Time Dancers

1. Biharamun (Day after Tomorrow)

Where are you looking? Through a window, from a bridge, down a well, over the rainbow, out of a mouse hole, into the light? Where are you looking? Or, rather, what are you looking for? Out there, somewhere, at some time, do you see a wish fulfilled, a dream come true, a simple affirmation and clarity of that which we cannot speak? Look closely. Can you see the day after tomorrow? Do you recognize it? Will you ever? It is approaching.

The date was March 9, 1919, and it was snowing. We were taking the train down from Chicago to St. Louis and as we crossed the bridge spanning the Mississippi, the sun’s light was fading fast. The water below us looked dark, darker than I ever remembered, and deep under the low light and falling snow. I was in the aisle seat in the back row of our compartment. Opari was sitting next to me. She sat in silence with her head turned away, facing the window. Suddenly she made a trilling sound with her teeth and tongue, then whispered an ancient word in slow repetition. “Amatxurlarru,” she said. “Amatxurlarru.” The word was haunting. Her careful pronunciation was hypnotic and sounded somewhere between song and prayer. I had never heard the word before, but I knew it was Meq.

“What does it mean?” I asked. I was looking past her, through the glass, speaking to her reflection.

“It is from the Time of Ice,” she said. “Great rivers, like this one, were givers of all life and death. The phrase is only spoken when one crosses a river that is a Mother to many others.” She paused a moment and I assumed she was returning to events, stories, people and places, adventures and wisdom, passed down to her from a time so distant I could only imagine it. She went on, “The word, both in dreams and in real life, means ‘the Mother bleeds.’”

A few more seconds passed. I watched the snow while the train tracks rattled underneath us. Finally, I managed to say, “Really.” It was neither question nor statement, and I was trying once again not to show my relative youth and ignorance. I know now that time and the passing of it, the difference in ages and the awareness of it, should not be a problem when you are in love, but these things have taken me a lifetime to learn, let alone accept without wonder.

Ahead, just past the western end of the bridge, the lights of downtown St. Louis were coming into view. Opari said, “This is your birth city, is it not, my love?”

“Yes,” I answered. “It is that…and many other things.” I continued staring out the window, but not at the falling snow, or St. Louis, or even the great Mississippi River. Instead, I gazed into the reflection of two beautiful black eyes, understanding then and there that I will always desire to do just that, as long as I am on this Earth. I felt the presence of her inside me the same way I had seen, for a timeless second, my own mama and papa look to and through each other, also on a train crossing a river, in 1881.

To my right, directly across the aisle, sat my oldest friend and confidante, Carolina Covington Flowers. She was almost fifty years old now, although a stranger would never guess it. She was smiling and staring through the window. Her long hair was pulled back and a few strands of silver and gold hung loose, framing her face. She wore a long black skirt and a simple white blouse buttoned to the neck. A green woolen shawl draped around her shoulders. Her only grandchild, the baby Caine, slept peacefully in her lap. As I watched, she silently wiped a single tear from her cheek. I started to ask if anything was wrong, then decided against it. There was nothing wrong and there was nothing I could do. Sad, happy, maybe both, maybe neither, it was more likely she was only experiencing the same thing I had been thinking about all day, ever since we left Chicago—return. And not just return to anywhere, but return to St. Louis.

The train began a slow, noisy turn to the left, preparing for our approach to Union Station. I glanced ahead at the others and a thought occurred to me that I’d been putting aside and ignoring for weeks. It concerned a situation at least four of us had always been warned to avoid, especially by Sailor. Opari, Geaxi, Nova, and I each had a Stone in our possession and we were all traveling together. The Stones carried by Geaxi and me had been stripped of their priceless gems long ago in Vancouver, but the Stones worn by Opari and Nova were still intact. Like four points on a compass, their Stones held a tiny blue diamond on the top, a star sapphire on the bottom, and lapis lazuli and pearl on each side. The Stones themselves were black and egg-shaped. Sailor had made it clear that the Gogorati, the Remembering, was much too close at hand, less than a hundred years, for anything awkward to happen. Accidents or errors of any sort by any one of us were unacceptable. Period. Although Sailor himself was currently unavailable and following a fear or vision only he could see, I knew he was right, and the reasoning behind his warning was still sound and significant. I made a silent promise, in deference to Sailor, to quit inviting “anything awkward.”

And yet, except for the few traveling with us and a few more spread throughout the world, everyone else—all the others, the Giza—saw us only as they always had: as a troupe of twelve-year-olds, probably related. So be it. We were inside the great station already and St. Louis had never been so loud and alive, urban and big—a true city.

Within minutes we came to an abrupt and final stop. Everyone in our compartment stood at once, reaching for great coats, fedoras, mufflers, and scarves, bracing for the weather outside and filling the aisle completely, front to back. I glanced at Carolina and she silently mouthed the words “Let’s wait.” I nodded in agreement and looked up, trying to catch the eye of Willie Croft, who was sitting with Geaxi. Ahead of them, Nova and Star sat together, as they had for most of the trip since leaving England. But all were out of sight, impossible to see through the shuffling crowd.

Then Carolina shouted, “What about Nicholas and Eder?” Caine was awake and staring at her with wide-open brown eyes, startled by the sudden volume in her voice. She was concerned about her late husband, Nicholas Flowers, and Nova’s mother, Eder Gaztelu. Both Nicholas and Eder were in coffins stowed away in another compartment. St. Louis would be the final stop on their final journey. I yelled back that Willie had taken care of it, but I assured her that we would check on it before we did anything else.

“Good,” she said, smiling down at Caine. “Oh,” she added, craning her neck so I could see her better, “then I’ll tell Owen Bramley to only worry with the luggage. He and Jack will be looking for us.”

Opari tugged on my arm gently and whispered in my ear, “Jack is Carolina’s son, no?”

“Yes, but I’ve never met him.”

“How many years is he?”

I thought about it for a moment, then laughed to myself. So much had happened in the last few months, I nearly forgot Opari was still learning about Carolina and her family, not to mention the entire Western world. We were both learning, especially about each other. However, there was one thing we had not yet discussed—the Wait. I always felt that once we’d arrived in St. Louis and were settled in Carolina’s home, we would have to discuss it. I looked forward to it. Opari was over three thousand years old and still perfectly comfortable in a twelve-year-old body. On my next twelfth birthday, I would be fifty. Even now, I have trouble trying to articulate the intense, paradoxical, and unique power of the Itxaron, the Wait, the very essence of the Meq.

“Is the answer a laughing one?” she asked.

“Probably only to me,” I said, then gave her the answer. “He’s twelve, but he gets to turn thirteen in April.”

After the crowd thinned out, I could finally see ahead to the front of our compartment. Geaxi, Willie Croft, Star, and Nova had also remained in their seats. Geaxi turned and caught my eye, then rose out of her seat, putting on her black beret and walking swiftly back toward me, easily avoiding everyone going the other way. Somewhere on the trip west from New York, she had begun wearing the same clothing that she had worn when I first met her in 1882—black leather leggings and a black vest held together with strips of leather attached to bone. It was unique attire for anyone, but especially so in 1919 on the body of a twelve-year-old girl. Her dark eyes shone bright and she seemed to be almost smiling.

“It is a fine feeling to be back in your city, young Zezen,” she said.

“It’s not my city, Geaxi.”

“Oh, but you are mistaken, even more than you know.”

“How is that?”

“Because this is a truly American city,” she said, “and you, young Zezen, are truly American, agree with it or not, as you prefer. You will come to love this city, though I suspect you have this feeling within you now.” She paused and smiled, then added, “Even more than you know.”

I thought about what she was saying and wondered why she was saying it. Then I remembered Geaxi’s birthplace. “When was the last time you visited Malta?” I asked, not knowing whether Geaxi would take offense or not.

“That is different,” she replied. “My home as a real child was a simple farm with an olive grove and a few buildings, all long gone and erased from the landscape by change and circumstance.”

“But don’t you want to go back, even if nothing’s there?”

“Yes, I do, and I will…someday.” She winked once, then laughed, leaning down and whispering, “When I have the time.”

I glanced out the window at the bundled, busy, loud throng of people coming and going within the immense space of Union Station, and all at once everything seemed more than familiar. I laughed and said, “Then let’s get off this train and go home!”

“Right you are,” Carolina said. “Let’s go home.”

Owen Bramley, much to my surprise, was on time and already there to meet us. In fact, we almost collided with him as we stepped off the train. He had been running from car to car along the platform, looking frantically inside every window for a sign of us. Star, carrying Caine inside the old leather jacket that Willie had given her, was the most excited among us and stepped down first, leaping out with a small scream and a big smile. Owen Bramley nearly trampled her, coming hard from the other direction, but he caught himself and grabbed the handrail of the train door at the last possible moment. Star had cut her hair short on our trip west, mimicking the style of Nova, and she looked even younger than her true age of nineteen.

“My God,” Owen Bramley said, astonished by what he saw in front of him. He took in a breath, then shook his head, staring into the living eyes of the daughter of Carolina. “Remarkable,” he said, “simply remarkable.”

Inside Star’s jacket, Caine turned his head to stare at this new face and voice. “You are Owen Bramley,” Star said. “I know it, I know you are. You have to be.”

She stepped to the side of the stairs leading down to the platform. The rest of us fanned out behind and around her.

“Yes, I am, young lady, and I am just as sure that you are Star. I can barely believe it, but there you stand.” He watched each of us gather around Star. When his eyes fell on Carolina, he said, “My God, it is so good to see all of you.” It was obvious in his eyes that he meant what he said, and clear to me that he was more than relieved to see her returning.

He wore a long trench coat with several buckles and belts, and he was hatless. Fresh snow covered his head and shoulders. His hair was still red, with only a few more streaks of gray than in New Orleans, the last time I’d seen him. His face seemed about the same, except older, of course, and he was even more freckled across his forehead, cheeks, and nose.

“Hello, Owen,” I said. “You look well.”

For the first time since I had known him, Owen Bramley was speechless. He had been expecting us, but the reality of seeing us in person overwhelmed him. He simply stood still, staring at all of us and shaking his head. Behind his wire-rimmed glasses, his blue eyes were bright with understanding. After a few moments, he stammered, “I…I don’t know what to say, Z.”

“Hello would be a good start, Owen.” It was Carolina. She gave him a big hug and kissed him on both cheeks, then asked, “Where’s Jack?”

“Why, I thought he was right here,” he said, turning suddenly and looking behind him.

“Well, he’s not here now.”

“It’s all right, Carolina,” Owen said, giving her a knowing wink. “He’s not alone.”

“Ah…I see,” she said with a smile. “Good.”

Then Owen Bramley caught sight of Opari for the first time. She was wearing one of her ancient shawls across her shoulders and a burgundy scarf around her neck. He seemed startled, almost spellbound by her presence and natural beauty. “I don’t believe I know you,” he said. “I’m certain we’ve never met before.”

“My name is Opari,” she said, looking up at him. “Your name I know from Z and Carolina.” She smiled and Owen Bramley instantly became her friend and constant admirer.

“Owen,” I broke in, “why don’t you help the porter with the luggage while Willie and I take care of something else.”

“Right, right,” he said. “Let’s get going then.”

Willie and I left the others in order to make arrangements for the off-loading of the coffins. I played the part of the silent kid and let Willie do the talking. Months earlier at Caitlin’s Ruby he’d stopped wearing his British uniform, in which he was never completely comfortable, and now, in corduroy slacks, wool sweater, and tweed jacket, he looked much more like the “real” Willie Croft. With his tousled red hair, casual charm, and soft British accent, he had helped make all our travels and troubles along the way much easier, especially through customs, which is always a little tricky for us. He was still head over heels in love with Star, which also insured his constant concern and attention to our welfare, and even though his love for her was honest and genuine, to watch him when he was around her was always comical, bordering on pathetic. However, his feelings never affected his watchful eye or awareness of our situation, whatever it might be. And he was good at directing attention away from the Meq when there were several of us traveling together, as we had been since leaving England. Individually, the Meq are excellent at blending in almost anywhere, but if we are together we draw attention from time to time for being so alike among ourselves, yet very different in cast and carriage from other children. Willie was intuitive in seeing this revelation dawn on a stranger long before they saw it themselves. His various uses of empathy and fantasy were equally and easily distributed. People were ready to give Willie all the help he needed while asking few, if any, questions. Afterward they would feel that whatever they had done to assist him must have been the right thing to do.

“Well, I suppose that’s it then,” he said. We were walking rapidly to catch up with the others. His tone was somber and he was looking straight ahead.

“Almost, but not quite,” I answered. “Carolina wants to bury them both in the ‘Honeycircle’ in back of her home. I’m sure it’s not legal.”

“The what?”

“It’s hard to explain. I think you better see it for yourself.”

Willie gave me a quick glance, raising an eyebrow. “If you say so, Z…and don’t worry about the legal bit. I’ll take care of it.”

“Thanks, Willie…for everything. I mean it.”

“Nothing to it, Z. It’s my pleasure.”

As we hurried to catch the others, we had to pass through the Midway, a 610-foot-long, 70-foot-wide concourse that connected the train shed with the Grand Hall. Halfway through I suddenly noticed Geaxi standing by herself and staring at a poster attached to the wall. I spoke to her, but she didn’t respond, so Willie and I walked over to see if anything was wrong. Of course, she had sensed our presence long before we got to her. She pivoted slowly and glanced up at Willie, as if she’d been waiting for him.

“What kind of aircraft is that?” she asked, pointing toward the poster.

Willie looked closely at the image on the poster, which was a biplane flying between clouds and banking sharply to the right. Under the image, along the bottom of the poster, were the words “Pilots needed—contact Marcellus Foose, East St. Louis, Illinois—if you can fly a Jenny, you can fly anything.”

“I believe that is a Curtiss JN-4,” Willie said. “The Americans like to refer to it as a ‘Jenny.’ Very reliable, but often difficult to handle, I’m told.”

Geaxi made no reply for several moments, then said simply, “I see.” She adjusted her beret slightly, and without saying another word or looking behind, started walking toward the Grand Hall. Willie turned to me for an explanation. I shrugged, then smiled and shook my head, once again realizing there is no explaining the inscrutable Geaxi Bikis.

With Geaxi in the lead, we made our way through the thinning crowd and into the Grand Hall. Willie stared up at the huge, barrel-vaulted ceiling and Romanesque architecture.

“Magnificent structure,” he said. “Never seen anything like it.”

“No, neither have I,” I said and meant it. The building was, and is, a wonder.

“Over there,” Geaxi shouted back at us, pointing toward our little troupe, all gathered around a shoeshine stand against the wall. The luggage was stacked on a large cart off to one side. Carolina was waving for us to come quickly.

When we reached them, she made the sign to keep quiet with her finger pressed to her lips, then leaned over and whispered to me, “Mitchell is teaching Jack about the shoeshine business.”

I squeezed between the others to get closer. What I saw was a handsome, young black man sitting in one of the raised chairs on the stand. He was wearing a tuxedo, complete with white tie, starched white shirt, and white silk scarf around his neck. A floppy, old snap-brimmed cap rested at an angle on his head, the only incongruity in his whole wardrobe. He was looking down and carefully watching a boy about my size, who was buffing the man’s patent leather shoes to a high sheen.

“You got it, Jack,” the man said. “Now whip the rag in the air and wrap it around my heel. Give it a good one-two, then snap your fingers and say, ‘That’s all, mister. There’s a shine that’ll stand the test of time.’ That old rhyme used to get me a tip for sure.” Then, as if on cue, the black man raised his head and found my eyes, breaking into a broad and generous grin.

“Mitchell Ithaca Coates,” I said.

“It’s still ‘Mitch’ to you, Z.” He paused and looked me up and down. “How you been, man? Did you get the bad guys?”

“Yes and no,” I answered. “You know how it goes, Mitch—it’s complicated.” I smiled back at him, then turned and reached for Star’s hand, pulling her forward so he could see her clearly. She held Caine, who had gone back to sleep, close to her chest. “I finally found this one, though.”

Mitch removed his cap slowly and marveled at what he saw in front of him, just as Owen Bramley had. “Well, don’t that beat the devil,” he said. “We been waitin’ for this day, but sometimes, well, sometimes I thought maybe…well, never mind what I thought.” Then he rose out of his seat and said to Jack, “Turn around, son, and take a look at your very own sister.”

For some reason the boy was slow to respond, as if he was shy or too afraid to look. Then I felt a nudge in my back and Nova pushed me aside and stepped forward. In gentle and even speech, she said, “It’s all right, Jack. It’s all right.” When he heard Nova’s voice, the boy turned immediately and gazed up at Star, the sister he had never known, the sister who had been kidnapped by the Fleur-du-Mal and taken to Africa, and the sister whose disappearance had driven their own father mad with loss and despair.

“Hello, Jack,” Star said quietly. She seemed to have an intuitive understanding of his shyness and waited for him to reply.

