About me…

Kate and Sam arrived at the farm shortly before noon. Jade greeted them at the front door, but Mrs Flanagan—who had been bustling about all morning, promptly chased them out. 

“You go on now, missy,” she said to Jade, waving her apron. “You go on and show your friends around. We’re just about done here, and I’m going home to change my clothes. No one’ll be here till after 2. Now git!”

The three friends and Old Blue went out the kitchen door at the back of the house.  Jade pointed to the small cornfield. “Back in my childhood, Smitty grew the most amazing corn. It was Chloe though, who told him what seeds to plant where. After she died, he still grew a walloping good corn crop. But not like the old days, when she was here.”

“I bet you miss them both a lot,” Kate said.

Jade nodded. “I do. I wish I had come back to visit more than I did.” Sometimes I wish I never left.

She steered the group around the back of the house to the small vegetable garden. “This was our private garden. The corn too, but there was always more than we could eat in a year, so Smitty sold or traded the extra with the other farms.”

“Wow!” Kate said as they came upon the riotous vegetable garden. “I’ve never seen color like this! The greens are greener, the flowers more intense. And the hugeness! Look at that those tomatoes!”

“Orgiastic,” Sam said. “That’s the only word for it.”

Jade and Kate laughed.

“Sam’s right,” Jade said, rising up tall and adopting a serious expression on her face. She lowered her voice an octave or two and continued” “Flowers are all reproductive organs, you know, and even vegetables start off as flowers.”

Both Kate and Sam cracked up laughing.

“You sound just like him!” Kate said.

“I hear this sort of thing a lot,” Jade said, grinning. God, I miss him. “Funny how we don’t have a garden at home, him being a botanist, and me being the grand-daughter of farmers.”

“So,” Kate said, as they wandered toward the cornfields, “how’s it going out here all by your lonesome, Jade?.”

“I miss Russ of course,” Jade said. “But I love it here. This is my home. And Russ is gone, so I’d be rattling around our house by myself anyway. I’m totally fine.” 

Except for my anxiety over the fantasies I’m having of him and Vinnie having deeply romantic conversations about the reproductive organs of orchids in the jungles of Ecuador. By themselves.

She wanted to slap herself for such thoughts. Russ had never given her any cause to mistrust him. And after he had shown her a photo of Vinnie, she had relaxed. A little.

“She doesn’t hold a candle to you, babe,” he had said.

“I can see why,” Kate said. “I’d call this ‘home’ in a heartbeat! You could live here forever without ever leaving, and never go hungry!” She threw up her arms and made a 360-degree turn. “There’s corn, and tomatoes and squash and green beans, and flowers—look at the flowers everywhere. It’s so…rich in everything!”

“Ditto,” Sam said, “though I might like a burger now and then. And an egg.”

“We used to have chickens,” Jade said. “And Smitty bought beef and deer meat from the Flanagans, and we went fishing a lot.”

Sam tore off a corn cob and ripped open the long green and red sheath. “Oh, man!” he said, holding it up. “Check this out! Ruby red, orange, yellow. Amazing!”

“Chloe called it Gold of Sunrise,” Jade said. “Because of all those colors.”

“Sure is pretty,” Sam said, examining the translucent, iridescent reddish orange kernels pocked with an occasional blue and yellow.

“We’ll come back later after the Wake and pick some for you guys to take home,” Jade said.

“Meanwhile,” Jocko said from a nearby fencepost, “we’ll take care of that one right now.” 

“If you please,” said Chuck as he touched down at Jade’s feet.

Jocko plopped down beside him.

Jade and Sam laughed.

“Be my guest, zhekkies,” Jade said. “You know the rules—whatever’s on the ground and not attached to a living plant…is yours.” She set the corncob that Sam had ripped open on the ground.

“So, you too, now?” Kate said, laughing. “I might’ve known.”

“I did know,” Sam said. “That time on Wilder….”

“Yes,” Jade said. “It’s true. Evidently I stopped listening and talking to the crows when I was a little girl. But I guess I never forgot. I just didn’t want to hear it for a long time.”

Mrs Flanagan had arranged the entire Wake—the people, the food, the timing, the furniture layout. Everything. People Jade had not seen in years showed up, with a covered dish for the pot luck. Smitty had been well-loved. 

“He was the most generous man I ever knew,” Fred Coyne said. “Give you the shirt right off his back.”

“Raised the best crop of corn you ever saw,” Barney Bodine said. “Year after year.”

“I got his corn growin’ in my patch,” Fred said, nodding. “‘Cept it ain’t as pure as what he first gave me. On account of that demon seed AgMo got growing all over tarnation.”

“It ain’t right,” Barney said. “Dinkin’ around with DNA, like ‘at.”

“There’s a whole crop of Smitty’s corn out back, Fred,” Jade said. “I’ll need a lot of help harvesting it. I’d be happy to give you all the corn and seeds you want.”

“That’d be right fine,” Fred said.

“We’ll be here, Miss Jade,” Barney said. “I got my own corn, and some fresh seeds from Smitty a couple years back. But we’ll get that corn of yours taken down, don’t you worry!”

Nearly all the men offered to help with the corn harvest, mowing the lawns, and any of the other things they designated ‘man’s work’.

Smitty’s old friends, farmers to a man, told stories of the small farms vanishing, swallowed up by the monster AgMo. They worried about being sued for illegally growing AgMo’s patented seed on the edges of their farms—the ‘demon seed’ they never planted, but had come on its own. 

“Then we learned AgMo was suing everyone for using seed from last year’s crop,” Fred said.

“AgMo’s won them all,” Kate said.

“And AgMo takes their farm,” Barney said.

This tiny handful of small farmers had held out—and Smitty had been their champion in the fight against giant agribusiness companies like AgMo from absorbing them up. Not by trying to find legal ways around the patent laws, but to continue producing their crops from their own seed. Chloe had been the one to make sure the strains stayed healthy. But it was Smitty who convinced all the neighboring farms to use his seed instead of AgMos.

“Smitty kept us all from bein’ backed into a corner,” Barney said.

Kate listened to their stories, especially those where an AgMo agent had first nosed around their property, then knocked on their doors with an offer from the company to buy their land. If the kids didn’t want to farm after their fathers and grand-fathers passed on, the farms all got sold.

“AgMo pays,” Edwin said. “Cash on the barrel head. Some folks are strapped. The price was right.”

“You can say that about ‘em” Fred said. “They paid fair market to anyone wantin’ to sell. Or was forced to.”

“Them’s carnivores, don’t you think anything about them bein’ fair or nothin like ‘at,” Barney snorted. “Surprised they didn’t send a vulture out when Smitty passed.”

“They will,” Kate said. “As soon as his estate shows up in probate. If I can help you keep these predators away, call me.” She passed her card around to the men. “I am an estate attorney. And don’t worry about money. I’ve got funding that will help pay the legal bills to fight them.”

Mrs Flanagan stayed long enough after the wake to make sure everything had been cleaned up. She directed Kate to bring the empty dishware to her to wash, while Jade put leftovers in the fridge, and Sam returned the furniture to their normal positions. Bertram loaded up his truck with all the extra chairs they had brought.

“Thanks so much for everything, Mrs Flanagan,” Jade said as the older woman folded her into her bosom. “It is so good to be here, even though the occasion is so sad.”

“Well, you’re right welcome here, missy,” Mrs Flanagan said. “We love having you home.”

A horn honked outside.

“That’s Bertram,” she said. “I gotta git. Bye now!”

After waving and saying goodby to Mrs Flanagan, the three friends sat around the kitchen table, drinking coffee and snacking on leftover cake. 

“I’ve got something for you, Jade,” Kate said. She reached into her bag for her wallet. “I’ve not had a chance to tell you, one of my clients loves your work and would like to commission a painting from you.” After opening her wallet, she pulled a business card out.

“Really?” Jade said. “Who?”

“Gabrielle duBois,” Kate said, handing Jade the card.

Jade’s eyebrows went up. “Gabrielle, as in the woman who bought Wilder Side? That Gabrielle?”

“Yes, that Gabrielle,” Kate said. “I gave her your cell phone number. I hope you don’t mind?”

Kate wondered if she should tell Jade that Gabrielle is the former Mrs Henry Braun. Gabrielle had asked for secrecy. It is public information, though.

“Ha! Not a bit!” Jade said. “I’d love her to have another of my paintings to replace the one Henry had destroyed!” she frowned. “I’ve never figured out why he chose to destroy that one. Did he even know Gabrielle?”

“Actually,” Kate said. “Gabrielle DuBois hired me to change her name from Minnie Braun, also known as Mrs Henry Braun.”

“What?” Jade said, nearly dropping the card Kate had given her. “You’re kidding! Henry Braun’s widow?”

“The very same,” Kate said. “Not anything like Henry. It makes you wonder what they ever had in common.”

“Beats me,” Jade said. “Maybe he was a nice guy when she met him. Or maybe they ‘had’ to get married.” She made little quote marks in the air.

“There are other reasons people are forced to marry,” Kate said. “Some people use it to hide from who they truly are.”

“Tell her the best part,” Sam said, nudging Kate with his elbow.

“She also hired me to probate Henry’s estate,” Kate said with a toothy smile. At least that was now public information, so she wasn’t revealing a secret. 

“No way!” Jade yelled so loud, Old Blue picked his head up and barked.

“Way,” Kate said, smiling and nodding. “And she wants to be really involved, as in financially, in the Friends of Wilder Island. And I plan to get her interested in helping theses farmers defend their farms from AgMo.”

“Fantastic!” Jade said. “Oh, Kate, this is all such good news! It’s been kind of harsh lately so…yay!”

“By the way,” Kate said, “keep that info private, about Gabrielle being the former Mrs Henry Braun, ok? She really doesn’t even want to be associated with his name.”

“We gotta help Jade hang onto this place,” Sam said, after they’d climbed into Smitty and Chloe’s bed. He’d totally fallen in love with the farm. “It’s everything we talk about wanting. I mean, everything anyone needs, at least in the way of food, can be grown right here. There’s a few of these places left, these little clusters of small farms. I’m afraid AgMo’s going to swallow it all up.”

“Me too,” Kate said. “Small is beautiful. But most people don’t want to farm; they want to do other things, like be an artist, or an architect, or study the stars. Or be attorneys.” 

In the morning, Sam and Kate came down the stairs, drawn by the scent of coffee.

“Help yourselves!” Jade said, pointing to the carafe on the table. “I’ll make us some French toast after I have a cup.”

A two-day old newspaper on the table caught Sam’s attention. 

Police Find Body in Search for Missing Woman 

“It isn’t her,” Jade said.

“How do you know?” Sam asked.

“Because I saw her on Wilder Island.” Jade said. “And she is my mother. I know.”

Sam looked away. 

“Russ told us all that you had insisted you had seen your mother on the island the day of our party,” Kate said.

“He didn’t believe me. Neither did Alfredo. But I saw her.” 

 “We believe you,” Kate said, speaking for herself and Sam. “All of Ledford seems to think Charlotte’s on the island. Majewski thinks so too,” 

“Why does everyone, even Majewski believe it, and not Alfredo or Russ?”

“Alfredo knows perfectly well where Charlotte is. Everyone else saw the news,” Kate said, shrugging. “People watched the videos of the mass of crows that showed up at Rosencranz the day Charlotte escaped. They were happy to jump to the conclusion that the crows wanted her as Lady of the Island. Ledford wants her too.”

Kate put her cup down on the table. “But seriously, Jade, how did you know the woman you saw was your mother? Did you talk to her?” 

“No, but we smiled at each other. And she looks exactly like I painted her,” Jade said. “I think she recognized me too.”

Sam turned to Kate. “We should tell her.”

“Tell me what?” Jade asked, scowling at Sam. “Tell me what? What do you know?”

Kate nodded. “Yes, tell her.”

“I helped Alfredo spring Charlotte from Rosencranz, and the Captain brought her to the island,” Sam said. “We couldn’t tell you before the party because—”

“Well done, Sam!” Jade’s face lit up with joy. “I couldn’t figure out how he got her out of Rosencranz! Why in hell didn’t you tell me! Of course the Captain had to have helped. Right?”

“Thanks,” he said, glancing at Kate. “Not everyone thinks we did the right thing.”

Kate narrowed her eyes to slits. “You’ll both be lucky to avoid arrest.” She turned to Jade. “Sam tells me he has never laid eyes on Charlotte. Sam drove Alfredo out to Rosencranz. With a hundred or so crows following his truck. Then he drove Alfredo back—though without the crows, who were busy creating pandemonium to cover her escape.

“But I wish you had told me, Sam,” Jade said. “Russ and I had a huge fight over this. And then he left for Ecuador.” With Vin. She blinked away the tears stinging her eyes.

“Well, I didn’t know she’s your mother,” Sam said. “But we—that is Alfredo and I, couldn’t—didn’t—tell anyone, Not even Kate. Alfredo—he swore me to secrecy. If anyone found out—”

Jade turned around, squinting one eye at Kate. “So you didn’t know?”

“No.” Sam’s shoulders sagged. “She didn’t—though she suspected—and we’ve argued terrible over it.”

“I just figured it all out, day before yesterday,” Kate said. “Alfredo asked me for my confidence as an attorney when he told me he was visiting a woman at Rosencranz. I had no idea at the time that Charlotte was your mother. When he told me he was thinking about getting her out of there, and taking her to the island, I bit his head off. I thought I’d convinced him what a stupid, felonious idea it was. I really didn’t think he’d go through with it.” She glared at Sam.

Jade threw her hands up in the air. “What the hell was Alfredo thinking? That no one would notice she was gone?”

