Water and Stone (33 page)

She didn’t believe him at first.

When Church said he wanted to show her what he had in the old gunny sack she thought it might be a gift for her. When she found out it wasn’t she tried unsuccessfully to stifle her disappointment in the boy... why should he be any different than all the others she'd known?

"I have to show you something, Tree."

When she took the box from his trembling hands she looked into his eyes expecting to see delight. Instead, she noticed the fear threatening to overwhelm the façade of normalcy that the boy constantly wore.

"What is it, Church?"

He didn’t seem to understand that it was a two-pronged question. Not only was she mystified by what the boy had handed her, she couldn’t understand his sudden shift in emotions. He didn’t answer. Instead, he nodded his chin as if encouraging her to see for herself.

There didn’t seem to be any way of opening the box. It was a cube about four inches square made of a gold-colored material though it couldn’t actually be gold because if it was the box would be much heavier.

Turning it over in her hands she couldn’t detect any latch nor were there any visible hinges. Whoever had constructed the box must have used some sort of highly evolved technology... she remembered reading about experiments being done using a carbon based material but wasn’t carbon black? She thought so.

When she looked more closely at the box, however, she could see a smattering of black threads woven into the golden tapestry... perhaps the box was made of a conglomeration of exotic materials unknown to most.

Suddenly she must've triggered an unseen latch because the top of the box opened. Something was glowing inside... it looked to be the size and shape of a chicken egg though the more she looked at it the more its form seemed to shift and morph into other contortions.

The object didn't rest in the bottom of the box... instead it seemed to hover in the center. Even when she tipped the box on its side the object remained stationary, pulsing with an inner light. Or was it simply reflecting the sun? She couldn’t tell one way or another.

"What is it, Church?"

She knew she was repeating herself but she couldn’t help it. In all her life she'd never felt so flummoxed. What she was seeing shouldn’t exist. It couldn’t exist. She must be losing her mind... perhaps Church had surreptitiously slipped some LSD into her drink, but why would he do such a thing?

"My mother calls it the piedra. That means stone in Spanish. She said it's something called the first material... that when it fell from the sky a monkey found it. When she picked it up, or tried to, it changed her into a woman."

"Come on, Church... you don’t really believe that, do you?"

"I'm just telling you what I know, Tree. You don’t have to believe me. I'm not sure I do."

"It must be worth a lot of money."

"Who would buy it? I'm guessing anyone you tried to sell it to wouldn't believe what you were telling them... just like you don’t believe me."

"It isn’t that I don’t believe you, Church. I do. I just don’t believe what your mother told you... it sounds like a fairy tale... a legend handed down from olden times."

"But don’t they say there is always a kernel of truth in old fables, Tree?"

She had the sudden compulsion to touch the object inside the box. It seemed to be singing to her... leading her on... and as she listened she thought she could detect tiny changes in the surface of the stone that were somehow related to the music.

"Do you hear that, Church?"

"Sure I do... I grew up hearing it. When I was little I always thought it was the sounds of water in the creeks out back... the way they mingled when the two of them flowed into each other. When I got older I realized it was something else... but I never could figure out what it was. One day I followed the sound. It seemed to be coming from that old church that burned down ages ago... all that's left of it are the walls... and inside that old building an enormous sycamore tree is growing. The music was coming from that tree.

"For a long time I thought that trees could sing... after all, I heard it every night. During the day the sounds seemed to subside but if I listened closely I'd still hear it. After a while I decided it was the wind blowing over the walls of that old church... maybe there was a nook or a cranny that was turning the air moving over it into music. That was where the piedra was hidden... my mother told me that she buried it beneath the sycamore tree when I was just a baby... she said the package arrived about the same time Tia Evalena went back to Mexico after visiting the chabola on the night of my birth. It was addressed to her sister but Evalena never came back. So eventually my mother opened the package and discovered the stone inside."

"Why didn’t your mother keep it, Church?"

"She said she was worried that the stone was putting off some kind of energy that might be harmful to me... the way it was glowing frightened her. That's why she buried it. But she also said she couldn’t stand to be apart from it... she kept thinking how someone might steal it. That was why she buried it under that sycamore tree... something told her the piedra would be safe there."

"Have you ever touched it, Church?"

"No I haven’t, Tree. I was warned not to do that under any circumstance."

"But you want to, don't you."

"It's all I can do to keep from it."

"I'll touch it if you do, Church."

She knew he only needed a bit of encouragement... the light shining in Church's eyes betrayed his true passion for the stone. She felt it too. It was like nothing she ever experienced... perhaps the desire to become one with the stone was something primordial, a large part of all human beings and their heritage.

Where did it really come from? Was it simply a legend that the stone fell from the sky or was that what really happened? If the stone had the power to change a monkey into a human being, what else could it do? She had to find out but she was afraid. If Church touched it first and she saw he was okay then she'd do it too.

"I don’t think that's a good idea, Tree. When I was in Mexico I was alone with the piedra for a long time. I was going to hide it in a cave that I found but I couldn’t bring myself to leave it there. I stayed in that cave for what seemed like months, maybe years. I had visions. I could never been sure if they were on account of not eating for so long or if it was the stone doing it... I had plenty of fresh water to drink from a spring inside the cave but I had no food for weeks at a time. Still, I'm pretty sure it was the piedra."