I watched the boy carefully. We were almost the same height and weight. He was wearing a cap similar to the one Mitch wore, which he slipped off and held with both hands. He had his father’s dark good looks and his mother’s gray-blue eyes flecked with gold. When he saw that Star had the same eyes, his expression brightened, as if their kinship suddenly became real to him; he really did have a sister and she was living, standing right in front of him, even speaking to him. I think he made an instant and unexpected compromise with a very old and very private enemy. “Hello,” he said with a half smile. “I’m Jack.”

Star laughed out loud. “I know, I know. Mama told me all about you.”

Mitch laughed along with her, rising out of his chair and brushing Jack softly on the back of the head. “Come on, everybody—I got two Packard Twin-6 touring cars parked outside. And I’m sorry, Miss C., about keepin’ Jack from seein’ you on the train, but I couldn’t resist the temptation when I passed by the shoeshine stand. I mean, shoeshinin’ was my life!”

“I know that, Mitch,” Carolina said. I looked up at her. She was laughing and crying at the same time. “It’s all right.” She stepped forward and put her arms around Star and Jack, who continued blushing and trying to hide under his cap. “Let’s go home,” she said.

We crammed our luggage and ourselves inside the cars, slipping and sliding in the dark and the snow, which had lessened, but was still falling. After leaving the traffic of Union Station and Market Street, the trip to Carolina’s house became a magical homecoming, with our own laughter and Mitch’s singing filling up the silence of the snowy streets.

“How long is this snow supposed to last?” I asked Owen Bramley, just as we pulled into the long drive leading up and under the brick arch of the big house. Every window glowed from the inside. I thought of a lighthouse, seen from the sea at night, after a strange and difficult journey. Only one word came to mind—“welcome.”

“They say until the day after tomorrow,” Owen said, “but who really knows?”

2. Pinpilipauxa (Butterfly)

Often when a child first catches sight of a butterfly, he or she may ask the question “Where did it come from?” Then someone, usually someone older and presumably wiser, might relate the incredible yet true story of the humble caterpillar and its metamorphosis into the angelic, magical butterfly—dancing on air, a completely new form, shape, dream, and destiny. That part is easy. Then the child may ask, “Does the butterfly remember being the caterpillar?” After that, it is never easy.

A week later the snowstorm was already a distant memory and had been replaced by an early spring breeze, coming from the southwest and filling the bare trees with a promise of new life and new beginnings. The aftermath of the Great War, followed by the Spanish Flu, had hit St. Louis hard, with thousands of local young men lost in Europe and no one knows how many, young and old, men and women, lost to influenza at home. It seemed the whole city wanted to forget the pain and loss, and forget quickly. Our odd little family was no exception.

Perhaps the most dramatic example of this change in attitude took place upon our arrival at Carolina’s that first snowy night. We all gathered in the kitchen after unloading our luggage in the oversized living room. Owen Bramley was going to sort out who was staying in which room and save Carolina the trouble of having to deal with it. As we entered the kitchen, I noticed a familiar figure standing by the stove, though her figure was slightly fuller and her hair was now entirely gray. She turned and stared at each one of us as we sat around the long table in the center of the room. She was Ciela—premium cook and the last of Carolina’s “working girls” still living in the house. She had an anxious look on her face and held a large wooden spoon in her hand. When she caught sight of Star entering the kitchen, laughing about something with Nova, Ciela did the same as Owen and Mitch had done, only she almost fainted. She dropped the spoon to the floor and backed up against the stove, putting her hand to her mouth and stifling her own exclamation, “Madre de Dios, Madre de Dios,” which she couldn’t stop repeating. Carolina would tell me later that for all these years, Ciela had continued to feel responsible for Star’s abduction and disappearance. She kept the guilt bottled up inside, exclusively her own, a cross that God had given her to bear. In one split second it all fell away, and it was nearly too much for her.

“Ciela, please, sit down, get your breath, relax.” It was Owen and he helped her into one of the chairs around the table.

“Madre de Dios,” she mumbled again, staring at Star. “A miracle, a miracle,” she said in English. Star walked over and knelt down next to her, taking Ciela’s hand and holding it. Then the tears came and Star embraced her, letting her release fifteen years of blame and shame.

Another good and necessary change occurred three days later when we buried Eder and Nicholas in the “Honeycircle.” The snow had melted away quickly and Carolina wanted to have the ceremony as soon as possible. On the day after we arrived, during a long walk together through Forest Park, she had told Jack the sad news about his father, whom he had not seen in five years. Jack took it as best he could, she said, and only mentioned a single regret—that he never got to say good-bye. She told him she felt the same way and to compensate for it, they were going to put Nicholas to rest, along with Eder, in the “Honeycircle,” a place more sacred to them than any cemetery. Jack liked the idea and even asked Carolina if he could help, which he did, clearing the space and digging the graves with Owen, Willie, and me.

After our work was done and the coffins were in the ground, Carolina mouthed a silent prayer over the grave of Nicholas, and Nova stared up at the sky above where her mother lay, then walked over and kissed something standing in the center of the “Honeycircle.” I had seen the object once before, far to the west of St. Louis, in a meadow high in the hills above Kepa’s camp. It had been her father’s most prized possession. It was Baju Gastelu’s ancient Roman sundial.

Carolina, Jack, and Nova all felt a sense of completion after the informal ceremony. I could see it in their faces. It was a solemn occasion, but there was not a trace of melancholy or remorse. They had each said good-bye in the best way they knew how, and the ones they had loved were still close to them, underground in the private garden of their own backyard.

Late that same night, I asked Nova how the sundial had come to be in the “Honeycircle.” She was in one of the upstairs bathrooms and the door was open. She stood in front of the mirror by the sink, washing the heavy eye makeup from her face. Her eyes were clear, but she looked surprised at the question, as if everyone knew about the sundial. I reminded her that Ray Ytuarte and I left on our long search for Star the day after she arrived, in the summer of 1904. There was no sundial in the “Honeycircle” at that time. Then, suddenly, I remembered a particular moment when Ray and I were leaving. I remembered seeing two large wooden crates, stacked together under the stone arch in the driveway. When I asked if they were his, he’d said enigmatically, “Don’t ask.” It had to be the sundial. Nova confirmed my theory. Eder had insisted that they bring the sundial from Kepa’s camp and Owen Bramley and Ray were responsible for the dismantling, crating, and shipping.

Then Nova did something rare for her. Nova continued to be a great mystery to me. With her Egyptian-style cosmetics and mascara, eccentric dress and manner, she often seemed to be in her own world, or at least her own version of it. But just then, she looked honest, innocent, vulnerable. She turned and held both my hands, glaring at me with her dark eyes. “What about Ray?” she asked, then in a kind of whisper, “Do you think about him like I do, Z? Do you think about him at all?”

I paused and drew in a deep breath. She had touched a nerve, though I didn’t want to admit it. I knew where his bowler hat was—just inside my closet—but I still had no idea where Ray was. “I think about him every day, Nova. Every single day.”

“So do I,” she said, turning back to the mirror and wiping away a tear, pretending it was mascara.

A few days later an early spring breeze came, bringing with it the wonderful, eternal feeling of renewal and the desire to forget and start again. We all welcomed it and it was good, but for Nova and me, there would still be one thought, one person, one question that both of us knew we would never forget.

Opari had not met anyone like Mitch Coates in all her long life. “There was one man, an Indian prince in Vishakhapatnam, he reminds me of in some ways,” she said, “but Mitch has, how do you say, a ‘joie de vivre’ that is all his own.”

“That is exactly how you say it,” I told her. “And I agree, except for one man you never met—Solomon J. Birnbaum.”

“Yes, Carolina has said the same.”

We were in the bedroom Owen had assigned to us, on the second floor at the far end of the hall. His own unusual bedroom and living quarters were behind the door directly across from ours. It was late Saturday morning, the first day of April. “What was the prince’s name?” I asked, curious because at that point in time, Opari seldom mentioned her incredible history or anyone in it.

“I do not recall the exact name, though I remember several seconds were required to pronounce his complete and formal name and title. I referred to him as ‘Skylark.’ He was an heir to great wealth and possessed the intellect of Pythagoras, along with a rich personality, which Pythagoras did not have.”

“You knew Pythagoras?” I asked with a smile.

“Yes, briefly, however I was in flight to the East and could not linger. I recall the prince was also a ‘Listener.’”

“A what?”

“A translated word for a member of a…bitxi…how do you say?—strange Hindu sect. They believed in organized, no, I should say symphonic ‘listening’ to the spheres for secret meanings, all of them gathering outdoors atop boulders and cliffs to the west, sitting silently for days, ‘listening’ for answers to the most mystical questions of the Veda. In Sanskrit they were known as Abisami, or simply the ‘samupa.’ They would sit grouped, facing all directions, but in such a manner as to never catch the eye of another. Skylark was a known master in this mute music and futile prayer. Their gatherings began in the season when Sirius rises in the east. Sirius, the Dog Star, the star the ‘samupa’ called ‘The Leader.’ According to Skylark, it was sacred to them. I have even heard rumors that remnants of the sect may still exist.”

“How did you meet Skylark?”

“That answer is for another time, my love. The real matter here is that Skylark became the only true Giza friend I could trust. It may have been because he had spent time with one of us—a great deal of time, enough to learn many more things about the Meq than most Giza ever know.”

“Who was the one in ‘one of us’?”

“Zeru-Meq.”

“Ah…of course.” I thought back to the brief time I’d spent with him in China—not time enough to know him well, but I knew I owed him a great deal. He had led me to Opari.

She said, “Mitch makes me laugh; he is full of contradiction and surprise, yet he is a Giza I could trust. Much like Skylark.”

Mitch had awakened us earlier that morning. Just before sunrise, he knocked softly on our door in a distinctive rhythm, then slipped inside, holding a lit candle and whispering, “I want to invite both y’all to a party, a tribute to someone down at my place. Tonight.”

It was a surprise, but not a shock. Mitch had been coming and going at all hours, beginning the day after we arrived. In a week I learned how important he was to Jack and how indispensable he was to Carolina daily, while running his various enterprises all night. Opari was used to the random nature of Mitch’s visits; still, we did wonder when, or if, he ever slept. He wore a tuxedo, which was not unusual, but what he held behind his back was. Wrapped separately in white linen handkerchiefs, he slowly brought forward two long-stemmed white roses, their petals streaked with orange and red. Each rose was about to release into full bloom.

He lifted the candle and stiffened his posture. He began reciting dramatically. “These roses are for you, two of three, and for the rest, go seek the one who waits for thee, the one who wears the other of the three.”

His face relaxed. He winked and said, “These ain’t easy to find in April,” then leaned over the foot of the bed and presented the roses to Opari. “I want both of y’all to wear those on your person when you show up tonight. Then look for someone wearin’ a rose just like ’em. There’s a message waitin’ for you. I don’t know what it is.” He paused. “All right, man, that’s everything I was told to tell, so I did. Now, I’m real busy, Z, and I know you understand, so I’m cuttin’ out of here. I got places to go yet.” He started toward the door, then stopped and turned. “Miss Opari,” he said, “I will see you this evening.” He blew out the candle and shut the door behind him in silence. I thought I heard him talking low to someone at the end of the hall, probably Owen, then he was down the stairs and gone. Dawn was still ten minutes away.

Even for Mitchell Ithaca Coates, that was a strange and theatrical visit, which Opari thought was also charming. After she stared at the roses for a moment, she asked, “What do you think of these…and the speech…and the instructions?”

I picked up one of the beautiful and delicate roses. “I don’t understand it, but there’s only one way to get the answer.”

It was clear why Opari trusted Mitch just as she trusted Skylark. I felt the same. He might surprise you, but he will never betray you. Whatever Mitch was asking us to do, I would be there and follow instructions. We were safe from the “unexpected,” which I’d promised to try to avoid.

By midmorning the temperature climbed into the sixties and the sky was a bright light blue, dotted with a few ragged puffs of clouds. The breeze blew warm out of the south and I had baseball fever. I knew I had to play catch with someone, at the very least. Baseball fever appears in the late winter or early spring and is only contracted by lovers and players of the game. Playing catch will usually scratch the itch.

I found Mama’s glove and rubbed it down with oil. I wiped my fingers clean, then shoved my hand inside and pounded the pocket with my other hand. The glove was broken in well and felt perfect. Opari watched me in silence, dumbfounded. Finally, she chose to ignore me altogether and asked, “Why have we not been called to breakfast? Are we late?”

I stopped pounding and thought about it. “You’re right. We must be late.” I glanced at the clock on the small table next to our bed. The time read at least an hour later than it should have. Almost on cue, the alarm bell sounded and Opari jumped back, shrieking something in a strange language. Opari was completely unfamiliar with alarm clocks. I knew we had never set the alarm, so I knew someone else had staged this, but I had no idea who or why until we hurried downstairs to find everyone already gathered in the big kitchen. Breakfast was well under way.

Each face turned to watch us enter. Each wore a blank expression, except for Carolina, who rolled her eyes, and Jack, who was barely able to contain himself from laughing, but managed to ask, “Hey, where have you been, Z?”

Opari began to apologize and try to explain the mysteries of the alarm clock.

“Hey, Z, your shoe’s untied!” Jack interrupted.

I looked down. Jack finally burst out laughing. “April Fool’s! April Fool’s!” he shouted.

I realized immediately who was responsible for the alarm. “That one is older than I am,” I said. But he knew he’d got me, and I knew it, too. “Let’s play some catch, Jack. What do you say?”

“I can’t until later, Z,” he said. “But I’d love to then.”

I was disappointed almost as much as a real kid. Still, later was better than not at all. “Deal,” I said.

“Deal,” Jack answered.

Carolina was well aware of baseball fever and understood why I needed to play catch. “Why don’t you have Jack show you his magazines and newspapers,” she said, “so you can catch up. Jack saves everything.”

And that’s what I did. After breakfast and for the next several hours I was oblivious to everyone else. I sat in the long living room and read about the state of the game, the new players, the new teams, trades, rumors, and anything to do with the Cardinals, who had finished dead last in 1918, I was to find out, with a won-loss record of 51–78. In the American League the Browns had not fared much better. I found out good old Ty Cobb was still playing and tearing it up on the base paths. Branch Rickey, a man who seemed to have a lot of new ideas about everything, had been named the new manager of the Cardinals in January, replacing Jack Hendricks. I read all the articles, every statistic, every team roster, every opinion and prediction from every sportswriter in St. Louis. Opening Day for the season was April 23 and I couldn’t wait. There is nothing like a real professional baseball game. Whether the outcome is a pitching duel, a slugfest, or something in between, you will disappear into the experience for however long the game lasts. It is physical chess. Carolina and Owen Bramley had box seats and season tickets, so I was looking forward to seeing as many games as possible.

Late in the afternoon with the sun low in the sky, and in a fresh breeze and freckled light, Jack and I finally played catch. Mama’s glove made a familiar pop when Jack threw a hard strike. We tossed the ball back and forth, mostly in silence, until we were having trouble seeing the ball. That’s when every kid wishes the sun would never set. Our arms were dog tired, and yet, only Jack and I knew how good it felt. We walked into the house talking nonstop about the art of pitching and the relevance of baseball to anything good. The itch had been scratched.

Opari, Geaxi, Nova, Star and the baby Caine, Willie, Carolina, everyone else in the house, even Ciela, spent the late afternoon in Forest Park helping Owen Bramley fly his Chinese kites. They each returned in high spirits, and along with Jack and me, we ate every morsel of food that Ciela had prepared earlier in the day. The whole meal was waiting for us, some in the oven and some in the icebox. It was delicious.

Then we all retired to our rooms to change into the tuxedos Mitch had sent over that afternoon. Each was tailored and made to fit all of us who were Meq, but since I was the only male among us, I couldn’t figure why he’d sent them.

I knew he was sending his two Packard touring cars to pick us up and he had closed his club to the general public. It was to be a private party and there was no reason not to trust his judgment. We had been posing as refugees and relatives of Nova and Eder, but still, to see a group of twelve-year-old children, dressed in tuxedos, possibly sipping champagne or drinking beer, late at night in the roughest part of town, well, I had to wonder if that was wise.

Geaxi said she wanted to experience the culture and music of Mitch’s world, so she thought it would be worth it. Also, she had no problem with the tuxedo. Nor did Opari, which surprised me until I remembered that they both had donned “boys’” clothing many times in many places for many reasons. Both were anxious to wear the tuxedos and Nova thought it was not only a good idea, but said she might start dressing that way in the future.

Once she was dressed, Opari added red lipstick to her lips, a red silk bow tie, and the white rose from Mitch in her lapel. The effect was stunning. She was a child-woman of uncommon beauty and presence. I understood in an instant why centuries of princes and kings, even the Empress Dowager of China, found her irresistible.

