The Cornerstone

by Anne C. Petty

  Inexplicably, a swell of clapping and voices charged with excitement rose on the breeze and died away. Puzzled, Claire dragged herself out of her hiding place. It was nearly dark outside as she struggled to her feet, unsteady and lightheaded. More cheering and shouts, punctuated by loud guffawing laughter. A carnival?

  Holding onto the gate of a stall, she touched her face—it felt puffy around the mouth. The split inside her lip where One-eye had smacked it against her teeth stung like crazy, but at least it wasn’t bleeding much now. Claire took a deep breath. The evening air carried scents of the river and night-blooming flowers. Hallucinations complete with smell-o-vision. Why couldn’t she wake up? She tried to work her way back to what had happened before she’d landed on the bank of the Thames, but at that moment an explosion of cannon fire pounded her eardrums like thunderclaps. A loud hurrah rose with the shots, cheers and shouts that suddenly shifted to shrieks and wails of terror. Something violent and terrible was taking place just out of sight.

  Claire stumbled away from her sanctuary and through the grove of oaks behind the byre. Coming out into a small clearing, the source of the commotion filled her field of vision. Flames and a pillar of smoke infused with swirling sparks climbed from the circular roof of a round, windowless building hulking just beyond the line of trees. Shocked, she watched in fascination as tendrils of red-orange and magenta writhed under and over wood shingles with their dry thatching, dropping sparks and smoldering planks down on the heads of a crowd of people now pushing over each other through a narrow door in the wall facing her.

  Horses screamed and thundered away from the building, knocking bodies down and trampling them in their panic to escape the growing inferno. Strangely, Claire felt a flicker of recognition igniting in her brain as flames encircled the timber and plaster walls, clawing toward the heavens.

  The sickening, pungent smell of burning flesh mixed with the stink of pine resin slapped her face on the quickening breeze. Unable to look away, she searched her memory for the scene, and suddenly she had it. Here in living color was the event she’d read about in the Shakespeare anthology: it was the Globe Theatre, in Shakespeare’s London, burning to the ground from cannons fired during a performance of Henry VIII. Claire’s mouth fell open. No longer consumed with how she happened to be here or why, she gawked, paralyzed, at the three-tiered tiring house that sat above the roofline with its curtained balcony and flaming pennants smoking in the light breeze. With an inevitable rending noise, the structure tore loose from the support posts of the upper gallery and crashed down out of sight, presumably onto the stage and all the groundlings, actors, and patrons unable to escape to safety through the single narrow exit.

  Claire stood transfixed, taking it in, watching the green and argent halos given off by flames and smoke that now defined the theater walls. She was seeing first-hand the destruction of the famous landmark.

  Claire stumbled out from under the trees and into the melee of crazed animals and frightened people, the heat of the blaze at their backs. They jostled and shoved at Claire in their panic, their burnt hair and seared skin terrible to see. Abruptly, a heavy body fell against her, shoving her off balance. She stumbled in terror, but an instant’s glance revealed it wasn’t One-eye come for his wench—it was something much worse, something barely human.

  “H-help me, damn ye!” it rasped in a strangled voice, a sound like sandpaper scraping an open wound. It was a man, but only barely so. Its burned, shriveled skin spoke of fire and the grave; one eye seemed damaged beyond repair. Claire felt light-headed. Stars danced in front of her eyes.

  “I…oh god,” she squeaked, staring into the dark pool of the fellow’s good eye. Red flickers danced in the iris, reflecting the hell exploding behind her. There was something horrifyingly familiar in that look.

  “Verily, mine eyes doth deceive me…‘tis you!” burbled the man-thing. With clawlike hands it clutched to its sunken chest what seemed to be a heavy, round object wrapped in animal hide. Leaning against her, the creature sent a reek of roasted flesh sweeping over them both. She vomited instantly and violently.

  Sagging with its weight, the creature shifted the object clumsily into the crook of one arm and latched his free hand around Claire’s bicep with appalling firmness. The fingers were filthy and the nails split, as if they’d clawed through solid earth.

