Circle of Stones

by Catherine Fisher

  As she ran out into the sunken courtyard, the night was a swirling fog, the moon a silver disk like a coin spun somewhere above it.

  She raced up the steps and stopped halfway.

  He was here.

  He was fumbling at the door of the house—her house. As she froze in the dimness she saw how he pulled out a key and pushed it into the lock. Then he turned it, and the door opened and he went inside.

  She stared at the closed black panels in disbelief.

  Then she walked up the steps, and followed him in.

  The hallway looked normal, though some of the fog seemed to have slid in. The man was running up the stairs, his tread heavy, his breath wheezy. He was already out of sight around the turn of the banister.

  “Wait!” she hissed. “Don’t go up there!”

  Hannah was there, on her own. Sulis raced up, as quietly as she could. Surely he was only just ahead! But as she turned each landing, the steps were always farther away, his shadow huge and distorted on the wall above, until she came to the door of the apartment and found it ajar.

  She walked quietly down the corridor.

  “Hannah?”

  The living room was empty, the radio singing faintly to itself. From the bedroom she could just hear Hannah’s voice, chatting on the phone. Maybe to Alison. Sulis looked around.

  The small door to the attic stairs was open.

  She ran up, and stopped outside her room.

  A sound fluttered inside.

  She waited, her forehead against the door, trying to identify it. A soft, crackling flutter. A thud.

  She glanced back, hoping Josh had followed her, but there was no one there, and she knew she was quite alone in this, as she had been since that day she and Caitlin had run away and taken the bus to the park.

  She turned the handle.

  Her room was pale and quiet, the bed neatly made, her clothes in a pile on the chair. No sign anyone was here. But as she watched, a thud on the window made her jump, and then a vivid flash of darkness slashed past her, so that she gasped and jumped back, letting the door slam in her shock.

  There was a bird in the room.

  It flew in the corners of her eyes, in the slants of moonlight. It fluttered against the mirror, the cornice. It made the coat hanging on the door sway and fall.

  It cracked against the window like a stone.

  She had to let it out.

  Carefully, terrified it would tangle in her hair and peck her eyes, she edged into the room, past the bed to the window. The latch was down; she forced it back and as she did so the bird squawked past her and she glimpsed it, a black, jagged flight, crazy with fear.

  She grabbed the casement and tugged it open. Night air hit her face with coolness. She turned. “It’s open. Go on. Go out.”

  The window yawned wide. Suddenly the room was silent; she stood breathless, the night air blowing her hair in her eyes.

  Was there a bird?

  Because the room was silent and she was no longer sure about anything anymore.

  And then like an arrow it burst from the mirror and slashed past her, out into the dark, and she saw it zigzag onto the wide roof.

  She climbed after it, through the window to the base of the great stone acorn that rose into the sky. Below lay the Circus, quiet in the mist, its streetlamps hazy, the great trees at its center masses of uneasy shadow.

  “Sulis.”

  She turned.

  He was sitting on the tiles of the roof. His coat was bunched up behind him like wings. He said, “Remember me, Sulis?”

  Her heart thudded. She said, “You’ve found me.”

  “I found you a long time ago. But you’d never listen to me, Sulis. You kept running away from me. Other people, other towns. It was only when you came here I knew I could speak to you. Because this is my place.”

  His face was marked with leprosy and scars and dirt. His breath wheezed in the air. His eyes were brown and steady.

  She said, “Josh doesn’t believe in you. He says you weren’t there—in the museum. Or in the street or the bus.”

  “Maybe he’s right.”

  She shook her head. “Are you going to push me off, like you pushed Caitlin?”

  Did he smile? “I didn’t push Caitlin. You know that.”

  “I saw you.” She turned and faced him, and the words built up in her and poured out. “You’ve always been in my life since that day. You were the one who ruined my life. It would have all been so different without you.”

  “Caitlin ruined your life.”

  She stared at him, amazed. “Caitlin was my friend.”

