Dark Plottings

I stood at the open bedroom, gazing out over the lawns and gardens. And if I drooped like a wet sock what of it? I am doing the best I can under the circumstances--as happy as a fluffy-minded man with excellent physical health and no income can be.

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."

Early Morning

The emotions of a man who has gone out onto the back lawn to feed the outside cats at the hour of 5:15 in the am, and then finds himself locked out are necessarily chaotic but on one point I was perfectly clear, that if I could not get Ms. Wonder's attention, I would have a lot of time on my hands. The morning seemed to stretch before me endlessly.

By way of getting through it, I began a tour of the grounds, taking care to keep away from the first-floor windows where any noise might awaken the Gin. Noises that occur outside visiting hours are considered by the Gin to be the calling card of burglars and any person or persons who chance to be the cause of the noise will come to regret it.

At length, I came to the spot in the garden below Wonder's bedroom window and I sat down among the roses to review my position and assess my chances of ever seeing the girl I love again. That Fate was up and about seeking those whom she may devour was made apparent in the next few minutes when Poopsie appeared in the window and immediately disappeared like something in a cuckoo clock. She had not seen the Genome. But the Genomes are quick thinkers, something I may have mentioned before, and I marked the spot where she appeared and went off in search of a ladder.

That my mind had turned to ladders will not be surprising to those familiar with the story of Romeo who would have done the same in my place. And if my father's analysis of Great-uncle Luther is correct, so would he have searched for ladders for he was a man who thought on his feet where the alternate sex was concerned. The first impulse of every lover on seeing the object of his adoration in an upper window is to climb up and join her. Simply natural.

One thing that can be placed on the credit side of the ledger for Chadsford Estates is that if you search for a ladder, you can generally find one and so I did. I found mine propped up against a tree where someone seemed to be doing some pruning. Had there been an innocent bystander, which there wasn't at this hour, the strength of my desire to be inside the house would have been most evident because, even though the ladder was no small burden, I made nothing of it. I might have been swinging an ivory-studded walking cane.

I placed the ladder against the wall and to shinny up the thing to Wonder's window was with me the work on an instant. Just as I was about to rap the secret code on the pane to bring her to my rescue, my attention was diverted by the sound of my next-door neighbor's voice. It gave me quite a start. Gabriel's horn would not stir me more. When I got my heart back in place, I descended the ladder and moved toward the sound of the squawking.

Truth, it is said, is stranger than fiction and today I readily admit to subscribing to the notion. Who would expect neighbors, no matter how close-by, to be pruning trees before 6:00 in the morning?

The Morning Beignet

Ever since he came to live with us as a kitten at 10 months of age, he's displayed a certain look that warns the bystander when he is about to do something totally unexpected and something to which he considers himself perfectly entitled. 

That's the word. This Beignet considers himself entitled. Probably my fault.

He wore that look this morning when I first woke, raised myself up in bed, and spotted him sitting outside the salle de bains. A barely audible "unnnh" escaped from somewhere in all that fur and he abruptly moved toward the bed, disappeared from view momentarily, and a split second later he was floating above the horizon as though his eighteen pounds were as a feather. 

Donovan might describe it like this: there was a cat; then there was no cat; then there was. He made a perfect landing on the bed in mid-stride and lost not a mite of momentum as he trod across my chest and finally came to rest just below my chin. 

In all this activity, he never lost that expression of his; the one that said, What? as if I was about to criticize his behavior.

"You can lie there," I said, "as long as you don't knead."

He began to knead. 

I wrapped my hand around his paws. He stopped the pushing but he continued to open and close his claws. I was happy that we'd recently clipped them.

"You're going to have to move after all," I said as I gently urged him to decant. He resisted and moved his tonnage ever closer to me. "Don't put your butt in my face," I said as he 180-ed around. I pushed his hips away before he could lie down.

"What?" he said looking back at me from about midships of my stomach. I gave his head a nubbin that said settle in, get comfy.

This ginger-backed boy with a powdered sugar undercarriage looked so much like the deep-fried breakfast pastries of New Orleans that there was never a question about what to name him. It seems only right that he should have a morning habit to keep company with his name.

Beignet is really the ideal cat. I'm sure he was the cat model that all others were based on. His excellent qualities have won him the title of "Cat of the Year" for six years running and he's making a strong showing again this year. If he's awarded the title once more, it will be a new record.

