The Clock Flower

by Barbara Casey

  “OK, good. Because all of us have to be involved. Otherwise it won’t work.”

  “Can you tell us what it is, Dara?” Carolina asked, guessing it had something to do with their winter break and more than a little curious.

  “Not yet, not until I get everything worked out. But I think you will like it.”

  Mackenzie giggled.

  “Did you get a chance to read what was in that envelope, Mackenzie?” Even though Jennifer and Dara were wondering the same thing, it was Carolina who asked.

  “Yeah, Mackenzie,” Dara said, “are you going to be some sort of spy?”

  Mackenzie lowered her voice to a whisper, not wanting anyone to overhear her even though she was alone in her room with the door closed. “There is a U.S. Senator coming to MIT next week—Senator Xing-Ling Yi from Hawaii. She wants to meet with me to discuss a secret government project. President Hershell is making the arrangements, but I don’t think he even knows what the meeting is about.”

  “My gosh, Mackenzie!” Carolina was the first to exclaim. “Is it anything dangerous?” She had heard about the FBI, CIA, NSA and who knows what else recruiting the brightest students from the major universities. Not wanting to frighten Mackenzie, she then quickly added, “But surely the President of MIT wouldn’t involve you in anything dangerous!”

  “I don’t think so. There was just a very brief explanation in the envelope—it is something called the Clock Flower Project. Judging from what little information I was given, I think it might have something to do with the study of dandelions and their effect on longevity. But that is about all I know right now.”

  “You mean longevity as in immortality?” Jennifer asked.

  “That’s right, but I am only guessing at this point. I do know that many years ago a little-known study was done on identifying the longevity genes, and there was evidence that the molecular structure of the dandelion could be altered and then used as a drug to encourage a longer and healthier life.”

  “When do you meet with Senator Xing-Ling Yi?” asked Carolina.

  “First thing Monday morning.”

  Her girls were definitely finding their individual places while pursuing their advance degrees. “Jennifer, how do you like Juilliard?” Carolina asked.

  “They are giving me my space right now,” she answered, not elaborating any further. Her three best friends knew what she meant, though; she was still composing her latest piece of music.

  “That is good, Jennifer.” They wouldn’t push her for more information. When she was ready, she would tell them. What they didn’t know, however, was that Jennifer had heard the music with all of its ancient instruments. She had heard the atonal dissonance of the twelve-tone scale and the sounds of nature. The rock, the black and white images now in brilliant colors, and the cadence had spoken to her, and she knew that Carolina and the FIGs would once again be together.

  Dara being selected to join Dr. Lin Wu and his archeological team in Shandong Province, China, was a piece of it. She didn’t know how exactly, but Mackenzie’s meeting with Senator Xing-Ling Yi made up the second piece. And the music she had been writing down every waking moment since leaving Wood Rose was the final piece. It was equally important that Carolina be with them as well, for it was Carolina who bound them together and gave them balance and direction. She made them whole. Because they were Carolina and the FIGs—together. She only needed to hear the final instrument, and once she heard the leitmotif of the banhu complete within the musical composition, she would fully understand what it meant because she was a Female of Intellectual Genius.

  Before hanging up, Dara told the others about the frat guy— Michael Nottingham, III—who tried to get her to go to one of their parties.

  Mackenzie fluffed her hair and giggled nervously. “What did you tell him?” she asked, having no idea how she would have handled the situation.

  “I told him I wasn’t interested, but he didn’t seem to understand English. So I punched him in the nose.” Once again, Carolina and the three Females of Intellectual Genius burst into giggles.

  Chapter Nine

  The storm blew up suddenly, winds pulled by the full blood moon following the third eclipse. There would soon come a fourth, many of the Kaulo Camioes—the Black Gypsies—believing it to be an omen of the coming of the end times. “The sun will turn into darkness, and the moon into blood,” they said. Lyuba knew differently.