“It was really stupid,” Kate said. 

“And we, I, couldn’t tell you,” Sam said, squirming in his chair. “See, the whole thing went down so fast. Like the day before our party at Alfredo’s cottage, we had to get her out, else she’d be taken to the new hospital up north. We couldn’t risk telling anyone. Anyone.” 

His eyes shifted to Kate’s face, and he held her in his gaze for a few moments.

“Sam drove Alfredo in his truck out to Rosencranz,” Kate said, shaking her head. “With a hundred crows following behind and overhead.” She turned to Sam. “You could not have advertised yourselves louder unless you had a megaphone.”

“I’d do it again,” he said. “Charlotte should never have been there in the first place.”

No one spoke for a couple of minutes. 

“Jeeze!” Jade said, shaking her head. “But why couldn’t Alfredo have told me after I saw her?”

“With Russ standing there?” Kate asked. “What if he somehow leaked that news, which could cause the police to get curious.” 

The three friends sat in silence, none knowing what to say. 

Looking up, Jade asked, “How did Alfredo know she was at Rosencranz in the first place?”

“Majewski told him,” Kate said, without hesitation.

“Majewski? But—how did he know?”

“Well,” Kate said, ‘evidently she is his sister.”

“What?” Jade said, rocketing to her feet, spilling coffee all over the table. “No way. Just no.”

“Yes,” Kate said. “Way.”

Jade got a dishrag from the sink and mopped up the spilled coffee. “Then, he’s my Uncle. How can this be?”

“Pretty weird,” Sam said. “Who woulda thought?”

“Who’d have thought any of this?” Kate said.

===

Majewski left the hotel parking lot in his rental car. Before he turned onto the highway toward the Rosencranz facility, Wilder Island loomed before him—a solid shadow, forbidding and aloof. A dark jewel awaiting in the distance—a siren song that beckoned his very soul, giving birth to fantasies of his life far, far away from the concrete canyons and political intrigues in D.C.

As he left the city, the Voice on his navigation app said: “In 27 miles, turn left onto Rosencranz Drive.”

Majewski never tired of re-playing his fantasy dream of a small cottage he’d build for himself, near Alfredo and the hermit’s chapel, and the rocky point. He certainly could could move to the island any time he wanted. Who would stop him? The Wilder Island trust? —of which he was a board member. And the person who saved the island from Henry Braun.

But today, he needed to see the vault at Rosencranz.

What if Stella’s file is in that vault? Now that the building was for sale, someone will probably want to open it. If anyone found out…but no—Rosencranz protected the identity of the mothers, their babies, and the families.

For a hefty fee, Rosencranz would adopt the baby out, and identify the adoptive parents as the biological parents on the birth certificate. It was all a big lie, a big expensive lie that some wealthy childless couples were eager to pay for. It harmed no one. It helped everyone. Virtually none of the unwed mothers wanted anyone to ever know of their shame, nor did their families. Their silence was guaranteed.

Likewise the adoptive parents.

Mother opted for that with Stella’s baby, too—put her up for adoption. But Father was opposed. “The baby is our flesh and blood.”

“I’ll not be raising another bastard!” Mother had raged.

She got her way.

In the monotony of the straight flat road, Stella’s face rose up in front of Majewski—in the clouds on the horizon, or as a mirage on the highway. It wasn’t the sketchy photo of the face that had been in the newspaper, but the grotesque image burned into his brain of the woman the police had found in the river…her throat slit.

“Turn left on Rosencranz Road,” the Voice on his map app instructed. A half mile later, he drove through the open gates of Rosencranz Asylum.

He parked the car in the lot and walked up to the huge wood and glass doors, and pulled on one of the handles. Locked, of course. With his hands cupped around his eyes and against the glass, he looked inside. The large room on the other side was empty, but for a few boxes and a folding chair.

“Kin I help you?” a voice said from behind him.

Startled, Majewski turned around quickly, and found a rather grizzled old man looking up at him with watery blue eyes.

“I was hoping to take a look around,” Majewski said. “I, uh, know someone who spent some time here.”

“Place closed up a week or so ago,” the old man said. He took a red bandana out of his shirt pocket and mopped the sweat from his brow. “Who you looking for?”

“Oh,” Majewski said nervously, “No one, really. My sister Stella, uh, that is, Charlotte, used to live here. Did you know her?”

“Your sister, eh?” The old man hesitated a moment as he looked into Majewski’s eyes. “Yep. I knew Charlotte.”

“Yes, I, ah, that is,” Majewski said. He reached out a hand to the old man. “I’m Father Thomas Majewski, by the way.”

“Franklin Joseph Walcott, Father,” he said, taking his hat off. Instead of shaking Majewski’s outstretched hand, he genuflected.

Majewski reached out and touched the man’s shoulder. “No need for that, Mr Walcott. I’m off duty. But I wonder if you could tell me anything about my sister?”

“Well, Father,” Frankie jerked his head toward a gazebo across the lawn. “If you don’t mind walking and talking while I work? I’ve got to get that flower bed weeded—place is up for sale, y’know. I got to keep it lookin’ nice.”

“But of course,” Majewski said and stepped off the porch.

The two men walked on the sinuous concrete path lined with flowers across the neatly manicured lawn. 

Majewski went up the step of the gazebo and sat down on one of the concrete steps, grateful for the cool breeze. 

“I sure hope they find her, Father,” Frankie said as he dropped to his knees on the ground outside the gazebo, and plucked the three or four weeds from the flower garden. “Just not like her to up and disappear like ‘at.”

“Oh? You knew her that well?” Majewski said, wiping his face with his handkerchief.

“Yep. Knew her since the day she got here,” Frankie said. “Right out of her mind she was. But she settled down by ’n by.”

“Yes, I remember that day also,” Majewski said, not wanting to recall anything about it. “It was a sad day for my family.”

“Yep,” Frankie said. “We all thought that doctor fella that come to visit was going to help her out though. She kinda woke up after that, it was kinda nice to see.”

“Yes, I’ve been told a doctor had visited her.” 

Majewski doubted Frankie’s assessment of Stella’s mental condition, but it was truly irrelevant what the old man thought.

Frankie looked up at Majewski. “Yep, that’s a fact. More than once. They used to walk out here to the gazebo and have a nice chat. Leastways, it always looked like they were chatting.”

“But you never heard them speaking?”

“No, but their mouths were moving,” Frankie said. “And once in awhile one of them would laugh. Miss Charlotte finally had a friend. It made our hearts glad to see, me and the Missus.”

“Well, I am glad too. She had but few friends even as a child,” Majewski said, shaking his head. “No one could understand a word she said.”

“Seems that doctor fella could,” Frankie said. “Miss Charlotte finally had someone to talk to, after all those years.”

Annoyed at the truth in Frankie’s veiled accusation, Majewski wanted to lash out at the man for speaking it.

“Yep, Miss Charlotte finally had a friend,” Frankie continued as he dug a reluctant dandelion from the flower bed. “I never did see her talk to anyone, ‘cept that doctor fella—he really talked to her. I saw it all.”

That doctor fella, indeed. Majewski capped off the anger rising up into his throat. “Stella spoke a strange language as a child,” he said, shaking his head. “None of the rest of us in the family could understand her. Drove my mother crazy.”

“Yet Charlotte ended up here,” Frankie looked up from his weeding. His cool blue eyes seemed accusing.

“I was Department Chair in a large University in another state,” Majewski said lamely. “Charlotte was, uh, that is, she is a lot younger than I am.” What am I doing? I don’t have to explain anything to this guy. What is he—a gardener?

“Charlotte. She wasn’t out to lunch. She was in there.” Frankie pointed to his head. “I could tell she was in there.”

“How did you know that?” Majewski asked.

“Well, I can’t say for sure,” Frankie said. “I just knew.” He stood up and tossed the weeds into the wheelbarrow and started back toward the house.

Majewski rose from his chair and followed.

“The reason I am here, Mr Walcott,” Majewski said as they walked, “is that I’d like to take a look around a bit, you know, to see where my sister spent her last days before she disappeared. If you could let me in—?”

“Well,” Frankie said. He stopped and squinted at Majewski for a long moment. “I’m not supposed to let anyone in without a realtor.” He took a card out of a pocket in his bib overalls and handed it to Majewski.

“There you go, Father,” Frankie said. “Give Mrs McFarland a call. She’ll be happy to show you around.” 

“I really don’t want to waste her time,” Majewski said. “I’m not interested in buying the place. Can you not help me? I’ve come all the way from Washington D.C.”

“I’m sure sorry, Father,” Frankie said. “But I am under strict orders to let no one in without the realtor.”

Majewski thanked him for the card, and got into his car.

Frankie leaned on his rake and watched until the car disappeared around the curve.

“Folks’re sure curious about this old place,” said a voice from above his head. “since everyone skedaddled.”

The crow dropped from the roof to Frankie’s shoulder. He reached into his pocket for a peanut and gave it to the bird.

“What’d this one want?” the crow said. “He looked like a fat magpie. All in black butcept the white patch at his throat.”

Frankie shrugged. “Not sure, Garth. Said his sister was here. Though I ain’t never seen his face to come visit.” He gave the crow another peanut. “Something’s spooked him. Something inside the building.”

“Like what?” Garth said. “Ghosts?”

“That, and a powerful lot of secrets that done got left behind.”

Majewski returned to his hotel room deflated. His visit to Rosencranz had been a bust. He had not been allowed in the building at all, let alone to look for the vault. The gardener’s reproachful eyes had followed Majewski all the way back to Ledford.

What is in that vault?

In his room, Majewski checked his emails at his laptop, and scrolled through the few that came from Luther, his secretary. Scrolled, but did not read. Anything other than Rosencranz failed to gain his attention, let alone hold it. 

Maybe the Order can buy the property. 

The old wreck would cost a fortune to buy and remodel. Could he find the money somewhere? Or convince his superiors to build something? A seminary school, perhaps. He searched through the many projects and budgets looking for a way.

Majewski shut the laptop and flicked the tv on. He ordered a light dinner from room service, and watched re-runs of Perry Mason while he ate. He set the tray on the other bed and settled back against the pillows. Another episode of Perry Mason began.

An ambulance followed by a firetruck with lights and sirens on whisked past the screen and disappeared, winking into the darkness. Majewski drifted off..

He followed the trail of little winking lights through the otherwise black dark forest. Suddenly he stood before a tribunal of judges. Frankie the gardener sat to the left of the Grand Master of the Jesuit Order. To his right sat Father and next to him, Mother. Flanking his parents were his advisor in seminary school, the Archbishop of Rome…all had advanced his careers in college, seminary school, and the Order itself.

“Bring forth the accused, Thomas Majewski,” Frankie bellowed. 

Mother’s face crumpled in slow motion, and she burst into tears, dabbing her eyes with a black lace handkerchief. “I tried! God knows I tried!” she choked out between her copious sobs.

Father shook his head in disgust.

 A woman rose up from the floor, her black hair cropped close to her scalp. She took a few steps toward him, pointing her finger. 

“Him. It was him…” She spoke through a huge gash across her neck that stretched from ear to ear.

Majewski awakened in a panic. His pillow was soaking wet; his heart beat as if he had been running, his breath came in gasps. He sat up, his utterly pale ghost-like face stared back from the mirror opposite his bed. He threw the covers off, leapt up, strode to the windows and tore open the curtains.

It was morning. Finally.

He showered and dressed. Feeling more like the Provincial Father Superior of the North American Jesuit Order, he rode the elevator to the lobby. He found a table in the coffee shop, asked the waiter who brought him a menu for a cup of black coffee and a newspaper.

When he opened the newspaper, the headlines jumped off the page.

DNA Test: It Isn’t Her

‘It’ was the body the police found. ‘Her’ was Stella.

Majewski knew the body wasn’t Stella—he had merely hoped it was. It was a sin, he knew, to wish someone dead. So many times he had admonished a troubled priest tempted off the path, and that ‘thought, word, or deed—it is all the same sin.’

Bring forth the accused…

Jayzu sprinted to the Treehouse. His footsteps pounded the bridge across the Boulder Ravine, making it sway violently. He hoped to see Charlie or at least JoEd. Waiting for news of Charlotte was unbearable, and it angered him that he was being kept from going to her.

He arrived at the Treehouse and only slowed down to navigate the spiral steps to the deck above. Out of breath, he collapsed on a bench.

“Charlie,” he managed to gasp out.

Rika dropped out of the branches above and plopped onto the deck next to him. “Not here, Jayzu. He’s with Charlotte.”

“Where are they?” Jayzu asked more vehemently than he intended, but he had not fully regained his breath.”

“Well, I can’t say,” Rika said. “All’s I know she’s somewhere safe on the island but JoEd says she doesn’t know where she is. That’s truly all I know, Jayzu.”

It was not enough just to know she was safe. I really need to see her. He sat up straight and stroked Rika’s back. “Is JoEd here?”

“Nope, but he should be back by nightfall.”

Jayzu looked down at the deck in the depths of guilt and despair. He had not seen Charlotte for days. All of his mechanisms, his lies, his pretenses had blown up in his face. Hot tears stung his eyes. I only wanted to help her. 

Jayzu stood up. He paced the deck as Rika watched, her head following him back and forth. “Charlotte must be starving by now. I must know where she is so I can bring her food. How can Charlie even feed her?”

Rika tilted her head to the side. “I can’t say. But the lot of them—JoEd and his zhekkies—could bring her food.”

“From where?” Jayzu said and stopped pacing for a moment. “She cannot eat raw fish or bugs and crows do not cook.” He raked his hands through his hair.

