian Provincial colors of orange, yellow, and blue as they continued to discuss Jimmy Bob. “He will keep the old family home,” Carolina told them, “and go visit it whenever he has time off—sort of like a vacation home, even though it is only a couple of miles down the road. Apparently he just couldn’t face up to getting rid of it.”
Then changing the subject, “I was thinking about something else last night before I went to sleep,” Carolina said as she fixed coffee for the three FIGs while they waited for Larry—cream for Dara and Jennifer, extra sugar for Mackenzie. “How would you like to give a presentation to my classes sometime during the spring semester about your projects? I know the students would enjoy it—a lot more than anything I could come up with.”
Mackenzie giggled, Jennifer flipped her long blond ponytail, but Dara was the one to speak. “Boy, Carolina, you must really be desperate. First, Jimmy Bob reading his poems, now us talking about our projects.”
“I happen to know that there is money in the Wood Rose budget for your travel. Mrs. Ball confided that bit of information to me last night after Jimmy Bob told me his news about moving into the bungalow. And, your suite will always be available, according to Headmaster Harcourt, so it would just be a matter of when you can come, and if you want to. And, also, we would get to see each other,” she added, which was the primary reason she suggested the idea to begin with.
With so much to look forward to, and so many possibilities of being together, the enormous anxiety of having to once again go their separate ways didn’t feel so overwhelming. In fact, it was only natural on the night before they were to leave Wood Rose and return to their universities—during the witches’ moments—that the deep, driving need to express themselves creatively would once again surface in the minds of three Females of Intellectual Genius.
“I don’t think they have been changed since we left,” said Dara holding the flashlight on the dead, wilted pink roses stuck in a vase under the large portrait of Miss Alcott, the elderly niece of Wood Rose’s founding father. Wearing only the dark blue pajamas with the yellow trim provided for the student-residents of Wood Rose and the brown calf-high leather boots she had gotten to wear specifically for working at the archaeological dig site just outside of Puli in Shandong Province, she had taken the dark blue blanket from her bed to wrap around her to help keep her warm, for outside a light snow had started to fall.
“We definitely need to do something about that,” said Jennifer, flipping her ponytail, the hem of the dark blue night shirt trimmed in yellow around the collar pulled up between her legs and tied into a knot at the waist. Work boots she had gotten to wear at the archeology site that looked like Dara’s except they were green kept her feet warm, as well as the blanket she had yanked off her bed.
Mackenzie giggled, thinking about the last time they had replaced the pink roses with cuttings from Thurgood’s red-tipped bush. His prize Photinia frasen. She fingered the yellow trim and then the buttons on her dark blue pajama top to make sure they were all buttoned, and held her blanket in one hand, letting it drag on the chapel floor. Because she was warm-natured, and the heat was turned on inside the chapel, her feet felt hot inside the boots that, other than being red, were identical to Dara’s and Jennifer’s; but outside, where the snow was starting to accumulate, it was another matter.
The FIGs peeped outside through the stained-glass window in the chapel and watched Jimmy Bob complete his rounds and then return to his bungalow. Before turning out his lights, he let old Tick out onto the small enclosed porch to perform his weighty responsibilities as the guard dog of Wood Rose that he was supposed to be. “I think it is too cold on that porch for old Tick,” said Dara thoughtfully.
Within minutes, three Females of Intellectual Genius wrapped in blankets quietly crunched their way through the new-fallen snow toward the small bungalow where the newest Wood Rose resident now lived. Old Tick was sound asleep on the small porch, so it took quite a bit of leg tugging, butt pushing, head pulling, and ear scratching to get the large canine up and moving. Then it was just a matter of coaxing him toward the chapel with the promise of a treat Dara had saved from their evening meal.
Finally, with old Tick comfortably situated on a bed of three dark blue blankets under the large portrait in Alcott Chapel, a wreath of dead pink roses fashioned around his head, and a Waterford crystal vase serving as his water dish on the floor within easy reach, Dara, Mackenzie, and Jennifer ran back to their suite and to their individual rooms. Within minutes, they were sound asleep—the sleep of innocent angels.
It would soon be light; and Wood Rose Orphanage and Academy for Young Women would start another day.
There was a woman who carried water along a path every day by balancing two pots hanging from a pole. The one pot was ashamed of its ugliness because it had a small hole that leaked water onto the ground. The other pot seemed more beautiful because it served its purpose of bringing water to the woman’s family. That is, until one day the woman said to the broken pot, “You are unique. The hole you have waters the path along the way. I planted seeds to make my walk more pleasant. And now I have a beautiful garden to enjoy every time I get water. Thanks to you.”
Also by Barbara Casey
Fiction
The FIG Mysteries, Book 1, The Cadence of Gypsies
The FIG Mysteries, Book 2, The Wish Rider
The Gospel According to Prissy
Just Like Family
Shyla’s Initiative
The House of Kane
The Coach’s Wife
Nonfiction
Kathryn Kelly: The Moll behind Machine Gun Kelly
Assata Shakur: A 20th Century Escaped Slave
Excerpt from
THE CADENCE OF GYPSIES
BOOK 1
THE F.I.G. MYSTERIES
Kud ce vjestica do u svoj rod?
(Where should a gypsy go if not to her kin?) The Cadence of Gypies
The gypsy—not old, but beyond her birthing years—spent the early, pre-dawn hours digging roots in the dark of the crescent moon, every so often replanting a good piece of a root to grow next year. The day before she had picked herbs, during that time when the essential oils are at their strongest, before they could get evaporated by the midday sun. She had her favorite place where she searched, the place where the energies were strongest. Surprisingly, it was the old church graveyard built on a slight mound just outside of the rural Italian village. A creek ran nearby, and a tall, unkempt yew tree grew near the entrance to the graveyard, poisonous, but giving off positive energies. It was a place she knew well, having discovered it from a previous time the travelers came this way.
The Clock Flower (THE FIG MYSTERIES Book 3) Page 12