House of Stone

by R. L. King

  “Yeah. The valuables there gave me the idea.”

  “And what do you propose we do, then?”

  “I think we should have a séance. And as soon as possible.”

  17

  If anyone at the The King’s Arms Inn and Public House in the village near Stone’s home thought the collection of individuals who showed up later that evening and commandeered a large table in the back room looked strangely stressed, they didn’t say anything about it. Not within their earshot, anyway. The group did have to endure the not-so-discreet glances of more people than usual walking by, though.

  Stone barely noticed. He was aware that many of the villagers, despite being friendly with Aubrey, considered him odd. Hell, the villagers had likely thought all the Stones over the years to be odd, but because he was absent from his house far more often than he was present, that added an extra dimension of mystery. Tonight, though, he had more pressing issues weighing on his mind than a bunch of small-town busybodies trying to catch an earful of what he and his collection of mad friends were discussing.

  They couldn’t have anyway—a simple spell took care of that, obscuring their words just enough to make them unintelligible to anyone standing more than two feet from the table.

  “Are you sure about this, Eddie?” Stone asked. “I’ve got to say I still don’t like it. Even if this woman knows what she’s doing, it’s got the potential to backfire rather spectacularly. If we set off those echoes any further, they might decide to bring the place down around us.”

  “No guarantees—you know as well as I do there aren’t ever guarantees in stuff like this—but Poppy is the best medium I know. She’s the real deal. If anybody can get to the bottom of what those echoes want, it’s ’er.”

  They had adjourned to the village on Aubrey’s suggestion, and Stone was grateful for it. He needed to get away from that place for a while, and Aubrey’s flat, though large, wasn’t big enough for them to all be comfortable. He hadn’t eaten much, but he was already on his third Guinness. Verity flashed him a concerned glance when he ordered it, but he waved her off. Even though he had no intention of getting drunk tonight—not yet, anyway—that didn’t mean he intended to abstain entirely. He needed something to take the edge off the crushing guilt that wouldn’t leave him alone.

  When Eddie had first suggested the séance, he’d nixed the idea. The last thing he wanted to do right now was bring in some stranger and make her privy to his family’s darkest and most embarrassing secrets. That, and he didn’t have a lot of respect for most so-called “spirit mediums,” largely because the vast majority of them were frauds. With most magic, the practitioner could demonstrate their power in a way others could observe and quantify, but mediums, by the very nature of their work, had to be taken with a certain degree of trust. In all his life, he’d met only one practitioner of divination whom he not only believed could do what she claimed, but that he trusted—and right now, for reasons of his own, he wasn’t keen on trying to track down Madame Huan.

  Eddie had assured him, though, that the woman he recommended was not only highly talented, but could also be counted on to exercise utmost discretion. “You wouldn’t believe some o’ the things she gets up to,” he said, waving off Stone’s objections. “Some o’ the folks she’s worked for, your eyes’d pop clean outta your ’ead if you knew. I can’t say who, but trust me. She does work for the Library occasionally, when I’m tryin’ to get some insight into some particular event or location.”

  “I don’t know, Eddie.” He glanced at Ward. “What do you think? Are you behind this insane idea, too?”

  “It’s up to you, of course. But if I were you, I’d try it. You need to find out what’s going on here before you can decide your next steps. If the echoes won’t talk to you, perhaps they’ll talk to her.”

  Still, Stone hesitated. “Let me think about it,” he said as they all sorted themselves into three cabs to head down to the village.

  “Don’t think too long, mate,” Eddie warned. “If you want ’er to come tonight, I’ll ’ave to give ’er a ring soon. And just so you know, she doesn’t work cheap.”

  Stone didn’t say anything else about it until after they’d finished their meals. He picked at his risotto, pushing it around on the plate until he’d finally given up and ordered the third Guinness. The others gave him space; they talked about inconsequential topics, dominated by Eddie’s football stories and Ian’s accounts of some of his portal-based world tour.

