The Secret of the Stone House (2 page)

Several sweltering miles later, Emily cranked down her window as they slowed to make the turn from the grid road into the lane to her grandmother’s yard. Along the ditches, sweet clover, foxtails, and white-flowered yarrow grew amid wild rose bushes pushed tightly against barbed-wire fences. The fresh summer air held a fragrant scent. Emily breathed deeply and sighed with pleasure. Her thoughts turned to her grandmother again and the times they’d spent exploring the pastures and fields.

Aunt Liz’s car was in the driveway when they pulled to a stop by the impressive two-storey stone house. Made of local unpolished fieldstone, it was a large square-shaped home with curved arches above each of the many windows. Emily had spent many happy hours there.

As Aunt Liz came out on the veranda to greet them, Emily alighted from the car first and ran up the wide wooden steps. Engulfed in her aunt’s strong hug, Emily caught the delicate bouquet of her perfume. Her aunt’s blonde hair was dyed to hide the grey flecks, and cut into a stylish new bob. She was dressed in matching blue-green Capri pants and top that accentuated the aquamarine colour of her eyes. Although she’d been working, she didn’t look a bit dishevelled, except for a slight brush of dust on one cheek.

As Emily watched her mom embrace Aunt Liz, the contrast was evident between the two. Her mom’s long dark hair, caught up in a careless ponytail, had strands falling loosely about her face, framing her dark, serious eyes. Her lightweight tan pantsuit was crinkled from the long drive, and she seemed anxious.

“Kate, Emily, I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve been going over everything and I have a few questions for you,” Aunt Liz said, pulling Emily close to her.

“Nothing hard, I hope,” Kate said, straightening her clothes and juggling her laptop computer, briefcase, and purse. “I don’t think I want to deal with anything difficult right now.”

“Hmm,” Aunt Liz replied, leading them into the house. “This divorce business is taking its toll, isn’t it?” She gave Kate a light-hearted squeeze on the shoulder. “How about a cup of coffee? I have some freshly made.”

“At least that’s not a hard decision to make!” Kate sighed, setting her laptop down on the kitchen table, and plunking herself onto one of the antique wooden chairs. Aunt Liz poured her a steaming mug of coffee. Kate took a sip, then set it down.

“Did you want some apple juice, Emily?” asked Aunt Liz.

“No thanks, I’m going for a walk instead,” Emily said, edging towards the outside door. She couldn’t wait to visit the sentinel rock.

Her mom and Aunt Liz exchanged a cautious glance. She knew they were thinking of the springtime, when she’d tried to convince them that her time-travelling adventures linked to the rock were real. Although they hadn’t believed her at first, thinking she was making up stories because of loneliness or depression at the loss of her grandmother, she’d thought that in the end they had finally understood. Maybe they were just nervous about her going back again. Or maybe they hadn’t believed her, after all.

Quickly, Aunt Liz said, “I’ve been going through everything again to make sure we’re not giving anything we want away, or keeping anything we shouldn’t. You might want to take a look too.”

“Nah, that’s no fun!” Emily groaned. “I’d rather be outside in the fresh air.” It was more than that, though. They had come to prepare for Grandmother Renfrew’s things to be auctioned, and she didn’t want to think about that right now.

“Plenty of time for walks, Emily,” her mother said, briskly straightening the tablecloth. “How about we bring in our stuff and get settled, then we can come up with a plan, so we can take all the time we want for other things.”

Emily groaned. Her mom could be such a damper at times! Spontaneity just didn’t come naturally for her. Emily plodded back out to the car and loaded herself down with luggage and other stuff that she’d brought for their week-long stay. Her mom and Aunt Liz followed her out, and within a few minutes, they’d lugged everything into their rooms on the two upper floors.

While Kate and Aunt Liz returned to the kitchen for their coffee, Emily remained at the top of the house. The attic had been divided in two long ago. One part was used for storage, and the other was an intriguing bedroom that Emily had used since she’d been old enough to be up there on her own. For a long time, it had been her own special world, where she was free to think and dream.

