Circle of Stones

by Catherine Fisher

  His voice faded as he ushered them toward the office.

  Ralph Alleyn was left with Sylvia & me. He said to me fiercely, “Take her home. And you, girl, for God’s sake, stay out of sight. Do you want to ruin us all!”

  She turned & I ran after her. We walked stiffly off the site & down the lane to the city. Halfway there she stopped dead, not looking back.

  I knew she was crying.

  Silent, I gave her my handkerchief. She grabbed it & turned aside into a little garden & sat on a seat there, mopping at her eyes, hands gripped into fists. “I’ll kill him.”

  “Don’t be foolish.”

  “Rather than let him ruin Forrest I will.” She glared up at me. “And you! With your yes sir, please sir! If you lie down he will ride over you, Zac.”

  I looked away. Then I said, “You realize those people were possible investors. They will have nothing to do with the project now. It was written all over them.”

  “You needn’t tell me.” Her voice was tense. “And Forrest won’t blame me, but it’s my fault. I should go.”

  “Did you know he would say that? About adopting you?”

  She laughed, fierce. “Of course not! He’s a mystery to me. How can a man be so brilliant & difficult & bad-tempered & kind all at once? Is it the strain, do you think, of seeing into the future? Seeing what no one else can see, how the world will look if they let him build it? How can I let him adopt me! What will his son say!”

  We were silent, looking down at the city. Then I swung my sword-stick. “I may have sounded weak back there, but I assure you, Sylvia, I am not. It was all a ruse. I want to take Compton down for myself. So I think I will concoct a plan.”

  She looked up, her eyes blue & wet. “A plan?”

  “A most ingenious & careful plan.” I grinned. “After all, isn’t that what architects are trained to do?”

  Bladud

  I chose the circle.

  Think about it. There is no other shape so pure. From its center each point on the circumference is always the same distance away.

  It is the shape of the sun. It encloses those within and rejects those without.

  It is the oldest magic.

  And yet in all nature there is nothing so rare as a perfect circle.

  We raised stones. We found them far to the west, stones of healing, and a druid of power from that place transported them to the site for me, a man who lingers at the edges of legends, a man with the name of a bird.

  When he left me, his last words to me were, “Spread your wings, O king.”

  His advice intrigued me. But first we built. How we worked!

  Day after day in the heat and ice and rain we raised the stones, forming the circle that would stand forever.

  I was not content with a stark ring, not now. This was a building, a temple and a healing place. So I capped the stones with others, and had them carved with hidden, secret designs.

  This was my clock. It would mark the years and the months and the days, the turning of the sun.

  There would never be another building like this.

  Sulis

  Josh’s plan was simple.

  On Wednesday Sulis had to work late. It was the night the Roman Baths Museum stayed open until nine; this was the first time she’d be working that shift. Somehow Josh had managed to get himself on the rotation for the security room on the same night—Big Tom, apparently, was going to his daughter’s party at the pub, so Josh would have the control room to himself. . . . He’d told her this by text last night, as she’d watched a quiz show on TV with Simon shouting out all the answers and Hannah telling him to be quiet, angel, and the heavy old cat, Mousy, digging its claws into her knee.

  But as Sulis rang up a sale on the register on Wednesday afternoon she wondered what use it all was. Surely he—the man who had no name, the man who haunted her like a shadow—would never dare to come inside here. Counting out the change, she tried again to remember his face. In her dreams it was clear, but when she woke, it was lost as if there were some blur there, some unresolved image. How would he know she was here late tonight? But of course, if he waited outside, he would see that she didn’t leave at five.

  She shivered. Handing over the change, she glanced up at the clock and saw that it was already four thirty.

  “Take your break, Su,” Ruth said. “Now while it’s quiet.”

  The staffroom was a rather dingy gray office down a paneled corridor. Josh was the only one there, stirring a mug of tea and working on a newspaper crossword. He looked up. “I thought you’d never get here!”

  “We had a school group come through. They bought about ten million pencils and erasers.” Flicking the kettle on, she leaned against the table. “Josh, this is never going to work. The shop . . .”

  “You’re not in the shop.”

  “What?”

  He filled in an answer and sat back, looking pleased with himself. “For late nights there’s a smaller staff—only about six of us—and the rotation changes. Jen will be in the shop; they’ll put you downstairs.”

  “In the museum?”

  He nodded. “Walking about, keeping an eye on things.” He looked at her. “It will be dark, and quiet. Not many people around. If he’s coming in, he’ll come tonight.”

  They were silent. The kettle boiled, and she poured out the hot water, feeling the heavy mug tremble in her hand. She sat by him. “I don’t know . . .”

  “We talked about this.” He pushed the paper away and turned to her. “You can’t go on running away. You have to face him. See who he is . . . if it’s him. You owe it to Caitlin.”

  The name made her heart jump. “What I don’t understand is how. How did he find me here? We were so careful—new name, new parents, everything. It doesn’t make sense.”

  Josh was silent a moment. Then he said, “We don’t know it’s him. The man in the street—the one on the bus—they might just have been different people. Ordinary people. Are you really sure they were the same?”

