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  “It is someone who is very special,” his mother explained. “It’s a Buddhist thing. Blue has been born especially to help others with their enlightenment, but I don’t think it has anything to do with not being able to eat wheat.”

  Joshua nodded. “Alice said he was special. He doesn’t speak English very well yet. He’s only been here a few weeks. He’s new - like me! Alice says she lives in a shop that sells flowers and her daddy’s in prison. That’s the English word for jail, but we’ve got to keep that on the down low.”

  Joshua paused to make some snow balls, then continued, “Tambo says I can sing in the gospel choir with him…oh, Momma, look!”

  Joshua suddenly stopped talking and pointed in front of them. He was rarely speechless but this was one of those moments! They had just turned the corner into Accoucher Lane. On one side of it was a long terrace of Georgian, three-storey houses, rendered with smooth plaster and with Venetian shutters hung at each window.

  Joshua gasped. “Awesome! The houses are all different colours! Is one of them for us? I want to live in the red one, no, the purple one! Is ours the green one? Look at that one - it’s pink!”

  “It’s number twenty-one,” Adela replied, looking at her phone to double-check the details. Joshua ran as fast as he could to find their new house. “Momma! It’s a yellow one! Righteous!” Joshua peered inside through the small panes of the tall window. He couldn’t resist pulling the metal rod beside the front door which rang the bell. He was rather shocked to find that someone actually opened the door from the inside!

  “Well now, you must be Joshua,” a jolly lady said to him with a big smile. She was standing on the other side of the door wearing a flowered print pinny and yellow ‘marigolds’. “And you must be Miss Huggins, to be sure!” She greeted them warmly. “Welcome to Little Eden!” she said.

  Iris ushered them into the hall and beyond. “Come on in my dears, you must be freezing! This snow was unexpected, so it was. Down it came, day before yesterday, without a by your leave! I’m Iris - Iris Sprott - the Vicar’s wife and W.I. chairwoman. We always like to welcome our new residents. I came earlier to clean and air the place, and I put the heating on.”

  Joshua walked into the large living area and felt the warmth of the fire; it made him realise he had gotten very cold after all. He stood by it, warming his legs, as his mother tried to keep up with what Iris was telling her but with Iris having an Irish accent, and a very fast way of speaking, she only caught parts of it!

  “Take off those wet things, my dears, before you catch cold!” Mrs Sprott told them, as she helped them off with their coats and continued to tell them what she wanted them to know.

  “I have put you some bits and pieces in the fridge, so I have. Milk and such like. If you need anything, anything at all, you just let me know. I’ve left my number by the telephone and I’ll pop in again tomorrow to see you’ve settled in. I thought Mr Robert might have brought you?”

  “Mr Bartlett-Hart was detained, I think,” Miss Huggins told her. “Mr Fortune offered to bring us, but I thought we could find it. Thank you so much Mrs…?”

  “Sprott, dear - Sprott with two ‘t’s, but call me Iris, to be sure. Now, you have everything you need, do you? You know how to dial the emergency services here do you, my dear? We have our own Little Eden Fire Brigade. Volunteers only, you understand. So, call 899 for them or for our security services. Although I hope you never need them, to be sure! We don’t have much crime here, thank goodness! Everywhere is safe enough. We had CCTV installed five years ago on each of the gates. We like to keep ourselves apart from the big city, so we do. It’s our village inside these walls and has been for over a thousand years. This is the best of all possible worlds, to be sure. We all look out for each other here…”

  Iris did actually pause for a moment, but it was only a moment!

  “…The local doctor’s number is on the pad by the telephone. The surgery is over in Theatre Lane, you can’t miss it. The Shakespeare Theatre’s on the corner. Do you like the theatre, my dear? We get all the new shows before they go to the bigger theatres in the West End! Oh, and before I forget, the caretaker won’t be back on the school grounds ‘til Wednesday, so if you need to get into the school at all, the keys are with Noddy Harroldson. He lives on the first narrow boat you come to after the Dutch houses along the old canal. It doesn’t lead anywhere these days, mind you, but we had one of the old rivers come up this way, once upon a time. Noddy was on the streets for six years before he came here to the Little Eden Refuge - turned his life around, so he did, but I think this town has a little magic in it for everyone who lives here, so I do. Now! I must be off! The Reverend will wonder where his dinner is.”

