When I told Miss Marple so, she reassured me, “Our mind is a funny old thing, it strives towards wholeness and health. Once you’re on the road to getting to know yourself, all the parts of you, I think nature takes care of itself.”
I’m sad she’s gone. I guess she was right. We are much better now; there is a flow to us. When we get up in the morning and make breakfast and clean up, I know it’s Ama doing so, but it’s like I’m there too, maybe with just a small step to the side. It’s hard to tell the difference between Lilly and me. Sometimes I feel we are like the Siamese twins, joined at the hip and the upper body. It’s like flipping a coin, one of us is out, with the other never far away.
I let out a sigh and look at the work in front of me. It’ll be a large wall hanging. My fingers fly over the silky texture of green mohair wool, which reflects the time we arrived at Wright’s Homestead and celebrated our newfound freedom. Everything was new and exciting, like discovering the tree in the backyard.
The patch of strands in black and dark brown wool is for the time they captured us. It has shells and seaweed woven into it for the time they held us on the fishing boat. Even a starfish made it into this piece to show the lightness we felt when the police found us.
The strangest thing happened with the money. We keep finding some between the cushions of the couch, under the pillow in the bed. I even found a hundred-dollar bill in my gumboots the other day. I swear we looked everywhere and found nothing, but the bills pop up like mushrooms after a warm summer rain. Even Sky has no idea where it comes from, and she usually knows everything.
The first few times I accused Scott, but he denies having anything to do with it. I believe him because the money shows up even when he’s not staying the night. Together with the sale of my woven art, the occasional money surprise covers what we need for groceries and other living expenses.
It’s as if a group of leprechauns prints the money in the basement. Only this cottage hasn’t got a cellar and leprechauns live in Ireland, not in New Zealand. Today I found a hundred-dollar bill under the vase on the dining table. I’m tempted to scrunch it up and weave it into my piece.
Prince comes inside with a stick between his teeth. He puts the stick down, looks at me with his big eyes, and nudges me to play with him. It doesn’t look like he’s taking no for an answer. That gives me an idea. I grab the bill and hold it under his nose.
“Find, boy, find the money.”
He looks at me as if to say, what kind of strange game are you playing with me? I’m not one of these airport dogs that sniff all day for drugs and other stuff.
But I’m not giving up. I’m on a mission and rub the note under his nose again.
“Find the money, Prince. Go.”
He sniffs throughout the room, from the loom to the dining table, to the stairs, and to the cooking range. He stops, crouches down, and reaches with his paws under the range. It seems like such an unlikely place. The silly dog is chasing mice again. I might as well give up. I get up to pull him away from the range when I hear a voice loud and clear as if a person is standing in front of me.
“No, you are not allowed to take it. It’s my treasure.”
But there is no one. Then something happens to me. It’s like my body doesn’t belong to me anymore, as if I’m standing outside while it has a life of its own.
“Oh, no, Mikey. What have you done?” My other half of the coin, Lilly, is talking to what seems to be a young lad.
“I have done nothing bad. When the police came, I took the money and found a place to hide it. Ama hid it under the bed. It was ridiculous. Everyone would look there first.”
“Show me your hiding place.” Lilly is clever, she doesn’t even argue.
He bends down and reaches under the range. I hear how he lifts a wood plank and comes up with the shoebox we took from Horace’s wardrobe and a rusty old Griffin’s cookie tin tucked under his arm. He plunks the shoebox on the dining table but holds on to the tin.
I try hard to get back into the body, but his energy is much stronger than mine.
“That looks like a wonderful treasure, Mikey, why don’t you show it to us.” Lilly is wonderful. She finds just the right words for the boy. I know she’s just as excited as I am about the treasure. I can feel it in the pit of my stomach. She regrets not having thought of hiding it herself. It would be just the kind of stuff she does for fun.
When he opens the lid of the tin box, I see a stack of yellowed photos and old documents. One glance at the photos and my inside erupts into mayhem. Everyone is rushing to be in the body and take a look. The pressure inside my head is unbelievable. Desperately, I press my fists to my temples to keep my head from exploding. Mikey is long gone. I’m not sure who’s in the body. I am, but it doesn’t feel that it’s just me, or even the me I know.
In front of me are over a dozen photos, depicting young children, boys, and girls, including
