Degrees of Freedom
Book 2–The Patua’ Heresy
© 2025 Mary C. Simmons
The Hazja
Andy and Jayzu left the Treehouse, with JoEd riding on Jayzu’s shoulder and Sugarbabe on Andy’s. I smiled at the picture they made. Charlie rides on mine when I am out walking, and has done so for as long as I can remember. He’s been with me my entire life, even if only in my heart—during the time I was imprisoned at Rosencranz and hidden deep in the Graying, though I don’t remember anything about that place.
It’s almost as if I had died and was reborn on Cadeña-l’jadia. Charlie and Andy tell me I’ve been here less than two weeks. But I am much older than two weeks! Charlie told me I was at Rosencranz for more than 20 years! I have no idea about that, but I was shocked to learn that I am 42. I don’t feel any different, so it doesn’t really matter.
Last birthday I remember was my 17th. Estelle was angry that I dropped out of high school, so I didn’t get a cake or presents or anything like that—except for my father, Casimir—when Estelle wasn’t looking, he said ‘Happy Birthday’ and gave me his traditional wink as he slipped me a $20 bill.
I have Charlie again. I hope we are together forever, Charlie and I. And JoEd. And Rika. And the kreegans. And a Treehouse to live in! What could be more wonderful?
Today, Charlie has some Archive duties, and so he left around the same time as Andy and Jayzu. Charlie is the new Chief Archivist, he told me. Starfire left that position to become Aviar of the Great Corvid Council when the former Aviar, Old Hookbeak, fell off his roost and joined the Continuum. Starfire says we all return to the Continuum when we die.
“We don’t have special places for good corvids and bad corvids,” he says. “We all return to the Continuum—some with consciousness, most without.”
I have no idea how a raven knows this, but these birds are certainly wiser than most of the yoomuns I have encountered.
“What does the Chief Archivist do?” I had asked. I barely knew what an archivist is—something about keeping records.
“The Archivists catalog and store things in the Great Lattice,” Starfire said. “Births , deaths, where bird flu is rampaging and such like. We also keep track of the Patua’—like yourself. And the Captain.”
“What about Jayzu?” I asked. “Isn’t he Patua’?”
“Yes he is,” Charlie said. “But we didn’t know that until he suddenly showed up on Cadeña-l’jadia a few months ago. Surprised us all.”
“Indeed,” Starfire grunted as he readjusted his wings. “Understand that we corvids have kept track of Patua’ for millennia. But once in awhile someone un-attached to our Great Lattice shows up. Which is wonderful in its way.”
“Great Lattice…” I murmured. “Where is that?”
“Everywhere and nowhere,” Starfire said.
“Everyone has a lattice,” JoEd piped up. “It’s how we remember stuff and keep track of things.”
“Do I have a lattice” I asked, looking at the ground and frowning. “Where is it? Why can’t I remember anything before a few days ago? Is everything gone?”
“Yes, you have a lattice,” Charlie said. “We believe it was damaged during your years at Rosencranz.”
“Where is my lattice?”
“Inside your head!” JoEd shouted gleefully.
I stared at the ground, trying to locate my lattice inside my head. I can sense my thoughts, and things around me, but I don’t see a lattice.
“What does it look like?”
“You can’t see your lattice, or even the Great Lattice,” Starfire said. “Unless you are in the Mildornia Trance.”
Mildornia. I made a face. Horrible bitter memory of its taste, and the extremely strange dreams—more like visions. Little reddish purple mouth opening and closing, eating fireflies with colorful electric tails.
Charlie tells me they use mildornia to put the Keepers into an altered state so they can see the Great Lattice that is connected to the lesser Lattices we all have inside our own heads. The Great Lattice is where our histories and memories and learning live—and it never dies. Usually we only remember our own personal histories or learning.
“Which is why the Great Corvid Council established the Mildornia Trance,” Charlie said. “Hundreds and hundreds of years ago. So they can keep all the memories of everyone in one place—the Great Lattice.”
Only the Archivist and the Keepers in the Mildornia Trance can enter the Great Lattice, but no one else can without proper training, or mildornia. But anyone can access their own Lattice—if they eat mildornia.
