The Stone of Blood (26 page)

I didn’t know for sure. But I did know that the hound was a ‘
highly regarded
’ animal in earlier times; back in the days of Kings and Knights and Castles. So I looked up the
‘
Hound of Ulster
’,
and read of a mythological figure from Irish folklore.
His name was ‘
Cú Chulainn
’
.

I didn’t have a clue how to pronounce the name, nor could I figure it out by the pronunciation key beside it in the book. So I just called him ‘
Koo Choo Lane
’.

“
It
sure was a dumb sounding name.
” I thought. It looked like it would sound like ‘
Choo Choo Train
’ so that’s how I remembered it.
His ‘
nickname
’ was the
‘
Hound of Ulster
.’

“As a child
‘
Cú Chulainn’ killed a fierce guard dog of the King’s in self defense and offered to take its place until a replacement could be reared. Then a
t the age of seventeen he defended the city of
Ulster
single-handedly against the armies of a brutal Queen. He was further known for his terrifying battle frenzy in which he became an unrecognizable Monster who knew neither friend nor foe!”

By this definition I reasoned that my last name meant that I was a descendant in the line of ‘
a fierce warrior’,
a
warrior who was
honorable
and a warrior who also had
respect for authority
!

A
warrior
who took responsibility for his own actions
and defended his great people
and city!

I liked this! I liked this alot!

“…in which he became an unrecognizable Monster
.” I whispered to myself.
“…an unrecognizable
Monster?”

I read those words again over and over.

“
…he became an unrecognizable Monster who knew neither friend nor foe!”

“
…a ‘werewolf’ is a Monster!”
I thought to myself as I felt the blood completely drain from my face.

“
He became a ‘werewolf’!
” I concluded.

I knew right then and there, that there were some things in this world that I didn’t wanna know!

I closed that book hard! I couldn’t read it any further!

Too many events were tying themselves together now, tying themselves together in ways that I would’ve never imagined!

“
By translation, my name means
the
‘son of a werewolf’!
The blood of the ‘
werewolf
’ runs through my veins!
” I concluded.

“Excuse me Son.” the Lady Librarian said to me as she tapped me lightly on the shoulder.

I jumped about a foot high cause she scared me!

“I’m sorry.” she said as she looked at me sadly. “I didn’t mean to startle you. But I’ve found the translation for you.” she said in a way so that I would remember. “The one you asked me about earlier?” She continued and smiled. “I wrote it down for you, just there at the bottom of your paper.”

“Thank you Ma’am.” I said as I tried to regain my composure. “I sure do appreciate your help!”

I didn’t have the ability to read it then. I just didn’t have the stomach for it! So I folded up the piece of paper and I put it in my pocket. I returned my books to their shelves, and I made Colby stop playin’ around! And I told him straight up to get off of that elevator!

“So you’re ready to go now?” Colby asked me.

“Yes, I’m ready.” I answered. “I’m ready to go home.”

“Finally!” Colby said as though he had been waitin’ forever for me to be ready to go. “This has been so BORING! I thought I was gonna die in here I was so bored! All of these books just started to hurt my head! Plus…” he continued. “…I’m ready to get back to my boat!”

I would’ve liked to have walked over to the Old Jail House before we’d headed back to his house. And I’d have liked to have had a look around the old pioneer cemetery that sits behind it too.

I didn’t know when I might get the chance to come up there again and I sure would have liked to have seen for myself if that black cat was actually guarding that witch’s grave.

But by the way things were goin’ for me right then; I’d have found
my name
written on one of those tombstones! So I just called it a day.

I’d have to visit the graveyard another time. P
erhaps I’d visit it at nightfall …when the moon was full …just before the lonesome wolf howls. Yeah right! Like I was
really
gonna do that!

Fifteen

Seemingly Overnight and Unnoticed

T
o say that I was a little upset after what I’d found out at the Library would’ve been a complete and total understatement. I was alot upset! And Colby wasn’t any help neither …what with his boat and all! We had barely gotten back to his house and called my mom to come and get me when he’d done high tailed it back out there in the woods after his boat! He just left me there sittin’ on his front porch waitin’ for my mom …all by my ‘
danged’
self!

