Circle of Stones

by Catherine Fisher

  “No. I’m fine. You go.” Hesitation. She could feel it through the white painted panels. Whispers on a telephone. Then, after a while, footsteps, and the front door far below opening and closing.

  Sulis lay with the bedclothes over her head. It was dark in here and warm, and there was no one to annoy her. She listened to the quiet of the house, the small hums of the fridge, the click of the heating. Pigeons cooed outside the window. An ice-cream van, somewhere a long way off, chundled out a merry tune . . . It reminded her of being very small, being off school with a cold or something. When Mum would bring things up on a tray and say, “How are you feeling?”

  The thought made her twist over and pull the sheets off her face. She took a deep breath.

  The ceiling above was white. Reflected shimmers from cars in the Circus passed slowly around.

  Josh’s scorn came back to her again, but it had weakened in the days since he’d said it. I think there hasn’t been anyone there all along.

  Was he right?

  At first she had been furious with him and raw with anger, but over the last days she couldn’t help wondering, going over it all in her mind—the man on the bench, the man at the cafe table, the man in the bus. Each of them a dim, vague shape, a dark coat, a newspaper.

  But the last one, in the museum. Surely she had seen him there.

  Surely she had spoken to him.

  She swung her feet out of bed, threw on a dressing gown, and went out. In the living room Simon’s books were scattered. She glanced at them idly, then went to the kitchen and tipped some cereal into a bowl. The only milk was Hannah’s soy stuff, and she hated it, but she poured it in and rummaged for a spoon.

  Then she sat on the sofa.

  Hannah had left in a hurry, because papers and makeup from her bag were everywhere, as if she’d lost her keys and been racing to find them. They were the scattiest couple Sulis had ever stayed with.

  Eating the cereal, she saw the corner of the envelope first. It was lying upside down on the floor, half under the sofa. She slid it out with her foot, and worked out the address as she ate. And the name.

  Mrs. Alison West.

  Sheffield Social Services. Deliberately, she made herself finish all the cereal and even lick the spoon before she put the bowl aside and bent down and picked the envelope up.

  For a moment she held it. Then she took it up to her room, opened the window, so that the cool morning air gusted in, sat on the bed, and slid her finger under the glued edge.

  The paper tore.

  Inside was a letter. And a form.

  CONFIDENTIAL. Evaluation and Psychological Profile.

  Please fill in any sections you feel to be relevant. All information is strictly in confidence. Subject . . . And then her name.

  She pressed her lips together. Of course she had known they had to fill in things like this. Some of her foster parents had shown them to her, moaning about paperwork. This one was pretty much like the others . . . her behavior, her interests, her social skills . . . all boxes to tick. Did she have nightmares? Did she have friends?

  But the letter was new, and as she opened it and read it, her fingers shook and her vague feeling of guilt vanished in anger.

  Hannah’s scrawl was as gushing and rushed as its writer.

  Dear Alison,

  Just to report progress on . . . you know . . . the problems we discussed last night on the phone. I don’t know what happened, but I think now that the boyfriend . . . Josh . . . may have found out about Su’s background. She’s been very strange with us. Even more moody than usual. Not answering questions. In the evening she gets up and goes to the windows, maybe seven or eight times, and looks out into the street. All the things you told us to watch out for. She has absolutely no idea she’s doing it, but she’s said things that make it quite clear she’s told Josh about Sheffield, and I think that may be the reason for his rejection of her. Certainly they’ve split up, and she hasn’t been to work, and barely eaten, for the last three days. To be honest, I’m a bit out of my depth.

  Sulis stared at the paper in disbelief. What things had she said? She was never moody! A sudden terror washed over her, as if she no longer knew herself. As if the Sulis she was and the Sulis they saw were totally different people.

  A tap at the window. She stared up, her heart thudding, but it was only a jackdaw, hopping on the open sill. She waved at it, and it flew away, leaving one tiny feather that lifted in the wind.

