The hex chromosome, p.1
The Hex Chromosome, page 1
the hex chromosome
Alison Seely
Austin Macauley Publishers
The Hex Chromosome
About the Author
Dedication
Copyright Information ©
Acknowledgment
Prologue
Chapter 1 Catriona’s Arrival
Chapter 2 Settling In
Chapter 3 Surviving the First School Day
Chapter 4 Hot Chocolate and Coffee
Chapter 5 A Week of Trials
Chapter 6 The Magic Show
Chapter 7 Ski Day
Chapter 8 A Brief Respite
Chapter 9 Three Generations of Birch Women
Chapter 10 Family Tree
Chapter 11 Ski Lessons
Chapter 12 Homework
Chapter 13 Detention
Chapter 14 A Secret Slips Out
Chapter 15 Broom Lessons
Chapter 16 Some Answers
Chapter 17 Uneventful Classes
Chapter 18 An Eventful Flight Home
Chapter 19 The Rescue
Chapter 20 Repercussions
Chapter 21 Notoriety
Chapter 22 Harmony at the Netherwoods
Chapter 23 A Bit of Calm
Chapter 24 Birch Family Secrets
Chapter 25 Story of Evelyn Birch
Chapter 26 Lessons at the Birch’s
Chapter 27 Lessons in Genetics
Chapter 28 A Shopping Expedition
Chapter 29 The Community Pool
Chapter 30 Swimming Lessons
Chapter 31 Plunk is Stumped
Chapter 32 Northern Lights
Chapter 33 Canadian
Chapter 34 Plotting on the Ski Hill
Chapter 35 Sleuthing at School
Chapter 36 The Final Swim Session
Chapter 37 Library Discovery
Chapter 38 Sleepover
Chapter 39 A Visit to Carleton
Chapter 40 Ski Races
Chapter 41 Project Submitted and Project Returned
Chapter 42 Captured
Chapter 43 Irwin Needs Help
Chapter 44 Water Trial Explained
Chapter 45 Stumped
Chapter 46 Rescue
Chapter 47 Police Station Interview
Chapter 48 Questions at School
Chapter 49 Refuge at the Birch’s
Chapter 50 Family Revelations
Chapter 51 More Discoveries
Chapter 52 Caught Again
Chapter 53 Reluctant Assistance
Chapter 54 Stars on Stage
Chapter 55 Déjà Vu at the Station
Chapter 56 Safe and Home
About the Author
Alison Seely is a published author, veterinarian and animal chiropractor. She and her husband live on a small lake in Ontario, Canada, with a massive Great Dane-cross, called Haka. Raising their three children in a rural setting without television required creativity. Alison used to entertain them with bedtime stories, crafted about an ordinary girl and her adopted sister with witch powers. Her now adult children persuaded her to create a book about the characters.
Dedication
My mother, Janet, inspired a love of fantasy and storytelling. My three children, Savannah, Forest, and Logan persuaded me that the stories should be turned into a book and not just the stuff of memories. And as always, I thank Kevin, my best friend and rock.
Copyright Information ©
Alison Seely 2022
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Ordering Information
Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.
Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data
Seely, Alison
The Hex Chromosome
ISBN 9781638296690 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781638296706 (ePub e-book)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022915416
www.austinmacauley.com/us
First Published 2022
Austin Macauley Publishers LLC
40 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, Suite 3302
New York, NY 10005
USA
mail-usa@austinmacauley.com
+1(646)5125767
Acknowledgment
I am grateful to those who gamely read and critiqued the first versions of The Hex Chromosome, Kevin, Logan, Jen, Jane, Debbie, Lilah, as well as the publishers at Austin Macauley Publishers for turning manuscript into a book.
Prologue
She could smell them long before she could hear them, it was one of her more unfortunate “gifts”. It was the nasty acrid stench of sweat on unwashed bodies when excitement and fear are paired with exertion. Their fearful thoughts were almost yells in the quiet night. Her mother smelled them too and urgently pushed her deeper into the cave. There wasn’t much opportunity for hiding—it was damp and dark, but also very shallow. There was a small fissure in the furthest recess, and her mother pushed her towards it and hissed, “Squeeze yourself in.” It hurt when she tried to wedge herself in—the rock face was sharp and wet and she could feel blood on her scratched knees.
She could hear them now, voices high with feverish excitement. They weren’t hesitating to look for the entrance. They were approaching steadily. Clearly, they had been told where to look. Her mother gave an abrupt hug and pushed her against the wall. “Use your skills, Cat! I don’t want you found!” And then she moved quickly to the cave entry. Her laughter filled the cave as the men appeared, white-faced in their torchlight, fearful to touch her even though there were nine of them, and even the youths outweighed her by almost two stone.
The girl flattened herself against the rock wall, her cheeks wet as she listened to her mother’s brave scornful laughter. She slowed her heart, once every second, then once every two, and finally down to once every minute.