Star left Caine with Ciela and Willie helped her, along with the rest of us, into the touring cars. It was well after dark and once we’d gone a few blocks east, the trip downtown was busy and filled with the sound and lights of automobiles.

Mitch’s nightclub was just off Market, near all the neighborhoods of his youth, yet I also remember never knowing exactly where he lived in those days. The entrance was a simple glass door with “Mitch’s Café” painted in an arc across the glass. It was a narrow entrance, squeezed between two other businesses, a pawnshop and a barbershop, both of which Mitch also owned. The café was for real—a few tables in the front, then a counter with stools where you could order chili, barbecue sandwiches, and beer. But if you were led, as we were, around the counter and down a long, high-ceilinged hall, you would enter a room the size of a warehouse, which is exactly what it had been. The room was now transformed into a nightclub, complete with a large stage at one end, two full bars along opposite walls, tables with white linen tablecloths, and a spacious semicircular dance floor in front of the stage. Factory lights muted with green filters hung from a forty-foot gabled ceiling, and two dozen waiters in long aprons stood at the ready throughout. The music coming from the stage was the best I’d heard in years, going back to what Ray and I listened to in New Orleans. But this music had something else, a swing and syncopation I’d never heard before. People were dancing new steps and there was a raw and raucous joy everywhere in the room.

Mitch greeted us from behind the bar as soon as we emerged from the long hall. Even in his tuxedo, he leaped easily over the bar while waving to us, then motioned us toward a corner section of the big room where several tables had been pulled together to become one large table-in-the-round, covered with a banquet-sized white tablecloth. Champagne and bottles of beer sat in iced buckets placed around the table. At least six waiters stood in line, ready to act as our personal staff. Mitch made it to the table and escorted Carolina to her chair, making sure she was seated first.

“Why, thank you, Mitchell,” Carolina said, sitting down and pushing up on the long formal gloves she wore on her hands and forearms. The gloves were a dark green, the same color as her dress and shoes. She was beautiful, elegant, and graceful, still commanding stares from strangers. It was hard to imagine the skinny, stringy-haired kid she had been when I first saw her, standing with her sister outside Sportsman’s Park. She was now a woman completely comfortable in her own life and her own skin.

“It’s my pleasure, Miss C.,” Mitch said. “I want you at the head of the table. After all, you’re the reason I’m able to do this.”

“Nonsense,” Carolina said. “And don’t be modest, Mitchell. You have done what you’ve done on your own. I had nothing to do with it.”

“Oh, yes you did. You’re the one who talked to Mr. Joplin in the first place. You know what that meant to me? It meant just about everything, that’s what it meant. Everything in this world started for me right then, Miss C., and I want to say thank you, thank you for everything.” Mitch signaled one of the waiters, who brought a tray of glasses filled with champagne. Each glass was served and everyone but Carolina held a glass in the air. Mitch shouted, “To Miss C. and Mr. J.! May one live on and the other not be forgotten.”

“Here! Here!” Owen Bramley said.

“Second that!” Willie added.

Geaxi and Opari made high-pitched trilling noises and clicked their tongues.

I looked at Mitch. “Do you mean Scott Joplin is…dead?”

“Yeah, Z. Mr. Joplin passed away two years ago, on the first of April.” Mitch took a sip of champagne and looked around, waving his hand toward the stage. “That’s why we’re here tonight, Z, and I plan on doin’ this every year from now on. I owe so much to the man. He taught me more than how to appreciate good music—he taught me how to appreciate life. He was a great man, Z.”

“Indeed he was, Mitchell,” Carolina said. “He will be missed.” She raised her own glass to join in the toast. “And I’ve still got the opera packed away, Mitchell—you know where.”

“Keep it safe, Miss C. Just keep it safe,” Mitch said with a wink. Then he was off again, to the kitchen this time, laughing and saying over his shoulder, “I got some oysters for you. Wait until you taste ’em. They’re straight from the Gulf—Apalachicola. If you need anything, these fellas in the aprons are here to get it for you. We got some other acts comin’—and the chorus line. Wait until you see that, Z,” he said to me and winked again, then pointed to the lapel of his tuxedo, the buttonhole where the white rose was pinned to my tuxedo. He turned and made his way through the crowd, shaking hands and making toasts along the way. I glanced at Opari and she nodded, acknowledging she’d seen the same thing.

To our wonder and delight, both on and off the stage, it was the dancing that most fascinated all of us, especially Geaxi and Opari. Geaxi leaned over the table and asked Opari, “Have you ever seen such freedom and rhythm of movement? When you crossed through Persia, perhaps?”

“No, no,” Opari said. “Never have I seen such passion and grace together. They are…trebe?”

“Skilled,” Geaxi translated.

“Yes, skilled. They are skilled and still exploring.”

Willie was absorbed by the sheer energy in the music and the dancers. “Bloody damn good, Z,” he blared across the table more than once.

Star surprised everyone by not only listening and watching, but also joining in. Several times she jumped out of her seat and ran to the dance floor, mimicking the moves and dancing alongside the black women, who clapped and shouted and helped Star learn the steps.

During a slow blues song, even Owen Bramley and Carolina made their way to the dance floor. I must say Owen stood out in the crowd like some sort of animated carrot, dancing and enjoying himself, but definitely to his own beat.

Nova was enjoying the music as well, and yet she seemed more distracted than usual, constantly staring in a kind of trance at the stage curtains hanging behind the band. At one point, I happened to catch her unconsciously grabbing for her Stone, which she was wearing under her starched shirt. I’d never seen her do anything like that before.

After two hours of continuous music and dancing, Mitch himself took the stage. He gave a short speech and tribute to Scott Joplin, then announced a break after the next tune, in honor of Mr. J., “Maple Leaf Rag.” He sat down and started playing the best ragtime piano I’d ever heard, leading the band through the whole tune. By the end of the first chorus, a line of eight showgirls, dressed in matching black tuxedos, black top hats, and black masks hiding their eyes, came dancing across the stage twirling canes and kicking up their legs. They each had a rose in their lapel. Seven of the girls wore red roses, but the last one, the girl nearest us, wore a white rose streaked with orange and red. They danced a choreographed routine with the music, all pretending to be gentlemen on the town. Mitch joined them during the last chorus and the crowd went wild with jeers, whistles, and catcalls. As the song ended, the chorus line strutted with their canes back across the stage and into the wings on our side of the room. The girl with the white rose stared directly at me just before she disappeared from view, whispering two words. Then she nodded toward the door leading backstage, not ten feet from where I sat.

I turned immediately to see if Opari was watching. She was. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what? I heard nothing but the music, then the clapping and shouting.”

“Did you see her nod toward the door?”

“Yes.”

“Well, before she did that she whispered something to me. I guess she was aware no one but me would hear it. But how would she know that?”

“Z, what did she whisper?”

“She said the ancient words of greeting, the formal ones—‘Egibizirik bilatu.’”

Opari fell silent for several moments. Then I noticed Nova quietly take a seat next to mine. She leaned forward, anxious to hear what we had to say. Across the table, Geaxi was talking with Carolina while still paying close attention to everything and everyone.

“What does it signify?” I asked. “That is the Meq’s most secret exchange, isn’t it?”

“It means the message comes from an old one, a truly old one. Only an old one would know of this. My guess could be but one—Mowsel. The greeting was used in the Time of Ice when the element of ‘time’ was involved and complete trust was required. A Giza was always used to deliver the message. By telling the messenger to utter our oldest exchange of greeting and farewell, the sender is ensuring the truth of the message and the messenger. The ritual is called the ‘beharrezko,’ the necessity. It is necessary because in this exchange there is no written document. The message is the messenger.”

“I saw something, I…felt something,” Nova said suddenly. There was fear in her voice. “I felt something coming from the stage…from the girl. I don’t know what it is.”

I glanced at Opari. She shrugged her shoulders and nodded toward the stage door the girl had indicated. I looked around the room. No one seemed to be paying much attention to us. I rose out of my chair and walked to the door and slipped inside.

The girl was standing alone on the top step of a small stairwell. She’d taken off her mask and was leaning against the brick wall. Above and behind her, a single red light burned over the backstage exit to the street. I couldn’t see her face completely, but she seemed to be in her early twenties with distinctive dark eyes and straight dark hair, cut at the shoulder. There was a small scar high on her left cheek. She was pretty, and she was Basque, I was sure of it. Between long, slender fingers, she held the white rose. I could see the veins standing out on the back of her hand. I took a few steps toward the stairwell and stopped in front of her.

“You were looking for me?” I asked.

“Yes, señor. I apologize for this drama and mystery. Mowsel said it was a necessity.”

That proved Opari was right. It was Trumoi-Meq. “What is your name?” I asked.

“I apologize again, señor.” For the first time, she turned and looked behind her. There were a few dimly lit dressing rooms in the distance. I could hear conversation inside one of them, but no one was visible. She turned back and continued. Her accent was slight and she spoke clearly. “My name is Arrosa Arginzoniz and I was sent by Mowsel to give you a message and a warning. There are three who are in danger, three of you. One is the one who wears the star sapphire on his forefinger. Mowsel said you would know who this is.”

“I do. Go on.”

But before she could I heard someone slip through the door behind me. It was Opari. She saw the girl and the rose, then walked over and took my hand in hers.

“You are Opari, no?” the girl asked.

“Yes,” Opari answered and glanced at me.

“Mowsel has told me your name. My name is Arrosa Arginzoniz. I am the last of the tribe of Caristies, protectors of the Stone of Silence.” She paused.

“Unai,” Opari whispered. “That was Unai’s Stone. Now it is carried by Nova Gaztelu.”

“Yes,” the girl said.

I turned to Opari. “Arrosa was telling me she has a message and a warning from Mowsel. She says three of us are in danger. One you know well, as did your sister.”

“Ah, yes,” Opari said, knowing I meant Sailor.

“Who are the other two?” I asked Arrosa.

“Unai and Usoa,” she answered without hesitation.

I stared up at her for a full three seconds, then eased closer so I could see her eyes.

“You know them well, don’t you, Arrosa?”

“Yes, señor. They are also my godparents. My father was Aita. He…” Suddenly she let out a long sigh and the white rose dropped to the floor.

“This sounds complicated,” I said, “and you look tired.” I glanced at Opari and she understood. “Would you be able to leave this dance troupe now, Arrosa? And I really mean now. Can you gather your things and go with us? Stay with us while you tell us everything? Also, there is someone who needs to meet you and you her. I think she has already sensed your presence anyway. Can you come with us?”

She took a deep breath and seemed to be relieved of a great burden. “Thank you, señor. I will welcome the rest and I have much to say, much to ask.” She peeked behind her. “Give me one minute,” she said.

She was back and carrying a single suitcase in less than a minute, more like thirty seconds. She smiled down at both of us. “Thank you again. It is my honor.”

“And ours,” Opari said.

We turned to leave, and from somewhere in the semidarkness, I heard Mitch’s voice and a girl’s voice coming toward the backstage exit. “Go ahead,” I told Opari. “I’ll catch up. I want to thank Mitch for the evening.” Opari agreed, saying she would tell Owen of the change in plans. I turned back to wait for Mitch.

Mitch’s voice was calm, yet he seemed to be almost scolding the girl, not like an employee or dancer, but like a daughter. The girl was whining and begging him to let her stay. The two of them finally got to the stage door and stood under the red light.

“You can’t be hidin’ in here anymore. I told you a hundred times already,” Mitch said as he started to open the door. I was only twelve feet away, but neither he nor the girl had seen me yet.

“But how else will I learn? I got to learn the steps,” the girl complained.

“Not yet, you don’t. And not in my place.” Mitch opened the door. “You got to go. I mean now, right now.”

She started to leave, then spun around and leaned back into the light. That’s when she and I made eye contact. She was just a kid, maybe thirteen or slightly older, and she smiled at me—a genuine, ear-to-ear grin that radiated mischief and joy. I smiled back. Mitch noticed me and gently pushed her out the door.

Without ever mentioning the girl, he walked over and asked how everything went and I told him the “white rose” was coming home with us for a few days. He then asked how I liked the club, the sound of the band, and the tribute. I told him it was a great and glorious evening and all of us appreciated his generosity. I waited for him to volunteer some information about what I had just seen, then realized he was not going to offer any, but I was too curious.

“Who was the girl, Mitch?”

“Aw, just some girl from around here. She won’t stay out of my club, and I can’t allow it, Z.”

“What’s her name?”

“I call her ‘Tumpy,’” Mitch said, “but her name is Josephine.” He went on to tell me she was a good kid who had probably seen too much too soon and wanted out of her home and out of St. Louis. He was trying to help her, but she was anxious and he was worried she wouldn’t wait.

Fifteen minutes later we were in the Packards and on our way to Carolina’s. I was riding in the same car with Carolina and Arrosa. Carolina had readily accepted and welcomed Arrosa into her home, and she was in deep discussion with her about the new music the band had been playing. What did she think of the improvisations? What was it called, or did it even have a name? Arrosa answered with a word I had never heard before. She called it “jazz.”

Nova rode in the other car on purpose. She had acted nervous when Opari and I introduced the girl to everyone at the table, then I watched her consciously wait for Arrosa to step into our Packard before she scurried to the other one. I asked Geaxi to ride with her and explain to her what Sailor had explained to me years earlier when he introduced me to my Basque protectors and my Aita, Kepa Txopitea. “You come to them,” he said, “they do not come to you.” Nova seemed a little more like herself once we got to Carolina’s, but something was still bothering her. However, it had been a long day and night and I decided to talk to her about it another time.

The size and opulence of the big house astounded Arrosa. As Owen and Carolina showed her upstairs to her room, she was genuinely humbled and thanked Carolina profusely, saying she might sleep forever in such a comfortable place. Carolina said she certainly hoped that didn’t happen because Ciela would have a hearty St. Louis breakfast ready and waiting for everyone in the morning.

A short while later, Opari and I were also turning out the lights. Opari whispered, “The first day of April in America is a beautiful day, no?”

I laughed and agreed, but as I lay back on the pillow, over and over in my head, I kept hearing Jack’s voice saying, “Hey, Z, your shoe’s untied…your shoe’s untied.”

At breakfast we mostly made small talk. Everyone who was living in the house was present except Nova. Several times during the meal Arrosa complimented Ciela, at one point saying, “I have only tasted flavors like this in the small Cuban neighborhoods of New York.” Ciela laughed and kept the food coming. “Sí, sí,” she said, “es verdad, es verdad.” After breakfast I found Nova and asked if we could talk somewhere. She said she wanted to talk to me, too, and we strolled out to the “Honeycircle,” where the crocuses were still wet with dew. We walked over to Baju’s sundial and within minutes I knew I’d been wrong about why Nova had acted nervous around Arrosa. Nova had seen something the moment Arrosa stepped onstage at Mitch’s. She said when she looked at the white rose Arrosa was wearing, her real vision blurred and another reality, another vision, took its place. In this alternate vision Nova saw Arrosa’s throat being cut. The knife was flashing in bright sunlight, making it difficult for her to clearly see the one with the knife, but she could make out three things: the attacker was Meq, he had green eyes, and he wore two red ruby earrings. There were other images in the vision that came into focus and blurred again, including a gold mask and eyes that never close, a bleeding rose, and torches moving through airless darkness. Nova said she snapped out of it only after Arrosa left the stage. She asked me what it might mean and before I could even respond, I felt the old prickly feeling of the net descending. I didn’t know what the other images meant, but there was just one who could be the one with the knife—the Fleur-du-Mal. But what would he be doing attacking a young Basque girl, who meant nothing to him, in a vision of someone who has never seen him and probably never heard of him? I knew he was unpredictable, but it made no sense whatsoever. Also, I had to respect Nova’s “ability,” and yet I wondered if she could sometimes get it wrong, like Ray. Nova’s “ability” was the most baffling to me of all the varieties we possess. Even she seemed bewildered by it. Was she able to see real events to come, or did she see symbols of events; feelings and projections of her own fears and demons? And time was never part of the vision. For all I knew, each vision could be in some sort of dreamtime that has nothing to do with real events. However, if the Fleur-du-Mal was even remotely connected, I could not afford to ignore any “vision.”

It was clear why Nova was avoiding Arrosa. She knew the Meq are expected to be completely forthcoming and honest with their Basque protectors, and the same is true for them. It has been that way for countless generations and it presented Nova with a dilemma. Should she tell Arrosa what she had seen? Should she remain silent?

Sailor had told me in Cornwall to serve the family. I thought this was a good time to do just that. I made the decision for her and told her to stay silent. I advised her to establish close ties with Arrosa and learn as much as she could from her, but for now, stay silent about the “vision.” I told her we must first find out Mowsel’s message, then we could decide about what should or shouldn’t be revealed.

“Message?” Nova asked.

She was truly surprised and I realized she was unaware of Arrosa’s hidden mission. “That’s why she came. She has a message to deliver from Trumoi-Meq. It concerns Unai and Usoa.”