  The drenching rain delayed their departure from the shadows of the Old Villa for five days. On day six, the day that in Christian belief God created all creatures that live on dry land and declared it good, the sun reappeared in the sky, transformed the wet darkness into brilliant light, and promised them a safe journey.

  Lyuba walked on the narrow path through the tall wet weeds toward the old farmhouse belonging to Mr. and Mrs. Granchelli—“Mother and Papa” Carolina and the FIGs had called them when they stayed with them over the summer. Mrs. Granchelli had invited Lyuba to come for breakfast that morning, knowing that with the approach of cooler weather the travelers would soon be leaving the Old Villa. “The hens are laying lots of eggs,” she told Lyuba. She also told her that Lucia would also be there. She was the lady from the adoption agency who had tried to help her all those years ago. It would be nice to spend some time with them.

  Lyuba had a special bond with these two women—settlers, the gypsies called them—for they had helped take care of her precious daughter, Carolina, when she was so sick from the evil curse. As she always did when it was time to leave the shadows of the Old Villa behind, she would tell them good-bye before the Kaulo Camioes began their journey south, and give them a parik-til she had prepared with selected herbs and a chosen amulet, her special gift that would protect them and give them many blessings until she returned again.

  She also wanted to talk to Mrs. Granchelli and Lucia about the magpie’s warnings. Without a phone or even knowing how to use one, she had gone to these settlers she trusted when she desperately needed to get in touch with Carolina before—to warn her of the visions she had. She would rely on them to help her again if she needed to, for she knew that Carolina and the three FIGs would soon be facing a new danger.

  Chapter Ten

  Carolina’s life had completely changed when she began working at Wood Rose as mentor and teacher to Dara, Mackenzie, and Jennifer. Now with the FIGs no longer on the campus of Wood Rose, her life was completely changed once again. She knew she would miss her girls; she hadn’t realized how much though. And even though they talked every night, it just wasn’t the same as being together.

  Her own little bungalow decorated in Italian Provincial colors of orange, yellow, and blue; bright, decorative curtains and pillow covers she had sewn to give it that homey, cheerful look; the bit of landscaping she had added on her small plot of land—daffodils and hydrangea bushes for the spring and summer, pyracantha for the fall and winter; and the beautiful campus with its gray stone buildings and ivy-covered walls: everything she loved about Wood Rose that had given her so much pleasure when the FIGs were there now seemed one-dimensional, static, and lacking in warmth and spirit. Even the addition of the potted yellow mum on her small front porch didn’t help.

  Carolina wasn’t the only one feeling unenthusiastic and depressed. Ever since the FIGs had left Wood Rose, Headmaster Harcourt had been sequestered in his dark, mahogany-paneled, thickly carpeted office with its heavy green brocade draperies and sofa and massive walnut desk making it extremely difficult for Mrs. Ball, his long-time secretary, to advise him on what needed to get done each day. “He’s brooding,” she confided when Carolina expressed her concern that she hadn’t seen him around the Wood Rose campus. “Ever since we got back from Jennifer’s performance of The Gypsy Cadence at Carnegie Hall he has holed up in his office. Just sits in there in the dark, pouting. I can barely get in to give him his mail.”

  Carolina commiserated.

  In addition, the faculty and staff, who had been so demonstratively vocal in their frequent
complaints about the FIGs and their acts of creative expression, no longer gathered outdoors for serious, passionate discussions or participated in frequent group walks on the Wood Rose grounds in order to relieve stress. With the FIGs not there to expressively create, there was nothing to discuss and no stress to relieve. The impromptu talks and soul-searching walks had been replaced by a lackluster, dejected moping around and shuffling along.

  The student-residents seemed to have lost interest in their classes and other activities as well. There was no wide-eyed speculation of “What if?” or “What have the FIGs done now?” Everything was in slow motion or not moving at all. Even the time-honored duty of replacing the pale pink roses each Saturday morning with fresh ones in the Waterford crystal vase under the portrait of Wood Rose benefactor Miss Edna Grace Alcott had been either forgotten or just simply ignored. No one cared, it seemed. Wood Rose was grieving and, as a result, it had taken on an air of sadness as though in a state of mourning.

