After the Ashes Read Online Free

bug.”
    â€œInsect,” I corrected.
    My poor stag beetle. Mutilated beyond repair.
    â€œWhen you’ve finished in here, please join Johanna and me in the parlor for some civilized conversation.”
    Wonderful. Trapped in a room with Tante Greet and Mrs. Brinckerhoff talking about dress patterns. What could be better?
    I looked up and saw that Indah had appeared at my aunt’s side. Tante Greet shook her head as she left the room and muttered, “Never realized she used our kitchen pots for her bugs.” Indah followed her with a tea tray.
    Once the water settled, I hauled the pot outside and tossed the water—beetle and all—then joined the ladies in the parlor as I was told. The two women chattered like birds, but I still had labels to complete. I sat at the desk and waited for Tante to object. She merely said, “Sit up straight, Katrien,” before returning her attention to her friend. “I have to admit I am surprised to see you, Johanna. I thought you would not be in Anjer until next month.”
    I adjusted my posture and returned to my labels. Trying to look on the bright side, I reasoned that one less beetle meant one less label, but that still meant I had work to do. Once the new beetles sat under glass, I would place the little identification labels below them and they would officially be part of my collection. I already had twenty-five cases filled with twelve stag beetles in each. I hoped to collect thousands of these insects to see natural selection at work, to see the process Mr. Charles Darwin described in beautiful detail in his book:
    â€œFor during many successive generations each individual beetle which flew least, either from its wings having been ever so little less perfectly developed or from indolent habit, will have had the best chance of surviving from not being blown out to sea; and, on the other hand, those beetles which most readily took to flight would oftenest have been blown to sea, and thus destroyed.”
    Mrs. Brinckerhoff’s haughty voice floated across the room and interrupted Mr. Darwin’s words. “I told my husband to go over to the island and see for himself what was happening. I mean, the natives just had to be wrong. A beach does not blow up!” Her hands moved in imitation of an explosion. Then, with a sniff, she pulled herself even straighter. “I imagined it was some simple phenomenon that had merely overwhelmed their smaller brains.”
    I jerked at the insult and the movement made my pen slide across the paper. Another label was ruined. “Homo sapiens,” I muttered.
    Tante Greet, who had the ears of a leopard, heard me. “Language, Katrien.”
    Even though I had said the Latin name for human, I meant it as a curse, and my aunt knew it. “Apologies, Tante.”
    Mrs. Brinckerhoff ignored me. Or maybe she didn’t hear. She blabbered on about commanding her husband to go to the island and investigate, which he did. It was probably a wise decision, or he would have had to listen to her constant nagging.
    â€œAnd what did he see on Krakatau?” my aunt asked, taking a sip of her tea.
    â€œWhy, he said the beach had split open, just as the natives reported!” Mrs. Brinckerhoff gave the side of her cup a firm tap with her spoon.
    The beach had
what
? I pushed my spectacles up, suddenly eager to join the conversation. “Was that about two weeks ago?” I asked.
    â€œ
Ja
,” Mrs. Brinckerhoff said, surprised. “On the twentieth of May.”
    Tante Greet asked, “Do you remember, Katrien? We felt those tremors that morning?”
    I nodded, remembering Slamet’s story about ash falling. So the two events were connected.
    But Batavia was more than a hundred kilometers from Krakatau. An earthquake on that small island should have barely registered in the capital. And it certainly shouldn’t have caused tremors for an hour.
    But Mrs. Brinckerhoff hadn’t said it