The Spirit Rose Read online

  “What does her name mean?” Cousin Ophelia asked her.

  “It is a name for the moon.”

  “And your own?”

  “That means, ‘from the beautiful place’.”

  The adults stood talking for a few minutes, then dispersed, the Travers family to do their prints, Cousin Ophelia to visit the museum, and the others to get Dane’s glasses fixed.

  “If Grantie and Sebastian Travers were first cousins, what kind of cousin is she to those guys?” Paige asked as they got into the Taisleys’ estate car.

  “Third, fourth, and fifth,” said Jack. “I had a look at the chart Uncle Trevor made. That connection he told Cousin Ophelia about makes you and Dane Grantie’s eleventh cousins as well as her great-great-great niece and nephew. It also makes you, not just my first cousins, but some type of distant cousin, too. I couldn’t quite figure out the degree. I’ll have to ask Uncle Trevor. It’s a bit confusing.”

  “Even for a genius?” jeered Paige.

  “Don’t start that again,” Mr. Marchand warned.

  “Just teasing, Dad. Say, does all that Wolverton-Belrose-Marchand stuff mean you’re our cousin as well as our father?”

  “Uh, I don’t know. Maybe.” He grinned. “Weird, huh? I figured there’d be a few relatives at Grantie’s party I hadn’t heard tell of before. I just wasn’t expecting to be one of them.”

  Chapter Five

  The next three days brought a number of relatives to the Windsor area. Among them were Uncle Trevor sons, who came down from York by train to join their parents at Uncle Edmond’s house, and Uncle Edmond and Granddad’s older sister Meredith and her family. They came in by train as well, as there were a lot of them and it seemed more practical than driving down from Scotland in separate cars. Granddad’s house was large enough to take in some of the clan, and his mother happily welcomed Aunt Meredith and Uncle Ewan to her small cottage. Surplus Scots, along with relatives from Ireland, Wales, and Continental Europe, were either put up in hotels or shared amongst kinsmen who were not already playing host to people from their own branch of the family.

  Several of the out-of-town guests paid pre-party calls on the Taisleys. Impatient to get at the book they had found, Paige, Dane, and Jack were not as receptive to the constant stream of visitors as they might otherwise have been. When one adult-only group arrived, they excused themselves and went up to Jack’s room.

  “I’m bored,” said Paige. “Let’s take a time trip. It’ll break the monotony and maybe give us a chance to help out some kids again.”

  “A time trip? To what era?” Dane asked her. “When we’ve gone before, we’ve connected to periods that had something to do with one of Dad’s documentaries and had period costumes on. We’re not doing anything historical right now.”

  “We might not have to be. We might just have to think about a certain era. Our clothes wouldn’t look too out of place if we just went back a few decades, like to the sixties or seventies. I’d kind of like to see the times our parents grew up in.”

  “Okay.”

  Dane fished the medallion out from under his shirt and the three of them joined hands while he recited the connecting rhyme.

  “Ancient portal, hear this plea,

  Open for thy golden key.

  Feel its power.

  Know its might.

  Put the mists of time to flight!”

  The mist and sparks that usually appeared as the rhyme was being said did not appear, and they did not find themselves in the 1960s, 1970s, or any era other than their own.

  “There mustn’t have been any kids with Keeper Pieces around here in the not-so distant past,” Jack said as they let go of each other’s hands. “Oh, well, we should know by now that the medallion only takes us where it wants us to go.”

  “It does have several idiosyncrasies,” Paige agreed. “That book of Rosalina’s might explain some of them. I’d sure like to get at it.”

  They did not get a chance to do so until the day before the party. Right after lunch, Aunt Augusta and Uncle Gareth took the Taisleys’ small car to Maidenhead for some sort of meeting, leaving the Marchands to do all the last-minute party errands in the estate car.

  “This isn’t shaping up to be much of an afternoon, Mum,” Paige complained to her mother. “We’ll either have to stay here, with nothing to do, or sit in the car with nothing to do.”