  Carolina taught the Italian Renaissance, the Spanish Inquisition, and philosophy in the upper grades, and remedial math, English, and American history in the lower grades. It was a full schedule which kept her busy during the week and gave her very little free time on the weekends. She didn’t mind the work; she just couldn’t seem to get excited about what she was doing. The girls she was now teaching just weren’t motivated; and no matter what she did to try to get them interested, nothing seemed to work.

  On pretty, warm days, she would take her classes outdoors under the tall pines and massive oaks draped in Spanish moss. On other days, she would let her students decide what to talk about as long as it pertained to the class she was teaching. She even took her older students to meet a famous science fiction author who was lecturing at the nearby university where Larry taught. Anything to get them involved and excited and wanting to participate. But nothing seemed to work, and Carolina couldn’t help but wonder if she was the reason; that it was because she didn’t feel as interested or involved or excited as she had when she was teaching the FIGs.

  She thought about the conversation she and the FIGs had that evening. Everything seemed to be falling into place for her girls. Dara and Mackenzie were both obviously happy with the way things were going. And even though Jennifer hadn’t expressed it, Carolina sensed that she was as well. She couldn’t help but worry about them, though. After all, this was the first time they had ever been on their own. Until now, they had lived inside the protective walls of an orphanage. To make it even more complicated, they were different—they were Females of Intellectual Genius; and Carolina wasn’t sure how they would be able to handle the “outside” world with so little life experience to draw from.

  Carolina fixed a cup of chamomile tea, hoping it would relax her, and carried it into her living room. It was almost midnight. Soon Jimmy Bob would be making his rounds, checking to see that everything was as it should be within the gray stone walls of Wood Rose Orphanage and Academy for Young Women.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jimmy Bob Doake didn’t like change—never had. And he refused to change now just because everyone else on the Wood Rose campus seemed to be down and out-of-sorts. And now, of all things, Headmaster Harcourt was talking about him moving into one of the bungalows on campus so he “would be available full-time to keep an eye on things.” Jimmy Bob suspected it was because the headmaster wasn’t keeping busy enough and worrying about things that didn’t need worrying about.

  Born and reared in that region of North Carolina known as the Piedmont, and the only sibling out of eleven who made it to the eighth grade, he never felt any desire to visit anywhere else, much less move to. He still lived in the house where he had been brought up, at least during the day, and now alone except for old Tick, his hound dog. And the Wood Rose Orphanage and Academy for Young Women, his place of employment, which is where he spent his nights for the past thirty odd years, was only a couple of miles up the road unless he moved to one of the bungalows. It wasn’t a decision he would quickly or easily make. There were considerations; in particular, old Tick.

  With these thoughts weighing heavily on his mind, just as he always did, Jimmy Bob slowly made the rounds in his old beat-up truck, starting with the outer perimeter along the ivy-covered stone walls surrounding the campus, and then gradually circling his way toward the middle of the large, wooded property until finally reaching the center where the administration building was located. Without fail, the entire process took him two hours and forty-three minutes except on those nights when his favorite team was playing on television—it didn’t matter which sport. Then he would only patrol around the dormitory and the administration building, which would take fifteen minutes.

  Since there had never been any reason to change this routine, the time he would leave his office to go on patrol was always the same: 12 midnight. And because Jimmy Bob was a bit of a poet, often spending his solitary nocturnal hours transferring his inner-most thoughts onto paper while others slept, he visualized himself as heroic, charged with the weighty responsibility of keeping all safe during those hours he referred to in meter and rhyme as “witches’ moments”—the magical time that occurs between late darkness and early light.

  The stone buildings that were familiar and functional in daylight now seemed unfamiliar and somewhat threatening in the bright illumination of the full blood moon high overhead; and everywhere dark, elongated shadows crisscrossed the lawn dampened by night-cooled air. The stillness was broken only by the rhythmic croaking of frogs from a nearby pond, an occasional splash, a mocking bird off in the distance, and the slight rustle of leaves.