“I don’t know,” Rika said, flapping her wings impatiently. “But maybe you can help. Run on back to your cottage and bundle up some food for her, and bring it back here. JoEd and his zhekkies will take it to her in the morning.”

He looked down at Rika and frowned. “I can feed her and get her water! I just need JoEd or Charlie to take me to her.”

His cell phone rang loudly. He pulled it out of his pocket, glanced at the screen and sighed. Mrs Braun. She had left numerous messages: Henry was dead. Would Father Manzi please officiate his funeral on Saturday?

“Hello?” he said, as if he did not know who was calling.

“Father Manzi?” Mrs Braun said. “Oh! I am so happy to have reached you! I—”

“And I am so sorry, Mrs Braun,” he said. “I have been trapped on the island for the past few days, without cell phone service.” He had already used that lie, which seemed less grievous than coming up with a new one. 

“Of course I will officiate Henry’s funeral. And please accept my condolences, though I know he was rather trying at times.”

“That is an understatement, Father,” Mrs Braun said with a chuckle. “And by the way, I have changed my name back to my maiden name. I am now known as Gabrielle DuBois, if you please!”

“I am surprised,” he said. “But Gabrielle is a lovely name, as is DuBois.”

After the call ended, he left the Treehouse for his cottage. At least he could bring a bag of food and water for Charlotte. But why are they keeping me from her? He did not run, but walked at his usual pace, stewing over his frustration, anger, guilt, and shame. 

His cell phone rang again. He glanced at the screen and winced. Majewski. Damn. He had not called the Captain to arrange to be taken to the city today.

“Hello Thomas.”  He kept on walking.

“When are you arriving?” Majewski said without greeting him. “Did you forget to text me?”

“Uh, no,” Alfredo said. “I’m sorry, Thomas. The Captain has been in MacKenzie for the past couple days. He said he will not be back for two more days. I should have called you.”

Lie #something—he had lost count. It had completely slipped his mind to call the Captain, largely because he had been sure Charlotte would show up and…what—? He had no idea.

“Yes, you should have,” Majewski said tersely, after a long silence. “So when may I expect you?”

“Saturday,” Alfredo said calmly. “I have to officiate at Henry Braun’s funeral Mass.”

“You’re sure the Captain will have returned?” Majewski said.

“Yes, he is quite dependable,” Alfredo said. “But I will call you if he has not shown up as expected on Friday afternoon.”

“See that you do so this time,” Majewski said, and ended the call. 

Jayzu put the phone into his pocket. 

Absent-mindedly he walked back to his cottage, feeding his anger with suspicions . Why are they keeping her from me? Why will they not tell me. 

He stopped at the hermit’s chapel without really knowing why—or that he had intended to go to his cottage and get some food for Charlotte. He hesitated outside the door, until a voice from above said: “Do come in.”

Looking up, Jayzu saw two large ravens staring down at him: Starfire and NoExit. He opened the door and entered. The interior was dimmer than usual—being that it was a cloudy day. No dappled patterns of branches and shadows appeared on the dirt floor. Only shadows.

Starfire and NoExit entered the chapel through a larger hole in the roof and perched on the wooden kneeler in the center of the chapel. Jayzu could see them well enough thanks to that hole, and the open door which let just enough light in.

“We were just discussing Charlotte,” Starfire said. “It seems that while you were looking for her, she became frightened of something and ran into the Deeps,” Starfire said.

Jayzu had wandered into The Deeps once, and promptly got lost. He wandered for hours in the darkness until at last he found his way out. He never again entered The Deeps.

“Do you know what frightened her?” NoExit said.

Both ravens peered at him, the doorway’s light reflecting off their opaque black eyes and their feathers. Magnificent birds, both of them

Jayzu had the strong impression that they both knew the answer.

“Well, I believe she was out wandering in the forest, even though I told her to remain at the Treehouse,” Jayzu began lamely, trying to formulate the words to diminish his part. She apparently saw some people she did not expect.”

The ravens looked at one another for a moment.

“We understand she saw a woman, a friend of yours—yes?” Starfire said, prodding Jayzu toward the truth.

After a long silence, Jayzu replied, “Yes.” There was no way around it. He sighed and looked at the ground. “She followed the woman back to my cottage.”

The two ravens stood still as stone on the kneeler; neither spoke. Jayzu shifted his weight from one leg to the other. Minutes rolled by and no one uttered a word. 

“Jayzu,” Starfire said, his voice stern and commanding. “You must tell us what Charlotte saw, or heard, at your cottage.”

Jayzu inhaled deeply and let the breath out slowly. “I am not precisely sure, but I believe she went inside my cottage after I escorted my guests—the woman and her husband to the inlet where the Captain waited to take them back to the city.”

“And?” NoExit said when Jayzu did not continue.

“I, uh, believe she saw a portrait of herself on the wall,” Jayzu said. 

“Really?” NoExit said. “A portrait of herself? Did you paint it?”

“Um, no,” Jayzu said. “A friend of mine did.”

“And who might that be?” Starfire said so placidly, Jayzu was certain that he already knew. 

Why are they playing with me like this? 

“The woman that Charlotte saw in the forest painted it,” Jayzu said. Giving up avoiding telling the two ravens the truth, he continued: “The woman claims she is Charlotte’s daughter.”

“Hmmm,” NoExit rumbled.

“And what does Charlotte think about that?” Starfire said.

“I have no idea,” Jayzu said. “To my knowledge she did not have a daughter, or she would have mentioned it to me.”

Starfire grew impatient. He turned to NoExit and said: “Charlotte does not remember having a daughter, who I am told the was born soon after Charlotte was taken to Rosencranz by her brother. Who happens to be Jayzu’s superior.”

How do they know this? Charlie must have told them—how else? Jayzu felt angered and betrayed. 

“I see,” NoExit said. “ This is what frightened her so badly. That is complex.”

“Complex, yes,” Starfire said to NoExit—as if Jayzu was not there. “As I told you, during her flight away from Jayzu’s cottage, she stumbled upon the sole mildornia bush on the island—in The Deeps. She mistook the berries for an edible fruit and ate one.”

Starfire turned to Jayzu and said: “And that is why she is experiencing a memory dislocation, which has taken her back to a previous time. Before she knew you.”

“Mil—dornia?” Jayzu stammered.

“Yes,” Starfire said. “She said she was hungry and found the berries. But they taste quite awful so she did not swallow any. Yet she imbibed enough to be affected by the mildornia’s hallucinogenic properties. She is back in the past, evidently before she met you.”

“That is,” NoExit interjected. “She thinks it was her brother who had been chasing her and following her this afternoon. She has otherwise no knowledge of you, Jayzu.”

“Jesus,” Jayzu said, stunned. He felt as if he had been  gored. “I—it was —me who rescued her—” he choked out. “Thomas—he—brought her to Rosencranz!” He fell to the floor, as if crushed by the heavy weight of despair.

Starfire flew to the floor next to Jayzu and put a wing on his back. “We will try to bring Charlotte back to the present.”

“How will you do that?” Jayzu asked, lifting his head.

“The Mildornia Trance,” Starfire said.

In Gabrielle’s mansion on the hill overlooking the river, Henry’s absence reigned supreme, echoing off the walls, and impossible to ignore. Strange that she should feel his lack of presence so acutely now. It was not as if she wanted him undead. Not at all.

But there was a hole where Henry used to be. Like an unnecessary organ that had been removed, leaving an empty space inside her. The guts of her life had not yet adjusted.

Changing her name had been a start. But what now?

The former Mrs Braun had kept herself as ignorant as possible of Henry’s business affairs. She only wanted to know the names of the projects, so that at night before she went to sleep, she could atone for her lavish life.

“Forgive me, Lord Jesus, for the Ledford Arms.” Or, “I beg forgiveness for AgMo.”

These names were shorthand for the stories behind them, all of which were about  her living off the largesse of someone’s exploitation. She lacked nothing that money could buy, paid for by the sufferings of others.

With Henry gone, she had immense freedom. I can do whatever I want! But I cannot just sit on his pile of money, nor spend it all on myself.

She planned to donate huge sums of cash to homeless shelters and food banks, though she knew that Henry’s entire wealth was but a drop in the bucket of what it would take to make any meaningful progress to house the homeless, feed the hungry, clothe the naked in the city of Ledford alone.

But what of happiness?

What did she even know of happiness?—other than she had not found it in a lifetime on her knees, begging forgiveness for all the things she had, but never really wanted—a big house. A Bentley. A husband who did not love her. A dead baby.

She felt adrift. “What does Jesus want from me?”

Jules Sackman would tell her what she was supposed to want, which more resembled what he wanted. What Jesus wanted of her, she was pretty sure it would be the direct opposite of whatever Jules had in mind. 

As Henry’s widow, she didn’t need any more money. Aside from Henry’s estate, she’d  also squirreled away a few dollars here and there and invested them in U.S. Treasury Bonds, a few gold mines she had shrewdly bought and sold with perfect timing, and a few semi-socially-responsible mutual funds. 

The hole in her soul now demanded her attention. For the first time since she was 15, she was free to think about what she wanted to do with her life. Not what her father wanted, or Henry, or Jules.

Or Jesus … since he wasn’t talking.

Gabrielle brought her afternoon coffee and the stack of newspapers she had not finished plowing through to her table on the patio. She read and re-read all the newspaper articles about the woman, Charlotte Steele, who had disappeared from Rosencranz.

She sat back in her chair and gazed into the far distance of her girlhood. It had been decades since Rosencranz had wrecked her life. She hoped Charlotte Steele yet lived, had found her freedom. And a way to be happy.

“Miss Minnie?” A familiar voice brought her back to her backyard.

Two crows gazed at her from across the table. She blinked a couple times and smiled “Willy! Floyd!” she cried out. “I haven’t seen you in ages! And I’ve got so much to tell you!”

“Do tell!” Floyd said as he wiggled his way into her embrace.

“Well,” she sighed, stroking his sleek black head. “First, Henry is dead. Second, I have changed my name from Minerva Braun to my former name before I met Henry. My name is now Gabrielle.”

Willy said, “You don’t say!”

“Gabrielle,” Floyd said, a sudden faraway look in his eyes. “Sounds like a movie star!”

“I like it!” Willy said. “Fits you so much better!”

“Gabrielle!” Floyd repeated dramatically. He was obviously quite swept away in one of his fantasies, born from his early nesting days when he and his brother Willy hatched and fledged in a nest at the drive-in movie theater. 

Floyd jumped to the table, flung a wing out to one side, and bowed low. “Lady Gabrielle, Your Grace. Your Ladyship. Honor me with your favor!”

“Oh, stop it!” she laughed, waving her hand across his outstretched wing. “You gentlecrows have always have my favor!”

“But Henry, Miss Gabrielle,” Willy said. “He is gone? Truly? As in checked out?”

“Kicked the bucket?” Floyd said.

“Hung up the fiddle?” Willy said.

“Bit the big one?”

“Bought the farm?”

“Gave up the ghost?”

The brothers nodded at one another after each euphemism. Gabrielle sat back, shaking her head and chuckling, in spite of herself.

“So you’re happy now?” Willy said after they’d depleted their entire knowledge of American death slang.

“‘Cuz he ain’t here no more to bother you?” Floyd said.

She inhaled deeply, and slowly let it out. “No.” How could she ever explain to the crows her months at Rosencranz, and what they did to her there, and what that did to her life. “It’s a long story.”

But for the grace of God—they could have killed me.

“Henry gave me a comfortable life,” Gabrielle said. “But I am not unhappy he is gone. Because now I can do whatever I want.”

“And what might that be, Madame?” Floyd asked. “Will you sell the old homestead and travel the world?”

Gabrielle gazed up at the house she had lived in since she was a teenager, newly married to Henry. He had bought the house as a wedding present as well as for his portfolio. Now hers.

“I’m thinking,” she said, “I will sell this place. I don’t have a lot of happy memories here. And besides, it’s just too big.”

“Where will you go?” Willy asked. “We do hope you stay within flying distance, Miss Gabrielle.”

“Yeah, we’d hate to see you not here,” Floyd said.

Willy turned his head toward his cousin. “That’s ridiculous! How can you see her if she is not here?”

“Exactly,” Floyd said. “We’d hate that wouldn’t we?”

Gabrielle laughed. “I would miss you too! But I have not decided what I’ll do, or where I would go. I’ve lived as Mrs Braun for so many years, I hardly know who I am at all.”

“Well, that’s what you can do now!” Floyd said. “A voyage of self-discovery! How exciting! Will you get some Tarot cards and do vision quests and sweat lodges and stuff?”

“I hadn’t thought of Tarot cards, Floyd!” she said. “Or sweat lodges. But who knows? It could happen!”

The Church would not approve. But she was sick of not being approved of—that had been her entire existence for over forty years. Henry had been a total atheist. He believed in nothing but what you could grab out of life. There were no second chances. No afterlife, no reincarnation. Just the here and now.

“What better place to make a pile of money than right here and right now?” Henry was fond of bellowing. “Make hay while the sun shines!”

Gabrielle glanced down at the newspaper on the table. Charlotte Steele’s sad yet defiant eyes spoke to her. “Maybe I’ll take Henry’s money and buy the old Rosencranz mansion”

“Rosencranz?” The two crows said in unison as they looked at each other. “The nut house?”

“Asylum,” Gabrielle said. 

“But what if there are ghosts, Miss Gabrielle?” Floyd said.

“Old buildings like that always have ghosts,” Willy said. “Expecially places like Rosencranz.”

“I expect there are ghosts,” Gabrielle said. “That’s why I want it.”

