The Crone's Stone

by S E Holmes

maintained my stance. My heartbeat pounded too loudly and a cold sweat beaded my lip. Who were they, really? Who had I just become? I wanted to rewind time to a week ago when my biggest issues were avoiding Mallory and staving off frostbite. This new trouble was too huge a departure from normality. My mind spun, unable to gain traction on the truth of my aunt’s words. I knew the three of them weren’t lying to me this time and I had seen, or rather, not seen, Mrs Paget with my own eyes. But the experience tore a rift through rationality, fracturing all I’d ever held sacred.

  Did stars still twinkle in the heavens or had they ripped free to rain down on the earth like plummeting comets? Would the sun rise tomorrow and set beyond the horizon at day’s end as it always had, or would the moon take its place? Accepting the significance of my heritage shredded logic so that I’d never fully trust myself or anyone or anything else ever again. Demons roamed the globe, dressed in everyday clothes, forging hell-bound bargains with the unwary. An enemy more foul than any I could conjure stalked our wake in figure-hugging red leather. In a matter of seconds, the world had become a more wicked place, a place in which it was impossible to fathom my new role. My unfortunate birth had sealed my fate.

  I wasn’t ready for any of it and never would be. Strangely, admitting to myself that such a point of preparation was unlikely to eventuate was calming. Fighting destiny was futile, so I opted for my default coping mechanism: box each problem separately and deal with a little piece at a time. Who knew Mr Jenkins’ advice to compartmentalise would end up so useful? I regained a tenuous grip on my mental faculties, although my spasming lungs and heaving stomach were slow to get on board.

  “What can we do?” Smithy – ever the pragmatist – asked Bea.

  “Hugo is a loose canon. If he has been taken by Anathema, then our situation is dire. The warehouse would no longer offer camouflage and we must flee. We have to locate him as quickly as possible.”

  “Let us go after him.” I don’t know what I expected after the ominous announcement. Thunderbolts? Lightning. Shock and awe? But nothing seemed different. My voice sounded the same, if croaky and distraught. “You stay and rest. Recover, get better,” I begged.

  “Come here, Winsome.” Bea spread her arms wide.

  I ran into her embrace, burying my face in the nape of her neck and working hard to stifle a sob. Her bones were so fine and brittle beneath my grasp. She hugged me tightly, enveloping me in lavender scent, aware in her usual instinctual manner that what I needed most was human contact. Enough had been said. After all, what good could more information achieve? Of course, no one ever heeded my opinion and I was often wrong.

  “You cannot venture outside until you’ve claimed the Stone.” Bea ruined any slight comfort. The prospect of claiming stones or other mystifying upcoming ordeals were best pushed to the very deepest, dankest nook in my warehouse of boxed problems. “Unless we find a way, the Stone’s evil influence grows and seeks you especially, the embodiment of those who have thwarted its mistress across centuries. Your fear becomes real, feeding the demons that inhabit Finesse’s nether world. They are attracted by terror, increasingly stronger and able to break the barriers between dimensions. You must remain calm, Winsome. And think only happy thoughts.”

  “We’ll stay indoors,” Smith said firmly. “I know where.”

  Happy thoughts? Unbelievable! “No! I can’t let you go out like this.”

  The cats howled, their pacing furious. Mrs Paget tenderly extracted me from Bea’s embrace, getting up on tiptoes to kiss my cheek. It seemed extremely poor form to fight someone so fragile. She gestured for Smithy, who circled my waist in an unbreakable loop. I glared at him over my shoulder. “We can’t allow this!”

  His expression twisted in remorse. “We have no choice.”

  The urge to oppose my imprisonment was strong, but Bea would disapprove of such a loss of dignity. In any case, there was no possibility of a successful mutiny against their unified front. I sagged in Smithy’s hold.

  “We would not leave you defenceless, Winsome. Remember, the Crone is not the only one who is powerful.”

  With an encouraging nod, Mrs Paget moved away to complete arrangements for their quest, while I battled that stubborn queasy sensation and pondered what dubious power I possessed. So far, it had been doggedly absent and I couldn’t foresee an occasion during which it would suddenly manifest. Mrs Paget’s disappearing trick didn’t seem an act I’d been responsible for. In any case, I didn’t think I could do it again. I didn’t know how.

