The Lodestone

by J. Philip Horne

  “Jack, I thought you were dead when we heard the wyvern and all the men ran by.”

  “I figured you’d died, too,” Jack said, returning the hug. He was surprised by how thankful he was to see Sally again.

  “Fortuna, ideas?” Gerlock asked.

  “We can run, but we can’t go on like that for much longer,” she said, nodding toward Jack and Sally.

  “I’ve got an idea,” Jack said.

  “And?” Gerlock said.

  “This may sound crazy, but here’s what I’m thinking. When I’m not wearing this amulet,” Jack said, fingering the silver acorn, “I can feel the Lodestones in my bones. I’ve always felt them, I just never knew it. Well, wizards can feel them too, and wizards can travel by them. Maybe I can take us through the Lodestone to my world, away from here.”

  “So your suggestion,” Gerlock said, “is to remove the one thing hiding you from the wizards hunting you so you can try to travel between worlds. Something you’ve never done.”

  “Well, I, uh, I think I can do it,” Jack said, “and we don’t have other options, do we? Really, is it worse if I fail?”

  “Not much,” Gerlock said, and Jack could see his scowl even in the dark. “Here’s what we do. Fortuna and I will hide you near the hill, and then we’ll keep the enemy circling. A bit before dawn, which I would say is about five hours from now, we will come retrieve you, and we see what happens. Onward.”

  They jogged in silence, Fortuna leading the way, then Jack and Sally, and Gerlock bringing up the rear. Fear and weariness draped over Jack’s mind like a fog. Everything became a blur, with only Fortuna’s back steady in his vision. They continued, and Jack wondered what would happen if he just dropped to the ground and slept.

  Suddenly, Jack slammed into Fortuna. She’d stopped. Jack mumbled an apology as he dropped to the ground. He drank deeply from the water skin Gerlock offered him, and massaged his calf, trying to ease the burn. Sally lay a few steps away, her chest heaving, out of breath. While Gerlock and Fortuna quietly consulted each other for a moment, Jack crawled over to Sally, still dragging Edalwin’s knapsack along with him.

  “Hey,” he said, “I think this is as far as I go. How ’bout you?”

  “Done,” Sally said. “I’m done. Jack, can you really do it?”

  “I think so,” Jack said. “Here’s the thing. I was awake that moment Edalwin brought us here from Kansas. I know I was feverish and passing out all the time, but I felt it. I didn’t understand what was going on, but I remember it, that feeling. It was like she reached from Kansas to the Lodestone here and pulled us across. I felt the effort it took. I felt all of it, as she brought us with her. Did you feel any of that?”

  “No, I just was looking at Kansas, and then I wasn’t,” Sally said.

  Gerlock knelt down beside them as they talked while Fortuna worked her magic to hollow out a shelter in a bramble thicket.

  “Here is the plan,” Gerlock said. “We hide you in the brambles. Just seal you in. Then run interference for about four hours. Come pull you out just before dawn. The hill’s a stone’s throw that way,” he jerked his thumb over his shoulder, “so we’ll be there in no time. Then you take off your amulet, and we visit a new world. Got it?”

  They nodded, and slowly got to their feet. Once they were seated in the hollow, the two rangers began closing up the brambles all around them, sealing them in a small hiding place. Sally made no effort to stay awake, and was promptly curled up on the ground asleep. Jack thought it would be wise to remain alert, but was soon curled up next to her asleep.

  Jack’s eyes popped open. Something had waken him. It was still pitch black in the brambles, so he lay still and listened. After a moment, he heard the faint murmur of someone talking to himself. Jack quietly rolled toward Sally and felt for her mouth, covering it firmly with his hand once he found it. She started to struggle, but then relaxed and held still, so Jack slowly removed his hand. The murmuring got louder as the person walked closer.

  “Where are you, my little mice? Someone has done something. What have they done? Good work. Quality work. Pride in workmanship. I’ll find you, my little mice. Gone to ground you have, but where?”

  The voice went past them and gradually drifted out of hearing. Sally reached out and found Jack’s hand with hers and squeezed it. They waited, and then to Jack’s horror the voice started coming back toward them.