  On this night, however, something was different and all wasn’t as it should be. There was a shadow he hadn’t seen before moving toward the truck, and it appeared to be a person holding a flashlight. Jimmy Bob slowed down, not feeling especially heroic, and stopped. He was relieved to see it was that nice Ms. Carolina Lovel.

  “Ms. Lovel, is everything awright?”

  “It is, Jimmy Bob, and I am sorry to interrupt your rounds. But I was wondering if you would like to read a few of your poems to my English class tomorrow. We are studying poetry, and I thought my students would be interested in hearing how you construct your poetry and maybe where you get some of your ideas.” At this point, Carolina was ready to try anything.

  Jimmy Bob was flattered. No one had ever asked him to read his poetry before. Carolina gave him the time and room number. And even though his normal schedule had been delayed by their brief conversation, it had only been delayed by a few minutes. At exactly two hours and forty-eight minutes after he started his rounds, he parked his truck and entered through the locked door of the administration building located on the east end.

  Within minutes he was comfortably reinstalled in his over-sized recliner positioned in front of the 12-inch television he kept in his small office. The minor league baseball game being televised by the local station in a delayed broadcast had once again gone into extra innings. But Jimmy Bob’s attention wasn’t on the game. Neither was it on the difficult decision facing him about moving from the home he had lived in all his life into one of the small, one-bedroom bungalows located within the stone walls of Wood Rose. Next to the recliner on a small table was a bag of cheese chips, a canned soft drink, and the pad of paper and pen he kept handy just in case he felt inspired to write something—a word, a phrase, a nice couplet. Ms. Lovel had always been so nice to him, unlike a lot of the other faculty. He opened the small book she had given to him on writing poetry. It was from that where he learned not all poems had to rhyme. There was something called free verse. He would write something special for Ms. Lovel’s English class.

  All was as it should be.

  Chapter Twelve

  That following Monday brought more excitement than usual to the campus of MIT and to Mackenzie in particular. Senator Xing-Ling Yi from Hawaii would be addressing some of the graduate students on the topic of Hawaii’s role in national and international politics, but this would
come after her private meeting with Mackenzie, and before the faculty luncheon that had been planned by the board of trustees for their guest of honor, to which Mackenzie was also invited. Still unsure as to the reason the Senator had requested a meeting with her, Mackenzie struggled over what to wear. She called Carolina, Dara, and Jennifer to get their advice.

  “Just dress comfortably,” Dara said. “Jeans and a t-shirt.”

  “Or you could wear that pink ruffled blouse you got in New York with jeans,” suggested Jennifer.

  “What do you think, Carolina?” This came from both Dara and Jennifer.

  “I think you ought to wear the blue dress you wore to Jennifer’s performance of The Gypsy Cadence at Carnegie Hall. You really look nice in it,” Carolina added, knowing Mackenzie was feeling less than confident. After all, who wouldn’t—being asked to meet with a senator?

  “Yeah,” agreed both Dara and Jennifer. “Especially since you will be having lunch afterwards with the faculty and trustees. That will be perfect, Mackenzie.”

  So it was decided; the first Monday morning hurdle had been jumped. The next hurdle was to make sure she arrived at President Hershell’s office by no later than 8 o’clock. From there she would be taken to a private room where she and the Senator could “discuss matters.” Mackenzie was so excited she didn’t even take time to eat breakfast. Instead, as soon as she dressed, she immediately went to the administration building to wait outside Dr. Hershell’s office. Most of the staff hadn’t even shown up yet, but it didn’t matter. Mackenzie had her small computer with her, and she kept herself busy punching in numbers and equations, manipulating complex formulae, and searching for answers. She hadn’t heard anything from Larry, and she wondered if he had been able to find out anything yet about her birth parents. Without even being conscious of it happening, she began to play the “What if?” game. What if it was something horrible? What if there was nothing to find out? What if she would never know—anything?