TWENTY-FIVE

It was half the size of the Queen’s Fancy, and perfect in every way. Like the Queen’s Fancy, it was a deep purple with a bulbous sack below and three petals above. But the petals were shot through with stripes of gold so vivid they were almost iridescent. So brilliant was the bloom that it made the Queen’s Fancy look dowdy by comparison. It was scented as well, but the perfume wasn’t so much raspberries and cream as something more exotic, spicy even. It reminded me of the Oriental scent I’d smelled in the perfumer’s shop in Foochow.

I glanced up, shading my hand against the sun. The tree was laden with them, so many in bloom that I couldn’t count them. It looked as though it had been bedecked with joyful Christmas baubles. It was the same with the tree next to it and five more near that one. I turned in a slow circle and found a bloom on every tree in each direction. They sat cradled in the nooks and crannies of each one, the gold stripes shining in the sun, the scent heady. I inspected the orchid in front of me perched on its own roots, as though placed there, not connected to the tree in any way that I could tell. It was a simple thing to lift it off its perch like a songbird, to untangle the roots from the lichen and bark.

From the edge of my eye, a large bumblebee darted into view, her wings beating so rapidly that I could hear them buzzing. Completely unafraid of me, she hovered in front of the blossom in my hand and climbed into the petals, disappearing into the crevice between the three petals and emerging from the sack, completely covered in pollen. I could see that the bloom was perfectly matched to the insect, its body fitting quite neatly inside of it, like a key in a lock. Here before me was evidence of what Mr. Darwin had written. Here was the flower’s pollinator, the one that had evolved alongside it.

Sated, the insect turned, hovering for a moment, regarding me. And I regarded it.

I made my way carefully to the top of the hill, and tied a strip of cloth around a tree limb to note where the orchids were. I had to leave the flowers to help Alex, and hope the orchid thief had left the area already. I would come back to collect the plants as soon as I could.

Flush with triumph, I headed back to the camp. Perhaps Mr. Pringle would accept this orchid in the Queen’s Fancy’s stead, or perhaps Sir William could help me find a buyer for these, and we could pay Mr. Pringle off. I could still smell the spicy scent of the orchid, and the fragrant bundles of wormwood on my shoulder lifted my spirits even further.

Back at camp, I dipped water into the pan and carried it to the fire, which was still smoldering. I poked it alight and settled the pot over the sputtering flames. Alex still hadn’t awoken. Hadn’t even shifted on the ground.

I went over and knelt beside him. “Alex?” I shook him a little, and his head lolled to one side. His face had been pale last night, but now it was beginning to take on a yellowish tinge. My mouth went dry; fear nipped at my stomach. I laid my head to his chest, and I could hear his heart beating faintly. I sat up and shook him again. He did not respond. I pressed my hands to my mouth. Why didn’t he awaken?

One of the mules brayed, calling out to someone or something coming up the path. I stood. The hatchet was close by, and I picked it up and stepped closer to Alex. The mule brayed again, and I heard the clop of hooves as horses approached.

“Elodie?” I heard Papa’s voice call out, and then a moment later Ching Lan and Papa came into view. I dropped the hatchet and ran to them. Papa slid off his horse, and I threw my arms around him.

“My darling girl,” he said, hugging me close to him. “I am so happy to see you. I’m surprised to see you camping here. I thought you might be farther up ahead by the orchid site.”

But all I could do was shake my head and say “Alex, Alex,” over and over.

“Elodie! What is the matter?” He looked around me and saw Alex lying prone on his pallet.

“He told me it was malaria,” I said.

Ching Lan cried out and ran to Alex, moving swiftly into action as I relayed his symptoms and what I’d done for him. She felt his forehead and laid her head against his chest as I had, listening to his heart. She straightened. “He sleeps, but it’s not a good sleep.”

“Have you seen him like this before?” Papa asked.

“When Pru and I first found him in Foochow, he was very unwell from malaria. We treated him with quinine, and he got better in a few days.”

“I found that herb in the ravine,” I said. “The one you told me about, for clearing heat in the body. Will it work for malaria?”

“Yes, perfectly!”

I fetched the plants for Ching Lan, and she set to work. She took the wormwood and tore a bunch of it from the bundle, plunging it into a pan of hot water. After it had steeped for several minutes, she wrung the wilted plants out over a cup.

Papa sat Alex up, propping his near lifeless body against him.