  “I smell you, I do. You’re clever, so clever, but I’m the cat, and you’re the mouse, and the cat always wins. Oh, I think I see it. Clever, my darling, clever! You tricked me the first time, but I’ve found you out.”

  The voice had stopped beside their hiding place. Sally’s hand squeezed tighter. The brambles made a quiet rustling sound. Jack reached up and felt the top of their hollow slowly descending.

  “Yes, let’s see if the mice are well fed. They’ll wish they were skinnier soon enough. Perhaps if the mice squeak, the cat will let them out to play.”

  The faintest of lights gradually filtered into the hollow, revealing the danger. They could now see the two-inch thorns woven through the brambles slowly, inexorably lowering toward them while the mage outside kept up his bizarre dialog. Jack reached over with his far hand and turned Sally’s face toward him. He looked at her and smiled. The thorns were six inches above them, then four inches, then two.

  “Oh, I feel we are so close to a special moment,” the voice continued. “Will the mice squeal, or will the mice feel… no more?”

  A thorn touched Jack’s shoulder. He kept looking at Sally as it pushed through his shirt and pressed into his skin. A tear rolled off her eye into the dirt as the thorn pushed through Jack’s skin and into his flesh. He bit his lip and tried not to cry out as his shoulder lit up with a searing pain.

  “What is that? What did I hear? Are there other cats out playing?”

  The briars stopped descending. Jack lay still and wondered how much longer they had to live. Sally’s tears were now falling freely. He tried to breathe slowly and calmly, but each breath drove the thorn more deeply into his flesh.

  There was a loud crack, followed by a thud, and the briars leapt back up, causing Jack to cry out in pain as the thorn yanked free. A moment later the hollow opened up, washing Jack and Sally in early pre-dawn light. Fortuna helped them out while Gerlock dragged a body out of the way. Jack moved his shoulder and found he could use it in spite of the sharp pain. He scrubbed the tears from his face with the back of his hand just as Sally slammed into him and gave him a bear hug.

  “I thought we were going to die,” she said. “I could feel the thorns about to pierce me, and I, I couldn’t have done what you did. I would have screamed.”

  “I’m deeply sorry,” Fortuna said, as Sally finally let go of him. “I don’t know how he got by us. When we came back to get you, we sensed what he was doing.”

  “Very brave,” Gerlock said, stepping over to them and clapping Jack on the back, sending a shock of pain through his shoulder. “Now, Jack, to the hill and beyond. It’s time.”

  They followed Gerlock, and came to the hill a minute later. Cresting the top, they stepped in among the standing stones. Jack looked at each of them, nodded, and took the amulet off. For the first time in his life, the scope of what he sensed became apparent to him as it all flooded back into his awareness. Lodestones, dozens of them, were there waiting to be sensed, and the twins on his world were now more obvious as well.

  “Let’s hold hands,” Jack said. “I’d hate to leave anyone behind.”

  Though the trees obscured it, Jack felt the sun break free of the horizon as the Lodestone and its pair in Kansas merged as one. Closing his eyes, Jack concentrated on Sally, Fortuna, and Gerlock, and reached for Kansas, grabbed the Lodestone, and pulled.

  Chapter 7

  DEREK HARLAND

  DEREK HARLAND SAT down at the small dining table squeezed into the undersized dining area of his one bedroom apartment. The frozen pizza and beer he’d just consumed had been perfect, and he was e
ager to get to work. Derek always did his best work after dinner, and the email he’d received earlier that afternoon in the office deserved his best work. He bumped his mouse to bring up the security screen of his laptop and logged in. The email was open and waiting for him on the screen.

  “Okay, Derek, let’s do this.”

  He had picked up the habit of talking to himself out loud in college when he discovered it improved his grades. Twenty-five years later, he still felt it improved his thinking.

  “Here we go. Let’s start from the top.”

  Derek, you probably heard my CARD team was put on the Hillacre case late Monday night, a couple hours after things went down. It’s Thursday afternoon, and all I’ve got is the most bizarre crime scene I’ve ever seen. She went off the grid. No calls, no credit cards, etc. The case is going cold.

