Gardens in the Dunes

Part Six

JUST AFTER the ship left sight of land, Edward brought out the letter that arrived just before departure. News about Linnaeus! Hattie cleared her throat and began reading; her face lit up as she read this: “I am delighted to report the little monkey is as happy as can be with his new companion. The maid tells me she watched the monkey play with the kitten. The monkey dangles the end of his tail through the bars to lure the kitten to play with it.”

Hattie folded the letter and slipped it back into the envelope.

“It was very kind of Mr. Yetwin to write to set our minds at ease. In your next letter, please let him know we greatly appreciated his charming description of Linnaeus and the kitten. We feel much relieved, don’t we?”

Indigo nodded her head vigorously as she imagined the monkey playing with the cat. Although the letter told only of the game through the bars, Indigo imagined the door of the cage open wide and the two of them chasing each other among the branches of the wisteria above the cage. She knew the white blossoms were gone by now but she preferred to imagine Linnaeus and his cat playing hide-and-seek among the flowers.

That night as she lay in her berth, a bit unwell from the sway of the ship, she listened to the beautiful rain splash the ship’s deck. Rain made her think of the old gardens and Mama and Grandma and Sister, who loved her so much. Tears filled her eyes; she missed them so much! Would she ever find them?

The dark heaving ocean was beginning to lift and drop the ship in a most alarming manner; all water was alive, she knew, but this dark salt water was bigger and more powerful than any freshwater. This ship and everyone on it belonged to the restless dark water until they reached land. Indigo kept the parrot’s cage in the berth with her next to the wall so the ship’s rocking did not overturn the cage. The parrot seemed unconcerned; he slept perched on one foot with his head tucked under his wing. She still didn’t know the name the parrot wanted to be called.

Indigo pulled the blanket up to her chin and watched the cabin and its contents move up and down. As the rolling of the ship increased, a pencil rolled off the little writing table Hattie used; the hairbrush slid one way and then the other on the shelf below the mirror. She watched as one of Hattie’s shoes tipped out of its rack in the cabin closet and began to slide back and forth on the floor. How funny to see these objects suddenly come alive and move themselves around the cabin!

The great rhythmic voice of Ocean resounded through the ship’s steel skin; Ocean boasted she made great winds with her waves; the Earth herself was moved by her waves. Ocean was Earth’s sister. Indigo felt the sadness overtake her again.

I have a sister too, but this ship and you, Ocean, are taking me farther from her, Indigo whispered. She imagined Sister Salt on the depot platform in Needles, searching for her among the boarding school students returning home for the summer. Now a great ocean lay between them. Her plan for an easy way home had taken her much farther away. Tears filled her eyes and she cried softly into her pillow: Please help me, Ocean! Send your rainy wind to my sister with this message: I took the long way home, but I’m on my way. Please don’t worry.

Indigo repeated the message aloud and the parrot opened his eyes and ruffled his feathers as he studied her. Even in the dim light of the cabin she could see the bird’s pale gray eyes on her. Soon the parrot would let her know his name and allow her to hold him. How much fun she would have with the three of them — parrot, monkey, and cat! The letter gave no description of the kitten, but as she drifted off to sleep, Indigo imagined she was black with a white face, white belly, and four white feet.

Hours later, after Hattie was asleep, Indigo began to feel an odd pressure in her ears and head; then her stomach began to feel unsettled. The pressure in her head tightened and suddenly she was about to vomit. She woke Hattie, who sent for the ship’s doctor and ordered a basin of ice water and wet cloths for Indigo’s forehead. Give the child a day or two and she’ll get her sea legs, the ship’s doctor advised after he administered syrup of paregoric. By morning she only felt worse.

While Hattie cared for the seasick child in one cabin, Edward retired to the other cabin to review his notes on citrus culture, especially the procedures for rooting slips cut from trees. He needed to know the best way to pack the citron slips he obtained for their long journey.

A day later the seas were calm and the sky was bright blue, but Indigo still felt every slow-rolling motion of the ship. Hattie coaxed her to swallow lemon water and plain bread. Throughout her seasickness, Indigo insisted the parrot’s brass cage be kept in the corner of her bunk near her feet; even when she was nauseous, Indigo never failed to remove the cage cover in the morning and replace it at night. She found if she talked to the parrot the nausea wasn’t as bad. Indigo told the parrot all about Mama and Sister Salt and the old gardens where Grandma Fleet rested next to her little apricot trees to nourish them.

The parrot did not seem interested and sometimes tucked his head under his wing while she talked. She knew the parrot was upset to leave its home to be bounced around in a small travel cage. Worse yet, before the parrot was put into the travel cage, Susan directed the gardener to clip the bird’s wing feathers to prevent the bird from flying away. One feather bled and had to be plucked. The parrot blamed Indigo; she could tell by the expression in his eyes.

Fortunately Mrs. Abbott sent along a two-pound tin of ginger cookies, which, with weak tea, were all Indigo could tolerate in her stomach. The parrot did not touch his fruits or seeds, so Indigo fed him bits of ginger cookie, careful to keep her fingertips well clear of the sharp curved beak. Even in the dimness of the ship cabin, the parrot’s feathers were brilliant, almost as if they glowed with their own light. Only in a rainbow had Indigo seen such shades of emerald, turquoise, yellow-gold, and blue.

When she felt better, she opened the cage door, but the parrot only gripped the perch tighter.

“Look, I won’t hurt you,” she said, holding out both hands palms-up to show she meant no harm. The parrot ignored the open cage door, so Indigo left it ajar and opened the book Hattie had been reading to her earlier, stories of the old British Isles, stories about the dun cow and the fairy dog. There was a picture of the dun cow encircled by curious standing stones on the hill where she appeared one day when the people were starving. The dun cow promised each family a bucket of milk every day if the people agreed to take only one bucket each. But a greedy person who thought no one would notice began to fill a second bucket, and when he did, there was flash of lightning and the dun cow disappeared.

As Indigo turned the pages to find the next picture, she glanced over at the parrot cage and saw the bird had climbed out and was sitting on the cage top. Delighted, Indigo put down the book and began to talk to the parrot to try to coax him to come to her, but the bird wanted no part of her. He fluffed and preened his feathers while he refused to obey, so Indigo turned back to the book and the picture that showed the arrival of the white fairy dog just as the family hurried off to bed. In the picture was evidence the family had been sitting around the fire, enjoying the evening — a man’s pipe was still lit on the table; a child’s doll and toy ball lay in the middle of the floor. The family had dropped everything to prepare the food, drink, and fire for the visitors about to arrive. In the story, the family could hear the fairies, but the only one they could see was the white dog. Indigo was enjoying the details of the picture, picking out everyday objects she recognized, when she glanced over at the top of the brass cage but saw no parrot.

Immediately she regretted opening the cage door; just because the bird couldn’t fly didn’t mean he couldn’t walk or climb. She wanted to give him his freedom because she was his friend, but now he was gone. She looked carefully in every corner and behind every valise and trunk; just as she began to despair, she thought she saw Hattie’s calfskin train case move in the closet alcove. There he was with his beak on the corner of the case. Indigo knelt to pull the case away from the parrot and felt a sharp prick in her left knee. Scattered on the floor near the train case were small brass tacks that used to decorate the leather; the appearance of the case was ruined! Indigo pushed the train case to the back of the closet and began to try to lure the parrot back into the cage. Although only six ginger cookies remained, Indigo broke one in half and put half inside the open cage. The parrot hesitated as if he knew she planned to close the cage door the instant he went inside, but the piece of ginger cookie was irresistible. The parrot ignored Indigo and nibbled the cookie as she shut the cage door.

She sat on the floor beside the cage and watched the parrot.

“How do you like the name Rainbow?” she asked. The parrot looked at her steadily, and daintily trimmed its claws. The parrot book in the Abbotts’ library had color pictures of wild parrots in jungles surrounded by great trees and lovely flowering plants. The parrot was so far from his beautiful home; no wonder he didn’t want to speak!

Sometimes Indigo woke in the middle of the night and could not remember where she was — the smell of burning coal caused her to confuse for a moment the steamship with the train — but then she’d feel the roll of the ship and see the outline of the parrot’s cage and she knew immediately where she was. Sometimes in the middle of the night when she woke and reached for the glass of water she saw the parrot watch her. She whispered to the parrot about his family — Edward said the parrots lived in large families in giant dead trees deep in the rain forest. Indigo talked to the parrot about how she imagined the baby parrots played hide-and-go-seek with one another in the big tree. She pulled the blanket up over herself and the parrot cage to form the safe, cozy nest Indigo imagined for the parrots. She pretended she and the rainbow bird were baby parrots in the nest together and all their older sisters and brothers, all their grandfathers and grandmothers — everyone was there with them in one towering tree.

The ship encountered more rough seas, and they discovered that Indigo felt the seasickness less sharply when Hattie talked to her or read her a story. They discussed what Linnaeus and his kitten might be doing right at that moment; scampering up the wisteria in the glass house perhaps. As the ship rolled, sweat broke out on Indigo’s forehead; she asked Hattie please to read more of the adventures of the naughty Chinese monkey born from stone.

Already the Chinese monkey was up to mischief, taking bites from the apples of longevity, stealing the golden pills of immortality and gobbling them down with the special wine for the banquet of the immortals; Heavenly King Li sent heavenly soldiers to trap the monkey on Flowers and Fruit Mountain. Indigo leaned back against the pillow with her eyes closed. The seasickness began with a swelling pressure in her ears that ached throughout her head. She wanted Hattie to go on and read the story of the capture of the rebellious monkey by the Buddha. The capture alone took five pages, and Hattie began to tire.

“Monkey refused to believe what he saw and was just about to jump away when Buddha turned the fingers of his hand into five mountains, which buried the rebellious Monkey.” Hattie paused and glanced to see if the child was asleep; but just then Indigo’s eyes opened wide and she said, “Don’t stop now! The monkey is buried under five mountains! Read how he gets away!”

The rolling of the ship had subsided and Indigo’s face was not as pale; Hattie glanced at the pages ahead and shook her head.

“Monkey doesn’t seem to escape for at least six pages — it’s too late to read it now. Tomorrow,” Hattie said, firmly closing the book.

“Good night, and sweet dreams.”

“Sweet dreams,” Indigo replied.

She tucked the covers around Indigo and kissed her forehead. The parrot’s head was tucked under its wing but a glittering eye watched as she put out the light. It was after nine so she did not disturb Edward in the adjoining cabin, but she did not feel like going to bed quite yet. During the afternoon she felt an odd lethargy that slowed her motions and demanded her conscious effort to climb the steps to the ship’s dining room. She recognized the feeling at once: it was that old companion of melancholy, inertia, which the doctors blamed on her reading and writing and lack of exercise.

When she was first stricken, the doctors mistook her lethargy for a more serious illness; fortunately her introduction to Edward at the ball banished the symptoms. Surely the melancholy had not returned!

How ironic if the malaise were to return during their visit with Aunt Bronwyn. In the months she suffered most from melancholy, the letters from her grandaunt had meant a great deal to Hattie. Aunt Bronwyn followed the latest theories of the mind and emotions, and it was her observation Hattie’s illness could be cured if she completed her thesis. After the announcement of their engagement, Hattie’s melancholy lifted and she was reluctant to return to the notes and manuscript for fear the anxiety and hopelessness might reoccur. Once or twice during Edward’s absence a fatigue tried to take root, but Hattie warded it off with cool baths and green tea. Since Indigo’s arrival, Hattie felt so fit and was in such good spirits she assumed herself cured. After travel and a visit with one’s family, fatigue was not unusual, but Hattie also felt a vague discouragement that she could not articulate, a feeling similar to the one that preceded her illness before.