“Alex, you have to drink this.” I held the cup to his mouth, desperately hoping that he would hear me and swallow the medicine. I tipped a little of the liquid into his mouth, and I saw his throat bob as he swallowed it. A little bit more and then a little more, and finally he’d finished the entire cup. I prayed that he’d keep it down and not vomit it up like he had with the water. Minutes went by, we held our breaths, and the medicine stayed down.

“How quickly will the herb work?” Papa asked.

Ching Lan began preparing another bundle. “Three to five days is the treatment. If he doesn’t get better during that time, then we’ll know the fever damaged his body. If he does respond, I’m afraid he’ll remain weak for a long while. When malaria takes people this strongly, it can be weeks or months before they recover.”

Papa laid Alex back down, and I took his hand in mine. It felt dry and hot, the fingers lifeless. I chafed them, trying to bring some movement back to them, wishing to feel his fingers gripping mine to reassure me, as he always did. He didn’t move, he didn’t respond, not even a quiver. It was as though the illness had reduced him to a living corpse.

I LEFT ALEX IN CHING LAN’S CARE AN HOUR LATER, AND I TOOK PAPA to the Queen’s Fancy site. The scene was as nightmarish as I’d remembered. It looked like a giant had passed his hand over the top of the forest, snapping off the treetops, shuffled through the undergrowth on his way out, burning what remained.

Papa walked about, searching for any signs of life. “Collecting out, that’s what this is. Some hunters take everything, stripping out every orchid, leaving a path of destruction behind them. It’s easier to cut down the trees than to climb them to remove the orchids. Then they set fire to the habitat so no one else can find the plants. I’m afraid this sort of behavior is normal with Cleghorn’s men. They may as well have signed their name to this.” Papa sank down on a tree stump and braced his elbows on his legs. He stared dully out onto the destruction, shaking his head. “And after we came all this way,” he whispered.

“I did find another orchid,” I offered. “I found it by chance when I was looking for the herbs for Alex. It’s similar to the Queen’s Fancy, so I was thinking Mr. Pringle would accept this one in its stead. I think it’s more beautiful than the Queen’s Fancy.”

Papa lifted his head. “Another orchid? Where?”

“It’s not far. I’ll take you there.”

We left the forest, and I led Papa along the path toward the ravine. The strip of cloth was still tied to the tree, fluttering in the breeze, marking the way. Papa followed me down the ravine to the new orchid’s site.

And there they were; exactly as I had left them. When Papa leaned close to the nearest one, a ray of sun chose to shine down through the forest at that very moment, touching the stripes with light and illuminating them into burnished gold. The flower’s exotic scent burst forth, lingered for a moment, and then disappeared as the light shifted.

“Extraordinary,” Papa said. He removed it from the tree, holding it with reverence, inspecting the petals carefully. “It’s the Queen’s Fancy dressed in a ball gown, my dear, perfumed with a Parisian scent. I’ve never seen one like it, and I don’t know anyone who has.” He looked delighted, his face more animated than I had ever seen it. The tension and fear I’d held on to for months, since I stowed away on board the Osprey, perhaps since the day when Mr. Pringle’s men first appeared in my conservatory, began to ebb away.

“Do you think it will be enough? Do you think Mr. Pringle will accept it?”

He touched the petals. “Perhaps. There’s nothing more we can do. This is plant collecting. Sometimes you are too late, and sometimes you are bang on time.”

“I saw a bumblebee pollinate one. It fit perfectly into this little aperture and came out the bulb below. It was as Darwin said. Each plant has its own pollinator that evolved alongside it.” I was eager to tell him all about it because I knew he would share in my excitement, would approve of what I had seen and noted. “I think we should record its natural setting and take a sample of the medium it sits in, because maybe the orchid will live longer if we can duplicate its natural home.”

“Hmm, I do agree.” He smiled. “What are you going to name it? The plant hunter, or in this case the plant huntress, who discovers the plant has the privilege of naming it.”

I thought it very kind that Papa would allow me to name it, but I would feel a fraud if I did so. The expedition was his, not mine. “I’m not a plant huntress. I found this by mistake.”

“That’s how most of us find our plants,” he said. “I would go so far to say that you are better than a plant hunter; you’re a collector. You have a reverence for plants that most hunters lack.” He examined the plant again in the fading light. “Genus is Paphiopedilum, like the Queen’s Fancy. But the species and common name are up to you.”

Papa and I settled on Paphiopedilum elodiae. For its common name I chose “the Sister Orchid,” both for its relationship to the Queen’s Fancy and in honor of my own sisters.

