by S. E. Akers
“Well then, you have your reason,” Beatrix confirmed with a clap and reached for one of Gallia’s shoes.
“There was another woman there. Her name was Padimae.” With that reveal, Beatrix grimaced. Straightaway, she hurled one of Gallia’s shoes into the fire. She threw it so hard she split one of the logs in two. My eyes shot open. “I take it you know her?” Beatrix whirled back around, but she didn’t answer me. She simply snatched up the other shoe.
Still in search of answers, I felt a little gentle prodding would do. “I know she’s not a Talisman, but she’s some sort of supernatural,” I guessed. When Beatrix remained mum, “gentle” went out the window. “She seemed pretty powerful. Adamas didn’t even intimidate her.” Like waving a red flag in front of a bull, there went the other dainty shoe.
“She was a vile, scheming traitor! That’s what she was!” Beatrix snapped and then started pacing in front of the fireplace, rambling under her breath. “Of all the visions you could have had! Ugh! Why did it have to be THAT ONE?” I’d never seen or heard her like this before. I didn’t know which was hotter — the flames raging in the fireplace or Bea’s collar.
“Why? What did she do?” I asked.
Beatrix paused to take a theatrical, but much-needed calming breath. “It doesn’t matter, Shiloh,” Beatrix replied, her tone much softer. “It’s ancient history, literally.”
“Does it have something to do with Helio evaporating and disappearing into a stone?”
“You saw that too?” Beatrix huffed. I tossed her a timid nod. Beatrix folded her arms and shook her head. “Out with it. What else did you see?”
“She took the stone and left with Gallia. They were going somewhere.” I hesitated and added, “With Dunamis.”
Beatrix lowered her head. “Anything else?”
“That was it,” I assured her.
Beatrix knelt beside me. “That was the last memory the wand held of Gallia. The diamond sensed your grief, my dear. It’s as simple as that,” Beatrix vowed.
“But why…and how did Helio disappear into the stone?”
“I’m glad you asked that,” Beatrix claimed as she rose to her feet.
“You are?” I posed skeptically.
“Yes, because that’s what we’ll be covering first, before we work on a few protective spells… A brief generalization about what you can and cannot hide in a stone. Shall we?”
“Will this ‘brief generalization’ answer my question?”
“No. It won’t,” Beatrix confirmed with a smile as she led me into the kitchen. “What you’re inquiring about is at the other end of the spectrum. This is your first lesson on the subject. Baby steps, my dear. Would you expect me to teach a five year-old calculus before he mastered one plus one equals two?”
“How silly of me,” I remarked with a thwarted laugh.
With my train of questions officially derailed, Beatrix proceeded with my lessons for the day. She wasn’t kidding when she said “brief” either. All she hit on was what abilities you could stow inside them — only the dynamic energy that radiated from the more forceful power of your stones. Where I could place lightning in my diamonds, she could infuse her golden topazes with a violent gust of air. Tanner could inject his amethysts with a devastating wave of water. Ferrol, whose origin stone was an earthy howlite, could place a violent quake inside his. She also revealed that because he killed Adean, the original Carnelian Talisman whose stone reigned over fire and now claimed her powers, that he could place an explosive burst of flames inside the little red-orange stones. That explained how he was able to blow the mine to bits. Talismans could only hide powers in stones that were created by them personally, as well as charged, stably. She made a point to mention that’s how Katie’s soul ended up in her diamond pendant. I charged a diamond that was born from nature — not my flesh — so it tried to mimic my protective energy, unsuccessfully. It absorbed her soul, seeking to complete my request to keep her safe. She also made me vow never to do such a foolish thing ever again. Since we were already on the subject of Katie, I didn’t see the harm in asking if she had any promising leads.
“No, Shiloh. I’m afraid not,” Beatrix answered candidly. “I did speak to Tanner. He’s very worried that you will do something stupid, like trying to locate your friend’s body on your own. But I assured him that you wouldn’t. Was I correct in doing so?”
I shifted around in my chair. “I can’t just sit around and do nothing…but lie,” I protested. “Believe it or not, finding her body is the least of my worries. I’m more concerned about the fire opal.”
“I’m concerned about that too, dear,” Beatrix agreed. “That’s why we think it’s best if you leave finding Katie’s body to me. Tanner will work on locating the stone.”