  “Let go of me!” she screamed, the heat of the inferno baking her bruised face. Terrified, she dragged the man-thing toward the line of trees and the river. The wattle-and-daub with which the exterior theater walls had been sealed roared with such heat Claire imagined the lashes searing from her eyelids. The tops of the nearest trees were starting to smoke. Fleeing peasants and ladies in ruined finery surrounded them as the air filled with cinders and cursing voices.

  “Come on wi’ ye,” yelled a woman running toward her from one of the timbered houses beyond the oaks. “Every hand’s needed!” She tossed a crude leather bucket at Claire’s feet. It dawned on her that a bucket brigade was being formed to haul water up from the river. It was a futile effort, of course, if this place followed the course of history as she knew it. The Globe would burn to the dirt on which it was built, claiming a number of lives among its ashes, and would be reconstructed the following year on roughly the same spot.

  “It won’t help…” she said to the woman’s disappearing back. Beyond the trees and between the row of houses she saw the bucket line forming; already sloshing containers were coming hand over hand toward the front of the line where people with handcarts and wagons waited to receive them.

  The charred man clung to her arm with an iron grip. “Help me,” he gasped. Claire forced her way toward the shadows under the oaks, the creature dragging heavily behind her. “I cannot hold the stone…ye must take it yourself, Mistress Porter.”

  “What?” Claire stopped. Her mind stalled.

  At that moment, the stone tumbled from the man’s grasp and landed with a crushing thump on Claire’s instep. Yelping in pain, she knelt and grabbed at the rounded rock surface with both hands. Lightning flashed through her fingers and up her arms as her vision went white hot, then cold and black as empty space. A woman’s face both beautiful and terrible swam into her field of vision, and cold eyes scoured her brain. She felt naked and flayed alive under that dead gaze. A screech rippled through her mind. Crying in pain, she wrapped her arms around her head.

  “Miss Porter? Claire?” A familiar voice, very far away, then closer, brought her awake. “You seem to have got a nasty knock on the head.” Firm hands took hold of her shoulders and helped her sit up. Opening her eyes a crack, she saw the bearded, ruddy face of Kit Bayard. Haloed in a sweep of soft fox-colored hair, his face hovered just above hers.

  “Here, let me help you up. Can you stand?” He hauled her to her feet and slid his arm around her waist for support. “I was just making the rounds of the building before retiring, but imagine my surprise to find you lying down here. The floor is filthy. If you’d like to wash your face and hands, I can unlock the lobby restroom.” His eyes were wary.

  Claire’s mind raced. “I was looking for Tom. I thought he might have come down here. I…think I tripped on the stairs and fell.”

  “Tom has gone home, as should you,” offered Bayard, smiling and leading her toward the steps and up to the lobby.

  “I know, I’m sorry. My mother’s sick and home by herself. I’m really stupid.”

  “No harm done. Let’s go up.” He guided her firmly, his hand under her elbow.

  When they reached the top of the stairs, he flipped the switch and the basement went dark. “May I walk you to your car?”

  Claire was shaking. “N-no, I’m all right now.” He was giving her a look that turned her knees to jelly—she’d stared into those eyes mere minutes ago, only then he’d had just one. Claire probed the inside of her lip with the tip of her tongue, but found no injury. Her head was spinning, her brain trying to deny the real pain and terror she’d just lived through…or imagined she
had. The lights in the lobby flickered. With difficulty, she tuned back into what Bayard was saying.

  “…all the wiring should be replaced, or so I’m told by the city fire marshal. I suspect they’d like to condemn the place and just boot us all out, even though I own the building. It’s highly valuable…on the historical register, you know. ”

  “It is?” Claire was surprised. She’d just assumed he rented the theater space, like the ballet company upstairs. “I had no idea. I’ve lived here all my life and didn’t know it was that old.” Claire was babbling, making small talk to get her mounting hysteria under control. “I live at home, with my mother, who has emphysema. She has social security and my dad’s life insurance money, but it’s pretty tight. I was going to go back to school, the Chemistry program at Emory, but had to put that on hold to pay the bills and take care of her.” She clamped her jaws shut. What the hell was she telling him all this for?

