House of Stone

by T. K. Thorne

  “I don’t know how to use the rose-stone, dear.” Alice says. “I am not keeping secrets from you. If your mother hadn’t died, she would have explained more.”

  I shut my eyes, but it doesn’t help because I can smell the burning house, the burning flesh.

  “The secrets of the rose-stone are only passed down through the eldest daughters.” Alice pats my hand. “I was not in that line. I hoped the letter your mother left you would give you more explanation about your responsibility and what to tell your own daughter one day.”

  I don’t plan on having a daughter or a son, for that matter. I’m simply not mother material, but that is beside the point.

  “Don’t you know what was in the letter?” I challenge. “You left it for me with a note in the bank lock-box after you ‘died.’”

  “I didn’t read your mother’s letter. It was sealed, wasn’t it?”

  Opening a sealed letter doesn’t take magic, and I’m not sure I believe her, but it doesn’t matter now.

  She settles her cup carefully on the matching china saucer. “Besides, I remained in England for much of the time after the family moved here. But I am fairly sure no one has ‘used’ the rose-stone, whatever that means, in my lifetime or the several generations before that, at the least.”

  “You’re implying someone did at some time.”

  “It always belonged to House of Rose, but it wasn’t supposed to be worn except by someone of the three bloods, the Y Tair. At least, that is how the stories go.”

  I have read my mother’s letter many times, trying to cull as much information from it as I can, and I pretty much have it memorized. In it, she referred to the powers of the Houses as “talents.” I presume this was in case the letter fell into the wrong hands. Still standing, I recite the pertinent part for Alice:

  The heirloom has a very long history in our “Families.” It possesses the ability to contain the “talents” of all the Houses without the disasters that can occur if those are otherwise mixed. The rightful possessor of the heirloom is the Y Tair, who has the blood of all three Houses and can call upon those talents wherever she is, or—the Universe forbid the need—combine them. This ability ultimately protects everyone from the horrors that can unfold, both from fear of those different or from those who need restraint in using their power over others. Until the last century, the Y Tair was considered head of all the Families, and her word was law.

  She looks thoughtful. “That is quite interesting, especially the part about the rose-stone holding power. I’ve never heard that.”

  “Alice, you know how you mentioned to me once that there were rumors about my grandmother and a man from House of Iron conceiving my mother?”

  “Of course. But that was never proven.”

  I plop back into my chair. “It was true. I have the blood of two Houses, Rose and Iron.

  “Oh my.” She exhales. “My poor sister. She would never talk about it.”

  “I’m not the Y Tair, but I’m—”

  “I know what you’re thinking.” Alice interrupts, her attention now on me, and her mouth set in a stern line. “It’s hard to know which stories are true, but you are not an abomination.”

  My fists knot, remembering the roaring flames leaping from me and consuming a human being.

  “No,” I say through tight lips, “those stories are true.”

  Before Alice can respond, Becca appears in the doorway. She is wearing a pink nightgown, and it’s not on backward or inside out.

  “Rose, will you read us a story?” she asks.

  Another perfect sentence. I’m speechless and look from Becca to Alice, who is grinning like the Cheshire cat in her namesake’s story.

  What can I do? Prying information from Alice will have to wait.

  “Of course,” I say, my throat thick, and follow her back to her room. Daniel is on her bed with a copy of a worn children’s book from Alice’s library. I crawl onto the bed between them and open the ragged pages of The Glob, reading about how the formless glob went “to and fro” in the early sea, consumed with the desire to get to land. He tried over and over, but kept getting smashed by waves. Eventually, he grew a pair of feet and then toes, which he learned to wiggle, and stared at in fascination for a long time, eons I imagine, until he figured out how to walk on them.

  Chapter Eight

  The next day, I report to the office early, fighting the anxiety that arises unbidden from the mundane act of walking across the police parking lot. I have no idea why this didn’t happen yesterday. Maybe because the lot is empty now.

  Certain I am in the crosshairs of an unseen weapon, I head straight to the bathroom and stand over the sink, clinching its edges until the attack passes. Then I wipe a wet paper towel over my face, concentrating on breathing slowly. There is medicine that can help me deal with this, but if the department discovers I’m having panic attacks, that would be enough excuse to fire me. I’m still on probation.

  Even with the ladies room delay, I’m the first person at work, other than Lieutenant Faraday. I guess arriving early gives her a chance to go over the new reports.

  Faraday tosses an incident report on my desk. Tracey is at the firing range all day, qualifying with his duty weapon. I’m on my own.

  “Kidnapping,” Faraday says. The lieutenant looks down at me through her dark framed glasses. She hasn’t said two words to me since I first walked into her unit. I pick up the report and skim it.

  Every detective in here is carrying a heavy caseload. That’s why Faraday isn’t complaining about a gift horse from Burglary (me) even though I’m a rookie. That said, I have the strong feeling this case is a test.

  According to the report, a man claimed his wife went for a walk and never returned. He was certain someone had taken her. It happened in Avondale, an up-and-coming mixed neighborhood to the east of downtown. A lot of new restaurants and nightspots have sprouted near the renovated Avondale Park. Young energy pulses there, a happening place. But occasional robberies freak everyone out, threatening the mojo. A kidnapping was definitely not good for business.

