Strangely Wonderful
Chapter One
An Extinct Fish
August 1827
Mavasarona Bay, Madagascar
The orchid was exquisite.
The coconut-hued petals of the Angraecum sesquipedale bounced like a ballerina's
twirling skirt as Dagny crawled with bated breath onto the branch of the tree. The largest,
most delightful specimens grew twenty feet above the ground on trees not in the lushest
areas of the rain forest, but in random straggling trees on the edges of woods. As it
required considerable force to knock the heartbreakingly rare specimen from the branch,
Dagny Ravenhurst crept like a limbless circus performer, and unfolded the clasp knife
between her teeth. When she tried to whisper, "Come to me, my beautiful darling," her
words came out as the wheeze of the asthmatic. She was so intent on her prey, she
drooled on the metal knife.
Tentatively, one hand over the other like a torpid chameleon, her hands gripped the
branches, hands tough from years of clinging to trees and waiting in suspended immobility
for animals to appear. She was clad in the apex of Paris fashion. One of the joys of her
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