  Finally, as the meal wound down and everyone was sipping pints or cups of coffee, Stone sighed. “All right, Eddie,” he said, hoping he wasn’t making a big mistake. “Give this woman a call, if you think she can help. Don’t give her too many details until I get a chance to talk to her, but make sure she knows what she’s getting into. This could be dangerous.”

  “You got it.” Eddie immediately leaped up from his chair and pulled out his phone. “Give me two ticks to pop outside where it’s quieter, and I’ll let you know what she says.”

  He hurried out, and returned ten minutes later to drop down next to Stone. “All right. She’s coming. I gave ’er the minimum amount of info necessary, but she’s already intrigued. Says she needs a bit to prepare, so she’ll meet us at the Tolliver’s portal at eleven and we can go through from there.”

  “Where is she planning to do this?” Stone asked. “I insist on being present, and Ian and I can’t enter the house.”

  “We’ll work that out when she gets ’ere.”

  “Sir, forgive me for interrupting,” Aubrey said, “but of course you’re welcome to use my flat if you like. We can push the furniture against the walls in the sitting room.”

  “Thanks, Aubrey. It might come to that, but I’d rather not have a load of angry echoes tearing your place apart. Let’s see what she has to say.”

  He drained his pint and considered ordering another one. In the back of his mind, he couldn’t help thinking this was a bad decision, and one not only he but his friends might end up paying dearly for.

  18

  Because it didn’t make sense for the whole group of them to mob Tolliver’s to meet the medium, they decided Stone, Eddie, and Verity would go while the others waited back at Aubrey’s place.

  The magic shop had several customers, which didn’t surprise Stone—they were open twenty-four hours and did most of their business after dark. Fortunately, when they arrived at the portal room they found it deserted. Stone paced, unable to remain still.

  Verity caught up with him. “I know you don’t like this,” she said, touching his arm. “But maybe if you can talk to the echoes, you might be able to reason with them.”

  He shook his head. “Would you be willing to reason, if you were them? I certainly wouldn’t want anything to do with any descendants of the people who did that to me.”

  “Well…maybe they’ll at least tell you what they want. Right now, we’re just guessing. That can’t be any help.”

  “I suppose not. I just want to get on with it.” He glanced at his watch. “Five after eleven. She’s late.”

  “She’ll be ’ere,” Eddie said. He leaned against the wall, watching the portal’s shifting pastel colors.

  At that moment, almost as if waiting to make a proper entrance, a figure emerged from the swirling doorway. When she saw Eddie, her face broke into a wide smile. “Eddie! How are you, luv?”

  Eddie returned her grin, striding over to accept an enthusiastic hug. “Poppy! Good to see you again. You’re looking well, as always.”

  Stone and Verity exchanged glances.

  Eddie waved one hand at them, and one at the woman. “Poppy, these two miscreants are my mates, Alastair Stone and Verity Thayer. And this is Penelope Willoughby, but she’ll bite your ’eads off if you try callin ’er that.”

  “Poppy” Willoughby was clearly not what either of them had been expecting. Stone wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but to start with, she couldn’t have been a day over twenty-five years old, which was th
e first bit of strangeness. Most of the mediums he’d met, for whatever reason, were older—women more often than men, but rarely below their forties. Also, aside from Madame Huan, all of them possessed a vaguely ethereal, loopy quality, as if they either hadn’t quite synced up properly with the real world or were perpetually baked. Possibly both, in some cases.

  This woman, on the other hand, looked like she’d just left one of the hotter London clubs to fulfill this appointment. Tall and well-padded without being chubby, she had light brown skin, an impressive figure, and open, friendly features. She also had a tall, bright-blue Mohawk, an abundant quantity of makeup, and she wore a trendy outfit featuring skintight jeans, low-cut top, and a bright blue leather moto jacket that matched her hair. Her black, stiletto-heeled boots made her almost as tall as Stone—taller, if you counted the Mohawk. Rounding out her ensemble was a capacious satchel of purple leather.

  Her startlingly green gaze settled on Stone and Verity. “Alastair Stone, is it? I’ve heard about you.”

  “Er—have you?” Stone asked. He felt suddenly as if he had been engulfed in a cheerful whirlwind.