After Floyd and Willy left for important business of the day, she picked up the phone and dialed the number she had circled in the newspaper.

“Crawford Realty, how may I direct your call?” a cheery voice answered.

“Peggy McFarland,” Gabrielle said. “Tell her I am interested in her showing me the Rosencranz property.”

Sam drove his flesh-colored pickup truck to Kate’s apartment on the other side of the river. He had planned to buy her dinner—perhaps she would allow it this time.

They left Kate’s on foot. The restaurant was just a few blocks away. 

Sam held the door open to the cozy little place he and Kate had discovered tucked between First City Bank and the old Ledford Title Company building. They’d become regular customers at the Feast For Crows, which featured wild food—either grown locally on the many farms that surrounded the city, or taken from the pockets of woods that still existed. No actual crow, of course. And no road kill.

Kate had pretty well refused to eat ‘corporate food’ as she called it—which meant food products whose purpose was less, or not at all, about nutrition and sustaining the body, but about delivering wealth into the pockets of the few.

The menu comprised an odd assortment of many entrees. Amusing, yet delicious. Among the rotating menu items were Burgers, Fries, Pizza, Pad Thai, Chicken Fried Steak, Fish Tacos, and sometimes Sushi, depending on the whim of the chef. Red Raven Ale on tap, but you could get all the local brews in bottles.

The building had once been the brick-making factory that once thrived and served not only the vicinity of Ledford, but bricks were shipped to other states as well. The exterior was as utilitarian and clumsy—what Sam liked to call “the Soviet Style”. The nostalgia for the preservation of old classic buildings, even factories, had visited Ledford and a couple of 30-somethings left the madness of the West Coast, and bought the old building.

A Feast For Crows was charming inside—the owners had cleaned and polished the old work tables which were now used for dining. 

“Pretty quiet night, Marcus,” Sam said as they were escorted to a table at their favorite restaurant.

“It is indeed,” the said. “Hoping people will come for a bite after the movie at the Bijou.”

“What’s playing?” Kate asked as he handed her and Sam a menu.

“Murder of Crows,” he said. 

Sam and Kate looked at each other in mock horror.

“It’s not about crows, though,” the waiter said, smiling. 

“Really?” Kate said. “What’s it about?”

“Murder,” Marcus said. “And plagiarism.”

“You have a good day?” Sam said after Marcus left.

“Not really.” Kate said. “Our friend Jules Sackman is all butt-sore that he is not getting his hands on Henry Braun’s estate. He’s giving me some grief. I have threatened him to leave Gabrielle alone.”

Marcus brought salads and a baguette, and grated some fresh parmesan cheese on Kate’s and ground black pepper on Sam’s.

“Will he?” Sam said after Marcus left.

“Hopefully,” Kate said. “I’ve threatened him with a complaint to the Bar if he harasses either one of us. And, I’ve got a private eye who’s been following Jules around, smiling as he writes in his notebook. He’s a bit spooked.” She grinned wickedly.

Sam laughed. “Paranoia,” he sang, “don’t let it destroy ya!”

“And that’s the good news,” Kate said as she tore off a chunk of bread. “You know I am also probating Smitty’s estate. Unless Jade can find a will, it’ll be a pain in the ass because I can’t find a birth certificate for Jade. It oughta be in the county records, even if she was born at Rosencranz.”

“My cousins and I were all born at home,” Sam said. “We all had to get affidavits from family doctors and relatives and neighbors who could verify our family origin. Some kids used Baptismal certificates, but we never got baptized.”

Kate nodded and shoveled a forkful of salad greens into her mouth. “That’s pretty typical,” she said after swallowing. “But I can’t find an affidavit or a baptismal certificate, or anything.”

“Maybe the pipes burst in the basement where the boxes are and hers happened to be in one of them, and unfortunately drowned?” Sam suggested.

“The clerk said there hadn’t been anything like a flood or a fire,” Kate said, her fork poised in midair. “I asked her how have many birth certificates the county has for babies born at Rosencranz. She allowed as how it had been many years since Rosencranz birthed babies, but said there was no reason why the babies born there would not have a birth certificate. And, she said she would have to dig out the older files and would let me know. ‘No names, mind you,’ she said. I told her I just wanted a number.” 

“That’ll help—won’t it?” Sam asked.

“Who knows?” Kate said, shrugging. “The clerk was curious—so maybe she’ll turn up something at least interesting.”

Marcus brought their dinners. “Anything else?” he asked.

“Nope, thanks,” Sam said. “We’re good.”

“And then,” Kate said after Marcus left. “After that, I got a call from Majewski. He was pretty sloshed. He wanted to know if I’d heard from Alfredo, and then he told me he’d been out to Kafka Memorial.” She picked up her fork.

“And?” Sam said as he sliced off a chunk of his steak.

“He found out that someone visited Charlotte several times in the past few weeks who claimed to be a doctor. And, he said they told him at Kafka that this doctor and Charlotte had several conversations. As in, Charlotte spoke to him. As in this doctor speaks Patua’.”

Sam’s fork froze in mid-air. “Who told him that, now?”

“The receptionist at Rosencranz, and now at Kafka. Her name is Dora Lyn,” Kate said. She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “So, this doctor person presented proper identification to prove who he was—Dr Collins. Completely bogus. There is no Dr Collins anywhere in the entire world.”

Sam put his fork back down to his plate.

“Sam, Alfredo mentioned to me a couple weeks ago that he was thinking about getting Charlotte out of Rosencranz. I ripped him a new one. I told him that would be a felony and he would go to prison. I really thought he had listened to me.”

Sam looked down at his plate, and said nothing.

“Do you have any ideas about where this fake doctor that could’ve been Alfredo’s twin got a fake ID?” Kate asked.

He looked up at her helplessly. Like a mouse caught in a trap he could not escape from. 

“Alfredo is likely to become a ‘person of interest in Charlotte’s kidnapping,” she said after Sam again didn’t answer. “So, if you had anything to do with her disappearance from Rosencranz, I need to know. Now.”

“I did not make Alfredo’s fake ID,” Sam said.

“But you know who did,” Kate said, arching an eyebrow.

“Yes,” Sam said after a long silence.

Snuffing out his annoyance with Alfredo for missing his appointment again, Majewski phoned his secretary at his office in D.C.

“Is everything under control?” Majewski asked. “I might need to be here for a few more days.”

“Yes, Father, all is well,” the secretary said. “There really is no need for you to be here right now. You have the Cardinals Retirement party on the 25th, but other than that, most everything happens via the internet, so you could be anywhere in the world. And, if there are important documents that need your actual signature, we can fax or overnight them.”

Majewski could maintain this remote operation for a couple more weeks, then he’d have to return to Washington.

He leaned back in his chair and gazed out the window. He had moved to a hotel Downtown, on the other side of the river near St Sophia Cathedral. By day he occupied one of the empty offices at St Sophia’s, and conducted his usual business there. By night he retired to his hotel near the Waterfront. He had great views of the river, the bridge, the barges, and the other half of the city. 

Crows were everywhere. Watching him…

The window in his office on the 3^rd floor of St Sophia’s faced the river, and framed the island. Like a portrait. Ah, Wilder Island. Jewel in the distance, sparkling in the sun, a siren song that beckoned to him, heart, body and soul. He never stopped tiring of imagining living comfortably in a small cottage he built for himself in the cool forests full of birds and no humans, save Alfredo. 

But all his efforts to obtain a visit to the island had come to nothing.

“I don’t know how to contact the Captain,” Kate had said. “He just shows up whenever we needed to go to the island, presumably because Alfredo sent him.”

Why in heaven’s name did I not ask for the Captain’s phone number?

Manzi had been quite cagey lately—so unlike him. Majewski really didn’t believe Alfredo’s excuses for not showing up for their appointment—as he was required, being that Majewski was his complete superior.

It had become impossible for Majewski to keep the thought at bay, that Manzi was not only responsible for Stella’s disappearance, but was also harboring her on Wilder Island. If only he wasn’t acting so guilty.

Majewski’s irritation with being stood up by Alfredo dissipated. Now with an afternoon on his hands, he took a leisurely lunch at his hotel’s restaurant. He dawdled through the meal, re-reading the newspaper. Stella had dropped out of the headlines, though a cursory summary of the continuing investigation appeared in a smaller article on the bottom half of the front page. The last paragraph of the article, as usual, stated that the Rosencranz facility was up for sale—for $2million.

Which reminded Majewski again of something that ditzy receptionist Lora Lyn—no Dora Lyn—that airhead at the receptionist desk when he’d gone to Kafka Memorial had told him. Stella’s file had almost nothing in it—in spite of having resided at Rosencranz for over 20 years. She had said maybe the rest of Stella’s records were in an old vault in the basement at Rosencranz.

The tiny seed of anxiety that her words had implanted into Majewski’s brain had not gone away. In fact, it had grown.

The article listed the realtor’s name, but he didn’t call her, lest it attracted any undue attention to his interests. Perhaps there is a caretaker on the property who can show me around. He’d explain that he didn’t want to waste a realtor’s time showing him, as he had no intention—nor the wherewithal—to buy the place.

“There’s an ancient vault in the basement under the kitchen,” Lora Lyn had said. “That’s where a lot of the older records got stored after we went to computers. Most of the paper records were destroyed when they were uploaded  into the system.”

Were her records still in the vault? 

He had to see what was inside that vault before anyone else does.

His cell phone rang. Detective McDermott. “I am sorry for the short notice, Father Majewski, but I’d like you to be present this afternoon at a meeting with the investigative team. We’ve  come up with with a few leads.”

“What leads?” Majewski asked.

“We will reveal what we can at the meeting this afternoon, McDermott said. “I hope you can make it.”

“I will be there.” Majewski was extremely curious about what leads they had found. Had they interviewed Lora Lyn yet? “Though I am not sure how helpful I can be, as I had not seen my sister in a number of years.”

Twenty-two years, in fact. 

“Any information you can give us about your sister will be extremely helpful in finding her,” McDermott said. “I assure you.”

When they do, that will direct their attention onto Manzi.

And that was the last thing Majewski wanted to happen. He’d have to devise a plan to protect Manzi, while sending Stella back to the asylum. The prime objective is ensuring that plans for his future retirement on Wilder Island doing research with Alfredo Manzi on the Patua’ language would remain intact. 

Stella is not part of the plan. If they ever find her alive, she’ll have to go back to the institution. That’s all there was to it. If for no other reason than she was taking up too much of his attention.

He could see no way the three of them could co-exist on the island. He shook his head in distaste. I’ve got to get Manzi out of the picture, until this all blows over. Stella will be found, he was certain. Dead or alive. Though it would be easier for all concerned if she were dead. He’d perform heartfelt Last Rites, with Manzi standing next to him, seeing her off to whatever awaited her. It would not be Manzi.

If she were alive, she’d be sent to Kafka Memorial. He was her legal guardian and would see to it.  

Majewski drove to the police station to meet with Detective McDermott, whose office was Downtown—on the same side of the river as he was now, at his new hotel. That was a bit more convenient.

Splitting the city into halves, the river reflected the gray clouds overhead, blurring the boundary between Earth and sky. Wilder Island seemed to float like a solid shadow…forbidding, secretive, aloof. 

And by rights, mine.

“Gentlemen,” Detective McDermott said to the small group of detectives and police officers investigating Charlotte Steele’s disappearance, “I’d like to introduce Father Thomas Majewski— the vic’s brother. I’ve asked him to join us today, to provide possible insight into his sister’s whereabouts, as well as the perp who kidnapped her.”

“Uh, yes, thank you, Detective McDermott,” Majewski said after nodding to the detectives murmuring greetings. “I am happy to be here, and I hope to offer some assistance is finding her. Hopefully safe and sound.”

“When was the last time you had contact with Alfredo Manzi?” McDermott asked.

“This morning, actually,” Majewski said. “He was supposed to come into the city and meet me, but was unable to.”

“Why was that?” McDermott asked.

“The only way off the island is by boat,” Majewski said. “Father Manzi said the only boatman that services the island was down river in MacKenzie until Friday.”

“I see,” McDermott said. “We’ll get to this boatman later. It’s Alfredo Manzi we want to talk about. We have some information that suggests that Alfredo Manzi, whom you supervise, might have been involved in her abduction.”

Majewski raised his eyebrows. “I would be astonished if that were the case.” He paused, shaking his head, frowning. “How do you even know she was abducted? Perhaps she wandered off—the grounds were not at all secure.”

“Father Majewski,” McDermott said, claiming the high ground of authority in his domain, the police station, and therefore civil law. “Your sister was not released from the institution. Therefore, as a mental patient who is unable to make her own decisions, we must treat her absence as an abduction.”

“As a child, my sister loved the woods,” Majewski persisted. “She found a small island in the stream that flowed through our property and built herself a little cabin. She cooked meals and—”

“We scoured the asylum’s entire grounds and the surrounding woods,” McDermott said as he held a hand up silencing Majewski. “If she had simply wandered off, we would have found her, or some evidence of her. She would need food and water—it’s hard to imagine she could find those things by herself. Therefore, she must have had help. And not just from Manzi.” 

Majewski shook his head and spread his hands out in a gesture he hoped would convey non-comprehension. “I am truly shocked. I have known Father Manzi since before he took his vows, I cannot even imagine that he would do such a thing.”

“Yet, it’s true,” McDermott said, throwing a sympathetic scowl in Majewski’s direction. “We consider Alfredo Manzi a person of interest in Charlotte Steele’s kidnapping. We have a witness who worked at the old Rosencranz facility who identified a photo of him as Charlotte’s visitor.” 