Charlie and Starfire think I ate just enough mildornia to ‘see’ my own lattice, but not enough to access memories.
“But,” Starfire said, “the visions you describe after eating a single berry resemble both our individual lattices as well as the Great Lattice
“Most of the time,” Charlie said, “memories that are not remembered still exist in our own lattice.
“True,” Starfire said. “We have connected lost memories of some of our species to their individual lattices. I have found records in the Great Lattice that indicate the ancient Patua’ used the Mildornia Trance on themselves. With a little more research into the Great Lattice, I will find the proper dosage of mildornia for yoomuns—for you, Charlotte.”
JoEd has been in Keeper Training, he proudly told me that he will soon go under the Mildornia Trance and enter the Great Lattice. But much as I want to remember what I have forgotten, I have no desire to eat mildornia again—the bitter taste of that one berry remains in my memory.
“We ferment the berries,” Charlie said, as if he knew my thoughts. “Which makes it somewhat more edible.”
“You still puke it up,” JoEd said.
Unhelpful. I hate puking under all circumstances, but the mildornia retching was the worst. Eager to move on, I said: “So, why do you go into the Great Lattice? What do you do there? What do you see?”
“Hmmphhh,’ Starfire grunted. “Everything that has happened since the Beginning is stored in the Great Lattice, such as events of interest among the crows and ravens. Not just on this island, but many things outside that are important. We also record certain events of yoomun activities—history you might say. Things that need to be remembered.”
“Everything?” I asked. “The Great Lattice must be huge.”
“Huge yet can fit inside a raven brain with room to spare,” Starfire said. “The Great Lattice does not need space, as it does not exist in the familiar dimensions of the universe as we know it.”
“How did you ever learn how to do this?” I asked, amazed.
“The ancient Patua’ taught our species many thousands of years ago,” Starfire said. “We alone carry the Great Lattice—after the Patua’ diaspora that sent them all over the Earth. We know of know yoomun who knows the ways of the Mildornia Trance, nor the Great Lattice.”
“So,” I said. “Nothing is ever lost?”
“Nothing is ever lost in memory,” Starfire said. “We have found that memory loss—or dislocations as we call them—are the result of broken filaments within the individual’s lattice. The Great Lattice is another story however—as we emplace data—memories of events, if you will. The Great Lattice does not encompass the memories of any of us—including the Keepers.”
“Filaments?” I said, frowning.
“Your fireflies,” Starfire answered. “These filaments—threads—connect all the pockets of memory—we call them ‘nodes’ together. In this way, memory is quite circular, and one memory is always connected to other memories. In this way, memories can usually be restored by re-routing.”
“We think you have forgotten so much,” Charlie said, “because of broken filaments in your lattice. If the filaments are broken, the nodes are disconnected and un-remembering happens. But we have found that the memory is never gone, it is only unconnected.”
“Under the Mildornia Trance, our Keepers know well how to reattach and restore what is broken or missing,” Starfire said. “This is the first skill they learn.”
My head ached trying to visualize my lattice, with Keepers inside fixing my broken filaments. I imagined the Keepers using some strange tools that emitted blue light, fastening filament to node.
“But first,” Charlie said, “they have to perform filament repair on each other. Only then do we train them on the Great Lattice. See, everyone forgets things—yoomuns, crows, ravens. Like hatching; no one remembers what it was like to peck our way out of our orbs. So the Keepers-in-training re-attach the filaments connected to each others hatchings, so they remember being born into this world. Most everyone, including yoomuns, forget the birth experience.”
“True,” Starfire rumbled. “These are not pleasant memories. Birth is painful.”
A familiar voice…Rika’s… whispered across my mind: Some things you can’t unsee.
Fascinating. Someday maybe I will try it. When I forget the horrible taste of mildornia, and the aftermath of puking and the terrible thirst and the dreams I did not understand. For now, I will consider why I need to remember anything.
Today, I am in a Treehouse with Rika and the kreegans. With a backpack of food that Jayzu brought. I suppose I would like to remember how I know him, butI am more curious about the little cabin that Jayzu said Bruthamax lived in over a hundred years ago.
I fell in love with the cabin as soon as I entered. Charlie had described it perfectly—though he told me I had spent a night here, I don’t remember. Shelving on the wall held a small stack of clothing, some canned food, and a couple dishes. A small table with one chair next to a small wood stove—only one chair for the hermit.
