The Stone of Blood (36 page)

“That aint that old road after ya pass uh, pass that little store down here?” Dad asked.

“That little liqueur store, yeah, the road that goes back in there, yeah.” Grandpa answered.

“After you get to the top of that hill, the road to your right that goes back in there?” Dad asked.

“No, you go on down to the next road, around there what they call the Hardin road and things now.” Grandpa stated.

“Yeah, I know where that’s at, yeah.” Dad said.

“That’s the, that’s the road that they got there now.” Grandpa said. “But back there at that time I think they called it the old
Kurdley
place. It used to go all the way back. It used to have alot of farms and things back in there. And Bernhiem has probably taken em’ all over now.”

“I don’t think I would have stopped to do any damned shootin’. I’d have been turnin’ that horse around.” My dad said.

“Well I just never did see anything you know that I was afraid of! But I uh, I always had the sense enough to know when to go; when to stay and when not to stay!” Grandpa said. “But I really believed I could kill that damned thing! I wasn’t foolin’ with you; I thought I could kill it! And by god I was gonna find out what it was! And I know that I was puttin’ that bullet right between them eyes! Cause I shot that gun too many times. I know where that bullet was goin’ but it didn’t do no damned good.”

“And I’m gonna tell ya right now, I didn’t feel too safe.” Grandpa said. “I knowed enough and I said, ‘
now by god it was time for me to be someplace else!
’”

Well if I’d a shot that first time and another eye had popped up there it’d been time for me to go; because I’d have been too scared to pull that trigger. Cause when things like that happen, that…” My dad related.

“I never did see anything like it that I could agree that what you called scared me. But I’ve seen things I didn’t know what it was, and never did find out! But I really wasn’t scared.” Grandpa said. “Well, as Daddy and Edgar and all of em’ always said, “
I never had sense enough to be scared!
”

“Grandpa.” I interjected once I’d found an openin’ to ask. “Have you ever heard of any ‘
werewolves
’ around here?”

“‘
Werewolves’?
” Grandpa replied. “Now Toby, I can’t say that I ever seen one. Not that I can remember you know, seein’ one of em’ myself or knowin’ what they was or nothin’.”

“But I do know one
damned
thing though!” he continued. “Around these parts and things there wasn’t no what you call sightings of ‘
werewolves
’ or ‘
bigfoots
’ and things around here up until the Civil War come through here! You see it used to be all just woods and things around here because there weren’t hardly no people! And people mostly kept to themselves and raised their families and things. So if there was them things around here, nobody seen em’, or was left alive to tell about em’!”

“Hell! You wouldn’t ever see anybody till you come into church on a Sunday!” Grandpa looked at me then the way he always did, with a glimmer in his eye and a sly smile on his face.

“You seen one of em’ did ya?” He asked and I nodded. “Well then, you need to be real careful and stay away from em’ if ya can Toby. Cause there aint nothin worse than gettin’ one of them kind of creatures mad at you, exceptin’ for maybe a witch! Now you see if you can make a witch bleed, then you will break the spell on her! But it’s a mighty hard thing to do! So you have to be quick! Cause they aint just gonna just let you do it!”

“But when it comes to a ‘
werewolf’
’, now that’s a whole nother story! Cause you can even shoot one of them things and that won’t kill em’! No sir! Now they can die from it or they can die just like any of us regular folks can die and things, you know people! But they can get better over time too! And they can handle more things bein’ done to em’.” Grandpa said. “I mean, you can shoot em’ and shoot em’ bunches of times and it might not kill em’. They’d just run off you know and get better and come back another time!”

“Now it might kill em’ too! It’s just hard to tell with em’ cause you don’t know if they are real ‘
werewolves
’ or if there was a spell put on em’! If there was a spell put on em’ by a witch, then there aint but one thing that’ll kill em’ for sure!” Grandpa said. “And that’s a silver bullet! But if you can break whatever spell is on em’ …well then you won’t have to kill em’ cause they won’t be ‘
werewolves
’ no more. They’ll just be regular folks again.” Grandpa said.

“But Grandpa, how do you know if there’s a spell been put on em’?” I asked.

“Well now, that there’s the thing Toby. You don’t!” he answered. “Unless one of em’ was to tell ya. And see they aint likely to be lettin’ you know who they are, let alone be tellin’ you about a spell or nothin’!”