We returned to camp to fetch the Wardian cases. The sun was high in the sky when we returned, and the orchids’ scent was even stronger, the exotic scent spicier. The orchids’ pollinators swarmed around the orchids, flitting from one to the other. I couldn’t bear to deprive the bees of their food source, so for every two orchids I removed I left one behind. We made sure to leave the habitat intact, even smoothing over the loose bark where the former orchid had stood. To the casual observer, who hadn’t seen the plants before, nothing looked amiss.

As we worked, we wrapped each plant in dampened moss, standing them up, side by side, in the Wardian cases draped over Ink, who stood still as a statue.

We removed three hundred orchids in various stages of flowering—some were in bloom, some were in spike, and some were in bud. We took a sampling of the substance they sat in so as to duplicate it as best we could in England. We noted the type of trees they lived on, the disparity of temperature between the forest and the open land, that the plant lived in shade, and that it did not mind being buffeted about by the wind.

“I’m going to remain in China with Alex,” I said. Papa looked astonished, as though I was telling him I’d decided to live on the moon. “He’ll need looking after . . . and . . . and I promised him I wouldn’t leave him. I’ll ask Pru if we may stay with her.”

“Oh, my dear,” Papa said. “We don’t even know yet if Alex will live through this.”

“Don’t say that!” I said. “He will!” Of course I worried that Alex would die, but I didn’t dare give voice to that. I had to believe that he would live.

“I think it’s best you leave Alex to Pru. She knows him better than you, after all. He’ll return to the sea when he’s well, and then where will you be? Your marriage is in name only, isn’t that right? Isn’t that what you both told me?” Papa didn’t wait for my reply, he continued on: “The captain assured me he’d have a place on the Osprey in December. It’s your sisters and your mother who need you. It’s time to go home now.”

“Oh, I . . .” The confidence I had gained by finding the orchid slipped away from me. I’d forgotten that Mamma and my sisters needed me. Papa would return to his life at Kew, and I must return to mine. This world I had stepped into and grown to love was not mine for the taking. My life was back in England. Back in Edencroft. For the rest of my life I would remain a kind of widow, unable to re-marry as long as Alex remained alive. Should he decide to divorce me or annul our marriage, I’d never be able to wed anyway because no one would marry a discarded woman.

But Alex had said he loved me. Perhaps when he was well, he would come to Kent with me? But I couldn’t see Alex living in Edencroft. There was nothing for him there. What would he do? Go on my little plant hunting expeditions with me? What a fabulous idea. Lock Alex in the glasshouse alongside me. My stomach twisted. Alex was made for adventure, not for a staid existence. I had to let him go.

“Of course, Papa,” I said. “What was I thinking?”

He brushed my cheek with his fingers. “There’s my good girl. My steady Elodie.” He looked at my hand. “Easy there, watch what you’re doing.”

Startled, I opened my hand; my palm was stained green. I had squeezed the orchid in my hand so tightly that I had crushed it.

ON THE FOURTH DAY OF HIS ILLNESS, ALEX AWOKE. I WAS SITTING with his head in my lap, my hand resting on his shoulder and my eyes closed when I felt his hand on mine. Startled, I looked down to see his eyes open. Apart from the dark circles smudging the skin under them, his eyes were clear and alert.

I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to tell him that I loved him and I would never leave him, but I couldn’t. It hurt too much to say those words. So instead, like a coward, I hardened my heart toward him.

I called to Ching Lan and left him in her care.

Within a few more days, Alex was able to sit up on his own, eat a little rice, and hold down a few cups of weak tea. It was time to take him back to Pru’s, where he could recover fully. Alex was not strong enough to manage a horse by himself, even for short distances, so Papa hired chair bearers from the nearest village. I nearly cried watching the coolies help Alex into the sedan chair. He looked so gaunt and weak, and I was terrified he wouldn’t survive the long journey back.

I worried about Ching Lan, too. The closer we drew to Yen-Ping, the more subdued she became. She only had a handful of days before she was to depart with her parents for Peking. She stopped talking, stopped collecting plants, stopped noticing anything. She replied to my questions with short answers. Her time of freedom was growing short.

We were one day out from Pru’s when I woke to the sound of someone crying. In the moonlight I saw Ching Lan kneeling on the ground, her long hair falling all around her, keening. It was the sound of utter heartbreak. The kind of weeping that is uncontrollable, where one can only wait until the grief completely passes. She was trying in vain to make it stop, the back of her hands dashing over and over at her eyes.