  Listen, I can’t make sense of this thing. Read the reports I attached and give me your thoughts. NOTHING adds up. Can’t figure out what happened or why.

  Hoping you can provide some SPECIAL insight, a LEAP forward for the investigation. We really need to know where she went.

  Ryan

  “Okay, Ryan, I know you are trying to be clever, but that was a little obvious.”

  Derek was intrigued. Hillacre had come through as a straight up kidnapping, but rumor had it that when the CARD team arrived, they found anything but a normal kidnapping. And if Ryan didn’t think it added up, then it didn’t add up. One by one, Derek opened all the email attachments, and selected a photo of the original suspect, Edna Littleworth. She was a dignified, almost beautiful woman with long brown hair and a regal face. Derek thought she looked north of forty, but beyond that couldn’t tell her age.

  “So, Ryan,” Derek said, rubbing his hands together, “you want me to abuse my privileges as a director of special projects and use LEAPFaR to run a search on Edna, or probably her license plate, in spite of the ongoing scrutiny over the legality of the program. Let’s do both.”

  He pulled up a connection to LEAPFaR in a separate window. The security screen read ‘FBI LEAPFaR: Logarithmically Enhanced Archival Photo Facial Recognition’ followed by the line ‘for test use only, highly classified.’ He quickly typed in his username and password, then uploaded the photo and started the search. Next, he opened the traffic cam module and entered her license plate number. LEAPFaR had started as a facial recognition package only, but had proved exceptional at finding license plates as well. He glanced at his watch—8:30 p.m. Hopefully it would have something for him before he hit the sack.

  He started skimming through the other reports that Ryan had sent with the email. Edna Littleworth was a remarkable woman. She was credited with saving ten lives that the ER doctors had judged too far gone during her four-year tenure at the county hospital’s emergency room. She’d fostered a couple children who had done well given the unfortunate circumstances of their lives. She was well liked by all her neighbors. Many words came to mind to describe her based on the photos and reports. Strong. Healer. Stately. Compassionate. But not ‘kidnapper.’

  And how did these two kids fit together other than proximity? Sally Barton had curly blond hair a bit down her back, freckles, and green eyes. She’d been born and raised in Hillacre. She was in the seventh grade and stood five foot two. Her report might have just said ‘Normal’ and left out all the detail. She liked to read, got good grades, played on the girls’ volleyball team, and had lots of friends.

  Jack Paris was anything but normal. The picture didn’t tell the whole story. He had wavy brown hair that needed to be cut, brown eyes, and no real distinguishing features other than a certain intensity that jumped out of the photo. His vitals were also pretty bland. He was a little tall for his age at five foot five, but nothing extraordinary. His past, however, was very distinguishing. He’d been abandoned in Paris, Texas, as an infant, and was ultimately named after the city when no parents ever turned up to claim him. Until Edna took him in at age eight he’d bounced around and lived in a total of ten different homes. The various schools he’d attended had logged pages of reports on the trouble he had caused. Reviewing the material, Derek guessed he must have been in a fight every week in the third grade, and never had a friend to speak of. Then Edna took him in and moved him to Hillacre, and the bad reports from school gradually dwindled away.

  Sally and Jack lived about two blocks from each other, and seem to have visited that strange hill just outside of town the evening they disappeared. Something must have happened there, because Sally ended up at Edna’s house, and it was closer than her own house on the way back from the hill. Maybe something spooked her? Or was she forced into the house?

  The crime scene and eyewitness accounts were a mess. The reports themselves were written well and communicated the information clearly. The testimony of the girl’s sister Serena and the other neighbors was all in good order. The report on the state of Edna’s house and the physical evidence was detailed and comprehensive. All of it lined up, was well documented, and orderly. However, none of it made any sense. Derek pulled back up Ryan’s summary report with the reconstruction of the timeline and evidence.

