Water and Stone (32 page)

He just wanted to go home.

The trip to Miami had opened his eyes to a life beyond anything he ever imagined. He now realized how they could use the piedra to achieve all their desires—though he didn’t understand why it worked like it did he knew viscerally the stone made everything possible—but all he really wanted was Tree by his side soft and warm.

She was already under its spell. He knew better than to show her the stone but he couldn’t seem to help it. He told himself it wasn’t his fault. It was a compulsion. But he shouldn’t have done it. Still, the girl surprised him by claiming to have heard of the stone.

"You probably never knew my sister Beth, did you Church."

"I knew of her, Tree, but no, I never met her. I hate bringing it up but didn't something bad happen to her a few years ago?"

"She disappeared while hiking in the mountains of northern New Mexico. She was with a girl named Allison Johns. Allison came back but Beth didn’t. Most people thought they got lost. Maybe that's really what happened... but Allison told me how they'd gone on a treasure hunt. That's what they were doing there... they'd found an old map inside a book they bought at an auction."

"I remember now... your sister ran that book store in Guthrie. I used to stop in and buy used books every so often. I remember when that happened... I must have been fourteen. Some folk around town had talked about forming a search party to look for Beth but nothing ever came of it. The next thing I knew the book store closed down and everyone seemed to forget about your sister. That was sad."

Tree's lower lip quivered and her chin wrinkled the way it did when she was about to cry... he'd noticed it happening back in high school when the teacher called on her and she must not have been ready with an answer but like then she recovered quickly enough to respond without tears.

"When Allison was rescued she was in pretty bad shape. She'd been alone in the mountains for three days without food or water. It's a wonder she survived at all. I went to Santa Fe with my dad to see what we could find out about Beth's disappearance. I spent a lot of time at the hospital with Allison while my father was busy talking with the authorities. I guess he was trying to help them but I think he only managed to get in the way. Anyway, Allison was still recovering from her ordeal so I didn’t put much stock in the story she told me. According to her they actually found the treasure they went there to find."

"What did they find, Tree?"

"It was a box with something extremely weird inside of it... she said it looked like a stone shaped like a chicken egg but when she shook the box it jiggled like gelatin. She told me how the object seemed to sing to her and even Beth heard it. Though Allison told her not to do it, Beth reached into the box to touch it... and then she was just gone. There was no flash, no indication of where she went. Her clothes and the jewelry she wore were still there in a pile but Beth had vanished into nothingness.

"Everyone thought Allison was hallucinating. They said that Beth had probably begun to hallucinate too. Lots of times when people become lost out in the mountains without any water to drink they start to see and hear things that aren't really there. People have been known to take their clothes off and simply walk away. I never knew what to think. I just know Beth was never found and Allison moved away shortly after that. She did say that she gave the object that they found to someone who knew how to deal with it. I always thought she meant someone like a professor or a scientist... what if it was your mother?"

"That's pretty weird, Tree. I remember my mother told me that she found the stone on the porch of our cabin. Whoever left it there didn’t put an address on it so it wasn’t delivered by the postal service. They just wrote the name Evalena Gutiérrez and nothing more upon the cardboard box they put it inside of."

"I bet Allison left it there, Church. Who else could have done it?"

"The thing is, Tree, that happened when I was just a baby. My mother took the box and the stone inside of it and buried it all under a sycamore tree that grew out of that old church not far from where we lived... everyone calls it the Church of Five Angels. As far as I know the stone stayed there until my mother dug it up just a few months ago. She gave it to me and told me to take it somewhere and to hide it where no one could ever find it. That's why I went to Mexico."

"Allison told me that the stone exists outside of time and space as we know it, Church. I never understood what she meant by that. What if it exists in different places and times simultaneously?"

"I suppose it's possible, Tree... I just don't know enough about things like that to make a judgment one way or the other."

"What happens if we touch it, Church?"

Tree seemed all but manic about the piedra. She insisted on holding the box in her lap as he drove and all too often he saw her open it and peer inside at the treasure lurking there. A lustrous light shined upon her face making her ever more beautiful than any girl he'd ever seen in his life.

"I don't know what would happen, Tree. I just know I was told never to let it come into contact with me... that it would change me somehow."

"Change you how, Church? I bet it will make us stronger. I think we'll be better than we are now... let's try it together."

"Do you remember that eye patch that my aunt Evalena always wears?"

"Of course I do, silly. It makes her look like a witchy woman."

"I think something happened to her because of the stone... she touched it and lost her eye. It isn’t safe, Tree."

"You sound afraid, Church. Here... I'll do it first."

"No!"

But it was too late. Even as he steered the truck to the side of the road he watched out of the side of his eye as Tree reached into the box.

"Oh... it isn’t a stone at all, Church... it's more like water... no, gelatin. It slips right through my fingers."

Suddenly he was intrigued. He'd listened to his mother's warnings. When she admonished him to never touch the piedra he took her words to heart. Now, though, whatever spell his mother held over him had been irretrievably broken. Tree was his now... or was he hers?

