The Crone's Stone

by S E Holmes

smouldering inside.

  “Oh, man! You’re not a vampire are you?”

  “Nothing so common,” he laughed. “Enough about me, we’ve wasted too many years on my crap. Why are you home from school? Not that I’m not ecstatic, but I thought you had another two years there?”

  “It’s an enigma. Bea, Fortescue and Mrs Paget are being very secretive. Apparently, Bea wants to continue my education herself. At least I won’t be bored to sleep. They gave me some fib about boarding school being too easy and failing to engage my apparent intellect. My academic progress is blatant evidence against this.”

  The rest of the evening flew by, too fast. I was almost tempted to tell Smithy about my recent mental dysfunctions, but didn’t want to deflate the mood. He served my food and attended to my slightest need. The conversation turned to fun topics and we laughed and reminisced about silly things we’d done together. I could not believe how great it was to be with him. How easy. How much I missed having him in my life. Nor could I believe the new electric intensity between us that made me jump at the tiniest tickle of my skin against his.

  “This is a great song!” He amped up the volume via remote. Powderfinger’s ‘Think It Over’ put his speakers to the test. “Come on, let’s dance.”

  He dragged me, protesting, from my chair. “Have you seen these shoes?”

  “Don’t worry! It’s not our feet we’ll be moving.”

  He made a show of rearranging my hair so he could run his hand down the groove of my spine to rest at the small of my back, giving new meaning to the word sizzle. He pulled me close and we swayed rhythmically on the spot, while he sang softly in my ear. At the song’s end, he wrapped me tightly in his arms for an overlong minute.

  “Nice,” I squeaked. “But turning blue from lack of oxygen.”

  “Sorry.” He helped me back to my seat.

  We shared a tub of cookies-and-cream ice cream; Smithy fed me from his spoon. “I’d forgotten how much you can eat. Where does someone as delicate as you put all that food? Is Bea starving you or something?”

  “That would be a mercy!” He squinted inquiringly. “You’ve never tasted wheatgrass juice. Sort of like blended garden clippings.” With a shock, I realised our guest would be joining me in the culinary wasteland. “My advice is to gorge whenever you eat out.”

  “Ahh. That explains it. I was astonished watching you attack the buffet at the judge’s party last night. What an appetite! Makes a nice change from girls who nibble like rabbits.”

  “I thought you arrived late! You watched me?” Great! He’d seen me stuffing my face with embarrassing enthusiasm.

  He looked only slightly remorseful. “Me and every other male in the room,” he said, scowling. “I guess I should be grateful for Bargeass. He spared me the effort of keeping them off you. Actually, I’d been there for a while. It took me some time to get up the nerve to come over. You know, after the way things were left before you jetted off overseas.” I cleared my throat, blushing at the phantom sensation of his mouth against mine, hard to forget despite the passage of time.

  Smithy gazed at my face, chewing his bottom lip. “Just as I finally grew a pair, Brianna practically tackled me. I wasn’t going to turn up at all, but Mrs Paget phoned me out of the blue and told me you’d be there.”

  Smithy came to the party especially for me? Mute Mrs Paget used a telephone? The headlines kept coming. Mrs Paget matchmaking! She’d really made up for lost time in exercising those vocal cords. It was a jarring reminder of my illicit presence here.

  Surreptitiously checking the glowing face of Smithy’s diver’s watch, I was horrified by the advancing hours. I did not want to go home, especially with his latest revelation rippling warmly through me, but Bea and the others would be frantic with worry. How could I get us out of here swiftly without offending him?

  “Er, it’s time we should be getting back.”

  “You have a curfew?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Oh, no! I recognise that cagey expression. What have you done, Bear?”

  “Technically,” I grimaced, “I wasn’t supposed to leave the warehouse.”

  He swore for a bit. “Brilliant! You’ve dragged me into your sorry rule-breaking. They won’t want me to stay if I lead you astray.”

  I chuckled uncomfortably. “You’re a poet as well as an artist?” His lips pressed together in disapproval. I hurried on to prevent the deserved tirade. “They’re off somewhere with Hugo. If we leave now, we’ll probably beat them back and they’ll be none the wiser.”

  “You kill me, Winsome. Now we’ll both be in the septic tank. I only just managed to crawl out! In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m trying to be responsible.”