A nightstand and lamp stood to the left of the bed, which was centred along the slanted outside wall, right next to a dormer window with a wide ledge. A stream of sunlight filtered through the lace curtains and across the gaily coloured handmade quilt and the carved headboard. A maple rocking chair sat off to the side beneath the window, and near the doorway sat a matching antique pressback chair.

At the end of her comfortable double bed stood an old wooden trunk with leather straps, which her grandmother’s family had brought with them from Scotland in the mid-1890s. It was rumoured that some ancestor in her family had made it from old kegs used for storing beer in a public house they had operated. The trunk had been lovingly sanded and varnished so many times that the finish still gleamed. A tin address label painted with the words “Broadview, Assa., N.W.T.” was attached on the side. Broadview was one of the train stations when the railroad first came through the west, and before Saskatchewan became a province in 1905. The area where her gran lived had been known as the District of Assiniboia, part of the vast North-West Territories of Canada.

Emily plunked her belongings on the bed, headed to the window, and opened it to look at the countryside out past the farmyard – at the silvery-green grass of the pasture, and beyond, at the familiar outcropping of rugged grey rocks. Among them, the three-metre high dolomite boulder stood overlooking the valley beyond. She and her grandmother had often gone there on their walks and had picnics. It was as if the rock had called to them – two kindred spirits in happy accord with the prairies. Emily breathed deeply of the fresh air and the scent of sage from the pasture. She felt her grandmother’s presence around her.

However, the rock meant even more to her. It was the gateway that took her to a long-vanished world.

With trembling fingers, Emily probed the gap underneath the window ledge. Yes, her journal was still there. She pulled it out and set it on the nightstand. Reaching deeper into the wall space, her fingers touched a soft cloth pouch. She let out a deep sigh, then drew it out. She sat down on the edge of the bed, turned the hand-embroidered pouch over in her hands, and pulled at the leather thongs to open it.

Then she poured the dozen or so stones onto the bed. They had belonged to Emma, who had brought the collection with her as mementoes of her Scottish homeland when they’d immigrated to Canada. Emily scanned the assortment of pebbles. It was still there! The smooth black stone looked so ordinary, but it was her channel to the past! Did she dare touch it?

She listened for noises down below. Her mom and aunt were on the second floor, discussing something, but she couldn’t catch the words. Maybe this wasn’t the best of times to try an experiment. Either of them could come up to her room unexpectedly, and she didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot within a few minutes of arriving. Neither of them had been happy in the spring when she kept disappearing without any believable explanations of where she’d gone. They’d have a fit if she vanished now. Knowing she had the stone again thrilled her. She hoped it would be possible to go back in time again, but she could be patient.

Emily didn’t know why or how the stone had disappeared before, but she suspected Emma’s younger brother Geordie of taking it without realizing its significance. They’d often noticed him trying to follow them secretly, and he may have seen the hiding place. After Emma’s death, the oval black stone had mysteriously reappeared. Emily had discovered it quite by accident, along with the rest of the stones in Emma’s embroidered bag, concealed in her own bedroom in the gap under the window ledge. She had no idea how they came to be there.

Emily hadn’t tried to go back into the past when she’d found the stones again, because Emma was no longer there. She and her mother had left the farm right afterwards. Since then, though, she’d had time to think about everything, and she wanted to see how Emma’s family was doing, and spend some time with the baby who would grow up to be Grandmother Renfrew. This was the only way she could be close to her again. Her dying had left a deep well of sadness inside Emily that never seemed to go away. It was compounded by the sadness she felt about her parents’ recent separation and filing for divorce, but she didn’t even want to think about that right now.

She heard quick footsteps on the stairs approaching her room.

“Emily?” Kate called from the other side of the door, tapping lightly. “What are you doing?”

Emily flipped her jacket over the stones and stood up just as her mom opened the door.

“Uh, just checking everything out.” Emily shrugged her shoulders in an attempt to appear relaxed, even though her heart was doing little flutters against her ribs. She pointed to her sports bag on the floor. “Unpacking.”