  Prior noteworthy events: Neighbors report unusual animal activity for day prior. Dogs particularly were noted by neighbors for unusual behavior, such as incessant barking, which peaked in the hour prior to the events under investigation. The body of one of Edna Littleworth’s nine cats was found dead in a culvert up the street. Fatal damage was done to the cat by another animal, but forensic experts with the FBI state they have never seen such wounds before. The wounds are best explained by a very large cat-like creature with only three claws per foot.

  Monday at 8:35 p.m. Serena Barton (18 y.o.) received a call from Edna Littleworth stating that Sally Barton (kidnapped) appeared sick and had fallen asleep on Edna’s couch after returning from the large hill outside of town. Serena reports no concern due to Edna’s reputation for healing and generous kindness. John and Marsha Barton were out of town at the time.

  Reports from neighbors pin the moment of conflict at 9:03 p.m. Piecing together the witness accounts and physical evidence, a large explosion was followed by approximately 8 gunshots. Somewhere between 9:06 and 9:10, a tall man in a dark robe was seen fleeing south out of town on foot. Shortly after, before local police had time to respond to numerous 911 calls, Edna Littleworth, Jack Paris, and Sally Barton drove off in Edna’s gold Toyota Camry.

  “So,” Derek said, continuing through the report, “the door blew in with significant force. Damage to the far wall indicates the door was traveling over seventy miles an hour when it struck the wall, and the remains of the door show damage on the inside, though it was blown into the house from the outside. So perhaps it hit something solid, but there was no residue from whatever it struck. The outside of the door had no residue from explosives. And the explosion that drove the door into the house at seventy miles per hour did no damage to the doorframe on the outside. HOW CAN THAT BE?”

  Derek slammed his fist down on the table. He understood why Ryan was looking for help. He glanced at his watch again. 9:27 p.m. Still early enough for a cup of coffee. He got up and grabbed the carafe off the coffee maker in the kitchen. After fishing a mug from a cabinet, Derek poured the remains of that morning’s brew into the mug and stuck it in the microwave for a couple minutes, working over the material he had read while he waited.

  “Let’s see. Edna’s prints were all over a shotgun registered to her. It was fired eight times. The fired slugs were all found in puddles of bio-goo both outside the house on the front porch and in the kitchen. Forensics couldn’t identify the goo, and it rapidly broke down into nothing. Rounds found in the gun and the spares found in the bedroom were custom and innovative, and likely wouldn’t be considered legal.”

  The microwave dinged and he retrieved the coffee.

  “The body of a weird, medieval Scottish warrior AAAEEEARRR…”

  The coffee was too hot. Derek hated burning his tongue. He took his mug back to the dining ta
ble and sat down at the laptop.

  “Okay, the Scottish warrior died from heavy blows to the head and body that matched damage done to the ceiling and walls near him. Again, how is that possible? Who threw a 220-pound man up into the ceiling hard enough to kill him? And if she shot a bunch of things that then melted, why didn’t she shoot the Renaissance fair guy who entered the home with two swords drawn?”

  Derek glanced at the computer. The screen saver had kicked in. He logged back in and pulled up LEAPFaR to check if it had anything yet. The search screen was still churning, but several matches were waiting. Derek double-clicked on the first one. It was a close-up of her face in the Paris Times that went with a puff piece on ‘the miracle nurse’ from 2001.

  “Man, she hasn’t aged a day since then.”

  He clicked next on the search results.

  “Let’s see, taken from a news article again. Yep, that’s our miracle nurse looking exactly like she does today. Huh, that’s kind of a retro nurse outfit. Hmmm… caption says her name is Ethel Smalls. No way! That’s Edna for sure. They must have messed up the caption. Let’s see, date of origin is… 1945? Yeesh. Okay, LEAPFaR is still in development. They still have some stuff to fix. Let’s see. The photo goes with a news article. Another puff piece about how she saved lives. Says she was in… the Army Nurse Corp serving in France during World War II?”

  The coffee mug fell from Derek’s suddenly numb hand and shattered on the floor.

  At 3:37 a.m., Derek finally fell asleep slouched over the table after hungrily monitoring LEAPFaR’s facial search results for six hours and downing two more cups of coffee, the license plate search forgotten. The shards of the first coffee mug still lay scattered across the floor, a large coffee stain at the epicenter.