Charm Stone

by Carl, Lillian Stewart

  Her pallid lips tightened in a sickly smile. “How about if I get credit for finding it and recognizing what it is?”

  “That might could be arranged,” Alasdair said in his best grating purr.

  No bad deed goes unrewarded, Jean thought, and followed Jessica’s gaze to the bottle.

  The little face looked back. This time she was free to pursue her thought, chasing it up into the belfry—you could throw pebbles at a bell and that would make it ring . . . “What did you say about bringing Rachel and her friends here to see the archaeological excavation?”

  “Eric mentioned the excavation as well,” Alasdair said. “That’s when they turned up yon bottle.”

  “I brought Rachel and her friends to a sort of open house here,” replied Jessica. “That bottle was the most interesting thing.”

  “And what was in it?” Jean asked.

  “Scrap metal, nails, pebbles.”

  “You said you don’t often find pebbles in a witch bottle.”

  “No, but, you know, people attribute magical properties to all sorts of things.”

  “Your mother-in-law believed in, well, not magic exactly.” Jean blinked and regained her focus. “That necklace Rachel was wearing at the reception Friday night. Barbara said she made it from some agates Wes gave her and some pretty pebbles she found. That she’s a magpie, always picking up things for her jewelry.”

  “Yeah,” said Jessica, “Wes said she has real talent, if she doesn’t make it as a silversmith she might make it as a litter-picker.”

  Every bell rang in unison, spilling melody down Jean’s spine. “Rachel pocketed one of the pebbles on display here, didn’t she?”

  “She was looking at them, especially a sort of moss-colored one. She might have taken one. They were just pebbles.”

  “Were they now?” Alasdair’s face lit with comprehension. “A rolling charm stone gathers no moss.”

  “Huh?” Jessica asked, half-smiling, probably wondering if they were trying out for re-enactments at the Public Hospital-cum-sanitarium above the Museum.

  Jean fixed Jessica with what she suspected was a manic eye. “Thomasina inherited the charm stone from her mother. Feeling responsible for it, she didn’t give it back to a member of Francis Stewart’s family—no matter how charming and/or enlightened Lady Dunmore was. Thomasina kept the stone in a Bellarmine bottle to negate its evil influence. That’s where it’s been the last two-hundred-and-fifty years, beneath the hearth of this little house. What do you want to bet that one of those bits of scrap metal is the original silver mounting?”

  “One of the stones on Rachel’s necklace is the charm stone? The charm stone? Holy shit!” Jessica, looking pretty manic herself, dived into her purse, produced her cell phone, and punched at its keys. “Rachel! Are you still at home? Listen, when I took you and Brittany and Madison to the archaeology open house at the Dinwiddie Kitchen, did you pick up a pebble? No, it’s all right if you did, just tell me, yes or no.”

  Nodding a vigorous affirmative at Jean and Alasdair, Jessica went on, “It’s that sort of dull greenish one that’s on the necklace Wes helped you make, isn’t it, the one you were wearing Friday night. Yeah, that one. You’ve got to bring it . . .”

  “To the Museum,” Jean prompted. “Three p.m. this afternoon.”

  “To the Museum at three. Because that’s the charm stone from the Witch Box, that’s why. It was hidden in the witch bottle all these years, and—Rachel, who are you talking to? Dylan? What’s he doing there, you know I don’t want you to have boys over there while I’m gone—I know, I know, you’re an adult, you’re free—yes, you’ve just lost your grandmother, I’m sorry. Where’s your father? Identifying the bod—Rachel, please, sweetheart, don’t cry.”

  “Oops,” Jean said beneath her breath, and Alasdair only now exuded a groan.

  “All right, all right. We’ll meet you there.” Jessica slapped the phone back into her bag. Her smile held no humor, only teeth. “Sorry about that. Dylan’s calling his dad and they’re all going to meet us at the churchyard. Why the churchyard, I don’t know.”

  “Because Tim thinks the charm stone will open up Francis Bacon’s secret vault.”

  “Oh, for the love of—give me a break, already!” Jessica jumped to her feet. “You’re right, that stone is a cursing stone. Rachel and Dylan actually have something in common now, a dead mother, a dead grandmother, and he’s going to be around her neck . . . Well, come on, let’s get over to the church. We don’t want to miss this.”