The bed looked like any bed made of medium-sized logs. I flopped down on the mattress, the dried leaves crunching beneath me. I could spend my life here.
But first, food.
I rose and left the cabin, intent on the backpack full of food.
“This should do you for a couple days,” Jayzu had said. “Though I will be back this afternoon with more, so eat as much as you want.”
I dug into the backpack as soon as they left and pulled out the first thing I saw. Cookies! My stomach rumbled and, I ate one straightaway.
“Plenty of room in the cabin, dearie,” Rika said, “for whatever you don’t eat.”
I nodded, another cookie between my teeth as I emptied the rest of the food onto the floor of the deck. I planned on eating everything.
Thirsty, I took a water bottle stuffed into one of the pockets out, wrapped in a leather cord. When I unwound the cord, a strange black object dangled and swayed in front of my face. I stopped its swinging, and gazed at the fine carvings on the oval-shaped thing, depicting a yoomun hand on one side clasping a crow wing on the other.
Familiarity overtook me. All strangest about the object disappeared.
I had one of these long ago. What was it doing in Jayzu’s backpack?
Mesmerized, I turned it over and over in my palm, and it seemed to get very warm. The air around me started to sparkle and swirl as if the sun reflected its light through a million tiny floating crystals. All the crystals began to align and connect, forming vibrating bonds that crackle as they undulate, circling me, the Treehouse, the forest beyond.
Within seconds, the deck disappeared from underneath me, yet something still supports my prone body.
I hear someone screaming a litany of obscenities.
It is me.
Jayzu is gone
The Captain cruised the Waterfront for an hour past the time Jayzu said he’d be back. He called and texted him numerous times with no answer. He sent out Sugarbabe to see if any of the Downtown crows had seen the priest.
He walked the few blocks to St Sophia’s with Sugarbabe riding on his shoulder. He pulled open the gigantic ornate carved door to the Cathedral and stepped inside.
Frankincense hung in the air inside the cool, semi-dark interior. Movement up near the opulently furnished, gold-encrusted altar caught his attention. Someone sweeping the floor looked up when he walked in. The doors were always open during the day for whoever wanted to come and pray or whatever, so the janitor paid no mind to the visitor—not even to the crow on his shoulder which was not an unusual sight in Ledford—and went back to sweeping.
He left the dark cathedral and squinted as the bright sun stung his eyes. He walked around to the back of the cathedral and knocked on the door loudly and repeatedly until someone answered. He explained who he was to the Monsignor’s housekeeper, and asked if Father Manzi was on the premises. She had to go and ask the Monsignor.
“No sir,” she said to the Captain. “He left right after the funeral Mass.”
“Did you see him leave?”
“No, sir,” she said and started to close the door.
“Is Father Thomas Majewski here?” the Captain asked.
She looked sideways for a moment and said, “He just left too. I don’t expect him to return until maybe tomorrow. Shall I tell him you called?”
“No, thank you, Ma’am,” the Captain said and tipped his hat.
He walked to the nearest grocery store in the unlikely event that Jayzu was somehow obliviously grocery shopping for the past two hours. He returned to his boat and called Jayzu again. No answer.
“Jayzu’s done gone,” Sugarbabe said, as she waited for him at the boat. “Not on his own two feet though.”
“What does that mean?” The Captain said and gave the crow a peanut.
“They said he was carried out, like a sack of rocks,” Sugarbabe said, after she beaked the peanut.
“And?” The Captain said as he opened his palm to another peanut, then closed it.
“Ya,” she said. “They carried him out and stuffed him into a blue car. They took him away. Don’t know where.” She nuzzled his closed fist.
He opened his hand and flipped her the peanut.
“Who took him away?”
“Don’t know.” She stared at his hand as if he was concealing a peanut from her. “Men in black.”
The Captain stayed around the Waterfront as long as he could, but as the sun began to kiss the horizon, he started back to the island. River law was such that boating was not allowed after sunset. Might as well not tempt them. He pushed off and headed back.