And there's no doubt in my mind that he will win that title this year and every year hereafter.

Twelfth Night

Sunday mornings empty of the usual expectations are such a gift. Normally I would have been suiting up to teach mindfulness at Straw Valley but on Sunday last I was relaxing in the cypress alee and enjoying something on ice in an amber-colored glass. When Ms. Wonder strolled out to the rose garden, I was enjoying the peace that passeth all understanding, you know the one I mean, it comes to those who have done absolutely nothing to deserve it.

Rose photo courtesy of Ms. Wonder

In a world so full of beautiful things where we should all be happy as kings, or queens, of course, I was surprised to see the Ekaterina wearing agitation on the facial map.

"Poopsie," I said, "has the Empress escaped?"

"No, not that." she said, "Uma is sleeping on your cashmere sweater in the hall closet."

"Thank, God," I said not sure whether capitalization was required but not wanting to take any chances. "What's the matter then?"

"It's the Cove," she said referring to that ancestral homeplace of the Genomes in the North Carolina Blue Ridge. "Gwyn is trying to get in touch with you. I didn't catch the specifics. She seems upset. But I did make out that it has something to do with Mr. Jones."

"Mr. Jaynes," I set the record straight, "and yes, she is upset, bless her, and no wonder. I'd be upset too if Jaynes was standing below my window every night."

"What?" she said. She seemed about to add something more but then, experiencing second thoughts, closed her eyes and shuddered.

"Yes," I said trying to convey understanding, "they work in mysterious ways their wonders to perform in Crystal Cove."

"Does he still imagine that he's followed by a door with a bogeyman hiding behind?" she said.

"No, he's past that. Asked his doctor to increase his lithium I believe."

"See," she said, "restores balance. Have you given the subject any more thought?"

I gave her a look, a kind of aloof, lazy eyelid look. "I assume you refer to lithium," I said.

"Precisely," she said.

"I have Fierce Qigong," I said with a goodish amount of topspin.

"Yes," she said and nothing more. I found myself becoming more than a little hotted up. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that I am powerful and that life is good.

"Forget lithium, Ekaterina," I said using the formal tense to let her know that I meant business.

She made a moue. I believe it's a moue. Isn't that when you push the lips out and then pull them back again?

"Put lithium out of mind. Banish it from your thoughts. All the Genome needs is mindfulness, qigong, a vegetarian diet, the twelve steps, heaping daily doses of friendship, and pots and pots of coffee."

"Of course," she said. "I spoke thoughtlessly."

"Recklessly," I said.

"Recklessly," she said.

Now, this was more the stuff for the troops I thought, and I gave it time to settle in, enough time for the breath to return to the normal rhythm. The mental pebble sank to the bottom of the pool and the turbulent thoughts, like ripples on the water, became still.

At length, I returned to the topic. "No, it isn't specters that plague Doyle Jaynes. It's his weakness for love."

"He's in love again," she said and well she should say it. This Doyle has a habit of falling in love with every second woman he meets. Consequently, new neural pathways are being constantly constructed in his brain to make him even more susceptible to the glamour of the next woman.

"Oh, he's in love again," I said, "and it's getting in the way of managing the fishing outfitter. In fact, he's gone bust in that department and Gwyn expects it's going to affect the reputation and revenue of Two Fly, which is the biggest business in the Cove. She's more concerned about the fishing business than the fact that she's the object of Doyle's devotion.

"What!", she said. "He's fallen for Gwyn? The poor fish. He'll soon wish he were being followed by boogeymen."

"I'm not so sure it will come to that. He spends all day lying around his apartment listening to love songs and stands in the garden underneath her window all night hoping to get a glimpse of her."

"That's stalking," she said.

"It's worse than that," I said, "it's insane and all it's going to get him is fired."

"Did you tell him that?"

"I did and he told me he'd got it worked out. He's hired some guy that he calls an assistant but who will actually run the outfitter for him."

"Does that mean that everything is calm now?"

"Calm? In the Cove. Do use your intelligence."

"So what is the problem now?" she said.

"Well, I spoke to Qwyn on the phone yesterday and she tells me that Doyle sent his assistant, let's call him Alan..."

"Is that his name?"

"Yes."

"Let's call him Alan then."