  “Oh, yeah. Quite the celebrity, you are.” She turned to Verity with approval. “And Verity Thayer. Don’t think I’ve heard of you.”

  “Uh—I’m Dr. Stone’s apprentice.” Verity, usually good at rolling with anything that came up, seemed almost as taken aback as Stone.

  “Former apprentice,” Stone added. He took a deep breath and tried to fit this new bit of unexpected information into his increasingly teetering worldview. “Er—it’s a pleasure to meet you, at any rate. I hope you can help us.”

  “Oh, I do too. Eddie says you’ve got quite a dilemma. Whole infestation of hostile echoes, is it?”

  “So it would seem.”

  Her expression sobered, making her look less like a drunken club girl and more like a competent professional. “Nasty stuff, that. I’ve heard of a couple cases like that, but never seen one m’self. Are you wantin’ me to contact anyone in particular, or just reach out to whoever’s willin’ to talk?”

  “I’ll…take what I can get at this point,” Stone said. “But I’m not sure Eddie warned you—none of them are terribly happy with me, or my son. They’ve got some perfectly reasonable issues with the Stone family in general.”

  “Ah, yeah.” She nodded knowingly. “Eddie did say somethin’ about that, though he didn’t say why. Is that part of what you want me to try findin’ out?”

  “We think we already know that bit,” Eddie said. “What we’re really lookin’ for, I think, is what Stone can do to placate ’em so they’ll take off and let ’im back in ’is ’ouse.”

  Poppy narrowed her eyes. “How many o’ these things are we talkin’ about here? Four? Five, maybe?”

  “Forty-one,” Stone said dully, once again regretting his decision to call in outside help.

  She almost did a classic double-take. “Hang on? Did I hear you right? Did you say forty-one?”

  “It’s…a unique situation. Listen, maybe this was a bad idea. If you don’t think you can—”

  She waved him off. “No, no, I didn’t say I couldn’t help. But forty-one spirits…that’s… that’s a new one,” she finished. “I’m not sure I want to know what you lot did to piss off that many people, but I suppose I’m gonna find out.”

  “We’re not sure all forty-one of them are there,” Eddie said, glancing at Stone. “It’s possible some o’ them might’ve already moved on, innit?”

  “I guess we’ll find that out too, won’t we?” Poppy said. To Stone, she added, “This is gonna increase the price, though. Sorry—I hope Eddie told you what I do doesn’t come cheap, and tryin’ to contact that many hostile echoes could be bloody dangerous.”

  “If you can do it, name your price,” Stone said. “Perhaps you—or they—can identify one of their number to speak for them. That might make things easier.”

  Poppy laughed and patted Stone’s shoulder. “Oh, luv, you might be a big noise in the magical world, but it’s obvious you haven’t dealt with too many spirits. Trust me—they’re almost never that organized. Especially if they’re angry. If I make contact, I’ll have a hard time makin’ most of ’em shut their gobs long enough to get a coherent word out o’ the rest.”

  Stone glanced at Eddie, but didn’t say anything. He still didn’t think this was a good idea, and felt as if the whole situation was getting away from him, but he didn’t see an alternative unless he wanted to abandon his ancestral home—including his priceless magical library and innumerable arcane objects—to the echoes.

  “So,” Poppy was saying, looking at her tiny gold watch. “Do you want to go for it? We can do it tonight if you like. It’s a little after eleven now. Midnight’s a good time for these things. Can we get there by then?” She patted her satchel. “I’ve got everything I need here.”

  Verity squeezed Stone’s arm, and he nodded. “Yes—might as well get on with it. We can take the portal straight to my place.”

  “Private portal. Nice and handy.” She flashed Stone a smile. “Don’t worry—I haven’t met a spirit yet I couldn’t get through to.”

  Jason, Ward, Ian, and Aubrey were waiting in Aubrey’s sitting room when they returned, lounging around the homey, comfortable space sipping coffee and ignoring the television droning in the background.