She summoned all her energy to break free of the heaviness in her limbs to pick up the portfolio. She did not open it at once; the very sensation of its weight in her hand brought back vivid memories. So much had seemed possible in the beginning; Hattie took pages and pages of notes — copying entire sections of Dr. Rhinehart’s translations. She shuffled through the pages of notes until she found the quotations from the Coptic manuscripts she intended to use to illustrate her thesis. Here it was! the passage that had excited her so much, and inspired her thesis — the same passage that caused such consternation on the thesis committee:

I was sent forth from the power,

and I have come to those who reflect upon me,

and I have been found among those who seek after me.

Look upon me, you who reflect upon me,

and you hearers, hear me.

You who are waiting for me, take me to yourselves.

And do not banish me from your sight.

And do not make your voice hate me, nor your hearing.

Do not be ignorant of me anywhere or any time. Be on your guard!

Don’t be ignorant of me!

For I am the first and the last.

I am the honored one and the scorned one.

I am the whore and the holy one.

I am the wife and the virgin.

I am the mother and the daughter.

I am the members of my mother.

I am the barren one

and many are her sons.

I am she whose wedding is great

and I have not taken a husband.

I am the midwife and she who does not bear.

I am the solace of my labor pains.

I am the bride and the bridegroom,

and it is my husband who begot me.

I am the mother of my father,

and the sister of my husband

and he is my offspring.

How naive she had been to think her thesis topic would be approved! Hattie could smile now, but at the time of the committee’s decision her entire world seemed to have come apart, especially after the dreadful encounter with Mr. Hyslop! Hattie had planned to continue auditing classes until term’s end at Christmas, but the morning following the encounter, the symptoms appeared.

The doctor was called, and with one look he pronounced her condition female hysteria, precipitated by overstimulation. He prescribed complete rest and above all no books. Hattie refused to give up all books, but she no longer had the heart to read early church history; it was obviously incomplete, and the orthodox church had no intention to ever acknowledge the other gospels. But now she felt as if she were reunited with an old friend as she shuffled through the pages. She felt the old excitement stir; she wanted to learn more about the Illumined Ones, those to whom Jesus appeared and whom he instructed in secrets not revealed to the bishops or cardinals or the pope himself.

The parrot’s damage to the train case was not discovered until Hattie began to pack her toilet articles, and by this time they were only a few hours from docking in Bristol. They were in sight of land, and Hattie was so relieved at their safe Atlantic crossing she only laughed when she saw how carefully the parrot removed the brass tacks.

“Oh it’s easily repaired,” Hattie said when she noticed Indigo’s stricken expression. “Odd how it happened. I don’t remember the train case being near the birdcage.” They were about to dock in Bristol, where they’d take the train to Bath.

Edward gathered the notes he made from his reading about citrus horticulture. He lingered over his notes on the pome-citron, as the Citrus medica was known. The largest groves were in Corsica, but the authorities there were wary of foreigners who might be agents of foreign governments seeking to cash in on the growing popularity of candied citron rind. Agents for Lowe & Company reported the best specimens of Citrus medica were to be had in the mountain villages outside Bastia.

Aunt Bronwyn insisted on meeting them in Bristol for the short train ride to Bath. She was the same Aunt Bronwyn Hattie remembered, jolly, bright blue eyes enlarged by the thick lenses of her glasses. She was anxious to get out of Bristol — too much coal smoke and dust, too much noise in the streets.

Hattie watched Indigo’s grip on the parrot’s cage tighten as she was introduced to Aunt Bronwyn, but the child seemed to relax after Aunt Bronwyn praised Rainbow’s beauty. Indigo leaned back on the wide leather seat and clutched the parrot cage tightly as the coach lurched through the port traffic. She had a feeling Aunt Bronwyn was going to be fun to visit.

From time to time she caught glimpses of the waterfront — so many tall ships, so many coaches and freight wagons in the streets. The noise and smoke and the odors of cooking food resembled those in the streets of New York City, except here the overcast sky and high thin clouds reminded Indigo of winter.

Ah, the great port city of Bristol astride the river Avon, Edward thought as he scanned the docks where workmen unloaded bales of cotton and pallets of lumber. The cab passed the wide doors of a large building where people and carts of raw wool darted in and out.

“What is it?” Hattie asked, noticing Edward’s attention to the wool market building. Aunt Bronwyn took one look and guessed immediately.

“The site of the old slave market,” Aunt Bronwyn said, watching Edward’s expression. “No great English port city was without its slave market.” The slave market in Bristol had been one point of the golden triangle of world trade. Ships sailed out of Bristol Harbor with English textiles, tin, and glass for the coast of West Africa, where the goods were traded for slaves; in the Americas the slaves were traded for cargoes of tobacco and cotton, which were transported back to Bristol, where the golden cycle repeated itself.

Hattie glanced at Edward, whose face reddened a bit.

“Of course, all the port cities of the Americas had slave markets too,” Edward added.

“And we in the Americas kept our slave markets longer,” Hattie said as she watched Indigo kneel on the seat to get a better view out the window. Indigo wanted to see the place where slaves used to be sold because Grandma Fleet told them stories about such places, like Yuma and Tucson. In the old days, twice a year, in the fall and the spring, the slave catchers brought their harvest of young Indian children to trade to the cattle ranchers and miners. The Sand Lizards preferred the old gardens because the slave hunters did not usually travel that far; she and Mama always warned the girls to be careful because the slave hunters didn’t care what the law was; they tied you to a donkey’s back and took you so far away you’d never find your way home.

“My sister and I know how to hide from the slave catchers,” Indigo said, turning away from the window. Both Hattie and Edward looked a bit shocked, but Aunt Bronwyn nodded.

“Oh Indigo! There are no slave hunters anymore!” Hattie didn’t want the child to make a habit of exaggeration to get attention or approval. Indigo’s eyes got round and her face was serious.

“I’ve seen them, Hattie,” Indigo said breathlessly. “We were on the hilltop with Grandma Fleet. Off in the distance we saw the children tied together in a line!” Indigo could tell Aunt Bronwyn believed her but Hattie and Edward did not.

As they boarded the train to Bath, Indigo thought her ears were failing her, but then she realized the people here spoke a different language. The people looked a bit different too, with light pink skin, light blue eyes, and light brown, thin hair; the damp cool air and the abundant shade of the tall trees must be the cause, Indigo decided. The people on the train stared at Indigo, but not unkindly.

The motions of the train felt quick and sharp after the days on the ship, and the air smelled of the locomotive’s coal smoke. The train left behind the noise and congestion of the waterfront. The dingy tenements at the edge of Bristol gave way to green rolling hills above the river; the sky’s color shifted from gray to green-blue. The railroad followed an embankment along the river. How lovely to drive along under the green canopy formed by the old elms and oaks along the meandering river. For a moment, off in the distance on the southern horizon, a shaft of sunlight broke through thin clouds. Indigo excitedly pointed at the sky. The sun had seldom been visible during their ocean crossing. Indigo pressed closer to the window but the sun slipped behind the clouds again.

Hattie was delighted with the beauty of the countryside; here and there between the tall trees and the shrubs — willows, bracken, brambles, and bog myrtle — little clumps of periwinkles, wild pinks, and marshmallows grew above the riverbank. All along the edge of the road foxgloves and primroses stood tall, with wild buttercups and white daisies scattered all around. She was hardly more than a child the last time she and her parents visited Aunt Bronwyn in Bath.

Aunt Bronwyn had been born in the United States, but years ago she married in England, where she remained even after her husband’s death, on the estate inherited from her English grandfather. She was regarded a bit odd by the other Abbotts, who disliked the English for their snobbery. “Nonsense!” Aunt Bronwyn liked to exclaim to enliven the discussion. For centuries, the city of Bath had been populated by a great many wealthy foreign princes and other foreigners, who came to gamble and take the waters of the healing spring, so they took no notice of Aunt Bronwyn. The local people thought her foolish because she moved into the old cloister in the orchard, too close to the river, and the structure in disrepair. Aunt Bronwyn was too busy to waste time on teas and dinners, and in Bath they left her in peace. No effort was made to invite her, though they were pleasant enough when she met them on the street or in a shop.

Hattie and her father loved his old aunt, but Hattie’s mother found Aunt Bronwyn’s eccentricities quite unnerving during their visit years before. They found her beloved Irish terriers asleep in their bed and when Mrs. Abbott tried to force them off with her umbrella, the dogs made ugly growls at her. Mrs. Abbott urged them to stay at a hotel or they would get no sleep as there were cattle lowing and dogs barking all night.

Indigo was amazed at how damp and green the air smelled in England. Water, water everywhere, it seemed — in little ponds and lakes along the river. Through the slit in the cage cover she whispered to the parrot: Aunt Bronwyn seemed very nice, just the kind of person who would not mind a parrot out of his cage. She promised to let him out as soon as they arrived.

“Welcome! Welcome!” Aunt Bronwyn exclaimed again; she was so delighted they were able to stop with her even for a short visit. Indigo shook Aunt Bronwyn’s hand but was too shy to speak until she saw the parrot’s beak reach between the bars after Aunt Bronwyn’s forefinger, then she exclaimed, “Watch out!” just in time to save Aunt Bronwyn’s finger. Indigo showed her the half-moon scar on her own finger, the mark of the hooked beak.

They would have a wonderful time together. She had so much she wanted to show them — the new excavations of the Roman temple at the hot springs and a stone circle west of town about to be restored were only two of the outings Aunt Bronwyn had planned. The excavation was yielding a great many interesting artifacts of considerable antiquity.

“I’d like very much to see that,” Edward said, turning from the coach window, his expression alert.

Hattie was relieved to see Edward perk up, because he seemed rather preoccupied throughout their ocean crossing. She knew he would have preferred to go directly to Italy, but now the promise of the excavations with old Roman artifacts made their stop in Bath worthwhile.

Edward had visited England before, but he still was amazed at the grand old oaks and elms amidst lush meadows and fields of flowers on the alluvial terraces of the rivers. Susan with her Scottish gardener, troops of workers, and Colin’s money might labor for years, but Long Island would never appear as lush, green, and wooded as southwest England.

Here the moist air filtered the sunlight to create a lovely green-blue glow that transformed everything. Edward recalled how lovely Bath was, enclosed on three sides by the meandering Avon. Years before when he visited Bath, he had not bothered with the parks or formal gardens where ladies and their maids strolled under parasols, followed by little dogs. His interest had been in the private clubs where gambling went on as it had since before the reign of Queen Anne. At the time, he believed he had developed a mathematical equation to predict winning hands in twenty-one, but quickly realized his error.

Today the Avon’s water appeared almost sluggish, due no doubt to the construction of weirs, built since medieval times to control flooding. Now the Avon at Bath was no longer a free-running river but a series of ponded lengths that overflowed at their downstream ends.

The coach emerged from the trees, and suddenly on the hills above the river grand villas of gray and pale yellow limestone in the Georgian style could be seen. The old walled city of Bath, built on the Avon’s old floodplain, was hidden by great oak and linden trees until they were quite near. Then suddenly the coach clattered across a narrow stone bridge and they entered the narrow twisting streets of buildings crowded together. The foundations and walls of a number of the oldest buildings rested on large hand-hewn limestone blocks Edward recognized as Roman in origin.

Aunt Bronwyn explained they were taking the old road into the town to avoid what she called “ghastly faux colonnades” the city fathers added some years ago when they widened Bath Street.

Edward was a bit startled by Aunt Bronwyn’s remark since popular opinion regarded old Bath as among the most lovely cities in England. Down the side streets and alleys, Edward caught glimpses of the renovations ordered by Bath’s city fathers to replace old Bath Street, which was too narrow and twisted through a clutter of eighteenth-century structures, mostly tenements, crammed together willy-nilly.