I went to her and put my arms around her, just as I would any of my sisters. She resisted at first, her body stiffening, but then she laid her head on my shoulder and let herself cry.

“I can’t go to the Forbidden City,” she said. “I won’t go.”

I didn’t know what to do to help her. “Come with me to England,” I said, grasping at straws. “You can live with me and my sisters. You’ll be welcome there. And safe.”

She shook her head. “Chinese women cannot travel. It’s illegal.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say to her to comfort her. She had every right to her tears, and nothing I could do would help her.

“Lend me your knife,” she said.

I pulled it out of my pocket and handed it to her. “Searching for plants at night?”

She flipped open the knife and touched the blade again and again with the tip of her finger, almost as though she were testing herself. She kept on until the blade sliced through and a bead of blood appeared.

“I told you to be careful with that, Ching Lan. It’s sharp.”

I put out my hand to get the knife back, and she held it out of my reach, her expression defiant.

A cold dread washed over me. I was stupid to give her the knife. “What are you doing, Ching Lan? If you think I’m going to let you kill yourself, you’re wrong!”

“I’m not going to kill myself,” she said. “I’m going to cut my face, like you did the orchid thief’s. I’ll say it was a tiger that bit me.”

“Give me the knife back. You’re mad!”

“Girls who are ill or deformed aren’t accepted. Don’t you see? This is what I need to do to make things better. I should have done it when I was thirteen, and then maybe Pru wouldn’t have been sent away. Maybe Alex wouldn’t have turned to opium again if we were there to be his family. I should have done it then, but I was too scared.”

“None of that is your fault.” But I understood how Ching Lan felt because I held myself to the same standards. Perhaps we were both wrong. Perhaps fault wasn’t as simple as blaming ourselves.

“Elodie, this is my decision, not yours! If I become a concubine, I’ll a die a new death every day.”

“There has to be something else we can do. I’ll ask Papa—”

“You can’t fix everything! What else do you think you control? The ocean tides? The moon’s beams? You Westerners think you can change China, that it needs fixing. We are not yours to fix or to change.”

“What about Pru? She’s a Westerner, and it seems to me that she taught you another life.”

“Pru understands Chinese people. She knows she’s the same as us, not above us.”

“I don’t think I’m above you.”

“I know you don’t, but you will go home. Pru is not like the missionaries who live on a hill. She lives simply, alongside us. She never thinks she knows best. If you want to really help me, you can leave me be.”

I couldn’t leave her alone in the wilderness to maim herself. And I couldn’t stay to watch her do it, either. She was my friend—no, more than a friend, my sister. My throat constricted, and my fear for Ching Lan nearly knocked the breath from my chest. “Here, give me the knife.” I held out my hand. She hesitated a moment and handed me the billhook.

I swallowed and lifted the knife to her cheekbone; she tilted her face up and closed her eyes. I set the hook on the edge of her cheek; the tip bit into her skin until blood began to flow around the wound. My heart roared in my ears, and I thought I might be sick. And then I saw tears trickle out from under her eyelids. “I can’t,” I said. “I can’t do this.”

And then, quick as a flash, Ching Lan wrapped her fingers around mine and tugged, slashing the knife through her skin. I didn’t have a second to react. Blood spilled from her face, and a jagged open wound stretched in a horrific gash from her cheekbone through the edge of her lip.

I dropped the knife. In a panic I reached into my pocket for a clean handkerchief and pressed it to the wound.

She gritted her teeth in pain and grabbed my wrist. “Leave it.”

“Ching Lan, please! You could die if it gets infected. Let me take you back to camp.”

She pushed me so hard that I fell backward into the leaves. “Wah! You aren’t listening to me. You don’t listen to anyone. I want to have a scar; I want to be ugly so that that emperor doesn’t desire me, that no man desires me. It’s the only way I can be free.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be sorry, Elodie,” she said. Her face looked ghoulish in the moonlight, but there was a peace about her now. The fear and apprehension had left her. “Just be happy for me.”

Ching Lan left on Piggy the next morning. She didn’t want to answer Papa’s or Alex’s questions. She would go straight to Pru, then to her parents and the mandarin and tell them what had happened. The mandarin would have to speak for her, to remove her from the selection list.

As we rode those last few miles to Yen-Ping, I memorized every detail of the wilderness, impressed upon my memory the sights, scents, and sounds so that I might remember them when I returned to Kent. I’d been right: Edencroft was my life, and once again, it always would be.