  Poppy greeted Ward with enthusiasm, and Eddie introduced her to the remaining group members. “Okay,” she said briskly, all business now. “I assume that monster of a house up the way is where the problem is?”

  “That’s right,” Stone said. “Ian and I can’t even pass the threshold without being attacked.”

  “So there’s physical manifestations?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Ian said. “One of those ‘physical manifestations’ almost took my head off before I got out of there, and there’s a sword sticking through one of the sofas.”

  “It’s a combination,” Stone said. “Physical, illusionary, and auditory.”

  “Means they’re powerful,” Poppy said. “But you probably already knew that. Any idea how old they are, and what caused them to manifest now? Eddie didn’t give me much detail.”

  Stone hesitated, still reluctant to reveal his family’s shame to an outsider.

  She must have picked up on it, because she shot him a sympathetic look. “Don’t worry, luv—you can count on my discretion. Ask Eddie here if you don’t believe me. You’d be surprised at some of the reasons spirits get their backs up.”

  He sighed, and didn’t look at her. “We were doing some renovation, and uncovered their remains in a series of secret, sealed chambers under the house. We think they were used in a rather massive foundation sacrifice nearly three hundred years ago.”

  She whistled. “Wow. That’s, uh…wow. I can see how they’re pissed—and powerful. But don’t worry—I’ll do my best to get you sorted.”

  “Do you think you can convince them to leave Dr. Stone alone?” Verity asked. “I mean, yeah, his ancestors did terrible things, but he didn’t. Can you help them…pass on, or whatever they need to do?”

  “We’ll see.” Poppy hefted her bag and faced Stone again. “So you say it’s safe to go up there for anyone who isn’t related to you?”

  “So far. But if at all possible, I want to be present during the séance. Can you manage that? Perhaps broker a…temporary truce?”

  “We’ll see,” she said again. “I’ll need to go up there without you first, to set things up. Eddie and Ward can come with me to help, and I’ll see if I can get them to let you join. If not, do you want me to keep going anyway, with the others?”

  Stone wanted to say no. This was his house, and his family. The idea of his friends talking to the echoes without him raised irrational, almost childish feelings of stubbornness. But that was all it was—irrational. He needed to do whatever was necessary to deal with the situation, even if he couldn’t be part of it.

  “Yes,” he said at last. “Do it anyway. But please—try to make
them see I mean them no harm. I’m sympathetic to their plight, and only want to help them.”

  “I’ll do my best.” She patted his arm, and he noticed she seemed even more serious than before. Apparently forty-one sacrificial victims interred under a house were more than even she was used to dealing with. “Wait here, and I’ll call you as soon as we know anything.”

  Stone didn’t sit down after she, Eddie, and Ward trooped out of the apartment and headed off. Instead, he prowled Aubrey’s living room, pausing occasionally to stare out the window at the darkened house.

  During one of these times, Aubrey approached him. “May I…get you something, sir?”

  He barked a soft, harsh laugh. “So many ways to answer that, aren’t there? But…no. Thank you, Aubrey. All I want just now is to get this over with.”

  “It isn’t your fault, sir. You know that, of course.”

  He nodded without looking at the caretaker. “I do. But that doesn’t change much, does it? As far as those echoes are concerned, it is my fault. Blood matters, especially in cases like this. Can you imagine how it must have been for them, trapped behind some kind of magical seal for all these years, just…steeping in hatred? What else did they have to do? And now that they’re out, they want somewhere to vent it. I can hardly blame them for that.”

  “No…I suppose not. But it’s not fair for them to vent it at you and Ian. You had nothing to do with what happened to them.” He sounded almost indignant.

  “You’d think so. But echoes aren’t like classic ghosts in stories—not exactly. Except for very rare cases, they’re not fully-functioning beings. They don’t retain all the thoughts and memories they had when they were alive. The reason they remain behind and don’t pass on to wherever spirits go when they die is because they’ve got some obsession they need to work out.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Happy, contented people who die of old age don’t leave echoes, Aubrey. And the ones who do hang about are driven by those obsessions. Single-minded sorts, most of them are.”