"Doyle sent Alan to deliver one of those love poems and to speak on Doyle's behalf because Gwyn has barred him from the Inn where she holds court. And it seems that when Gwyn saw this Alan, she decided that he was one to take home to Ma."

"She liked him?"

"He was one of the juiciest."

"She wanted him?"

"He was so eloquent in his pitch for Doyle's suit, that Gwyn began imagining him speaking for himself and she found it much to her liking. In fact, when he left to take Gwyn's rejection notice back to Doyle, Gwyn sent her brother, my other cousin Winston, with a ring saying that she couldn't accept it and that he should take it back to Doyle."

"Wait a second, I missed the part about Doyle sending a ring."

"No, you didn't. Doyle didn't send a ring. With her quick Genome-like mind, Gwyn came up with the ruse on the nonce. You see, the ring and the message to take it back would be recognized immediately by Alan as a sign of Gwyn's approval of Alan."

"It would?"

"Ms. Wonder," I said and I put just a little topspin on it to drive the implication home, have you not read Twelfth Night by W. Shakespeare?"

"Saw the movie," she said.

"Then you will remember the ring," I said.

"Sure," she said.

"You remember too what Alan was supposed to do with the ring. He was supposed to refuse it and send it back with Winston."

"Is that what happened?"

"Nothing is as it should be in the Cove. No, it seems this Alan hasn't read nor has he seen T. Night. He kept the ring."

"Disturbing," she said.

"I'll say. The ring didn't belong to Gwyn. It was the ring of office for Molly Mysinger, who is being inducted into the Circle of Three at the end of the month. Gwyn beside herself with anxiety. She's achieved low orbit and is about to go into first stage release. She wants me to ride back into the valley of death with the United States Marines and fix it."

"And are you?" she said.

"That hell hole?" I said. "I know I should come to her aid but how can I? As someone once said, 'The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.' Or something to that effect."

"Jesus Christ," she said.

"I know! That about sums up the way I feel about it too," I said.

Choose the Hawaiian Shirt

I stopped at the window where Uma was inspecting the day and saw that it was one of the best and brightest.

"Ms Wonder, you were right about the morning. One of the juiciest," I said.

"Absolutely," she replied.

"Spring and all that," I said.

"Yep," she said.

"I think I'll crawl into the Thai fisherman's pants and go to the Park for some pastoral dancing," I said heading for the clothes closet.

I don't know if you have the same feeling on those days around the beginning of April when the sky's a light blue, the clouds are cotton wool and the breeze blows lightly from the west. It's an uplifting feeling that makes you pause to reflect that life is good.

Well, if you do have that feeling, then take some advice from me. Be very, very careful because Fate is hiding in the bushes with plans to do you dirt. But let's stick to the subject and not be distracted by the skulduggery that is Fate. 

I slipped into the upholstery of a country qigong master and attired for the energetic arts, en plein air, if that's the phrase, I toddled back into the bedroom just in time for the first of those blasted text messages.

"Oh, no," I said when I'd read it. "Wonder, you remember Cousin Gwyn, who lives with Aunt Maggie in Crystal Cove."

"Oh sure," she said.

"You wouldn't speak in that light, carefree tone if you knew what's in the text. The curse has come upon me again, Poopsie. Gwyn tells me that Aunt Maggie wants me to stop by the ancestral home on the way to Chattanooga next week. My mother must have told her I was headed in that direction. I'd hoped to keep it secret."

To people who don't know the CSI version of the story, it is difficult to make clear why I avoid this X-marks-the-spot place in the North Carolina Blue Ridge. Most people know of it, if they know of it at all, as a primo outdoor recreational area. White-water rafting, trout fishing, music festivals, and all of this embowered, if that's the word, in the beautiful, balsam-fir high country. This is the surface-level glamour that most day-trippers encounter.

For the denizens and relatives like me, the Cove has a darker, murkier underbelly. The place is bursting with witches, druids, and shamans--pagans, the lot of them. Not that there's anything wrong with the Pagani, or whatever it was the Romans called them. Paganize until your eyes bubble, if that's what suits you, but I have a medical concern. 

You see the levels of background magic in a place where you can't bung a brick without hitting a magician, is so high that...well, let's just say that I'm allergic. The stuff clings to me like static. It builds to a critical mass and then, pop! there's a loud report in the vicinity of the Genome and bits of reality fill the air like confetti.