  “No,” said Jean, “we don’t.”

  It was the work of only a moment to call Rebecca and rearrange their meeting plans, and the work of only two to head out the door. Alasdair might not have been moving as swiftly and surely as usual, but he only stopped for a moment, to whisper to the cats, “I’m thinking you, the both of you, you’ve been trying to call our attention to the stone. In league with a ghost, are you?”

  Jessica slammed through the gate. Jean and Alasdair started to follow, then stopped when Eric called from the corner of the Inn parking lot, “I’m glad you folks are all right.”

  “Thanks for everything,” Jean called. “You’ve been a big help.”

  “Well, ma’am, you’re welcome, but I really didn’t do anything.” He went on his way, his brow puckered with faint puzzlement.

  Jessica was halfway across Francis Street. At a more sedate pace, hand in hand, Alasdair and Jean followed. The traffic was light enough they were able to stop and gaze long and hard at the bosky hollow where Thomasina died, her death probably making no waves in the tsunami of the Revolution. “That’s why she was attracted to us,” Jean said. “We kept asking questions about the Witch Box and the charm stone. I don’t know how these things work, but . . .”

  “She heard us,” concluded Alasdair. “I hope she rests in peace now that the stone’s going to a museum, neutral ground.”

  Jessica was waiting for them on Duke of Gloucester, across from the Courthouse. “I don’t know why I’m in such a big rush. I’ll be dealing with all of this for years to come, Rachel, Matt—I know Barbara left instructions for her funeral, but I figured she’d go on forever.”

  “You didn’t know about the cerebral aneurysm?” Jean asked.

  “The what?” Jessica said so loudly that a couple of visitors looked around at her.

  “Well,” said Jean, and once again narrated what she’d said to Barbara and what Barbara said to her, while they walked slowly between the Greenhow Store and the Geddy House.

  By the time they crossed Palace Green, Jessica’s face had gone from washed-out to wan to waxen. “I don’t believe it. I just don’t believe it. But it makes sense, that’s exactly the kind she was, organized, controlling. She’d cook an entire Thanksgiving dinner with a broken arm just to prove she could.” With a shaky breath, she leaned against the churchyard gate for support.

  Discreetly, Alasdair and Jean walked on into the dappled shade of the brightly colored trees and sat down on a bench. “Why is it,” he asked, “you’re not often hearing of ghosts in cemeteries, not that any of us go whistling past one, mind.”

  “It’s because they’re places of peace,” Jean told him. “Or should be. Alert, alert . . .”

  Jessica’s pallid complexion suffused with red. She jerked back from the gateway as first Kelly and then Tim filled it. Passing by her as though she was no more than a squirrel, and passing by Jean and Alasdair ditto—Jean was tempted to make chattering noises—they walked to Robert Mason’s grave. Tim, in full stuffed turkey mode, said smugly, “We should wait for the media, I suppose, but we can recreate the opening when the time comes.”

  Quentin galloped in the gate. “Oh, hi,” he said in non-specific greeting, and he, too, went to stand by the grave.

  Jessica ran forward as Rachel, Dylan at her side, appeared from around the bell tower end of the church. In her jeans and sweatshirt, Rachel looked very small and fragile. Her red-rimmed eyes took in Jean and Alasdair and narrowed, probably pegging
them as the bad influence.

  “Here,” she said to her mother, and pulled a cascade of silver from her pocket.

  “This is the stone you picked up at the Dinwiddie Kitchen?” Jessica asked.

  Quentin’s voice muttered, “At the Dinwiddie Kitchen? You mean Mr. Scottish Guy had it all along?”

  Rachel held up the necklace. Reflections like sparkling confetti danced across the weathered tombstones and the brick of the church. The stone in the center of the entwined silver strands, no larger than the end of Rachel’s thumb, glowed a murky, mossy green, illuminated by the secret, even slightly sinister, glow of forest glades and deep pools.

  “It’s this one,” she said, “I thought it was some kind of onyx, but now, you know, I bet it’s an uncut emerald. They got emeralds from Egypt way back when. What kind of mineral did you expect the charm stone to be? Something polished and faceted, like the diamond in an engagement ring?”

  Probably, yes. Jean craned forward. Behind her, ponderous steps shifted on the turf. “Bring it here,” ordered Kelly.