  “See what you can do with this,” she says.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I study the piece of paper that might predict my future. If I screw this up, I might find myself back in Fish’s claws in the Burglary Unit. That wouldn’t be so awful, but failing would be. I’m not going to let that happen.

  “The patrol officers found her scarf in Avondale Park,” Faraday says. “Otherwise it would just have been a ‘Missing Person.’”

  I nod. Missing Person cases are a dime a dozen. Unless foul play exists, or it’s a child missing, they aren’t investigated. Foul play, however, elevates the issue to the Homicide Unit.

  Faraday pauses, giving me an appraising look. “Let me know if you need any assistance.”

  Surprised, I look up at her.

  “Thanks. I will.”

  I won’t, I promise myself quietly.

  When she leaves, I read the case again. As I’m studying it, one of the other detectives saunters over and stops at my desk. He’s an older man with a tic in his left cheek, his face a mottled red from either a Scotch-Irish heritage or a bottle. His hands are thick, workman’s hands, but his nails have been professionally trimmed. I know who he is. I know them all, though none of them has said word one to me. His name is Frank Finkman, and he has been in Homicide since dirt.

  “Hey, rookie,” he says when the lieutenant is out of earshot.

  “My name is Rose,” I say. “Or Brighton.”

  “I know your name, rookie.”

  I feel the scarlet rise to my cheeks and earlobes, but I put a tight governor on my mouth.

  “You know you don’t belong here,” he says. “You’re a patrol screw up, and another damn woman trying to do a man’s job.”

  I meet his gaze. In my short stint in the Burglar
y Unit, I caught unfriendly glances from one of the detectives, but he never said anything directly to me. This is crossing the line.

  “I didn’t know there were still chauvinistic pigs in the PD.”

  So much for controlling my mouth. But I’m angry. Rookies often have to endure ritual put-downs that let them know where they stand on the status ladder. But no one has ever been in my face with one like that. My hands clench my knees under the table, and I quash my instinct to call on the living-green. What good is being a witch, if you can’t even put a hex on someone? Maybe I could do a bad palm reading on him.

  He laughs. “Got some spunk, anyway.” He runs his tongue along the inside of his upper lip. “You going to go running to the lieutenant with a sexual harassment complaint?”

  I could. He was out of line. I feel everyone’s attention like needle pricks in my back. They are listening, even if they don’t look like they are. Acceptance is earned here, not given. Same as in Patrol. A complaint to the lieutenant would seal my fate and open me up for either unwanted harassment or permanent ostracism.

  “I can handle my own problems,” I say.

  “This ain’t a detail for wussies.” His gaze runs suggestively from my toes up to my breasts and his cheek twitches. “Just try not to get knocked up.”

  That is the least of my worries.

  I change tactics and give him a bright smile. “If I do, it sure as hell won’t be by you.”

  It’s not until an hour later that I realize I could have used magic on Finkman and shut him up. Iron magic. I could, in fact, have made him do or say anything I wanted. Only once have I used the power of Iron to manipulate others—to get a nurse to allow Alice and me into Daniel’s hospital room after the Ordeal. Alice’s power to heal couldn’t keep Daniel from being scarred, but she saved his life.

  My perception of the living-green is a golden fire I feel more than actually “see.” The presence of the power from iron ore feels like a black, oily liquid. When I touched the nurse who was stonewalling us and let it trickle into her, suggesting that she take us to Daniel’s cubicle in ICU, she complied immediately. It was easy. But if I had made the tiniest mistake and let the two powers mix, I could have incinerated the entire hospital floor and everyone on it. I swore I would never risk using that power.

  I can’t.

  Closing my eyes and taking several deep breaths brings my focus back to the task at hand. I have enough to deal with without worrying about Finkman.

  Before I arrange a meeting with Mr. Hatcher, the man who reported his wife missing under fishy circumstances, I review the report again. According to it, the scarf was a worn one with a little tear in it that made him recognize it as hers. Hatcher was the one who had found it, not the police. He said his wife often walked in the park when she was upset. He had gone looking for her and found the scarf. I should find out why she had been upset.

  But first, I have some digging to do.

  An hour later, I walk back into Lieutenant Faraday’s office.

  She’s busy reading reports, but looks up after a moment and frowns. “Need help already?”

  “No ma’am.”

  She waits.

  “I know where Mrs. Hatcher is.”

  “You do?”

  I nod.

  She jerks her head toward a chair and I sit.

  “Where is she?” she asks.

  “In Nashville.”

  “On her own steam?”

  “Yup.”

  “Tell me how you know.”

  “Her social media posts. She apparently has a fantasy about becoming a country singer and making it big in Nashville.”

  “And you’ve confirmed that’s where she is?”

  “She has a Facebook friend who lives in Nashville. I tracked her down and called her, and she admitted Mrs. Hatcher was staying with her. She also volunteered that Mr. Hatcher was a jerk.”

  Faraday leans back in her chair and considers me. “What made you think it wasn’t a kidnapping?”