  She glared at him. “Yes.”

  “If it is him, he must be trying to scare you. The police . . .”

  “Not till I’m sure. I want to be sure, Josh.” She sipped the tea. She was shivering and it wasn’t from cold. “What do I do?”

  “Just make sure you stay in the lit places where the cameras are. I’ll follow you from the control room. I’ll be watching you all the time and as soon as you spot him, just give me the nod and I’ll get him on film.”

  “And if he spots me first?”

  “I’ll hit every alarm we have. And that’s quite a few. But he won’t. He won’t know we’re ready for him.” He looked at her. “Will you be able to do it?”

  She had no idea. But he was right. She wanted an end to this. To the long succession of different houses and ever-changing people. She wanted a place that would be home. A city that would be perfect.

  “I can do it.”

  He was watching her and she didn’t know what he was thinking. So she said, “I forgot to tell you. Simon and I went into the cellars under the Circus last night—there’s a blocked-up door down there that he’s really interested in. He says come tomorrow and help him open it.”

  “Great.”

  Neither of them mentioned that her whole world might be shattered by tomorrow. To keep the moment safe, she said, “He asked me about you and I couldn’t really answer. Why aren’t you at college?”

  Josh looked surprised, then annoyed. He had a distant, acid look sometimes, as if he felt he was better than anyone else—it came on his face now. “Maybe I don’t want to be.”

  “Maybe I’m not that stupid.”

  He shrugged. “Then don’t ask.”

  “Why not? I told you my story—it can’t be anywhere near as bad as that.”

  “It’s not. I did the first year but then I dropped out,
all right? My father’s business went bust—he left, my mother needs the money. That’s it, that’s all. No big deal. I’ll get back there. I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life in a dead-end job like this.”

  “Fine. Now I know.”

  “Now you know.”

  He was silent, relentlessly filling letters into the grid. She wanted to shake him. Did he have no idea how scared she was, that she had only asked so that she could think about something else?

  He wrote the last word in and stood up, and it was only when he turned at the door that she saw how upset he was, under that haughty way he had. He said, “Remember. Stay by the cameras. Especially near the sacred spring, because of the steam.” Then he was gone.

  The door slowly closed on its hinge.

  She sipped the scalding tea, barely noticing how it burned her tongue.

  • • •

  The underground part of the museum was oddly warm, as if the layers of earth above insulated it. She walked around quietly, glad there were people here. A tourist asked if he could take photos, and then two American women asked her about the gorgon mask, its fierce mustachioed face looking down as they discussed it.

  “It would have been on the pediment of the temple,” she explained.

  “I see. And where was the temple, exactly?”

  She led them through the rooms to the wide, flat stone steps that led up only into a blank wall.

  “Here. This was the entrance. But the temple itself—if it still exists—is under the buildings around the square—the cafe opposite and the shops and under Stall Street. I don’t think it’s ever been excavated.”

  “You mean it’s still down there? Amazing!” When they were gone she stayed a moment, standing on the Roman steps, imagining how people in togas would have been brushing past her, going in and out, ancient distant people with different gods and different speech. How what was now underground had once stood in the sunlight.

  She turned around and caught the gaze of the gorgon face.

  It frowned down at her.

  Was this Sulis? Was Sulis male or female? Everyone said a goddess, but this face was male. Maybe it was Bladud, because under it was one of the artist’s weird pigs, this one made of wood, polished as shiny as a seed. She shook her head. Art, like archaeology, was baffling. It only ever showed fragments.

  The word made her think of Josh and she glanced up at the camera, realizing he would be watching her through it. She made a face at it. The camera moved and clicked slightly on its bracket.

  An hour later she was bored and tired. She had patrolled the museum and there was no one in it. The whole place was empty.

  What was the use of a late night if no one came? She leaned against the glass case of pewter curses. These were her favorite things down here—they fascinated her, these ancient messages and prayers once scratched on soft metal and thrown in the water to the spirit of the spring. They were in Latin, but the translations were typed out next to them.

  To the Goddess Sulis Minerva . . . I give to your divinity the money which I have lost and may he who has stolen it be forced to . . .

  A curse on the one, whether pagan or Christian, man or woman, boy or girl, slave or free, who has stolen from me, Annianus, in the morning, six silver pieces from my purse . . .

  There must have been a lot of thieving in those old times. Some things didn’t change. She liked the ones that were more bloodthirsty.

  . . . These are the names of those who have sworn at the spring to the Goddess Sulis on the twelfth of April . . . Whosoever has lied you are to make him pay for it to the Goddess Sulis in his own blood . . .

  That one gave her an idea. She felt silly, but she pulled out a pen and a scrap of paper and wrote her own message on it.

  To the Goddess Sulis Minerva. There is someone following me. He killed Caitlin. I want you to punish him for what he did. I want you to end the shadow on my life . . .

  Stupid.

  But she crumpled it up and walked through the museum to the sacred spring, where the bubbling water steamed gently. Then she saw the camera tracking her. She didn’t want Josh seeing this.