"What sort of visions did you have, Church? Were they like the old spirit quests that I used to read about?"

"I don’t think so, Tree... not unless the people on those spirit quests saw ghosts."

"Really! Tell me about it, Church."

"Did you ever meet Lorraine Ford?"

"Of course... she was always doing philanthropy work around Guthrie. Remember how she used to come to the high school and speak about politics? I was sad to hear what happened to her."

"I never really knew her... she wasn’t around much at the Triple Six, at least when I was there. I always thought it had something to do with me... that she knew who I really was and she hated me for it. I started having dreams about her when I was in Mexico. She came to me every night only she wasn’t fat and old like she used to be... she was young and pretty and she had a crazy light shining in her eyes. She told me many things about the stone and its history. A lot of times I didn’t want to wake up... I wanted to keep on sleeping so I could stay with Lorraine and learn more about the piedra. But then she started appearing during the day... I thought I was going crazy... that maybe there were vapors in that cave like the priestess Pythia at Delphi used to inhale to see the future... only they were causing me to have hallucinations.

"Finally I realized Lorraine was all in my mind. When I came back to Texas the first place I went was to the chabola... before I left the Triple Six I heard Billy Ford had moved in with Evalena and something told me that he needed help. Lorraine began speaking to me again only this time I knew it wasn’t really her... it was my aunt using my visions of her against me. I tried to kill Evalena. That's why the chabola exploded... I threw dynamite into the cellar. I knew my aunt was hiding there because she called out to me and told me to throw the stone down to her. Instead I threw the dynamite. Somehow, though, she escaped. That's why we have to get to Cuba... and we have to resist the temptation to touch the piedra, at least for now."

Something in Church's voice betrayed his excitement to share the stone with her... she knew he couldn’t hold out for long, especially when she got him back into bed. He'd do anything for her when the time was right... including murder, if need be.

His talk about Lorraine Ford brought back memories of her sister Beth and how the girl had disappeared while hiking in the high desert in New Mexico... at least according to her friend and lover Allison Johns.

What had Allison said about the treasure they found? Could that object be the one inside the box she was holding in her hand? But if Church was right the stone had been buried under a sycamore tree for the last twenty years... it couldn’t be the same thing that Beth and Allison discovered... not unless... could there be two stones?

But if there were two stones there had to be two identical boxes as well... she recalled Allison saying how she tried and failed to open it but Beth succeeded. What were the chances of that? She was no mathematician but Tree guessed the odds probably approached infinity.

Limitless life, the perfect possession.

The phrase Allison Johns had uttered made no sense at the time. What could possibly be a perfect possession... and why would it lead to limitless life? Tree wondered if she had the answer right inside her hands.

According to Church the stone lay buried for twenty years but no one had ever checked to make sure it was actually there. What if the object existed in all of time? Was it at all possible that when it was outside the presence of anyone the object turned up somewhere else as well as in another time?

She remembered Allison saying something about an old book... that the object they found existed outside of time... that it wasn’t like any ordinary object, fleeting and transitory.

It was perfect. That's what led to limitless life... the perfect possession. That was why her sister Beth and Allison Johns had gone after it... they thought they'd live forever if they found the treasure. Only Beth had vanished.

It'd been six years since she lost her sister yet Tree thought about her every single day. Sometimes she'd see someone walking along the street who reminded her of Beth and for just a moment her heart would leap... but, it was never her.

For some odd reason, though, Tree felt the girl's presence all around her as she stared into the object that Church had handed to her. She had to know if what Allison Johns said was true... that when Beth touched the stone she vanished.

She had to know.

"Deténgase aquí, por favor. Stop here, please."

Living in Texas she had long ago developed the habit of translating her Spanish to others who were not bilingual. Of course she knew the man driving the taxi didn't speak English but old traditions were difficult to put a stop to.

The house where they used to live was just ahead and she had no desire for Evalena to see her pull up in front of it in a taxi. Though she was fairly certain the girl would be waiting for her, a little surprise might be better than none at all.

Climbing from the back seat of the car she felt every bit of a thousand years old. Each joint in her body ached and burned as if on fire from the inside. For a moment she wondered if she could still stand up but once she got to her feet walking came naturally once more though far more painful than ever.

Adame was there.

It shocked her more than perhaps it should have to see the enormous black cat perched in one of the open windows of the decrepit Italianate Victorian that had once been such a grand palace even the President of Cuba would visit on occasion.

The cat noticed her about the same time she saw him, gave a yowl, and bounded off into the dusky innards of the decaying mansion where Evalena must've been hiding. They'd always had a special bond, her sister and that cat... but it couldn’t be the same Adame that she remembered... that was well over fifty years ago. It had to be one of his descendants.