Give it a miss, I hear you thinking, but how the devil can I? This Mary Magdalene is my last surviving aunt and an aunt who had a lot of input into the Genome that I've become. When she issues a direct order, I must obey. I am a slave to duty in her regard.

"I wonder what she wants with me," I said.

"I couldn't say but I suggest that you wear your Hawaiian shirts while there," said The Wonder.


"Yes, good idea. I need to have as much joie de vivre as I can muster," I said. Ekaterina, pardon my using her formal name, continued with suggestions intended to fortify me against the ravages of magical tinkerings, such as morning meditation, qigong, walks in the sun, and other such well-intended rot until I couldn't take it any longer and tore myself away to inventory the manly outerwear of Hawaii.

"Excuse me," Ms Wonder said as I was carrying yet another shirt to the window for consideration. "You don't plan to take that shirt do you?"

"Of course, I'm going to wear it."

"I wouldn't advise it," she said.

"Why on earth not?" I said.

"The effect," she said, "it's loud to the extreme."

I turned to face her squarely. No one knows more than I the mastermind, this daughter of the Russian... whatever, never mind that now. It was I who was heading into the valley of the 600 and it was I who needed to gird the loins...what's that phrase, oh just forget it. You know what I mean. I wanted that shirt. Nothing else could buck me up like a red and yellow hibiscus on bold palm fronds.

"I need this shirt, Poopsie, nothing else in the arsenal has the same impact."

"Nevertheless," she said.

"Wonder," I said, "I am feeling low-spirited and I will need all the cheering I can get. My mind is made up." I raised myself to my full height and gazed down from lazy eyelids. I'm sure Napoleon would have done the same.

"Fine," she said but she meant nothing of the kind.

Upsetting, that's what it was. If there's one thing a fellow needs when he's facing the firing squad, it's the support of the family. And I was feeling somewhat adrift, or abandoned, or what is it? Oh, yeah, I was feeling more or less that nobody loved me.

Having nothing to gain from hiding the facts, I put my feelings on the line. I explained that although I understood her views on tunics and other torso coverings, I was in dire straights--though I don't fully understand the meaning of dire straights, I'm sure it applies in the current circs--and what I needed from her now was more of the rally round spirit.

She stood for a while in deep thought and I could see that my words had the desired effect.

"Then on consideration," she said, "I have a suggestion that may enable you to extricate yourself from the embroilment."

"Does that mean you have a solution?" I asked.

"I suggest that you consider packing immediately..."

"That's no help."

"...and leaving for California."

I stared at the woman. Had I heard her correctly? California? Could it be that her superb brain had come unhinged? I could think of no other explanation.

"It sounded to me like you said, California," I said.

"That's right," she said.

"California?"

"California," she said. "Consider that California is 3000 miles from Crystal Cove."

"What!" I said finally getting the gist. "Not that far."

"Somewhat less," she said, "but for all practical purposes..."

"Yes, I see," I said. "For all practical purposes. Yes, this suggestion is not too big and not too small. Poopsie, I've always said there is none like you--none. You stand alone. Are you sure you're not descended from the Romanovs?"

"I'm certain," she said.

"Well, no matter, the Orlovs were the masterminds responsible for bunging Catherine to the top of the Russian imperial rainbow, so no little wonder that you possess the brainpower."

"But I'm not descended from the Orlovs," she said.

I could make no sense of this whatsoever. I myself have read her ancestral family records and I didn't hesitate to remind her of this.

"I distinctly remember that Count Alexei Orlov figured into the story. He being the breeder of the Orlov Trotter, a horse known for outstanding speed and stamina, and also the Russian Wolfhound, a dog known for whatever they're known for. They're big, I know that. And I believe there was a chicken in there somewhere although I seriously doubt that a breeder of horses and wolfhounds would scarcely waste time with chickens."

"The story," she said, with absolutely no story-telling flair, "is that my ancestor was a housemaid in the employment of Count Orlov and negotiated with him to get out of dog walking duties."

"Walking the wolfhounds, you mean?"

"Precisely," she said.

"Oh, I see," I said. "Yes, I think I remember something about that now. Sorry for the mixup."

"Not at all," she said.

"Still, Wonder, you are remarkable. I wonder if your head sticks out in the back just to make room for that brain."

"Thank you, I think," she said.

"Not at all," I said.