The world stilled and the heart slowed even more until it contracted for no more than one fluctuant beat every month or so. Her heart would continue to beat at this new pace for around 4,500 beats until it was abruptly jolted back to a more typical 80 beats per minute.
Chapter 1
Catriona’s Arrival
Tina knew whenever a sentence from her aunt began with “Christina Ann Netherwood…”, it would follow with “you have no idea how lucky you are”. The theme would change—either to live in her house on the river, to have such devoted parents, to have a full belly with a world full of starving children, to have so few chores… Inevitably, the underlying sub-context was “you are ungrateful and it’s because your mother sucks as a mom!” Or at least that was what Tina heard ringing out stridently in her aunt Wendy’s honeyed tones. Wendy was Tina’s dad’s older sister, and her baby brother could do no wrong. But that feeling didn’t seem to extend to his wife or only daughter.
On this particular February afternoon, the end of the sentence was “to have parents who go to the end of the world just to provide you with a sister!” Never mind that Tina’s parents were just as desperate to have another child, or that the “end of the world” was an eight-hour plane ride away, in Northern Scotland. Tina had wanted a sibling ever since she was old enough to recognize that most of her classmates had live-in companions to play board games and hide-and-go-seek, whereas she had parents who valiantly added her to one of their teams in Boggle or Scrabble. Her best friend Sophie was also an only child. They were united in concluding that being a single child was the worst!
At four or five, she would have welcomed even a brother, even though one of her friends, Marnie, had to put up with hair-pulling, hockey-dominated weekends, and stinky farts with her brother Danny. But in the last five years, Tina had craved a sister. Her mom had gone through three very expensive fertility treatments when Tina was seven and eight. She wasn’t really sure what that entailed, but her mom had been unusually grumpy for a couple of weeks and then very sad each time, and the family had not taken their usual spring break in the south for both years because of the cost.
Anyways—it seemed that her parents had finally given up on the medical route, and the dinner conversation had shifted to “what do you think of having a little sister from China?” And later “or from Vietnam?” Tina had always been hugely enthusiastic and spent hours looking up Vietnam and China on Google earth and Wikipedia. But recently, there had been a flurry of emails from a friend in Edinburgh, Scotland, and a Scottish sister started looking like a real possibility. And not a boring diapered baby, but a thirteen-year old whose birthday put her at just four months younger than Tina!
Tina was alternately through the roof with excitement, and desperately afraid that this latest scheme would fall through. Initially, she hadn’t even shared the ne ws with Sophie, scared that saying it aloud might jinx the plans. But when her parents actually boarded a plane for Edinburgh, she could hardly contain her excitement. She had started talking ceaselessly about her new sister to Sophie and Marnie. She had been reprimanded several times by her teachers for talking to her friends while classes were in progress, a novel event for her as she tended to be an exemplary student.
Tina’s excitement even allowed her to be able to put up with Aunt Wendy moving in for two weeks, bossing her around, and checking on her homework. It chafed. Tina was used to working without supervision or scrutiny and her parents tended to encourage her independence. Even more annoying were the snide remarks about her mother which Wendy often peppered her conversation.
Everything was said sweetly, of course. It was only after she had digested what was said, that Tina would realize that Wendy had been saying snarky things about everything Tina loved. Tina’s mother always laughed it off, but it generally left Tina burning with anger. Especially since a thirteen-year-old wasn’t allowed to just ask her aunt to “please shut up!”
Ah well, in three days, her parents would be at the Ottawa airport with a sister in-tow, and one tense family meal later, her aunt would be at the same airport with air kisses and limp hugs, and off to her home in Calgary!
Tina swung her attention back to her aunt. “Yes, Aunt Wendy, I know I am very lucky, but I’m not sure that Scotland is the end of the world. And I’m not sure that not finishing my homework a week before it is due is a measure of being spoiled or ungrateful!” Minutes later, she was sitting at the computer with dictates to finish the assignment before appearing again downstairs. She had known the outcome of talking back, but it always seemed worth it. Her parents had not been proponents of a top-down hierarchy, so biting her tongue never came easily when her aunt played the heavy-handed parent.
The next two days were excruciating, but finally Thursday dawned. Aunt Wendy had reluctantly agreed to take Tina to the airport with her to pick up her parents and the adoptive sister! Muttering again that she thought missing school was frivolous when Tina would have all the years ahead of her to get to know this “new project”, her aunt finally climbed into the car at 12:30. The plane was due at 1:05 and even Tina’s dad was hard-pressed to make the drive in less than forty-five minutes. Wendy was a notoriously slow driver. Tina had been sitting patiently in the back seat since 12:15. Her aunt thought it was dangerous for anyone under the age of fifteen to sit in the passenger seat.
Tina’s enthusiasm as they travelled on the familiar highway to Ottawa was infectious. Wendy thawed a bit over her disapproval about the missed school. They again rehashed the little pieces they had gleaned about the girl her parents were bringing back.