There was nothing else to do but return to the island and tell Charlie that Jayzu had disappeared. Which could only mean one thing—that someone knows Charlotte is on the island and defenseless. Not that Jayzu could defend her against a police force…
Fortunately, no one can get to the island by water without the Captain—but they’d have to catch him first. He would refuse. Unless they dropped ninjas out of a helicopter, Charlotte would be relatively safe.
But he wouldn’t leave Charlotte alone tonight.
At the moment of sunset, he docked at the Sanctuary when JoEd flew onto the railing of his boat. He’d looked everywhere for Jayzu, he’d told the Captain. No Jayzu, but he did find out some things from Floyd and Willy.
JoEd had met up with the two cousins in the park adjacent to St Sophia’s.
“You guys seen Jayzu?” he had asked them.
“Not recently,” Willy said. “Why?”
“Welp,” JoEd said, “he’s gone missing.”
“What?” Floyd said, looking up from the bag of half-eaten fries he was standing on. “Where’d he go?”
“Dunno,” JoEd said, shrugging his wings. “That’s why I’m asking if you’ve seen him. See, after the Bunya’s death ritual at the church, Jayzu was s’posed to go back to the Waterfront. Me’n the Captain, and Sugarbabe—we waited and waited, but he never showed up. No one knows anything, hardly and he’s just…gone.”
“Like, disappeared without a trace?” Willy said
“Vanished into thin air?” Floyd said.
“Like he evaporated?” Willy said.
“Seems so,” JoEd said. “You guys seen anything lately?”
“Like what?” Willy said. “We see lotsa things.”
“We like to spy on stuff,” Floyd said.
“Who you been spying on?” JoEd asked.
“Welp,” Willy said, “we used to spy on the Bunya until he went and kicked the bucket.”
“Yep,” Floyd said, “then we had to find something else to spy on.”
“So we went to Downtown,” Willy said.
“To the churchyard,” Floyd said.
“Ya,” Willy said. “And guess who we saw?”
“I dunno,” JoEd said, and beaked another French fry. “Tell me.”
The cousins looked at one another and said in unison: “Father Big.”
“Ya, and he’s got a big office with a window right there in the church place.” Floyd said.
“And,” Willy said, “so we hung out on his window spying, same as we did at the Bunya’s house.”
The two crows snickered.
“Father Big,” Floyd said, “he don’t like that. He hates crows.”
They guffawed loudly.
JoEd almost flew away, but stopped when Floyd said, “neither did that other guy—what was his name?”
“Jools,” Willy said.
“Ya, Jools,” Floyd said. “The Bunya’s solicitor, I believe they call him—he hates crows too.”
“Lawyer,” Willy said.
“Oh yeah,” Floyd said. “Attorney at Law, that’s what Jools is. We don’t like him either.”
“Nope,” Willy said. “We spied on Jools a lot. He loves orbs more than anything.”
“Ya,” Willy said, “everyone knows that.”
“And we followed him to the Bunya’s death ritual,” Floyd said, “and when didn’t come out, we naturally flew up to Father Big’s window. And there he was, Jools and Father Big.”
With Sugarbabe on his left shoulder where she always rode, and JoEd on his right, The Captain walked briskly to the Treehouse. They found Charlotte sitting on the deck with several kreegans in her lap. She stroked their feathers in turn with one hand, while the other remained clenched; she was holding something in her fist. She looked up when the Captain came through the hole in the deck with two crows on his shoulders, but said nothing.
Her face betrayed enormous bewildered sadness, and the little ones were unusually quiet. He sat down next to her without speaking, never being the one who broke silence. But JoEd was having none of whatever had enveloped Charlotte and the kreegans.
“Jayzu has disappeared!” JoEd said after leaping off the Captain’s shoulder and planting himself square in her lap.
The displaced kreegans squeaked their displeasure as they scattered, but they didn’t try to reclaim their space. JoEd had seniority, being older. So they went about play -fighting and teasing each other with silly insults.
“You were never hatched,” one of them said to another. “You were just puked up.”
“Ya!” Another kreegan agreed. “With the worms!”
The kreegans exploded with raucous laughter.
Charlotte did not reply to JoEd’s information, but began stroking his feathers as she had the younger kreegans. After several minutes, she turned to the Captain and said:
“Where is my daughter, Andy?”