“Oh…I see,” she said, staring down at the crocuses. “And who better to deliver the message, right? The last in the line of the tribe of Caristies.”

“Right,” I said. I searched her eyes and their expression was enigmatic. I could read nothing, and the heavy Egyptian mascara gave her the appearance of wearing a mask. “Nova,” I said quietly, “you and I—” I stopped. I made sure we were looking at each other eye to eye. “We—you and me—are the only ones to be born in the West, in America, and carry the Stone.” I paused again. “We have much to learn, you and I.”

“I know, Z. I’m trying.”

“Get to know her, Nova. Learn from her, even though she is young. Learn the long history of your Stone and her tribe. Don’t worry about what you saw in your vision.”

Nova smiled and picked a few crocuses, gently shaking the dew from their long petals. “Arrosa probably needs our help,” she said, almost to herself.

“Most likely. More likely my help since I was close to Unai and Usoa shortly before they crossed in the Zeharkatu. No one knows exactly why, but Opari said that makes a difference. The Zeharkatu is our deepest mystery. It is the moment and place where our bodies become like the Giza and we begin to age. It is an act of ultimate surrender to your Ameq, and it allows us to procreate.”

“But—”

“I know, I remember what you said at ‘the slabs’—‘The old way will not work. The old Zeharkatu will not cross in the old way.’”

“I don’t even know why I said that, Z.”

“One thing at a time, Nova.”

“Come on,” Nova said and turned to leave. “Let’s find out the message. I know just the place to go.”

I gathered Geaxi, Opari, and Arrosa. We all followed Nova the short distance to Forest Park. It was early afternoon and the fair weather was holding. The park itself was crowded with people of all ages and descriptions. We passed around a nine-hole golf course that had been in existence for a few years, but was new to me. Several of the caddies removed their oversized caps and whistled at Arrosa, who ignored them entirely. I got the impression she had heard worse and dealt with it many times. Geaxi shouted something back to the caddies in a strange language I’d never heard and we kept on walking, laughing all the way.

Eventually, Nova steered us to Art Hill and on to a natural amphitheater nearby. Plays were performed there in the summer, she told us, with enough chairs for a thousand people. We stood at the top of the hill and below us were two large oak trees that framed the raised ground of the stage. Behind the stage there was a small bridge that spanned a creek called the River des Peres.

“Down there,” Nova said, “to the bridge. It’s a good place to talk.”

We bounded down the slope like kids playing tag and spread out on the bridge. Nova was right—it was a good place to talk. We could speak freely and listen without interruption. Geaxi and Nova took seats atop the wooden railing on one side of the little bridge and Opari and I sat across from them on the opposite railing. Arrosa paced back and forth between us and, for the next half hour, told us Mowsel’s message and warning, using his exact words whenever possible. She spoke rapidly and we learned many things in a brief amount of time, the first of which was the reason Trumoi-Meq was not with her.

Although Arrosa continued to refer to Sailor as “the one who wears the star sapphire,” we learned that Mowsel was worried about his “old friend” and was off to a mysterious destination in the Canary Islands. We were all worried about Sailor and without having to say a word, all of us, even Geaxi, agreed with Trumoi-Meq’s decision. Then we heard the sad and heartbreaking story of Unai and Usoa. Arrosa prefaced this part with a few personal anecdotes about both of them and how much they meant to her, especially Unai, who had saved her from despair and became her best friend following her father’s death. He knew people in New York and was instrumental in her move there and introduced her to other painters and artists.

When Unai and Usoa’s child, a boy, died from influenza, Arrosa didn’t hear about it until Mowsel told her six months later. By that time they had disappeared into the mountains, living hand to mouth and moving daily on an endless journey in search of the haunted vision that drove Usoa—she believed their boy had been switched with another and was still alive and kept hidden from her. It was insane, but Unai loved her from a place with no boundaries and told himself he would “see” what she “saw” if that’s what it took to live in this world, because he had decided long ago he would not live in this world without her.

Kepa and his family followed their movements and made sure they did not accidentally endanger themselves, but often they were hard to track because Usoa changed her mind or “found” a new direction and they would leave without warning. For a long time now they had not slept in the same place two nights in a row. Still, nothing about this worried Mowsel until he found out they had suddenly left Europe for New York.

Arrosa stopped her tale and looked at me. “And that is why I was contacted and sent to you, señor. Mowsel thinks you should be the one to be warned.”

“Me?”

“Yes. His words were, ‘Tell Zianno first. Go as swift as the train will take you!’”

I glanced in the eyes of Geaxi, Nova, and Opari. They gave nothing away. “Warn me of what?” I asked.

“Unai and Usoa search in vain for their child. It is fact that he died. They are helpless and pitiful and someone is using them and their unbearable grief. They were sent a letter from New York City, the New York Foundling Hospital, informing them that a young child, a boy, had been left at their doorstep and the baby could be Usoa’s ‘missing son.’ The letter also mentioned the child had one green eye and one brown. Mowsel said there are less than five people who know this fact. Unai and Usoa left within days of receiving the letter and have not been sighted since.”

“Is this unusual?” I asked. “Haven’t they been duped before? Anyone that delusional and fragile in spirit will be vulnerable to almost anything.”

“Yes, they have. But Mowsel sent me to talk with Reverend Bookbinder, the one who sent the letter. The child was left with a note pinned to his clothing, stating Unai’s full name and the only address in Spain where he can still be reached, a small town called Barakaldo, not far from Bilbao.”

“How would anyone know that?”

“There is more, señor. Mowsel said to tell you the Reverend caught a glimpse of the one who left the child. He said it was impossible to say whether the person was male or female, but the person was young, had green eyes, and wore red ruby earrings. Mowsel said this was necessary for you to know as soon as possible.”

My heart jumped and in my mind I could see his smile, his white teeth, hear his bitter laugh. I glanced at Nova and there was fear and concern in her eyes. Geaxi groaned and cursed. Opari placed her hand on top of mine. The Fleur-du-Mal, it had to be him.

Arrosa sensed our unease with the news. “Mowsel wants me to return to New York, either with you or without you, señor. He said you should follow your heart and choose carefully. But either way, I am to find this child and thereby find Unai and Usoa.”

“Of course,” I said, thinking not only of Unai and Usoa, but Carolina, Star, and the baby Caine most of all.

“Is there a danger for them, señor—Unai and Usoa?”

She waited for me to respond. Finally, I glanced up at her. I didn’t realize I had been staring down at the River des Peres. It looked polluted and puny, more like an open sewer than a creek.

“Yes,” I said in an even voice. “There is a danger.”

“Young Zezen,” Geaxi said suddenly in a firm voice. “There is no choice for you. You must stay here. I shall go with Arrosa. I know the danger well enough.”

Before I could even respond, Nova said, “I am going along. I need to go with Arrosa.”

I looked at Nova and she was staring hard at me, with no intention of letting me say no. Opari squeezed my hand and said, “Geaxi is right, my love. You cannot leave St. Louis now. You know this one better than anyone. You know his nature, his obsessions.” She paused and waited for me to look at her.

I turned and Opari gasped slightly. She must have seen an old companion of mine returning behind my eyes, because I could feel it there, cold and clear. She must have seen the hate.

“Nobody knows him,” I said. “Nobody.”

Except for Jack’s birthday on the twenty-sixth, I found little joy during the rest of April. Arrosa, Geaxi, and Nova left for New York two days after our Sunday in Forest Park. Arrosa thanked Carolina for her hospitality and kindness and promised to return in the future. Nova told Owen Bramley she was going along just to see New York, and Geaxi gave no explanation at all for her leaving. I had already decided in Forest Park not to tell Carolina the real reason for their hasty departure. I wanted to help Unai and Usoa, but it could be a ploy the Fleur-du-Mal was using to lower our guard. I still felt the guilt inside for the Meq changing her world and her life forever. Geaxi advised me that the Meq should ignore guilt when it comes to relations with the Giza. I told her this was not just the Giza, this was Carolina and her family. Geaxi understood, though she disagreed, and let the subject drop.

After the three of them were gone, I retreated into a cocoon of constant worry. Opari was worried also, but not about the byzantine and deadly Fleur-du-Mal. She was concerned for me and reminded me that I would be no help to Carolina or Star or Jack or anyone else if I was only seeing my own thoughts and fears.

It wasn’t until the first of May that we finally heard something from New York. Arrosa sent a telegram saying the Reverend Bookbinder had mysteriously disappeared and no one else on the staff at New York Foundling Hospital seemed to have any knowledge of the child. She said she was “SEEKING OTHER SOURCES.” Then on the fourth, my birthday, I got another telegram with news I never expected. Unai and Usoa were on board the “ORPHAN TRAIN” and headed for the Midwest. Arrosa’s message ended simply with the words: “HAVE OBTAINED RELIABLE INFORMATION FROM FORMER NURSE—TWO-YEAR-OLD CHILD IS WITH THEM—WILL PASS THROUGH ST. LOUIS MAY 12.”

For the next week I went over a thousand scenarios in my mind, trying to imagine what to expect and what to do about it. Without being obvious, I tried to keep a close eye on Star and the baby Caine. I told her not to go anywhere without taking Opari or me along. I said it one too many times, however, because she finally said, “Okay, okay, Z, I heard you the first time.” Then she looked me squarely in the eye and asked, “Is there something wrong? Should I know something you’re not telling me?”

“No, no,” I lied. “Nothing is wrong, just stay close, that’s all.” She agreed, but I don’t think she ever believed me.

I also asked Owen Bramley if he had any knowledge of an “Orphan Train.” He had no idea what I was talking about, but Carolina did. She told me the Orphan Trains were exactly what their name implied and had been around since the 1850s. Foundlings, homeless children, and others abandoned by parents too poor to care for them were gathered from the streets and orphanages of New York and other eastern cities, then put aboard trains to be “placed out” to homes and families out west. If no one chose them by the end of the rail line, they were shipped back east to try again. The program had sounded good in theory, she said, but in practice was often another matter.

“Do you…know someone on the Orphan Train?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “I mean, I might. I just wanted to know what it was, how it works.”

Carolina gave me a strange look. Thankfully, she did not pursue it further.

On the morning of the eleventh, a day before the train was due to arrive, I was pacing the floor of our bedroom and mumbling under my breath, though I was unaware of it. Opari told me to relax, settle down. “Go to a baseball game,” she said. I argued that it wouldn’t change anything, but it was a beautiful day and I followed her advice. Carolina, Jack, and I took a taxi to Sportsman’s Park that afternoon to watch the Cardinals play the Cincinnati Reds. The crowd was sparse and there was little to cheer about. Hod Eller of the Reds pitched a no-hitter, striking out eight men and walking only three. The Reds won 6–0 and played errorless baseball.

To our surprise, Mitch was waiting for us outside the ballpark in one of the big gray and brown Packards. “Get in!” he shouted through the open window. “Hurry—I’m double-parked.”

We climbed inside and I told him about the no-hitter. “That ain’t really a shock,” he said. “Branch Rickey’s got a long way to go before that club is any good.” He asked who was pitching for the Cardinals and I answered, “Frank ‘Jakie’ May.”

“Man, that cat’s only got two pitches,” Mitch said, then went silent.

“Well,” I asked finally, “what are they?”

He turned in his seat and grinned. “Hope and pray,” he said. I smiled to myself and had to agree.

I had found only one notice mentioning the Orphan Train coming through St. Louis, a piece in the Post-Dispatch that began, “Wanted: Homes for Children…These children are of various ages and sexes, having been thrown friendless upon the world…” The article ended with the information: “…train arriving at 3:00 P.M. in Delmar Station.” That was encouraging because Delmar Station was small and within walking distance from Carolina’s. It meant Opari and I could observe everything without the additional distractions and crowds of Union Station. Opari suggested we take Willie along, reasoning we might need an “adult” with us to explain our presence, if asked. I agreed and briefed Willie on the entire event, carefully leaving out any references to the Fleur-du-Mal.

We left Carolina’s house at approximately 2:00 P.M., saying we were on our way to the park.

“It looks like rain is coming,” Carolina warned.

“We’ve been wet before,” I said and tried to avoid her eyes. Even though I had good intentions in mind, I could feel the weight of my lies piling up.

We were outside the station by 2:30.

“Spread out and walk around,” I said, “and look for anything strange. Find all the entrances and exits. Let’s not go inside until the last minute.” I knew Opari and I carried our Stones, but if the Fleur-du-Mal was involved, I also knew they would be useless against him or any other Meq.

In a drizzling rain, the Orphan Train arrived at 3:00 sharp. A large group of people stood waiting at the platform, I suppose in order to get an early glimpse. The two dozen or so children on board were supposed to exit the train with their chaperones and then be taken to a nearby theater, where they would be lined up and looked over by families and individuals.

The three of us scanned the curious, leering crowd. “The faces of these Giza remind me of the Carthaginians,” Opari said sarcastically. “And believe me,” she added, “there was little welfare in their eyes.”

One by one, the children stepped down from the train. Most were in oversized coats and shoes. All were tired and hungry. Only the older children bothered to see anything around them. One in particular, about my height, wearing an old black raincoat and a knit cap pulled down to the eyes, seemed to scan the crowd incessantly. Their chaperones were mostly women and all were wearing wide-brimmed hats and long dresses. They looked worn down by the miles, the job, and the hard, wooden seats on the train.

“No bloody damn good, this,” Willie said quietly.

Opari leaned in close to my ear and whispered, “Why do you think Unai and Usoa have chosen such a train, my love?”

I thought back to Cornwall and Caitlin’s Ruby and what Trumoi-Meq had told me. Though he hadn’t been specific about location, he said Unai and Usoa crossed in the Zeharkatu in 1908. That meant they were in their early twenties now. I thought they must be acting as chaperones, probably through Reverend Bookbinder, but if Usoa had become delusional, that would be unlikely. I watched more and more children stepping down, orphans who had known no other life than scraping by on city streets. Carolina had said, in many instances the Orphan Train was the only chance those kids would have, but it didn’t look like much of a chance to me.

“Maybe someone chose it for them,” I said.

In any case, Unai and Usoa never departed the train. Minutes later, the chaperones had the children walking in straight lines and shuffling off to the theater to find out their fates. The crowd lingered, then drifted along behind. We waited. The two cars that comprised the Orphan Train stood empty and silent. In the distance, there was the grinding, gnashing sound of other cars being coupled and uncoupled.

“Do we want to be takin’ a look inside, Z?” Willie asked.

“I think we should,” I said and glanced at Opari. “But just us, Willie, okay?”

“I’ll be right outside, Z.” He winked and nodded toward the open door and the steps leading up to the train.

Slowly, I walked on board and turned to my right, entering the compartment ahead of Opari. I was expecting to feel the net descending, the sensation I always felt in the presence of evil. I felt nothing. Yet, there was a foreboding, a weight in the silence. Cheap magazines and dime novels lay scattered in the otherwise empty wooden seats. Odd bits of clothing and a dozen toys were strewn through the car—chipped, broken, missing parts. We walked to the end of the aisle. Neither of us said a word nor made a sound.

We crossed to the next car and as I reached out to open the door, I paused and Opari touched my arm from behind. I heard a strange sound coming from inside the compartment. My “ability” enabled me to hear a barely audible, irregular bubbling sound, somewhere to the back of the car.

“Do you hear that?” I whispered.

Opari pressed her fingers into my shoulder. “No, my love. I hear nothing, however…there is something…”

“What?”

“I smell death.”

I knew Opari’s instincts and “abilities” were vast and refined over millennia. She would not be mistaken and there was no more time for caution. I pushed the door open. Inside, it was a complete change from the other car. Deep shadows and occasional bars of light crisscrossed the long compartment. Over half the window shades were drawn. Blankets were bunched in most of the seats or thrown over the backrests. This was the car used for sleeping, probably because they didn’t have enough blankets for two cars.

We walked through, glancing in every seat on both sides of the aisle. Nothing. Then I heard the bubbling sound again. It was just in front of me, in the last seat on the left. I ran the few feet remaining and turned to look in the seat. What I saw made me sick with grief and rage and broke my heart with a deep blow.

It was Unai and Usoa. They were under a thin gray blanket. Unai was leaning against the window and Usoa was slumped in his lap. Unai looked asleep. On his head was a simple beret, the kind seen anywhere in Bilbao. He resembled my papa in his early twenties. He wore an old jacket and a white, collarless shirt underneath that was no longer white. It was drenched in crimson blood. Unai’s throat had been slashed just above the collar line, ear to ear. I couldn’t see Usoa’s face. Her throat had also been cut ear to ear, then someone turned her head at an angle and removed the lower part of her right ear, the one in which she wore the blue diamond. I bent over them to see if their backs had been carved with a rose, the Fleur-du-Mal’s signature. There was nothing on their backs, but he might not have had the time. The bubbling sound came from Usoa’s neck and the razor-thin slice across her throat.