Aunt Bronwyn sat back on the coach seat, her blue eyes shining with enthusiasm as she pointed out the site of the old town. The Romans built over the old Celtic settlement near three thermal springs, sacred to the ancient Celtic god Sulis. On gravel terraces of an ancient floodplain, hot springwater bubbled to the surface with medicinal and magical properties. The Romans, always wary of offending powerful local deities, prudently named their town Aquae Sulis. But the Romans could not permit Sulis to rule supreme any longer, so they built a temple with a great pool over the springs, dedicated to Sulis and to Minerva as well.

The coach slowed as it neared the center of old Bath, outside the Pump House Hotel, so they could see the location of the new excavations in the temple ruins at the spring. Of course they could not actually see the excavations, which were under way in the basement of the hotel, but piles of debris and large screens the archaeologists used to find artifacts in the debris blocked the narrow alley and a portion of Stall Street, so the coachman was obliged to squeeze the horses and coach past a stack of broken stones. A few fragments appeared to have been carved. Edward leaned half out the window to get a better look at a piece of stone carved with the petals of a flower.

Once they passed the baths and hotels, the municipal buildings of handsome pale yellow limestone — the post office and the railway station — came into view, followed by the ornate downtown buildings of new Bath. Aunt Bronwyn found the white and yellow limestone too bright — almost brazen.

Hattie and Edward confessed their “thoroughly American” admiration for the eighteenth-century buildings in downtown. Outside the shops, hanging baskets of geraniums, pinks, and petunias trailed cascades of bright blue lobelia.

Aunt Bronwyn dismissed modern Bath with the wave of her hand and did not look out the coach window again. She talked instead of the surrounding hills, where stands of ancient oaks were preserved since the time of the Celtic kings, only to be cut down now as earthmoving teams carved wide scars in the bellies of the hills overlooking the river. All around Bath, construction was under way for more mansions of gigantic misproportions built for business tycoons from London and Bristol. The threat to the remains of the ancient hill forts and stone circles at the summits of the hills along the river had pressed her into action years ago, even before her husband died. She shook her head. The people nowadays cared nothing about the old stones!

Edward and Hattie exchanged glances; he wanted to follow Mrs. Abbott’s advice to stay in a hotel rather than share the old Norman ruins with cattle and dogs. Hattie had loved the old cloister since she was Indigo’s age; Aunt Bronwyn’s feelings would have been terribly hurt if they went to a hotel. The last Irish terrier died some years ago; besides, it was too late to get a hotel — the summer rush of vacationers was on, and one could scarcely find space to move along the sidewalks outside the shops for all the visitors.

Bath’s glory days ended long ago with the laws that restricted gambling. Bath’s private clubs permitted gaming, so maharajas and foreign princes still were seen driving through the streets of Bath.

The coach approached an intersection where the left fork appeared to proceed along an old floodplain of the river while the right fork gradually ascended into the fashionable residential parkways up the hills. To Edward’s surprise, the coach turned left and then turned left again to double back toward the old town along the lush river bottom thick with elders and willows. Remnants of an old dry rock wall overgrown with mossy saxifrages and little ferns could be seen from time to time.

The narrow drive wound through the canopy of lindens and elders that filtered the sunlight to a golden green in a light cool breeze off the river. The old Norman abbey was taken down long ago; now only the old cloister with its walled gardens and the apple orchard remained. Ahead, tucked under great old live oaks and nearly concealed by hollies and hawthorns, was the old stone cloister that once sheltered Norman nuns.

“Oh this is lovely!” Hattie exclaimed. Indigo clutched the parrot cage closer as the coach bumped over a little bridge. Indigo thought no other place could have more trees or be more green than Long Island, but here was a place that had more and bigger trees, and hills far greener. Edward thought the location a bit too close to the river for comfort but he made no comment. Just then the coach slowed to a stop in front of a stone wall and two great iron gates. The coachman climbed down to swing open the great iron gates, then strangely did not proceed but stood there. Edward leaned out the coach window for a look and was surprised to see a white bull blocking the driveway in front of the gate.

Indigo had seen cattle before — thin, wild-eyed, rangy creatures, but never such a fat beauty as this white bull; two white cows emerged from under the apple trees and more cattle followed until a small herd was gathered around the coach. Aunt Bronwyn climbed down and took a small pail from the coachman and began to hand-feed rolled oats to the cattle. Edward thought at once of Mrs. Abbott’s complaints about the old woman and her animals; it certainly was odd to delay travel-weary guests in order to pet the cattle. Hattie’s mother recalled that during their last visit, a door was not firmly latched and they had returned from shopping to find white cattle wandering in the front room. Quite at home, she added, proof that the old woman allowed them to roam at will when no visitors were present.

When Aunt Bronwyn got back into the coach, the cattle seemed to know the treat was over, and they slowly moved back to their grazing under the apple trees. But when the coach reached the front of the house, four more cows stood on the driveway near the front step. At the approach of the coach they stared hard at the horses but stood their ground; this meant a difference of only seven or eight feet farther to walk, but Edward felt impatient with the old woman.

The old stone walls of the cloister were handsome indeed and had been modified very little over the years. The windows were narrow and high; though it was early afternoon, small oil lamps flickered from their brass sconces in the walls. Indigo was delighted with the odd shadows cast on the bare stone walls.

In the library, Hattie noted the odd placement of the bookshelves, three feet above the floor. Aunt Bronwyn laughed and pointed out the high-water stains faintly visible on the gray stone wall a few inches short of the bottoms of the bookshelves. Edward vowed to himself “a hotel, only a hotel,” if they ever stopped there again.

Indigo slipped the cover off the parrot’s cage and lifted the cage.

“See,” she said, “you’re in England now.” The parrot looked around the room then began preening its feathers.

“He won’t comb his feathers with his beak unless he’s happy,” she said as she carefully set the cage on the window ledge, then neatly folded the cage cover.

The stone masonry of the old cloister did not tolerate casual renovation. Here and there were indications someone had walled in a doorway or failed an attempt to remove a stone partition wall. Long ago workmen on the old cloister complained that stones loosened and removed by day were found in their former locations the following day. Edward smiled at Aunt Bronwyn’s tale.

“So the fairies replaced the stones at night,” he said.

Aunt Bronwyn shook her head. The stones themselves had moved without any aid from brownies or fairies. Indigo’s eyes widened. Aunt Bronwyn nodded her head decisively.

Oh yes indeed. This is the land of the stones that dance and walk after midnight. Tomorrow she would take them to the giant stones at Stanton Drew.

While Edward and Hattie unpacked, Indigo sat on the stairs with Rainbow in his cage beside her to watch the coachman carry buckets of hot water from the big kitchen stove for their baths. The coachman’s wife brought an armful of clean towels and gave Indigo a little round cake of soap that smelled of roses. Rainbow became very excited and flapped his wings with loud squawks at the sound of water splashing as Indigo rinsed the soap from her hair.

The coachman’s wife baked a rabbit pie, served with fresh greens, baby carrots, and peas from the kitchen garden. Afterward, Hattie complained of fatigue; she and Edward went upstairs to rest while Aunt Bronwyn showed Indigo the baby calves.

The instant she moved toward the door behind Aunt Bronwyn, the parrot began to screech and frantically flap his wings in the cage. He was afraid she was abandoning him; she could tell.

“Don’t worry. You can come along.” She opened the cage door, then knelt with her right shoulder next to the open door.

“Come on, little rainbow bird, sweet Rainbow, come on!” The parrot nervously shifted his feet on the perch and looked at Aunt Bronwyn, then at Indigo. Indigo sighed impatiently and started to stand up to go when the parrot climbed out of the cage and clung to the side before he climbed onto her shoulder.

“Good Rainbow! Good bird,” Indigo whispered as they followed the old cobbled drive to the dry rock wall of the orchard. All sorts of sparrows and small birds were chirping in the tops of trees above them; Rainbow listened but made no sound; he tightened his grip on her shoulder as Indigo knelt to search for dry pods under a clump of marshmallows.

The sun was low above the trees, and its golden light shifted to leaf green as they climbed the stile’s narrow stone steps up and over the old wall that enclosed the apple orchard. No gate was as good as a stile, Aunt Bronwyn explained; gates got left open. The cattle could push gates open, but cattle would not climb over a stile. As it was, the cattle found other clever ways to escape the orchard to browse the willows along the river. More than once the white cattle strayed down Bath Street before dawn, to taste the petunias and geraniums from the hanging planters while they splashed bright green manure outside the shops.

Aunt Bronwyn called the cattle in tones that might have been a song. The calls were lovely and made Indigo think of the old gardens and Grandma Fleet and Mama and Sister Salt. They sat on the steps of the stile in the green-golden light to wait for the cattle to come. Indigo smelled the river nearby and felt the cool air currents move around them. With her eyes closed she imagined for a moment that she was with Grandma Fleet and Sister. The parrot shifted his grip on her shoulder and watched curiously as the tears rolled down her cheeks. Indigo hated the big lump she felt in her throat.

Aunt Bronwyn did not see her face, but she seemed to sense Indigo’s sadness. She pointed up at the small green fruit on the branches overhead and began to tell Indigo about the white cattle.

The white cattle belonged to the moon — see the shape of the crescent moon in the cow’s horn? Indigo nodded. The sun was only partially visible now through the trees, but in the last shafts of light the cattle appeared to be shimmering white, almost silver, as they emerged from the apple trees. The bull in the lead approached Aunt Bronwyn, who walked slowly to meet him.

At the rear of the herd Indigo saw the cream-colored calves frolicking together; the mother cows stared at Indigo with wide dark eyes, blowing air through their nostrils, wary of any danger she might pose to the calves. Aunt Bronwyn scratched the bull between the horns and spoke softly to him. Gradually the cows came forward to sniff Aunt Bronwyn’s shoe or her hat or the hem of her skirt. The calves raced about their mothers, tails held high over their backs, bucking and leaping on one another. They were fond of their mistress, and the bull moved protectively between Indigo and Aunt Bronwyn, who was petting the calves. Slowly Aunt Bronwyn worked her way back through the herd, petting or speaking to each cow. The young bulls watched from under the apple trees at a distance and Aunt Bronwyn went over to greet them as well. As the sun dropped behind the trees at the curve in the river, Aunt Bronwyn pointed at the sky to the southwest, where Indigo saw the thick white horn of the moon.

Hattie watched Aunt Bronwyn and the child with the parrot on her shoulder walk hand in hand up the drive to the house. Hattie’s heart felt so full of love for them at that instant tears sprang into her eyes, but she quickly brushed them away. Edward was upstairs with his notebooks. He seemed in much better spirits now that they were on their way. He had an appointment in London later that week at the Kew Gardens.

Hattie felt a bit melancholy. Surely it was travel fatigue and nothing more. At the height of the previous episode, she scarcely had the energy to walk from her bed to the commode. Right now, a walk in the garden might be just what she needed; she called out to them to wait. She strode across the lawn, testing her energy to reassure herself she was fit.

The sun was behind the hills, but the trees along the river were still bright in the twilight’s glow. She joined them and followed Aunt Bronwyn and the child with her parrot through a weathered brassbound gate in the high limestone wall off the south wing of the old cloister. Inside they found themselves surrounded on all sides by high stone walls overgrown with old grapevines knotted thick as fists. Stone walks crisscrossed the big enclosure that was divided by high walls into four gardens — Indigo was reminded of a big house without a roof. At the center was a round stone pool fed by water bubbling up from a spring.

Aunt Bronwyn explained at one time the entire area had been devoted to vegetables to feed the Norman nuns, but Aunt Bronwyn didn’t need all those vegetables. Now only the sunny southeastern quadrant was planted for the kitchen. The beds were slightly raised above the stone paths that separated them. Flat smooth river stones set side by side upright formed the borders of the beds and gave what Hattie thought was an oddly formal appearance to the vegetable garden. Aunt Bronwyn took pride in old flagstone paths and raised beds and parterres that lay buried under the turf until she hired workmen to unearth them. In old church records she found maps and diagrams of the original cloister garden, its severe plain lines and sparse plantings designed to mortify the soul.