  He nodded, guiding her to the front door. “A dutiful daughter. Well, you take care driving home, Miss Porter.”

  “Right. I will.” She hurried through the door and down the sidewalk, hesitating just long enough to take a quick look over her shoulder. Bayard stood with both feet planted evenly in front of the Janus entrance, hands buried in the pockets of his voluminous trousers, standing there as if he owned the very ground under the two-faced god. She gave him a quick nod and walked briskly away, feeling his steady gaze on the small of her back.

  Turning the corner and heading to the parking lot, Claire felt herself coming unraveled. She desperately needed to talk to someone about what she’d just gone through, but she had no idea who that person could be. Adelaide was New Age-y but seemed a lightweight for the terrors Claire had just seen and felt. What she’d experienced wasn’t possible in her known universe. Who would believe such a story when she didn’t believe it herself?

  Chapter 14

  Monday morning

  “Sir? Can you hear me?” Paul’s voice rose over the babble of people surrounding the scene in the parking lot of a mid-town office complex. “Look at me, stay with me, sir.”

  Claire got an oxygen mask over the nose and mouth of the man strapped to the stretcher while Paul made certain he didn’t fade away before they could get him into the ambulance. She tore open his dress shirt so Paul could stick heart-monitoring electrodes onto his chest. Feeling underneath the frame of the stretcher, she pulled out a compact screen and watched the data uploading. Heart attack or stroke, from the way his vitals were hopscotching.

  “I don’t know what happened,” a woman behind them was saying. “He just collapsed beside his car. His name is Gary Reynolds…he’s in the law office next to ours.”

  Paul caught the name as they prepared to move the stretcher. “Gary? Gary! Can you see my hand—how many fingers?” The man shakily raised his own three fingers. “Three. That’s good. Okay, you’re gonna be fine. Just stay focused on my voice…”

  Claire never ceased to be impressed with the bubble of calm that seemed to surround Paul whenever he was interacting with a patient. No one doubted for a second that he had absolute control of the situation. If anybody could keep the guy alive till they got to the hospital, it was Paul.

  They rolled the stretcher up into the back of the ambulance, Paul smoothly securing it in place and keeping one eye on the heart monitor readings. Claire prepared the I-V and inexplicably missed the vein. Blood ran down the patient’s arm.

  “Claire! Focus!” Paul was looking at her in disbelief.

  She gulped, horrified. Her hands were shaking as the scarlet trail of Mr. Gary Reynold’s blood stained his shirt and held her transfixed. “S-sorry. I—“

  “Don’t be sorry. Be competent.” Paul’s voice was firm, with an edge she hadn’t heard him use before, especially not toward her. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but put it in a box until we get Mr. Reynolds safely delivered—alive—to the hospital. Then you and I will have a talk. Got it?”

  Claire nodded. Her cheeks flamed. Mortified, she cleaned the I-V site and tried again, focusing only on this one task in front of her. The needle went in perfectly and she taped it in place. Paul gave her one last searching look and climbed into the driver’s seat. He hit the lights and the siren, and pulled out of the parking lot, accelerating into the four-lane highway traffic. He talked to the dispatcher, confirming the status of the patient and their approximate location. Paul’s voice was matter of fact, urgent but controlled. Claire did as she was told and put the Janus Theatre with all its attendant weirdness in a virtual box with a locked lid. She was a professional, a good one, and no matter what kind of mental breakdown might be looming, it wasn’t going to jeopardize the safety of this man who was relying on her to save his life.

  “Don’t worry, you’re going to be all right. We’re only a few minutes away from the hospital.” She went into her patient-calming mantra, putting her hand over the man’s wrist to check his pulse and give him a comforting touch. Oddly, it comforted her as well.

  He said something, muffled by the oxygen mask. She leaned close. “What?”

  His eyes fixed hers. “Am I going to die?”

  “Absolutely not. You’ve had a little heart complication and it’s stabilized now. Just try to relax. You’ll be fine.”