“Lo egin bake,” Opari said, then repeated as she leaned down to turn Usoa’s head back to a natural position. I wasn’t sure of the exact meaning of the phrase, but I knew it had something to do with sleeping in peace.

Why? Why? It made no sense, no sense whatsoever. My mind raced. I thought back to the orphans as they stepped down from the train. I focused on every face. The kid with the knit cap and the long raincoat, the only one who kept scanning the crowd—it had to be him! Then another thought occurred to me—where was the child? Arrosa had said in her telegram the two-year-old child was with them. Even before I finished the thought, I heard the muffled breathing coming from inside the wall of the train, just three feet away, the very back of the compartment. I examined the wall and found the outline of a narrow door, cut to blend in with the tongue-and-groove of the wooden slats. I pressed in on one side and the door popped open.

Inside, there was a small, shallow closet. Two axes were strapped against the back wall, along with a warning written in white paint: “FOR EMERGENCY USE ONLY!” Crouched on the floor directly below the warning, a boy about seven or eight years old stared up at me with brown eyes the size of half-dollars. His mouth was stuffed with what looked like a biscuit. It was wrapped in cloth and he held it there tightly with one hand, probably to keep from being heard. In his arms, he was cradling a two-year-old, and his other hand was over the child’s mouth and face. The child was lifeless with open, fixed eyes staring blankly into space, and they were neither green nor brown, but blue. The boy had most likely witnessed the murders through the crack in the wall, and in his fear and terror, he had accidentally suffocated the child while trying to save it. The boy was unaware the child was dead. He was in shock, and yet once he searched the eyes of Opari, he relaxed, releasing his grip and his own consciousness. He fell forward and I caught the dead child in my arms, just as the boy let go his hold.

“Quickly—” Opari said without hesitation. “This boy needs our attention and protection.”

“Owen Bramley,” I said. “We should get to Owen as soon as possible—for the boy, for everyone. Let’s find Willie. He can get us to Carolina’s and Owen will know how to keep this among ourselves.”

I picked up a spare blanket from one of the seats and wrapped the dead child in it, then draped another blanket over the bodies of Unai and Usoa.

Opari held the boy in her arms. He was nothing but skin and bones, one of the poorest of all the orphans on the Orphan Train. She led the way out, but turned once and asked me a question. “Is this the way he usually does it?”

“Yes,” I said. I could see the Fleur-du-Mal’s face, his smile. “Yes.”

Eight days later, on the twentieth of May, I was back at Sportsman’s Park. The Cardinals were out of town and the Browns were taking on the Boston Red Sox. It was Carolina who talked me into going. I had been extremely morose and moody, angry and defensive, abusive to everyone for the whole week after we found Unai and Usoa. They were Egizahar Meq, friends of my own mama and papa, and had crossed in the Zeharkatu for one reason only—to be happy. They had lived long, fruitful lives, only to die in delusion and madness, betrayed by one of their own. I could not reconcile it or place it anywhere in my mind, and Opari, my Ameq, could not console me, though she tried in every way possible. I also feared greatly for the baby Caine. The Fleur-du-Mal’s obsessions were too close once again, and who knows what he had in mind for tomorrow, or the next day, or the next.

Owen Bramley had, indeed, taken care of all loose ends, including the police and the newspapers. The murders, the death of the child, and the discovery of the orphan boy were never mentioned in the news or in a police report. Carolina had requested to be the orphan boy’s guardian for as long as he liked, and he was to live in the big house, in Georgia’s piano room if need be, whatever it took to keep him from returning to the Orphan Train. The boy was mute, as Carolina’s sister Georgia had been, and whether the boy’s condition was from the trauma of events, or illness, or even a genetic defect, Carolina didn’t know or care—the boy was staying in St. Louis with her. Owen Bramley understood there would be no changing her mind and handled all the details involved. I thanked Owen and told him I was impressed with his “network” of people, information, and political clout. I also mentioned to him that he reminded me a little of Solomon with his talent for getting things done, one way or another. He replied, “Where do you think I learned, Z?”

Carolina finally got tired of my continued ill temper and gave me no choice. She said constant worry and expecting the worst at every moment was not healthy, not for me and not for her family. She insisted Opari and I accompany her, along with Jack, to Sportsman’s Park. “Baseball is the answer,” she said, and off we went.

We sat in Carolina’s box seats, three rows back from the field and just beyond the dugout on the first base side. They were great seats and foul balls were a common occurrence, making Opari wonder about the intelligence of sitting so close to the action. “That’s part of the thrill,” I said. “Wait until you catch one.”

On the mound for the Boston Red Sox was a big, lanky left-hander and he had good stuff. Dave Davenport was pitching for the Browns. It was a perfect day for baseball, sunny and warm, but my thoughts kept drifting back to the murders. Why had Unai and Usoa been duped and used in such a complex manner, then killed without mercy? It seemed unnecessary and arcane, even for the Fleur-du-Mal. It was as if they had been delivered to us, almost at the moment of death. What kind of a message was it? And again, the same question—why?

There was one thing I had resolved to take care of myself. Unai and Usoa must be given some dignity and shown respect for their long, long lives. I was the only one to do it. Their bodies deserved to be returned to their homeland, to the Pyrenees, and buried with reverence and ceremony. However, I could not leave Carolina, Star, and Caine to whatever the Fleur-du-Mal might have in mind. Someone had to be in St. Louis to protect them, someone who could sense his presence, possibly even kill him; someone who was Meq, strong, reliable, and knowledgeable of the Fleur-du-Mal and his history. I turned and looked at the only answer to my dilemma.

“Opari,” I said carefully, in a voice only she could hear. “I have a great favor to ask.”

She knew exactly what I was going to ask because she put her finger to my lips and said, “Take them to Kepa. I will wait for you here and watch for him. Do not take your concerns with you. I will watch carefully, my beloved.”

I kissed her finger and held it. “I know you wanted to see your home again.”

“And that day will come, Z. Do not be concerned. Remember what you told me in Africa—we have the time.”

I smiled and continued to watch the game, but in a distracted state of mind. Jack punched me in the arm more than once, saying, “Hey, Z, did you see that?” I would answer with “Yeah,” or “Sure did,” or something else just as unconvincing. I told Opari I thought I would ask Mitch to accompany me to New York instead of Willie or Owen Bramley. That would leave both of them in St. Louis, in case anything happened. She agreed and told me to try to enjoy the game—relax. I said I would, and I tried; however, I could not stop thinking about what was ahead and the problems that might arise.

“I wish I had another one of us with me,” I said. “Someone I trust completely.”

Almost at the same moment, before Opari could respond, I felt something—a presence, a Meq presence. I turned to look behind me and then heard the crack of a baseball being hit hard, and everyone around me leaped to their feet to follow the flight of the ball. I turned back to the field and saw the big, lanky left-hander, trotting around the bases, watching the ball sail out of the park over the fence in right field. Three runners crossed the plate ahead of him. The pitcher had hit a grand slam, the first one of his long career I was to find out later.

“Did you see that, Z?” Jack cried. “That ball went a mile!”

“Yeah, I did, Jack. Who is that player? What’s his name?”

“Babe Ruth,” Jack answered.

I looked at Opari to see if she had felt anything before the home run. She had, I could see it in her eyes. I started to excuse myself and motioned for Opari to follow me. I wanted to get higher up in the grandstands, where we could better scan the crowd. That’s when I heard the bitter laugh. Not the evil one I was all too familiar with, but another one, one I had not heard in years. It was coming from just behind me, two rows up. I turned again and found him immediately. He was standing on the steps in the aisle. His legs were spread wide and he had his hands on his hips. His eyes were a bright green. He wore baggy black trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He looked good, and healthy, and the only thing missing was his bowler hat, which was stored safely away in my closet at Carolina’s.

“How you doin’, Z?” he asked. “You’re lookin’ about the same.”

“How are you doing, Ray?” I said back. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

“What do you think about that pitcher for the Sox?”

“I think he’s a pretty good hitter,” I said.

“Well, I think you’re right,” he said. “But right now all you’re seein’ is the caterpillar. Wait ’til you see the butterfly.”

3. Txapel (Beret)

A man on a train once told me the tale of a chieftain who was far from home on a perilous mission for his tribe. He came to a pass in the mountains with which he was unfamiliar. He knew there was no going back and his time was limited. False routes with bandits waiting in ambush lay ahead. Sitting on opposite sides of the trail at the head of the pass were two men about the same age. Physically, there seemed to be no difference between them, except that one was wearing a beret and the other was not. Both claimed to know the true and only safe way through the pass. The chieftain knew if he chose the wrong guide, his mission would certainly fail and he would likely be robbed, beaten, or killed. Not a single soul from his tribe would ever learn his fate. To the chieftain, there was but one choice. Laughing out loud, and without hesitation, he chose the man in the beret to be his guide. Why? Simply because a man with a beret will always have more to offer than a man without. If the “truth” is unknowable, he believed, then one should enjoy the journey, regardless of the outcome.

“What became of the chieftain?” I asked.

The man on the train turned his head toward the window and gazed out at the passing fields and farms. “No one knows,” he said quietly.

Ray Ytuarte is a survivor. He never thinks of his present situation as dire, only urgent. That is the difference between those who go under in a flood of circumstance and those who find their way to shore, any shore, and survive. True survivors never look back, except to remember what not to do again, and they rarely look ahead because the future is merely a dream, a trick of the mind. They exist squarely in the present, usually with good humor and always with no illusions. And they make excellent friends.

I overheard a woman say once: “Friendship is the work of childhood.” I suppose that’s about as true a thing as anything there is. In Africa I had witnessed how effortless that work becomes, in the heart, in the moment when Ray saved my life, putting his own life in harm’s way without a thought and delighting in it.

Ray and I embraced each other while the crowd was still standing and marveling at the distance of Babe Ruth’s grand slam.

“Damn, Z,” Ray said, “are you tryin’ to break my ribs?”

I laughed and let go of him, but I could easily have broken something without much effort. It felt that good to see him in flesh and blood. Opari was staring at both of us. So were Carolina and Jack.

It was because the Meq remain unmarked, or changed in any way, that it was impossible to tell what Ray had been through. He looked the same. I wanted to know everything that had happened to him since Africa. I wanted to know right there in Sportsman’s Park, but I also knew I would have to wait.

Carolina touched Ray’s shoulder and he looked up at her. “Good to see you, Ray,” she said, “we’ve missed you terribly.”

“It’s good to be back,” Ray said. “It surely is.”

I started to introduce Opari when Jack suddenly pulled on my sleeve. “How many more are there, Z?”

“More what, Jack?”

He hesitated, glanced at his mother, and turned back to me. “Well, you know, Z…how many more like you?”

Carolina seemed embarrassed, then looked at me and shrugged. Questions about the Meq almost never surfaced when we were together. I assumed we were simply a fact of life. I didn’t quite know what to say.

Then with a grin and a mysterious wink in my direction, Ray answered, “More than you think, kid…more than you think.”

As I introduced Ray to Jack, and finally to Opari, I heard the words being exchanged between them and watched their faces laughing and smiling, but I seemed to be somewhere else. I had an odd feeling, a dreamlike feeling I had experienced once before when Solomon reappeared after years of absence. I even heard the sound of a dog barking in the distance. Was it really Ray standing next to me speaking? I didn’t fully realize until that moment how much I had truly missed my old friend.

“Why now, Ray? Why here?” I asked him.

“Well…‘here’ because I stopped off at Carolina’s first. I found out a few things from Owen, you know, about everything from Eder and Nicholas to that nasty business down at the train station. Even saw Star and the baby…man, oh, man, Z…you did it, you really did it. Then I thought I had better come on down directly, and here I am.”

“How long have you been in the States?”

“That’s the ‘now’ part of the answer. About two months ago, I hitched up as a batboy with a Venezuelan exhibition team while they were in Veracruz. That got me into the States through Miami. A couple days later I felt a kind of storm, but different…strange…in the direction of St. Louis. By the time I got a little closer, maybe five hundred miles or so, I knew it was something else.”

He stopped talking and looked at me closely, like a doctor examining his patient, then he grinned and tapped me in the middle of my forehead with the end of his finger. He said, “I think all it was, was you worrying, Z. So, as long as I was already in the area, I thought I might as well save your ass…again.”

“When are you going to tell me where you’ve been?”

“When we get gone.”

“Gone where?”

“To do this thing. Owen told me, remember? You might need some help with Unai and Usoa and the trip back to Spain, to the Pyrenees. You ought to know by now two brains are better than one.”

I stared at Ray and smiled. I couldn’t wait to see him in his bowler again. “How was it?” I asked. “I mean, over all, how was it…because you look good, Ray.”

“Well, let me just say I learned a few things, and I also didn’t see a few things coming, like Mozart, for example.”

“Mozart? The composer?”

“Yeah, same guy. I tell you, Z, I really came to love his music. Never expected that. And I like a little modern painting now and then, know what I mean, Z?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. What could Ray, Mozart, and modern painting possibly have in common? “No, Ray, I haven’t got a clue, but I can’t wait for you to tell me.”

“Ready to go?” It was Carolina. The game was over and the Browns had lost. Babe Ruth got the win for the Red Sox.

“Yeah,” Ray yelled back. “We’re ready. Ain’t we, Z?”

“We’re ready.”

As soon as we left Sportsman’s Park, Ray began peppering me with questions concerning Nova. I told him everything I knew about her current location, but he wanted to know more than her address and state of welfare. For some reason he never seemed to doubt that she was all right; he wanted to know what she was like, how she “turned out.” I told him about the night Eder died, and how Nova carried a Stone now, Unai’s Stone, which Sailor had thrown to her in the shadow of the “slabs” in Cornwall. I told him that Nova worried about him and added that I thought she missed him a great deal. I didn’t tell him Sailor had asked Geaxi and Opari to follow Nova’s progress and be patient. I didn’t mention her unique dress and heavy makeup, let alone her occasionally strange behavior.

“That don’t sound right,” Ray said.

“What do you mean?” I asked, knowing I’d been caught. I should have realized Ray was much too streetwise to ever swallow only half the truth.

“It just don’t sound like Nova,” he said. “You sure you’re not leavin’ something out?”

So I told him about the Egyptian mascara, the semitrances, and an attitude that I admitted I never quite understood.

“Now that’s my Nova!” Ray almost shouted. He leaned over and tapped me lightly on the temple. “What’s the matter with you, Z? How long you think I been gone?”

Then something happened that made me even more concerned about leaving St. Louis at that point in time. It took place not five minutes after we returned to Carolina’s and it involved Ray and the orphan boy. No one saw it coming. The boy was still healing from the traumatic events on the train and we should have seen the possibility, but as I said, it was unintentional. Nevertheless, because of it the boy confirmed a suspicion about Unai and Usoa’s killer that he could not have revealed in any other way.

Carolina had given the boy a name since there was no official name available. She called him Oliver Bookbinder—Oliver because she said he “looked straight out of Dickens” and Bookbinder for the Reverend who sent the two-year-old the boy had tried to save. The boy was dark and Hispanic in appearance and I thought he might someday have a few questions for Carolina about her choice of names. She told Ray no one was calling him Oliver because Ciela had nicknamed him Biscuit for the biscuit in a handkerchief that the boy would barely take out of his mouth when we first brought him home. He had already won everyone’s heart, especially Ciela’s, and Carolina thought Ray should meet him right away.

She led us to the kitchen where the boy sat with Ciela at the long table. They were playing checkers, sort of. The boy had captured nearly all of Ciela’s pieces. She had only two pieces left on the board. He was sitting with his back to us, but once he heard us, he spun around and found himself face-to-face with Ray.

He stared into Ray’s green eyes for only a second, then started trembling head to foot, and finally he fell to the floor, dragging the checkerboard down with him. The checkers went flying and scattered across the kitchen. He rolled under the table and curled up in a fetal position, trying to cover his head with the checkerboard. He was still shaking all over.

Ray immediately leaned over and spoke softly to him. “It’s all right, kid. I’m not going to hurt you, I promise.”

But it was no use. Ciela knelt down next to Ray and motioned with her head for him to leave, then turned and waved her arm for all of us to leave. “Go,” she whispered. “Vamos! I will take care of this.”

We left the room as quickly and silently as we could. Carolina was extremely upset and so was Ray. He felt like he had been responsible and apologized over and over, to Carolina, to me, to anyone who would listen.

“It’s not you, Ray,” I said.

“Then what is it?” he asked.

I hesitated and glanced at Opari, who had remained mostly quiet but was observing everything carefully. The boy had never exhibited any fear of the rest of us.

“What, Z? What is it?” Ray asked again.

“Not what, Ray. It’s who. It’s someone who looks very much like you.”

“The Fleur-du-Mal,” Ray said, more as statement than question. I never had to answer. “He’s a son of a bitch, that one,” Ray said to no one in particular, “a real live son of a bitch.”