  “You are not merely a Keeper, if such a one can be referred to as ‘mere’. You are the last, Winsome. We feel certain you will be most special,” Fortescue said. He added, “Not that you aren’t already.”

  He winked, before turning to the task at hand. Fortescue actually winked, which attained a new level of bizarre. If that was even possible in these circumstances.

  “All you need to know is in your diary on the kitchen table. I encourage you to read it thoroughly,” Bea said.

  On the platform by the front door, Fortescue and Mrs Paget hefted large hikers’ backpacks containing who knew what, readying to leave. Her tiny body was swamped, the pack towering over her stooped form. Reed thin, Fortescue barely withheld an arthritic groan at the weight of his burden. In response, I barely withheld a scream of frustration at their obstinacy.

  “Oh, and Vegas? I have conferred with the judge.” Aunt Bea shouldered her own pack, knowing better than to refer to the man in question as Smithy’s father. “He is under the impression you and Winsome have taken a getaway on a yacht in the Whitsundays to celebrate her arrival home. It is not a misapprehension of which I felt obliged to disabuse him.”

  “Thank you, Aunt Bea.”

  He wore the bemused look of one who’d come to doubt all he’d ever held true. Or possibly, he wrangled with Bea’s last sentence. She firmly clasped Smithy’s hand in both of hers, gazing over at me.

  “I love you, Winsome. Please be careful. I cannot emphasise this enough: do not leave the warehouse.”

  “I love you too, Aunt Bea.” I nearly cried with the force of feeling. “You be more careful. Bring yourselves and Hugo back, safe and sound.”

  And then the doors glided open. My guardians hobbled from the warehouse after the cats. Out into a sinister day that tainted my future in ways I could never begin to imagine, and promised to steal every person I’d ever loved.

  Nineteen

  “You can let me go. I won’t run after them,” I said flatly. The absence of my minders left me in despair. What if they never returned? The cool of the huge hall dimpled my flesh and I shivered.

  “We’ll find a way to fix what’s wrong, Winnie. I promise.” Smithy’s grip slackened and I squirmed free, pivoting angrily to confront him.

  “You’d better find that way fast, or it’ll be too late for Bea and Fortescue and Mrs Paget.” My voice hitched. “You should have agreed with me, Vegas!” I prodded the hardness of his chest. He didn’t raise a hand to stop me, taking small rearward steps on each shove. “We could have argued together against their going out on this mad mission to find Hugo. They’re sick and elderly! What chance do they have in a confrontation?” Had Anathema come to collect their wayward assassin? Or did my guardians face some other ill-defined threat?

  Smith visibly wilted. “Bea says my task above any other is to protect you and keep you from harm—”

  The warehouse proximity alert burst awake to drown him out. We both stood transfixed by the door’s shiny facade, as if live cobras might writhe from the exterior at any moment. Metal seemed too puny against shadowy supernatural forces. I shuddered to think of tiny Mrs Paget on the opposite side, totally exposed and helpless.

  “Come on!” Smith snatched my wrist, before I could act on instinct and dive for the door. He dragged me bodily behind him through the collection.

  “You’re overreacting, Smith!” I yelled above the bleat of the siren, striving to believe my own fib. It was that or panic, which was obviously a
sub-par option. “Vagrants sometimes shelter in the entranceway.” I jogged to keep from tripping. “Or mistake it for a urinal.”

  He grunted sceptically and kept us barrelling through the obstacle course at a rapid pace. We reached the stairs.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Surveillance suite. To check for vagrants.”

  “I know where it is, Smith. I can walk on my own!”

  “Fine,” he said, thin-lipped.

  He pressed himself to the wall at the base of the stairs, indicating I go on up ahead so he could block any attempt at escape. We would need to work on those trust issues.

  The small surveillance suite was on the same floor as the apartments, furthest from the kitchen and in the corner of the balcony opposite the entrance. I stomped inside, pursued by an even grumpier Smith. We seated ourselves in front of a bank of monitors, which showed both the exterior and interior of the warehouse from different perspectives.

  I flicked the alert off and blissful silence ensued. Resetting the alarm from the console desk, Smith remotely panned the camera that covered a small section of street surrounding the porch and recessed doorway.

  “See!” I said with a tone of satisfaction. “Empty.”

  He ignored me and leaned in close to the screens, rewinding and slowly forwarding the footage from a few minutes earlier. We watched my guardians’