Indigo called out excitedly and ran to the corn plant: she was delighted to see baby pumpkins as well. Aunt Bronwyn took her garden trowel and dug little carrots for the parrot; she picked ripe tomatoes for them to eat while they helped Aunt Bronwyn fill her apron with baby peas and tender spinach for dinner.

The kitchen garden was the modern garden as well, she explained. Plants from all over the world — from the Americas, tomatoes, potatoes, pumpkins, squash, and sweet corn; and garlic, onions, broad beans, asparagus, and chickpeas from Italy — grew with peppers from Asia and Africa.

She led them down the stone path to the northeast quadrant, under a rustic stone pergola that supported a flourishing gourd plant, its pendulous fruits dangling overhead like lanterns. Hattie remarked that this was a good idea to try in Riverside, where shade was always welcome. She explained the Riverside gardens were watered and trimmed but otherwise largely neglected since the death of Edward’s father and his mother’s precipitous decline. Aunt Bronwyn nodded sympathetically.

So far the trip had been a wonderful opportunity for gardening ideas — Indigo had a small valise full of carefully folded wax paper packets with the seeds she’d gathered. When they returned to Riverside, Hattie planned to show the neglected gardens they were loved again.

Aunt Bronwyn agreed; if a garden wasn’t loved it could not properly grow! She was an avid follower of the theories of Gustav Fechner, who believed plants have souls and human beings exist only to be consumed by plants and be transformed into glorious new plant life. Hattie had to smile; so human beings existed only to become fertilizer for plants! Edward and her father would have a good laugh at that!

♦ ♦ ♦

Years before, when she first moved into the old cloister, Aunt Bronwyn joined the Antiquity Rescue Committee, a local group organized to protect an ancient grove of oaks and yews on a hilltop near a small stone circle. Old churches and old buildings had defenders but few people cared about clumps of old trees or old stones on hilltops. Not long after the hilltop grove was saved, she joined hands with committee members as they made a ring around the upright stone threatened by dynamite in a farmer’s field. Her English neighbors tolerated a good many eccentricities in one another, but the demonstration by the rescue committee to save the boulder earned their group some notoriety in Bath and the surrounding area.

She learned a great deal from the old women and old men who tottered up the stairs of the old Pump House Hotel on the second Saturday afternoon of each month. For many members, the meeting of the Antiquity Rescue Committee was their only social activity other than church or visits from doctors. Aunt Bronwyn smiled and shook her head. They were all gone now, but it had been wonderful to hear the history and tales about Bath and the surrounding countryside from these fervent defenders of old trees and stones.

Aunt Bronwyn paused to apologize for going on so about her committee, but Hattie was eager to hear more, and Indigo nodded enthusiastically. Aunt Bronwyn clapped her hands with a big smile. “All right,” she said, “I’ll tell you about the toads!” Some of the rescue committee members were also active in the protection of the toads during their odd migrations; Aunt Bronwyn joined them on their hands and knees in the mud to help the toads cross busy roadways safely. But it wasn’t until she began to study the artifacts of the old Europeans that she discovered carved and ceramic figures of toads were worshiped as incarnations of the primordial Mother.

She imagined the reactions of her English neighbors to her participation in such activities. How typical of an American! they’d say, although she was the only American in the group; all the other members were English, and many grew up in Bath or nearby towns. Her English neighbors enjoyed hearty laughs over the odd pilgrims and foreigners who trudged through town muttering about solstices and stone rings on their way to Stanton Downs or Avebury, and claimed descent from Celtic kings and druids.

Most rescue committee meetings eventually trailed off into reminiscences and stories — how rotund Queen Anne went bottom-up when her carriage overturned on one of Bath’s steepest hills; how Lord Chesterfield preferred to play with card sharps rather than with English gentlemen because the card sharps paid him at once if he won, while the gentlemen sent around a letter and apologies and never paid him. Sometimes after the meetings adjourned they continued lively discussions well into the evening, exchanging stories about the behavior of certain stones that walked to drink water after midnight and stones that turned to follow the sun.

If plants and trees had individual souls, then Aunt Bronwyn decided to acquaint herself with as many different beings as possible. Between the orchard and the cloister odd mounds of broken stone and rubble overgrown with weeds, wild roses, and hawthorn marked the site of the Norman abbey. Here she planted her “wild grove” of silver firs, Scots pines, and yews with black walnut, hazel, and oak. Now, fifty years later, her wild grove reached the back wall of the old cloister garden and shaded the back of the south garden.

A path of pea-size river pebbles curved away from the driveway into the wild grove. Indigo ran ahead on the path with the parrot on her shoulder flapping his wings in excitement; with each breath she could almost taste the damp coolness of the grove.

At the center of the grove was a low circular wall of old stone, overgrown with velvety green mosses and delicate ferns. The water, bubbling and gurgling into itself from an artesian spring, was almost hidden by watercress, moneywort, bog orchids, and yellow iris. After some effort in the local archives, Aunt Bronwyn determined the spring and old wall were the remains of the Norman baptistry.

Indigo offered the parrot a chance to get off her shoulder and walk on the edge of the old wall but the bird nervously scanned the sky and the grove and remained firmly on her shoulder. Indigo told the bird to hold on as she leaned down to taste the water. Nowhere had she found water that tasted as good as the water from the spring at the old gardens. Just then Hattie called out, “Wait,” but Aunt Bronwyn said it was safe; the water tasted just like rainwater, so light and sweet it barely quenched her thirst.

Hattie sat on the edge of the old wall to dip her hand into the water, while Aunt Bronwyn pointed to the narrow stone rill that carried the water out of the forest grove through the orchard for the cattle and finally to the river. There were a number of artesian springs in the vicinity of the river but not all of them were hot water like the springs that fed the baths.

“This is a very special place,” Hattie said. “I understand why you stay here.”

Aunt Bronwyn nodded her head with a merry expression on her face. Yes, the family did not understand her reasons for remaining in England after her husband died; after all, she was an American—“Whatever an American is,” Aunt Bronwyn said with a wink at Indigo. She’d fallen under the spell of the old cloister, which was nearly in ruins when she leased it from an English family that wanted fashionable locations in the heights of Bath away from the river and the mosquitoes, not to mention the crowds of tourists downtown or the odors of the baths.

Aunt Bronwyn had more she wanted to show them; a quick look now and they could return for a better look tomorrow. They followed the gravel path to the back of the old cloister along the high outer wall overgrown with ivies and wild clematis. Aunt Bronwyn pushed away the vines to reveal a narrow ironclad door in the wall; she gripped the iron latch firmly and pushed her shoulder hard against the door while she kicked it with her foot. The door seemed stuck for an instant before it slowly opened with the sound of wood dragging against dirt: she had to kick the door to get it open wider. The door was part of a late-eighteenth-century renovation. In the days of the Norman nuns, the cloister garden could be reached only through a door from the kitchen.

The late afternoon light scarcely penetrated the wild grove that shaded the back wall of the west garden. Fortunately the renovators of long ago did not tear out the old raised beds shaped in circles and rectangles — they merely buried them under topsoil. When Aunt Bronwyn began the garden restoration, workmen discovered the intricate river pebble borders and carefully unearthed and repaired them.

The low stone walls that divided the interior garden into four parts were planted with lavender; Indigo buried her face in the blossoms, while the parrot snipped off shoots with its beak. Hattie could see at once each quadrant was quite different from the others.

In the north quadrant, Aunt Bronwyn planted the old raised beds with indigenous English plants — kales, hellebores, dandelions, pinks, periwinkles, daisies. Little white flowering violets cascaded over the edges of the raised beds. The east side of the garden was planted with all the plants the Romans and Normans introduced: grapevines nearly obscured the weathered wooden pergola that slouched down the path between the raised beds planted with cabbages, eggplants, chickpeas, and cucumbers. Hattie was surprised at how few food crops and flowers were indigenous to England; the climate here did not seem unfriendly in the least as compared to the dry heat of Riverside.

The south garden and west garden were planted with plants from the Americas, Africa, and Asia. As soon as Indigo saw the tasseled corn plants along the back wall of the south garden ahead, she broke into a run that caused the parrot to flap his wings excitedly. Indigo stood before the corn plants, which were planted apart from one another — to let the sun reach all of them, she thought. At home they had to shade the plants and help them withstand strong winds, so they planted their corn close to one another, like a big family. Here the corn plants had the protection of the high outer garden walls as well as the old stone walls that formed the garden quadrants. Indigo ran to the hollyhocks along the south edge of the raised beds, and this time the parrot lost his grip. At the last instant Indigo felt him let go, and off he flew, flapping his clipped wings madly for about ten feet before he landed and clung to a pink Persian rose trimmed into a small tree. Indigo ran to the rose tree and returned the parrot to her shoulder.

“Look, here’s where all the flowers came from,” she called out to Hattie. Aunt Bronwyn broke into a big smile; as she wiped her eyeglasses on the edge of her apron, she explained the roses, the lilies, the hollyhocks, and the pear trees did not originate in England but in the Near East and Asia.

“Your people,” she said, “the American Indians, gave the world so many vegetables, fruits, and flowers — corn, tomatoes, potatoes, chilies, peanuts, coffee, chocolate, pineapple, bananas, and of course, tobacco. Indigo felt suddenly embarrassed. Sand Lizard people barely were able to grow corn, and they had no tomatoes, peanuts, or bananas. The Sand Lizard people gathered the little green succulents called sand food; sand food could never grow in England or New York or even Parker. Sand food needed sandstone cliff sand and just the right amount of winter snow, not rain, to grow just under the surface of the sand. Indigo missed sand food with its mild salty green taste better than cucumbers.

Aunt Bronwyn explained a number of the food crops of grains and vegetables and a great many flowers were unknown in England until the arrival of the Romans; thus cattle and pigs, still highly prized for their milk and meat, were once so important they had been gods; even now it was possible to find old churches with the figures of sows and piglets carved in the stone doorways.

In the sunny west garden big dark red dahlias grew at the feet of giant sunflowers with faces like dinner plates. Indigo never imagined so many different sunflowers, some with red petals, some with white flowers — all sizes, with many-flowered branches and single flowers alone. Indigo whispered to the parrot she wished they might have come later in the year, after the plants had gone to seed. Still, she looked carefully on the ground under the plants in case there were any early seed pods. She knew just the place to plant these sunflowers, not far from the spring above the dunes.

She smelled a heavenly perfume and turned to a plant as tall as she was, with handsome dark leaves and little white bell-shape flowers. “Smell this!” Indigo called to Hattie, who did not recognize the plant until Aunt Bronwyn teased her about not knowing this most American of plants, white-flowering nicotiana, tobacco.

The south and west gardens were planted with flowers among the vegetables, with herbs and medicinal plants scattered among them, since they preferred to grow together to protect one another from insects. Indigo caught the scent of the datura before she recognized the plant because it was taller than she was, its blossoms the size of saucers. She pressed her face against the big flower and inhaled so deeply its pollen tickled her nose.

“Hello, old friend. You sure grow tall in England. Are you trying to get closer to the sun?” She showed Rainbow the round spiny seed pods of the datura but told him it was not polite to take it; when she got him back home he could have as many spiny seed pods as he wanted.

She was only a little way into the tomatoes and the bush beans when she looked to the far edge of the west garden and caught a glimpse of the brightest colors, lush flowers on handsome stalks almost as tall as she! The reds, oranges, pinks, and purples of the flowers were so saturated with color they seemed to glow above graceful narrow leaves of deep green. Indigo loved the fancy ones with different colors — white centers and white edges or even spotted petals. These flowers! Sister and Mama would love flowers like these! Aunt Bronwyn was happy to tell her about the gladiolus; originally they were brought from Africa but they’d undergone a great many changes by the hybridizers.