  It’s a pity about the job, because I was beginning to feel it was helping her. I’m not sure if they’ll hold it open for her . . . I’ve told them she’s got flu. In fact it’s more like a sort of nervous collapse. She barely gets out of bed. We’re really concerned. I mean, I know when I was a teenager, the boy thing . . . well!!!! But with S’s history it’s so tricky. Another thing is that when she first came here she loved the city, but she seems increasingly unwilling to go out. It’s a bit like the other times you spoke of—when she claimed to see the assailant. And yet we’re certain no one knows who she is.

  Sulis put the letter down. She didn’t want to read any more. Claimed to see the assailant. Did that mean they—social workers, police—had never believed her either? Did it mean they were always watching her and analyzing her and ticking little boxes about her and that they’d really never believed a word she’d said?

  She went to the window and looked out.

  When had it all started to go wrong, her perfect city? When had the flaws begun to show, the cracks in the facade? As if there were hidden errors, barely visible. Wrong proportions. As if the world was not quite upright.

  She turned back and grabbed the letter and read the rest of it quickly.

  . . . I really feel for her. Because it’s all inside her and she won’t let it out. We’ve decided we need to go and have a word with this boy, but to be honest I’m going to leave most of it to Simon. He’s so much better at this sort of thing. Phone me, Alison, and we can talk. On my mobile, as usual.

  Best wishes always,

  Hannah

  P.S. The psychiatrist was right about the architecture thing.

  She folded it and held it in her lap. She felt that everything that had been safe underneath her had suddenly collapsed. Simon talking to Josh? Behind her back? And what architecture thing, because Aquae Sulis had been her choice and no one else’s. Or did she give herself away so easily?

  She took the letter to the window, tore it into a hundred tiny bits and scattered them to the wind. Then she dressed, made her bed, grabbed her bag and went out. Afraid, was she? Let’s see how afraid they would be to come back and find her gone.

  She walked around the Circus, then browsed the shops and strolled around the Royal Crescent. Stubbornly, she stopped herself looking behind. Tourists were everywhere; people were photographing the sweeping arch of the crescent, its moon-shape crowning the hilltop. She bought some sandwiches and lay on her stomach in the warm grass of the park and gazed up at it.

  Forrest had begun his dream, a sun temple, and someone else—his son, or his pupil—had finished it. The sun and the moon, in stone. Dreams laid out on the landscape, dreams become solid, to make people live and move in ways the architect had never imagined.

  Suddenly she knew that one day she would do this. She would design buildings. The thought filled her with delight; she rolled over and laughed up at the blue sky.

  Why had she never known that before? Because the knowledge had been there all the time, waiting. It had always been inside her, since the red and blue building-block towers she and Caitlin had raised on the floor in the classroom.

  The pleasure of it, of dreaming what her future would be, was like a warm unsealing inside her. She lay in the sun all afternoon, ignoring the tourists and the birds and some kids playing football until the sky began to darken and she realized she was stiff and hungry.

  Rolling over, sh
e looked around.

  The wide lawns were almost bare. No one sat near her. No one watched her. She was alone.

  She picked up her bag, rummaged, and found her mobile phone. There was one message—from Hannah. Su. Where are you?

  It must be about six. The sky was draining its light away into the west; a blue flecked with orange. She shivered, slightly chilled, and the elation of the afternoon went out like a doused candle, like a piece of music in her head stopping in mid-bar.

  She went home.

  • • •

  As she came into the Circus she saw that someone was sitting on the bench on the grass, leaning over the back, watching her door. She stopped, stunned with fear. A dark coat. The shadowy figure half lost in the darkening street and the overhanging trees.

  She went to turn away, then stopped. Where was there to go? And she wasn’t going to bear this any longer.

  She walked firmly around the circling street toward him.

  As she got nearer, he noticed her. He turned his head and stood up.

  Her heart thudded. She walked right up to him and they looked at each other a moment.

  Then Josh said, “I was waiting for you.”

  She was breathless. She managed to nod. “Have they talked to you?”

  “Who?”

