Toby ate his bagel slathered with his Mom’s homemade strawberry jam while he read the sports page.  At the edge of his hearing, he could just make out Mei Ling’s voice talking to Ruth.  They were going into Boston after breakfast to do some research for her and to answer some of the many questions that Toby had about the whole past life thing.

 Sam came in and headed for the coffeepot with a low voiced ‘good morning’.  Toby watched his older brother out of the corner of his eye.  Sam was behaving so oddly that he knew there was something wrong.  Dinner the night before had been kind of surreal.  The guest, Seth Griffin, was an okay guy, not like some of his Dad’s other buddies.  He had a sense of humor and really knew how to tell a story.  They’d all been in stitches when he told about his first posting as a raw Lieutenant on an American base in England.

 Toby frowned, Sam had laughed just as hard as any of them but he’d been quiet the rest of the time, only speaking when spoken to.  There was something going on and he wanted to help but he wasn’t sure how to broach the subject.  But then maybe it was something about one of his patients.  Sam really took his patient care to heart and Toby had overheard him talking to Dad right after he’d come home about one of his patients in Belgrade who had died.

 No way do I ever want that kind of responsibility.  No life and death for me, just a nice simple career digging up the past, Toby thought wryly.

 “Hey, Sam, could you put in a couple more bagels.  Mei Ling should be out any minute now.  She’s just getting some last minute directions from Ruth.”

 “What?”  He looked at Toby and shook his head.  “Oh sure . . . bagels.”

 “You okay, Sam?”

 “Sure, just got some things on my mind.”  Sam sat down and started playing with his cereal.  “What did you think about Colonel Griffin?”

 Toby finished his juice.  “I thought he was pretty cool . . . for an old guy.”

 Sam snorted his coffee and had to cough into his napkin while Toby pounded on his back.  Finally he waved him away and took a deep breath.  “He’s only 45, Tob’, that’s not so old.”
 
“For you, maybe but then I kind of think of you as an old guy too, Sam.”

 Sam laughed out loud.  “Thank you, so much for making me feel decrepit, you little pip-squeak.”

 “Hey, you asked!  Old man.”  Toby made sure his brother heard him so he was prepared to duck the hand that snapped over and thumped him.

 “Aside from his age, what did you think of him?”

 “I bet he never runs out of stories.  Did you know him before he came here?”  Toby asked as Mei Ling entered from the sickroom.

 “We met once.”  Sam’s answer was short and to the point then he busied himself with taking the toasted bagels out of the toaster oven.  “Here you go, Mei Ling.  How is Ruth this morning?”

 “She wants to get up really badly.  You may have to sit on her today to keep her inside.”  Mei Ling accepted the plate with her bagel and reached for the jar of preserves while Sam excused himself to go and check on his patient.  “I wish your mom made up gallons of this jam and sent some back to the dorms with you every year.”

 “Don’t I know it.  Mostly she just gives it away to anybody who asks.”  Toby shrugged and snagged the last bagel.

 “I’m asking, I’m asking.”  Mei Ling presented a begging face to Julie who was just coming in from outdoors.

 “Ah, the strawberry jam strikes again.”  Julie dropped a kiss on Mei Ling’s sleek black hair and moved on to Toby to give him his morning hello.  “I believe I might just have a jar you can take back with you to campus.  What are the two of you doing today?”

 “Research at the Peabody for Ruth.  Professor Heinrich told me he’d give me a tour after he spoke to our Archaeology 101 class last year.”  Toby swallowed the last of the bagel.  “So I thought I’d take him up on his offer.”

 “Oh good, you’re going into Boston.  Stop at Finelli’s and pick up a couple dozen of their whole wheat bagels for us, please.”  Julie looked from the half-finished bowl of cereal to Grandma Penelope’s room.  “Did Sam eat anything?”

 Toby shrugged and shook his head.  “Is he okay, Mom?”

 “I don’t know, Toby.  He’s been going over and over something but he won’t say what.  I’m beginning to wonder if he met someone in Kosovo who he’s now wishing he had brought home.”  Julie sighed and poured herself a cup of coffee.