An hour later Ciela had calmed the boy enough to where he fell asleep on the bed in her bedroom. Carolina told us he was breathing evenly and she tried to assure Ray that the boy would be fine. Ray did not forget the incident soon, however. Things like that affect him deeply, much more than he ever lets anyone know, and he carried the boy’s terrified reaction with him for weeks, though the boy himself forgot about it and even became Ray’s friend within days. Upstairs, I tried to bolster Ray’s spirit. I took him to my closet where I kept his oldest possession, his bowler hat.

He smiled once as he rubbed the brim, then placed it carefully on his head. “Kept it all the way through Africa, did you, Z?”

I smiled back. “Sure did.”

The next day I contacted Mitch and told him of our plan. I asked if he could accompany an old friend and me as far as New York. From there, the “white rose” would be our escort. He agreed on the spot, saying he needed the trip anyway for “business reasons.” At the same time, Owen Bramley was busy making all the arrangements for the entire journey. As we were going over the names of various emergency contacts, something suddenly occurred to me, something that would have been very important to Unai. I asked Owen if he had remembered Unai’s beret. “You bet, Z,” Owen said. “I wouldn’t forget that. It’s in there with him.”

I also sent Arrosa a telegram informing her of our scheduled arrival in New York and told her to contact Kepa in Spain, asking him to have someone meet us in Barcelona, where we would disembark. Arrosa still did not know the details of Unai’s and Usoa’s deaths. In my previous telegram I had only told her they had died. I knew she would be heartbroken with the news and I wanted to wait and tell her the rest in New York.

Ray spent most of the day getting to know Star and playing with Caine. All babies seemed to love Ray, and even though he would deny it, Ray loved all babies. Willie was enthralled with Ray, having never met any Meq quite like him. Jack had the same reaction and stayed home from school just to talk to Ray. Carolina did not object and kept herself occupied reading stories to Biscuit, which she said he enjoyed more than anything. Ciela remained in the kitchen, chopping, slicing, and singing, preparing a delicious Cuban feast in honor of our departure.

Every minute of every hour that day, Opari was by my side. She had a reserve and quietness about her that was different and mysterious. She even wore a garment I had not seen before, a deep blue Indian sari, exquisitely embroidered with mythological beasts and birds. There were ancient Meq barrettes in her hair similar to the ones Eder had shown me years earlier. And there was a faint scent of lavender on her skin, a scent I also had never known her to wear. Everything about her struck me as exotic and intoxicating. It was difficult for me to concentrate when I talked to Owen and the others.

Late in the afternoon the two of us finally found ourselves alone. We walked out to the “Honeycircle” at my suggestion. The sky was blue and clear and everything inside the lush circle was in bloom. We were holding hands and I lifted her hand to kiss her fingers and palm, then I kissed her lips. She let go my hand and put her arms around my neck. I kissed her cheeks and tasted lavender. I kissed her eyelids, then her eyebrows. They were soft black silk.

“We have not yet discussed the Wait, the Itxaron,” I said.

“Yes, my love, I know.” She put her hand on my chest and placed my hand on her chest, pushing aside the Stone she wore on a simple necklace. “Do you feel this pounding in our hearts?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“This is the essence, Zianno. This is the true meaning and dream of the Itxaron—not longing or waiting or wondering, but knowing. We are knowing our own destiny, my love. You, Zianno Zezen, are my destiny, flesh and blood, and I am yours. All else is unknown, unknowable, no longer…garrantzitsu. All else is no longer of importance, not to us and not to this pounding in our hearts. The Wait is not our enemy. The Wait is a gift from the stars.” She paused and kissed my lips. “Do you know what my name means in Basque?” she asked, then answered before I could respond. “It means ‘gift.’ I have a gift that others before me, others who wore the Stone of Blood, also possessed. Tonight I give this gift to you, my beloved. Just as you have let me into your dreams from half a world away, I will take you into mine. Tomorrow, when you leave me, you will know this gift and you will take it with you in your mind and heart. It will sustain you on your journey and bring you back to me. Not all Meq know of this gift, but tomorrow, you will, Zianno.”

“What is the gift?”

She pressed her finger to my lips and smiled. “Tonight, my love.”

Carolina decided against using her formal dining area for Ciela’s feast. Instead, shortly after sunset, we were all called into the kitchen and, one by one, took our seats around the long table. Wonderful Caribbean scents and aromas filled the room—grilled meat, roasted peppers, toasted marjoram, and more, wafting from a half-dozen side dishes laid out on counters and atop the stove. Inside the oven, Ciela said, was a suckling pig, cooked from a recipe as old as her village, and served with a “mojo” prepared with lard, cloves of garlic, and sour orange rind. At both ends of the table several bottles of champagne were chilling on ice. Owen said each bottle was a 1911 Perrier-Jouet, one of the finest vintages of any champagne since 1874.

Ray took one look at the array of delicious, steaming dishes and fresh-baked bread that covered the table, then summed up everyone’s reaction. “Damn!” he said, looking over at Ciela with a broad grin across his face.

Carolina rose from her seat before we began eating and gave a toast and short speech that was neither somber nor joyous. She mentioned Unai and Usoa, though she had never really known them, and she thanked God, Ray, and me for bringing Star and Caine to safety. She ignored the obvious danger that could still exist and said we should be grateful for the moment, the food, and the unique family we had become. Following with a toast of his own, Owen Bramley began by recounting his and Ray’s adventures and difficulties while trying to crate and haul Baju’s sundial to St. Louis all those years ago. He segued into comparing our odd family with the formation of Woodrow Wilson’s idea for a League of Nations and the upcoming conference in Versailles. It was typical Owen logic and rhetoric and as he rambled on, my mind drifted to thoughts of Opari. She was sitting across the table, looking at me, smiling. I no longer heard Owen’s voice. I only heard the echo of her voice, her simple words, “Tonight, my love.” I smiled back and lifted a silent toast to her, and the feast began.

It was well after midnight. Holding the inside of the frame with my hand, I leaned out one of our bedroom windows, over the sill, out far enough to look up and catch a glimpse of the great Milky Way overhead. I wanted to see if the stars were still burning. I wanted to see if they still wheeled through the sky or if they had stopped in place, because I was certain I now knew what made them move.

“Be careful, Z,” Opari whispered out at me. “It is some distance to the ground.”

“I couldn’t fall tonight. Not now, it would be impossible.”

She smiled and kissed the knuckles of my hand holding the frame. “What do you see?”

“I see what I never have before.”

She laughed and turned, walking back toward the bed while removing the old barrettes from her hair. I watched her every move. She was as graceful and silent as Geaxi, with an added mystery in her step, as if she walked surrounded by a field of excited particles. I now knew one of her most intimate secrets. It is the reason kings, sultans, priests, and princes, even jealous empresses, have for centuries sought her presence and given her the same protection as their royal treasuries. It is not just the Stone of Blood, nor the gems that adorn it, nothing like that. It is something much more sublime and yet overwhelming, a knowledge every Giza and Meq has within them, but very few ever experience. Opari is a vessel of this knowledge, this experience. This is her “gift.” It is the most refined of all her “abilities” and in this world, in this form, her most powerful ally.

The experience lasts a little over an hour for Giza and can last two or more hours for the Meq. Beginning at approximately 10:00 P.M. and in various stages until about 12:30 A.M., through Opari’s touch and guidance, I had been shown this “gift,” this dance, this fugue, this impossible balance of control and surrender, and led to a sublime perimeter of possibilities and particles. I returned with a feeling of renewal I had never felt before. I felt connected to everything, to the…“Love impelled, that moves the sun in heaven and all the stars.”

“Opari,” I said, ducking my head back in the room, “does it have a name?”

She was just turning out the last of the lights and about to climb into bed. “Yes,” she said through the sudden dark. “But the name is nonverbal. Do you…need a name, my love?”

“No, no,” I said, stumbling into the room.

“Come to bed, Z. I want you next to me.”

I bumped into the bed and crawled between the sheets where I found her skin.

“In the morning you leave,” she said. “Tonight, come dream with me.”

Not long after first light, I awoke to the voices of Owen Bramley and Mitch in the hallway. Owen seemed to be giving instructions and Mitch was saying, “I got it, I got it.” Then he was bounding down the stairs and I heard the sound of a door opening and closing. I sat up and glanced out the window. The sky was blue and clear and the sun was shining. If the time had come to leave St. Louis, I thought, at least it would be on a beautiful spring day.

As I dressed, Opari sang a song in Old French, a gentle Provençal poem she had learned from a troubadour a thousand years earlier. It was called an aubade, she said, and told the story of lovers parting at dawn.

We said good-bye at the bedroom door. It was much easier than I anticipated and lasted only a few moments. Opari simply reminded me that I must return; otherwise she would have to come and find me. I laughed and kissed her lips, which were moist and soft against mine. To this day, partings from the ones you hold most dear are a great mystery to me. They always seem to break your heart and fill it with warmth at the same time, a nearly impossible balance of feelings and emotion. Before she closed the door, Opari touched my cheek once more, then traced every feature on my face with her fingertips. Her last words were, “Au revoir, my love, and find a good place for Unai and Usoa to rest in peace.”

Owen met me at the end of the hall and handed over a packet of letters and instructions for various contacts along the train route and in New York. He had special letters written for a man in U.S. Customs and the captain of the ship on which we would be sailing, the Iona. He assured me that enough money to keep from worrying would be transferred to Barcelona and available to me upon arrival. He also said he had procured a private railcar for our journey, equipped with sleeping berths and a separate storage compartment for the coffins.

I looked across the hall to the room Ray had been using. The door was wide open but the room was empty.

“Where’s Ray?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” Owen said. “He knocked on my door a good twenty minutes before sunrise and informed me he wanted me to find Mitch and tell him to meet him down at Union Station early. Never gave a reason. Just told me to tell Mitch. He was packed and on his way by dawn.” Owen adjusted his glasses and the two of us stood in silence for a few moments.

“Where’s Carolina?” I asked.

“She’s in the kitchen. She said to remind you if you didn’t say good-bye this time, you couldn’t come back.” He picked up a fedora that lay on a side table, then pointed with it downstairs. “I’ll wait outside for you.”

I had said my farewells to Star and Willie and Jack the night before. I wanted to see Carolina last. “Give me five minutes, Owen.”

“Take your time, Z.”

Carolina was standing alone in the kitchen, caught in a beam of early light streaming in from the east. She was facing the window, kneading a loaf of bread on the counter. Her hands were covered with flour and a small cloud of flour dust surrounded her, floating in the beam of sunlight. Her freckles stood out in bright brown patches across her nose and cheeks. A strand of hair came loose and she stopped to brush it away from her face.

I stood just inside the door and spoke before she saw me. “I was told I had better come see you or else suffer the consequences.”

“Z!” she cried, then relaxed. “Well, yes, that’s true. There would have been consequences.” She smiled once and returned to kneading the bread. “Z, I want you to come back swiftly this time. There is no requirement for you to remain after you have done what you must do. And it is not because I live in fear of that evil one, the Fleur-du-Mal. I don’t give him a second thought and I don’t want you to give a second thought to worrying about us. We will be fine, I promise.” She stopped and turned to look at me directly. “Come back, Z, come back soon.” She paused and smiled again. “And I will make sure Jack keeps your mama’s glove oiled.”

“That’s all I could ask,” I said, and started to leave, then turned back. “Don’t forget, Carolina, Opari carries one of these.” I held the Stone out in front of me.

“I won’t forget, Z. Now go. And what did you say to me once at Union Station when you were leaving? What was the phrase…egi…egibiz…?”

“Egibizirik bilatu,” I finished. She was remarkable and she was my oldest friend. “I’ll be back soon, Carolina. I promise.”

Things went smoothly and quickly at Union Station. Owen Bramley introduced me to Caleb, a black porter who was a friend of Owen’s and the first of several porters along our route who made sure we had everything we needed. Ray and Mitch were already on board and the train left exactly on time. Within minutes we were crossing the Mississippi and heading straight for the morning sun. By late afternoon we were approaching Champaign, Illinois, where we would be recoupled to another line and another train.

Mitch and Ray had become friends the first moment they met in St. Louis. They spent the entire morning and most of the afternoon exploring what they had in common, sharing stories and anecdotes about places and characters they had known in the life on the riverfront and the streets of downtown St. Louis. Mitch was fascinated with the criminal past that Ray knew personally, and Ray wanted to know all about running a nightclub. I wasn’t really included or excluded, just ignored. Ray never mentioned why he left Carolina’s early and Mitch never brought it up. However, I didn’t mind the time alone, I welcomed it. I was still getting used to the idea of leaving St. Louis so soon and so suddenly. I watched the flat farmland pass by, corn and soybeans, one farm after another. I fell into a reverie of reliving the events from the day before, including Ciela’s feast. While I was smiling to myself, recalling the way Opari looked across the table, I remembered a single moment that I didn’t quite understand at the time. She was facing Ray and they were both excited, smiling, talking about something, when Ray suddenly dropped his smile and glanced at me. I think I turned to listen to Owen for a few seconds, then turned back and Ray was gone. He was absent the rest of the evening and I didn’t see him again until I boarded the train. Whatever had happened in that moment with Opari had affected all his actions since. Ray’s friendship meant too much to me to wait and guess. I had to find out what was wrong. Champaign, Illinois, was the place to do it.

On a sidetrack several hundred yards from the station itself, our railcar was uncoupled. While we waited for the other train, I suggested Ray and I get some fried egg sandwiches from the café inside. Mitch agreed, saying he had business with the porter, Caleb, and to make sure we brought him three sandwiches instead of one, with fried potatoes, if possible.

As Ray and I started down the long platform toward the station, we didn’t speak. Ray saw a bottle cap on the platform and picked it up, then tossed it down the tracks so hard and so well, I lost sight of it completely. But it wasn’t only skill that threw the bottle cap so far, it was anger. I saw it in his eyes.

I stopped walking and held back. “What happened last night, Ray? What did Opari tell you?”

Ray continued walking for another three paces, then stopped and turned slowly. There was a look on his face I will never forget and hope I never see again—a look of intense rage, anger, and profound disappointment. He slumped forward slightly, shaking his head back and forth. Quietly, he said, “Opari told me I had the same eyes as my sister.” He stopped talking and laughed to himself. It was his bitter laugh. “What the hell were you thinkin’, Z?” he asked. “How come you didn’t tell me you had seen Zuriaa? As far back as China, goddamnit! How come you didn’t tell me my sister was alive, Z?” He put his bowler back on and knelt down in a crouch, as if he couldn’t or wouldn’t stand up any longer. He felt betrayed and cut to the bone. And I was the only one to blame. I had no defense or excuse. Opari was not aware that I had never told Ray about his sister. At the time, I thought it was better that he not know she had changed and was not the sister he remembered; however, true friends do not keep the truth from each other. No matter what my reasons were, they were wrong.

“It was a mistake,” I said. “A mistake I should never have made, Ray. And one I can never make right. I’m sorry. If you can’t forgive me, I understand. I can only swear to you that I will never make that mistake again. Ever.”

Ray removed his bowler one more time and held it with both hands, turning it, examining every square inch of the brim. He rose from his crouch and stood up facing me. The rage was gone. He cleared his throat and took his time. “You gonna tell me about her, tell me what you know?”

“Yes, everything, the good and the ugly. Right here, right now, if you want.”

“You don’t have to go overboard, Z. I forgive you. I know you probably meant well.” He winked once and turned toward the station and the café. “Just don’t do it again. Deal?”

“Deal.”

That night as we were rolling through northern Indiana and Ohio, on our way to our next change of trains in Cleveland, I told Ray everything I knew about Zuriaa, which wasn’t much. I told him how I had met her in China and recognized her immediately, exposing her as his sister and calling her by name. I told him of the shock in her eyes when I had said his name, and how she fainted on the spot in front of the Empress Dowager of China. I also told him about seeing her again in Carthage and watching her kill “Razor Eyes” without mercy, then ride away. I said Opari would be a better source of information because she and Zuriaa had traveled together for many years throughout Asia. There had been a falling out between them, the exact nature of which had never been explained to me. Lastly, I told him Zuriaa might have been in Africa doing business with or for the Fleur-du-Mal.

“What!”

“That’s right, Ray. He was waiting for Zuriaa and ‘Razor Eyes’ to deliver Star to him.”

Ray fell silent. He shook his head back and forth, then turned to me. “I ain’t seen her for over a hundred years, Z. Did you know that?”

“Yeah, Ray. I know.”

He paused. “A hundred years,” he said again, then in a whisper I barely heard, “Anybody can change in a hundred years. Anybody.” He picked up his bowler, which lay in the seat next to him, and studied it thoroughly. He shook his head again, then looked up and faced the window as our train continued east through the darkness.

“Ray?” I asked. “When are you going to tell me where you’ve been?”