While Pru’s manservant helped Alex inside the house, Papa and I took the animals back to their owner and paid him for the lost mule. I stroked Blossom’s neck and made my good-byes. I would miss the little mare.

On our way back, Papa chatted. “I’ll head down to the river to see about a sampan for tomorrow,” he said. “We should leave as soon as possible to arrange for a steamship home. Many of those orchids in spike will be coming into bud in a month and then into bloom a month or so after that. If we look after them carefully on the journey, the flowers will be in prime condition when we arrive in London, and so they will fetch the best price.”

As Papa strolled alongside me he failed to look my way once. Couldn’t he see that I was upset about leaving Alex? Did he think me so uncaring that it wouldn’t distress me? But perhaps Papa knew something I did not. Perhaps Alex didn’t want me to stay with him anyway. Perhaps his pledge of love was nothing but the result of a fevered haze.

When we returned to Pru’s house, I went to see Alex. The door was open, and I paused, unsure of whether to go in or not. Pru sat on the bedside, examining Alex, listening to his heart with a metal tube-shaped instrument. Alex, his shirt open, lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling. Ching Lan sat next to him. Her wound had been closed in a neat line of stitches.

Pru sat up and began buttoning Alex’s shirt. She saw me standing in the doorway. “Come in, Elodie.”

“I’ve come to see how Alex is faring. I’m happy to see Ching Lan, as well.”

Pru replaced the instrument in her medical bag and snapped it closed. “I think he’s on the mend. A few weeks’ rest will see him back on his feet. You and Ching Lan looked after him very well.” She set her hand on Alex’s shoulder. She hesitated for a moment at the doorway, as though she wanted to say something, but then she squeezed my hand and pulled the door shut behind her.

I sat next to him. “I’m leaving tomorrow with Papa to take the orchids back to England. I expect you’ll rejoin the Osprey in December? I’ll bring Kukla to you.” I babbled on, talking about how happy she’d be to see him and how if he had time I’d love for him to come to Kent to see my sisters and Mamma. “I know they’d want to meet you.”

Ching Lan opened her mouth to say something, but Alex interrupted her. “Can I speak to Elodie alone?”

She nodded and left.

Alex struggled to sit up, and when I stepped up to help him, he lifted a hand. “Don’t help,” he said. “I can do it.”

I bit my lip, watching him fumble to pull himself upright. Sweat sheened his brow, and his arms trembled under his own weight. Exhausted by the effort, he sank back against the pillows. His cheeks were hollow, and his skin looked paper-thin.

“Can I fetch you anything? Water or tea—”

He shook his head.

There was a window at the side of the bed, and this looked over a bare patch of ground where a few plants struggled to grow. Alex turned away from me and looked out at the window. “I didn’t smoke the opium,” he said.

“What?”

“I didn’t smoke it. You thought I did, though. You didn’t give me a chance to explain. At all. How do you think that made me feel?”

“But I saw—”

“I know what you think you saw.”

“But I thought . . . the pipe?”

“The pipe you saw was from another man who left it behind. I was worried someone would try to go into your room, so I sat by the ladder, keeping watch. I was too much of a coward to return to you after what I said. So I know that’s why you’re leaving me, why you left my care to Ching Lan when I awoke. Why you don’t want to be near me anymore. Because of who I am, and what I’ve done. I understand. You could be honest with me.”

He looked at me then, but his eyes were so blank and expressionless that it scared me. Where was the friendliness and kindness that always shone forth from them? It was as though the fever had extinguished it.

“That’s not why, Alex. If that were true, then I wouldn’t have made that promise to you.”

“What promise?” he asked. From the look on his face I knew he remembered what had come between us the night he fell ill. But he glared at me, as though daring me to say it out loud.

“You know what I’m speaking of, Alex. You woke me and said you loved me.”

“I remember nothing. It was fignya, gibberish, I’m sure.”

“It wasn’t. Not to me it wasn’t.”

He returned his gaze to the window. “Well, I’m sorry for you, then.”

Those words, coming from Alex, struck me so hard I was nearly breathless. I wanted to double over with the pain of it.

“Alex, please . . .”

“Go away, Elodie,” he said, his voice hitching. “Just go away.”

I knew then that I was making the right choice. Alex didn’t want me. He was better off here with Ching Lan and Pru, as Papa had said.

