Morningstar: Chapter 3: The Ling Collection

  

          Friday evening seemed to slow to a crawl.  My homework was finished, and my mind was totally focused on Saturday’s trip to the university library special collections section.  I could hardly think about anything else.  This was my first, and probably only opportunity to learn about the Lings directly from the Lings.  I knew that their writings, the books they collected, and the things that belonged to them would tell me a lot about who they were and perhaps even offer a clue to their disappearance.  Sleep came slowly that night as my imagination went wild thinking about what the collection might contain.  With the first light of morning, I awoke and dressed quickly.  I was still tired, but way too anxious to stay in bed.  This was silly, I thought to myself since the library wouldn’t be open for a couple of hours.  Cooking myself some eggs and toast I returned to the den to get back on the internet and make some additional notes from the articles I found.  I found a few new articles, but pretty much the same information as I had before.  I decided I probably had everything I was going to get from the internet.  Just as I was about to shut down, thinking I still had a half hour to kill before my mom would be ready, I decided to see what I might find on the Johnsons.  I had learned from a previous article; they were both immigrants from Sweden.  Their names were Hans and Kristen.  From that information I googled their names and found an archived article from the local newspaper, written in 1980.  (Another article told me that the Lings purchased the home in 1991.)   The Johnson’s had built the house in the spring; but had only completed a parlor, one bedroom and a small kitchen.  Mrs. Johnson was a physician.  She had intended to add an examination room on to the parlor the next year.  The article also mentioned that women doctors were not uncommon in Utah in the late 1800’s… which really surprised me.  It was during the Johnson’s first winter, in January (same month the Lings disappeared) when the Johnsons disappeared.  There were a few reports of strange noises coming from the house during the early morning hours, and then the noises stopped with no further reports of anything strange.  ‘Probably the imagination of superstitious people,’ was the opinion of the writer of the article.  After the Johnsons, another family moved in, remodeled, and added on.  This family, their children and grandchildren lived in the home and raised families of their own with no indication of any problems or irregularities.  I didn’t see how it could be related, but it was kind of strange, so I wrote notes.  My mom was finally ready so I just stuffed the notes in one of my binders and forgot about them for the time.
          The ride to the university library seemed to take forever, I was both excited and nervous, I hadn’t really felt either emotion in months.

          “Here it is Anna, do you want me to come in and show you around.”

          “No, I’ll be fine, thanks mom.”

          “Ok, remember I have a tight schedule and need you to be watching for me when I get here. I’ll pick you up in front in exactly four hours,…… right?” stressed my mom sternly.

          “Sounds great! Thanks mom,” I replied, hardly thinking at the time about what she said, as I got out of the car and headed for the library.  Locating Special Collections on the directory just inside the front door, I quickly found what I was looking for.  With just a little nervousness, I entered and walked to the front desk.  “I understand you have the items donated by the relatives of Dr’s Cara and Alan Ling.” A smartly though conservatively dressed middle aged women with short light brown hair acknowledged me with a huge enthusiastic smile.

          “Yes, we do, in fact, I have LOTS of things I can show you on the Lings.  I have a lot of other very interesting things too. I'd love to show you everything.  If you don't have time today, please come back soon. We have pieces of pottery that are thousands of years old with Sanskrit writing.  Old manuscripts.  Valuable personal items donated by famous people.  Did you know that we have a pair of glasses worn by Teddy Roosevelt?  We have a saddle that was used by the pony express and some Egyptian Hieroglyphics.  The list goes on and on.  This is the BEST part of the library.  I hardly ever get students in here, not even many college students. Actually, I hardly get anyone in here; they have no idea what they’re missing. Special Collections is a lot like a museum with all kinds of treasures…”

          “No, just the Ling collection, thank you,” I interrupted. She was one of the most enthusiastic, animated, fast talking people I had ever met. She either absolutely loved her job or was starved for any kind of social interaction.  It looked like she was the only person in this part of the library.  I knew I was going to have a really hard time keeping up with her, but would just have to do the best I could and fill in the rest of the notes as best I could when I got home.

