House of Stone

by T. K. Thorne

  Chapter Thirty-One

  When I get notice of Daniel’s hearing at Family Court, Alice and I decide it’s better if I go and that she stays with Becca. Lieutenant Faraday allowed me some personal time when I explained the situation. Hopefully, she isn’t docking me. I have no time off built up to take.

  I sit on the courtroom’s hard bench, crossing and uncrossing my legs while I wait for the administrative processes to wind its way through the labyrinths required to have Daniel’s case come up. Daniel doesn’t deserve losing his mother or seeing her like that, or being snatched away from the only people who care about him, though hopefully there is a relative somewhere who will come for him.

  I was fortunate. My foster parents decided to adopt me, and they were good people. I have heard horror stories too. I can’t remember much about the days before I went into foster care, but, like Daniel, I had been traumatized. My family was massacred and the remaining member—my great aunt Alice, whom I’m sure I loved—had sent me away. I must have been devastated and scared.

  Will he be here? What if seeing me touches off the trauma related to the last time he was with me—when I opened the door, and he saw his mother in a bathtub of water, crimson with her own blood? What if my being here just causes Daniel more suffering?

  The judge looks down at the paperwork before her.

  “Daniel Pate.”

  “He’s here, Your Honor.” Tonya Melbourne, the same person who took him away, steps forward to stand before the judge. Daniel’s hand is wrapped tightly around hers.

  “V. Rose Brighton?” the judge says, consulting another piece of paper.

  I take a breath and stand.

  “Approach the bench, please.”

  I do. I have been in court a few times, but never on a personal matter when so much is at stake. I came out of the system okay, but what if Daniel falls in the wrong hands? What if no one wants him because of his disfigurement? Becca needs him. They need each other more than ever now. My heart is racing.

  Someone has taken Daniel out of the courtroom.

  “You have petitioned the court for custody of Daniel Pate,” the judge says. She consults the paper before her. “I see you are single and live with a special-needs adult and her caretaker in Birmingham.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “And you’re a police officer, a detective.”

  “I am.”

  “I have a character reference from a Detective Tracey Lohan and a Sergeant Dale Yonkin.”

  Good ole Sarge, my supervisor when I worked in the Patrol Division. He came through for me.

  “You’ve not listed other family members.” It was a statement, but with an implicit question.

  “I’m an orphan, Your Honor. No siblings, but there is a full-time person at the house.” I can’t claim Alice as family since she is “dead.”

  “I see that, an employee named Irene Gideon.” She puts down the papers she has scanned. “Why do you want custody of this child?”

  I swallow. There is much I can’t say. I’m burdened with guilt about what happened to him. He’s suffered because of me. His mother died in our house. That lies on me too. He’s my responsibility. I open my mouth to try to explain, but what comes out surprises me.

  “I love him,” I say.

  The judge doesn’t respond at first, just considers me. After a moment she says, “There are no other family members who have been located. I’m not going to go into depth questioning how you are prepared to take care of him at this time. I’m going to keep him in the state’s custody pending a home evaluation. We’ll review that report and Ms. Melbourne’s recommendation before making a final decision. She will be in touch.”

  Her tone is dismissive, but I clear my throat and say, “Your Honor?”

  She looks up over her reading glasses.

  “May I speak to him? He’s had a very traumatic experience, and I want him to know that we hope he’s coming . . . home soon.”

  “Ms. Melbourne?”

  “Your Honor?”

  “Give the boy some time with Detective Brighton and make allowances for supervised visitation until the home report is done.”

  Melbourne instructs me to follow her to a room where Daniel is playing with some blocks and a plastic truck. Two other children, under the eye of another woman, are playing with other toys.

  Daniel’s hair is wet and combed. He looks thin, frail.

  “Daniel?” I say.

  He looks up and sees me. For a moment, his face is blank. Then he drops the truck he’s holding and runs toward me, throwing his little arms around my legs.

  “I want to see Becca and Gran-gran. I want to go home!”

  I am not ready to go back to work. I call Alice and give her the report from the court.

  “It sounds as if you did everything you could,” she says.

  “I don’t know, but we have to prepare for the home inspection.”

  “What do we need to do?”

  “I’ll look it up on the Internet.”

  “Well, whatever it is, we will do it! Everything will work itself out.”

  Her words are the only comfort I’m going to get.

  Normally, in a crisis where I need to think, I escape to the woods, but I don’t want to trigger those memories. Instead, I drive to the center of downtown, parking under the railroad trestle. Above me the train track runs east-west, an iron river, splitting the city. Multicolored lights above brighten the dark of the viaduct.

  Just south of the raised track bed, four blocks have been transformed into an award-winning park, Railroad Park, another pride of The Magic City. Across the street is Regions Park, where the historic Birmingham Barons baseball team plays. There’s parking closer to the park, but I don’t mind walking a block, and the trestle provides welcome shade.