 “Well, you’ll get it out of him eventually, Mom.  You always do.”  Toby got up and dropped a kiss on her cheek before rinsing his dishes and fitting them into the dishwasher.  Mei Ling joined him, sweeping the table free of crumbs and putting her own dishes in.

 “You ready?”  Toby asked her.

 “I just need to get my back pack.”  Mei Ling scooted upstairs and came back down with it slung over her shoulder.  “Now, I’m ready.”

 “Two dozen whole wheat bagels, Mom, anything else?”  Toby shrugged on his padded vest and grabbed his car keys from the pegboard by the back door.

 “Some spinach noodles would be nice if they made them today.”

 “Got it.  We’ll see you about four, Mom.”

 “Take care, sweeties.  Watch out for those nasty Boston drivers.”  Julie waved goodbye.

*************

 Toby and Mei Ling strode up the concrete steps to the double doors of the old fashioned museum on the Harvard Campus.  There were never a lot of visitors but Toby had always had a soft spot for the Peabody.  It might not be up to date or completely climate controlled but their African halls had always sent a shiver up his spine whenever his mom had brought him here to burn off some energy.

 The woman at the front desk looked up with a pleasant smile when they stopped to ask directions.  “May I help you?”

 “Hi, we’d like to see Dr. Heinrich.”

 “Oh, I’m sorry, the Doctor isn’t here.  He’s on sabbatical to Hunan until next May.”

 “Oh, I didn’t know.”  Toby looked at Mei Ling with a grimace.

 “Toby?  Toby Hamilton?”  A voice from the back hall caught their attention.

 Toby looked around and broke into a smile.  “Matt!  Hey man, it’s good to see you.  Are you studying here?”

 “Got an internship working for Professor Wenton after the dig last summer.  Why are you here and who is this lovely lady?”  The short, dark haired graduate student smiled hopefully at Mei Ling.
 
“Mei Ling Chang, meet Matt Somers.  Matt, Mei Ling is a friend from U of M.  I was hoping to give her a tour of the Peabody, including some behind the scene stuff.  But it looks like Dr. Heinrich isn’t here.”  Toby frowned and gave Matt his cue.

 “Well, if you don’t mind me being your guide, you can still have your tour.”  Matt grinned at the information clerk.  “How about a couple of visitor badges?”

 After signing in and clipping the badges to their collars, Matt took them back to his office.  “Where do you want to start?  What’s your field, Mei Ling?”

 Toby watched with a straight face while she flirted with his friend from the summer dig.  Matt was an unabashed extrovert who’d kept the whole camp on their toes with his practical jokes and dirty limericks.  He was a master of the art of telling a story which drew you in then dumped you on your ass with its punch line.  He’d learned a lot from the guy over the six weeks they’d both been on the dig.

 “Ancient China is not one of our best collections.  We’ve got artifacts in the sub-sub-basement right below us.  Some of those crates remind me of that last scene in the adventure film, when the old guy is wheeling in the crate to join all the other stuff that’s too dangerous to know.”  Matt snorted.  “Of course with us, its money more than anything else.  We just don’t have the funds to sort, catalog and preserve all the artifacts we have.”

 “But that sounds so exciting!”  Mei Ling beamed up at him.  “Could we at least take a peek down there?  We wouldn’t harm them, would we?”

 Toby gave an inner cheer at her wide-eyed glance from under her long lashes to the smitten grad student.  Matt didn’t even hesitate.  “Well, of course, we can go on down.  It’s been months since I was there, maybe we’ll find a real treasure.”

 They went through two doors, a back corridor painted in a really sick looking green and down a flight of stairs that got progressively more dusty the further down they went.  Toby lagged behind while Matt kept on talking to Mei Ling.  There were two doors at the foot of the staircase but one of them was a freight elevator.  He didn’t see any locks, obviously, the curators didn’t think there was anything valuable in this vault.

 A light bulb hung in the middle of the twenty by twenty-foot ceiling, revealing crates and crates stacked almost to the ceiling with narrow walkways between the stacks.  Moving further into the room, they looked at the chalked numbers and names on the sides of all the crates.