          “OK!  We have their books, art, and some antiques which were provided to the library about a year after the disappearance.  Their writings and other donated personal effects were only turned over by the courts about a year ago.  I wasn’t here when the first part of the donation arrived.  The books, art, and antiques have mostly been placed out on the floors with some of the more valuable items here in Special Collections.  Their family donated so many things to the library because, as their relatives said; The Lings loved it here, so much.  It was all so interesting I read everything I could find on the history of their disappearance, and I’ve read all their writings probably four or five times.  There are strict rules about how things in special collections are handled.  You can’t touch anything; but I can show the items to you.  I’ll make a copy of the list of donated items which you can have and then I’ll get the other items.  Oh, before I go, if you turn around and look a little to the left you will see a beautifully carved and painted piece of art that belonged to them.  It was created by a local artist;” explained the librarian, who then continued; “follow me, I’ll take you into a viewing room where I‘ll bring the items I can show you.”

          I first turned to look at the item she had mentioned.  It was absolutely beautiful. There were flowers and birds carved into a piece of wood and painted with the words; “They do not love that do not show their love.  Shakespeare.” I then followed her into a small room.  There was a solid wooden table with nice leather chairs and paintings on every wall.  In the corner of the room was a bust of some man I had never heard of.  The paintings looked very old, something I would expect in a library.  I actually liked one of the landscapes, and thought it might have been done locally.  I wasn’t at all surprised that she had read everything many times, what else would someone do back here with no visitors.  After just a few minutes, the librarian returned.

          “Here’s a copy of the list for you. I’ll go get the collection.” She then turned and retreated back through the door.
          I was surprised at how long the list was. There were replications of two paintings by Renoir. Dance in the City and Oarsmen at Chatou.  There were a number of traditional African art pieces.  According to the list, two were very old and kept in special collections.  I wondered if I would be able to see those.  The Lings must have loved books.  There were pages of books that had been donated.  The list was divided into three categories.  Children and Adult books that stayed in the library and dozens of books donated to Deseret Industries.  I recognized this as the name of a local thrift store.  My dad had taken T.J. there once to purchase some clothing.  T.J. seemed happy with it.  I refused to go.  Among the books that remained in the library was a large collection of children’s books in Chinese.  According to the list, these included proverbs, poems, and traditional stories. There was also a smaller collection of children’s books from Kenya.  These were in English and contained traditional stories. There was one book of traditional English nursery rhymes as well as a book of traditional English fairy tales, myths, and legends. This list also contained a few books that I recognized; Goodnight Moon, (I remembered my mom and dad reading that to me over and over again.  It was a very good memory), Aesop’s Fables (we had read all of those together as a family when I was younger), The Velveteen Rabbit (that had been one of my mom’s favorites), and what looked like probably the complete collection of Dr. Seuss.  There was also a large collection of books on Death and Dying for children (I wondered why and thought it kind of morbid).
          Among the adult books there were a few I recognized; The Bible, King James Version, Paradise Lost (my mother has that book), Sherlock Holmes (my dad loves Sherlock Holmes and tried to get me to read the stories a couple of times), The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (my mother had read them all).  There were some other things that caught my attention and even though I had no idea what they were about, I thought they might be important and underlined a few.  I would do an internet search later to find out more.  There were books on Quetzalcoatl.  I had no idea what that was but would find out in case it was anything important.  Some of my favorite criminalists on TV had found clues from stranger places. The Talmud and Torah, (I thought I had heard of the Torah), were also listed, along with books on Mercury, Hermes, the Caduceus, Aztec, Mayan, and Toltec mythology, including the 2012 prophecies.  I had seen a preview on TV about that but hadn’t watched it. The list also contained several books on comparative religion, (not one of my favorite subjects).  This was all going to take a lot of time to research. No social life, but that was ok, I really didn’t want one now anyway.
          After just a few minutes the librarian returned to the room wearing gloves and pushing a cart with boxes of items.  Picking an item out of one of the boxes the librarian began.

          “I have some very interesting things to show you. This first one is a sextant.  It is a very old tool for determining where you are, by the stars.”

          “Yes, I’ve read about them.” 