“Later, Z,” he said without turning around. “And you ain’t gonna believe it.”

He was nearly right. All night long, while Mitch slept peacefully in his berth, Ray told the tale of his travels and travails during the last twelve years. By the time we reached Cleveland, I could barely believe what I’d heard, and never would have if it hadn’t been Ray who had done the telling.

He began by informing me his “kidnapping” had turned out to be the greatest adventure of his life—the exact opposite of what I’d been imagining since that Christmas Day in Senegal. There were no terrors or tortures, no chains, no imprisonment or being held for ransom. In fact, after boarding the German yacht we’d seen anchored in the harbor, his abductor, Cheng, or “Razor Eyes,” made Ray an offer he couldn’t refuse. It was not a threat, but a genuine offer of a great deal of money, along with a fee attached for Cheng and the German ship’s captain to share. And he would not be required to “do” anything, other than be himself and accompany an old man on a quest through East Africa somewhere north of the Rift Valley. It was to be a search for a special one of the Magic Children, a girl the old man had known in his youth. He believed she had returned to her mythical homeland and he was determined to find it before he died. Cheng had been scouring the ports of Africa looking for one of us because the old man was positive that in order to find the girl, he needed someone of her own kind to help him. Completely by accident or providence, he had seen Ray and me coming ashore in Saint-Louis and decided to “surprise” the two of us, then make his offer. Because Ray wanted to create as much distance between Cheng and me as quickly as possible, he accepted the offer without hesitation. They set sail for East Africa, stopping along the way in the ports of Lomé, Douala, Swakopmund, and Luderitz Bay, then rounding the Cape and docking in the ancient port of Dar es Salaam, where the old man was waiting for them inside the walls of his private estate.

Ray was taken to an open courtyard covered in multicolored tile, laid in intricate geometric patterns, and introduced to Baron Ernst Rudiger von Steichen, the German-Austrian patriarch of a family and a business that spanned generations going back a thousand years or more. Their roots were in the lake country outside Salzburg. Their business was salt. The Baron seemed startled or puzzled at first, then shook his head slightly and smiled, asking Ray in English which would he prefer, tea or coffee? Ray liked the old man the instant he stared into his bright blue eyes and guessed him to be about seventy-five years old, but quick, slick, and charming as a riverboat gambler. The Baron assured Ray a considerable amount of gold would be deposited into a private account that would be established in his name, in Zurich, within a week. Ray could verify this before they ever left Dar es Salaam. After that, the Baron warned, where they were going or when they would return could not be accurately predicted. Ray said he would do it for nothing, but the Baron wouldn’t have it and insisted on paying him. Ray agreed and was immediately escorted by the old man to another part of his estate where forty or fifty men were busy sorting through massive amounts of supplies that lay strewn across the grounds of a polo field. It was a fully outfitted safari on the verge of departure. The Baron turned and told Ray he’d been waiting for him.

Six months later Ray had seen Mount Kilimanjaro and heard the sounds of the Serengeti at night. He had learned two languages and shared the campfires of warriors, herdsmen, fishermen, and kings. They had pushed on west to the shores of Lake Victoria and north to a river with three different names. This river and a reliable new guide would eventually lead them farther north to the remote area around Lake Turkana. From there, and for the next seven years, Ray and the Baron chased rumors and legends of the Meq girl’s origins. They never found a trace of her and by then the war had broken out, causing the Baron concern for his estate in Dar es Salaam. He decided with great reluctance to finally abandon his quest and return to protect his property. They made their way east to the port of Djibouti, where the Baron sold all his goods to local traders and procured illegal passage down the coast, avoiding any confrontations or blockades along the way.

The Baron’s estate was intact and the place became a safe haven for him and Ray during the early stages of the Great War, as it was fought in East Africa. The Baron confessed to Ray that he had a son and grandson who were both fighting for the German army, somewhere in France. He tried to persuade his friend, General von Lettow-Vorbeck, to arrange for their transfer to Africa. It never happened. When Dar es Salaam was under siege and then bombarded, the old man’s estate was destroyed. Baron Ernst Rudiger von Steichen was hit and killed by flying debris during one of the explosions. Ray said his own leg, arm, and five of his ribs were broken in the blast and it took him nearly a week to heal. Once he did, he contacted the Baron’s family in Salzburg. The Baroness Matilde, granddaughter-in-law to the Baron, sent a long letter in return, thanking Ray and giving him the sad news that the Baron’s son and grandson had both been killed in the war. In a postscript she asked Ray if he could somehow bring the Baron’s body back to Salzburg. She wanted to bury them all among their own family and ancestors.

War makes pirates and strange bedfellows out of almost everybody. With his abundance of street skills and plenty of money, Ray was able to smuggle himself and the Baron’s coffin by ship to the Black Sea, then up the Danube all the way to Linz, where he made connections to Salzburg. The trip was a difficult and dangerous journey, but Ray made it in less than four months.

In Salzburg, he was met and welcomed by the Baroness Matilde. Ray said he could tell instantly that she knew he was Meq and in thirty minutes they were driving through the gates of the von Steichen “family spread,” as Ray called it. Nestled between a lakefront and the sheer rock face of a mountain, and connected across an entire hillside, stood a series of castlelike stone structures. This had been the home of the von Steichens since the Middle Ages.

The Baroness showed Ray to his quarters deep within the complex. Ray said there were so many buildings, most with additions and additions to the additions, it felt more like its own village than a family home. The master bedroom of his suite was covered in three-hundred-year-old rugs from Isfahan and even older Venetian tapestries hanging on the walls and over an enormous fireplace with a mantel well above Ray’s head. The Baroness asked him to stay for the funeral and Ray accepted. She was alone now in the great home. Her mother-in-law had suffered a stroke during the war, as had the last Baroness, the Baron’s own wife of fifty years. She died without ever knowing his fate and Matilde guessed it had been the same for the Baron. Ray told her the Baron always referred to his wife as a living person. That was comforting news to the Baroness Matilde. She then asked Ray to stay for as long as he liked, for the duration of the war if he wished. Ray told her it might be a good idea to “sit out the squabble,” as he referred to waiting for World War I to end. She also hinted that she had a special place to show him, saying it was the source of the Baron’s mad quest.

Ray stayed in Salzburg with the Baroness for almost a year, becoming her closest friend and acquiring in the process his newfound interest in Mozart and modern painting. At war’s end, he decided to return to the city of his birth, Veracruz. The Baroness understood and they said their farewells in Salzburg at the train station. Ray then headed for Switzerland to pick up the gold the Baron had insisted on paying him. After a brief stop in Munich, where he met and talked with a character named Hess that Ray described as “a real piece of work,” he found the bank and the gold waiting for him in Zurich. He traveled south to Marseille and boarded a ship sailing for Panama. From Panama, he made his way to Mexico and eventually St. Louis, in order to “save my ass,” as he reminded me.

Ray stopped his tale and looked out the window. The train was slowing down and the sun was just rising in the east. We were approaching the outskirts of Cleveland. Ray smiled to himself and reached into his vest, pulling out a packet of photographs and staring down at them.

“Well?” I asked. “Did she ever show you the special place?”

“That’s the part you ain’t gonna believe, Z. But I want you to look at something first. The Baroness let me take some photographs before I left.”

“Photographs of what?”

“Paintings—portraits painted by Vermeer and Botticelli.”

“Are they rare?”

“Yeah, you could say that, only I think the word ‘rare’ ain’t nearly enough. These are portraits of the same girl.” Ray stopped talking and looked at me for a reaction, then he said, “Vermeer lived almost two centuries later than Botticelli.”

“Then…how is that possible?”

“You mean I’ve gotta explain it to you, Z? You can’t figure that out?”

“She’s Meq?”

“You got it.” Ray handed me the photographs. “Look at her, Z. The Baroness told me her name is Susheela the Ninth. She’s Meq, all right, but she ain’t Egipurdiko or Egizahar.”

The photographs were sharp and clear, but they were not in color. Ray described the colors for me, mentioning especially the green of the girl’s eyes in the portrait by Vermeer. “If you’ve ever seen Vermeer’s blues, then you’ll know what I mean,” Ray said. “Her eyes are the greenest damn green I’ve ever looked on, Z.”

I studied the portraits closely, amazed and bewildered by what I saw. The girl was Meq without a doubt; her individual features, specifically her lips, were even similar to Opari’s. However, there was one very obvious and unexplainable difference, a difference unlike any other difference between us. The Meq girl in both portraits was black.

“So the Baron was telling the truth,” I said. “She was real.”

“She sure was, and is, as far as anybody knows.”

Just then, our train changed tracks for the approach into the rail yard. The jolt woke Mitch and he leaned out of his sleeping berth, trying to see out the window. “Where are we, Z?”

“Cleveland,” I answered. “New York by tonight.”

Ray winked and said, “There’s something else I want you to see, Z, but let’s wait until we’re on our way to Spain, what do you say?”

I gave the photographs one last glance, then handed them back to him. “Those portraits are nothing short of amazing, Ray.”

Ray winked again. “Ain’t life grand, Z? You never know, do you?”

New York City is not a city for the faint of heart. It is the biggest, toughest, meanest city in America, and arguably the greatest. Anything and everything has or will happen in New York. Until you have experienced for yourself the size, sounds, smells, the pace of life, you cannot imagine how overwhelming it can be. As we were pulling into Pennsylvania Station, Ray said it best: “I love this place, but it can kick your ass.”

It was well past working hours on a working day, yet there were still thousands of people coming and going through the huge terminal. Arrosa was there to greet us, however, and helped with the transfer of Unai and Usoa from Pennsylvania Station to our ship, the Iona. I saw a trace of sadness in her eyes, but she was efficient and the whole process took less than an hour. Ray was also a little sad. After I had introduced him to Arrosa, he immediately asked about Nova. Neither she nor Geaxi were present and the disappointment was evident on his face and in his eyes. Arrosa informed him that both of them were in Ithaca, New York, having left only two days earlier.

“Ithaca? What’s in Ithaca?” I asked.

“You will have to ask Nova, señor. I only have the names of the men she was to meet—Theodore and Leopold Wharton. Geaxi accompanied her and also gave no explanation.” Arrosa paused, then added, “I am thinking she might have seen something, señor, in a dream or vision. She was not herself.”

Ray and I exchanged puzzled glances. I knew Geaxi had gone for one reason—to watch over Nova—but I had no idea what Nova might have seen. Her visions were powerful, private enigmas that came without warning.

Suddenly Mitch spoke out. “My daddy, if he’s still alive, might be livin’ in Ithaca. On my way back to St. Louis, I could spend a little time there, find out what’s goin’ on with Nova, and maybe pay him a visit. I never have before and this is as good a time as any.”

“What?” I asked, completely surprised. “I have never heard you even mention him.”

“It never came up, Z. Where do you think I got my middle name? My mama wanted me to never forget where he was from, so she gave me the name Ithaca.” He paused. “I might have a sister somewhere, too.”

I didn’t know what to say. None of this was expected. I looked at Ray and he grinned, then adjusted his bowler and said, “Let’s get somethin’ to eat, what do you say?”

“Good idea,” Mitch said.

“This way,” Arrosa said to all of us, adjusting her own black beret. Minutes later we were in a taxi, weaving our way down Fifth Avenue to Arrosa’s loft apartment, three blocks from Washington Square in Greenwich Village. We were due to set sail for Barcelona in twenty-four hours. That is a blink of the eye in New York City. I had hoped for the chance of seeing a ball game at the Polo Grounds, but that would have to wait for another time. Soon, I told myself. Soon.

The next day passed even quicker than I imagined and Mitch saw us off in the evening, looking resplendent in a black tuxedo and white silk scarf. He had an appointment later to meet a man in Harlem about investing in a nightclub, saying, “I can’t resist it, Z. This town is poppin’.” I told him I would cable him as soon as we reached Barcelona. I also wondered why no one was there to say farewell to Arrosa and I asked if any of her friends knew she was leaving. She answered, “No, and this is not a problem, señor. I knew this might happen. It is better this way.”

The Iona eased her way into a crowded and busy New York harbor, then steamed out to open seas. By midnight she had set a course east and south, bound for the Canary Islands, our only scheduled port of call before Barcelona.

I turned to Ray just before we said good night. “Any strange weather ahead, Weatherman?”

Ray grinned. “Nothin’ I can see, Z.”

There were few women on board the Iona. Most of the crew were Greek and spoke a dialect none of us had heard before. However, I needed no translation to understand what they meant when Arrosa was around. She did nothing to provoke them. Her clothes were simple and she wore no makeup or jewelry. None of their words or leering glances seemed to affect her, but I was uncomfortable with it and so was Ray.

The weather held across the mid-Atlantic and even though I was already missing Opari and the others, it felt good to be at sea again. The three of us spent much of our time on deck, walking or sitting in deck chairs. The passengers generally left us alone, and for the few who inquired, Ray and I were posing as brothers and Arrosa was our aunt. We never quite explained the reason for our trip and kept every conversation confined to the trivial. On the night before we reached the Canary Islands, Ray and I found ourselves alone, leaning on the railing near the stern, staring up at the great sweep of stars from horizon to horizon. My eyes drifted up and across, then focused on the constellation Pleiades, the Seven Sisters. The more I stared, the more they seemed to be whispering, sharing their secrets with each other at the very top of the sky.

I turned to Ray. “When are you going to show me the ‘something else’ concerning the Meq girl?”

“Tomorrow, Z. I got it hid away in a special place in my suitcase. I’ll get it out when we dock. It’s kind of fragile.”

The next morning we made port in the beautiful deepwater harbor of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, a place Captain Woodget and I had visited several times for several reasons as smugglers. The Canary Islands were a haven and an oasis for us, as they had been for sailors and merchants for centuries. I learned later the Meq have known and passed through the islands for millennia. Unai himself told many tales involving the Guanche, a mysterious, tall, blond, bearded tribe who inhabited the islands two thousand years before Columbus sailed anywhere.

The harbor was busy with merchant ships and container ships of all sizes, most filled with bananas or tomatoes. There were some passenger ships and private vessels, but not many. The Iona steered a clear path through traffic and we docked safely about midmorning. We would only be in port for the day and nearly every passenger was on deck and planning on going ashore. Ray had his white shirtsleeves rolled up and Arrosa wore a red flower print sundress and sandals. The air was hot and dry and the sky was a sharp, bright blue.

Arrosa smiled. “Are we going ashore? I have never been to this place.”

“Of course,” I said. “But, Arrosa, there is something I must ask you and I hope you aren’t offended.”

“I will not be offended. What do you ask, Zianno?”

“Only that you wait ashore for Ray and me. He has…he has something to show me in private.”

She laughed slightly. “That is not a problem, señor.” She turned and pointed toward an area on the dock that was a hundred yards from the Iona, away from the stream of passengers and cargo handlers and close to a tangled stack of banana crates. “I will wait for you there,” she said, adjusting her black beret to the proper angle.

“We won’t be long, Arrosa. I promise.”

“It shouldn’t take but a few minutes,” Ray said.

She laughed again. “It is not a problem, believe me. I will be waiting.”

She turned to leave and Ray and I watched her until she was walking down the gangway, then we went directly to his cabin. He pulled out his battered suitcase and opened it on top of the small bed. There was a false bottom in the suitcase and Ray dismantled it carefully. Underneath, hidden in a padded compartment, lay a papyrus scroll, weighted at both ends with long pieces of carved ivory and rolled into a coil. Ray lifted the scroll gently and spread it across the bed. Once he had it completely secured, he shook his head and looked over at me.

“Can’t make heads or tails out of what it says, Z, but I thought you ought to see it. Especially when I found out who had it and who it was for!”

I stared down at the stained, ancient paper. At first, I saw nothing on it except a group of red dots in the upper left section, possibly made with ocher. Then, below a fold and crack in the center of the papyrus, I saw a few blurry, faint scratches in black. I leaned over, looked closer, and was astounded.

“Who had this, Ray? Where did you get it?”

“In the ‘special place’ the Baroness Matilde talked about. It was a room, Z, a huge room in the oldest part of the castle, right up against the mountain. It used to be the entrance to a salt mine. One of the first von Steichens sealed it off, then converted it into an enormous space attached directly to the castle. Susheela the Ninth used it as her home for a thousand years. The papyrus was hers, Z. When she left without a word, she left this behind.”

A few seconds passed in silence. I was dumbfounded. “How old was, or is, Susheela the Ninth?”

“I don’t know, but the Baroness said the girl always referred to herself as ‘the last of her kind.’”

“You said you thought I ought to see this because you found out who had it and who it was for. What did you mean?”

“I mean there was another piece of paper with the papyrus. It was written by Susheela the Ninth and gave instructions, in German, as to exactly who was supposed to see the papyrus. The Baroness had to translate the instructions for me, but not the name.”

“What was the name?”