 “Oh look, Toby.  Here’s some crates from the Turner expedition.  Wasn’t that the one that Ruth told us about?  1902 or somewhere there?”  Mei Ling waggled her eyebrows at him.

 “Gosh, you may be right.  Something about an earthquake that year bringing a village to light that had been buried for centuries.”  Toby put a questioning frown on his face.

 “Oh yes, the ill fated expedition to the Qin Mountains.”  Matt affectionately patted the crate Mei Ling was pointing to.  “Poor Professor Turner convinced a rich businessman to outfit the trip and excavating party.  He was so sure that what had been revealed by the earth’s movement would be the fabled capitol city of Emperor Shi Huangdi that he convinced the man to put up $25,000 to equip the party.  That was real money in those days and Professor Turner took ten students and as many native workers with him, settling in and beginning the work in June 1903.”

 “Wow, how many crates are here from that dig?”  Mei Ling was craning her head to and fro, checking the sides of the boxes nearest her.

 “You know, I don’t know.  We’d have to check the index book for that year but there’s another one here.”  Matt was getting into the spirit of the search.

 “I found one.”  Toby was taller than the others and spotted the Turner name on a box in the corner on top of three others.  “What happened to the expedition?”

 “They’d been busy digging for almost a month and they’d sent back the crates we’re looking at right now when their backer had a heart attack and died at the opera up in New York.  Rumor has it that he was . . . Um, making love to the lead soprano at the time.”  Matt grinned sheepishly at Mei Ling who tried to look shocked while Toby hid a smile at the little quiver in her lips.  “Two mornings after he got the news, all the native workers disappeared after warning the Professor that there was danger of another earthquake. His diary is quite explicit that as a civilized man of science he paid no heed to the superstitions of such primitives.  Imagine running away simply because the geese had become nervous.”

 “Oops.”  Mei Ling shook her head.  “That’s one of the first indicators of earth tremors.  I’m guessing that the workers were right.”

 “Right on the button.”  Matt beamed at her.  “When there’d been no word from the expedition in a month, one of the local missionaries stopped by and found the half uncovered village gone.  Completely gone with nothing to even show where it had been.  The Professor and all his workers were gone as well.  Only a couple of tents with their belongings in them were left.  He packed everything up and sent it back by slow boat to the museum.”

 “Wow, that’s so sad.”  Mei Ling was still counting crates.  “I think there’s five crates in all.  What’s inside of them?”

 “You know, I’m not sure.  I expect they put them down here to wait for Professor Turner’s return but when he didn’t, I’ll bet they just forgot about them.  Be interesting to find out but as I mentioned before, there’s just no money to pay for the work.  Everybody is working on something all ready and we lean more towards Africa then Asia.”

 “Toby, come here.”  Mei Ling’s voice came from a few feet away and Toby edged around another stack to find her kneeling by a dusty wooden box, her fingers tracing a name beneath Turner’s.

 “What is it?  Oh.”  Toby could truthfully say that he wasn’t surprised.  Much.  “Griffin.  Is that the name of the financier who bank rolled the dig?”

 “I think so.  We can check the logbook for 1903 if you like.  Why do I get the feeling that this is what you really came in to look for?”  Matt divided his shrewd glance between them.

 “Because you’re a very wise man?”  Mei Ling twinkled up at him and he laughed.

 “Ruth has been doing some research on this time period and she asked us if we’d check here to find out if anything from the Turner expedition was still available.  And last night we met someone named Griffin.”

 “Wow!”  Matt hummed a few bars of the Twilight Zone’s theme song.  “Eerie isn’t it?  Too bad we can’t pull these out and let her have a go at them.  It would be nice to have a list of what is in here.  Maybe you could put the bite on today’s Griffin.  There’s probably no relationship between them but wouldn’t it be weird if there was?”

 “The truth sometimes is stranger than fiction.”  Mei Ling joked with him and let him help her up.

