Semua Bab DON'T MESS WITH THE HEIRESS : Bab 101 - Bab 110

It has been six months now. The Phoenix Center is finally done. The Phoenix Center is a place it smells like cedar and lime-wash not smoke. Some people have arrived at the Phoenix Center. They are a group of women from a coffee cooperative in Ethiopia a team from a land-rights group in Brazil and our own Sarah from Nairobi.We should talk about what these people said to each other at the Phoenix Center. I was sitting in the library at the Phoenix Center watching Sarah explain the Phoenix Doctrine to a woman. This woman lost her familys farm to a mining company.Sarah told the woman "You do not fight the company." Sarahs voice was steady and powerful. Sarah said, "You make the company irrelevant. You build a circle that's strong so their money has nowhere to go."I understood something then. The big work was not about me anymore. I was not the person in the story. I was the librarian of a revolution, at the Phoenix Center. I had given the people a space at the Phoenix Center. The peopl

We sat under an olive tree out of the way of the celebration. Mrs. Gable opened the briefcase. Inside we didn't find cash or a property deed. Instead there were handwritten journals."These belonged to your mother " she said. Her hands shook a little as she touched the leather covers. "Arthur told you she died in a car accident in 1995. He told you she left nothing behind."I felt like I'd been punched in the gut. The silence was heavy. My mother was a mystery to me. A vague face in a few old photos."She didn't die in an accident Hannah " Mrs. Gable said. "She left. She figured out what Arthur was building. The 'Tower'.. She tried to stop him. When she couldn't she walked away. She spent the rest of her life in a village in the South of France teaching kids how to read. Arthur spent a lot of money to make sure you never found her. He didn't want someone to choose a life over his big empire."I opened the journal. The writing was fancy with loops and swirls like the vines around us.“

That night after all the guests went home and the valley was very quiet I sat with Stephen by the fire. We burned the Black Wing ledger, which was the last of the company papers and we were left with the journals of a woman who chose love over being, in charge.We are not a trust anymore Stephen I said, watching the fire burn the papers. We are a beginning. We are the Little Seeds that she planted thirty years ago. The Little Seeds are what we are now.Stephen put his arms around me. Rested his chin on my head. The story is getting long Hannah he said. I think we have finally found the end the end of the story.No I said quietly looking out at the vineyard. Not the end. The Little Seeds are giving us a start. For the time we are not trying to forget the past. We are learning from the Little Seeds. We are growing from the Little Seeds. That is what matters now.The fire was crackling it made a snapping sound as the last bit of the "Black Wing" ledger burned away. It was a deal for me b

I was walking down a dirt path when I found this cottage. It was tucked away behind a bunch of roses and old olive trees. The house was not fancy all. It was small with three rooms and the roof leaked when the wind got strong.An old woman was sitting on a bench shelling peas into a metal bowl. She looked up at me. Just stopped what she was doing for a moment. Her blue eyes got wide."You look like your mother " the woman said with a Provençal accent. "You have her chin. You stand like you are ready to take on the wind.""My name is Hannah " I said. My voice started to shake. "I am Elenas daughter."The womans name was Manon. She was my mothers friend. We drank some wine together and she told me what really happened to my mother. This was the story that Arthur Vane tried to keep hidden.Manon told me that my mother did not just teach kids how to read. The School of the Hidden Vine was about more than that. My mother taught kids about the land and where it came from. She used the money

I was in Saint-Rémy for a week. I read my mothers journals. What I found out was that my mother was friends with Sofia Rossi in Italy for a while. They worked together to protect the valley. This was happening when I was a kid playing with my toys in our house in London.Before I left my friend Manon told me something. She said my mother knew I would come back to the valley one day. Manon gave me a box. Inside the box I found some seeds from the Invisible Vineyard. These seeds were from a kind of grape that people thought did not exist anymore. My mother called these seeds the Restitution Grapes.Manon said my mother wanted me to take these Restitution Grapes seeds to the valley in Italy. So I got in my car. Drove back to Italy. On my way I felt something changing inside me. This journey was about fixing something that was broken for a time. I was taking the seeds that were a part of my mothers fight to the land that my father tried to take away from the Invisible Vineyard and from us.