Hattie asked about the medicinal plants. Yes, a great many did require shade and damp — monkshood, belladonna, gentian, valerian — but ways could be found to grow almost any plant, though one might have to take it into one’s bed as the old German orchid collectors did every night all winter.

Hattie explained the run-down gardens of the Riverside house as well as Indigo’s interest in plants and seeds had renewed her interest in gardening. A medicinal garden would be just the thing for that area of sparse lawn by the lilacs. The location got plenty of sun with just enough afternoon shade for the heat-sensitive plants.

Indigo was captivated by the gladiolus for reasons Hattie could not imagine; hybrid gladiolus seemed to her garish and artificial, though Aunt Bronwyn’s clever placement of them did show off their best qualities quite nicely. Hattie tried to interest her in a stand of silvery Casa Blanca lilies, but Indigo wanted to examine a spike of burgundy flowers edged in pink.

While the child roamed among the gladiolus, Aunt Bronwyn pointed out the more modest species of gladiolus and the little white and red gladiolus that grew wild in the hills above the Mediterranean. This was to have been the last year she was going to bother planting the tender hybrid gladiolus, but Indigo’s enthusiasm for the long bed of the tall silver and burgundy gladiolus changed her mind. She would plant them every year in honor of their visit and Indigo’s enthusiasm for gladiolus.

As Aunt Bronwyn and Indigo paused to watch a big toad catch gnats, Hattie turned to survey the garden and caught a glimpse of another doorway in the west wall, overgrown with a fragrant white climbing rose. She thought she’d like to take a look, but the twilight was fading. Better to wait until tomorrow.

Before she went downstairs for dinner, Indigo put the parrot in his cage; the pupils of his eyes enlarged and he began to shriek; she begged him to please be quiet, she would come right back; but the parrot would have none of that. Indigo knew they expected her at dinner but she didn’t want the parrot’s screaming to upset Edward and Hattie.

She sat with the parrot until there was a gentle knock at the door and Aunt Bronwyn came in. Was everything all right? Was the bed comfortable? Indigo decided Aunt Bronwyn would understand, so she admitted she didn’t care to sleep in beds at all — she moved the bedding to the floor at night but replaced it first thing in the morning. Hattie knew, but Edward didn’t. Aunt Bronwyn seemed interested in how she got along with Edward. He was nice, but he didn’t like the parrot’s screeching; that was why she hadn’t come down to dinner; the parrot didn’t want her to go. Aunt Bronwyn took the brass handle of the cage herself and they walked downstairs together.

In the long narrow room that had been the old chapel, they sat around a massive round table Aunt Bronwyn called King Arthur’s table because it was so old. Long deep scratches marred its surface, and she laughed and said those were marks from the daggers and swords of the Knights of the Round Table. The coachman’s wife served roast chicken, fresh green beans, and potatoes, with carrot cake for dessert. After dinner they did not sit up long because they wanted to get an early start the next morning. Aunt Bronwyn had so much she wanted to show them.

Indigo made a wonderful nest with the sheet and blankets on the floor; Aunt Bronwyn helped her pull the bedding loose and told her she needn’t move it from the floor in the morning. Now Indigo felt so much more comfortable. The parrot slept perched on the cage top with his head tucked under his wing; Indigo wondered what he dreamed — probably he dreamed of his old home in the flowery jungle where he used to fly free with his sisters and mother. Indigo felt a heaviness in her chest and tears filled her eyes; she missed Sister and Mama so much, and poor little Linnaeus was left behind. The tears made her face hot and then she felt hot all over and kicked away the sheet and blankets and pushed the pillow to one side so her cheek and ear touched the cool stone floor. She drifted off to sleep listening to the gurgles deep in the belly of the earth; the sounds were more watery here in England.

Hattie dreamed she was walking under the big elms and oaks in the park at the Boston Commons. A cool fall breeze blew across her face. How bright and alive the red maple leaves and golden oak leaves appeared, backlit by the sun; they shimmered so close to her face Hattie reached out to touch them. She woke with a start, shivering, aware she was lying outdoors in the dark. She had not walked in her sleep since she was a child. The sky was clear; how brightly the stars lit the night. She recognized the garden stepping-stones across from her, but she was surprised to find herself lying on a long flat horizontal stone in a raised flower bed. She sat up and saw her feet and the edge of her nightgown were caked with dried mud. As her eyes became accustomed to the light, she realized she was in a part of the garden she had not seen before; only the high stone walls were familiar. It appeared to be an old, abandoned garden of some sort, oddly adorned by stones, many of them broken, carefully sited in the raised parterres with the sweet bay and dandelions.

Hattie stood up, shivering, her arms folded around herself, and realized the stone she’d been lying on was the stone from the dream she’d had in Oyster Bay. In that dream, the stone lay in a churchyard cemetery with old tombstones; of course, Aunt Bronwyn’s garden was once a churchyard. What an odd coincidence this was! If her feet had not been so cold, she might have thought she was dreaming. The cool night air was sweet with the scent of river willows and roses. As she followed the stone path out of the abandoned garden she heard a strange noise ahead of her — a loud knock. The loud knock sounded again and to Hattie the sound resembled a club of wood against wood. When she reached the gateway between the two gardens, she saw a strange glow emanating from within. Hattie took deep breaths to calm herself. The light appeared to be on the far side of the grape arbor. At first she mistook the light for a lantern’s glow — were they searching for her? But as she observed it longer, Hattie realized the glow was too soft to be a lantern. The loud knock sounded again, and the fine hairs on the back of her neck stood up; she saw something luminous white move through the foliage of the corn plants and the tall sunflowers. Her heart beat faster as she heard the soft rhythmic sound of breathing approach her. She felt a strange stir of excitement and dread at what she would see when she stepped through the gateway. The luminosity of the light was astonishing: was she awake or asleep? How beautiful the light was! Her apprehension and dread receded; now a prismatic aura surrounded the light. It was as if starlight and moonlight converged over her as a warm current of air enveloped her; for an instant Hattie felt such joy she wept.

When she reached the front of the house, Hattie found lanterns lit and the coachman and Aunt Bronwyn up and about. They appeared surprised to see her. Embarrassed, Hattie assumed they were looking for her, but no, the cattle were loose, through an open gate or break in the fence — they were not sure, but the white cattle were everywhere. Three cows and their calves browsed on white climbing roses in front of the house, unconcerned with the commotion. Hattie assured her aunt she was unharmed, but the old woman looked intently at her as if she was not convinced. The eastern sky was already bright pink with the approaching dawn.

Aunt Bronwyn said the sleepwalk might be due to the excitement of their arrival; travel was quite taxing on the nerves, as she learned on a recent trip. She was so exhausted by the train ride from Trieste to Budapest, she hallucinated bad odors in her hotel room. Hattie’s heartbeat quickened at the mention of hallucination; the light she saw was no hallucination. Aunt Bronwyn thought perhaps the breakout by the cattle disturbed her sleep and caused the episode.

Hattie shook her head. She feared she might be the culprit who left open both the gates. She pointed at the mud on her feet and the edge of her nightgown, evidence she’d walked as far as the puddle outside the orchard gate, though she remembered nothing of the sleepwalk.

Edward was alarmed about Hattie’s sleepwalk. What if she sleepwalked off the deck of the ship? Should they consult a doctor? Edward wanted to postpone his trip to London, but Hattie insisted he take the noon train as planned for his meeting with the Kew Gardens staff. She felt a bit strange after her sleepwalk, but she certainly wasn’t ill; there was no reason for Edward to miss his appointment.

Hattie wanted time alone to reflect on her experience in the garden. She promised to rest for an hour or two, but later, in the darkened bedroom, Hattie tossed and turned but did not sleep soundly; she could not stop thinking about what she had seen. Her thoughts raced — what had she seen, luminous and white, moving through the foliage of Aunt Bronwyn’s corn plants and sunflowers? The memory of that instant caused Hattie to weep again with the joy she felt with all her being. Thoughts raced through her mind in swift-moving torrents — glittering and flashing. Words from her thesis notes cascaded before her mind’s eye, then suddenly scattered as if suddenly the words were dry leaves blowing away in the wind: poor judgment, bad timing, late marriage, premature marriage, dread of childbirth, sexual dysfunction.

Hattie tried to calm herself with deep breathing but managed to doze for only brief periods. The rooms of the Riverside house would not let her be — that house presided over by her dead mother-in-law intruded into her thoughts, room by room followed by the gardens overgrown and sparse and the glass house of orchid skeletons in pots all around the monkey’s cage. Suddenly she realized they must help the Indian child return to her sister and mother! This was all wrong! How foolish she had been!

The rush of thoughts so unnerved Hattie she got up and went downstairs, where she found Aunt Bronwyn and Indigo at lunch on the round table. The child listened to the old woman name King Arthur’s knights. They had such strange names; Indigo was confident she could remember them all and tell Sister.

Morfran was so ugly everyone thought he worked for the devil; he had hair on him like a stag. Sandde Angel Face was never attacked in combat because he was so beautiful enemy soldiers mistook him for an angel on the battlefield. Henbeddstr never found a man who could run as fast as he could, and Henwas the Winged never found a four-legged animal as fast as he. Scili the Light-footed could walk above the treetops or above the rushes of the river. Drem could be in Cornwall and see a gnat rise in the morning sun in Scotland. Cynr of the Beautiful Beard endured water and fire better than anyone; when he carried burdens, small or large, the burdens were never seen. If Gwalloig went to a village in need of something, no one in the village could sleep until he got what he needed. Osla of the Big Knife carried a short broadsword he lay across rivers as a bridge so the knights and their horses crossed safely. Gilla Stag Leg could jump three hundred acres in a single leap. Sol could stand all day on one leg.

Stories like these were Indigo’s favorites; she could hardly wait to tell Sister. In Needles there had been a Navajo woman, and she used to tell the girls stories about long ago when there were giants, and humans and animals still spoke the same language. Indigo told Aunt Bronwyn about the wounded giant’s drops of blood that became the black lava peaks as the giant fled the attack of the Twin Brothers.

Now the rainbow bird refused to go inside his cage, but perched on the cage top at night or whenever Indigo put him down. After lunch, they went to survey the white bull’s damage to the corn; by midday light the garden looked very different than she had seen it the night before in the glowing light. They followed Aunt Bronwyn to the back wall; the parrot rode Indigo’s shoulder with confidence, squawking and flapping his wings whenever they went outdoors.

Aunt Bronwyn led them to the stone gateway at the back of the garden, the entrance to the stone garden, as she called it; Hattie recognized it at once as the place she woke hours earlier. In the midday light the stone garden looked much different than it had the night before. Hattie examined the vertical stones, which seemed much taller in the darkness. She searched for the long flat stone from the night before, from her dream, which she distinctly remembered being near the tall vertical stones; but she didn’t find the long flat stone until she neared the back wall. Hattie asked where the stones came from — she was especially curious about the long horizontal stone.

The grave of Aunt Bronwyn’s English grandfather was there, among the standing stones; he wanted no marker for himself. A few of the eldest in Bath still remembered, from their childhood, the old man who carefully searched dumps and trash middens near the old village churches to find fragments of the old stones smashed to pieces by order of the parish priest. He ordered his driver to take the muddy back roads to any new construction sites or newly plowed fields, always with an eye out for any old stones cast aside.

While the child and her parrot walked solemnly from stone to stone, toward the upright boulder alone in the center, Hattie told her aunt about her dream in Oyster Bay: in the dream she sat astride a long, horizontal stone in an old churchyard. Last night she woke on that very stone! Edward was convinced she had seen illustrations of similar old stones in churchyards but had forgotten. Or perhaps as a child Hattie heard the horizontal stone described in family conversations.