“But that’s just preposterous,” Majewski said, still pretending to reel at the news.

“Yet, someone who matches his description had been visiting her at Rosencranz,” McDermott said, “disguised as a doctor in the weeks prior to her disappearance.”

Majewski drew his mouth into a tight line and shook his head. Lora Lyn had evidently told the police the same story she had told him. “I am truly stunned that he would do something so illegal, and underhanded. Impersonating a doctor? He’s a priest, for heaven’s sake! Who is this witness?”

“Someone who worked at the asylum,” McDermott said and picked up the remote for the projector. “Let us move on. When was the last time you were on the island?”

“About three weeks ago,” Majewski said. “After which I returned to Washington. As you know, I arrived back in Ledford early Sunday morning to try and identify the body you found. It was my intention to visit the island for a couple days, but I have been unable to reach Father Manzi, until yesterday.”

”Have you tried to get to the island on your own?” McDermott asked.

“No,” Majewski said. “It is my understanding that no one gets to the island without Father Manzi arranging for a certain riverboat captain to take them there.”

“Why is that?” a detective asked. “Can’t you just hire another boatman?”

“The river is choppy around the island,” McDermott said to his man. “As I understand it, the underlying geology is pretty busted up, according to the professors at the U. The island sits on a layer of caves and tunnels—they say that’s why the river’s so hard to navigate, water’s being sucked down under, making the eddies and whirlpools, not just in one place, but everywhere. It’s dangerous for small boats to get anywhere near Wilder Island, and no one even tries anymore, since the days of the old hermit—other than this one boatman.”

McDermott kept his eyes fixed on Majewski for a few seconds before advancing to the next slide. “We think she was taken to Wilder Island by this boat,” The next slide appeared. “By this boatman. Do you know him?”

McDermott slowly encircled the slightly blurred image of the Captain’s face with his red laser pointer. “This is the man known around the City Docks and the Waterfront as ‘the Captain’.” 

“Of course,” Majewski said, allowing a slight note of irritation to creep into his voice. “That is the Captain.”

“Check out Mr Clean!” one of the detectives cracked.

“Check out the tats!” the other said. “Man, he’s pretty well covered except for the chrome dome.”

From his fingertips to his shoulders, then down under his tank top, the man was covered with color: fish leaping through foamy waters at birds sailing through swirling air. 

“Must’ve cost him a fortune,” the first detective said.

“Real name: Andrew Shepherd,” McDermott said, twirling the laser around the figure. “No criminal record. No physical address—apparently he lives on his boat. He  generally docks at night on the western side of the island. His income seems to derive from ferrying small groups of people up and down the river between MacKenzie and Ledford. He drops them either at the Waterfront, or the city docks in the morning, and shuttles them back down river in the evening.”

McDermott scratched his head. “That western side is the roughest, rockiest part of the island. It is virtually un-navigable. Except apparently, by the Captain.”

“So, this old tattooed dude kidnapped the vic?” one of the detectives asked. “I thought the priest was the perp.”

“We think the Captain was an accomplice, but Manzi was the master-mind behind it all,” Detective McDermott said. He turned to Majewski. “We were hoping you could set us up with the Captain and his Treeboat. We’d like to pay a visit the island.”

Several of the officers chuckled. Everyone in Ledford called the Captain’s small craft ‘the Treeboat.’

“I’d love to,” Majewski said. “Unfortunately, I honestly do not know how to contact the Captain. Father Manzi always made those arrangements.”

“I see,” McDermott said. He advanced the projector to the next slide. An aerial view of Wilder Island appeared.

“We are fairly certain Charlotte Steele is on the island. And we believe, in spite of the good Father Majewski’s character reference, that Alfredo Manzi brought her there, and is with her still. But they may leave at any time. If they do, it’ll be via the same way they came. We now have the island under surveillance–24/7.”

“If we could only get to the island,” one of the detectives said. “And if she’s there, we’ll find her.”

“We’ll find a way to force the Captain to take us there,” McDermott said. “But the island is densely wooded, and Manzi would know where to hide. Remember he’s been living there for months. Remember also what happened to Henry Braun when he tried to force his way onto the island.”

The men all nodded, recalling the photo in the newspaper of Henry Braun encased in bird poop.

“We believe the vast network of crows that ran Henry Braun and his investors off  was orchestrated by Manzi, as was the kidnapping of Charlotte Steele. Lastly, Manzi arranged for the Captain to pick her up somewhere and take her to the island. Manzi was the mastermind that controlled and directed it all. That was abundantly clear, even then.”

“How did the vic get to the river?” one of the detectives asked.

McDermott said, advancing to the next slide. A flesh-colored pickup truck appeared. “We believe she was taken to the river in this truck, which was seen in the area with a flock of crows following it —shortly before the asylum was attacked by them.”

“Is that Manzi’s truck?” a detective asked.

“No,” McDermott said. “It is registered to Samuel Howard.”

Majewski was stunned.  

If only they didn’t have DNA…that body may as well have been Stella, but for the DNA test. It would have been a whole lot easier if he could have identified the body to police satisfaction.

If she were found alive, however, it would not be difficult to have her committed again, being that he was her guardian. One way or another, Stella will be out of the way. It was only a matter of time. Meanwhile, there was no use in throwing Manzi under the bus over her.

Majewski maintained his silence and a straight face. 

“I wonder where you are, Charlotte Steele,” Jade murmured remembering the blurry and dark photo of the woman in the newspaper had reminded her of the photo of her mother on the dresser in her old bedroom at the farm.

I know it’s you. My mother. Alfredo knows too.

The timing was right. She disappears from Rosencranz and the next day I see her on Wilder Island. 

She had not dared to mention this to Russ lest it enflame him, and another argument would follow. But she had spent many hours fantasizing that in fact, it was her mother that had escaped Rosencranz.

And that’s why Alfredo was acting so weird—he brought her to the island! And didn’t want anyone to know! 

‘Hope Dims’ had been the title of the lead story on the news last night. “The police have no leads,” the newscaster said. “She seems to have vanished into thin air.”

“After three days, the likelihood of finding an abductee alive diminishes,” the detective had said to the camera.

The whole town of Ledford was captivated. They rejoiced when the news came out that the body found in the river was not Charlotte. People seemed to want Charlotte Steele to not be found. Not dead, but free somewhere. Impromptu road signs and flyers popped up around town: ‘Free Charlotte!’ and ‘Run! Charlotte Run!’

“She’s on Wilder Island,” Jade said to the road to Rosencranz as she passed the turnoff. “And Alfredo knows she is my mother.”

She signaled a right turn, exiting the interstate onto County Road 23, which took her into the heart of corn country—mostly all AgMo megafarms—and right up to the old farmhouse where she had grown up. 

One of the few holdouts against AgMo, corporate conglomerate gobbling up all the small family farms. 

Well, they’re not getting mine.

Set back off the road, as was the tradition of family farms, the house nestled behind a small tear-drop shaped lawn, surrounded by trees of gum, maple, and dogwood, plus roses, lilacs, and a million other flowers. Though more than a century old, the farmhouse had been marvelously kept up by Smitty and sat elegantly humble, bedecked in its pristine gray siding and white trim amidst a splendid palette of every color on Earth.

Unlike the surrounding sea of AgMo corn, Smitty’s farm still fostered the strand of woods that had been her personal wonderland all throughout her childhood. A sinuous line of stately basswood and oaks grew all along the little stream that she used to float boats down. Upstream, Chloe’s seed shed where she had spent many hours playing with rocks, seeds, and a few mice.

Like old friends awaiting her return, this old house, those trees…

 I have been away too long.

“Here we are home, WillowB!” Jade sang out—just the way Chloe did when they came home from anywhere. As she stopped the car in front of the porch, the screen door opened and shut with a bang. A matronly woman with curly gray hair burst forth, wiping her hands on her apron. “Hello, Jade!” Mrs Flanagan waved and shouted as she strode down the porch steps.

WillowB sat up. “Miaow?”

“In a moment, Mr B,” Jade said, and opened the latch on his carrier. She left the car door open for Willow B to jump out—which he did instantaneously.

“Oh, darlin’,” Mrs Flanagan said as she pulled Jade into her ample bosom. “I am so sorry for your loss. Our loss.” She let go of Jade and wiped a tear from her eye with the corner of her apron.

It felt good to be hugged like that.

“Thank you, Mrs Flanagan,” Jade said, choking up as her eyes filled with tears. “It was quite a shock.”

“Well, he hadn’t been feeling all that great lately,” Mrs Flanagan said. “Couldn’t get him to go see a doctor, though. ‘Nothing wrong with me,’ he’d just say, ‘other than the warranty’s done run out!’”

Jade smiled. “That sounds like Smitty.”

“Men,” Mrs Flanagan shook her head and waved an arm. “No wonder they drop dead. But for pity’s sake, let’s go inside! I’ve got coffee and apple pie on the table, all ready.”

“It looks so nice in here, Mrs Flanagan!” Jade said after stepping into the house. “Thank you for taking such  good care of Smitty.” Pangs of guilt and grief stabbed at her heart. I should have come home more often.

She still detected a sense of Chloe and Smitty in the house, as if part of their spirits remained. The place was much tidier than she had expected, given what a packrat Smitty was. 

Mrs Flanagan snorted. “As if he’d let me!” She waved a hand at the piles of newspapers, magazines, and old mail that littered one end of the kitchen table. “Smitty, God love him, I couldn’t convince him to get rid of anything.”

“Neither could Chloe,” Jade said with a weak smile. “She made him build a shed out behind the chicken coop for the stuff he couldn’t part with. Mostly old catalogs from Sears Roebuck and WB Grainger.”

“I remember when it burned to the ground,” Mrs Flanagan said, pulling out a chair. “Lit up the whole county it seemed.”

“Precisely why Chloe made him get it all out of the house,” Jade said. Burned to the ground 4 years ago, and still I did not come home.

Mrs Flanagan had set the table with small dessert plates, coffee mugs, and an apple pie. For three.

“Oh, just the two of us,” Jade said. “Russ won’t be here. He’s on his way to Ecuador, for some high level meeting about orchids.” She tried to make it sound cheerful, like it was really alright with her. “He’s been planning it with his colleagues for months.”

Mrs Flanagan prattled on about men, and how they get to thinking too much and the next thing you know they run off chasing after some woman or pipe dream or other nonsense. “Like my Bertram, for instance, who up and joined the army. I could’ve skinned him alive, though I’m glad I dint. Damn proud of him now. Just like you’ll be right proud of Russ, by and by.” Mrs Flanagan patted Jade’s hand. “Not everyone can be a college professor. Or the wife of one.”

“I am proud of him, really,” Jade said. “It’s just that—” she didn’t want to talk to Mrs Flanagan about their recent arguments. “I just need him to be here with me now. Both my parents are gone now and I feel kind of lost.” She stifled a sob trying to escape her chest.

“Now don’t you fret, missy,” Mrs Flanagan said, patting Jade’s hand again. “We’re all here for you. We’ll take good care of you, and the Wake, and after even that—whatever you need.”

“Thank you, Mrs Flanagan,” Jade said as she looked around the kitchen—spotless as if Chloe were still here. She doubted very much Smitty had kept the kitchen this clean.

“I sure miss Chloe. I loved helping her bake cookies when I was a little girl. As long as I can remember, this table was in this kitchen. In this very spot.”

“Chloe and I had many a cup of coffee at this old table,” Mrs Flanagan said, smiling. She ran her old hand over the smooth wood. “Gabbing away about the farm, the laundry, Smitty, you, the sewing circle Chloe organized—we sewed our fingers to the bone at this very table, we did. Why I reckon we must’ve made a hundred dolls. For the orphans at  Rosencranz Hospital, Chloe told us. Always the same pattern. Raggedy Anne and Andy.”

“That’s so sweet!” Jade said. “I had one of them! She never told me you made them for the orphans. I wonder where she is? My old Raggedy Anne.”

In my bedroom closet upstairs, maybe?

“You were one of many babes Chloe drug home from the hospital—Rosencranz you know—where the rich girls went to have their little bastards. Plenty of orphans to go around.”

Jade’s mouth fell open and she dropped her fork. “What? I was born at Rosencranz? That can’t be! Chloe said they found me in the woods…in a basket. She said my mother was alone in the world, and couldn’t keep me.” For the first time ever, that story seemed patently ridiculous. One only a child would believe.

Mrs Flanagan smiled and shook her head. “Well, that was partly true. She brought you home in a basket alright. But you weren’t born in the woods. You were born at Rosencranz Hospital for Unwed Mothers. Chloe was a midwife there. You were an orphan by all accounts, and she brought you home, and she and Smitty kept you, and that was that.”

“I had no idea,” Jade murmured, feeling as if the floor had collapsed under her.

“See, Chloe always wanted a daughter,” Mrs Flanagan went on. “Though when you came along she was old enough to be your grandmother. Why, I remember the first day I ever laid eyes on you, missy. You weren’t much bigger than a Raggedy Anne doll yourself. Well, I’ll tell you though, little bit or no, Chloe handed you over to me, and when I put you on my shoulder, you belched like a sailor. Healthy as a little piglet, you were.”

Jade managed a weak smile. “Russ says belching is my super power. I guess I was born with it.”

Mrs Flanagan laughed. “Baby burps are music to mother’s ears.”

A knock on the screen door took both women’s attention, and they turned to look.

“Oh!” Mrs Flanagan said. “It’s Bertram!”

A tall, burly man with a green and yellow John Deere hat opened the door and stepped in. “Hi, Mom,” he said as he put a hand on her shoulder. He planted a kiss on the top of her head.