  “Was she? Are you sure?”

  Of course she was sure. And yet, as soon as he said it, she wasn’t. It was as if he had focused a light on something never thought about, always assumed to be true.

  “You remember.” He lifted a winged arm and pointed. “There she is.”

  A ghost of a girl, standing with her back to Sulis, leaning precariously out over the parapet. The faintest outline on the night.

  Sulis was cold. Her fingers were chilled.

  “If she was your friend, call her. She’ll turn around. You’ll see her again.”

  She couldn’t move. Her lips were dry.

  She didn’t want to say the name. She didn’t want to see the girl turn. She didn’t want to see her face.

  A voice said, “Sulis? Where are you?”

  Hannah. And Josh. Instantly she ducked inside, ran to the door of her room and locked it, jamming the key around seconds before someone knocked on it, hard.

  “Su? Are you all right?”

  She stepped back, breathless. “I’m fine.”

  “Simon said you ran off so fast . . .”

  “I’m fine. I’m just . . . changing.”

  “Josh is here.”

  “I know. Five minutes. That’s all.”

  She backed away, climbed outside again. The mist was drifting like faint drizzle, blurring the lights.

  He hadn’t gone. His sleeves were pulled over his hands, as if he was cold. He turned his head, his eyes attentive as a jackdaw’s. “Tell me about Caitlin,” he said.

  She sat on the sill. “We played together. We built towers and houses.”

  “Together?”

  “Sort of together.”

  “You mean you built them.”

  “Yes.” Sulis nodded, remembering. “I built them. I always wanted to play with those blocks, but she didn’t. She said they were boring. Once I built a really high tower, and she knocked it down.”

  Why had she forgotten that? “And she made me walk home with her. Every night after school. It was miles out of my way, but she didn’t care. She laughed.”

  He looked out at the trees. “You could have said no.”

  “I couldn’t. She . . . was stronger than me. I did what she said.” Now she let herself remember, and the ghostly girl sitting on the parapet seemed to become more solid, the breeze stirring her hair. “When she was there I was smaller and quieter. I was her shadow.”

  He preened a sudden feather into the dark. “We’re all shadows.”

  Sulis was stunned. What door had she unlocked to let this out? Because in all the years since Caitlin’s death, she had never let herself think it.

  “The running away?” he whispered.

  “It was her idea. I didn’t want to go. She dragged me.” She remembered Caitlin’s hand on hers, the hissed fierce whisper. Stay then. I don’t care. I’ll just never speak to you ever again. The running after. The pleading. The words were hot, humiliating.

  “Su!” Josh’s voice. A rattle at the bedroom door. She ignored it.

  The stranger slid down the roof toward her. His face was healing now, the leprosy fading as she looked. His eyes were brown and deep. He said, “But you went. O
n the bus. To the park.”

  “Oh, but I cried. All the time. I wanted to go home. I was scared. She just kept saying, Shut up. It’ll be fine. We’ll show them . . . I hated her.” She raised her eyes to his, and whispered it, a hiss of venom on the night. “I hated Caitlin.”

  “Su. Please open the door!”

  She turned, but his voice stopped her. “And the stranger?”

  She stood in the mist and her arms were around herself and she could say it. “No one came up the tower with us. Not that tramp. Not you. Not anyone.”

  He smiled, satisfied.

  “It was her idea to climb the tower. She pushed me up in front of her. We got to the top and she was laughing at me. Messing around. Saying she could do anything. She could fly. She sat on the edge, her feet dangling. I said, Get up, come away from the edge. I begged her. But she wouldn’t.”

  The ghost girl was real now. The pink quilted coat. The woolly hat. The two blond braids.

  Sulis stared at her. “Caitlin stood up and she spread her arms. Look, she’s doing it now. Can you see her?”

  “I can see.”

  “She had my wrist. I had to get away from her. She was pulling me. I was screaming.”

  “You fought.”

