The Clock Flower (THE FIG MYSTERIES Book 3) Read online

  It quickly became apparent that she had exceptional mathematical skills, and when she turned seven, it was recommended that she be transferred from the only home she had ever known to Wood Rose Orphanage and Academy for Young Women in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she could receive more personalized and advanced instruction. It was there that another seven-year-old child with exceptional abilities had recently been admitted. Dara Roux, Mackenzie soon learned, was the “other” gifted orphan, and she had the unique gift of understanding foreign and obscure, as well as obsolete, languages.

  The two became inseparable, each sensing the other’s needs as only one with brilliance could. However, Mackenzie’s old fear of failure was replaced by a new fear when the two girls turned nine years old, the age when the possibility for adoption drops by 85 percent. This was the fear of always being an outsider and not fitting in, even with the other girls at Wood Rose who also had not been chosen to live with a forever family. Dara wasn’t afraid of anything, and when she learned of Mackenzie’s new fear, she was quick to console her. “Anyway, who wants to be put in a family with all those rules?” reasoned Dara. “You wouldn’t be able to do anything—not like we can here.”

  Of course, Mackenzie had already calculated that being one kid out of thirty-eight under the watchful eyes of ten Wood Rose faculty members and twenty-five members of the staff and administration didn’t increase the odds in her favor that much of being able to do whatever she wanted. But, as the years passed, and with Dara as her best friend always there to guide her and offer advice, this fear diminished, and her lisp only became noticeable in situations that caused extreme anxiety.

  With the arrival of Jennifer Torres a few years later, a volatile, unpredictable sixteen-year-old with exceptional talent in music and art whose parents had been killed in a tragic automobile accident, the strong union between Mackenzie and Dara was stretched to include this strange girl who was either poised for battle or locked away in her own silent world of musical notes strewn across eight-stave paper and art canvasses painted in oils and acrylics by the strokes of her brush, usually created in the middle of the night.

  It had been only Dara and Mackenzie for so long. But even as different and sometimes difficult as Jennifer was, they could each relate to the other; after all, they were all experiencing the same thing. They shared the common goal of trying to survive in an environment where they were considered odd and different, because they were. They knew what it was like to try to communicate on a level where others would understand, but not succeed. To want desperately to be like everyone else, but knowing that was impossible—because they weren’t. And deep down wanting to be included, but feeling resentful because they never were—even though, as Dara often reminded them, what difference did it make? Jennifer immediately fit in as a FIG. Therefore, within a short time, Jennifer also became Mackenzie’s and Dara’s friend.

  It was the summer just before their final year at Wood Rose that Carolina Lovel was hired to mentor these three Females of Intellectual Genius. “Keep them on a short leash!” Headmaster Thurgood Harcourt had instructed Carolina, upset because the FIGs had managed in the middle of the night to prune his prized, massive Photinia frasen into a perfect phallic symbol. Peni erecti, the FIGs named the red-tipped bush, proud of their creative expression. “It was too overgrown—it needed a good pruning,” Dara had explained when Carolina asked about it.

  Of course, that was only the latest in a long list of creative expressions they had inflicted on Wood Rose, Carolina soon discovered. The scope and imagination of which she personally found awe-inspiring and utterly amazing, but which kept the other Wood Rose residents in a state of turmoil and confusion, and placed terror into the hearts of faculty and staff alike.

  Even though Carolina wasn’t a genius, she was smart, caring, and broad-minded when it came to “her girls,” as she affectionately called them—and especially forgiving when they caused disturbances, interruptions, and distractions on the Wood Rose campus. She understood what it felt like to be different and needing to be intellectually challenged and stimulated; therefore, the FIGs loved her and accepted her. After all, she was now one of them.

  Carolina had been adopted at the age of three, something she didn’t learn until her eighteenth birthday when she was given a small wooden box containing her birth certificate and other papers relating to her adoption: a gypsy parik-til that her birth mother had made to protect her and bring her good fortune, and a letter written in a script that was unrecognizable and didn’t seem to fit any known language.