Ray grinned and picked up his bowler, spinning and twirling it on his finger. He opened his mouth to answer and just before he spoke, I stopped him. “Wait! Hush! Do you hear that?”

Ray was startled at first, then understood immediately that I was using my “ability.” “I can’t hear nothin’, Z,” he said.

I listened again to make sure the sound was what I thought. Then it came again, this time in panic, and I realized who it was. “No! No!” the voice shouted. “Get off me, you pig!”

“Come on,” I said to Ray and took off running for the gangway, dodging several people and pushing others to the side. Ray had no difficulty keeping pace. He was right on my heels and once we were down the gangway, I could hear the shouts and curses behind us of the people who had been knocked out of the way. I paid no attention and was in a full running stride.

“Where are we going?” Ray asked casually.

“Arrosa is in trouble!” I shouted back.

Ray caught up with me. “Did you ever get that Stone back?” he asked with a wink.

“Sure did,” I said, tapping my pocket and slowing down to a trot. We were getting close. Even Ray could hear the struggle now. Ahead of us a jumble of crates filled with bananas were stacked one on top of the other in front of an open warehouse. On the opposite side of the crates Arrosa was being dragged into the warehouse. She was screaming in Spanish and fighting back.

Ray grabbed my sleeve. “Let me go first,” he said. “If there’s more than one, then they’ll all go for me, and you can do your little trick with the rock. What do you say?”

“Go,” I said without hesitation, then reached in my pocket and found the Stone.

Ray ran around the stacks of bananas, which were piled twenty feet high. Within seconds there were shouts and loud curses in Greek. There seemed to be at least three men attacking Arrosa. They were screaming back and forth and Ray was shouting in English to let the girl go. Arrosa was shouting, too, asking Ray in Spanish if I was with him.

I came around the last stack of bananas and as I reached my arm out to use the Stone, two thick, bare arms encircled me from behind and held me in a viselike grip. The man who grabbed me was heavyset and stank of sweat and stale rum. He held me in the air like a doll. My arms went numb and the Stone dropped out of my hand and rolled on the ground.

“Damn,” Ray said. Someone even bigger was holding him in the same manner. I thought I had seen the man on board the Iona.

“Are you all right?” I shouted to Arrosa. She had quit struggling and was almost out of sight, being dragged inside the warehouse by a third man. The man had a knife pressed against her throat. His undershirt had been torn to shreds by her teeth and fingernails.

“Not for long,” she shouted back, trying to sound brave. The man laughed and ran one hand through her hair, grabbing a fistful and holding it. Then, in a weak and terrified voice, Arrosa said, “I am scared, Zianno.” The man laughed again in the shadows, telling her in Greek and Spanish, “You will love it, my flower.”

Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, something happened that did not make sense, as if everything had stopped, or slowed down, or changed dimensions. The man dragging Arrosa fell silent and let go of her. Arrosa’s bare legs rose off the ground slightly and her sandals floated off her feet and then moved in a flash, by themselves, into the shadows of the warehouse. There was a slapping sound from inside, then a yelp and a scream. The man in the undershirt appeared in the sunlight, staggering forward and unable to speak because his own knife was embedded in his throat. Blood shot from the wound spraying his undershirt and arms. His eyes rolled back in his head. He took three steps, then fell forward, falling directly on top of Arrosa’s black beret. In the next second, the men holding Ray and me screamed in agony, cursing in Greek and letting go their grips as if they had been burned or shocked. Then they each began a series of involuntary tumbles and back somersaults, ending in a heap at the bottom of the tallest stack of crates. Something invisible had pulled or pushed them with great force and speed.

Ray and I looked at each other. Neither of us had moved a muscle. I started to reach for the Stone I had dropped, but before I could, it came to me. At a fairly rapid pace and in a gentle arc, like a baseball toss, the Stone rose from the ground and flew over to me. I caught it softly in one hand.

“What the…” Ray said and never finished. His mouth was hanging open.

Behind the two men, who were barely conscious, the stacked crates full of bananas began to shake and vibrate. In ten seconds they were falling in an avalanche of wood and bananas and buried the two men where they lay.

Arrosa crawled out of the shadows of the warehouse. She was barefoot and her red dress was torn and bloodied. There were several places on her neck and arms beginning to bruise. Still, she seemed to be all right.

A shadow moved in the open space between Ray and where I was standing. It appeared to leap and dance in a diagonal line. Something or someone was on top of the stacks behind me. I turned and saw a figure bounding down from crate to crate. In the glare of the sun, I couldn’t make out who or what it was, but the movements were quick, graceful, intuitive. There was no doubt or hesitation about where to land or where next to leap. In seconds the figure had dropped eighteen feet, then hit the ground with both feet and started walking toward Ray and me. He wore loose black trousers tucked into boots laced to the knees. His shirt was a simple white cotton tunic with intricate orange stitching. He was exactly my height and weight and looked exactly the same as the last time I had seen him, except the braid behind his left ear was now weighted with black onyx. He stopped in front of me. His “ghost eye” swirled with clouds. On his forefinger he wore a ring of star sapphire set in silver. He reached out and lightly tapped my hand, the one holding the Stone.

“You should learn to hold on to that, Zianno.” Then he smiled, which I had not seen in a very long time. “Sorry I missed your birthday. I was…preoccupied.”

He turned without another word and walked over to where Arrosa still sat on the ground, bewildered and exhausted. He gave her his hand to help her stand and steady herself.

“Arrosa Arginzoniz, no? Allow me to introduce myself. I am Umla-Meq, Egizahar Meq, through the tribe of Berones, protectors of the Stone of Memory. Please, call me Sailor, if you wish.”

“Sí, señor. I know of your name.”

“Are you hurt? Do you need medical attention of any kind?”

“No, no, I am fine. I should not have been waiting in this area. I should have known better.”

“Nonsense. You are completely without blame. Those men were filth and refuse. I have seen men like them on these seas for longer than I care to remember. Are you certain that you have no serious injury?”

“Yes,” Arrosa answered. She was looking down at Sailor, but she could have been on her knees. “Gracias, señor, gracias,” she kept repeating. “Gracias.”

“De nada, my dear.”

Ray had silently walked over next to me. “Did Sailor do that?” he whispered.

“He sure did.”

“How?”

“You know how. In the same way you can run fast and foretell the weather; the same way I can hear things from a great distance. What Sailor does is called telekinesis.” Ray’s mouth finally closed. He rubbed his chin, then mumbled something. “Damn,” I think he said.

“I suggest we return to your ship, and quickly,” Sailor said. “Someone might have questions about this and I feel no desire to answer them. Also, I have news of which you are unaware, news I regret I must deliver.” He reached for the arm of Arrosa. “Are you ready, my dear?”

They made their way out of the jumble of broken crates and bananas, Arrosa walking barefoot and Sailor kicking a clear path with his boots. Ray picked up her sandals and I retrieved her bloodstained black beret. Once again, an old one, Umla-Meq, had shown me something fundamental about the Meq and living in the moment. Never take it for granted and never despair, it will pass. Ray saw it from a little different perspective. Just as we were about to walk up the gangway of the Iona, Ray looked up at Sailor ahead of us and said with a wink, “Who said you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?”

I laughed, then suddenly remembered what we were doing before I heard Arrosa’s screams. The scratches I found on the papyrus were not scratches at all. They were words, words written in the ancient Meq script that only I could read. “Ray,” I said, “whose name is on that note from Susheela the Ninth? Who was meant to see the papyrus?”

Ray grinned and looked up the gangway at Sailor and Arrosa stepping on board. “Him,” he answered. “The name on the note is Umla-Meq.”

Once we were on board and away from the other passengers, Sailor wasted no time in explaining his timely arrival. It was not a lucky accident. He had been waiting for us for days, even purchasing a ticket for passage on the final leg to Barcelona. When he saw Arrosa leaving the ship, he followed her, taking a position atop the banana crates. He was about to act just as Ray and I ran blindly, without thinking, directly into the danger and nearly paid the price. Sailor glared at both of us as he recounted this and I felt scolded. The heat of embarrassment hit my cheeks, but Sailor ignored my reaction and went on to say he bore sad news, especially for Ray and me. Arrosa offered to leave, saying she longed to soak in a hot bath for at least an hour. Sailor said he understood, but this news concerned her as well. Only a week earlier, Kepa Txopitea had died of a stroke while fishing in the Pyrenees with his son, Pello. He was a chieftain and father of the western clan of the tribe of Vardules. He was also my Aita and a wise and treasured friend to all four of us.

The news was not at all expected and stunned me. Each of us stood in silence for several moments, alone with our own memories of the old man. I started to speak and nothing came out. Then I was overcome with remorse and regret that I had not gone to see him when I could have, just after the war.

Sailor said, “I would not have missed the burial of Unai and Usoa, and now, with great respect, we shall bury them all together.”

Another long silence hung in the air. All of us knew what was ahead of us and it was acknowledged without a word.

Ray finally broke the silence. “I got somethin’ you ought to see, Sailor.”

Sailor raised one eyebrow and unconsciously rubbed the star sapphire on his forefinger. “Then I will see it,” he said and paused, facing Arrosa. “Whatever it may be, you are welcome to come along, Arrosa. Unai never kept anything from you and I will always honor his judgment.”

“No, señor, please,” Arrosa said, then smiled weakly. “Not this time. I want to be alone for a while and I need to rest.”

“I understand,” Sailor said, nodding once. “Then we will see you this evening for dinner, after we set sail. Bueno?”

“Bueno.” Arrosa glanced at each of us and smiled again. Ray handed her the sandals and I gave her the beret. She stared at the bloodstains and her smile slid away and vanished. There was a faint tremble in her bottom lip and her eyes welled a bit, but that was all. She turned to leave. “Thank you, Umla-Meq. Thank all of you,” she said.

After she was out of sight, we began to walk back to Ray’s cabin. Sailor said he wanted to tell us why he had been “out of touch” the past several months. As we walked and he talked, the huge volcanic mountain of Pico del Teide was visible far to the southwest. Wrapped in swirling clouds, the snowy peak reminded me of Sailor’s “ghost eye.”

It was common knowledge among the Meq that Sailor believed there was a Sixth Stone somewhere—lost, buried, stolen, no one knew, but Sailor firmly believed it existed. So he began by stating that he had gained access to evidence, the best in centuries, he added, and the evidence proved the Stone’s existence and possible whereabouts. Then he said something that made little sense to me. It was the kind of statement that had troubled Trumoi-Meq and others. Sailor said, “Finding the Sixth Stone will reveal the true reason Unai and Usoa’s baby died. Everything is there, gentlemen, everything is there.” But instead of it sounding delusional or obsessive, it made me remember the words on the papyrus and the reason for Umla-Meq’s name on the note became clear.

I burst out, “Stop, Sailor, and come with me. You must see what Ray has discovered. Now!”

Sailor and Ray had to run to keep up with me, much to the annoyance of Sailor, who kept complaining as we were running, saying, “Zianno, please, is this absolutely necessary? I am an old man.” An American on board, a fat man in his fifties, was bumped by all three of us as we ran by. He yelled after us, “Goddamn kids! Watch where you’re going, goddamnit!”

As soon as Ray opened the door to his cabin, I said to Sailor, “Look at this.” The papyrus was still out on the bed. Ray said, “And look at this.” He handed Sailor the note he had been carrying since leaving Salzburg. The writing on the note was in a neat black script, handwritten in German and signed “Susheela the Ninth.” Her handwriting could be mistaken for any Giza’s. The name Umla-Meq was clearly visible, appearing twice in the text. Sailor needed no translator to read the note and as he read, Ray related the story of the mysterious black Meq girl who had lived outside Salzburg for a thousand years with the papyrus in her possession, then disappeared, leaving behind the papyrus and the handwritten note and instructions. Ray concluded with, “Thought I’d try and get it to you. Never thought it’d be here, though.”

“These things occur,” Sailor said and glanced at me with a faint grin. I didn’t say anything, but I realized he was back to being the same Sailor I had always known, not the frantic, angry, crazy Sailor I had last seen in Cornwall. He set the note aside without asking Ray one question, then touched the papyrus with his fingertips, tracing the surface until he found the tiny script in faded dark ocher near the center. He leaned over and examined it, not three inches away. Slowly, he turned his head and looked at me. “This is—” he started, but I finished the sentence for him.

“The same script that is in the Meq caves. Yes. Impossible, but true.”

His “ghost eye” narrowed. “What does it say, Zianno?” he asked in a low drone.

“It begins,” and I had to walk around the bed once in order to read the entire text. The tiny lines and half circles were written in the shape of a nautilus shell, beginning in the center and spiraling out to the end. Nine sentences, or “Steps,” each one punctuated and separated by a miniature image of a handprint. “It begins with these words: ‘Nine Steps of the Six,’ then nine lines follow in a spiral—‘The First One shall not know. The Second One shall not know. The Third One shall not know. The Fourth One shall not know. The Fifth One shall not know. The Living Change shall live within the Sixth One. The Five shall be drawn unto the Source Stone. The Living Change shall be Revealed. The Five shall be Extinguished.’ ”

When I finished, I looked up and Sailor was staring out one of the two tiny portholes in Ray’s cabin. The Iona was just getting under way and our next port of call was Barcelona. The whitewashed buildings of Santa Cruz de Tenerife were only a thin white stripe against the deep blue of sea and sky. “This confirms it,” Sailor said evenly, then turned and stared Ray and me in the eye, one to one and back again. He had stopped rubbing the star sapphire and his hands were still. In the light his eyes were like black diamonds. “We must find the Sixth Stone, gentlemen,” he said. “And I know where to begin.”

“Where?” I asked.

“Cairo, then the upper cataracts of the Nile and beyond, possibly as far as Ethiopia.”

“When?”

“As soon as we bury our friends.”

I looked at Ray and he shrugged, knowing what I was thinking and possibly thinking or feeling something similar about Nova.

Sailor could see the reason for my hesitation in my eyes. However, he also knew something about me that could still be summoned and stirred, and he made me an offer I could not refuse, regardless of my desire to return to St. Louis and Opari. “Do you know the reason I could not tell you I would be here?” he asked. “Why only Mowsel and Pello knew my location? It was because someone has been tracing my movements and harassing me from a distance. Someone who believes in the Sixth Stone and has a piece of the same information as I…someone who will surely be on the same trail, either waiting or following…someone I will gladly help you kill in any manner you choose, Zianno. When Mowsel told me of the savage and senseless attack on Unai and Usoa, I made my decision. Xanti Otso shall no longer be tolerated. The ‘Little Wolf,’ the Fleurdu-Mal, must be eliminated and a trap could be set for him with the Sixth Stone. He will chase it like a rat after cheese.” Sailor paused and looked at Ray, then back to me. “I also have something to give you, Zianno, something from Kepa. It was sent to me by Pello, along with instructions that Kepa wanted you to have it.” He bent down and extracted a neatly folded red beret tucked inside the top of his boot. He shook it out and handed it to me.

For some reason, I glanced at Ray’s tattered and torn bowler resting on a chair. “Ray,” I said, “you need a new look for this century. I want you to have Kepa’s beret.”

Ray took the beret and examined it, feeling the texture of the old woven wool, then looked over to his bowler. “It is a fine-looking beret, Z. And a damn nice color of red.”

“Well, what do you think?”

“I think you’re right. I think I need a change and I think we ought to go with Sailor. The time is right, Z.”

I realized I had already made my decision and I agreed with him. I turned to Sailor. “What about Arrosa?”

“If she wishes to return to New York, she may do so, or if she wishes to remain with Pello, it will be arranged. Whatever she chooses to do, someone from Kepa’s camp will watch over her.”

I nodded. “All right, then. I’m in.”

“Good, good,” Sailor said, then added cryptically, “Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is what you are destined for.”

Ray and I exchanged curious glances. “How do you know about Ithaca?” I asked.

“Ithaca?” Sailor said. His “ghost eye” focused in on me. “I was quoting lines from a poem.”

“Oh,” I said and left it alone.

“I’m hungry,” Ray blurted out. “Is it too early to find somethin’ to eat on this ship?”

“Of course not,” Sailor answered. “Remember, Ray, we are only children. We do not know any better.”

Ray laughed and said, “Let’s go.” He placed Kepa’s red beret on his head at a precise angle, as if he had been wearing it for centuries. He and Sailor started for the door. Before we were out of the room, Ray said, “You know, Sailor, when I was travelin’ with the Baron, many times we were near the country you’re talkin’ about—the Blue Nile and Ethiopia and those parts.” Sailor looked at Ray with surprise and admiration. Ray went on, “That’s right. I nearly got my head chopped off three times and practically starved to death on several occasions. Then I got my foot stomped on by a packhorse, took a spear point in the thigh, and was poisoned four separate times. Beautiful country, though. Beautiful.”

I laughed to myself and followed behind, listening to every word. After all, if the truth is, in fact, unknowable, then a wise man always follows the man with the beret.