The strange glow in the garden the night before was more difficult to explain; she wanted to think it over a bit longer before she told anyone, even Aunt Bronwyn. Hattie certainly didn’t mention the light she had seen to Edward because he was already upset by the episode of sleepwalking. Hattie felt on the verge of confiding in her aunt about the light when Aunt Bronwyn asked if she and the child might want to stay on with her while Edward completed his business in Corsica. She had so many things and places to show Hattie, and she wanted time to talk about Hattie’s thesis. It was terribly hot and uncomfortable in Corsica in July; worse, there were reports of political unrest. Corsica was always a challenge to the visitor; the mountainous regions were notorious for bandits, who preyed on English and American tourists. It would be lovely to have her and the child stay with her until Edward returned.

Hattie hugged her aunt; what a delight that would be! She wanted very much to learn about the old stones. She promised she would return next summer, but now it wasn’t possible to stay; Edward wanted her and the child to accompany him.

Indigo ran back up the path to rejoin Aunt Bronwyn and Hattie. From Indigo’s shoulder, the parrot watched sparrows hop along the top of the stone wall where the rock pinks grew from cracks in the old wall and scented the air; mossy saxifrages and catmints grew all along the base of the stone wall and between the old stones with the daisies and dandelions.

Aunt Bronwyn identified the stones. Here was a broken stone with a double spiral carving to help the plants to grow faster. Here were the broken pieces of a stone destroyed by an angry mob of Christian converts. Indigo asked if she had any healing stones in the garden, but Aunt Bronwyn did not know. She’d heard discussions of a standing stone that healed patients who were passed back and forth three times over its top. But over the years, the quack doctors and snake oil salesmen of Bath hacked the old stone to pieces to sell as curative charms. Reportedly there were healing stones that fit in the palm of the hand; they were steeped in water from Bath’s sacred springs; they cured any ailment. According to the legend of the healing springwater, the Celtic King Bladud learned from local farmers that pigs with sores were cured by soaking in the mud and warm springwater. The king built a temple and bath at the spring, but later when the king got old he made a pair of wings and jumped from the roof of the temple and was killed.

For centuries, Bath had been overrun by doctors and pharmacists peddling cures for cancer, gout, and heart disease, formulated from such ingredients as live hog lice, burnt coke quenched in aqua vitae, powdered red coral, the black tips of crab claws, and freshly gathered earthworms. Invalids pushed in their chairs by nurses still flocked to Bath the year round to take the waters.

Aunt Bronwyn paused to look over the stones rescued long ago by her grandfather. She pointed out a bluestone no larger than a steamer trunk — in times of drought the bluestone was beaten with hazel sticks to bring rain. Indigo’s eyes widened as she went on; Aunt Bronwyn had seen praying stones and cursing stones. There were stones that turned slowly with the sun to warm both sides of themselves, and stones that traveled at night to drink from the river and returned by morning. There were stones that danced at high noon and stones that danced in the light of the moon!

Indigo asked Aunt Bronwyn if she had ever seen the dancing stones. No, when she was a girl about Indigo’s age, she observed a black stone the size of a stove move across the road to the south side overnight. Tomorrow they’d take a picnic basket and visit the place. Aunt Bronwyn wanted to drive up on the ridge above the river overlooking Bath; a great deal of construction was going on there. Each week she checked to see if any stones were in need of protection.

Hattie recalled the unkind remarks she’d heard from time to time growing up, remarks her mother made to her father about Aunt Bronwyn’s peculiarities. So this is what it was: while other old women fed stray cats and dogs, this old woman took pity on stones. The evening of their arrival, Edward joked Aunt Bronwyn had gone native; what could be more English than an old woman feeding tidbits to her cows?

As they walked back through the garden toward the house, her aunt said something that surprised Hattie. The old people had warned her even would-be rescuers of the old stones must use great caution because it was dangerous to tamper with the standing stones or to cut down the sacred groves. The stones and the groves housed the “good folk,” the spirits of the dead. Never interfere with the fairies! When sheep were brought by the English to graze Scotland, the good folk and the people living on the land were displaced, and the fairies waged war against the sheep. An old man heard the sounds of dogs running down the sheep for the angry spirits; the old man was a seventh son of a seventh son and thus was able to hear and sometimes even see the spirits.

The terrible famine in Ireland in 1846 came because the Protestants and the English knocked down the old stones. The wars of Europe were the terrible consequences of centuries of crimes against the old stones and the sacred groves of hazel and oak. Still, the destruction of the stone circles and groves did not stop; now the reckoning day was not far off — twenty years or less.

Hattie found herself taken aback by her aunt’s remarks; she was reluctant to link the luminous glow in the garden with the forces of violent retribution. She wished Indigo would not listen so attentively to her aunt’s comments; the child might become confused. She felt a faint flicker of ill ease that announced an onset of anxious feelings, so she excused herself and the child. They needed to rest. Aunt Bronwyn invited Indigo to spend the afternoon with her in the garden, but Hattie was firm and took Indigo by the hand back inside the house.

Earlier Edward worried there would be trouble if they did not set some limits for the child. He was concerned about the agreement he signed with the superintendent of the Indian school. It was no use to pretend they were instructing Indigo about the duties of an upstairs maid. Hattie had bristled at the mention of the agreement. She was only a little girl; the boarding school superintendent was a criminal to hire out the Indian children at such a young age. Edward said nothing more, but Hattie wondered if he was concerned over the appearance the child was their adopted daughter, an assumption made by a number of their fellow steamship passengers.

♦ ♦ ♦

The day of Edward’s return from London, Hattie rested upstairs all morning and a good part of the afternoon. Aunt Bronwyn invited Indigo to eat lunch with the parrot on her shoulder and they both laughed with delight at the bird’s dainty table manners as he took bits of chicken pot pie from their forks. That evening when Hattie and Edward came to the table for dinner they found the child and the old woman feeding the parrot broth from a spoon. Indigo noticed at once that Edward did not approve and that Hattie was concerned too, but Aunt Bronwyn laughed and told them about the small white dog her grandfather kept with him; the dog sat on a chair with its own china plate beside the old man at every meal, a napkin tied around its neck as it stared straight ahead with great dignity waiting for its master to feed it a tidbit.

Edward smiled and shook his head, as if to acknowledge the old woman made the rules in her house. He had returned from London in good humor, after finding the watercolor supplies he wanted. The visit to the Kew Gardens went very well. The director of Kew Gardens agreed to pay a handsome price for Citrus medica cuttings. The French government closely guarded the citron orchards of Corsica to protect their exclusive supply of candied citron to the world market. Edward only smiled when the director commented on the difficulty of the task. The incident on the Pará River left him wary of misplaced trust. He revealed the plan to no one, not even Hattie, though he felt guilty for the omission and planned to tell her everything as soon as they reached Corsica.

The following morning after breakfast, they set out together for a walk downtown to the site of the excavations. Bath had a great many grassy arcades and parks shaded by trees where elegant ladies walked with their maids or drove in smart buggies with their lapdogs. Nowadays the parade of women’s fashions was more subdued, but in the last century the ladies went to great lengths to steal the attention from one another during their promenades in the parks. One woman went so far as to have a garden of pinks and violets planted in the framework of the wide hoop skirt of her dress.

Aunt Bronwyn nodded briskly whenever she was greeted by townspeople along the way, oblivious of the gawkers and tourists who stared rudely. Of course they must have made quite a spectacle on Stall Street, Hattie thought; the energetic old woman wearing a brown derby marched ahead, and Indigo with the parrot on her shoulder walked just behind her, followed by Edward and Hattie. As they approached the King’s Bath, the streets were crowded with vacationers from London and foreign tourists come to visit the shops and the royal baths.

Aunt Bronwyn pointed out the smaller pavilion, which was the Queen’s Bath. Originally there had been only the King’s Bath, but the queen became frightened by strange lights in the King’s Bath and refused ever to go back. So the Queen’s Bath was built. Hattie’s heart was pounding; what sort of strange light? she asked.

“Swamp gas caused the light,” Edward joked. Hattie was disappointed he felt he had to make a joke out of her question. Aunt Bronwyn was about to reply when they arrived at the hotel entrance, where Aunt Bronwyn was greeted by the doorman.

Rainbow tightened his grip on Indigo’s shoulder apprehensively as they entered the lobby of the Pump House Hotel. Hotel guests seated in the lobby stared with open mouths as Aunt Bronwyn marched past, eyes straight ahead, to the back hall and the stairway to the basement. The modern baths were separated from the old baths by a new wall. Kerosene lamps hung from excavation scaffolding to light the stairs; as she descended, Indigo felt the warmth and dampness of the springs below, and despite the odor of the lamp oil, an even stronger odor, of wet clay, old urine, and mildew, wafted around them as they descended.

They approached the edge of the big excavation, where workmen filled wheelbarrows with dirt and stone debris by the light of kerosene torches that projected strange giant shadows of the workmen on the walls. Below them, on the deepest level of the excavation, Edward saw the edge of the old Roman pool that once encompassed an area far greater even than the site of the hotel.

Major Davis left the workmen as soon as he saw them, and he and Aunt Bronwyn exchanged warm greetings. After the introductions were made, the major lit a small lantern and guided them between heaps of old stones and piles of damp earth to point out the periods of occupation: the Tudor and Elizabethan levels were hardly distinguishable from each other and appeared as dark gray streaks; the medieval level was deeper but a lighter gray; the Norman level was the color of ashes. The exposed layers of earth reminded Hattie of the alternating layers of jam and cream in a fancy cake. They descended the wide stone steps the workmen had unearthed only days before; a damp odor of clay and decaying organic material clung to the steps. Indigo was reminded of the odor of the smelly black mud she and Sister Salt tried to avoid at the edge of the river. As Hattie took a step down, the major announced she was now standing on the earliest Roman occupation level, from the time the sacred hot springs were first contained in a pool of cement and limestone; the construction of a Roman temple dedicated to Sulis Minerva followed. Its name was somewhat of a mystery, Major Davis explained, because Sulis was a Celtic deity of the sun and Minerva was the Roman goddess of the moon. He led them past piles of stone and plaster debris.

Edward noticed a number of torches lighting an area that appeared to hold something of great importance. Major Davis led them to it and stepped aside with a flourish to reveal the carved limestone altar of Sulis Minerva. All eyes were on the corner pillars of the altar — each was carved with voluptuous nude figures, two women and two men; fortunately the most prominent features of the statues were weathered enough, so Hattie allowed Indigo to step up to get a better look.

Hattie realized the altar platform stone, though larger and wider, was almost identical in shape to the flat rock in her dream and in her aunt’s garden. An odd sensation pulsed through her body when she touched the corner of the altar stone, and left her feeling a bit light-headed, but not unwell.

The parrot became extremely agitated, flapping its wings and screeching on Indigo’s shoulder; for a moment the workmen all stopped to stare, but with a stern glance from the major the work resumed. As soon as she moved away from the altar the parrot quieted; Indigo was not surprised to see Edward’s frown but she was saddened at the odd expression on Hattie’s face, as if she wanted Indigo and the parrot to leave at once.

Aunt Bronwyn took Indigo’s hand firmly in hers. The parrot was only trying to warn them the air in the basement was not fresh! The Romans made a mistake when they built structures over the hot springs. Aunt Bronwyn was more interested in the sacred springs before the invasion of the Romans, when the Celts tossed coins and tablets of lead to curse enemies to the spirits of the springs. At the mention of coins, Edward interrupted his examination of the altar platform and turned to the major and Aunt Bronwyn. Was it possible to see the artifacts that were for sale? Of course. Would they like to see the excavation where the Celtic objects were found? It was right on their way to the storage area for artifacts.

They followed the major down the wooden ramp for wheelbarrows, down into the deepest level of the excavations, where workmen removed the layers of sand and peat from the bottom of the pool. Here warm springwater bubbled up through the sand even as the workmen toiled in rubber boots.