  It was shortly after the discovery of their nocturnal creation of Peni erecti, just a few weeks before they were to graduate from Wood Rose, that she revealed her story to the FIGs and invited them to go with her to Italy. Not only would that remove them from the crosshairs of the headmaster’s anger and prevent them from performing any other creative expressions on campus before graduation, with their unique abilities perhaps they could help her find out the meaning of the secret letter she had inherited that resembled the most mysterious document in the world—the Voynich Manuscript.

  It was while they were in Italy that she learned her biological parents were gypsies, and her mother was a choovihni, a wise woman who possessed the knowledge of all things through all times. She was of the Kaulo Camio tribe; the “Black Gypsies,” the darkest of all tribes. That meant that Carolina was a Black Gypsy as well, even though she had light brown hair, green eyes, and a fair complexion. “It happens sometimes,” Signora De Rossa—Lucia, the nice lady at the adoption agency in Frascati, had told her.

  Sharing in Carolina’s discovery that she had the blood of gypsies from the beginning of time running through her veins and actually helping her learn the truth about her past was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to Mackenzie. That and staying with Mother and Papa Granchelli on their farm and becoming friends with Alfonso, the rector’s young assistant, at the Villa Mondragone where they researched Carolina’s mysterious paper. Dara had called Alfonso a “hottie,” and because she knew foreign languages, told Mackenzie that his name was derived from Visigothic Adalfuns, “and it means noble,” she said, “and ready,” cocking one eyebrow, making Carolina and the three FIGs burst into a fit of giggles.

  With Carolina there to support them, understand their needs and insecurities, and love them for who they were, for the first time in her life Mackenzie actually knew what happiness felt like. The shadow of self-consciousness that had always been her constant companion was somehow weakened. Unspoken dreams suddenly became real possibilities under Carolina’s gentle and loving tutelage and guidance, and she began to visualize her future filled with great achievement and success once she left Wood Rose.

  But now, flying in the plane that would take her to a new home, she was once again afraid. Afraid of the new and different, and leaving the familiar behind. Good-bye, Wood Rose. How would she be able to get along without Dara and Jennifer and Carolina? Good-bye, best friends. She glanced at Dara and Jennifer seated next to her, but didn’t dare speak. Her lisp would be too pronounced, and they would have a difficult time understanding her. Besides, being Females of Intellectual Genius, they already knew how she felt anyway, because they probably felt the same way.

  Now that she had graduated from Wood Rose Orphanage and Academy for Young Women, Mackenzie was moving to Boston, Massachusetts, where much to her surprise she had been invited to join the new in-coming freshman class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and because of her advanced ability in problem-solving when it pertained to numbers—her genius—she would be invited to take part in a special research project. “We are confident you will contribute a great deal,” her acceptance letter from the President of MIT stated. The letter had not revealed what the “special research project” was, however. “What an honor!” Carolina exclaimed when Mackenzie showed her the letter. Then, sensing Mackenzie didn’t share her excitement because of her feelings of insecurity, she added, “They will love you, and you will
love being there!”

  “They” was a student body that could populate a small city, and “there” was simply overwhelming by its sheer size. Wood Rose, as far as Mackenzie was concerned, was her home—certainly since she was seven years old, because she only remembered a few things about the orphanage in upstate New York where she first had been taken as an infant; and strangely enough, those vague memories were usually triggered by the sweet fragrance of a lotus flower. Her only friends were Dara and Jennifer, and, of course, Carolina. Together, they were Carolina and the three FIGs. Not separate. They were like a family—an odd little family—but a family nonetheless.

  But now that was all changing, for Dara and Jennifer were also leaving Wood Rose, “scattering like dandelion seeds in the wind,” Carolina had said trying to bring levity to the situation; but, also, it was as though she has some inherent knowledge of what was to come.