  “Hannah. Simon.”

  “No.”

  He was looking down at the grass. But she believed him, because he raised his head and said, “Look, Sulis, about the other night . . .”

  “Leave it. Forget it. We’ll talk about it later.” She shrugged. “Come in to tea. It’ll give them a shock.”

  It certainly did. She and Josh pretended quite smoothly

  that nothing had ever happened, and the confusion Hannah tried vainly to hide was fun to watch. Simon just grinned and said nothing. Sulis did her best to behave totally normally, but as she carried the dishes out afterward, she wondered what normal was, because she had always thought she had given nothing away before. Hannah took the tray. “Have you . . . did you . . . um.”

  The letter.

  Sulis raised an eyebrow. “What?”

  Hannah said, “Nothing. It’s so nice to see Josh back! Um . . . Sulis, can I ask you . . . ?”

  She smiled brightly. “Got to go! Simon’s got the keys to the cellars. We’re finally going to explore the locked room.”

  Hannah wound a lock of hair around her finger. “Oh. Why does that remind me? Sulis, I called you the other day from the office phone, but it’s got some security block thing on it. I forgot to say. I hope it didn’t worry you.”

  She stared. She saw her mobile phone shivering on the parapet of the roof. “When?”

  “The other day. I’m not sure. Are you okay?”

  “Fine.” She was numb. Josh had been right. The man on the tourist bus had been no one.

  At the door, Hannah’s voice caught her. “I hope you find out what’s in the secret room,” she said quietly.

  Sulis stopped. She looked back, but her foster mother just stood there, against the sink, outlined against the light from the high window, her fair hair a frizzy cloud around her small face.

  Downstairs, Simon had a flashlight and wore his oldest coat and boots. “It’ll be filthy in there, mind,” he said.

  Josh shrugged. “Can I carry anything?”

  “Oh . . . yes. The spare light, please.” Simon had a camera with a tripod. He hefted it along the hall, down the stairs, and out of the front door. Sulis followed, thoughtful. She looked up and saw Hannah peeping down through the curtains. Well, at least the letter would never get sent. Hannah must suspect she’d read it. But she didn’t care.

  With a lot of trouble they got the camera down the steps into the courtyard. The evening was vaguely smoky, the sky twilight purple, blurred by the streetlamps. The cellars breathed a musty chill.

  “Right.”

  Simon looked up at the archway. “First I’ll take some shots of the stonework, and those initials. Stand back.”

  He spent ages arranging the camera. Josh and Sulis stood and watched, not wanting to talk. The cellars were shadowy and cold, and she had the strangest feeling sometimes that there were more people there than the three of them, more shadows on the walls, but when the camera had finally clicked and whirred for the third time, Simon said, “Okay. Fab. Now we open up.”

  Josh grinned at Sulis.

  The key didn’t look like a key. It was a strange jointed thing with bits of metal sticking out from it everywhere. But Simon seemed to know how to use it.

  “All-purpose opener, we call it. The lock is very rusty.”

  It wouldn’t even turn. He sprayed it with WD-40 and tried again.

  The metal rod moved and slid, and then he forced it around and they could hear the reluctant grinding of the mechanism. “I don’t think this has ever been opened.”

  “Like Tutankhamun’s tomb,” Josh said. “Maybe we’ll find treasure.”

  She stood behind them, watching. A sort of panic was rising in her; she wanted to go back, go out, upstairs, into her room. But she held herself still.

  “Okay. Now we’ve got it.” Simon pulled at the door; then he pushed it. It didn’t move.

  “Stuck. Give me a hand, Josh.”

  Josh squeezed in next to him and they both put their shoulders to it. Sulis could feel the strain. She could feel the old timbers, stubborn and warped, fixed for years in their frame. She could feel the darkness behind, the deep, untouched darkness, the silence no one had broken since the door had been locked, maybe centuries ago.

  “Wait,” she gasped.

  Still pushing, Josh twisted his head to her. “Why?”

  She didn’t know why. There was no why.