Indigo was fascinated with the bubbling sand and water over the mouth of the spring. The spring at the old gardens dripped cool water down a cleft in the sandstone cliff; here the water bubbled straight up through the sand in a circle that Indigo watched closely for a long time until the circle of bubbling sand reminded her of the dancers bobbing and swaying as they swooned at the sight of the Messiah and his family. Then she felt Aunt Bronwyn gently touch her shoulder to ask if she was all right.

“I was remembering the dancers,” Indigo said. “When I think of them and that night, I am happy.”

It was a relief to emerge into the fresh air in the back hall of the old hotel. They followed the major to a large storage pantry used to clean and catalogue the artifacts and to label fragments of temple pediments and other carved stone. His assistants excused themselves while the major took the ring of keys to the large oak chests already packed for shipment to Oxford.

The major unwrapped a bundle of canvas and twine to reveal a dozen little wooden artifact boxes with identification labels neatly lettered in india ink. He slid back the tops of the boxes one by one to display the carved gemstones nested in cotton and set them out on the worktable; then he invited them to step closer and have a look. In the later Roman levels, little amulets of ivory and bronze in the shapes of breasts were found; fertility offerings, the major supposed. Hattie felt her face flush at the word “fertility” but hoped no one noticed.

Some were superstitious, but not the major; some thought to remove the ancient offerings to the springs invited disaster. Hattie had no desire to touch anything from centuries in black peat mud that reeked of old human waste, but Edward eagerly reached into the boxes. Indigo pressed close to Hattie to get a better look, though she was careful not to touch the carved stones. The little wooden boxes with sliding lids, lined with cotton, interested her more than the stones they contained. What good boxes for storing seeds!

Edward held up a cloudy chalcedony carved with three cattle under an oak tree; the figures of the cattle looked just like Aunt Bronwyn’s white cattle. How cruel it was to put the stones into little coffins after their centuries out in the world, even if in the bottom of a pool! The major gave a jolly chuckle at her remark and Edward joined in, but quickly cited the necessity to protect ancient artifacts for the sake of science. Aunt Bronwyn did not agree; she shook her head and turned to go just as the major dragged out a trunk with a loud noise that excited the parrot to shrieks. Indigo was relieved the major laughed before anyone could speak; he had been a parrot keeper once himself. Parrots must shriek from time to time for good health.

The major lifted a large canvas-wrapped bundle from the chest and proceeded to unwrap a thin, curved object of blackish gray metal, found by workmen in a drainage culvert. He held it up for them to get a good look; the eyes and mouth were narrow rectangular slits in the tin; the mask was of Celtic origin but was made after the Roman conquest, though its purpose was unknown. Did the mask represent the Diety of the spring? Was it worn by a priest, or a patient who came to drink the healing water?

Edward joked the mask belonged to the druids and reached out to touch it; the major handed it to him for closer inspection. Edward examined it, then lifted the tin mask up to his face for a moment and peered out the eyeholes at the others. He supposed it was self-consciousness that caused the odd sensation when he looked through the eyes of the mask; more distance seemed to lie between himself and Hattie and other people, though they did not move. He pulled the mask away and looked at them, then lifted it again and looked before he gave the mask back to the major.

The major talked as he rewrapped the tin mask. The mask showed no relation at all to the fine bronze head of Minerva unearthed in the excavations of 1792. He hoped to locate the rest of Minerva’s bronze, though now it appeared unlikely; the funds allocated for the excavations were nearly spent. The cost of running the pumps day and night to keep the excavations clear of the springwater was prohibitive.

Edward examined the carved gemstones again. The bright orange carnelian depicting the goddess Minerva seated with a serpent was even more impressive, and Edward thought he could make a decent profit if he sold it in the United States. He particularly liked the vibrant bloodstone carved with the left profile of Jupiter seated with his mantle draped over his loins, his scepter in his left hand and an eagle on his outstretched right hand. The device of Jupiter holding an eagle was not common on gems, and Edward wanted very much to buy the gemstone.

The major was reluctant to see the pieces leave England, but the circumstances left him little choice; to continue the work additional funds must be obtained. Edward nodded; he understood. He examined a figure of Fortuna, carved into brown agate banded in white; the figure of the goddess held a poppy head in one hand and what appeared to be an ear of corn in the other hand, though it must have been another plant, since corn was a New World plant.

♦ ♦ ♦

Aunt Bronwyn took Indigo to find some refreshment in the hotel dining room while Edward negotiated a price for the carvings and one or two lead curse tablets.

After they returned to the house Edward brought out the lead curse tablets the major sold him. Edward was not sure how marketable the tablets would be — they were dark and discolored, their edges badly broken. Ugly and poisonous, lead was the perfect vehicle for the curses crudely scratched on their surfaces before they were tossed in the sacred spring. The old Celts and the Romans believed sacred wells and sacred springs had the power to expose and punish thieves and cheaters. All that was necessary was to write out the person’s name.

Edward was in good humor as he read the inscribed curse: “To the goddess Sulis. Whether slave or free, whoever he shall be, you are not to permit him eyes or health. He shall be blind and childless so long as he shall live unless he returns”—the next word is illegible—“to the temple.” Edward speculated on the illegible word while the coachman and his wife brought out the baskets of food for the picnic. Edward was pleased with his purchases from the major; the stop in Bath was more rewarding than he anticipated. He considered pleading a headache to excuse himself from the picnic so he could spend time with his new acquisitions, but the old woman promised circles of ancient stones on hilltops he must see.

Someone must have beaten the old bluestone with a hazel stick while they were at the excavation because by the time they washed up and had a light lunch (Aunt Bronwyn believed no one should go on a picnic hungry), the clear sky and sun gave way to dark blue storm clouds and wind-driven rain. The sky darkened, so hall lamps were lit by two o’clock. As the afternoon wore on, the wind blew harder and the creak and groan of the roof timbers could be heard, along with other noises in the wind — clatters and bangs of loose shutters. The old cloister was in need of repairs.

Edward excused himself and went upstairs; despite the fury of the storm, he was relieved to have the afternoon free to examine the Roman artifacts he purchased and to prepare his watercolor box for Corsica. He sharpened the knife he planned to use to make the twig cuttings and packed it in the watercolor box in a compartment under the brushes. He mixed watercolor washes and practiced pen-and-ink drawings of landscape scenes he copied from a guidebook. The Corsican farmers undoubtedly were accustomed to finding foreign tourists with easels and paint in their fields and orchards; after his undergraduate studies he’d spent the summer doing just that.

The rain drummed against the roof and walls, but the roof and the walls of the old cloister were weather-tight. Oh the wild storms this old building had weathered, he thought; now the rain washed against the walls in waves. Edward held the knife blade up to the light and examined its edge closely; would it cut the citrus twigs fast and clean without crushing the twigs’ fragile ends?

Now the wind made a howling sound like the sea monsters in stories Aunt Bronwyn heard as a child. The monsters were not flesh and blood but the great violent storms that lashed these islands. Little wonder there were so many stories of the fairies who were spirits of the dead, often drowned fishermen or others lost at sea.

The stone circle and the standing rock would have to wait; later they’d eat their picnic lunch at the round table. Now the rain poured in a deluge that seemed to rattle every inch of the old slate roof. Aunt Bronwyn listened for a moment, then commented that when the river overflowed its banks the cattle must be brought up from the orchard to higher ground. More than once she found herself in gum boots and slicker in the middle of the night with the rain pouring down, herding the white cattle to safety. She was not concerned now because the ground could take a good rain without a flood.

Hattie brought out her thesis notes at her aunt’s request, but she was content to sit all evening and listen to stories and forget the manuscript. The thesis seemed to belong to another lifetime now; she felt oddly detached from her notes.

The rain drummed on the roof harder and the parrot nervously looked up at Indigo. She sat on the little stuffed velvet footstool at Aunt Bronwyn’s feet to hear about the magic of King Arthur’s knight Cei, who could last nine days and nine nights underwater without air. This was a storm for Cei!

Indigo brought out Aunt Bronwyn’s basket of empty thread spools to keep the parrot’s beak off the oak molding and the legs of the chairs and sofas. Indigo rolled the empty spools and the parrot examined them with his beak before he broke them to bits. The noise of the storm made conversation difficult, so they sat and listened as the wind accelerated to a high-pitched whine and the rain slapped the window glass until Hattie thought it would break.

Aunt Bronwyn stirred the sugar in her tea and prepared to tell Indigo more about the knights of the Round Table; but she interrupted her introductory remarks about King Arthur with little exclamations at the noises the storm stirred up in the old cloister. After a big bumping noise in the rafters Aunt Bronwyn glanced toward the ceiling and said: “Uchdryd Cross-Beard threw his red beard across fifty rafters in Arthur’s hall!” And she continued to name the knights: Clust could hear an ant set out in the morning fifty miles away when he was buried under seven fathoms of earth. Medr from Celli Wig could shoot at a wren in Ireland right between his legs. Gwiwan Cat’s Eye could cut off a gnat’s eyelash without hurting the gnat’s eye. If Gwaddan Osol stood on the biggest mountaintop it would become a level plain. When Gwaddan of the Bonfire walked, sparks flashed from the soles of his feet whenever they touched anything hard, and whatever he touched became molten iron.

Aunt Bronwyn paused to listen to a new sound — an incessant loud knocking that seemed to come from the back of the house.

“Is someone there?” Hattie’s heart pounded as she got up from her chair. The sound seemed identical to the strange knocking Hattie heard the night she sleepwalked. Why did the sound set off such a panic in her?

“I think it is only the wind,” her aunt said, “though perhaps the wind means to take part of the old cloister with him.”

Aunt Bronwyn pointed at the thesis notes on the end table and Hattie picked them up. She explained how intrigued she had been in catechism class by the Gnostic heretics; then later, as she read Dr. Rhinehart’s translations, she wanted to write a thesis based on the lost gospels. Hattie flipped through the pages of notes but felt oddly detached from them now. She smiled at her paragraphs that argued Mary Magdalene was an apostle and Jesus treated her as an equal with the others, who resented her. No wonder the gospel of Mary Magdalene had been buried in a cave in the desert for centuries. Mary Magdalene wrote she saw Jesus’ resurrected spirit, while Peter claimed they saw Jesus’ resurrected body. Why insist on a literal view of the resurrection and reject all others? Here was her answer, which stirred such rancor on the thesis committee: Peter and the others sought to legitimize their authority to exercise exclusive leadership as successors of Jesus.

Aunt Bronwyn laughed and clapped her hands as Hattie finished reading aloud. Good for Hattie! Aunt Bronwyn patted Hattie’s arm and told her how proud she was of Hattie’s defiance of the thesis committee. That was the old family spirit!

For centuries the clergy made war on the ways of the old ones! King Cormac the Magnificent cruelly suppressed the druid religion; in revenge, the druid Maelgin paid a sorcerer who caused a salmon bone to catch crossways in the king’s throat at the dinner table.

Indigo let the parrot play by himself with the spools while they listened to Aunt Bronwyn. The Council of Tours decreed excommunication for those who persisted in worshiping trees; the Council of Nantes instructed bishops and their servants to dig up and hide the stones in remote woody places upon which vows were still made. Yet the wisest Christians were respectful of the pagan spirits. St. Columba asked God to spare the sacred oak grove at Derry because while he feared death and hell, he feared the sound of an axe in the grove of Derry even more. Hattie asked if the sacred grove was still there. Her aunt shook her head.

Yet despite the persecution, the old customs persisted — dairy keepers spilled a bit of milk for the fairies, morning and night; on the first night of August, a few people (Aunt Bronwyn was one of them) still gathered around fires on nearby hilltops until dawn, though the church tried to outlaw such practices centuries before. People still bowed to the standing stones at crossroads and threw coins into springs and lakes. At one time the church ordered the slaughter of all herds of white cattle, which were suspected of pagan devotions; fortunately not everyone complied with the order. Aunt Bronwyn’s tone of voice grew more intense.