Father Big
After many years, it seemed, I found myself sitting on a deck in a treehouse with many crows perched around the railing—or in the tree, or flying around dive-bombing unknown objects on the ground. Charlie’s kreegans—I know most of their names—were especially fond of my lap.
I stroked their heads with one hand and held the hazja in the other. I felt its pulsating vibrations generating swirling currents of my life—memories that I had forgotten during my long years at Rosencranz. I remember now why I was there.
My 17th birthday has faded into to the distant past. I have a daughter older than that.
The hazja might be mine, actually—it was taken from me just before the birth of my daughter. This one is so similar it could be mine, but I don’t know how or why Jayzu had it.
Jayzu. I remember him now, how he came to Rosencranz and spoke with me, in the only language I was willing to speak. The language of the crows—the Patua’. He showed me how to run away to Andy’s boat on the big river, which brought me here.
I have many questions to ask Jayzu. The hazja…
Andy came back from the city without Jayzu. The crows were quite upset, and all spoke at once:
“Where’s Jayzu, Cap’n?” “Why didn’t Jayzu come back?” “When’s he comin’ home?” Where’d he go?” “When’ll he be back?”
Andy told us everything he knew, including that Jayzu had been carried, unconscious to a blue car and taken away.
“And Father Big watched from his window,” Sugarbabe said.
“Who are you talking about?” I asked. “Who is Father Big?”
“It was FatherBig!” Sugarbabe hollered. “Jayzu’s boss!”
I frowned toward her, and then at Charlie. “His boss?”
“Yes,” Charlie said. “Jayzu has a boss he calls Thomas,” Charlie said. “He’s been here to the island—and told Jayzu about you at Rosencranz.”
“Jayzu’s boss knew I was at Rosencranz?” The frown on my face deepened. “How did he know that?”
After a brief silence Charlie said: “Father Big is Father Thomas Majewski, Charlotte. Your brother.”
Dead silence fell. Even the roar river seemed to go quiet as I fully remembered that day Tommy had me dragged off my little island with my arms tied around my back. To Rosencranz. Where my daughter was born.
I shoved the memory back down before I exploded with the anger and terror of that day. If Tommy took Jayzu away today, he could come for me tomorrow.
“Where did Tommy take him?” I asked as calmly as I could through clenched teeth.
No one spoke.
Andy, Sugarbabe, and JoEd stayed overnight on the deck at the Treehouse with me. Charlie and Rika were up in the tree with their kreegans. I felt safe enough during the night. But what would tomorrow bring? Would Jayzu return? Or would Tommy come for me?
Neither possibility could eclipse my need and desire to find my daughter. I remember the day we faced each other, and how she sang the song that I often heard as a child. And then she disappeared. And Jayzu denied she was there…
I want to ask him about that also.
“Andy,” said as we looked up at the stars that winked through the leaves and branches above them. “I need to find my daughter. Will you help me tomorrow?”
“Yes,” he said. “Since we can’t find Jayzu…yes.”
Two scenarios played through his head. Should he bring Jade to the island? Or take Charlotte into the city? Or somewhere else where no one would think to look? Both ideas seemed risky and dangerous.
In any case, he’d need some help, some backup to pull anything off, as he was sure the police would somehow come looking for her on the island. Maybe they’d probably try to arrest him on the river.
Ha! He snorted as he rolled over.
I never get caught.
The Homecoming
Jade stood up from weeding the vegetable garden and pulled her ringing cell phone from her back pocket.
Russ. He’s due back tomorrow.
She smiled and tossed her blonde curls back as she brought the phone to her ear, and said, “Russ! Are you okay? Are you back home? Or still at the airport? Do you need me—”
She heard him laugh at the other end—that familiar warm sound that she’d forgotten. In spite of the many moments she’d spent being angry with Russ for accusing her of hallucinating her mother, she really missed him.
The way he laughed. The way he smelled when she buried her face into his shoulder. She couldn’t wait to see him.
“Almost,” Russ said, his voice sounding happy but tired. “I’m in Miami. Where are you?”
“I’m at the farm,” she said. “They just started the harvest, but if you need me to, I can—”.