“If the Onyx killed Gallia, he would have her bracelet. Wouldn’t they both be with him?” I suggested. Beatrix was quiet, too quiet for too long. There went my gut again.
“We feel it’s best to have a back-up. Just in case he’s destroyed it,” she quickly rephrased, rather poorly.
“Why would he destroy—”
“Shiloh,” Beatrix interrupted, “I wouldn’t put anything past him. But that’s neither here nor there, for now. In light of everything that’s happened, we are in charge of this matter. Your only focus is to remain vigilant and wait…patiently,” she added. “Though I know that will be a stretch.”
“What am I suppose to tell Katie?”
“Anything to put her mind at ease. I wasn’t joking earlier. If she loses hope, it won’t matter if her body is delivered to our doorstep by the postman or we find a thousand rare stones. She’ll be lost for eternity, my dear. But you know your friend best. Can she handle this dismal news?” Beatrix asked frankly.
“I—I don’t know,” I mumbled while I thought about her see-sawing emotions today.
“Is it worth the risk?”
“No,” I insisted, not willing to make that guess. Though my heart was full of reservations, I announced, “I’ll tell her what I need to.”
“Excellent,” Beatrix praised. “Now, on to some protective spells. Where is your notebook?”
I reached into my backpack and pulled out my binder. I opened it up to find the itinerary folder for the trip wedged inside it, and rest assured, old “eagle eyes” spotted the Xcavare crest on its cover immediately.
“What’s that?” Beatrix asked directly. Seeing how two could play her game, I flung it into a nearby trashcan.
“Nothing at all,” I mocked and batted my eyes.
“It looks important,” Beatrix hinted as she gave the trashcan another glance.
I tapped my pen on the table. “Well, it’s not.” Ms. Nosey, I thought to myself with a sly smile. And “nosey” she was, from head to toe, Beatrix Sutherland ALWAYS wanted to be “in-the-know”. She even kept a daggone police scanner radio on her counter in the kitchen. Who does that? She claimed it was strictly for “emergency purposes”, but realistically what kind of “emergency” did she need to be alerted to? Yeah right! I’m sure there’s TONS of “supernatural frequencies” on that noisy, annoying old thing. I knew what she was really doing — keeping tabs on ’ole Officer Pete Ryan and all of his misery, just for kicks.
Yes, definitely “nosey”…with a touch of “vindictive”.
Beatrix eventually commenced with my lesson, though I caught her looking over at the folder numerous times. Her lecture on tapping into your stone’s energy to cast protective spells was intriguing enough, but I struggled to keep my focus. My mind was too bogged down with the notion of perpetually lying to Katie, and not to mention, the anger I had at myself for not having any faith in my bosom friend. Four hours later, Beatrix finally wrapped up for the evening.
“I think we’ll stop there. We’ll review what you learned tomorrow, because I doubt you retained a single thing,” Beatrix criticized, disappointed but trying to appear understanding.
“Sorry, Bea. I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”
“Yes. Hopefully a good nigh
t’s sleep will do you some good.”
“Yeah,” I answered with a covert roll of my eyes as I shoved my binder into my backpack. “I’m sure that will do it,” I remarked as I moped out of the kitchen. With Katie freed from her prison and tucked in my purse, I returned to the foyer to say good-night to Bea.
“Sweet dreams, Shiloh,” Beatrix said as she opened the front door. “Wait, don’t forget this.” She handed me the drawing. I folded it up and crammed it in my backpack, still feeling defeated.
Beatrix lowered her head and let out an appeasing sigh. “The seal is more than just an insignia. It symbolizes the legend of how and why the Talismans of the Guild came to be. But I’m afraid it’s not a bedtime story you’re prepared to hear. Only the diamond can reveal it…when it feels you’re ready, but not until, my curious little dear,” Beatrix stressed with a few consoling pats to my cheek and then slowly closed the door.
Sort of an answer, I noted. Vague at best. Just another one in a long list that led to even more questions. Typical, I confirmed with a doubtless smile.
I put on Katie’s necklace as soon as I hopped into my car. “That took f-o-r-e-v-e-r,” my stir-crazy bosom friend whined.
“Sorry about that.”