  Dara had a full scholarship to attend Yale University where she would continue her studies in foreign languages and explore other areas in global affairs, especially with regard to China. And Jennifer would attend Juilliard where she could continue her studies in music and art when she wasn’t exhibiting her paintings or performing her musical compositions either nationally or internationally.

  Carolina would remain at Wood Rose, teaching other students who were orphans residing there, “but it just won’t be the same without you,” she told them. Before leaving, she gave each of them a smart phone, something that hadn’t been allowed on the Wood Rose campus while they were student-residents there, “so we can always stay in touch with each other no matter what—and no matter when,” she added, keeping in mind their need for creative expressions during the “witches’ moments,” as Jimmy Bob Doake, the night watchman at Wood Rose, called it—that magical time that occurs between late darkness and early light.

  Mackenzie felt for her new phone that she had attached next to the apparatus that held her small computer on the waistband of her jeans. At that moment all three phones vibrated. It was a text message from Carolina: “Don’t forget—see you in 108 days!” As though each girl was thinking the same thing, all three leaned forward to peer out the window toward the terminal. Even though they couldn’t see her, they knew she was still there, holding up the sign she had made to remind them they would all be together again for their winter break. For that was what they had agreed to do: they would return to Wood Rose the first week in December when classes let out.

  In the meantime, they would think about what they would like to do during those weeks they had off and where they would like to go. Jennifer had been invited back to Carnegie Hall for a special performance of her fugue in B flat minor, The Wish Rider. It was the musical composition she had written when they were searching for Dara’s mother. But afterwards they could go back to Italy, Jennifer had suggested, and stay with Mother and Papa Granchelli on their farm. It was where they had stayed when they were researching the meaning of Carolina’s strange letter and discovered her mother living with a band of gypsies camped close by.

  Or they could return to New York City, was Dara’s contribution, and stay with Mrs. Killebrew at her boarding house. That was where they were staying when Dara found her mother living underground, beneath the trains at Grand Central Terminal with three homeless men.

  Mackenzie told them her idea last—that maybe they could go somewhere different, for she had been thinking of something she hadn’t been able to discuss with her best friends—not yet. It would depend on what Larry was able to find out. That, and what the numbers revealed.

  Mackenzie fluffed her short brown hair, raised her seat to its full upright position, and removed from her waistband the small computer she carried with her everywhere. Once again she worked the numbers she had assigned to her idea, creating the corresponding formulae and equations and even a special chart using the Talagrand concentration inequality theory. Working with numbers was how she solved the problems she faced in life. It was what made her a genius. Good-bye, Wood Rose. Good-bye, Carolina.

  Chapter Four

  Dara Roux sat with her feet planted firmly, right eyebrow raised, frowning at the back of the seat in front of her. She had always known this day would eventually arrive, but she just didn’t know if she was prepared for it. For the first time in her life, she didn’t feel confident. As always when she felt overwhelmed by events unfolding in her life, or faced an especially challenging situation, or her feelings became too heavy—a bit too serious, she turned her thoughts to foreign or obscure or even obsolete languages. It was her private world—her private language. It was this extraordinary ability that made her a genius, and this is what she did now.

  When the four of them—Carolina and the FIGs—had been underground at Grand Central Terminal in New York City searching for her mother, she had noticed some unusual markings on the stone walls. At the time, she had been trying to break free from the three homeless men who had literally kidnapped her, not realizing they were trying to take her to her mother; so she hadn’t paid that much attention to what appeared to be at first glance incomplete, capricious childish scribbles. Besides that, it was so dark she could barely see. And then finding her mother and learning that she lived in an old train car with those three men, along with everything that happened after that, she had simply forgotten about them until now.

  Many of the markings seemed to be drawings, some larger with better detail, and there were also symbols—like hieroglyphics. She was surprised at how many of the markings she remembered, even as damaged by moisture and time as they were. By identifying and comparing the dominant drawings and symbols, establishing the root or similarities of each one, and assigning it a certain “weight” or number, she could then figure out its origin. From that, it was just a short step to recognizing its meaning. It was her own system that no one else knew or could understand, something she taught herself as a young African-American child living with her mother in a rusted out trailer in the back-bay area of Richmond, Virginia.