  I’m too agitated to sit anywhere. I begin walking the trails that wind around a small lake and stream. Retaining walls composed of stones excavated from the site during the park’s development delineate the boundaries. Tall, graceful grasses and native plantings give the impression of marshland, a startling foreground to the northeastern skyline of downtown’s cluster of high-rise buildings. To the south are the ever-expanding dark red brick of UAB’s complex and the playful colors rippling down the wall of Children’s Hospital. Rolling grassland hosts people walking their dogs and throwing Frisbees. Young children play on a small climbing hill. It’s an urban paradise that has spawned the multi-storied residential growth around it.

  How do you explain to a five year old that he can’t go home until a report is done? And that he might never come home. Why is this tearing me up? Is it solely because Daniel is Becca’s lifeline? I told the judge I loved Daniel. I didn’t plan to say that. It just came out. I do love him. But I can love him without raising him, right? If we get Daniel back, Alice would happily take care of him, and I could be more of the aunt-person, but saving the Houses means having my own child, and that would be totally my responsibility.

  As I start another lap, Becca insinuates herself into my thoughts. Her voice is so real, I feel as if she is walking beside me.

  Why don’t you want children, Rose? she asks.

  I don’t normally talk to myself, but talking to Becca is different, even if she’s imaginary.

  “Children,” I mutter, “mean changing diapers—diapers are just plain terrifying.”

  You’re being silly.

  “I’m being real. Diapers are just the beginning. What about sticky fingers, throwing up, screaming?”

  What about when they grab hold of your finger with a tiny, perfect hand—

  “Then,” I interrupt, “there’s school, homework, piano lessons, interminable baseball games, dating, and don’t forget paying for college.”

  You’re just looking at the negative things. Why are you so negative? Children are wonderful.<
br />
  A teenager on a skateboard passes me without a glance. I guess people assume a one-sided conversation means you’re on the phone.

  You’re just scared, Becca accuses.

  “Damned straight I am. And what if it was a girl?”

  Oh, that would be fun! Think of all the adorable outfits, doing her hair in curls, teaching her about makeup. I’ve always wanted a little sister.

  I guess even normal people worry about whether their child will grow up to be a serial killer, but what about raising a witch? Supposedly, abilities don’t bloom until after puberty, but if it’s a girl with the magic of more than one House, and the wait-until-puberty thing goes haywire? Then we’re talking about a tiny person with the potential for magical calamity. We’re talking about mixing magics and killing people.

  On top of everything else, we’d have to start with the whole pregnancy thing. I don’t want to be pregnant. Who would want to carry a bowling ball around for nine months?

  “Face it, Becca, I’m just not the ‘mother type.’”

  What is a mother type?

  I don’t answer out loud but I consider the question. My adoptive mother was kind and gentle, a dreamer. She hid her spark, the little flame that wanted to be an artist, but my father kept it extinguished with pickling criticism. It seemed to me she was trapped in a world that consisted solely of caring for me, cooking, cleaning, and trying to live up to his exacting expectations. I don’t want to live to please another human being. In summary, I have never wanted to be . . . my mother.

  Laying my hands over my belly, I include an imaginary fetus into the conversation. “And trust me, you wouldn’t want me for a mother, either.”

  Walking in circles has done nothing more than send my thoughts into a descending spiral. I might as well return to work and try to solve a few homicides.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  My steps are heavy when I mount the stairs of Alice’s house that night. I always thought that was a silly figure of speech, but each step seems like a mountain and requires an effort of will. My feet know moving forward means facing what I will see when I open the door—Becca sitting on the couch staring at the space just above the TV. When I do enter the living room that is exactly what I see. And no Daniel.

  My hand presses against my chest to try and ease the pain there, as if I swallowed something too large, and it has lodged in my esophagus. Because of me she is truly a living dead. I have to do something, but the only thing I can try is fraught with danger of making her worse.

  I stop and watch her for a few moments. How can anything be worse?

  Alice is not in the kitchen or her bedroom.

  “Alice?” I call.

  She doesn’t seem to be in the house. I check the backyard and find her puttering in the garden in a big floppy sunhat tied with a scarf, protecting her fair skin, despite the fact that it’s late afternoon and there is little threat from the sun. I guess she isn’t worried that Becca will wander off. She stays wherever she is left.

  Alice spots me. “Hello, dear.” She is kneeling on the ground and sits back on her heels, amazingly limber for her age. The late afternoon sun is at her back, almost at the horizon, highlighting strands from the short red wig. She scratches her scalp.

  “This thing itches. I think I’ll do like the ancient Egyptians and shave my head underneath.”

  “They shaved their heads?”

  “Yes, it kept down problems with lice.” She pulls up a weed, inspecting the roots with apparent satisfaction before tossing it aside. “Not that I have lice.”

  “Why don’t you just dye your hair?”

  She blinks and gives a short laugh. “I never thought of that. Why not?”

  I sit on the ground in front of her, which puts my face in the sun, but it’s that time of day just before dusk when the sun is orange-red and easy on the eyes. Around us spring flowers and young vegetable plantings thrive under her green thumb.