It felt good to belong to someone, especially a girl as pretty as Tree. Each moment they spent together made him realize how bereft he'd feel when she left him, as she most assuredly would. Though he was increasingly aware of the love growing between them he also grew up in a world where the union of a man and a woman was a rare commodity... unless it was for a night or two of pleasure.

"Let me see, Tree."

She was right. He couldn’t be sure that the piedra was even touching his skin... when he attempted to touch it he felt no surface tension as he would have if he plunged his hand into a container of water. In fact, the stone seemed to pull away when he tried to touch it.

He could hear the remnants of Lorraine's voice in the back of his mind telling him how the stone wasn’t solid nor was it liquid. It was something unspeakable, an anomaly that had its origins in the dawning of time before such things as solids and liquids and gas came to exist.

"I feel funny, Church. I'm going to be sick. I need to get out of the truck for a minute and walk around."

Before he could put the box down to help her, Tree opened the door and promptly collapsed in the tall weeds growing alongside the back road they had been driving down. Leaping out of his door Church raced around the truck but Tree was no longer there. Only her clothes remained.

"Tree? Where are you?"

"Church... I'm here."

Her voice sounded far off. It puzzled him how she could have traveled such a long ways in just the time it took him to race around the truck.

"Where, Tree... where are you?"

"I'm right here, you silly."

Her voice was coming from inside the truck but when he looked he couldn’t see any sign of her. Turning around he expected her to be standing behind him but only the swamp greeted his eyes. Something slithered across his shoes. When he looked down a black snake the size of his leg was moving off into the wetlands.

"Come on, Tree... stop fooling around. Where are you?"

The box was open.

He distinctly remembered closing it after putting in his hand to touch the piedra but now the box was sitting wide open. He never left it open like that. His greatest fear was that the stone would somehow fall out... he'd lose it.

"I'm in here, Church. Come and join me. Take my hand."

A sort of fog began issuing from the box rolling down the grimy cloth covered seat and congealing into a withered stick of an arm with what looked like a grotesquely shaped shrunken claw attached to the wrist.

He stood frozen in fear as the claw inched ever closer to him, seeking him out, desiring to draw him into the box. He wanted to turn and flee, to leave Tree there, and to finally be free of the piedra and its curse. But when he tried to use his legs the snake had returned to wrap itself around his feet paralyzing him.

"No, Tree... no!"

"Wake up, you silly thing... you're dreaming."

Opening his eyes at first Church didn’t know where he was. There was a strange scent in the air and a sound filled the room like the rushing of old leaves in a high wind. He had to be inside the box... Tree had pulled him into the stone.

She was in the bed beside him soft and warm wrapping her body around his. As his mind cleared of sleep he remembered they had taken a room in Miami right on the sea side. The windows were open allowing the early morning fragrance of the ocean to wash over them.

"Tell me what you were dreaming, Church. You sounded afraid. I thought you were going to kick me right out of bed."

"I'm sorry, Tree... I guess I was having a nightmare. I don't really remember what it was about though. Something to do with the stone, I think... you touched it and were pulled inside of it."

"I couldn’t go anywhere without you, Church. I want to spend the rest of my life right here with you."

Her tiny smile crinkling the edges of her eyes revealed a truth he wasn’t yet ready to face. Did it matter if they were really inside the piedra? After all, he'd been trapped in a tidal wave of toil and anguish and poverty for as long as he could remember.

The stone reflected the world... that was its secret. It wasn’t that they were trapped inside of it so much as the piedra set them free. They were no longer encumbered by the representations of a reality they'd never actually reach out to touch... bedazzled by light they'd never see as much as perceive as electrical impulses inside their brains.

The stone was not solid like a particle yet it wasn’t fluid like liquid.... nor was it diffuse like a gas might be. It was something all together different. He wondered if it was possible that the piedra existed in all possible states... something akin to what was known as quantum superposition.

For a moment he wanted to do as Tree suggested and take the stone to an expert, someone who knew how to deal with something that shouldn't exist. The piedra was not only both solid and liquid and gas at the same time, it was none of them. In fact, the stone probably existed outside of space and time as it was commonly understood.

That meant that whoever controlled the piedra—if that was at all possible—could bypass death all together by assimilating with it. Was that what Tree had accomplished? Or had he merely dreamed it all?

Perhaps when dealing with something as strange as the stone, dreams and reality merged into one continuous whole. If in fact they were both inside the piedra could they escape? Or a better question might be, why would they want to? He found himself melting into Tree once more as all thought ceased and only love existed.

He was finally home.

The old woman was coming for her.

What could Yani be thinking by sailing to Cuba alone and unarmed? Did she really believe Evalena wouldn't hear of her presence even before she left the mainland? But then again, perhaps she'd brought the piedra hoping its lure might stay the wrath of the woman she once called her sister.

She'd learned a harsh lesson back in Texas... trusting Yani'd been but one of the many mistakes she made during her time there. Instead of waiting for the piedra to appear she should've been actively seeking it out. She sensed instinctively that the stone was hidden in the area around the decrepit chabola where she spent years living in squalor and poverty yet she never put forth all her power to find it.

She just wanted to be normal.