  “Thank you Iris,” Adela said, when she could get a word in edgeways. Adela was a little bewildered by Iris, but glad of her kindness and all she had done for them. Coming into a warm house, with food in the fridge and the beds made, was enough to make Adela want to shed a tear. She realised she was exhausted after the long journey, and just wanted to put on her pyjamas and sit by the fire.

  “No trouble at all, my dears!” Iris replied. “You’ll settle in here in no time, to be sure. You must come and have lunch with us at the vicarage next Sunday. We have a roast joint every week. You must meet my son Elijah. He is about your age, Joshua. We adopted him as a baby from Romania, so we did. I don’t know about him being a star child, like Tambo and Alice, mind you, but he will be coming to the new school. My husband, the Reverend, is quite angry at your little venture, though I probably shouldn’t say so. It was Lilly’s - god rest her soul - idea; the Academy. But, I think my Elijah is something a little bit special. He has a way of speaking to the saints as I have only ever seen back home when I was a girl. I said to the Reverend, ‘If being at the new school will help him, well, far be it from us to stand in his way, I am sure!’ The Reverend doesn’t approve of talking to the saints, but I would rather hear it from the horse’s mouth than from a book written two thousand years ago by goodness knows who! I can’t say I know what a star child is exactly, but new things are not always ungodly now, are they? I mean, Jesus was new once too, wasn’t he? Although, I prefer Mother Mary myself.”

  Adela nodded but didn’t know quite what to say. She thought Iris was going to leave them as she had started putting on her coat, but they had her for a while longer yet.

  Iris smiled and picked up a map of London. She waved it at them enthusiastically. “If you want to take your boy to see the sights, well, there’s a bus that’ll take you into Covent Garden. It goes every fifteen minutes from just outside the Old Pump Rooms on the corner of East India Street, but it’s only a ten minute walk to the main market anyhow. I left you a map of Little Eden as well, my dear. We have a lot to see here inside the walls, so we have! Ever so many tourists we get here nowadays. Joshua might like the skate park over on West Eve Street. I can’t keep Elijah away from there these days, and there is a swimming pool and you can play tennis over there too. There’s cricket in the park in summer and if Joshua can ride a horse he could learn polo on the old pasture. I hope we’ll see you in church during the week. We have a family service every Wednesday at six o’clock. The gospel choir always sings - it’s very popular! Although my husband, the Reverend, he took some persuading. He likes his music traditional, so he does; but I said to him, so I did, I said, ‘Gospel is traditional too - it’s just not our tradition, is all!’” Iris thought for a moment and added, “But perhaps you are of another faith - or perhaps none at all? Well, well, we have so many different types of worship inside the walls. Why, if we don’t have Quakers and Buddhists, and Hindus and goodness me, so many others…I’m sure God gets confused with himself, trying to keep track of who’s doing what, but I believe all the true paths lead to the same place. Although, don’t tell my husband I said that! He likes his way best, to be sure! Well, I had better let you get yourselves settled.”

  Iris was nearly out of
the front door when she came back and popped her head back around, saying, “Now, promise me you’ll ring me anytime if you need anything, won’t you? I can see myself out, to be sure!”

  When they were sure Iris had really gone, Adela and Joshua looked at each other. “I think we have found someone who talks as much as you do, Joshua!” Adela laughed, and they threw themselves down onto the sofa giggling.

  “Welcome to Little Eden indeed!”

  Chapter 7

  ~ * ~

  You may be wondering, dear readers, why Robert had not turned up to his lunch meeting with Miss Huggins? He was not usually so unprofessional or forgetful, but this was an unusual day for Robert. He had been called to an impromptu family meeting at eleven o’clock that morning.