  “Oh, right! A tad disingenuous from the guy who was the prime reason I spent my early adolescence driving Bea to distraction.”

  His features stayed cranky. “I have to ask you something before we go, and it might sound a bit strange. Okay?”

  I hadn’t recovered from Mrs Paget’s conniving yet, I didn’t think I could deal with more weirdness. I nodded warily.

  “Have you heard the name Billie Kho?”

  “No …” I hesitated. Could it be the same Billie I shouted about in my sleep? But I only had Shabby’s word for that anyway – hardly a trusted source. And I refused to have another person, no matter how cherished, dabbling in my private nightmares. “No,” I repeated, more firmly.

  Smithy had stopped listening. He peered overhead at the sky. “We have to get out of here,” he said suddenly. “Now!” I looked up in confusion. “Come on.”

  He yanked me to my feet. One hand secured my waist, and with no effort spared to clean our mess from dinner or lock up, he practically carried me back through the studio and out the other side. It was a tribute to his strength I didn’t tip over, my feet barely skimming the ground.

  “Cripes! What’s wrong?”

  He’d gone pale, like someone who’d seen his own death. “You’ll never make it in those shoes. Take them off, Winnie.”

  “What? Why? Not until you tell me what this is about!”

  He pointed up at the moon. A dense black smudge blocked its shine, many specks flying together in a massive flock. It wheeled and turned, as if seeking something, only to disappear eventually against the darkness of night.

  “Flying foxes,” I shrugged.

  The throng must have been high; I couldn’t hear the usual chorus of squeals and chatter. Smith knelt and hastily undid the straps of my shoes.

  “Trust me. Please, Winsome. They are not flying foxes! And you do not want to be outside when they find what they’re looking for!”

  Apparently it had been too much to ask for one superb night, free of the creeps. “Can’t we just stay here?”

  I would use his phone to call Bea and smooth things over with maximum grovelling. Tell her we’d been held up by swarming … whatevers. She was bound to believe such an unlikely excuse.

  “Glass won’t keep them out. Quick!” he urged, as I stepped out of my footwear. “We have to get back to the warehouse.”

  I hardly had time to collect my stilettos, before he towed me across the wooden-planked path at a testing pace. In front, the cliff face loomed, impossibly high, the stairs almost vertical. Smith leaped up the first few steps with amazing ease, but doubt consumed me. Could I scale death-defyingly slim treads at night and in haste? Smithy hurdled ahead, frantically dialling a cab and swearing about poor reception.

  It was abnormal. Without paying attention or using his hands for balance, his progress was faultless. Meanwhile, I scrabbled on all fours in the dark. The heels looping my wrist by the straps were a distraction and banged my arms. My fingers chafed on rough rock, making my already short nails jagged, and I painfully stubbed my big toe, which throbbed and added to my mounting discomfort.

  Smith glanced over his shoulder, already far ahead. “Oh, Bear. I’m sorry!” He turned to descend but froze on the spot. “Stand still,” he called tensely. “They’re
above us.”

  I heard the rhythmic beats of many wings overhead. “What! What’s above us?”

  “Shh!”

  I paused, stuck to the spot like a gecko, minus the grace. My muscles trembled and burned. He exhaled as the so-called flying foxes moved on, and recommenced his descent with a trickle of grit and pebbles. Several larger chunks of rock broke free, one bouncing onto my forehead and more scratching my shoulders as they plummeted.

  “Ow! This is stupid, Smith!” I madly blinked dust from my eyes, getting angrier by the second. “Stay there! You’ll bring the cliff face down on me.”

  “It’s completely stable. This track has been here for decades without slippage.”

  Several ominous cracks split the air to make a liar of him, followed by a bubbling tumult of sound. Above Smithy, a wall of shale began to slip down the hillside, gaining speed and bringing with it random boulders.

  “Winnie,” Smith yelled, scrambling towards me. “Stop imagining things. Calm your mind.”

  “Duck!” I squealed, as a huge rock bumped and spun straight for him. Terrified, I flung away my shoes and crawled as fast as possible, with debris pelting down on my head. I squinted up, the slope seemingly steeper by the second, coughing and spluttering. “Help,” I croaked.

  I’d lost sight of Smithy in the billowing storm of dust. Scant handholds beneath my fingers liquefied and disappeared. I began the descent on an avalanche of rubble, flailing desperately for anything solid. What began as a stairway with a rickety handrail carved