  From the age of two, Dara could speak and write seven languages, including the ancient language of Sanskrit; and she had an understanding of the characters from several obsolete Chinese dialects as well as Egyptian hieroglyphics. Now, as an eighteen year old and a new graduate of Wood Rose Orphanage and Academy for Young Women, that list had grown to fifty-seven languages and a smattering of the unusual such as the Dead Sea Scrolls and Geechee, a distinctive language spoken by the descendants of enslaved Africans living in the low country region of South Carolina and Georgia.

  Dara reached into her carry-on bag that was identical to Mackenzie’s and Jennifer’s—another gift from Carolina—and pulled out a small computer pad with the stylus. In a few minutes she had drawn several of the markings she remembered seeing. They were very similar to the complex system of Hoboglyphs, a secret language of symbols and codes—pictographs—used by transients in the 19th century. To help each other out, these vagabonds had developed their own secret language to direct other hobos to food, water, or work—or away from dangerous situations. The “Hobo Code,” as it was called, helped add a small element of safety in what was a difficult and dangerous life when these homeless drifters traveled to new places. What looked like little more than indiscriminate or random markings to everyone else, the code featured certain elements that appeared in more than one symbol, such as the circles and arrows that made up certain directions. Hash marks or crossed lines usually meant danger in some form. And they were almost always written with white chalk or black coal.

  The markings Dara remembered seeing, however, on the stone walls deep beneath the Grand Central Terminal, and beneath the actual tracks and trains that ran on them, were different—older somehow. And even though it had been dark, she noticed that many of the markings were in color. Nature’s colors of red, purple, green, and yellow, made from bloodroot, mollusk secretions, algae, and lichens.

  Dara knew several Native American languages. And being familiar with those languages, she knew the importance
of art to the Native Americans and the part it played in their existence throughout time. The many shapes and geometric designs became representative symbols that transcended language barriers between different tribes and became a language within itself that was used for thousands of years.

  In particular, it was the Southwestern Indians who seemed to align their existence to American cities and especially railroad lines, remaining in the same area for generations. Their art was a visible history of their existence—which was in the southwest, however, and not New York City.

  Dara looked at the drawings she had created. There were a few similarities to the art work of the Southwestern Indians, but not enough to say the drawings were made by them. The values and weights she placed on them didn’t translate into any of the Native American languages she knew. Oddly enough, they more closely resembled some of the ancient Asian writings she was familiar with.

  Dara, after saving her drawings, put her pad and stylus away and let her thoughts turn to her mother, seeing her for the first time in ten years standing on the back platform of that old red train car with the bright yellow Number 61 painted on its side. Even though she was only seven when her mother abandoned her, she would have recognized her anywhere with her beautiful red-painted mouth. Then, just as quickly as she found her, she had once again disappeared. “Stay smart,” was the last thing her mother had told her, “and remember, you will always be my ‘pretty girl.’”

  Dara wondered where her mother and the three homeless men she called her friends were. “We take care of one another,” her mother had explained, which is what Carolina and the three FIGs did—they took care of one another. At least they had when they were living at Wood Rose. Now she would be living in New Haven, Connecticut, and attending Yale University. Everything would be so different.

  Dara had always thought of herself as unlikeable and hard to get along with, mainly because everyone thought of her as being so intimidating. Taller than the other girls her age, big-boned with broad shoulders, and outspoken with a tendency toward profanity; she had never been able to make new friends easily, probably because she had never wanted any—at least not until Mackenzie came to Wood Rose. And then, a few years later, Jennifer. But it was Carolina who seemed to bring balance to the three of them, making them feel normal when they knew they weren’t. She brought out the best in them. They were Carolina and the FIGs. It was like they were one, not individuals.