The field reached to my shoulders that August, washed-out golden stalks mingling with bursts of yellow and white wildflowers. It was the height of summer, and my family was vacationing in the Catskills, where my uncle Frank had a small cabin. The trek from the cabin to the field was not a long one--forty feet, at most--but for an eight-year-old, it was a journey. The smallest of details demanded my attention. At one moment I squatted to examine the blades of dead grass buried beneath vibrant green ones. The pale dead blades reminded me of ghosts. A hummingbird flitted by, and I forgot their paleness. Standing up, I continued my trek.

Uncle Frank was rolling a cigarette on the deck, and when I reached the edge of the field, he walked over to stand beside me. Plucking an intricate-looking wildflower, he placed it in my hands. It filled my cupped palms, tiny white blossoms all connected like a delicate web, and in the center a small bud--dark crimson in color, like a droplet of blood. I handled the flower gingerly, as if it were an antique treasure. It weighed almost nothing.

"Do you know what it's called?" A smoker for many years, my uncle's voice sounded like the rustling of branches. I looked at the flower and then at him, shaking my head. "Queen Anne’s lace," he said and then he paused. My uncle was constantly teaching me something new, and I recognized this pause, this mental collecting of facts or details, this meticulous organizing he did. Beyond us and the field, past the valley, a train moved through the mountains; its whistle blew.

"There is a story behind Queen Anne's lace," he continued. The train still echoed in the distance, and the sun was like a gentle hand, warming my arms and face. I could smell the tobacco from my uncle's flannel shirt. "Queen Anne looked out her window one day and saw the enemy approaching. She didn't want them to find the royal jewels and so she wrapped up her rubies in old lace and hid them away. Well, no one ever did find those rubies. Some say she buried them, and not too long after, these flowers appeared. Some say they're all that remain of Queen Anne's rubies. You see the red dot in the middle, right there," and here he pointed at the crimson blossom with an index finger. "Well, there you go."

In my mind's eye, I could see Queen Anne running down the marble hall of her castle, rubies bundled in lace and clutched in her pale, slender hands, yellow silk slippers peeking out from beneath her beautiful, bulky gown with each frantic stride. Trying to find a place to stow the jewels away, hearing the troops at her door, her face still delicate despite her fear. …

Then the vision ended, and I was back beside my uncle, and he was pointing out the ruby in the center of the lace. I stared at the flower, still holding it gently in my hands, and I felt a wonder growing in me, a warmth that started small and slowly spread. I looked at my uncle and smiled; then suddenly I grew concerned. "Uncle Frank," I said abruptly, and I was urgent, I needed to know, "did she get away?"

My uncle laughed, his laughter like a hoarse dog's bark. "Sweetheart, it's only a story."

I looked down at the flower lying in my open palms. My uncle had transformed it into lace and rubies; the story of Queen Anne gave the flower a weight it hadn't borne before. Pressing the white blossom to my chest, I raised my head and saw my uncle standing brilliant in the sunlight, staring across the field at something I couldn't see.

"I think she got away." I said it with certainty. My uncle looked at me and raised his eyebrows, encouraging me to continue. Still clutching Queen Anne's lace to my chest, I nodded.

"Don't you know? She got away. There was a secret passage in her castle, and she ran through it until she got outside. She buried her rubies in the woods. Then she rode her horse through the forest and escaped." I paused for a moment.

Smiling, he said, "And then what?" He put his hands in his pockets and tilted his head, waiting.

I lifted Queen Anne's lace for both my uncle and me to see. "She got away, but she left those rubies behind on purpose. She left them so people would always remember her. Planted them in the ground so they would take root and grow into flowers. Then people would see them, like we are now, and talk about her. Hundreds and hundreds of years later, even!" I waved the flower in the air for emphasis. "So even now we remember her. She was so smart!" Excitement stirred within me, a buzzing. I had transformed the flower, too.

Uncle Frank laughed, lifting his head to look back across the field and valley. "I think you've got it," he said. "I do believe you're right."

© 2009 by Carus Publishing Company