  Sniffing and then wiping his nose on his sleeve, Dylan tried to take the necklace. Rachel snatched it back. “It’s mine. Well, most of it’s mine.”

  With a so there look at Dylan, Jessica followed the couple past the low barricade and onto the turf. Jean swung around one way, Alasdair the other, the better to lean on the back of the bench and enjoy the show. Michael and Rebecca scooted in the gate. “Have we missed anything?” she whispered.

  “Bang on time,” replied Alasdair.

  Side by side, Jean could tell Dylan from Quentin only by Dylan’s long red ponytail compared with Quentin’s agitated buzz cut. Both red heads bent over the grave stone. Tim grabbed for the necklace, and again Rachel held it back. “Right here? On this little wingedy design? Okay, here goes.”

  Holding the bulk of the necklace in her left hand, Rachel grasped the stone—the charm stone—between the thumb and forefinger of her right and pressed it against the stylized winged skull, the flight of the soul.

  A long, slow creak reverberated across the churchyard. “Yes!” Tim shouted. No way, screeched Jean’s brain. Beside her Alasdair’s eyebrows knotted.

  But the sound had come from behind them. Jean spun around to see that the cellar door of the church had opened. From it stepped a woman carrying a choir robe and a hymn book. “Good afternoon,” she called across the terrace, and disappeared behind the bell tower.

  Alasdair exhaled. Jean quelled a giggle. Beside them, Rebecca and Michael grinned.

  Tim swayed back and forth drunkenly in front of the intact tombstone, the grave intact beneath his feet. “No. No. We proved the vault was here.”

  Kelly grasped his arm with one hand and gave him a good shake. With the other she grabbed the necklace from Rachel. She tried the green stone against the weathered face of the gravestone, and the other stones on the necklace, and finally kicked at the gravestone petulantly.

  Quentin shrugged. Dylan slumped. Jessica seized the necklace from Kelly, picked her way among the other graves, and held it out to Jean. “Here. Take the damn thing to the Museum. When they get the stone pried off the necklace, they can give the rest of it back.”

  The entwined metal strips and the stones affixed to them jingled softly into Jean’s palm, warm and smooth.

  Rachel wasn’t quelling her giggles at all. Dylan looked at her, shocked and dismayed, while Quentin strolled away shaking his head. Kelly glared Lady Macbeth-style daggers at Tim. He replied, “The document proves Bacon authored Shakespeare’s works. Why else would those lines have been censored, except to cover up the truth?”

  Because those lines were redundant, Jean answered silently. Because every writer needs an editor.

  Tim was still gobbling. “The stone didn’t work because it’s not in its original setting, it’s still on the necklace, the fit wasn’t close enough—our probe, our probe showed traces of wood . . .”

  “It’s a cemetery, you idiot!” Kelly spat. “Of course you’re going to find traces of wood!”

  “Kelly, I don’t think that tone is at all appropriate—oh hell!” Tim mopped at the top of his head, setting the lacquered strands of his comb-over on end, and glowered up at the tree limb above. A burst of birdsong replied, sounding suspiciously like, “So there!”

  Jessica sat down on the bench and laughed until tears streamed down her face.

  As swiftly as they could, Jean and Alasdair, with Michael and Rebecca at their sides, exited the scene. Once back on Duke of Gloucester, they assumed a more leisurely pace toward the Museum.

  “Alas, poor Dylan,” said Michael. “The course of true love never does run smooth. Is that Romeo and Juliet?”

  “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Rebecca told him. “All about illusions. Can I hold the stone, please?”

  This beautiful afternoon might be a dream, Jean thought, but the morning had been a nightmare. She poured the necklace into Rebecca’s outstretched hand and checked her watch. Almost three. With her hand to steady him, Alasdair levered himself over a curb.

  Silently, they crossed the western end of Francis Street, where it became France Street—Jean made a mental note to ask about that. The Public Hospital’s geometric harmony, cupola and all, rose beyond its green lawn, the grass shimmering more vibrantly than the Clach Giseag or Am Fear Uaine, the charm stone itself.

  “What do you think?” she asked as they started up the path to the front door.

  “There’s a faint twinge,” Rebecca replied, “but I’m not getting much more than that. It’s like the vibe of the Witch Box itself, the weight of time and story. They belong together.”