          “And here is a paper Dr. Cara Ling and one of their students, Bobby Sekaquaptewa, were working on.  As you can see, it’s titled From Ancient Religious Stone Altars to Native American Rock Cairns. They believed that Native American Rock, Cairns had their origin in ancient religious stone altars.  Some altars, as you may know, were used in Central America for human sacrifice, but in some parts of the world they were used for animal sacrifice and a place for people to communicate with their gods.  They seemed to believe some altars and some cairns actually had some kind of extra-natural power… personally I think they came to some wild conclusions… Here’s another paper written by Dr. Alan Ling and Bobby Sekaquaptewa.  This one talks about the religious history of this area.  According to them the Shoshone believed a local hill to have healing power. They would bring their sick and wounded to the hill to be cured.”

          Still pulling more papers out of boxes the librarian continued; “here are drawings and plans for the house they lived in.  It starts with the original structure built by the Johnsons, then there are drawings that show the additions added by the next family and then more drawings showing the remodeling and additions by the Lings.  By the way, did you know the Johnsons disappeared too? No one ever found out what happened to them either.”

          “Yes, I heard about that,” I responded, as I stared at the drawings.  I thought my dad would love to see these.  I might tell him so he can come back sometime.  I could clearly see the parlor that we were now using as a den.  My bedroom was next to the parlor and was one of the original rooms. The drawings also contained landscape drawings showing small lilac bushes which had been planted by the Johnsons on the east side of the parlor.  The house was on a corner with the original front door facing east.  With the additions, there was a living room that connected to what was now the den and my bedroom which was connected from the den. (I hate having to walk through a room to get to my bedroom.)  The living room faced south and that was now the main entrance.  According to the drawings those same lilacs grew much larger in the next hundred years and then were cut down.  Then new lilacs and vine were planted against the same east wall by the Lings.  Those lilacs and vines were still there and were even blocking some light to one of the windows.  My father had talked about either trimming or cutting them down completely; but they covered a rock wall that really needed a lot of work and so that would have to come later.  I could clearly see the fruit trees that had been planted through the years.  Most of which were still standing.  I liked apples and hoped the tree had good apples.  Normally I wouldn’t have cared about such things, but since we didn’t have the money we used to, good free apples would be nice.  I took detailed notes on all of this.
          The librarian then pulled out a pile of papers that seemed to just contain notes, nothing really organized, just notes about the research they were doing. She was able to explain everything pretty well, at least as far as she understood.  Even though she was very serious, she was also very excited about sharing information.  There were notes about the Morning Star, listing both the planets Venus and Mercury.  There was also a strange rock statue kind of thing.  The librarian said this was the Mesoamerican god Quetzalcoatl, she showed me how he looked like a snake with feathers and then pointed out a symbol she said was the Morning Star.  There was a statue of the Greek god Hermes and a picture of Moses holding what looked like a long stick or pole with a snake on it.  There were notes saying what they were.  At the bottom it said: Numbers 21: 6-9. I thought that might be something from the Bible. There were a couple of pictures of the medical symbol, the Caduceus.  I didn’t know what that was but the librarian explained that it was an ancient Greek symbol and represented healing.  I then remembered and realized it was the symbol now used by doctors.

          “I believe the Lings were obsessed with ancient symbols of healing,” she said, as she was showing me more pages, pictures, and items.

          There were pages and pages of notes about the stars and planets; but, mostly on the planet Mercury.  A lot of the notes were about when the planet could be seen in the East.  None of this made much sense; but I took notes on everything I thought might contain even the slightest clue.  There were also a bunch of notes that some believed the Mayans believed the end of the world would occur in 2012.  The librarian said that from her reading of the comments made by the Lings, they didn’t believe the world would end, but that something significant might happen then or not too long after.  There was also a replica of a Mayan calendar with three circles and symbols.  The librarian then brought out two framed and glass covered pieces of woven cloth that had a beautiful though faded image of women and children in what appeared to be an African village.