  In the well-stocked and imposing library of his family home in Bartlett Crescent, Robert’s mother, Jennifer, his brother, Collins, their solicitor, Lancelot Bartlett-Hart and their business manager, India Fitzroy were all gathered together anxiously waiting for him to come downstairs.

  The meeting did not go well!

  Only five minutes into it, Robert slammed his fist on the table and pushed his chair so violently that it shot across the room and hit the wall, crashing to the floor. Without saying anything, he grabbed his coat and stormed out of the house in a state of all-consuming fear.

  Lancelot and India looked at each other in shock and then in dismay.

  Collins shook his head disparagingly as he drained the last drops of his whisky on the rocks.

  Jennifer (who always had something to say on all occasions) remained silent, and then she sedately arose from her chair, leaving the room without saying a word.

  After a few moments of awkward silence, Collins feigned a cough and got up to leave saying, “Well, that’s that then!” He held out his hand to Lancelot and added, “See you in court, old chap. No hard feelings! Just business and all that, you know!”

  “Quite!” Lancelot replied, and reluctantly, but politely, shook Collins by the hand.

  “Be a good girl now won’t you, India dear?” Collins said and winked.

  India smiled sweetly and replied, “Oh, Collins, I am always good - some say too good.” She paused for a moment and stared directly into his bright blue eyes. “At business that is! See you in court.”

  Collins grinned. He wasn’t really listening. He was thinking about what he was going to have for lunch and he left to go to his club.

  “F**k!” India said, sitting down in a daze. “I can’t believe it! It seems too incredible! Impossible! Ridiculous even!”

  Lancelot gathered his papers together and didn’t reply straight away. He was too shocked to say anything, and he was not a man to be easily moved. “I had better go and find Robert,” he said finally. “I have never seen him so angry! He hardly ever even raises his voice.”

  “His face drained so quickly he looked almost grey!” India said. “I thought he was going to have a heart attack on us, right here in the library. He will have gone to the Café to see…”

  “To see Lilly?” Lancelot suggested, raising an eyebrow.

  India frowned. “I forgot what I was saying for a moment. If Lilly was here we wouldn’t be in this mess! I can’t believe what just happened has just happened. We should have seen this coming Lancelot. We should have seen the precarious state her death would leave us all in!”

  “No one could have ever foreseen this, surely?” Lancelot replied, helping himself to a quick shot of Glenfiddich. He offered one to India but she shook her head. Her eyes looked slightly glazed over.

  “Do you know - I feel as if I might be dreaming? If I am, wake me up for god’s sake!” she said. As she felt panic rush through her body, she took the glass of whisky out of Lancelot’s hand and downed it. The shock made her cough and she nearly choked. Lancelot thumped her on the back.

  “I think that just woke you up!” Lancelot said. “It’s very real, I’m afraid.”

  “Over a thousand years down the drain in one fell swoop,” India said sadly.

  “I think the whisky was only fifty years old!” Lancelot replied, trying to make a joke; but even he couldn’t do any more than raise a sad smile at this moment.

  India went to the window overlooking Adam Street. The fountain in the front garden was frozen over. Not a single drop of water flowed from the vase of Isis. Carved over three millennia ago, the statue of the goddess had been brought from Egypt, and she had graced the gardens of the Crescent for over one hundred and fifty years. Her presence felt majestic and immortal. Yet today, she seemed a solitary and pallid figure, perched upon her cold marble pedestal and plagued by snow.

  “Well, I won’t let it happen, even if you’re resigned to it!” India blurted out suddenly, her blood beginning to boil with anger; or maybe it was just the whisky!

  “It’s not that I want it to happen either,” Lancelot said, putting his coat on. “But right now, I can’t see any way in which we can legally stop it. You have to keep a level head in legal matters. I have told you that before.”