 Toby was busy thinking all through the rest of the tour.  When they left Matt regretfully declining to have lunch with them because he had a meeting, they promised to come back soon.  They walked briskly across Massachusetts Avenue and down Church Street to their favorite Boston restaurant, the Border Café.  Waiting until they’d ordered and demolished the first basket of chips, Toby brought up what he’d been thinking so hard about.

 “There are too many coincidences, Mei.  First, I have all the dreams about a past life; then Sam rescues Ruth who turns out to be my mother from that life; then Dad brings home a man who may be related to the guy who bankrolled the dig of the village where we may have lived in the past life.”

 “As the Earth Turns,” Mei Ling solemnly intoned which earned her a swat on the shoulder.  “All joking aside, I have to say that I don’t see them as coincidences.”

 “Then what are they?” Toby glared at her.

 “I know you don’t know much about reincarnation but I’ve always found the idea fascinating so I did some reading last year.  The first time I ever heard the word, I was about nine, I think.  One of my aunts mentioned it as an explanation for something that happened to one of my cousins.  When I asked her what the word meant, she explained it very simply to me as the need for a person to keep being born until they got it right.”  Mei Ling paused while the waiter put down their platters of steaming hot food.

 “Enjoy!”  He nodded to Toby and smiled at Mei Ling.

 “And that made sense to you?”  Toby asked before cutting into the first burrito.

 “Yeah, it did.  You know there are some things that you learn and you just say to yourself, ‘well of course that’s it’.”

 “Kind of an ‘a ha’ experience?”

 “Exactly.  Oh, these refried beans are good.”  Mei Ling closed her eyes in ecstasy then went on.  “Well, that was reincarnation for me.  Something I didn’t just believe in but knew to be true.  Most of my reading was out there on the edge of science.  I don’t know why they’re so afraid of it but there aren’t many really scientific studies.  But one of the concepts that keeps reoccurring again and again is the proximity effect.”

 “What’s that?  Do you need more iced tea?”  Toby flagged down the waiter and asked for more tea.

 Mei Ling nodded since her mouth was full.  After she swallowed and smiled at their waiter, she continued.  “The proximity effect is kind of hard to explain without going into a full dissertation on karma, both the bad kind and the good kind.”

 “Oh, I know about that.  If you diss somebody in one life then when you come back, they have a chance to diss you?”

 She stopped eating and shook her head.  “You know, your mind is a scary place.  But in a nutshell, I guess you could say that ‘what goes around, comes around’.  When you are reborn, you tend to be reborn along with others with whom you had close ties.  So when Ruth was born, sooner or later you would be too.  And I wouldn’t be surprised if Sam had shared a past life with her also.”

 “So, you and I may have shared a life or two as well?”  Toby took up another spoon of rice only to almost spray it across the table when she answered.

 “I thought I told you.  I was Ping.”

 She pounded him on the back while he tried to breathe the last of the rice into his lungs.  Coughing, he waved the concerned waiter away and drank some iced tea to wash away the last of the fit.  Through watery eyes, he gazed back at her worried face.  “You were my brother?”

 “Sure, sex can change from life to life.  Sorry I dropped it on you like that.  When you and Sam went for that run, I asked her if I’d known her, too.  She touched me on the forehead, right on my third eye and it was like watching a movie behind my eyelids.  I remembered it all as if I’d lived it this time around.  We were speaking Chinese, and I mean ancient Chinese, when your mom came in.”  Mei Ling picked up her soft-shell taco and started eating at one end.

 Toby just sat there and went over the last few days in his mind.  He really should have noticed how comfortable Mei Ling had been with the stranger.  She wasn’t usually that open with someone until she came to know him or her.  It had taken almost a semester before she’d warmed to some of the others in the dorm.  But then, he’d been totally at ease with her and now with Ruth from the moment he met them.

 “But we were always friends right from when we met in Archaeology 101.” He spoke his thoughts out loud.

 She nodded while swallowing.  “I guess I always knew that we were kin.”

 He smiled and shook his head.  “This is too strange.  I always wanted a sister but Mom had a tough time having me so they didn’t have anymore.  I’m glad we met.”