Mrs Flanagan smiled and grabbed his hand. “Son, you remember Jade?”

Bertram thrust his free hand in Jade’s direction and said, “I shore do! But you were about knee high to a turnip green last time I laid eyes on you!”

“Well, now she’s all grown up!” Mrs Flanagan said. “And, married to a college professor.”

Yes, bastard that I am, managed to marry well.

Jade shook his hand as Mrs Flanagan said, “Bertram’s a good son. Though he ran off and joined the military soon as he graduated from County High. I cried for weeks.”

“It was the best thing I ever did,” Bertram said to Jade. “I got a pension and health insurance and I’m only 40!”

“Yes,” Mrs Flanagan agreed. “My Bertram made a life for himself in the Army. Twenty years, he did. Worried sick all the while he was in I-rack. I missed him something awful, but—” she smiled up at him. “But he made us proud, he sure did.”

“You ready, Mom?” Bertram said.

“Yes, I am,” Mrs Flanagan said as she rose from her chair.

Jade smiled when Bertram took Mrs Flanagan by an elbow, led her to the door, helped her down the steps, and steered her toward his truck. It seemed more a gentlemanly gesture of respect from a son to his mother than her actual need, for she was a robust woman—a farmer’s wife.

After she had been seated in the passenger seat of the truck, Mrs Flanagan waved an arm at Jade. “Now don’t you worry about a thing, you hear? Me and the church ladies got this Wake all covered. You just go on in and make yourself at home. There’s a dinner plate in the ‘fridge.” Her plump hand gave Jade’s arm a quick squeeze. “You must eat, child. You’re skinny as a rail.”

Jade waved good-by, relieved that Mrs Flanagan was gone. She really wanted to be alone, with the things she had just learned about her past. On her way back to the house, she reached for the medallion hanging from cord under her shirt. Black as black can be—a crow’s wing interlocked with a human hand.

Chloe said my mother wanted me to have this. Why didn’t she tell me I was born at Rosencranz?

She wished she could talk to Russ. But he was gone. 

With Vin.

Her cell phone rang. She pulled it from he pocket and looked at the screen. 

Russ!

After stewing around in her anger all day whenever the thought of him popped into her head, her heart leapt with joy to see his name.

“Russ! Hello! Where are you? Are you—”

“Hey, hon,” he said. “How’s it going?”

And to hear his voice…his calm voice.

“Oh, all right,” she said through a smile that stretched across her face. “I’m at the farm. Mrs Flanagan just left. She told me some amazing things, I can’t wait to tell you.  But how are you? I guess you arrived safely and all?”

“Yes, we did,” he said, “And we’re waiting now for the shuttle to take us to our hotel.”

Her smile fell. 

We. Our.

“Hon? You there?” Russ said after she had not replied.

“Yes, yes. I’m here.” She managed a weak smile.

“Oh, good,” he said. “I thought I had lost you. Hey! Here’s our shuttle, so I gotta run. But I’ll call you the morning before we leave for the jungle. I just called to say I love you!” And he hung up.

“I love you too,” she said, deflated. He didn’t even wait to hear me say that.

Sighing, she fell into one of the wicker rocking chairs on the porch. Willow B jumped to her lap and swished his tail back and forth across her face. “I really needed to talk to Russ, to tell him I was born at Rosencranz,” she said to the cat. “But there was no time. He had to go.” 

With Vin.

Sighing again, she slouched further into the chair. I really need to talk to someone.

She called Kate.

“You are kidding me!” Kate said after Jade told her what Mrs Flanagan had said. “Rosencranz! Really?”

“Really,” Jade said. “Mrs Flanagan told me Chloe was a midwife there, and she helped find homes for babies that were hard to adopt out. But I was a keeper, she said.”

“I wonder why you were a ‘keeper’,” Kate said. ”Could Chloe have possibly been your real mother?”

“No, she was 78 five years ago, and I am 25, so…”

“That’d make her 58 when you came along,” Kate said. “Pretty old to be bearing a child.”

“What I wonder is why I never had a birth certificate,” Jade said. “There was no fire in the Records department at the county, so it seems there never was one.”

“That is pretty strange,” Kate said. “And illegal if there really wasn’t one—considering you were born at an institution. Let’s talk more after the Wake tomorrow. Try to find Smitty’s Will. Hopefully there is one…it may shed some light on things as well as probating his estate a lot less of a pain in the ass.”

===

Jade took her full plate of cold fried chicken and potato salad outside to the porch. Her plate had hardly put a dent in the massive largesse that Mrs Flanagan had made for the Wake the next day. 

“You eat!” Mrs Flanagan had insisted. “There’s plenty for tomorrow. You’re skinny as a rail!” 

“Chicken!” She thought she heard someone say.

“Dibs!” Another, different voice.

She looked around the yard…nothing. Snickering, she said in her best imitation of Russ, “Great, so now you’re hearing voices.”

But she kept an eye and ear out. Just in case…

After finishing her dinner, she put the plate on the table next to her chair and draped her napkin over the remainder. “No bones for you, Blue. Or you,” she said to the cat before pushing him off the table. 

She leaned back in the rocking chair. The sun went down, the stars came out, and the crickets slowed the intervals between chirps.

I was born at Rosencranz. Chloe took me home. Me. Why did she keep me? Oh I wish I could talk to her now…she knows who my mother is.

Jade murmured the poem Chloe used to tell her when it was time to go to bed:

Star light, star bright,

First star I see tonight,

I wish I may, I wish I might,

Have this wish I wish tonight 

“I wish to see my mother tonight,” she said to the rising moon. Huge and brilliant,  the silvery orb bathed the landscape in a mysterious light. She wondered if her mother on Wilder Island was looking up at the same moon.

I wish for my mother. Tonight and every night. 

She watched the fireflies winking on and off as they danced beneath the darkness under the trees. Rosencranz? Was I really born there? Why didn’t Chloe tell me? Instead of that silly story about being found in the woods…

She yawned and stood up. “Well, kids, let’s go to bed before I fall asleep right here.”

Old Blue followed her into the house and assumed his position in the kitchen near the back door. WillowB dashed ahead of her as she ascended the stairs to her bedroom. 

She expected five years of dust on everything when she arrived, but there wasn’t even a day’s worth, anywhere in the house. Mrs. Flanagan’s work, no doubt. Was she Smitty’s girlfriend?—she has been a widow for years. Or is she just a good neighbor? 

WillowB had already assumed his position on the bed when Jade stepped through the doorway. It still seemed a lot smaller than in her memory—though certainly adequate for her and a cat, but the bed was tiny compared to the acreage of the king-size bed she and Russ slept in.

Russ. Vin.

Dismissing them both immediately, before any thought took hold of their sleeping arrangements. Jade picked up the objects on her dresser. Everything  just as she had left it five years ago: the picture of Chloe; a ceramic jar full of buttons she had collected as a child; her favorite rock. All there, as if she had never left.

The grainy picture of her mother. Jade stroked the photo gently with her finger. I know where you are. I will find you. With or without Russ. Or Alfredo.

The bedroom walls were hung with several of her paintings—from childhood all the way up to her marriage to Russ. “Those are my first flower paintings,” she had told him, pointing toward a group of small paintings of six different flowers.

“They’re adorable, in a you sort of way,” Russ had said.

“What does that mean?” she said, pursing her lips and frowning.

Tipping his head to one side, he gathered his words from the images before him. “Well, for one, you blew them up, into extremely enlarged views that abstract the thing so much, and went wild with the colors. You don’t get all hung up in the pre-conceived notions of what a flower is supposed to look like. You somehow make people look at things as they really are.”

“Really?” she said, tipping her head to one side, matching his pose. “I didn’t have any idea about abstract art or anything. I just liked the colors. And I was only seven.” She smiled at the memory of her younger self. “The insides of the flowers were so pretty, so velvety and some of them had little tunnels and caves and I liked to pretend I was really, really tiny, like an ant, so I could wander through them.”

“That’s what I mean,” he said, grinning at her. “You do the same thing now—make us all walk those hidden places with you.”

He disentangled his hand from hers and put his arm around her shoulders. “Your paintings always amaze me, babe. You paint how you see the world. Not how the camera would record, or how people expect things to look. But this uniquely, beautiful Jade way of seeing.”

“Well, thank you, kind sir,” she said, smiling coyly at him. “Want to be my agent?”

“It would be my pleasure,” he said. “But I can only discuss my terms while naked, okay?”

He pushed her down onto the bed and kissed her.

“Better times, I guess, MrB,” she said to the sleeping cat. “I really miss him. The way he used to be.”

She opened the closet door to get her nightgown off its hook. Staring back at her, an old woman in a black satin Victorian dress that rippled with color at the slightest movement. “Oh! Hello there!” she said, a hugely ridiculous smile on her face.

Jade gasped. She shut the door, backed away from the closet, bumped into the bed and sat down. She fumbled for her cell phone to call 911 and report an intruder.

“You’re hallucinating again.” Russ’s voice echoed inside her head.

“No, I’m not!” But she put her cell phone down.

Even when he’s gone, he is still here telling me I am crazy.

“Yet you answer,” said a voice behind the door.

“Who’s there?” she nearly shouted, her heart beating wildly.

“No one,” the voice said. “Just your Guardian Angel.”

Jade stared at the closed door. My Guardian Angel. After the crows broke through the window and scared her half to death that night. Chloe had advised her to paint her Guardian Angel—to help her fall asleep at night. It had hung over her bed for many years. 

“Your Guardian Angel will protect you,” Chloe had said.

“That is true,” the voice behind the door said, as if she had heard Chloe.

Am I truly hallucinating? Or just insane?

“What do you think?” The voice said.

“Oh, for god’s sake,” Jade said. She stood up and jerked the door open. “Who’s in here?”

Nothing but clothes. And the scent of lavender.

Shaking her head, Jade took her nightgown off the hook and closed the door. Hallucinations are a sign of insanity.

After changing into her nightgown, she pulled down the covers. She rolled herself in the sweet smell of sunshine. Chloe always hung the laundry outside to dry—among the things she missed about Chloe. And the farm. 

A gentle breeze blew the curtains inward. The window. The one the crows flew through and scared her half to death so many years ago. Except then it had not been open.

They thought I imagined it all, even though there was glass everywhere.

The dream recurred a few weeks ago, and Jade had insisted to Russ: “My mother is trying to contact me.” But she could not explain how crows breaking a window, flying through it, in order to steal something that used to belong to her mother, correlated to her mother trying to contact her.

Russ had told her it was just a dream. “It wasn’t real, babe,” he had said. “Just something that flew out of that marvelous imagination of yours.”

Jade crawled into bed. As she drifted off to sleep, her mother’s face appeared—as she imagined, as she had painted, as she had seen on Wilder Island. 

Black raven hair and gray eyes, the color of rain.

Jade folded her hands as if in prayer, her mother’s medallion in between. Smitty’s smiling face appeared, taking up the entire field of vision behind her closed eyes…rocking her, singing in his gruff voice, “Rock-a-bye Baby in the treetops…”

Swaying in the branches, spiraling slowly down into the pocket between awake and asleep…between unwanted babies and unwanted mothers.

“…when the bough breaks the cradle will fall…” Smitty’s voice grew far away as the baby fell into Chloe’s hands.

Jade’s eyes snapped open. Listening intently, she sorted the sounds of the house from the sounds of the night. There it was. The singing.

Or was it just the wind, whistling through windows not entirely closed? She held her breath, straining to hear. 

All around the purple heather …

A blast of night came through the window suddenly, and circled the room like a small tornado. Jade dove further under the covers, her heart pounding. She reached for the medallion on the leather cord under her nightgown, and  covered her ears to block out the sound of the open window banging against the wall.

The wind died down as suddenly as it had started. The window stopped banging. She waited a few minutes, listening hard to the sounds outside the open window. 

Crickets. A hooty owl. Frogs.

Finally she crawled out from under the covers. She snuck to the window, slowly rose to her feet and peered out into the darkness. Nothing but silence. Except for the chirping crickets, frogs, owls…

She lay back down on the bed, eyes wide open. After several minutes, she got back up. I’ll never get back to sleep. 

Russ had given her a shot of vodka in a big steaming cup of hot chocolate the night a few weeks ago when she had the dream again. I went right back to sleep. Maybe there’s some brandy in the liquor cabinet…

Downstairs in the dining room, she opened the lower cabinet where the liquor was kept. Numerous bottles stood like soldiers at the ready. A small bottle with the purple label caught her attention—and she smiled.

“Mildornia Wine! Yes!” 

She pulled out the small green bottle with the familiar label that she had painted ages ago—a tiny vignette of mildornia bushes growing along the stream, their bright bluish purplish berries dwarfing the leaves. And, Chloe’s Seed Shed, all surrounded by sunflowers. Smitty had taken the painting to a Ledford copy shop and made a whole bunch of sticky-back labels from it. For Chloe’s special wine.

Jade had never been allowed to even have a sip. 

But now…no one can tell me not to.

“Just a little sip, to help me sleep.” That’s what Chloe said sometimes over the rim of a small delicate crystal goblet. 

“Not until you’re a grown-up!” she would say when Jade begged her for a taste. “It’s not for children, dear. It’ll make you have bad dreams.”

Jade had sneaked a swallow of it when Chloe left it alone on the table in the parlor for a few moments before bedtime the night the crows came. But only a swallow. It was sweet at first, but it tasted weird and burned all the way down. 

She never told Chloe or Smitty, or anyone that she had pilfered a sip. She never touched Mildornia Wine after that. Even now, as an adult with no one looking, she felt a little scared and even naughty opening the bottle.