I was glad, I told myself. I was relieved.

Perhaps someday I might believe it.

I left the room silently and headed outside to find Papa. I had just reached the door when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

Ching Lan spun me around. She reached out as though to slap me, and I caught her hand. “What are you doing?”

Her cheeks were red with fury, and tears pooled in her eyes. “For the first time in three years I am not afraid anymore. I know now that I can find a way to live my life the way I want to, no matter how hard or how painful. And here you are, going back to England and leaving Alex behind. How can you do that? He loves you!”

“You don’t know everything!” I said. “Our marriage is a farce, Ching Lan.”

“It’s not a farce! When we were searching for plants together, he wouldn’t stop talking about you. He dared to love you, and now you’re leaving him.”

“He doesn’t love me!” I said. “He said as much just now.”

Ching Lan lunged at me, her hands outstretched as though she wanted to scratch my eyes out.

I caught her hands and pushed her away. “My family needs me. My father needs me at home to look after my sisters. Can you tell me you don’t understand that? You are the one who told me about being filial, and that’s what I’m doing.”

“Not before your husband. Husband comes first.” Ching Lan pulled away from me and crossed her arms.

Papa came around the house just then, carrying a pack in each hand. “Elodie,” Papa said. “Can you help me go through these? We need to make sure everything is dry before we leave or it will be rotted through by the time we reach England.”

Ching Lan turned and stared at Papa, defiant. Papa sucked in his breath when he saw her face. “Your face, my dear. What happened?”

“I did it myself, and I’m not ashamed for anyone to see.”

“Because of the emperor’s selection?”

She nodded once.

“Well then.” He dropped the packs and slid the sleeves of his jacket up. He held his wrists out to show her. “If you are not ashamed, then I suppose I should not be, either.” They were exactly as I remembered them, the skin dented and thick with scars.

Ching Lan gasped. “Kao-niu?” she said.

“Yes. So I know a little bit about scars the emperor inflicts,” Papa said. “Some are more noble than others, and we have to bear it the best we can.”

She took Papa’s wrists in her hands, holding them gently, meeting his eyes for a moment before she released them. Papa nodded to her, picked up the bags, and left.

“I’m sorry, Elodie,” Ching Lan said. “If you have to go, I suppose you should go.”

“Promise me you’ll look after Alex,” I said.

Ching Lan began to cry, and her tears set me crying, too. “In China we have a custom,” she said. “If we love someone, we try to make them part of our family. Would you be my sister?”

I looked at her sweet face and said yes, but only if she would be mine. I found I had come to love Ching Lan like a sister, and I wished with all my heart that I could take her home with me and keep her safe there. But her life was not mine to govern, and she had a life of her own in China. I wished we could meet again someday.

WHEN DAWN CAME, PAPA AND I SAID GOOD-BYE TO CHING LAN AND Pru. They stood in the doorway and watched us go, waving us good-bye.

Although it had taken many days to travel up the Min, it took only two to travel back, as the currents swept the boat down the river.

I sat, cross-legged, watching the scenery go by. As the miles built up behind me, I mourned the loss of my friends and of Alex and the months of freedom gone by, possibly never to be repeated again. Somehow I had to return home and carve out a new life, but I was leaving my heart with Alex and my soul in the mountains and rivers of the Chinese landscape. “I wanted to ask you, Papa,” I said. “That word Ching Lan used when she saw your scars. Kao-niu. What does that mean?”

“It’s the name of the punishment, this cuffing of the wrists with soaked ties. Most people don’t live through it. One of the jailers knew me and released me of my bonds in time.”

“I think it’s cruel that Mr. Pringle forced you to come back to get the orchids. Especially since he knows what happened to you.”

“He was perfectly in his right to do so. It was my fault that I lost his plants. I wasn’t meant to be where I was. I had the Queen’s Fancy orchids crated up in their Wardian cases and ready to go, but the ship had been delayed, and so I decided to travel north, to look for plants for Kew. I saw Bowlby before he set out on his mission, so I went along with him. I have always had a taste for adventure and an eagerness to search for new things. Sometimes this feeling is so great that it quite undoes me, and I act without thinking.” Papa’s voice trailed off, and he looked out at the river for a long time.

Before I fell in love with the Queen’s Fancy, I wouldn’t have understood Papa’s yearning, but now I did. I wanted to know what lay farther beyond the mountains; I wanted to find more orchids. Despite all of the danger and heartbreak I’d experienced, China called to me still.