          She then showed me a very old hand-written piece of music and said, “This is a very early hand-written version of an American Folksong, ‘Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing’ it would be worth quite a bit of money except someone highlighted the word Ebenezer for some reason.”
One last item brought out by the librarian was a single piece of paper with a drawing.  She said that had it been her decision she probably would have thrown it away.  It just looked like doodling; however, law enforcement told them they had to keep everything that had been with the Lings notes.  I agreed with the librarian.  It looked worthless; but, some words at the bottom caught my eye and I replicated the page as closely as possible in my notes.
          Towards the top of the page were drawn four circles with colors written next to them.  Three of the stones formed a triangle and had the word ‘‘white’ next to them. The fourth was in the middle of the triangle with the word ‘jade’ next to it.
        ○ White
        ○ Jade
○White  ○White

          At the bottom were the words, Three stones to see, the jade to pass through.  Seemed like nonsense and the writing didn’t look like either of the Ling’s; but, I didn’t want to overlook anything that might be important so I drew what I saw and added it to my growing collection of notes and stuck it in my back pack.  Just as I was about to hand the last page back to the librarian and as I turned it over, I noticed some almost illegible notes.  Written were, I believed, Mayan Zaztun, Serpent Mounds/Dragon, and Plumed Serpent God.  I quickly added those to my notes and handed the final page back to the librarian.
          Just as I was putting this final page in my pack, I noticed the clock. My mom would be furious!  I was almost 40 minutes late and though my mom knew I was in the Library she didn’t know where.  I quickly threw my pack over my shoulder and thanked the librarian, apologizing and telling her I had to run and excused myself then ran through the library to the front door.  I could see my mom sitting in the car at the curb and knew she would be fuming.  As I ran, I slipped and dropped my pack in the snow, but grabbed it as fast as I could.  As soon as I had my footing again, I was on the run and reached the car door moments later.

          “I’m so sorry mom,” I blurted out as I opened the door and sat down and buckled as fast as I could. My mom didn’t say anything as she put the car in drive and drove away from the curb.  She was breathing slowly, deeply, and deliberately, which I knew meant she was calming herself. Finally, she started in on me.

          “Anna, we have cut you a lot of slack lately.  We know this has been very difficult for you.  Unfortunately, you haven’t been mature enough to understand how difficult this has been for your father and me.  And… you haven’t been very nice to T.J. either…  The business failing was partially our fault.  We made mistakes.  It was partially because of the super high cost of gasoline last year, partially because of the economy, but neither of us decided,” her voice was getting louder and she was talking more slowly now, “to just run the business into the ground and go bankrupt just to put our family through hell.”  Then after a pause and continuing at a little more normal pace and a little quieter, “it’s just not all about you Anna.  You’re going to have to realize the whole world doesn’t revolve around you.  You’re new to this area and you’re not going to be the queen bee in your new school and you’re not going to be the prima-donna in our home.  You may still be mad about everything and that’s fine, but I expect you to treat us with respect and that includes respecting our time.  You are very intelligent Anna.  Lots of things are easy for you; however, it might be that this is one of the reasons you seem to lack empathy.  Without empathy and humility, you may know things, but you will never really understand much.”

          After another pause, I responded, “I really am sorry mom, I got caught up in what I was doing and I’m sorry about the way I’ve been acting.” I was sorry I was late, partially because I had to listen to another of my mom’s lectures; but at the time I didn’t think I had been acting all that badly.  I thought my mom was just being oversensitive and mad about having to wait a few extra minutes.  I could think of lots and lots of times I had waited for my mom, and my dad, and especially T.J.
          The rest of the ride was in silence.  When we drove up to the house, my mom just drove up to the front curb and said rather curtly; “I’m late for an appointment.  Tell your father, I’ll be home by six.” As I entered the front door, my dad was working on the fireplace in the living room. T.J. was helping, as they replaced some of the stones and the grate at the bottom.

          “Mom said to tell you she’d be home by six,” I called to my dad.”

          “Thank you honey,” my dad called back. “Did you have a good time at the library?” he asked.

          “Yeah, thanks,” I said, as I quickly went through the den and into my room. I was very worried about my notes and hoped they hadn’t gotten wet from my fall.  When I opened my pack, I saw the pad was soaked.  I took each page and laid them in order on my desk and on the floor to dry. I didn’t want to lose all the work I had done today.  Some of it was a little smudged but I thought it would be ok.  As I was working, it dawned on me that my mom would still be furious when she got home.  Maybe I had been a little grouchy and besides, I needed to go to Bekah’s house tomorrow.  I thought about what I might do to soften her up a little.  My dad would probably cook dinner, but he wouldn’t get the kitchen clean with everything he’s working on in the living room.  I would clean the kitchen and cook dinner and then clean up afterwards…… and act pleasant about it.  That was sure to get me back on my mom’s good side.