  “No help for it, I’m afraid,” said Mrs. Marchand. “I’d land you on your grandparents, but Granny’s at the hairdresser’s getting poshed up for tomorrow, and Granddad’s gone over to Rosebank to keep Grantie company.”

  “He has?” Paige shot a meaningful look at the boys. “Well, then, how about we go over there?”

  “We don’t really have time to drop you off.”

  “You could drop us at Uncle Edmond’s. I expect he’d take us. Can I call and ask?”

  Mrs. Marchand nodded.

  Uncle Edmond was not only agreeable, but eager. And not just because he wanted to know what the children had found. A few minutes earlier, he had had a call from Malcolm Marsden asking if he could bring his son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren over for a visit.

  “I couldn’t very well refuse,” he told the children when they got to his house and found him helping Aunt Norah raise breakable objects to higher elevations. “Poor chap was desperate. Said his lady wife and the Travers clan can’t take much more of his heir’s heirs, and he has to get them out of the house for a while. We’ll have to stay long enough to say hello, but I’ve already rung back to say I’d forgotten the four of us had a prior engagement so, after that, we can be off. Don’t try calling Bradley or Alexis ‘cousin’ by the way. Their own urchins call them by their first names because, according to Alexis, ‘titles place adults in an unwarranted position of superiority, and inhibit positive interaction’. Did I get that right, dear?”

  “Close enough,” said Aunt Norah. “And you are not just staying to say hello. You are staying until Trevor and Max get back to help me contend with the imps of hell.”

  “They walked into town with the boys earlier,” Uncle Edmond explained. “Should be back soon. Unless they recognize Malcolm’s car and, discerning its probable occupants, turn around and go back the way they came.”

  “They’d better not,” Aunt Norah retorted. “The more eyes on those two little hellions the better. You have no right to be ducking out either, Edmond.”

  “Have to. Grantie’s expecting us.”

  “I take it these kids are a bit bratty,” said Paige. “Are they ADHD, like a couple of kids in my class back home, or have some other condition that causes behaviour issues?”

  “No,” Uncle Edmond replied, “they are merely the out-of-control products of idiotic parents. And ‘a bit bratty’ doesn’t begin to cover it.”

  Uncle Trevor and his family got back at exactly the same time the visitors arrived and were unable to beat a hasty retreat. As soon as the two preschoolers were released from their car seats, four-year-old Nolan and two-and-a-half-year-old Cadence shot through the gate and made straight for Hepzibah (less formerly known as Zibby), a fluffy grey and white cat curled up on a sunlit patch of crazy paving.

  Though it had been several months since their last visit, Zibby remembered them well. Springing to her feet, she dashed toward the house, where twenty-one-year-old Christopher Hollingsworth scooped her up and, stretching to his full height, put her on the roof of the portico over the front door. From this point of safety the cat emitted a long, and forceful, hiss.

  “She’s old, and rather bad-tempered,” Chris explained, before the dark-haired young woman moving towards him could remonstrate about the removal of her darlings’ potential plaything. “I didn’t want them to get scratched.”

  “I did,” muttered his nineteen-year-old brother Adrian, but not loud enough for Alexis to hear as she came to a stop beside her children.

  “Let’s go inside, loveys. I’m sure Auntie Norah’s got toys, or sweets, or something in there for you.�
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  “No, no, no!” screamed Nolan. “I want the pussy-cat. I want it now.”

  “But it might hurt you, No-No,” she said, employing what might have started out as a pet form of his own name, but now more accurately reflected his favourite word.

  “I’ll hurt it,” Nolan declared. “I’ll do this.”

  He kicked his mother on the shin.

  Uncle Edmond’s jaw tightened. “Time for us to go, I think,” he said to Paige and the boys.

  Appalled, they edged past Alexis who, wincing with pain, had knelt down and was looking solemnly into Nolan’s angry face.

  “Oh, No-No,” she said mournfully. “I understand how frustrated you must be, but it makes Alexis very, very sad when you kick her.”

  “Not as sad as I would have been if I’d ever kicked my mum,” Jack said as they got in the car.