 Mei Ling stretched her hand across the table to his.  “Me too, brother.  Now, we just have to figure out if that sexy Colonel Griffin is part of our growing ‘family’.”

 Toby raised an eyebrow.  “You think he’s sexy?”

 “Oh, honey, that man is a walking, talking stud of enormous proportions.  Your mom and I both had to fan ourselves after dinner.  I wish now that Ruth had had a chance to meet him.”

 “A stud?  Are we talking about the same guy?”  Toby couldn’t see it.  But then he thought back to his breakfast conversation with Sam and he wondered if he’d missed something.

 “Toby, I wasn’t going to bring it up but I don’t want you putting your big size fourteen’s in it.  Sam is attracted to the Colonel but I think he’s a little confused about it.”  Mei Ling’s dark brown eyes gazed steadily into his.  “There was lightning and thunder every time their eyes met.”

 “No way!”  Toby shook his head in denial.  “Sam’s not gay.”

 “I didn’t say he was, Toby.  I just said he was attracted.  Remember that the body doesn’t matter when you’re talking about reincarnation.  Love is love and perhaps they shared a bond in another life that’s bleeding over into this one.  Don’t hurt Sam by shying away from him now.  I think your brother is going through a growing emotional stage and this whole thing with Ruth is just compounding his search for answers.”

 “He’s my brother and I love him but if you’re right then I have to do some hard thinking.”  Toby finished his beans half heartedly while thinking about how distracted Sam had been the last few days.  “He said they’d met once before.  And he asked me what I thought about him this morning.”

 “Sounds like he’s still searching his heart.  Will it make that much of a difference to you if he decides to . . . expand his choices?”  Mei Ling eyes were gentle on him and Toby felt her concern like a touch to his cheek.

 “I don’t know.  I guess I never thought about being anything but one hundred percent heterosexual.  But I know he’s not happy dating any of the women around home.  Mom thought he’d met someone in Kosovo and he was pining for her.”

 Mei Ling shrugged and finished her iced tea.  “She could be right and I’m seeing shadows where there are none.  But . . . take a look at him with grown up eyes instead of the eyes of his little brother.  I think you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

 Toby nodded.  “Let’s stop by Finelli’s and go home.  I don’t want to hit rush hour around here.”

 They walked through the busy Square, stopping at the bakery and buying bagels and spinach noodles.  The trip home through the darkening sky and gathering clouds was silent with Toby still struggling with the concept of Sam falling in love with a guy.  And with Mei Ling being his brother in another life.  When they got home, he just sat behind the wheel.

 “Coming in?”  She asked him gently.

 “What happened when you got swept away in the flood?”  He stared straight ahead at the garage, barely visible in the premature twilight.

 “I drowned.  Hit my head on a branch or a rock and tried to breathe water.”  Mei Ling’s voice was soft with just a hint of regret.

 Toby held out his hand and she entwined their fingers into a fast held grip.  “I’m sorry that life turned out so badly.  And that I wasn’t there for you at the end.”

 “Not so badly, Toby.  We were loved our whole lives by a mother who tried her very best to save us from some unimaginable horror.  And I didn’t feel a thing, little brother.  I just went to sleep.”  She smiled at him.  “But in the here and now, I’m glad we’re friends and not blood relation.”

 Toby held on tight and realized for the first time how much he loved her.  He wanted to say something but the words wouldn’t come.  She seemed to know though, because she squeezed his hand.

 “I know.  It’s not time for this yet.  Besides, we have a mystery to solve.”

 “A two thousand year old mystery.”  Toby let go and grabbed for the packages.

 “Or maybe even older?”  Mei Ling’s tone was thoughtful.  “Somehow, I don’t think we’ve dug deep enough yet.  Maybe tonight Ruth can clear up some details for us.”

 “It’s a plan.”  Toby held the back door open for her.  “Then again, she may just want us to plan a break in at the Peabody.”

 Her laughter was drowned by a crack of thunder overhead and the gathering storm announcing itself with a slash of lightning and heavy raindrops.  Toby felt a shiver go up his spine and he closed the door behind them with relief.

 I hope that’s not an omen.

*********************
end part six