 She took a small goblet —the one Chloe used to drink from—off its shelf. “Just a little sip to help me sleep,” she said to the cabinet as she closed the glass door.

On the porch, she set bottle and goblet on the end table next to her usual rocking chair. After filling the wine glass, she held it up to the light, watching the rich purple-blue liquid split into many colors.

“It’s so beautiful.”

The first sip bloomed in her mouth smokey and sweet, with familiar and exotic flavors like blueberries and something else she couldn’t name. It was somehow irresistible and she took another sip.

Today’s conversation with Mrs Flanagan roamed around in her brain, again. I was born at Rosencranz! Maybe that’s why I … see things. Wait till Russ hears this, he’ll for sure say that’s why I am so nuts.

“You aren’t nuts, dear,” a voice next to her said. “Just very observant.”

Jade turned and jerked her head sideways toward the voice and she put the goblet down on the table rather harder than she intended. A little old lady sat in the other rocking chair. 

Neither WillowB nor Old Blue seemed to notice the apparition. 

Straight out of the Victorian era, the excruciatingly prim and proper silver-haired  gentlelady sat with her hands folded, holding a pair of black gloves. Her black satin dress rustled crisply as she arranged the fabric around her; brief flashes of color attended her movements creating the impression of sparks. Parts of her face and body faded for an instant, then came back. As if she were a bit under-pixelated. 

Hallucinations don’t do that. Maybe it IS the wine.

“One sip is really all you need,” the Victorian lady said. “Any more is wasteful, and it will only make you very drunk and pass out. Of course, the dreams will be unforgettable.”

Jade felt a little woozy, though not drunk by any means. She did want to take another sip, however, in spite of the old woman’s warnings. Maybe when the old woman leaves…

“But it is addicting,” the lady went on as if she could read Jade’s thoughts. “So best not take more than a sip.”

“Who are you?” Jade demanded, frowning in irritation at the invasion into her thoughts.

“I told you,” the shimmering face said. “I am your  personal Guardian Spirit.” 

“Spirit? As in ghost?” Jade asked, feeling a tad ridiculous for asking. “So you’re not real, then.”

“Real, schmeal,” the spirit said, waving a glove toward Jade. “What exactly is real?”

Jade opened her mouth to answer, then shut it, not knowing what to say about the Reality of Things.

“Exactly,” the spirit said, waving a glove.

The spirit took off one of her black, elbow-length, fine leather gloves, and knocked over Jade’s goblet. “Oh, for pity sakes!” She said. “How enormously clumsy of me.”

“No harm done, other than to your glove,” Jade said and righted the goblet while the old woman sopped up the spilled wine with her glove. Which couldn’t possibly be real, anyway. “So, seriously, who are you? a a figment of my imagination? That’s what my husband would say.”

Jade poured more Mildornia Wine into her glass.

“Phhhht,” the ghost said, waving the clean glove with the other hand. “As if figments do not exist. What does he know?”

“Well, he doesn’t believe in ghosts,” Jade said. “He’s a scientist.”

The spirit laughed. A ridiculously, irresistibly silly sound that made Jade giggle, then laugh heartily, spontaneously, uproariously. From the depths of her being, she laughed. With a ghost in black Victorian satin dress with hues of crimson, blue and green.

“So, um, not to be rude or anything,” Jade said, after getting control of herself, “but what are you doing here?”

“I’m sitting in your porch talking to you!” The ghost said, as a puzzled look crossed her face. She cocked her head to one side—her small beak-like nose cast a sharp shadow across her powdery face. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, I, that is, see—I am known for having hallucinations and I was just wondering. Before you were a ghost, who were you?”

“An excellent question!” The ghost said. “I am known to some as Great Aunt Lizzie.”

“Are you my Great Aunt?” Jade asked. 

“Of course!” Great Aunt Lizzie said. “Probably Great-great-great-Aunt Lizzie—but I lost count of how Great I am.” She laughed so robustly, Jade could not help but join her.

“That’s Great!” Jade said, trying to keep from smiling. “I was worried you were just one of my hallucinations. I see things that aren’t there, you see.”

“I see,” Great Aunt Lizzie said, nodding gravely. Suddenly her face exploded into wrinkles and utter mirth. 

Jade could not help but crack up with her. Again.

“No, seriously,” Great Aunt Lizzie said, chuckling and dabbing her eyes with a lace hanky. “Your sight is just fine, dear. Most folks wander through life with a thick sock pulled firmly over their heads. Not seeing. Not hearing.”

She picked up Jade’s goblet, and sipped delicately and said: “Oh, that Chloe—she could brew Mildornia Wine like no one’s business.”

“I remember!” Jade said, grinning. “I used to ‘help’ her’”—making small quotes in the air with her fingers. “Haha! One time I was trying to see what she was doing, oh—maybe I was 8 or so— and I was underneath her elbows and she stopped what she was doing and said to me, “Am I in your way?”

Great Aunt Lizzie smiled and nodded, “She had such a sense of humor…”

“She never let me even have a sip of the mildornia wine she made, though,” Jade said. “I begged her to let me have one little taste. She never did.” 

“Except that once when she wasn’t looking., eh?” Great Aunt Lizzie said with a wink. “Mildornia Wine is part of your heritage.”

“My heritage? So are hallucinations, evidently,” Jade shook her head and took another sip. She wondered for the first time if she herself had been an hallucination. No, Russ would not have been able to see me…let alone marry me.

“I am not an hallucination!” Great Aunt Lizzie  said. “Any more than you are, or the cat or the dog, or this farm. Do get over what other people think—speaking of hallucinations.”

“Okay then, what are you doing here, Great Aunt Lizzie?” Jade asked. “Other than scaring me, making me laugh, and spilling Chloe’s Mildornia Wine?”

“Ah, yes, Chloe’s Mildornia Wine. I taught her to make it, you know. An old family recipe—it’s been in the family for centuries.”

“Centuries?”

“Or something,” Great Aunt Lizzie said, waving the other glove. “A long time. I’ve quite lost track. What does it matter?”

“Not much, I suppose,” Jade said. “I always thought it was Chloe’s recipe.”

“And it was, child!” Great Aunt Lizzie said. “I gave it to her. Just like my mother gave it to me, and her mother gave it to her, and —”

“So, Great Aunt Lizzie,” Jade asked. “Did you show up to teach me how to make Mildorn—”

“Among other things,” Great Aunt Lizzie said. “But for now, I am here to welcome you home.”

===

Jade’s early morning dreams were a collage of images that flowed into one another. Her mother singing on Wilder Island; Mrs Flanagan’s voice: “You were one of many babes Chloe drug home from the hospital—Rosencranz you know—where the rich girls went to have their little bastards.”
And Great Aunt Lizzie.

The pale gray sky and the chirping birds announced the morning. As did Great Aunt Lizzie’s voice from behind the closet door. 

So I didn’t hallucinate her.

“For heaven’s sake, child,” Great Aunt Lizzie said. “What will it take to convince you?” The closet door slowly swung open.

Oh, sooner or later, I’ll get it,” Jade said with a harsh laugh. “But now it is time for coffee.”

“I will have tea,” Great Aunt Lizzie said. “If you please.”

Jade threw on some jeans and a t-shirt. A quick brush through her hair and teeth, she headed downstairs. WillowB ran ahead of her, meowing all the way.

In the kitchen, Jade opened a drawer looking for a can opener, and picked up Smitty’s old Swiss army knife. She smiled, remembering how Smitty let her play with the little scissors, the toothpick, and the tweezers. But not the blades. The little engraved cross had completely worn off the knife handle over the years—he had used it for everything.

The knife disappeared into her pocket.

She opened a new can of dog food, spooned a chunk onto a cup of dry food, and mixed it all together with hot tap water. 

“Come on, Blue!” she said as she picked up dog bowl and led the dog out the door to the porch. She returned to the kitchen and brought her coffee and a cup of tea out to the porch. Surprised to see that Great Aunt Lizzie was not there, she set the tea down as if she were.

She sipped her coffee and leaned back in the rocker.  A hundred questions bounced through her brain. Things she wished she had asked Great Aunt Lizzie, whose realness, Jade was beginning to doubt.

Why did Chloe ever bring me home? Me.  And then she stopped midwifing. Why?

How could I have been born at Rosencranz? Who was my father? Did Chloe know him? Wish I’d asked more questions before Chloe died. Now there is no one who knows where I came from.

Rosencranz! Maybe I’ll drive over there someday and see the place where I was born. See what, she had no idea. It’s not like my mother would be there. She’s on the island. 

Mrs Flanagan would arrive in a couple hours to bring more food and chairs for the Wake the next day. She’d done everything—the house was clean, food all taken care of. There really wasn’t anything to do but hang out and wait.

“C’mon, Blue, how about a walk?” Jade said, after finishing her coffee on the porch.   “Looks like it might rain, but I think we can do—” her words cut off by a loud thunderclap. 

The downpour commenced immediately.

“Well, never mind!” Jade said. “But what shall we do now?”

She wandered through the house, touching the relics of her childhood—antiques and knickknacks mostly of a by-gone era. The memories these things held provided tangible proof of their lives once lived. 

“Russ hates this kind of stuff,” she said to Old Blue, who was out cold in front of Smitty’s favorite chair. “It’s just so—so bourgeois!” she said, in a deep tone mocking her husband’s favorite soap box.

She opened a closet door, the odor of moth balls wafted outwards. Underneath the coats hanging on the bar, a small painting leaned up against a stack of boxes. “What’s this?” she said as she fished it out. “Oh my god! The Seed Shed! I’d totally forgotten it!”

She brought the painting into the kitchen and laid it on the table. A smile broke across her face. “Oh my god!” she whispered. 

Smitty had just finished painting the new seed shed he’d built for Chloe. Bright white, with a sign above the doorway—a wooden sign, painted black. She leaned closer and the silvery lines depicting a crow’s wing holding a human hand appeared. Her eyes opened wide as she reached for the medallion around her neck. Like my medallion! 

So it wasn’t just a little piece of jewelry her mother had entrusted to Chloe to give to her someday. What does it mean?

The sound of a car motoring up the driveway interrupted her thoughts and she went to the window.

“Mrs Flanagan,” she said, and shut the closet door.

Refusing any help from her, Mrs Flanagan and her son Bertram offloaded the food and chairs. “We’ll see you tomorrow, dear,” Mrs Flanagan said, when they were finished. And they left.

The rain had stopped. 

“Up for that walk now, Old Blue?” Jade said to the dog sprawled on the porch.

Old Blue leapt up wagging his tail and followed her to the kitchen. Outside, the old hound dog wagged his tail and took the lead. He knew where to go,  down a path to the small stream.

They walked under the canopy of a few tall trees, through an orchestra of color. Late summer shouted out abundantly in the vivacious foliage, though a few trees had already started to turn yellow or red. All around came the sounds of living creatures living their lives in a world of abundance. 

A small bridge spanned the little stream that formed a boundary between the flower garden and the cornfields beyond. Old Blue led the way up its meanders, leaping back and forth as if he were a young pup. Jade picked her way across exposed rocks, trying not to fall in, but not really caring if she did. The occasional thick undergrowth scratched her bare arms, and made her wish she had worn long sleeves.

She’d spent her childhood here, far away from cities and the madness that thrived there. The green of everything, speckled with wildflowers, the peaceful sound of the water gurgling by—just like her memory.

This tiny farm had the same kind of ancient feel as Wilder Island, as if it existed within, yet separate from the rest of the noisy, artificial world of humans. The mini forest surrounding the farm comprised a variety of trees, shrubs and flowers—much like the island—growing in robust profusion of color, perfume and texture. 

“Why did I leave?” she asked Old Blue.

“You got married, remember?” said a voice from above.

“Blue?” she said, looking wildly around in a sudden panic. “Blue?” 

Old Blue came bounding out of the underbrush and nearly knocked her into the stream.

“Believe his name was Russ,” said another non-human voice from above.

Old Blue either didn’t hear or he didn’t care.

Jade squinted up into branches above her head. 

“Who’s up there? Who are you?” she asked.

Two crows dropped out of the branch they’d perched on and landed on a couple rocks sticking up above the water. Both bowed low with a wing stretched out parallel to the ground.

“Name’s Jocko,” said one. “This here’s my bro, Chaco.”

“But everyone calls me Chuck,” said the other. “At your service.” He bowed again.

“Welcome home, Miz Jade!” Jocko and Chuck said in unison and danced a little jig around her feet.

Jade finally closed her mouth, and her eyebrows assumed the normal horizontal position over her eyes.

“Oh.My.God.” she said. 

“Where?” Jocko said, looking up to the sky. “I’ve always wanted to see a god.”

Jade laughed in spite of her dismay. “I just meant I am really shocked.”

“You sounded like you saw god,” Jocko said.

“For a fact,” Chuck said.

“I can’t believe this,” Jade said to the air around her. “When did I start hearing crows talk?” She shook her head, frowning. A long time ago, she suddenly realized. She’d understood the crows on Wilder Island—much to her dismay—though she had tried not to and didn’t dare let anyone know.

“Oh, let’s see,” Jocko said turning to his brother. “Do you remember?”

“I do! You were a lot shorter then, MizJade,” Chuck said.

“Yep,” said Jocko. “Just about as tall as us’n, eh bro?”

“For a fact,” Chuck said.

Jade could do nothing but shake her head.

“And one day when one of our brethren—beaked Mrs Beasley.” Chuck said.

“Yah, you stopped talking to us after that.”

Mrs Beasley! 

It was awful watching the little mouse get carried off, squeaking all the way.

