thought it more likely we had a drop at Stonehenge.”
Nova laughed, but Geaxi did not. “We do, young Zezen,” she said evenly, then leaned forward and began talking over the seat with Willie about current experimental aircraft design in Europe.
I laid my head back and let my mind drift. Spring was in full bloom and the English countryside became a rolling kaleidoscope of color and texture. We opened the back windows of the limousine and let the wind rush through. It felt the same way good fresh spring water tastes. I smiled all the way to London.
Once we were in the city, Willie drove with skill and patience through the narrow maze of streets. The noise and traffic seemed to have tripled since the last time I’d been there. Luckily, a block from Lloyd’s, we found a place to pull over and park. Geaxi, Mitch, and Willie left for the bank while Nova and I stayed behind.
As soon as we were alone, Nova turned to me. She was wearing her heavy Egyptian mascara and her lips were a deep red. She showed not a trace of the frail and pale ghost she had been only days before. Still, something was troubling her.
“Z,” she said, “you are the Stone of Dreams. I know of no one better than you to tell.” She paused and stared blankly out the window.
“Tell what, Nova?”
“I have been having a series of dreams, but one in particular. Over and over, more and more horrible each time.” She paused again.
“What do you see? What’s in the dream?”
“A balloon—a huge, awful, burning balloon. Over and over, rising, burning. I can’t make it stop.” She turned back to me. “What does it mean, Z?”
I knew she wanted an answer. She was desperate for one, and I wanted to give her an answer, but there was no answer, no truthful one.
“I don’t know what it means, Nova. It is your dream and your balloon.” I looked into her eyes closely. “Can you live with this nightmare, Nova? Will you be all right?”
She sighed and smiled slightly, then laughed once. She put her hand over the center of her chest, where the Stone of Silence hung from a necklace underneath her blouse. “Yes, of course, Z. As Geaxi likes to say, after all, we are Meq.”
In less than twenty minutes, the others returned. Willie and Mitch jumped in the front seat. Geaxi climbed in back with Nova and me. “To Paris,” she said, throwing three London newspapers across the seat. Charles Lindbergh’s flight was the headline story in all three. Without delay, Willie put the limousine in gear and we were on our way. He would drop us at the docks, where we would be off to Calais, then on by train for Paris. Geaxi withdrew a letter from her vest, waving it back and forth. “News from Mowsel,” she said.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“New Delhi. He is with Sailor. They have found Zeru-Meq. Negotiations are under way to enlist his assistance in finding Susheela the Ninth and stopping the Fleur-du-Mal however possible. No decision yet, and also no sign or rumor of the Fleur-du-Mal himself. I think I know why.”
“You?”
“Yes. I do not believe he is anywhere near New Delhi. Quite by accident, I learned of something in Norway. It is the ‘other news’ I mentioned in my telegram to you.”
“What is it?”
“The Fleur-du-Mal has a home.”
“A home!”
“Yes—in Norway. I believe he is there now and has been there since you saw him in Egypt. The man I was waiting to meet in Trondheim is the man who sold it to him. Nova was stricken before he arrived and I never got the exact location of the home. However, I know where the man was going from Trondheim. If we are in luck, he is still there.”
“Where?”
Geaxi smiled wide. “Paris,” she said.
Mercy Whitney’s home on the Rue d’Ulm was a sprawling, light-filled, ten-room apartment directly above a small restaurant and cafe called “La Belle Etoile.” The building was old, but clean and well kept, with dark green shutters and wrought-iron balconies. Day and night, delicious aromas and scents drifted up from the kitchen below and filled the air with traces of garlic, fresh-baked bread, or roasted lamb. During our entire stay in Paris, I was constantly hungry. In our first conversation, Mercy Whitney acknowledged the problem.
Geaxi, Nova, and I stood in the hallway outside her apartment door. Mitch had gone his own way at the train station, saying he would stop by the Rue d’Ulm address in a day or two. He never mentioned where he was going or whom he was surprising, but he checked his luggage twice to make certain he had packed his tuxedo.
I knocked on the door. In seconds, I heard footsteps and the door swung open. An attractive black woman in her late twenties, taller than average and dressed in denim overalls, stared back at us. She had reddish brown hair, which was cut short and parted on one side with a dramatic wave plastered across her forehead. She was barefoot and her overalls, hands, face, and feet were splattered with yellow paint. She looked each of us over thoroughly, then spoke to me.
“Am I dreaming?” she asked. “Are you three children for real?”
“I think so,” I said. “I’ve never been asked that before.”
“And you speak American English. Are you triplets?”
“No, but we’re very close. Maybe this will explain it. It’s a letter from Arrosa.”
Her eyes lit up. “Arrosa?”
As she read the letter, Mercy Whitney laughed with abandon at every sentence. I couldn’t help but smell the wonderful aromas wafting up the stairs. When she finished, she said, “Come on in. I haven’t seen that girl since she moved to Cornwall. I need to hear all about her.” She saw the hypnotized expression on my face. “Afterward, I’ll clean up and we’ll go downstairs and eat. You will not be able to stay here without thinking about it, so we better fix that craving right away. What’re your names?”
I gave her mine and Nova and Geaxi introduced themselves. As she led the way inside, I told her we were from St. Louis.
“Well, you two sound like you’re from St. Louis,” she said, nodding toward Nova and me. She looked at Geaxi. “But I cannot place your accent at all. What would you call it?”
“English with a hint of Phoenician,” Geaxi said flatly.
A moment passed. Then Mercy Whitney laughed again—a big, generous, lusty laugh. “Of course, of course,” she said. “What else could it be?” She turned and waved for us to follow her down the hall, then stopped and winked at Geaxi. “I like the beret and leggings.”
“Thank you, Mercy. By the way, is Charles Lindbergh still in Paris?”
“Oh, yes, he’s still in Paris, all right. That man is the toast of the town—no, I should say the toast of the world!”
“So it would be difficult to see him, no?”
“Impossible, unless you were asked.” She paused and raised one eyebrow. “Do you know Lindbergh?”
“He saved my life once.”
“Of course he did.” Mercy started to laugh, then stopped. Something else occurred to her. “Wait,” she said. “There may be a way and my boss will love it. Three nights from now, she is invited to a gala performance at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees, a benefit for the Airman’s Relief Fund. Lindbergh is going to be there. She loves children and you’re from St. Louis, her hometown. She would love to take you along, I just know it.”
“Who is your boss?” I asked.
“Josephine Baker.” Mercy looked at me and waited for a reaction. “You never heard of her?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“I have,” Nova said with a smile. “She’s amazing.”
Mercy laughed big and loud, then turned in a pirouette spin even Geaxi could admire and waved for us to follow, saying over her shoulder, “Yes, yes, and yes.” She laughed again. “Josephine is amazing. That she surely is.”
We were led down a long hallway that both divided and connected the entire apartment. The living room,