“No, that’s ok,” he said, “Our flight lands in a ridiculous 3:23 a.m. tomorrow,” Russ said. Or today, or whatever day it is. Or will be.”
Jade bit her lip, her joy dissipating. Our flight.
“I don’t need you to drive in from the farm. I’ll just take a taxi home. I call you when I wake up back in our own time zone.”
Will she spend the night at our house too?
“Oh, okay,” Jade said, relieved she didn’t have to get up in the middle of the night and drive to the airport. But… “What about Vinnie?” She tried to make her voice sound normal, like Vinnie was his sister, or just some random colleague.
“She’s going home too,” Russ said. “Her wife is picking her up.”
Her wife?
Jade nearly dropped the phone. All that angst…it was hard not to burst out laughing at her foolishness. They chatted for a few more minutes about his flight, the trip, how glad they both were he was on his way home.
“Love you, babe,” Russ said. “See you soon!”
“I can’t wait!” Jade said. “Love you too.”
After they rang off, Jade rolled the words ‘Her wife is picking her up’ around in her head, smiling. “Russ is coming home,” she said to Old Blue WillowB.
Which home? Jade wondered, finally. The farm had completely engulfed her; it was hard to imagine going back to their house in the city suburbs. She couldn’t very well manage a farm from a distance. And she couldn’t just walk away from it like it was a rental or a hotel.
Russ won’t want to live here. And I don’t want to live in the city.
After a light dinner and a cup of hot chocolate on the porch, Jade started to nod. Several episodes of jerking her head up from falling sideways, she yawned, picked up her dishes and went inside. Dishes in the sink could wait til morning, she was too tired to do anything but undress, put on her nightgown and drop into bed.
She fell asleep mere seconds after her head hit the pillow. Her mother’s melancholy voice singing into the wind wove in and out of her dreams. Great Aunt Lizzie’s voice arose and sang with her—the same verse over and over again:
Will you go, Lassie go?
Jade sat up suddenly, switched the lamp on its lowest brightness. Moments later a mist appeared, and hovered for a few seconds within the scent of lavender. Great Aunt Lizzie’s face coalesced from the billowing mist, followed by her willowy body attired in pale green velvet dress, with cream-colored lace at her throat and wrists. She was, as always, the portrait of elegance.
“He’s gone,” Great Aunt Lizzie said, her voice undulating as if she were underwater. “He’s been taken away.”
“What? Who’s gone? Who took him?” Jade swung her legs over the edge of the bed and reached for her robe.
“Another Father.”
“Alfredo’s father is gone?” Jade said. “What are you talking about?”
“For heaven’s sake, child,” Great Aunt Lizzie said as she leaned toward Jade. “Wake up!”
A sudden gust of chilly wind from Great Aunt Lizzie’s general direction blew Jade’s hair backwards for a few seconds.
“Now, let’s try this again,” Great Aunt Lizzie said. “Jayzu’s gone. He was taken away by someone working for Father Big.”
“Who’s Father Big?” Jade said, yawning as she struggled into her robe.
“Father Thomas Majewski,” Great Aunt Lizzie said.
“What?”
“Yes,” Great Aunt Lizzie, “Uncle Tommy.”
Stunned, Jade really wished she was still asleep and dreaming of a ghost. She sighed. “I need coffee.”
“Tea for me, dear,” Great Aunt Lizzie said.
When they were seated on the porch with their respective tea and coffee—spiked with a dollop of mildornia wine, Jade said: “Now spill it, tell me everything. What happened to Alfredo?”
“As I was saying,” Great Aunt Lizzie said, “After the Bunya’s death sham of a funeral, Jayzu was taken away. In a blue car. They say he was unconscious.”
“Wait, what?” Jade said, frowning. “Someone took him off the island in a blue car?”
“For the love of the universe, wake up!” Great Aunt Lizzie said, and slapped Jade lightly with delicately embroidered silk gloves. “Jayzu went into to the city to officiate Henry Braun’s funeral. He never returned to the island. No knows where he went, except that he was taken away in a blue car.”
“A blue car? Where? By who? What about—” Jade’s eyes grew large. Her chest tightened as her heart beat quickened. “Oh no! My mother. She’s alone!”