It seemed a strange desire for someone who could have anything she wanted but there it was. She actually enjoyed being part of Yani's family, helping her raise the boy, and taking care of the shack while her sister worked at the hacienda from dawn until dusk seven days a week.

It was still hard for her to believe that the old life was over... difficult to reconcile the fact Yani tried to kill her after all she'd done for her sister... how she'd raised her, protected her, and kept the wolves at bay even while they were howling for the girl's skin.

"Give her to us, Evalena... you promised she'd be ours."

"She needs more time to mature, Hajdani... she'll be of no use to you until she reaches maturity... allow her to have her quinceañera... a few more years means nothing, not to those who'll soon be immortal."

It was a bargain she was forced to make yet one she never regretted. Had she the opportunity to trade places with Yani she would have, or at least that was how she rationalized the deed.

They were not people to trifle with... not only did they hold high positions in the government but the families came from old stock. Some of them could trace their ancestors back nearly as far as Evalena's birth, but not quite.

Of course none of them suspected who she really was... they took her for an imposter... a daughter of a granddaughter who took up the mantle when no one else knew enough to object. She allowed them to believe what they would... it did her no harm to be thought of as a charlatan. In fact, it was better that way.

Had they even an inkling of the truth, she wouldn’t have lasted a minute in the presence of that cult. Theirs was a special breed of fanaticism born in the time before civilization had taken full hold. If these were the people Yani counted on to help her, she was in for a harsh awakening.

There hadn’t been enough time to teach Yani or the boy of their heritage... of the power they held, and how it could be vastly magnified by using the piedra. Looking back there'd never been enough time even though it was the one thing in her life with any plentitude.

Though it upset her at the time, she couldn’t fully blame Yani for wanting to kill her. Had she been kept in the dark, she might well have done the same thing. There had to be a great deal of animosity in the girl's heart to pull the trigger on that gun so many times... losing Billy had been the least of her worries as the bullets were flying thick and hot knocking holes everywhere in the tiny chabola.

Why hadn’t Yani looked for her in the cellar?

It seemed odd that she allowed her to escape so easily... or had she planned on sending Church in to finish his aunt off all the while she was shooting? She didn’t think so... the boy acted on his own in dynamiting the cabin. She told herself not for the first time that she should've strangled him when he was a child... the kid was an ungrateful little bastard who'd lead every person he came into contact with to a bad end.

The entire Ford family lay dead thanks to Church. Had he minded her warnings to him as a child to leave those people alone they'd all still be alive and happy in their misery. Instead, Church went behind her back to court their favor. He should've known better and he would have if Yani had allowed her to discipline the boy in the way he needed.

"Church is seeing that boy again, Yani."

"What boy is that, sister?"

"You know who it is... don't play dumb, Yani. I warned Church to stay away from him but he didn’t listen."

"I don’t see the harm in Church having a friend, sister."

She wondered if Yani could see the destruction now wrought... the girl couldn’t say she hadn’t been warned. It broke her heart to think of that family in their graves, especially since none of it had to happen.

Was that why Yani tried to kill her? Did the girl blame her for the fiasco of the Ford family? While it was true Billy'd taken up with her and came to live at the chabola, he gave himself up of his own free will. The man was no longer a boy. Billy had the right to choose his mate, just as Yani did... just as any free-thinking person had to option of doing.

Did Yani think she her sister somehow bewitched the Ford family? While there might have been a sprinkling of truth in that recipe, in point of fact those people all decided their own fates by the road they picked to walk upon. While all paths would lead inexorably to death some were more comfortable to travel upon than others. If there was any bewitching done, that was the extent of it.

"That boy is more than a friend to Church. How long will it be before he finds out who Billy Ford really is, Yani?"

"I've never made it a habit to keep Church's heritage a secret from him, sister. He knows full well who Billy Ford is, and Rancher too. Why should we hide who we are? I've always taught Church to wear his face proudly."

"You aren't ashamed that you had the child of another woman's husband, Yani? I thought better of you."

Her sister's black eyes had blazed hot for a moment and Evalena wondered if she'd said too much... that this time she'd perhaps crossed the line. But then Yani shrugged her shoulders and tossed her head the same way she had a habit of doing as a child. She always had such beautiful hair.

"Think what you wish to think, sister. I never realized that you were such a moral person that it bothered you to see Church born out of wedlock. Believe what you will of me, but don't take it out on the boy... he did nothing to deserve your condemnation."

The girl was right. Still, it was hard for her to look at Church without seeing the devastation he was bound to bring to all who came into contact with him. The boy was one of those rare beings who didn't suffer the vagaries of the world so much as he drew those unpredictable circumstances down upon others.

He was just plain bad luck... yet Yani refused to consider the only reasonable alternative... to end the life of the boy before he had the opportunity to unleash the havoc allotted to him.

"Take him away from Texas, Yani. Go back to that little town in Mexico where you lived before coming here. Go into the high valley far away from all others. Church will do well there."

"Church loves living here, sister. Why would I take him to Mexico? He doesn’t even speak the language."

She supposed the girl was right. Still, things would have gone better for everyone if she'd have simply strangled the boy on the night he was born.