“You see there’s three kinds of ‘
werewolves
’ that I knowed about.” Grandpa related. “There’s the ones that are true blood ‘
werewolves
’, they are the ones that are born into it and then there’s the ones that were bitten or scratched by a ‘
werewolf
’ and it turned em’. The last kind are the ones that were cursed to walk and live as a ‘werewolf’ by a witch or somethin’. They are the ones that are probably the most dangerous. Not that any of em’ are what you call safe!”

“But those kind of creatures Toby, they can live for a long time, and most of em’ have! And see if you go breakin’ the spell on em’ then they go back to bein’ human and livin’ like we do! And dependin’ on the strength of the spell, well …you never know what might happen!” Grandpa said.

“Well …what if you figured that there was somethin’ like a spell or somethin’ that was put on a stone or somethin’ like that!” I questioned him tryin’ not to let him know how much I knew cause my mom and dad were in the room listenin’. “Somethin’ like that …that was makin’ em’ stay or become ‘
werewolves
’.”

“Break it!” Grandpa said matter of factly.

“You break that stone, and you break that spell!”

.

Part Three

Providence

The leaves danced,

And the snow fell,

And the blue sky shown down in all of its radiant glory.

And there was peace for a moment.

Twenty

The Depths of My Darkness

D
estiny is believed by some to be the hidden power controllin’ that which will occur throughout eternity, in both the past and future spectrums of time; some call it fate …
while still others choose to see it as fortune or predestination. I myself was not a believer in a predetermined set of outcomes for the events and challenges that were to make up my life or for the events and challenges that were to make up the lives of others for that matter. But I was a believer in the gift of ‘
free will
’ and that sense of purpose that lay within me that told me that there was somethin’ more; somethin’ more that I was placed here upon this earth to do.

Now I didn’t exactly know what that purpose was mind you, but I was bound and determined to be ready for it whenever it happened to come along!

Grandpa had told me that in order to break the spell, I needed to break the stone.

But I had to wonder if
that
was what I was supposed to do.

“
Could a curse that had been placed upon a people for so long, bindin’ their very souls to its purpose, be so easily cracked?
” I wondered.

Perhaps the ‘
Stone of Blood
’ had been lost, and therefore they were unable to free themselves from its hold. Or perhaps it couldn’t be broken by their hand alone, and they were in need of a young King who would rise up to face the challenge and pull the proverbial sword from the stone! Just as it was once done by a young and otherwise scrupulous Arthur Pendragon!

I laughed at myself openly then as I had blatantly compared my own situation and journey to that of King Arthur’s! But I reasoned that my last name did mean ‘
the son of a werewolf
’, and somehow their blood …was my blood. This series of events had been set into motion in my life, with a direct path and sense of purpose laid out before me. They were viable reasonin’s not havin’ anyone else there to circumvent em’, and they allowed me to reach even deeper into the depths of my own darkness.

I had found the darkness cloudin’ my thoughts then, as I lay there upon my bed, beckonin’ me deeper into the murky recesses of my own mind.

…I was back in the cave now; with unconscious whispers summonin’ me onward. I felt the old stone and the coldness of the rock, as I was whisked away along lighted paths and elongated passageways. I saw their faces as they watched me, men, women and children; their faces seemingly familiar yet indifferent, older and in uncommon garb by way of oddly colored shades of brown and white; their lips unmoving, their eyes of ice, fillin’ my mind with their thoughts; hundreds of voices speakin’ to me at once, beggin’ me to hold fast to their request.

I walked along the cobbled floors passin’ through the extent of the void as time and space immersed themselves again upon the ceilin’s and the walls. I saw a great silver sword, shinin’ in the glimmerin’ of the twilight …a sword that was hauntingly familiar to me. And I sat down upon the thrown lookin’ out upon the Grand Hall as the ghosts of its past danced merrily through the murky visions in my mind.

‘Werewolves’ howled as the moon shown red, raging, transformin’ into a full blood moon that illuminated in the
midnight
’s sky!

I saw three people walkin’ then, across an open field of grass. One man dressed in black with a tall wide brimmed hat followed by a younger woman with long straight black hair adorned in a white flowin’ gown with still whiter flowers in her hair. A third man followed them with cold blue eyes.