“So, she doesn’t really speak English, your mother said?”
“No. I think she speaks English, but can be a bit hard to understand. I guess she has a funny accent. And I gather she doesn’t talk a lot.”
“Well, the Scots do all have funny accents! But I’ve never heard about Canadians complaining about not understanding them. And I hope she’s not one of those sulky teens who doesn’t talk with adults and spends all her time texting her friends.”
Tina refused to get insulted on the girl’s behalf. It was ridiculous to create conjectures when they both had so little information to go on. “I wonder if people will think we are twins? We are almost the same age?”
“Now that’s a ridiculous notion. You’re older and have completely different parents! You won’t even look like sisters!”
That kept Tina quiet for a time. It seemed like a nasty thing to say, because they WERE going to be sisters! And she had meant fraternal, not identical twins obviously. She knew some fraternal twins who looked radically different.
They pulled into the short term parking lot at the Ottawa airport at 1:30. Tina rushed out of the car and dashed towards the revolving door to the airport. There was an escalator where passengers descended into the baggage claim area and the typical collection of families were grouped around it, some holding up large cardboard signs with passenger’s names. Tina did a quick scan of the group around the luggage carrousel, but neither of her parents were among the group looking over the few remaining bags. The passengers from the flight from Scotland must still be making their way through customs.
She paced eagerly at the base of the escalator, too impatient to sit on one of the benches. Her aunt sat down on the nearest bench underneath the statue of John A. Macdonald, and pulled out a paperback (a romance, Tina noted with an inward eye roll). “So much for the desperate rush, huh? I told you that Customs would take a lifetime. They probably don’t have a clue about how to process a foreign adoptee.”
Tina scanned every face who climbed onto the escalator. Her parents would be hard to miss. Her dad was six-foot-four and had the perfect unembarrassed posture of a former basketball player. He tended to loom conspicuously over his much shorter wife. Fiona often wore high-heeled shoes and swept her hair in a bun just to even out the height difference.
Tina focused on the teenaged passengers. She was excited to see her parents after the two-week gap, but that was completely dwarfed by her excitement at meeting her new sister! Every girl or short woman who descended the stairwell received Tina’s full scrutiny. One girl noticed and smiled awkwardly, but the short stout woman accompanying her raised her eyebrows at Tina and glared. Tina blushed and sat down beside her aunt.
The crowd had thinned when Tina suddenly spied her father towering behind the glass at the top of the escalator. She leaped to her feet and rushed to the bottom of the stairs. Her mother grinned at her from the moving stairs. Her hand was holding tightly to a small pale girl with a mop of long dark curly hair held halfheartedly by a set of barrettes. She was flanked by both of Tina’s parents and looked much tinier than her thirteen years. Tina rushed up and stood awkwardly with a grin splitting her face and making her cheeks ache. She wasn’t sure whether she should hug or shake hands, and didn’t want to show proprietary parent ownership by hugging her parents either.
Her mom ignored her frozen stance, and swooped in for a huge hug. “Man, have I ever missed you! I wish we could have taken you with us, my love! Give your sleepy dad a hug and then we’ll introduce you to our newest family member!”
Tina hugged her dad tightly, welcoming the chiropractic hug he always delivered, but her eyes stayed riveted on the small girl.
“Tina, meet Catriona! And Cat, this is your new sister, Tina!”
Then there was a flurry of hugs between Wendy and Tina’s parents, and the juggle of baggage collecting, and then they were outside, paying the parking ticket, and looking for the car. Tina could not keep her eyes from Catriona. She was quiet and watchful, and had bright clever eyes that were brown with a vivid ring of green. She grinned at Tina when she saw her watching her, but still didn’t say anything. Tina wondered if she perhaps only spoke Gaelic and was having a hard time with the rapid English her family spoke.
Once in the car, her aunt pulled out onto the highway 17 and headed home. Wendy had glanced at the diminutive girl and suggested that she sit in the middle seat in the back where there was no risk of an airbag decapitating her in an accident. Wendy looked meaningfully at her sister-in-law and said, “I’m not sure the agency was all that truthful with you, Fiona, in terms of chronology and pedigree and perhaps potential for comprehension.” Tina gritted her teeth. She was sure that Aunt Wendy assumed that neither girl was able to understand the inference that Catriona was not as old, well-bred nor as bright as the adoption agency had suggested.
“I’m thirteen years and fifty-six days old, my parents were well educated, and I do just fine at school! Also, I don’t have lice, my teeth will not cost a mint in orthodontics—they are straight, but you haven’t given me cause to smile at you so that’s why you haven’t seen them. I can also safely assure you that I’m not remotely inclined to slit the throats of either Fiona or David.” The voice was assured, beautifully accented with a Scottish lilt, and sounded so polite that it was several moments before any reaction was provoked in the front seat.
