I awoke to a morning so sharp and clear, I thought at first I must be back in the Greenwood till I tried to rise and everything ached.
“Oh!” I said aloud, remembering who I was and what I was now. I took a long waterfall in the white tub, the water first hot and then cold but at last just right.
There is nothing like this hot waterfall in the Greenwood, I told myself. Or profiteroles. I could still taste them and thought I might have one for breakfast. And so it was that I began to understand that not everything in the human world was bad.
Afterward, I dried myself, dressed in the same old dress, slipped into my shoes, grabbed my sachet of money and my letter, and went down the street to talk to the Man of Flowers. Flores was not there, but a nice lady the color of tree bark with surprised brows told me how to send an eagle letter.
“You can get a stamp and an envelope at the PO, dahlin’.”
“PO?”
She cocked her head to one side like a slightly demented dove. “Post Office.”
When I still looked puzzled, she added, “The mail place, honey. You ain’t from here now, are ya?”
I shook my head, and she explained in patient detail how to get there.
As it was some way to the place of mails, and I still had so much of the food Jamie Oldcourse had bought for me, I did not buy anything but two apples to eat along the way, with a promise to return. She smiled at me, her teeth white against the dark skin.
“You do that, dahlin’,” she said. “I’ll be here.”
“And the Man of Flowers?” I ventured.
“Old Juan? He’s home sick. So he says. But the Yankees are playing today, so you know . . .” And she winked at me, which changed her face from a stranger’s to someone so familiar and Puck-like, I almost hugged her even though I had no idea who the Yankees were or what they played.
“Now remember, dahlin’, it’s two times to the right, cross the street, and then left and . . .”
* * *
SO I DID THE TURNINGS she suggested, and found the place of mails with the big eagle sigil on the wall. I did not see any of my sister’s men in blue, but there was a lady behind some bars—caged like a farmer’s cows—who told me to put the letter into an envelope and seal it. I wrote Meteora’s new name and address on the front, my cow name and address on the back, paid one of my pieces of paper money for the envelope (that was the name of it) and the stamp and was given coins “in change.” The lady behind the bars promised me it would reach Meteora in two days.
“Two days?” Complaint edged into my voice. “But I thought this is eagle mail. The dove can do it in that time and for nothing more than some honey water and bread.”
She looked at me as if I were crazy and I looked at her as if she were mad. Then she glanced over my shoulder and said, “Next!”
For a moment we stared at one another, and then the man behind me tapped me on the shoulder. “I’m next,” he said, his face wreathed in anger.
The people behind him mumbled. One put her hand in the air, her middle finger extended toward me, which carried some dark magic at the core, though not enough to hurt me.
The impatient man stepped around me. The people behind him elbowed me aside. And so I was dismissed.
I walked out confused but still trusting that what Meteora said about the eagle mail was true, and that she would get my letter. However, I kept its contents in my head just in case, saying the words over and over as I walked along the street, not caring which way I was going or who crossed the road to get away from me.