  “Likewise,” said Paige. “Ours would have knocked us into the middle of next week.”

  Uncle Edmond’s family gave him black looks as he started the car. Unrepentant, he gave them a cheery wave and headed for Rosebank. Before long, the three current medallion users and the three former medallion users were all in Grantie Etta’s sitting room, the children on the sofa as usual, and the adults in armchairs.

  “Not out, or indisposed, or wandering in your mind today then, Grantie?” Uncle Edmond asked with a twinkle in his eye.

  “Only to certain people.” She smiled triumphantly. “Despite innumerable telephone calls, and three actual invasion attempts, my domicile is still a Wolverton-Herne free zone. The last attempt to scale the walls came around eleven this morning. I hid in the library while Lydia told them I was resting and couldn’t be disturbed all day because I had to conserve my strength for tomorrow’s festivities. She employed the autocratic, no-nonsense tone that used to quell nurses and doctors alike back when she was a hospital matron. Eventually, they went away.”

  “Feeling, no doubt, most disgruntled.” Uncle Edmond raised inquiring eyebrows towards the children. “Well, now that the coast is clear, and we’ve finally managed to reassemble, do you three really have something to show us, or were you just trying to shirk your party duties for as long as possible a few days back?”

  “Oh, we’ve got something,” said Dane. “Remember that children’s story Grantie said her aunt wrote? We found it.”

  Grantie Etta leaned forward. “You did? Where?”

  “In a trunk that should have been in with your Victorian things but somehow got in with your Regency things,” Jack replied.

  “I’ll go get it,” said Paige, heading into the kitchen for the keys.

  Though not as fast on her feet as her brother, Paige could move quickly when she wanted to. She was soon back, waving the book aloft.

  “Careful with that,” Granddad admonished. “It’s old, and probably fragile.”

  “Doesn’t seem to be. It’s got really good binding.”

  “Yes, it does,” he admitted after she passed it to him. “In fact, it’s good quality all round. Must have cost a packet. How many copies did Rosalina have made, Grantie?”

  “I’m not sure. When I asked her about it she said there was just one, and it was lost again. I never knew if that meant there was only one, or whether there was only one left because the others had all been bestowed on friends and family. She was a flighty, middle-aged spinster by that time. Conversations with her tended to be a bit erratic.”

  “Lost again?” queried Uncle Edmond.

  “I wasn’t sure what that meant, either, unless it was a reference to the original manuscript going missing for a while. I know it did because, in later years, I came across a letter her sister, Sarra, had written to my father rejoicing over its recovery. I wanted to press Aunt Rosalina for more details, but Aunt Sarra wouldn’t let me. Told me it might upset her. A series of illnesses she’d had as a young woman left her easily upset. No one ever said, but I suspect they were probably breakdowns of some kind. Such things weren’t talked about in those days.”

  After she and Uncle Edmond had both examined the book, Grantie Etta handed it back to Paige. “Since we’re all here, why don’t you read it out to us, Paige, and save everyone doing so in turn?”

  Paige went back to the sofa and settled between Dane and Jack. Passing over the title page, she showed them the book’s only illustration, a glossy, full page, colour plate typical of the times. In it, a small, golden haired boy held a pot containing a rose tree. A dark haired older boy was on one side of him, and a dark haired girl on the other, all three dressed in the upper class Victorian manner.

  Turning to the story itself, Paige began. “‘Hello, children. I know not why, or how, the dream which inspired the story you are about to read happened to come to me. I know only that I felt compelled to write it down after perusing, for perhaps the hundredth time, the contents of what Great-Aunt Aurea-Rose called her Little Box of Rhymes and Reasons. Though I did not know my great-aunt, I feel she must have been a very clever woman, for her writings contain much wisdom. One dictum I found in the box was If of helpful thoughts aware, ye are honour-bound to share.

  ‘Well, that’s practically a command, isn’t it children? And as I’m sure you know, it is very important to obey the commands of your elders. Here, then, is my dream-story.’” Paige looked up, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “Is she going to talk like this the whole way through?”