  “Oh, I know! I have a lot to learn about legal matters! You remind me of that on a daily basis!” India frowned. “I may be years younger than you, but I have turned this town around since I took over from Papa, and I have made it viable concern. She sighed, and looked over to Adams Mansions, where Bartlett-Hart and Fitzroy had had their legal offices since 1805, along with a publishers, accountants and investment house.

  “There is so much more to do!” India added. “I haven’t poured my heart and soul into this place to feed a good-for-nothing, low life coaster, like Collins Bartlett - bloody - Hart, or to keep his vapid excuse for a wife in Jimmy Choos and Chanel f**king Number 5!”

  “Come on, that’s not fair!” Lancelot smiled. “Varsity would never wear anything that inexpensive!” He winked. He was always slightly amused by India’s passionate outbursts.

  He joined her at the window. “You know I think you have done an amazing job here,” he said to her, nudging her shoulder with his arm in a friendly gesture. “I just meant for you to keep a clear mind. Getting stressed and angry won’t help. We must trust in God. If a way can be found, we will find it and if not…”

  “What? Let go and let God?” India erupted. “You know what? God doesn’t give a damn about anyone and you will never convince me otherwise!”

  “I’m not trying to convince you of anything, India, but God isn’t about fixing stuff to suit an individual’s needs or wishes.” Lancelot sighed.

  “Damn right, He’s not! That’s quite obvious!” India said angrily. “Although, He seems to like Collins and Jennifer rather a lot right now!”

  Lancelot put his hand on her shoulder. “God isn’t a man on a throne, waving a magic wand around, sorting out all the problems. If he was, do you think the world would be full of famine and war? Having faith in God is about finding the courage to move through our immediate pain and find a way forward with compassion for everyone concerned. We must seek justice, but we do not maliciously harm those who wrong us.”

  India didn’t look at him. She was still seething inside.

  Lancelot continued his lecture anyway. “When we have faith, it’s like wearing a raincoat in a storm, but you cannot always stop the storm from happening. I always find my faith…”

  “Everyone has faith in something around here!” India interrupted. “My god! There are enough religions around here to sink the Ark, but when it comes to Collins and Jennifer, all those religions are powerless!” India went to put on her coat. “Well!” she said, as she buttoned it up. “I believe we make our own luck! Hard work and intelligence - that’s what counts! All the praying that goes on around here didn’t get us out of debt and make Little Eden a viable concern again. Me, Lilly, you and the rest of the team did that. The amount of European and Lottery funding we got over the last ten years - you think God sent that? Oh, I know, don’t tell me! Your Qu
akers have poured millions into the pot as well. I know. I know. Well, if you want to: let go and let God. But in this case, it will be more like…let go and let God destroy everything that is good in this world and that hundreds of generations have given their lives to create and even died to protect. Well, you know what? I won’t let Him!”

  “That’s fighting talk, my girl!” Lancelot said, smiling sadly. “By the way, you buttoned your coat up wrong!”

  As they walked through the Crescent gardens, a grand old willow tree shuddered suddenly and shook off its heavy snowy blanket. An urban fox, startled by the sudden avalanche, darted out from under the trees and straight across their path. Lancelot felt a chill go up his spine. He felt as if there was evil in the air. Instead of angels around, he sensed dark entities floating on the wind, just waiting to catch hold of everybody’s anxiety and feed off it, so that they could multiply like spawn and shower the whole world with fear. He prayed for the protection of the Holy Spirit to dispel his agitation. Then, he said, “You want some help in that fight against Jennifer and Collins, or are you going it alone?”

  India pouted and reluctantly let go of her anger. She smiled up at Lancelot. “Help would be nice, yes!” she replied, nudging his shoulder with hers.

  “Well, then,” Lancelot said, as they crossed the street. “Let’s keep a cool head, stay calm and pray for a goddamn miracle, so I can find the loophole in the loophole!”

  ~ * ~

  The subject of this morning’s very brief meeting had been decided after the funeral, whilst Robert had been at Lilly’s wake. On their return from the Chappelle, Collins, Varsity and Jennifer had lounged in the living room, drinking champers, and this is a snippet of the conversation they had: