It was a lovely morning and the air was fragrant with gentle scents of summer and redolent with birdsong. Yet in my eyes there was the look of melancholy and I'm sure my brow was furrowed. How could it not? And the mouth was more than a little peevish, if peevish is the word I want; I've never looked it up but I'm pretty sure it means sullen, morose, or petulant. Those who know me best will be thinking that this is all exceedingly strange for in the early hours of morning, I am normally announcing larks and snails and thrones.
The Genome is a master of fierce qigong and, as such, nothing has the power to touch him. Even the Princess Amy, that moody little drama critic of the limbic system, can only do it occasionally. Yet I was sad and, not to make a mystery of it any longer, the reason for this sorrow is the fact that I have recenlty lost a gazelle, as the poet said. But then if you follow these missives, you know all about Native Grounds and the dark happenings in that hallowed space.
I was keenly aware of the sunshine pouring down on the gardens, and I yearned to pop out and potter among the flowers but no man, pop he never so wisely, can hope to potter with good effect if he is separated from his pals at the caffeine den.
"Morning," I said for something moved behind me like a galleon under full sail and I turned to see Ms. Wonder, daughter of the Volga, shimmer up beside me. She peered down into the camelias searching, I'm sure, for the feral Siamese kittens that breakfast there. I was not looking for kittens. Kittens have a much different appeal for the man who gets up at 5:30 in the morning to feed them.
My eyes continued to roam the lawns, gardens and messuages that were singularly beautiful in the unexpected morning sunshine. Chadsford Hall stands on a knoll of rising ground at the norhern end of Chadsfordshire. Away to the west, wooded berms and swales cradle the duck pond that lays gleaming like a polished mirror, while up from the water, rolling park land dotted with crepe myrtle, surges in a green wave breaking upon the cypress alee before sloping, gently, down to the provence of Fred, the Dutch gardener who maintains all the grounds that border Chadsford Estate.
The day being mid-summer's day, it's almost the high-tide of summer flowers, the immediate neighborhood is ablaze with roses, day lilies, black-eyed susans, blue-eyed grass, southern magnolia and a multitude of other blooms that only Fred could have named.
Something beside me flashed in the sun and I realized that Ms. Wonder was still beside me wearing the spectacles she uses only until locating her contact lenses. She looks very efficient in those glasses--professionally efficient. Seeing her at close range with the glamour of those sparkling lenses establishes, clearly and unambiguously, her credentials.
"What's wrong?" she said.
"Hmmm?" I said, requireing a moment to come to the surface. "Oh, you know, that Native Grounds thing."
"You've made the right decision," she said. "Everything will work out as it should. A solution will present itself."
"That's simply a kinder way of saying, 'Nothing to do about it. Get over it.'", I said.
"You may be right," she said. "But until you do find the solution, you might try having coffee at Dulce."
"What? Where?"
"You know, it used to be Deja Vu."
"Oh, I remember now. Nice place." She nodded. I wasn't looking at her but the lenses flashed in a vertical plane. "Lots of tables on two sides and a cafe bar in the window. You know how much I like sitting at a high table in the window. Great coffee as I remember and pastries, a breakfast and lunch menu and gelato. Yes, maybe I will wander there after qigong this morning."
"Remember," she said, "the American Tobacco Trail runs by there leading to the Woodcroft hiking trails. You could qigong on the trail."
"You can walk all the way downtown on that trail," I said, "right by the Bulls baseball park and DPAC."
"And the Woodcroft trail runs for miles. You may be able to talk the Secret Three into meeting you there each morning instead of Native Grounds."
"Poopsie?"
"Yes?"
"What size hat do you wear?"
"A six. Why?"
"I should have thought at least an eight. You should donate that brain of yours to science when you have no more need of it."
"Thank you," she said.
"Not at all."