Water and Stone (37 page)

She fell for the longest time.

What would it be like when she hit bottom? Would she feel any pain when her bones broke and her brains splattered on whatever surface she hit? Hopefully it would happen so fast she would simply blink out of existence... and how could something as small as the stone end up being so large?

She should've listened to Church. He warned her not to touch the piedra... that it was dangerous and something best left alone. Yet as always her curiosity got the better of her. Still, she couldn’t remember actually touching it. She'd tried to poke at it with her index finger but found it impossible to make contact.

Each time she put her hand close to the stone, it seemed to recede, as if teasing her. Then again perhaps her mind was playing tricks on her. Ever since Church showed her that thing in the box she'd been having one hallucination after another.

"Promise you'll stay with me forever, Tree... I don’t think I can go back to living without you ever again."

Had Church really said the words or were they simply something she longed to hear? She liked to think the boy was as much in love with her as she was with him but if he was why wouldn’t he say it? I love you, Tree. Was that so difficult?

"I love you, Church Gutiérrez. I always will."

When she whispered the words into his ear Church seemed startled somehow... as if he might've thought they were moving too quickly. She hadn’t made a conscious choice to say it... the declaration of love had emerged on its own and she was as surprised as the boy.

She told herself how it didn’t matter... that actions spoke louder than any words. But dammit, the words did matter. She longed to hear them whispered in her ear, to be carried away upon the winds of love as she'd always imagined. She'd waited too long for her dreams to be shattered.

Was that when the stone allowed her to actually touch it? Or had it actually reached out to her? Did it sense her thoughts and her emotions? What was it that Allison Johns had told her about the stone? Something about it being the perfect possession... that whoever owned the stone would be granted all their desires, so they had to be careful what they wanted... they had to maintain perfect clarity of thought in order not to be overwhelmed by the power of the stone.

At the time, the whole thing about searching for a hidden treasure by using an old map they found inside a book they bought on the internet seemed rather silly. It was a bad plan from the beginning. Allison had doubtlessly become disorientated in the desert and without food and water she began having delusions. She had been fortunate to have survived... Beth, not so much.

She thought she'd seen her sister Beth's face reflected on the stone's surface. At first Tree told herself it was an illusion... a trick of the light. Perhaps she was overly tired... she hadn’t slept in two nights what with the excitement of finally leaving Guthrie and the thrill of making love for the first time. She set the box down while she rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands.

When she picked up the box and looked at the stone again, Beth was still there. She seemed to be mouthing words... was it a warning? Or was her sister inviting her into a magic realm—a trip down the rabbit hole—somewhere beyond all comprehension?

As a child Tree remembered how Beth used to read to her. It was an escape from the endlessly incessant bickering of their parents. Even though she could still hear the shouts and the slinging of insults, the sagas had a way of drawing her into them until the real world ceased to exist but for a rumor.

Their favorite books were fantasies like the Harry Potter books that the older girl would read to her over and over again. Tree liked how thick the books were... it meant the stories would go on for many months and each night she might find herself ensconced in dreams mirroring the tales.

Was it possible that neither Beth nor the stone were really there? Maybe it was like a hologram that she'd seen in a museum in Dallas once while on a field trip at school. The image looked real. She could walk all around it, examine it from every angle, and even measure its size. But when she tried to grasp it, her fingers went right through the stone... or had they?

Maybe it hadn’t been Beth calling out at all. Perhaps she'd jumped into the hole the same way she did everything in life... without thinking through the consequences of her actions... only doing what seemed right at the moment.

Visions of her mother surfaced. Was she in here too? Was this hell? Lorraine Ford was dead... she'd read the obituary in the newspaper and talked to people in town about it. Why was she inside the stone?

None of it made sense... oh, if only she'd listened to Church. Though she felt as if she was falling she had no real notion of speed nor did the wind rush up at her like she expected it would were she in freefall. Rather, she seemed to be floating like a red-tail hawk might who spread her wings and hovered nearly motionless in the blue and high summer Texas sky.

It bothered her that she was naked. She'd been instilled with a dislike for her body from an early age and rarely had she ever gathered the courage to even look at herself in the mirror while she was unclothed.

It also seemed odd that the temperature of the air through which she was falling seemed perfect... that she was neither too warm nor the least bit chilly. It occurred to her that but for the fact she could breathe quite nicely she might have jumped into an enormous vat of body-temperature water and instead of falling she was only floating.

The darkness around her seemed to be gradually giving way to a mist... an infinite fog... yet she could sense a vastness far greater than anything she'd ever known. It occurred to her that the world had turned inside out and instead of standing upon the ground looking up into the enormity of space her perspective was reversed. She was outside the confines of the world looking upon an inverted globe that spread out before her in gigantic proportions.

"You may begin breathing again now, Teresa... you're perfectly safe."

Though she couldn’t see her she recognized the voice of Lorraine Ford. Tree hadn’t realized that she was holding her breath until Lorraine brought it to her attention... it was an old childhood habit. Whenever she became stressed out over something she quit breathing.

"Where are we, Lorraine?"

"You're right where you're supposed to be, Teresa. We only have a few minutes... it will be coming for you soon. Just do as it directs... there is no sense fighting."

"What is coming for me? What are you talking about?"

"The scene you see before you is all in your mind, Teresa. I've been delegated to guide you to your destination."

"I don't understand... what destination? I thought we were inside the stone... isn’t that what you told me?"

"Yes, and that is where we are... in a sense... but the stone only acts as a gateway into a greater world... by stepping into that hole in the floor you've entered a realm that we on earth know as hell."

"But that's just a myth... a story told to those who don’t know any better... isn’t it?"