“Yes!” Great Aunt Lizzie said, her voice triumphant with a note of exasperation. “Why else would I call you out of a dead sleep?” She put a finger on the rim of her tea cup, swiped off a small spot of mildornia.
“Yes dear. Charlotte is alone,” Great Aunt Lizzie said, and licked her finger. “Except for a few hundred crows, ravens, magpies, and the like. And, to say nothing of insects and the things that scurry on the ground. As well, the Captain is back on the island, so she is not alone by any means.”
“I need to go to her!”
“Indeed you do!” Great Aunt Lizzie said. “But not now. In the morning, when it is light.”
Wuf,” Old Blue said softly.
She woke up with the dog’s cold nose nuzzling her fingers. Still in the rocking chair on the porch, the sky was the color of dawn. Disoriented, she rubbed her face with her hands. I must’ve fallen asleep down here. She stood and picked up the bottle of mildornia wine from the table, the Guardian Angle’s shimmering face appeared for a moment on the label.
Visions of her mother lost and alone, singing into the darkness, with tears rolling down her face intertwined with Great Aunt Lizzie’s animated face on the mildornia wine bottle speaking: “Wake up, child!… Time is running out!”
“I gotta call Kate and Sam,” Jade said, searching around for her cell phone. Not on the table, not in the pocket of her robe, she went inside the house. As she approached the kitchen to look there, she heard it ringing.
Upstairs.
It was Kate.
“Alfredo has vanished.” Kate said. “He was—”
“I know,” Jade said. “I was just about to call you. Tell me what happened—all I know is that he vanished sometime yesterday afternoon.”
“Sugarbabe dropped a note to Sam from the Captain this morning,” Kate said. “Alfredo never came home yesterday from Henry Braun’s funeral. The Captain waited for hours at the Waterfront to take him back to the island, but he never showed up. That’s all we know.”
“So he just disappeared?” Jade frowned.
“Pretty much,” Kate said. “I’ve got my small yet efficient network of spies trying to find out if he anyone saw where he went, and with whom. And if the police were involved.”
“My mother’s alone,” Jade said. “I’ve got to get to the island. Can I get Sam to contact the Captain this morning and take me to the island. I really need to get there!”
“That’s a done deal,” Kate said. “The Captain’ll meet you at Sam’s this afternoon. And, Charlotte’s not exactly alone. Other than usual crows, the Captain usually docks at the island at night. I’m sure he’ll look after her til we find Alfredo.”
“Hopefully, I’ll be there too,” Jade said, “looking after her. Were the police notified? Not that we want the cops sniffing around the island.”
“No,” Kate said. “My aforementioned vast network of spies tells me no one has reported Alfredo missing to the police. Who would tell them?”
“Uncle Tommy, maybe?” Jade asked. She shivered. “Does he have to be my uncle?”
“Looks like it, “Kate said. “But I’ll bet my law license Uncle Tommy is involved in Alfredo’s. He left me a message yesterday that Alfredo had asked for a leave of absence from his duties at St Sophia for a couple weeks. To visit his sick mother.”
“Do you believe that?” Jade said.
“Hell no,” Kate said. “Alfredo’s mother is dead.”
“Do you think he knows where Alfredo is?”
“Without a doubt,” Kate said. “Anyway, the Captain’ll be at Sam’s around 1 o’clock. Come get me, and we’ll go out there together.”
They rang off, and Jade got dressed, threw some clothes and toiletries into a backpack, believing she would be on the island for a day or two at least. She called Mrs Flanagan. “I need to go into Ledford visit some friends and to deal with some estate matters,” she said. “Would you please feed Old Blue and WillowB til I get back??
“Oh course, honey,” Mrs Flanagan said. “Don’t you worry about a thing. We’ll take care of the critters and everything. Bertram and the men’ll be starting the harvest—they’ll look after the place.”
Jade flopped down on the bed next to the sleeping WillowB. “I’m going away, Mr B, but just for a couple days or so. Don’t worry! Mrs Flanagan’ll be by to feed you and Old Blue.”
Willow B lifted his head, his eyes like slits. He yawned, put his head back down and covered his eyes with a paw.
NOT THE END!
-to be continued…Chapter 16 etc in progress.
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Constructive comments appreciated and are encouraging…
Mary C Simmons ... Art and Word 