The only good thing about sittin’ there I guessed was that it was good and shady, so it felt nice and cool on the concrete porch. It also gave me some time to think about some other things too.

Colby wasn’t takin’ any of this too seriously, even though he had been in the cave with me and I guessed maybe it was cause he was keepin’ himself pretty occupied with other stuff to think about. Stuff like his boat. But to me, this was a very serious matter!

‘
Ghosts
’ and ‘
werewolves
’ and ‘
witches
’ used to not be so
real
to me, they were just stories. I mean I believed my grandpa when he told his stories. But I guess that I never actually thought about em’ as if they could really happen in
real
life. At least not in
my
real life! Except for that one time maybe, that time when my grandpa told me about that old gray tom cat. Cause I was a part of that one! I experienced that one just like everybody else did!

That was back when my grandpa and grandma lived over on Jodi Burba road. They lived in that old farm house about a half a mile down the road on the left, right across from that big old black barn. My Aunt Opal and Uncle Corey Lee lived over the field a ways from em’ and used to stop by and visit em’ every once in a while. I think my grandma was somehow related to em’. But any ways, it was a big old white house, kind of like a smoke pipe house, tall in the front and then long and short in the back half where the kitchen was. And it had big old trees growin’ right up in the front yard.

There weren’t any hallways throughout the house. All the rooms just circled around and connected up with one another. Grandpa always kept the house really dark inside. And to tell ya the truth, with the rooms so dark, I didn’t like bein’ in any of em’ by myself!

There wasn’t much goin’ on that summer as I remember. And we usually went over to see Grandma and Grandpa at least every other weekend. It just so happened to be a real pretty day that Saturday afternoon. The skies were a deep blue and the clouds just lay around in the sky like a bunch of fluffy white cotton balls. I sat out in the swing on their front porch and enjoyed the day while everyone else went inside and visited.

“Toby, come on inside here and take a look at somethin’ for me.” My grandpa said as he stood in the doorway holdin’ the screen door open and motionin’ for me to follow him inside.

I wondered what was up, cause my Grandpa usually didn’t come outside to get me. So I got up off of the swing
…
leavin’ it rockin’ back and forth on its chains, and I followed him inside.

I followed him through the livin’ room and through one of the bedrooms along the way, and right up and until we got to the kitchen, that’s when Grandpa turned and pointed to the chimney.

“You see that?” he said all excited like and motionin’ in the direction of the chimney.

I looked at it. But I didn’t see anything. The chimney was built about a hundred years ago I guessed, probably about the same time as the house; but I didn’t see nothin’ peculiar about it.

It was just an old chimney made out of heavy rock and mortar as far as I could see.

Grandpa walked over and pointed out to me what he was talkin’ about. Cause I’d have to admit that I hadn’t paid no whole lot of attention to the chimney before or nothin’, I mean, so as to be able to tell him if there was anything of difference about it!

“You see that?” he said again pointin’ to the crack in the chimney. “What do you think about that?”

Well, now that he had pointed it out, I could see that there
was
a crack in the chimney! I had been wonderin’ why all of the grownups were lookin’ at some dumb old chimney, and why they were all just staring at me and wonderin’ why I wasn’t as excited about it as they were!

The old rock chimney probably weighed every bit of four thousand pounds; built out of solid stone with a hole set in the middle of it for a stove pipe to let the smoke out of the house. The height of it went all the way up the backside of the house at least thirty feet or more. At first the crack that my grandpa showed me, didn’t seem to be that all fired important or any different than any other crack that I had ever seen. But upon further investigation of it I saw that the crack was four or five inches wide and that it ran horizontally along the entire length of the chimney!

It was not a crack!

The chimney had split itself into two pieces! And the top half of it had lifted itself straight up from its base!

There wasn’t anything holdin’ the top part of the chimney up!

It had broken into two pieces and had lifted itself straight up!