“I was really upset with you—that is, your brethren,” Jade said. “And I never wanted anything to do with crows after Mrs Beasley.” Tears stung her eyes, remembering the tiny flowers and little headstone she had made for Mrs Beasley’s grave, even though there was no body—the mouse having been eaten.

“We’re sorry!” Jocko and Chuck said in unison.

“But everybody’s gotta eat,” Chuck said.

“I know. Chloe said the same thing. But still, don’t you guys feel bad when you kill something to eat?”

The two crows looked at each other for a few seconds, then back at Jade.

“Nope,” Jocko and Chuck said in unison again.

“We’d starve to death, elsewise,” Chuck said.

“Yah,” said Jocko. “It is how it is. Everybody has to eat.”

“And everybody has to die,” Chuck said.

“Sorta works, ya know?” Jocko said. “Things die. Living things eat dead things. Win-win.”

“Yep,” Chuck said. “One way or another, we’ll all get et.”

“For a fact,” Jocko said.

Jade laughed. Talking to crows…Well, so does Alfredo, and no one thinks he is crazy!

“Even so, I’d really hate to be hauled off by a bird of prey,” she said, her brow furrowed. “I’m probably safe enough from that, though.”

“Also a fact,” Chuck said.

Back to her mission, Jade scrambled out of the stream bed, and stumbled through a thicket of fragrant bushes. She stood amidst several silver-leafed bushes with purplish-blue blue berries hanging on red stems. “Mildornia!” Jade announced. 

In the Fall while she was growing up, Jade had helped Chloe gather many a basket full of these bluish purple berries. Chloe made wine with some, but most of the berries she used for medicines. Jade had no idea what kinds of medicines, or even who wanted them.

“Mildornia for sure!” Jocko said, as he flew a figure eight pattern above her. “No eating it!”

“Don’t eat it!” Chuck warned. “Unless you want to go to sleep and never wake up.”

“Like Chloe,” Jocko said.

“I only sip the wine,” Jade said. No harm in admitting that to crows. “So did you know Great Aunt Lizzie?” She said as causally as she could.

“Nah,” Chuck said. “But our great great great great—” he turned to Jocko—“how many is that?”

“Four more,” Jocko said. “Eight is great is how I remember.”

“So yah,” Chuck said. “”Our grandmother way back knew her.”

Jade decided not to mention her wine-drinking episode with Great Aunt Lizzie the night before. I wonder if ghosts appear to crows?

A small forest of tall sunflowers announced Chloe’s seed shed. Jade pushed her way through their thick trunks and giant scratchy leaves that ended suddenly at a wavy pavement of old bricks, whose joints sprouted tufts of grass. The actual seed shed was barely visible behind a few seasons of un-pruned growth.

“It sure has gotten overgrown here since Chloe’s been gone,” Jade said as she pulled away at the vines that had nearly covered the entire exterior. 

Underneath the vines, traces of white paint remained stuck to gray wood siding weathered by decades of exposure to the elements. “There are two windows under here somewhere. And a door.”

Remembering Smitty’s Swiss Army knife in her pocket, she took it out and pulled up the largest blade. She hacked away at the vines until the door appeared. After pulling the last of the vines away from the door, she expected to see a wooden plaque bearing the image of a crow wing intertwined with a human hand.

No plaque hung above the door—though there had been one there once upon a time. The wood siding bore evidence that an oval object had once been in the spot where Jade had painted it.

“Where did it go?” she said.

“Where’d what go?” Jocko asked from the roof.

“There used to be a sign above the door,” Jade said. 

“Maybe it fell off,” Chuck said.

“Yah,” Jocko said. “Maybe it’s in here somewhere.” He rummaged through the dead plant debris piled up against the shed—five years of leaves and sunflower stems, plus a bit of bindweed tying it all together. 

“Maybe so,” she said, “I’ll need to come back with a bigger blade to cut through all this.”

“Nah,” Chuck said. “We’ll find it.”

Both crows thrashed around the dead vines and leaves, tossing bits and pieces into the air.”

“Walla!” Jocko announced after his beak hit something hard.

Jade bent over the crows and tore away at the vines. “Yes!” she said and pulled the oval sign out the remaining plant debris. She brushed her hand across the surface, front and back. No words appeared, but a faint silver image against a black background.

“What’s it say?” Chuck asked.

“This,” Jade said. She pulled the medallion out from under her shirt and showed them the crow wing/human hand motif. “I painted this image on it with silver ink.”

“Chloe used to wear something like that,” Jocko said. 

“I think my mother used to wear this,” Jade said, holding up her medallion again. “Perhaps it is a family emblem of some sort.”

She pushed hard on the old door, and it creaked open on rusty hinges. Standing in the doorway, rooted to the spot, she was reluctant to step over the threshold. The air hung still and heavy as stone. Faint odors of familiar herbs—rosemary, lavender, mint—and exotic spices mingled with a few dust particles that hung eternally in mid-air. 

“Just don’t be kicking up dust, Lass!” she almost heard Chloe admonish from her workbench.

Jade stepped into the weakly illuminated interior.

The mid-day sun cast diffused beams of light through windows frosted nearly opaque with age. “I’ve always been fond of sunbeams,” Jade said to the glittering motes of dust and the other tiny particles of who-knows-what that floated up into the sun beam as her feet stirred up the dirt floor. 

Chloe’s seed shed had inspired her entire series of paintings called The Glitter Ones…

The Glitter Ones—human-like people whose skin was coated with tiny squares of glitter that she had stuck into the paint with a tiny, very pointy, wet paintbrush. She hadn’t seen or even thought about the Glitter Ones in many years, though she had always been enamored of painting sunbeams. 

I wonder where The Glitter Ones are now? In the old house, no doubt. With other forgotten paintings from her childhood.  

She walked through the sunbeam—half expecting as she always did—that she would emerge covered in glitter. She supposed the glitter was there on her skin, just too small for her to see. 

“That’s what imaginations are for,” Chloe had told her long ago. “Too show us the things that we cannot see with our eyes.”

Chloe’s workbench loomed larger in Jade’s memory than in fact. It was actually rather short, as was Chloe. Her small garden gloves lay in patient repose, piled one on top of the other as if doffed by their owner only seconds ago. Jade half-expected the gloves to rise up and finish whatever it was Chloe was doing on that last day.

Chloe died right here. They chalked it up to a heart attack. Or a stroke. 

She pinched a small cluster of leaves with shriveled, dark bluish-purple berries off one of the dead plants. 

“Don’t eat that!” Jocko said sharply and hopped onto the workbench. He plucked the leaf cluster from her hands and dropped it to the floor.

“That there is mildornia,” Jocko said.

“She ate some of them berries,” Chuck said. 

“Killed her,” Jocko said.

“Did her in,” Chuck said.

“Dispatched her straightaway,” Jocko said.

“What are you saying?” Jade said. “Chloe knew everything about mildornia! She made wine from the mildornia berries, and she drank it pretty regularly. I can’t believe mildornia poisoned her.”

“Her lips told the tale,” Jocko said. 

“All purple from them berries,” said Chuck.

“That makes no sense,” Jade said, shaking her head. “Chloe never ate the berries raw.”

“She did that time,” Jocko said.

“Now, stop that!” Chloe cried out as she waved the young crows away from her hat. “Be off! The lot of you!”

The crows ignored her insincere demands, and continued to fly circles around her fruit-and-flower-laden hat—all fake, but very colorful. The crows liked to play like they were eating from her hat, nipping at the fruit on a fly-by; but the real fun lay in who got to perch on the fake banana at the very top.

Chloe continued on her way to the seed shed—a processing and storage place Smitty had built for her decades ago. He’d repainted it white so many times since then, she’d lost count. He and the neighbor men dug a long trench into the hill slope next to the small creek that flowed through their farm, and lined it with cinder-blocks. In the early days, before the corporate farms had come, they’d had a small paddle wheel that ground Smitty’s hard spring wheat into flour.

There wasn’t enough water in the stream anymore to drive the paddle wheel. The trench had filled in with the offspring of the plants that grew along the stream.

The plaster walls inside the seed shed regulated the atmosphere; excess moisture from even the most humid days would be absorbed into the plaster, to evaporate back out when the air within dried out. Their neighbor of long ago, Rafael—truly a master craftsman—had come and plastered the walls with a buff-colored mixture of clay and plaster of Paris he had formulated himself.

Chloe learned herbal craft from her Great Aunt Lizzie MacLaren, who learned it from her grandmother, Marya Naprawa, who learned it from her mother, Elizabeth Acker.  Chloe could pretty well recite her Patua’ lineage all the way back to the Reformation, if she took a notion. Even without the mildornia.

She had worked her whole life to repair the effects of the most grievous error of the Patua’: the selling of its Mildornia seeds to the Church. 

“Some like to think the Church stole our seeds,” Great Aunt Lizzie had told Chloe long ago. “If only that were the truth, alas!” Her cloudy blue eyes stared sightlessly into the distance, missing nothing.

Chloe had wondered many times as a child how Great Aunt Lizzie saw so much, being medically blind. “There are more ways to see than with the eye,” Aunt Lizzie would always reply. 

The noisy young crows abandoned the plastic fruits of Chloe’s hat as she pushed open the door and entered the seed shed. She breathed deeply of the combined odors of lavender, peppermint, myrtle, and mildornia. A mouse scolded her from the shelf above as she swung the basket full of leaves onto her workbench. 

“Yes, I am late, lass,” Chloe smiled and gave the tiny creature a small chunk of hardened sourdough bread. “Smitty needed a haircut, all of a sudden.” 

The mouse snatched the bread crumb and disappeared behind the ceramic jars of herbs curing on the shelf. 

“But it’s nice to see you this morning, Mrs Beasley!” Chloe said to the vanished mouse. She cocked her head and cupped her hand to her ear and listened for the tiny squeak behind the jars.

There. Mrs Beasley says thank you!

Chloe smiled, remembering the first mouse Jade had named Mrs Beasley. Little Jade was how old then? Three, maybe? Four? And in this very shed…what memories this place has.

When the first Mrs Beasley had met an unfortunate end after a few months, having been carried off by a crow, Jade had been unconsolable. Chloe had convinced her that mice don’t live very long, and that Mrs Beasley had probably had a long life, and was no doubt a great-great-great-great-grandmother by the time she died.

That was Jade’s first experience of death. And perhaps her first awareness of love. “NO!” little Jade had screamed and had tried to run after the crow. 

The mouse never had a chance.

“It is the way of things,” Chloe had said, gathering a sobbing Jade and her mass of blonde curls up into her lap.

Little Jade held a funeral for the poor little mouse. It took her a few weeks of refusing all meat, but in the end she gave in, largely because Chloe and Smitty were not vegetarians.

“All living things, including bugs and plants, are beings,” Chloe taught her. “We must thank them for their nourishment, and honor their lives. It’s no different whether what we eat is an animal or a plant or water. All things are of the Great Spirit.”

It had touched Chloe deeply, the way little Jade had so seriously taken that to heart. She spent the next few weeks making drawings of Mrs Beasley, the chickens, the tomatoes and squash in the garden. 

Strange how Jade didn’t resemble her mother in the least— her curly blonde hair and green eyes, where Charlotte’s hair was crow-black, and her eyes the palest of blue.

Charlotte.

Chloe sighed and leaned against the workbench, recalling the day they’d brought Charlotte into Rosencranz. In a straight jacket screaming though a gag.

As soon as they took the gag off her, Charlotte’s screams were no longer muffled. All manner of curses both vulgar and hilarious streamed out of her mouth, as she thrashed around as best she could, restrained as she was.

“She’s incoherent,” a nurse said. “Is she off her rocker?”

“Drug her,” the doctor said.

Chloe frowned at the mildornia plants on her workbench. With years of careful cross-breeding and tender care, she had finally gotten mildornia plants that grew to robust bushes laden with plump berries. But, the plants and berries were unpredictable. Some berries had no potency at all, while others were too potent and could kill a person.

As well, mildornia was dying out. Fewer and fewer Patua’ were around to do the required grafting to propagate new plants. The Patua’ had wanted to keep mildornia secret, so they had devised the hybrid that produced sterile offspring.

The potent berries were the prize of the Patua’, for the formulations of medicines, and provided the avenue for the deep trances required by the Keepers of the Ancestors, who recorded the important events, such as births, deaths, marriages, and perhaps most importantly, the Lore of the Seeds. 

Chloe was experimenting with cross-breeding mildornia with various other plants, in the hopes that one of them would be the magic button that allowed mildornia’s offspring to bear fruit. As it was, the offspring looked every bit like a common weed with purple flowers, but bore no fruit.

But occasionally one mildornia plant—a daughter of the her last original—bore fruit. Potent fruit.

Chloe tested each plant for potency by biting into one small berry. If it were impotent, it would taste like a cranberry—very sour and lacking in the smoky undertones of mildornia. If it were potent, it would be sweet, smoky, and would produce an immediate, though very mild result—a numbing of the tongue and momentary dizziness.

She pulled the smallest berry off a stem clump, and bit off a tiny bit, enjoying its smoky flavor and texture. This should be a potent plant. 

Seconds later, the tingling sensation began in her fingers. Dizziness came on stronger and more suddenly than it ought. She gripped the edge of the workbench to keep from falling to the dirt floor. 

Voices and streams of color rotated all around her, and a momentary fear of drowning overcame her. “Smitty!” she rasped, seconds before the mildornia paralyzed her vocal cords. She fell over like a board.

Smitty found her on the floor of the shed, her eyes wide open. A trail of purple traced a sinuous line from the corner of her mouth to her ear.