  “Well then, let’s join them up again.” Alasdair felt his way up the steps, slow but purposeful, and they rode the elevator in silence to the marble halls of the Museum.

  Today the atrium was empty except for few visitors rambling up and down the stairs. Jean and Alasdair took the elevator to the second floor, and met Michael and Rebecca at the door of the exhibit just as Rodney Lockhart and Stephanie Venegas disappeared into it.

  Blithely walking past a sign reading, “Exhibit Temporarily Closed,” Alasdair and Jean, Rebecca and Michael, joined the two arms of officialdom in front of the Witch Box.

  Today the ancient artifact looked more dark and dour than ever. The Box that sat on a dolly beside it was almost identical. It lacked the patina of age on the wood and metal and the sinister leer of the little faces. In Wesley’s version, the faces hinted of comic exaggeration, as though the threatening spirits of the past had not vanished but evolved.

  “We lost a fine craftsman when we lost Wes,” said Lockhart somberly. “As for Barbara Finch, I’m, I’m . . .”

  Speechless, Jean finished for him. She tightened her grip on Alasdair’s hand, there in front of God and Stephanie and John Murray, Lord Dunmore.

  Stephanie seemed less somber than stunned, but her eyes were black holes of determination. Jean knew the feeling. Once your forward momentum stopped, you fell over in a heap. So you’d better keep up the momentum.

  Stephanie considered the Witch Box. “So that’s what’s been causing trouble, for what, four hundred years now?”

  “No,” Jean replied. “People’s perceptions cause the trouble. Always have. Always will.”

  “Yeah,” Stephanie said, and after a moment of reflection, “We’re comparing the skin caught beneath Sharon’s fingernails to Barbara’s. There is some leaf mold and horse fecal matter in Barbara’s shoes, and some bits of fuzz, probably from Sharon’s cardigan. The strand of hair caught in Sharon’s phone is silver-white. We’ll do a comparison on that, too, and on the thread caught in Sharon’s fingernail. But it’s all moot now, more a matter of doing paperwork.”

  Alasdair nodded. “There’s always the paperwork.”

  “I need a formal statement from you, Jean. Tomorrow’s fine. And I need to talk to you, Alasdair, about the theft in the U.K.”

  “Extraditing Kelly and Quentin might be more trouble than it’s worth,�
� he returned, “now that we’ve recovered the replica. And whilst Barbara confessed her collusion to Jean--sorry, Jean--but that’s not sworn testimony. I’ll have a word with Perthshire. There’s little hope of the Dingwalls doing porridge, in any event.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Lockhart asked.

  Rebecca paraphrased, “Doing time,” just as Jean said, “Going to jail.”

  “I’ve released Wesley’s and Sharon’s bodies to their relatives,” Stephanie went on. “In Wes’s case, that’s a distant cousin. Barbara, well, maybe tomorrow. Her son didn’t take it well.”

  “He was taken by surprise,” said Jean.

  “When are you going home?” Stephanie asked her.

  Home. “Friday. I’m still hoping we can have a bit of a holiday.”

  “You will.” The taut skin of Stephanie’s face stretched into a semblance of a smile. “You should have seen Alasdair, Jean. I’m not sure whether I was more scared of him or of the crazy old lady with the gun.”

  Jean had felt his terror and rage. Now she looked from his bland expression to Stephanie’s. “She wasn’t crazy.”

  “No, I guess not. Mr. Lockhart . . .”

  “It’s your fault,” said a voice palpitating at the far end of grief.

  Everyone spun around. Matt stood in the doorway, eyes bloodshot, face blotchy, quivering forefinger pointed at Jean. “You caused the last minutes of her life to be filled with fear. All she wanted was justice.”

  She wanted revenge, thought Jean. That’s where even freedom had its limits.

  “She could have had more time, lots more time, but no, you came to town, little Miss Detective and the kilted wonder there.”

  Michael and Rebecca might have smiled at that, but they didn’t. They stepped back.

  Matt didn’t know about the aneurysm, either. Jean stepped forward. “She was never afraid, Matt. She was, she had . . .” Alasdair’s hand drew her back again.

  “I went to the church to see about her funeral. Jessica and the Dingwalls, they said you were here—something about Rachel and the charm stone—damn them all, they caused everything.”

  Jean didn’t point out that he’d contradicted himself. She said, one last time, “I’m sorry, Matt.”