  So she went around to the outfall, the dim narrow corridor where the water rushed in a steaming hiss down and through a drain to the great bath outside. The lip of the stone was mustard yellow with the iron of the water, smooth as wet marble.

  She threw the tiny ball of paper in and the water took it instantly, whisking it away under its surface, sluicing it down into the dark. As soon as it was gone she felt a terrible dread. She had a silly desire to get it back, because she had cursed him now, and what might that mean?

  She breathed out. Over the steaming roar of the water, she made herself smile. There was no goddess in the spring. That was all a long time ago, and the world had changed. But she took out a five-pence piece, and threw it in as an offering, not because she believed, but because there were other coins in there, glinting sloping circles deep under the surface.

  Movement.

  She caught it in the water, a flash of reflection.

  Someone was standing behind her. She didn’t turn. She couldn’t move. But she knew he was there, at her back, dark as her shadow, tall and dark in the steamy warmth of the spring.

  He said, Sulis.

  Or was it the whirr of the air-conditioning, the hiss of the water?

  “Who are you?” Her whisper was lost in the steam.

  You know who I am. You have to release me, Sulis. You have to let me fly like a bird.

  Fragments of a face. An eye, a cheekbone, a frowning forehead fractured in the churning water. Was she seeing him, or herself, or the gorgon mask up on the wall behind them both?

  And where was Josh?

  She said, “You killed her.”

  My hand. On her back.

  “You pushed her.”

  I had to get her away from me.

  “You murdered her.”

  I released her.

  Where was Josh? She turned, but the man was walking away from her into the gloom of the room. She said, “Wait. I don’t know . . . if it’s you.”

  He didn’t stop. He just said, Follow me, Sulis, and the steam opened and he was gone. She yelled, “JOSH!” and ran, into the room where the steps of the temple rose into the unexcavated wall, and she was sure for a moment she saw him there, climbing the steps that led nowhere. But the wall was blank. And then she was racing around the displays, the altars, the models of the baths, straight around a partition into Josh, whose hand grabbed her and whose breathless voice gasped, “Where? Where is he?”

  “He was there. Back there!”

  “He can’t have gotten out. I’ve locked the door.”

  She stared at him, appalled, but this was a new Josh. He had a big flashlight and he turned the lights up to their maximum. “Right.” His voice was calm and he gave her a glance that puzzled her. Then he called out, “HELLO! If there’s anyone in here, can you come out now please! The museum is closing.”

  Heads of Roman gods and faces on stone gazed at him impassively. Nothing moved in the dim rooms.

  “He’s gotten past us,” Sulis said quickly.

  “No chance.”

  “But . . .”

  “Come on, Sulis, let’s look.” He kept his eyes on hers, challenging. “You’re not afraid to look, are you?”

  “No, but if . . .”

  Josh took her hand. He led her quietly around the suite of underground spaces, and though it was dark and shadowy, he flashed the flashlight everywhere and explored every inch, even the steamy depths of the outfall and the spring. By the end he was almost dragging her; she snatched her hand away and stood, fuming, understanding.

  “You don’t believe me, do you! You don’t think he was ever here!”

  He turned, his shadow against the wall. “He wasn’t. The place was empt
y. I had everything on camera.”

  “No you didn’t. I was at the outfall. There isn’t a camera that can see in there.”

  “All right. I could only get part of that. But, Sulis, I could see everywhere else. The entrance hall, the other rooms, the baths. There was no one at all in here but you.”

  For a moment she just stared at him. Then she turned and ran, out through the empty rooms, up the steps to the open-air bath, its magical waters fogging the frosty night.

  Around it the colonnade was dark, the figures of Roman emperors gazing down at her. She heard Josh come out behind her.

  “Look . . . don’t get upset . . .”

  “I’m not upset.” She was shaking. She ran down the cracked pavement, through the door the public didn’t use, down a corridor and into the marble splendor of the entrance hall.

  A woman named Martha was at reception, closing up.

  Sulis said, breathless, “Did a man come in tonight . . . late? Last in, even?”

  Caught halfway through counting coins, the woman looked up, preoccupied. “Sorry, no . . . well, what did he look like?”

  Sulis frowned. She knew Josh was behind her, waiting for the answer. She heard the flashlight click off in his hand.

  “Tall. Dark.” It sounded so useless. “Thin. Sort of . . . pockmarked face.”

  Martha poured the coins into the bag. She tapped the calculator off. “No, no one like that. The last people in were an elderly couple and their grandsons and that was about an hour ago. They’d have left by now. No tall, dark, handsome strangers all night, Sulis. I’d have noticed!”

  Sulis turned. Pushing past Josh she marched straight to the door marked SECURITY and once inside she stared at the baffling bank of screens. Each was lit with a shadowy corner of the museum.

  He came in behind her. “I’ll show you,” he said.

  It took about half an hour. He ran everything at double, triple speed. She saw visitors blur like ghosts in the frames of time, there, not there, caught in strange, jagged motion. She saw the rooms empty, the shadows gather, the clock numbers jerk. She saw herself, gazing into cases, sitting on a chair, at one corner, at another doorway, talking, alone. She saw all this, but she didn’t see the man.