Did Hattie know (did anyone know) how much innocent blood spilled in Derry over the years of the occupation or how much more blood might yet spill? Ireland’s suffering began with the betrayal of fairies. Those who cut down the sacred groves doomed themselves and all their descendants!

Hattie was surprised by her aunt’s vehemence, and concerned at Indigo’s reaction; but Indigo’s expression became thoughtful. Jesus was betrayed too, she responded. But after the Pharisees tried to have Jesus killed, he left the Sea of Galilee to return to the mountains beyond Walker Lake, where he was born. As Aunt Bronwyn listened, she glanced at Hattie to see her reaction to the child’s comment.

Hattie nodded. It was true; six or seven years before, newspapers reported the Indians claimed to have a Messiah, a Christ of their own, for whom they gathered to perform a dance. Hattie followed the reports in the New York Times. It all ended rather badly; settlers feared Indian uprisings, and in South Dakota the army killed more than a hundred dancers.

Aunt Bronwyn shook her head slowly; her expression was solemn. Indigo stopped playing with the spools and the parrot, and looked up at them; she told them not to worry: the soldiers would not find the Messiah and his family or the dancers because they fled far away to the east. By winter it would be safe, and the Messiah would return with the first snow.

Hattie was about to caution Indigo about exaggeration and falsehood when Aunt Bronwyn asked Indigo if she had seen the Messiah. Indigo nodded eagerly; they all were so beautiful. Aunt Bronwyn smiled and nodded. Here on the remote islands people sometimes heard the sounds of voices and drums in the night; through the fog or rain mist at night people sometimes saw the silhouettes of dancers around fires on the hilltops. Indigo’s eyes were round with delight as she nodded vigorously.

Hattie cleared her throat; she wanted to change the subject before her aunt went any further and confused the child with superstition. But the old woman’s face was bright with enthusiasm as she rattled on about sightings along the shore in the fog and mist; the people saw his Mother, sometimes with a child they called the Son of God. Indigo and her aunt exchanged smiles; yes, the Messiah and his dancers were safe.

Hattie was at a loss for words. Her mother had complained of Aunt Bronwyn’s growling terriers and the cattle on the front steps, but she never mentioned Aunt Bronwyn’s enthusiasm for Celtic mythology. Why, her aunt had left the church altogether! Hattie was critical of developments in the early church, yet she never considered leaving the church entirely. Hattie did not want the child to become confused — certainly not by the notion old stones should be worshiped!

The intensity of the storm seemed on the wane. Hattie returned the thesis notes to the portfolio. Just then Edward appeared in the doorway clutching his left hand in a towel soaked with blood.

Their dinner of picnic food was forgotten as Aunt Bronwyn and Hattie cared for the deep gash in Edward’s left hand. Somehow the freshly sharpened knife slipped as he practiced diagonal cuts on green willow twigs. Hattie applied pressure to the wound with a clean napkin while Aunt Bronwyn went to call the coachman to go for the doctor. A dozen stitches were required to close the wound, and Edward was pale and shaken when the doctor finished. By the time they remembered dinner, it was nearly eleven o’clock and they were too tired and overwrought to eat more than a few bites before they all went to bed.

An emptiness in her stomach woke Indigo just before daylight; she could barely make out the silhouette of the parrot asleep with his head tucked under one wing. She took a sip of water to try to quiet the hunger and wished she had more of Mrs. Abbott’s ginger cookies. It was much too early to get up, so Indigo lay in bed thinking about Sister Salt and Mama, and her longing for them made her chest ache until tears filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks into her ears. Her sobs and sniffles woke the parrot, who watched her curiously. She had one hopeful thought that stopped the tears: On their walk to the excavations the day before, she heard Aunt Bronwyn mention a Christ Church to Hattie and Edward, but Indigo didn’t see which direction she pointed; she was too shy to ask where it was, but it must be nearby. Today she would ask Aunt Bronwyn to show her the Christ Church. The Messiah and his followers went away when the hot weather came, and though she knew it wasn’t likely, still she thought it might be possible that he stopped at his church in England on his way to the Holy Land.

At the first sounds from downstairs, Indigo got up, and with Rainbow on her shoulder, she went to the dining room, where the coachman’s wife served her and Aunt Bronwyn tea and hot shortcake. After she ate two shortcakes and drank two cups of tea with sugar and milk, Indigo asked Aunt Bronwyn if Christ Church was nearby. She thought she heard it mentioned and she thought they might find out if the Messiah and his followers had been seen nearby. Aunt Bronwyn’s expression was thoughtful — yes, there were a number of churches and even villages with the name Christ Church. Then she smiled. Indigo was right, she said; Christ might be at any of those places. He might be anywhere.

The morning after the storm was clear and sunny and the air rain-fresh and fragrant with the damp plants and new flowers. They left Edward with his citrus books, his injured hand elevated on a small pillow, in a garden chair under the arbor of rambling white roses.

The coach took them up and around to the hilltop park estates of the wealthy, who resided in Bath for a month of gambling and therapeutic baths each year. Hattie asked if these were the old families of Bath, and Aunt Bronwyn laughed merrily. Fled long ago, they had, to escape the milling flocks of tourists and vacationers and the traffic jams like this one forcing their coach to inch past the hotels and shops. The sounds of the street traffic, music from the organ grinders, and shouts of the street vendors made conversation difficult. Indigo leaned out the window to get a better look at the toys — windup dogs and bouncing rubber balls sold on the sidewalk by men and boys dressed in white.

Once out of town, Indigo was excited to see the trees and vegetation of the river valley gradually give way to a rolling plain of grasses that appeared soft and lush in all colors of green, yellow, and copper. Aunt Bronwyn pointed out the window; off in the distance, if one looked very carefully, one could see the largest of the upright stones; next to this stone and still hidden from view was the old church. The lurching of the coach and the shifting sunlight on the plain made the boulder difficult to see until they got closer.

As they neared them, Hattie was quite amazed at the size of the upright stones — they were as tall as the church walls and as broad as the bow of a steamship. She felt a bit foolish because she had expected old stones on the scale of the stones in Aunt Bronwyn’s garden.

They parked in the shade of an upright stone that dwarfed the horses and coach, but they no sooner got out than another coach pulled up. Aunt Bronwyn exhaled indignantly when she saw the occupants; the young men appeared to be archaeology students, who eagerly followed their professor with measuring rods and notebooks in hand.

“Curses, curses,” Aunt Bronwyn muttered under her breath as the group tramped down the meadow path to the center of the stone ring and began to measure the distances between the giant stones. To avoid the archaeology class, Aunt Bronwyn took them first to see the old Christ Church near the burial cove.

How odd to build a church here, so far from the village, Hattie thought. The church site was down the slope of the hill from the giant boulders, which appeared to dwarf the church structure until one reached the churchyard.

To Indigo, the huge upright boulder appeared to be a giant blackbird’s head and the two great overturned boulders on either side were the giant bird’s wings outstretched.

A rusted chain and lock secured the church doors, but they were able to peek through the crack between the doors to see the bare stone room. Only the stone steps and massive altar stone, supported by blocks of stone, remained; the altar’s stones were cut from the same sandstone as the three giant horizontal stones that formed the entryway to the ancient burial mound.

The location of the church, between the stone circles on the hilltop and the smaller stone ring and burial mound, was intended to discourage the people from their midsummer bonfires and all-night dances. Stories claimed the stones of the circles here were once guests and members of a wedding party who danced all Saturday through the night to the sabbath, when suddenly the sinners dancing in their circles turned to stone. While she was talking, Aunt Bronwyn kept an eye on the hilltop, and when the students and their teacher began to make their way toward the church, Aunt Bronwyn nodded at Hattie and Indigo and they walked briskly up an outlying path to avoid the group.

Indigo touched each of the giant stones along the circular path; the dark stones were rough with melted pebbles and rock fragments. Tiny quartz crystals in the great sandstone boulders glittered in the late morning sun; Indigo ran her finger inside the circles and spirals incised in the limestone — they looked like big eyes to her; and they were eyes, Aunt Bronwyn explained, the eyes of the original Mother, the Mother of God, the Mother of Jesus.

Indigo felt a rush of excitement and raced over the fragrant damp turf to the center of the great circle, where she sang out the words of the song from long ago: “The black rock, the black rock — the rock is broken and from it pours clear, fresh water, clear, fresh water!” Yes! The Messiah and his family stopped by this place on their journey to the east; Indigo felt certain of this.

Just then another vehicle — an open buggy full of sightseers — arrived, and Aunt Bronwyn shook her head and Hattie called to Indigo and they walked back to their coach. The best time to visit the stone circles was in the autumn or winter, without the commotion of so many sightseers. She preferred to visit the stones just as the fog and mist of a storm swept over the hilltop, because then it was possible to feel a marvelous energy and life from the stones. Hattie nodded; she took a last look around, embarrassed that she felt nothing from the boulders and curious to know what the measurements of the archaeologists might reveal.

Indigo sat on the edge of the seat all the way back to the house, her face bright with excitement. She did not expect to see Christ at his church, but it was reassuring to see the hilltop and great stones where he and the others stopped from time to time. She hoped Rainbow had not screeched or disturbed Edward while they were away. They’d carefully hung the brass travel cage from a stout rope tied in the main branch of an old yew tree inside the entry yard of the old cloisters, where the coachman’s wife, who liked pet birds, promised to reassure Rainbow he was not abandoned. Loud screeches greeted their coach even before it stopped, but the coachman’s wife reported he was quiet until then; a blackbird couple from the orchard kept him company most of the morning.

Although Edward’s hand was not quite healed, he booked them on a ship that departed Bristol for Genoa the following week. Hattie no longer slept soundly in the old cloister, and she worried Indigo would be misled by her aunt’s eccentric ideas.

The day of their departure for Bristol, Aunt Bronwyn read them an article from the London Times: certain Coptic scrolls obtained years before by the British Museum had just been authenticated. Hattie’s hands shook as she held the paper. So! Her intuition had not failed her! True words were beautiful words! She must write to her father. Poor Dr. Rhinehart! He died the previous year, before his life’s work could be vindicated; but she was more fortunate; now she could petition the thesis committee to reconsider their decision. But almost as soon as she had the thought, she realized she had no desire to return to the committee or to the thesis, though she could not explain this reluctance. She should have felt elated; instead she felt much as she had at the time of the committee’s original decision — worn down and sad — though she smiled bravely as she passed the article back to Aunt Bronwyn. Edward did not ask to see the article but he congratulated her, saying science had done its job for the muddled humanists. A bit later she excused herself to finish packing, but once in the room, she felt strangely tired and lay on the bed without removing her shoes.

At the pier, tears filled Aunt Bronwyn’s eyes as she smiled and hugged Indigo to her big bosom. “You must bring Indigo again,” Aunt Bronwyn said, and promised to visit them next year in Riverside when the weather in Bath was gloomy. Moments before, she gave Indigo a package that held a small silk-bound notebook where Aunt Bronwyn hand-printed the names (in English and Latin) of medicinal plants and the best conditions and methods to grow them. All the other pages in the green silk notebook were blank, ready for Indigo to draw or write anything she wanted. Bundled on top of the notebook with white ribbons were dozens of waxed paper packets of seeds wrapped in white tissue paper. Aunt Bronwyn also packed a large hamper of food and treats for the voyage. Their farewells were cut short by a light rain that gave way to a downpour. Indigo could not fight back the tears after their hug as she and Aunt Bronwyn parted. The parrot made a loud screeching sound that stopped her tears as she petted the bird and whispered reassurances to him.