  They pushed harder and the door began to grate on its hinges, shuddering inward. As it opened she stared with fascination and horror at the slot of blackness that widened, wrinkling her nose up at the musty stale air that wafted out, imagining it like a dark wave washing over her.

  “Nearly. Just a bit more.”

  Had they talked to Josh? Had they all discussed her, her obsessions, what she must have seen as a child? The terrible beauty of the girl falling into blue air?

  “Just one more shove, Josh, near this side.”

  Was there a conspiracy of silence against her?

  “Thanks. Fantastic.” Simon gave the door a final heave and it juddered wide. He wiped filth from his hands. “We’re in! Right. Well. Here goes. Can I have the flashlight, Sulis, or do you want the honor?”

  She glanced at him, and there was nothing but excitement in his face.

  So she pushed past him and clicked the flashlight on.

  She shone its beam into the darkness.

  Zac

  We walked down to the baths together, I in my dark coat & Sylvia with a green cloak around her. In the gracious spaces of Queen’s Square a few linkboys led groups of men toward the gaming houses; a carriage with outriders paraded solemnly by, the warmth from the horses’ steamy backs touching my face.

  But down in the insalubrious alleys, the city stank. How could Forrest hope to change such a world as this? Stepping over a pile of muck, I guided Sylvia under the overhanging roofs, through the noxious lanes, where a filthy pig snuffled in a trough.

  She said, “Are you sure about this, Zac?”

  “I have to have the note-of-promise.” Didn’t she see that? “I have no money to pay these debts, Sylvia. My father is bankrupt. If I am ever to make anything of my wretched life . . .”

  “Yes. Yes. All right. I see.”

  Her arm was light on mine. Then she pulled it away, drawing her cloak tighter. I said, “You’re afraid.”

  “Not of Compton.”

  “No? How well do you really know him?”

  She wasn’t looking at me. Dark thoughts came to me. Did she meet him in
secret? Did they talk about me? I fought down a rising panic.

  “I knew him when I worked at Gibson’s. A little.”

  “You never talk much about that place.”

  She shrugged. “It was a hellpit. People lost everything there. They were robbed, often. Once, one of the girls died.”

  I stared. “How?”

  “She fell . . . I was there, I saw it. Things were dangerous for me after that. That was why I ran.”

  “Someone pushed her . . .?”

  Her eyes flickered to mine & then she looked away. “Please, Zac. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  She was a girl of mystery still, then. But we were nearly at the baths, so I tapped the leather folder under her arm. “Now. You have the plans. You know what to do.”

  I had given her my forged designs at home; then she had slipped into Forrest’s workroom with them for a moment & come out with this old folder, the designs placed neatly inside. I was surprised, but she had said she thought it would make them look more authentic, more as if she had stolen them. Now, glancing at a corner of paper that peeped out, I prayed that Compton would not guess at the subterfuge.

  Seeing my glance, she tucked the paper in hastily.

  “Shall I come in with you?” I asked.

  “No.” She pulled the wide hood around her face. “Watch if you want, but if he sees you it’s all over, so keep well away.”

  “Be careful,” I said. It was foolish, & sounded it. She smiled at me, her eyes lit with nerves. Then she hurried inside.

  I waited five cold minutes before I followed her.

  The baths, even at night, were loud with noise. Forrest often railed against the vulgarity of the place, & as the hot steam gathered around me, I understood what he meant. The ancient pools & sacred springs were pits of noisome dirt. Filth crusted the steps, & the noise was deafening. There were even a few musicians, scraping rusty fiddles for coins. Men & women both, dressed in strange voluminous garments, waded & splashed, helped in & out by servants paid for the job. I dared not think what diseases most of them carried. Bladud’s magic spring was wretched now indeed. Other servants waited at the common pump, clutching empty bottles to fill & take back for the master’s gout or mistress’s scrofula. The smell of sweating bodies was such that I had to fight the desire to take out my handkerchief & press it against my nose. Instead, I looked for Sylvia.