  I smile. “The scarf.” What I don’t tell her is that without having known Becca, it would never have occurred to me to be a clue.

  Faraday tilts her head inquisitively.

  “It was ‘worn and had a hole in it,’” I say.

  “And?”

  “All the photos of her on Facebook show her dressed to the nines. A woman who cares about that would not have gone out with an old, torn scarf . . . unless she was going to leave it hanging on a bush. Besides that, it’s not cold enough for a scarf.”

  That earns a grudging smile.

  “Good work, Brighton. Now go tell Mr. Hatcher his wife has run away.”

  Chapter Nine

  Ifeel terribly guilty as I push open the door to the UAB administrative office that says “Human Resources Department.” But I spent the last two hours in the Homicide office after solving my “kidnapping” case, checking everything I could find on the Internet, and I hit a wall. So here I am. Lieutenant Faraday gave me the nod to get out and do some investigating on our case, but she has no idea I’m investigating my partner.

  The weather reflects my dark mood, the sky overcast. I have to walk several blocks and, naturally, it starts to rain before I reach my destination. I jog, but my hair is a mass of wet curls by the time I get inside the sterile offices. A woman with her hair pulled into a tight bun and her mouth pulled even tighter into a scowl sits at the front desk.

  “Can I help you?” she asks. Her eyes, thick with mascara and green eyeshadow, flick up to assess me and back down at whatever she is reading.

  “I want to look at a personnel file.”

  “Is it your own?” This time she doesn’t even bother to look up.

  “No, it’s a professor’s.”

  “I’m sorry, we can’t share that.”

  I take out my badge and stick it under her nose. “Detective Brighton. I’m working on a case.”

  She stiffens. “I’ll have to get my supervisor.” Standing, she gives two downward jerks to her skirt, a move that does nothing to its length, but asserts her authority. “Wait here.” She directs me to a chair, and I cross the room obediently, hating that I’m doing this. Maybe I should leave. Just walk out the door and down the hall and forget about this. I would . . . if I didn’t have to know.

  Paul, my ex-training officer and ex-lover, once said I would make a good detective. “To be worth a damn, you have to ask questions, and that’s something you’re good at.” He’d held his mouth perfectly still under that red mustache when he said it, but he couldn’t hide the amused glint in his eyes.

  I miss him.

  He died of burns I inflicted on him. He died saving little Daniel.

  Stop, I order my mind.

  Looking for a diversion, I snatch up a National Geographic magazine. It falls open to a double-page photo spread of stars, haloed clusters of gleaming ovals and discs in shades of cream, gold, red and a few hues of blue against the blackness of space. Behind them, almost filling the pages are more, smaller and smaller, until they are dots fading into the distance. There are, according to the article, 100 billion of them. It’s hard to wrap my mind around that. Then I realize I’m not looking at stars. Each object I thought was a star is actually a galaxy, each one containing billions of stars. And the two-page spread represents just a tiny area of space, a few inches worth of sky.

  Stunned, I sit in silence for several moments. It’s not that I didn’t know the numbers, but numbers are one thing, seeing it like this is jolting—it’s the difference between understanding the concept of an ocean’s size and actually seeing the sweep of the sea and the endless stretch of horizon, feeling, if only for a moment, how tiny we are in the vastness of everything.

  And Alice says this universe may be only one out of an infinity of universes. That, she says, is what I may be seeing when I have a vision, when I open a crack
in time—another universe, like this one, but where different things happen, or possibly another universe just like ours but where time flows the other way. Either one sounds incredible, but the immensity of just this tiny piece of our beautiful universe in my lap is equally as incredible. Who am I to say what is possible or impossible?

  I’m still staring at the photo when the woman with the bun comes back to escort me to her supervisor.

  It takes yet another rung of supervisors and my assertion that I can come back with a subpoena if I have to—a bluff at this point—before someone with enough authority hands me the file I want. But I’m in the right. After all, how much expectation of privacy can a dead man expect?

  I’m given a room and a desk to peruse the file. It’s thick. Dr. Benjamin Crompton has done a lot just in his time at UAB. And he has taught classes periodically over the years. Different ones, but none were biochemistry. I check it all twice to make sure I haven’t missed anything.

  I leave the building in a daze that is not about universes. My partner is lying to me.

  I would like to believe that Tracey was just mixed up about what class he took from Dr. Crompton, but Crompton’s death hit him too hard for that to be the case. The man made an impression on him. Tracey was holding back tears when he recognized him. He is lying. But why? What does he know about this that he’s not telling me? Why does he want me to stop pushing, to leave it alone as an accident? The only reason he would want me to do that is . . . not something I want to believe.

  But there it is. I asked the questions, Paul, and I don’t like the answers. Now what? I take a deep breath, duck out into the rain and answer my own question:

  Now I’m doing this on my own.

  A voice in my head is calling me an idiot as I walk through the Burglary Unit office and tap on the wall of Fish’s cubicle. Lieutenant Fisher has the role of “grumpy” down to an art.

  He looks up and predictably scowls. “Is this a social call, Brighton? Or are you wanting out of Homicide?”

  “Neither, sir.”