  “We struggled.”

  “You bit . . .”

  “. . . and kicked.”

  “You pulled.”

  “I screamed.”

  He was right beside her. There was a great thudding going on somewhere, and voices down in the park, and a flashlight flickering over her. She said, “They were all shouting. And then she stood up on the edge.”

  “Just to show you . . .”

  “. . . she could do it. Just to show me . . .”

  “. . . she was stronger.”

  The ghost girl climbed and balanced. She wobbled. Beside her a bird took off, fluttering into the dark with a harsh squawk. Sulis reached out. “My hand. Look, here it is. Did I do it? Did I push her off? Did I kill her? Was I the stranger?”

  There was no answer. Her hand moved closer, closer to the pink quilted coat, because she was afraid that Caitlin would turn, that she would see her face again, after all these years. But her hand moved as if she couldn’t control it, inching forward, flat against the silky cloth between the shoulder blades.

  Until Simon unlocked the door and said breathlessly, “Su? Everything okay?”

  Zac

  What had I expected?

  A circle of men in druid garb? Unholy & secret ceremonies? The sacrifice of some village girl with a golden sickle?

  Something like that.

  And maybe something like that had happened, because the chamber was dim with a faint mist, as if the men had been there only moments since, but had gone now, to shadows, to nothing.

  Forrest was alone.

  He sat waiting, by the spring, his coat bunched up on the ground. He said, “Zac. Sylvia. Come in.”

  For a moment I had the stupid idea of bolting back home to bed & pretending I had not been anywhere near this place. But Sylvia moved past me, & her dress rustled, & so I had to follow her, feeling so shamefaced & foolish I could scarcely breathe.

  He had lit the circle of candles, & they smoldered. In their light I saw the spring; surrounding it another ring, of small, brown ovoids scattered on the earth. I trod on one by accident, & it crushed under my foot. I bent & looked at them.

  They were acorns.

  Forrest said, “I’m afraid you’ve missed our little ceremony, Zac.”

  I could not tell how angry he was. There was a great weight on him, but it seemed as much sorrow as wrath. Beside me, Sylvia was trembling.

  I said, “Sir, we were . . .”

  “Curious?”

  “Yes. Nothing more.”

  He laughed, a dry, mirthless sound. He said, “I do not object to curiosity. But I thought I had deserved better of you than this.”

  At first I did not understand. Then he lifted one of the candles & moved it closer to him, & the light fell on something spread on the floor, a wide unfolded plan, held down at the corners by pieces of golden stone.

  He looked up at me, across it. “What is this mockery, Zac?” he whispered.

  For a moment my mind was as dark as the chamber. And then Sylvia made some small sound, the very whisper of dismay. And it was as if a shaft of light had broken in, & suddenly I understood everything, understood that the plan in front of him was the one I had drawn, the grotesque warped copy of his work. And that she had given the real plan to Compton.

  I could not move.

  Even to breathe was impossible.

  I looked at her; one glimpse. Her eyes were fixed on me. Her face was white as chalk.

  It was only a fraction of an instant. And yet I seemed to see all my life in that time—the years of my apprenticeship lost, the buildings I would never design now—& hers too; seemed to see her begging on the London road, losing herself in that filthy city of darkness. She had betrayed all of us. Why should I save her?

  Yet I pulled myself upright, adjusted my sleeve & said nothing.

  Forrest touched the plan. “Where is the original?”

  “Sold,” I muttered.

  “To Compton?”

  I bowed. Words would only fail me.

  He shook his head, as if he was too moved to speak. His voice was choked with bitterness. “You owed him gambling debts?”

  “Master Alleyn told you?”

  “He hinted. But, Zac, why didn’t you come to me?” He was on his feet now, facing me, his words torn from him, harsh & raw. “Was I so forbidding a master? Did I deserve this!”

  Beside me, Sylvia stood like a shadow in the chamber. She did not speak or look at me. I was sore with anger; I wanted to shout at her, to him, “She did it! This lying girl you took in & preferred to me!”