  I watch her for a while.

  “I’m not going to get pregnant, Alice.”

  She doesn’t say anything for a moment, patting the ground around a strawberry plant. Then, “It’s your choice, dear.”

  “I’ve thought about it, but I’m really not mother material. You, of all people, should know that.”

  “Whatever you wish.”

  “That’s it? All the Houses are going to die out because I’m selfish, and that’s all you have to say?”

  “I don’t really have anything to say other than what I’ve told you. I didn’t want to burden you with something like that, but it was my responsibility.” She pats my knee and gives me the response I have come to expect in any crisis, in addition to a cup of tea. “Everything will work itself out.”

  “There’s something else I want to tell you.”

  She waits, loosening dirt around a weed.

  “I saw something while I was at the coast.”

  “A vision?” she asks.

  “Yes. It was only for a moment, and it seemed to be an overlay of some kind.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  I swat at a mosquito that lands on my arm. “Most of the time when I have a vision, it’s been related to the place.”

  “A future that will happen in a certain place?”

  “Yes, or the past that has happened in that place, the place where I am.”

  “Where were you?”

  “At Barber Marina—it’s on one of the bays near Orange Beach—or actually some property that’s part of it. They have exhibits scattered around, dinosaurs mostly, but one is called Bama Henge. It’s in the woods just off the road.”

  Her brows knit. “Bama Henge? I’ve never heard of it.”

  “It’s supposedly an fairly accurate replication of Stonehenge in England, but it’s not made of stone.”

  She is quiet for several heartbeats. “And your vision?”

  “It seemed like additional stones superimposed on the replicas that were there.”

  “Stonehenge in England,” Alice muses, “is a place of immense power in the earth.”

  “People have been saying that for a long time.”

  “The power lines are why it was built in that location, and the structure we see is actually built on top of earlier ones. It is said our people were buried there.”

  “Beneath Stonehenge?”

  She nods.

  “I was looking at the past then, but—. . . in England?”

  “I don’t know. It sounds like it. What else did you see?”

  “A ceremony of some sort. A young girl kneeling before one of the smaller stones.”

  “A bluestone.”

  “Colors are difficult to distinguish in visions. Everything is black and gray and distorted, like little waves are running through it.”

  “The universe is full of unseen energy rippling through it. Our brains interpret only energy of limited wavelengths.”

  I can’t help a passing smile. “I’m sure.”

  Her attention pulls away from whatever scientific jaunt it took and focuses back to me.

  “Tell me everything you saw.”

  I close my eyes and try to remember. “A girl kneeling and . . . a semicircle of people in hooded white robes.” I snap my eyes open, realizing what that sounds like. “Not hoods like the Ku Klux Klan, more like Robin Hood hoods.”

  “Go on.”

  “One of the hooded people had her back to me.”

  “Her?”

  “I’m not positive, but I think it was a woman from the way she moved. She approached the kneeling girl and put something around her neck.”

  Alice’s hand rises to her mouth. “Oh my, the rose-stone!”

  “I thought that too, though I couldn’t see what it was.”

  “It must be. That sounds like stories I’ve heard of an ancient ceremony o
f the Houses, the passing of the rose-stone to the Y-Tair!”

  I jump when my cell plays “Dances with Wolves,” as if it has yanked me back through the centuries. It’s Tracey.

  “Hey,” I answer. “What’s up?”

  “Looks like you have been right all along,” he says.

  “About what?”

  “Benjamin Crompton.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Vestavia PD just reported a homicide.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “A woman found dead in her apartment.”

  I freeze.

  “Rose, you there?”

  “I’m here. Whose body is it?”

  “It’s Crompton’s assistant, Laurie Stokes.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  It’s late by the time I meet Tracey at Laurie’s apartment. There isn’t much to see or maybe there is too much to see. We stand inside the front door looking down the narrow hall. Her body lies between the living room and the small dining area of her apartment. At this distance, I can’t tell much except there’s not a lot of blood, which means she died quickly.

  The Vestavia detective handling the case, Sergeant Andy Young, a black man in his forties, badge clipped to his jeans, stands with us.

  “Glad for your help,” Young says. “Vestavia hasn’t had a homicide in years.”

  I’m happy Tracey doesn’t mention that his partner is a rookie. He, at least, has homicides under his belt and several more years as a detective.

  “Can you give us the basics on this?” Tracey asks.

  “Yeah. Young woman, a grad student at UAB. Shot at close range. We’ve got a light powder ring on her head.”

  I do know that means the gun was very close to her skull, close enough for gunpowder to leave a residue, which means the end of the gun was probably touching her head. This is often true in a suicide.

  “Do you think it was a suicide?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “Not with the hole in the back of her head. It was definitely not a suicide, but we think the perpetrator may have used a suppressor, since the neighbor said he didn’t hear anything, and the walls are pretty thin.”