“So?” Katie asked. “What did Bea say?”
“About what?”
“What do you mean, ‘about what’? My body, Shi! Does she know where it is?”
“No,” I admitted reluctantly. Katie protested with a sharp grunt. “But she’s working on it,” I stressed on a more positive note.
“Does Gallia have any clues? Did she talk to her today?”
“No. She didn’t get a chance to.” That was partly true.
“You have one of her stones. Call her up and ask,” Katie ordered. Her request hit me like a sucker-punch to the gut.
“Don’t you think she would contact me if she had any leads?” I posed.
“That snake-charming little twit? No. I don’t,” Katie remarked flatly.
“Yes, she would,” I countered. “And please don’t talk that way about Gallia. You don’t have to be mean.”
“That was awfully defensive,” Katie piped back.
“No, it wasn’t,” I replied, sounding agitated and inevitably falling right into her trap.
“Don’t you want to find out where the Onyx has taken my body?”
“Of course I do,” I protested.
“Then what’s the problem? Are you scared to face him again?” Katie charged.
“NO,” I insisted, thinking he was probably responsible for the mayhem in the girls’ locker room. “I’m not thrilled about it, but I wouldn’t say, ‘I’m scared’.”
“Then what is it? Why can’t you just ask her?” Katie challenged.
The stress from my mountain of lies was tearing me apart. I’m sure Katie could sense it. “It won’t do any good,” I let slip, by accident.
“Why’s that, exactly?”
“Because, she’ll get in contact with us if she finds out anything.” I was exhausted from Katie’s aggressive interrogation and sick of spewing lie after lie. At that moment I didn’t know which I wanted more: Katie to develop a sudden case of laryngitis or someone to jerk a knot in my own tongue to put an end to this torture.
Every lie leads to another… Maybe I should go ahead and fess up? But how will she handle the missing fire opal? Is she strong enough? My faith is wavering… How will hers be?
“Shi, why don’t you want to call her?” Katie demanded.
“It’s not that I don’t want to. I wish I could.”
“What do you mean?”
In the midst of summoning enough courage to tell her the truth, it suddenly dawned on me. “I can’t,” I insisted with a wave of relief.
“Why not?” Katie argued.
“She gave me back the diamond I’d given her, remember? Last night? For me to hold?” I pounced on Katie’s silence. “I still had it in my pocket when she sealed us down in the cave. She can’t answer me without it.” That part was more than a stretch. My vocal BFF didn’t say a word for almost a minute. “Katie?”
“Whatever,” Katie finally grunted. That set the tone for the drive — all the way home. She lectured me THE ENTIRE TIME about the importance of finding her body, regardless of who was helping with the search. In her mind, the buck stopped with me. I couldn’t blame her for feeling that way. Neither Beatrix nor Gallia was her bosom friend — I was. So if I wasn’t making it priority Number-One, why the heck would they?
There wasn’t much traffic out this late, so I found myself at the fork on Highway 52 before I knew it. I took a left and winded around the curves leading up the mountain on the last leg of the drive. My mind was still so jumbled from every crappy detail of the past twenty-four hours that I barely remembered any of the ride — just Katie’s complaints and a few headlights. Thankfully my brain registered our weathered red mailbox and pulled me like a magnet onto our gravel drive.
Ten-thirty and all the lights are still on… Not a good sign.
As I pushed open the front door, I heard something drag across the floor. Tons of boxes were stacked in the foyer, all of them full of Daddy’s things. My mouth dropped right along with my sinking heart. His shirts and pants… His shoes and belts… His chess set… All of his prized knick-knacks. The more I rummaged through the boxes, the madder I got.
“It’s only been five weeks,” I grumbled aloud.
“What’s wrong?” Katie asked.
“My dear, sweet mother is throwing out all of Daddy’s stuff! Ughhh! Katie, I can’t talk now,” I said as I stormed down the hall.
I found my mother sitting at the kitchen table, sipping on her white wine — exactly how I’d left her yesterday afternoon. Same chair too. The only thing letting me know she had actually done something besides boozing for a 24-hour stretch was the fact she’d changed her clothes (Well that, and there wasn’t a yellow-tinged puddle pooling on the floor). She didn’t even notice me standing in the doorway. My forty-something mother of two was well on her third bottle for the day (maybe fourth). By the redness of her face and her swollen eyes, she looked like she had been crying too.