  “My wife…call…”

  “Don’t worry, as soon as we get you situated at the hospital, everyone who needs to know will be contacted. Everything’s under control.”

  The man squeezed her hand and tried to smile. His voice was very faint. “Thank you. You’re an angel.”

  She could hear the gears grinding and ambulance engine under full throttle as Paul maneuvered around vehicles and through traffic lights, and finally he was slowing, and turning into the Atlanta Medical Center’s emergency entrance. Her patient was still awake and coherent…he would make it. Claire let her breath out.

  Paul parked and came around to the rear doors, helping her roll the stretcher out. Two emergency orderlies were waiting for them at the door. They whisked the stretcher through the entrance and into a holding room as Paul briefed one of the intake staff on the patient’s condition and what medications and treatments had been administered during the trip to the hospital. Finally Gary Reynolds, Esq., lawyer and heart attack patient, was fully transferred out of their hands.

  They walked in silence out to the ambulance and climbed into the cab. Claire bucked her seatbelt and stared out the window while Paul checked in with the dispatcher, relating the details of the handoff to the Medical Center staff and confirming they would be heading back to base in a few minutes. He signed off and turned to Claire.

  “Talk to me.” Paul’s tone was less intimidating now.

  Claire’s throat tightened, her voice going squeaky. “I don’t even know where to start.”

  Paul shifted in his seat, facing her more directly. “Try me. I’ve seen a lot of shit you wouldn’t believe and lived to tell it to my discharge psychiatrist.”

  Claire tried again, but there was just no easy way to explain what had led up to her obsessive need to go down into the theater basement, much less the disconnect with reality that happened after she fell and hit her head. She rubbed the back of her skull and found the tender lump where her brains had met the basement floor. At least that was irrefutable evidence for part of the story.

  “I knew the minute you came in this morning something was off,” said Paul. “Not a word to anybody, not even ‘how the hell are yah?’…just sitting and staring at the floor, which is not like you. What’s got you so uptight you can’t even get a simple I-V in straight?”

  Claire shut her eyes and held her head, just in case it decided to explode. “Something happened last week.”

  Paul said nothing, apparently willing to wait for her to get it out.

  “I did something very stupid and very dangerous. And something happened that I can’t explain…and now it feels like I’ve lost my mind.” There, that was it in a nutshell. Her sanity had come unglued.


  “Maybe you should have a chat with the staff shrink when we get back.”

  “God, I really don’t want to do that.” Claire slumped in her seat. She might get put on medical leave or even lose her job if the psych decided she was unfit. She couldn’t allow that to happen. “Paul, when you came back from Iraq, what were your PTSD symptoms? Did you…see things that weren’t real but you were convinced they were happening at the time?”

  “Did I hallucinate? Yeah, a few times. Mostly waking up from nightmares and seeing things that weren’t there.”

  Claire tried to collect her thoughts. “How real was it? I mean, did you think you were touching and smelling things that were imaginary?”

  Paul’s face pulled into a frown. “This ‘something’ that happened to you sounds traumatic.”

  “Yeah, you could say that.”

  “If you were assaulted, you should’ve gone to the hospital, you know.”

  “No, it wasn’t anything like that. I went meddling where I shouldn’t have, and fell and got knocked out.”

  Paul shook his head. “You know concussion symptoms as well as I do. Blurred vision? Head still hurt?”

  Claire touched the back of her head. “Just the lump where my head hit the floor. No lingering headaches or double images the day after. I didn’t really black out. Well, I did, but I couldn’t wake up. I mean, I was awake but in a hallucinated scene that seemed physical. The place was absolutely solid, and smelled, with people who physically interacted with me. I didn’t know how to make the hallucination stop.”

  Paul’s voice was even, nonjudgmental. “So how’d you get out of it?”

  “Someone woke me up. I heard him calling my name, like he was far away, and then my eyes popped open and I was back in the real world. My real world. I don’t know where that other world was. Well, I know it was England, sixteenth century, historically accurate, but not my reality. Oh shit, I sound like a crazy person.”