Either way, she was spotted. Since there was nothing left to do she tottered up the overgrown path to the door. The trip had left her so drained she hadn’t the energy to lift a hand to knock so she simply stood there knowing Evalena would sense her presence. A grating sound issued from inside indicating someone was moving a heavy object from in front of the door either to allow her entrance or to drag her inside. The way she felt, she supposed it no longer mattered which... she'd be dead in a few days anyhow and shut of the world and all of its magnificent and many sorrows.

"Yani... I've been expecting you. Won't you please come in?"

Evalena looked as young and beautiful as a new kitten while Adame lolled around her legs with a purr that sounded suspiciously like a growl. Yani blinked her eyes to help them adjust to the dimness of the room after the bright Cuban sunshine had flooded her sight.

The house was a disaster. Wallpaper pealed off the walls in great swaths, the ceilings sagged in the middle as if ready to give way any instant, and the once elegant hardwood floors were warped like dead things congealing in the heat and humidity. The pungent aroma of mildew and rot greeted her nostrils though Evalena seemed to take no notice of any of it.

"Please sit down, sister... you look spent. Was it a difficult trip for you to make?"

The sofa to which Evalena motioned was but a lump of moss grown heavy on the floor but as her eyes gradually adjusted to the dim light of the room Yani saw it was actually something newly minted compared to the wreckage of the house falling all around her.

"Kindly dispense with the nonsense, Evalena... you know why I'm here. Do you have it?"

"Would I be living in this dump if I had the piedra?"

Listening, she couldn’t hear the singing of the stone. Apparently Evalena was telling the truth. She had a look on her face alternating between glee and horror. The girl was probably delighted to see how aged her body had become during the past few months... perhaps Evalena saw death hovering over her too.

"I must sit down, Evalena."

The room had begun to pitch and yaw as if she was still on the boat ride to the island. The nausea roared back. Unable to make the sofa and sitting down on a packing crate she put her head between her knees breathing as deeply as her aching lungs would allow until the feeling passed.

"They'll be happy to see you're home again, Yani. I'll try to stall them as long as I can... it'd be better if they didn’t take you until after your death."

"You told them I'm here?"

Of course she did... Yani knew how things worked here in Cuba. The network put in place centuries ago was far superior to any internet or social media. They probably knew she was back as soon as she boarded the boat in Miami.

"Why would I do that, sister? I'm the one who's been protecting you all these years. Haven't you figured that out yet?"

"I don't understand what you mean, Evalena. I'm the one who ran away from here. I'm the one who traveled to Mexico to hide out... no one could've known I was there. Even when I went to Texas I told no one who I was or where I was from."

"Oh sister... listen to yourself. Don't you know who we're dealing with? These people aren't the types who're going to look up names in phone books. They came to me demanding that I tell them where you were. I lied to them even though I knew I was putting myself in peril. Why do you think I went to Mexico too?"

"You were looking for me... that's what I think, Evalena."

"I knew where you were all along, sister... but without me to help them, they couldn’t find you. That's why I left our home. You've no idea how hard that was for me... you've always been a spoiled brat. I should've let them have you long ago."

"I'm not your property, Evalena. You can't just give me to someone, not like that."

"You've no idea what's happening, do you, sister?"

"We're both searching for the piedra... is that what you mean?"

"Posh... that's neither here nor there... do you still have those precious marks on your body, sister?"

"You know I do."

"That's what they're after... that's what they've always been after. After you were inoculated, the harvest was to take place. I bought you as much time as I could. But now the time's come. They're here now. They'll want you while life is yet within your bones... otherwise their success isn't assured."

"You sold me to save yourself... is that what you're telling me, Evalena?"

The girl came closer to where she was sitting with a raised hand. For a moment she thought Evalena would strike her but she only caressed her cheek.

"I saved you the only way I could, sister... I allowed you to be inoculated against your will... I admit that, and it was wrong of me. How can I begin to explain my reasons to you... the man you knew as your father wasn't what he appeared to be, let's start there."

"I know that, Evalena... a real father would've never done what he did to me... and you aren't my sister despite what you say."

"Oh, but I am... that part's true. Though we're born thousands of years apart we share the same parents, you and I."

"You're not making any sense. I'm the one who's going senile but I know when I'm hearing malarkey, Evalena."

"The secret of the piedra isn't what exists within this world, sister. Master its mysteries and you'll learn from whence you and I both originated."

"What are you saying, Evalena? That the piedra gave birth to us?"

"Not exactly though strictly speaking you may be correct... perhaps it's more a matter of semantics. When we speak of the piedra we're seeking to capture that which is beyond language... beyond even our experience as such. Anything we say about the stone is wrong and yet right at the same time."

"You're just trying to make me feel guilty for trying to kill you, Evalena."

"You did what you did because I never taught you about the stone, sister. I know that. I should've done so years ago... I didn’t know how to start. Now I see a breach... a way to open you up to the possibilities the piedra offers."

Someone knocked at the door.

A vision of being skinned alive boiled into Yani's awareness, as if she was watching the orgy while hovering above it all, reveling in it like all the others. For a moment she thought of jumping up and running but she knew her body was well past the doing.

"It's them, isn't it, Evalena."

"If it were, they wouldn't be knocking, sister. No... it must be someone unexpected. Please go to the bedroom. Lie down and rest while I attend to it."