As heartless as she was at times (all of them really), she was still my mother. With a deep breath and a reassuring thought that I would do the same for any stranger in the same situation, I dared to ask, “What’s wrong, Charlotte?”
She barely tilted her head. “Go away,” Charlotte snapped as she stared at her wine glass. With one quick throw, she gulped down the last swig. When I didn’t move, she slammed the glass on the table and broke its stem. “Look what you made me do! I told you to go!” my mother barked as she hopped up from her chair and pitched the glass into the trash. A bunch of old photographs were scattered around the top of the table. They were all from her younger years, most of them of her and Daddy. Apparently the ice-queen did seem to care.
I pointed to the pictures. “What are you doing with these?” I asked, almost afraid to. “And the stuff in the foyer?”
“Getting rid of reminders,” Charlotte mumbled as she grabbed another wine glass out of the dishwasher. “Every one of them,” she snarled and slammed its door.
“Is someone coming to pick them up?” I suggested, hoping a charitable donation to the local Goodwill was her intent. Daddy would roll over in his grave if he thought for one second that Charlotte was just going to throw away perfectly good things when someone could get some use out of them.
Charlotte whirled around. “Trash runs in the morning. What do you think, college girl?” she posed and poured another glass of wine.
“I think you’re a little too shit-faced to make that call,” I shot back, not believing what I’d just heard.
“That or shit-headed,” Katie called out to me.
“Both,” I assured my sidekick with a muffled grunt.
“You’re a smart girl. Surely you can understand why I want to get rid of this stuff.” She threw her glass towards the table. Wine splashed on several of the pictur
es, so I started scooping them up to protect as many as I could.
“Even the photos?” I asked as I waved one of them in the air.
Charlotte snatched it from me. “Especially the photos!” As Charlotte stared at the picture in her hand, her eyes began to glaze. Listlessly, she lowered herself down into a chair and laid it on the table. There was something about the photo that moved her. It was one of her and Daddy, taken when she was pregnant with me. They had run over to a Justice of the Peace in Greenbrier County to get hitched and afterward, they stopped by the West Virginia State Fair. The two of them looked so young, so happy, and so in love. Daddy was holding something he’d won. I smiled thinking about how proud he looked clutching what was known in this house as the most hideous kitchen accessory for miles around.
Old Joe, I smiled as I turned my stare to the top shelf of our hutch. That’s the name Daddy had dubbed his prized ceramic monstrosity, which was supposed to be a cookie jar. It was, in name only. It never saw the first cookie because the lid had been accidentally baked on. I guess the five year-old at the factory in China was asleep at the wheel on that one. The ceramic Sumo wrestler Daddy treasured stood proudly holding his gut and smiling down upon us during every meal. Aside from its overall tackiness, the creepy black slanted lines that had been painted on for its eyes bothered us the most. There was no turning it around either. That ended up giving you a cringing view of its practically bare ass. We tolerated it, and eventually tuned it out, for Daddy’s sake. For some unimaginable reason, he loved it. I’d always assumed he placed it there, top center, out of protest since Charlotte reigned over the house decor with an iron fist. However, I had to side with my mother and sister on this one. Absolutely atrocious…
Charlotte threw me a glare so frigid her ice-blue eyes looked like they needed to be thawed. “There’s no way in Hell that you can hate that thing as much as I do,” she growled.
“Are you throwing it out too?”
Charlotte sat smirking while her lips brushed the edge of her wine glass, back and forth, but she never said a word.
“I know what you’re doing,” I charged. Charlotte averted her stare, pointedly. “You’re trying to strip this house of everything that’s a reminder of Daddy, but not for you… I think it’s to hurt me,” I asserted. “This is still his house. The house he built for all of us, and I’m still a part of this family. You may be able to strip it of his things, but not his memory.” I slammed my hands down on the counter. “What was it Daddy said the last time you told him to get rid of that thing?” I yelled as I pointed to the jar. “Wasn’t it something like, ‘Come Hell or high water, your rear will be sitting at the end of our drive before that thing will’?” Charlotte whipped her head up and shot me a fierce glare. “Yep,” I said, noting her discomfort. “That was it.”