  But I just shook my head.

  He took up the plan & threw it in my face. “And you insult me with this! I could have forgiven you the debts, Zac, even giving away the secrets of my work, but to seek to subvert it! To have the men build this crippled ruin . . .to destroy me. That I cannot ever understand.” He stood close to me, & his eyes were black. “Building is magic, Zac. It is our high art. It must never be betrayed.”

  Sylvia gave a great choking sob.

  For a moment of brief joy I thought then that she’d tell him, that she’d confess, but she didn’t. She turned & pushed past me, running away into the darkness of the tunnel.

  Forrest stepped back. He drew his hand over his face, pushed back his tangled hair. Then he turned away. “I can’t even bear to look at you. Go now, sir. Go to the house, pack your things & leave. Don’t be there when I get back. Our partnership is ended.”

  There were many things I could have said. My face was red with humiliation, & yet I was proud, & though that pride burned me like venom I hugged it to myself & lifted my head & turned on my heel as coolly as I could. But as I walked away from him through the darkness, I walked into a terrible remorse, & it was all I could do not to turn & tell him what the girl had done.

  Because I would be leaving her in his house, like a viper coiled around his life.

  I stopped. “Sir, please . . .”

  “Go, Zac!” It burst out of him like a cry. And so I went.

  Outside, the night was a ghostly chill of mist. There seemed more lights than usual on the site, but they were mere nebulas of paleness. My breath smoked around me.

  I walked through the piles of stone without looking to right or left. What would become of me? Why was I throwing away my life for a girl who could do such a thing as this to us? For a slut off the streets who cared not a jot for me?

  I stopped. I would go back & force him to hear.

  If she was thrown out, what should I care?

  “Zac.”

  She was standing
in the doorway of one of the finished houses.

  I stared at her through the dimness. I said, “What have you done! I trusted you, Sylvia! I . . .”

  “Have you told him? Did you tell him?”

  I shook my head. She gave a small groan. “You must. You have to . . .”

  “I will not,” I said loftily. All my resolutions of a moment ago were gone; I was Master Peacock again.

  She put both hands to her face. “Then I will.”

  “No.” I crossed to her quickly, between the piled stones. “You’ll end up on the streets.”

  “I deserve it.”

  I did not want to disagree. Instead I asked, “What hold does Compton have on you?”

  “The same as he had on you.” She shook her head. “Do you think the women at Gibson’s don’t gamble? I owed him more than you. He planned all of it, once he knew where I was. I had no choice.” She was not crying. Her face was drawn & white.

  “Yes you did.”

  “People like us aren’t free, Zac. I tried to run away, many times. I was afraid. And now I’ve betrayed Forrest. I’d give my life for him, do you know that? And yet I can still do this.”

  I was silent.

  For a moment all the city around us seemed still; the dark shoulders of the downs, the huddle of clustered houses below. Then a dog barked somewhere & Sylvia said, “Don’t leave. Go back to the house, & when he comes there, tell him the truth. Tell him everything.”

  “But what about you?”

  “Forget about me. I’ll move on. I have my clothes, some money. I’ll be fine.” She laughed, a brittle merriment. “There’s always another city. It may not be the perfect one Forrest wants to build, but it will have to be enough for me. Good-bye, Zac Peacock.”

  I could not smile. Instead I nodded. I wanted to say more, but she turned & ducked into the building.

  I waited, but she didn’t come back.

  When I turned away, there was an instant when I felt lost; the familiar chaos of the site suddenly disorienting, the enclosing facade too complete, as if the thirty houses of the Circus had sprouted up out of our imaginations, & stood here now like great stones of a henge, as witnesses of my folly. I stood uncertain, thinking for a moment there were trees in front of me; five tall trees in the heart of the site, their branches snagged against the moon. And then a bird flew flapping past me, & I glanced up to watch it.