“Let’s have a quick bite to eat and make our plans for the auction.” Kate left the room without waiting for Emily to answer.

Emily sat back down on the bed, defeated. Her mom had added more activities to their agenda and ignored what Emily wanted to do. The pattern was all too familiar. Did her mom do this on purpose to irritate her? Did she even think about how she affected everyone around her? Oh well, there was just no point in getting upset over her mother’s attitude. She seemed extra harried and upset these days, because of
The Divorce.

The news about her parents divorcing hadn’t been a huge surprise to Emily when she’d thought about it afterwards. They’d hardly spent any time together as a family; always one parent or the other seemed to be gone. But when her parents finally voiced it, the reality of it had been like a sharp blow to the stomach. Mostly, she’d tried to stay numb, going about her life mechanically, but every once in awhile she felt an ache that just wouldn’t go away. That was another good reason to get away from her mother by going out to the rock. Would she never escape today?

Emily eyed the jacket with the stones underneath it and decided they were safe for now. Her mom and her aunt weren’t likely to come into her room unless she was there. And maybe it was just as well her mother had interrupted her. Right now, she shouldn’t take any chances touching the black stone. She had to think about the consequences for awhile and come up with a plan. Consequences? Plan? She was beginning to sound like her ultra-organized mother!

In the kitchen, her mom and Aunt Liz had whipped together a spread of ham and Swiss cheese sandwiches, raw veggies, fruit, and Aunt Liz’s fresh-baked Saskatoon pie. Emily tucked into them, remembering that they hadn’t stopped for lunch on their trip there.

“Gerald Ferguson will be over at one to start hauling all the farm equipment into a row between the barn and the bins. His brother is coming to help too,” said Aunt Liz, looking over a sheet of paper with a list on it.

“Donald is back?” her mom sounded surprised. “When did that happen?”

“He got back a month or so ago.” Aunt Liz took a sip of her coffee and picked up her pen again.

“How long is he here for?” Kate persisted.

“My, aren’t we interested all of sudden?” Aunt Liz said.

Kate shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “It’s just that he swore he’d never come back to the farm life.”

Emily stopped crunching on a carrot and stared at her mother. What was up with her? Gerald Ferguson and his wife were their closest neighbours, and they had rented Grandmother Renfrew’s farmland for the past five years. But Emily didn’t remember ever hearing of Donald before. How did he fit in?

“Things change. People change.” Aunt Liz peered at her over the top of her reading glasses. “Do I detect a little twinge of nostalgia?”

“Nonsense,” Kate protested, reaching for Aunt Liz’s list. “I’m just curious, is all!”

“So what’s the deal, Mom?” asked Emily, sensing a juicy story. “Was he an old boyfriend or something?”

“Or something,” her mom snapped. “Anyway, it was a long time ago!”

Aunt Liz raised her eyebrows.

“Let’s get back to business. We only have two days to get this organized,” said Kate. She pushed aside her plate and stared at the list. “Who’s coming to help lug out the boxes of junk and the furniture on the front veranda and in the sheds?” she asked.

“It’s all there,” Aunt Liz raised one eyebrow at Kate, then took the list back.

Emily caught the faraway look on her mom’s face, before she turned to stare out the window. Boy, this Donald person sure rattled her. He’d be here soon with Gerald, so she could get a look at him then. Maybe he would take her mom’s mind off things for a while. On the other hand, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to have him in the picture. After all, her parents might get back together, even though they’d denied that was ever possible.

“Gerald made the arrangements for us with some of the other neighbours for tomorrow morning. The auctioneers are coming then too, to provide some guidance on where to place things,” Aunt Liz read down the list.

“Agnes Barkley and the ladies from the Moffat community will serve the coffee and provide the snacks. Proceeds will go to the Moffat Church ladies auxiliary.”

Emily grimaced when she heard the name Agnes Barkley. She was a busybody neighbour with a double chin and eyes like a hawk. She’d caused trouble in the past for Emily, spying on her when she’d gone to be with Emma.