  “Probably,” said Grantie Etta. “She was a Victorian. They believed in encouraging virtue, especially in children. Your generation might find it nauseating, but it’s typical of the literature inflicted on the young back then. There was still quite a lot of it around in my day.”

  “And even, to some extent, ours,” said Uncle Edmond with a nod to Granddad.

  Paige turned back to the book. “The next bit’s a rhyme —

  ‘From the land of holy mount

  Comes a tale I must recount.

  A tale with, as yet, no end.

  As others must to that attend.

  For the final stage cannot arrive

  ’Til generations five remain alive,

  And all towards the climax strive.’”

  “‘Land of holy mount’,” Uncle Edmond repeated. “That makes for an auspicious start. The Keeper Pieces are said to have originated in Armenia.”

  “Does Armenia have a holy mount?” Dane asked.

  “Yes. Mount Ararat, where Noah’s ark is supposed to have fetched up, although there’s no real proof the ancient wooden structure discovered there actually is that famed vessel.”

  “I thought Mount Ararat was in Turkey.”

  “It is, now. Up until the Armenian genocide of nineteen-fifteen, it was in Armenia. The discovery of the ark is—”

  “Currently not of interest to us,” Granddad interjected, afraid his brother might get carried away with the subject. “Right now we should be listening to Rosalina’s story.”

  Paige agreed. “Yeah, and I should probably read it straight through, without interruption, so we can get the full effect. It starts with ‘Once upon a time, there was a beautiful garden. In the middle of this garden was a magnificent rose tree. It had stood there through many, many seasons, drawing in a balance of sun and rain so that everything there might grow as it should. The garden had many admirers, but its greatest admirer was a handsome young boy who spent much of his time there. This boy was not just handsome. He was brave, and steadfast, and loyal, and good, and did his best to grow straight and tall, like the old rose tree.’” Breaking her own decree, Paige stopped reading and put the book down on her lap. “This is drivel.”

  “Drivel or not, you have to read it,” said Dane. “It’s about Varteni. It has to be. It’s about a rose tree, and I’m sure that’ll turn out to just be a symbolic way of describing Varteni. The name Varteni means ‘rose tree’. Medallions users have been trying to find her for generations, and this could really help us. We can’t pass on it just because the writing’s sappy.”

  “I don’t think I can stomach it.”<
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  “Well, I can. Give it here.”

  Paige surrendered the book. “Be my guest.”

  “I’ll start again,” Dane said with a grin. “So you get the full effect.”

  Chapter Six

  “‘Once upon a time, there was a beautiful garden. In the middle of this garden was a magnificent rose tree. It had stood there through many, many seasons, drawing in a balance of sun and rain so that everything there might grow as it should.

  ‘The garden had many admirers, but its greatest admirer was a handsome young boy who spent much of his time there. This boy was not just handsome. He was brave, and steadfast, and loyal, and good, and did his best to grow straight and tall, like the old rose tree.

  ‘They boy loved the aged tree. He believed it to be very special, and he was quite right! This rose tree had been dubbed the Keeper of Time, and its roots were embedded in Time itself. All the paths in the garden led out from it and, eventually, led back. Any who lost their way were guided by a majestic golden eagle that loved to perch at the top of the old tree.

  ‘A few years after the boy came to the garden, the old tree’s branches began to bow down. Its leaves began to fall, and it creaked in the wind. It was time for a younger, more vibrant, tree to take its place. But which one? Knowing the eagle to be a wise and true friend, it sought the bird’s counsel. The eagle flew all around, considering possibilities. Finally, it returned, and began to circle a young rose tree growing quite close to the old tree. Descending, it perched upon the shoulder of the boy, now more of a youth, who was standing beside it, and shook two feathers from its tail. The youth hesitated for a moment, but then picked the feathers from the ground and placed them in the bird’s beak. Taking flight once more, the eagle dropped one by the little rose tree, and the other by the old. Content with the eagle’s decision, the old rose tree rustled its branches.

  ‘The old tree then began to impart all the knowledge it wished to pass on, and allowed the chosen to draw from its power.