"If you peel away the layers you'll find that all myths have a nub of truth hidden deep inside of them. The stone is the origin of the myth of heaven and hell, and so much more. It's responsible for the creation of the human form and so in a way the stone can be looked upon as a god, though an impartial one to be sure."

"I'm afraid, Lorraine... I don’t want to be in hell."

"No one does, Teresa."

"But why me... is it because I touched the stone?"

"No, of course not... that hasn't any bearing upon anything in this realm. You know why you're here, Teresa. You brought yourself here."

"It's because of my mother... what I did to her... is that the reason, Lorraine? I'm sorry... I know it was wrong but she was going to kill me. I could feel it."

"You still don’t understand, Teresa. The guilt you carry over your mother's death is what brought you here, not the deed itself."

As the fog began to lift she could detect a red glow on the horizon. Thinking the morning might be at hand she looked up into the sky. The hole was still there, black and bloated like an enormous sun gone dim.

Her bare feet touched some sort of surface, spongy and wet. The odor of raw sewage engulfed her senses... she could taste it as well as smell it. She was standing in a cesspool and what was more excruciating, she was sinking into the filth with each passing second.

"Help me, Lorraine! Pull me out?"

The woman had vanished. Perhaps she'd never been there at all... maybe she was merely a fragment of her overactive imagination... someone she wished was there. Above her the hole loomed so large it had become the sky.

The sewage was up to her knees. Though she tried lifting her legs in an attempt to walk out of it the sludge pulled at her feet with a grip impossible to break. In fact the more she struggled the deeper she sank.

She was up to her waist in a foulness so profound it nearly caused her to retch. In the middle of her misery she could feel things brushing against her living flesh... tiny creatures taking nibbles out of her skin from the way it felt. Even if she managed to somehow find a way out of the pit the pestilence invading her bloodstream would kill her in a matter of hours.

What had Lorraine said? Something about the guilt that she carried over her mother's death... not the deed itself. What on earth could that mean? She had no remorse. If she hadn’t strangled her mother, the woman would've killed her. She knew it viscerally... otherwise she never would have acted.

If that was true, however, why did she cut up the body and hide it? Was that the key to her predicament? By now the mire had made its way to her neck and though she tried to tread in the sewage like she was in water, it did no good. Something was pulling her inexorably down. Her breathing now came in short brutal gasps in a futile attempt to minimize the stench invading her lungs.

She remembered reading a newspaper article about a fat man who while walking in his back yard had inadvertently fallen through the covering of the septic tank. When his family missed him and began searching, they discovered the hole in the ground and fearing the worst called the authorities who using a long pole were able to retrieve the man's body from the pit.

The article had entrenched itself in her mind. Tree couldn’t imagine a more horrendous death. She wondered what it must've been like for that man... had he tried to stay afloat? Had he called out for help? Had he finally succumbed to the sewage by breathing it into his lungs? Or had he died of fear before that happened?

Now, she was facing the same prospect. The sewage was up to her chin... she found herself having to tilt her head all the way back in order to keep breathing as she furiously paddled in the filth trying with all her physical might and with all her mental willpower to raise herself up.

"I had to kill my mother. I know that. If I have to die for it, then I'll die... but I'll go with a clear conscience. I had to do it. She left me no choice."

She felt something solid under her right foot, like an old rotting log, perhaps, or maybe... it was a stairway... moving forward with every fiber of her being she found a second step, this one a little higher, and then a third.

Slowly she walked up the stairway out of the pit as the filth fell away from her naked skin and she finally was able to take a full breath of clean air.

"I brought it, mother... will the piedra help to heal you?"

It had taken her what seemed like ages to awaken, almost as if she'd begun to drift off into the land of death that waited so patiently for her. At first she thought it was Hajdani come for her but then the shadowy features morphed into Church.

There was both surprise and guilt in his voice. The last time she saw Church she was still a young woman and she wondered how the boy even recognized her now. She was glad it was so dark in the room that he couldn’t see her, only hear her voice.

She didn’t have time to wonder what he was doing in Cuba nor did she understand the words that he whispered. The dream was still vivid in her mind... she had done the impossible and switched places with Evalena... instead of looking into a mirror and seeing an old hag staring back, she saw a beautiful young girl.

But it'd only been just that... a dream. But if Church had the stone with him, perhaps its magic might indeed set things to right. Still, to saddle Evalena with the age that belonged to another didn’t seem right. Despite their many differences and even while she was staring down the barrel of the gun at her, Yani felt the splendid love of family for the girl.

She'd missed shooting her on purpose. Even if Evalena had raised her arms to the sky offering herself up for the sacrifice the bullets would have missed. Damn love all to hell... to what right did the woman she once called sister have to her heart?

She couldn’t see her son so much as she felt his presence. Either it was still dark outside or else her eyesight was failing... she gathered it was just another sign of her impending death but still she longed to gaze upon the stone once more.

"May I see it, Church?"

"Of course, mother... it's right here."

The shadow sitting beside her moved. Pulling it from the sack he carried and opening the box before turning it upside down the boy allowed the stone its freedom to hover a foot above the floor. Just the sight of the piedra set her body to ease... the plague of pain eased, her muscles seemed strengthened, and her mind became clear, a shining blue crystal. It was singing to her... the old melody that she'd grown used to falling asleep with.

"It looks so much like the moon, doesn’t it, Church."

"It does indeed, mother."

The piedra hung motionless in the still island air shining like a gem cut by the gods, its myriad colors changing even as she gazed upon its surface. Something flashed across the floor and before she could utter a word Adame had the stone... or perhaps it had him. In an instant he was off again trailing sparkles of light behind him.

"Oh no... what do we do now, mother. That cat has the stone."

"Let him be, Church... it'll do him no harm."

The boy had a look on his face like she had never before seen, as if he felt responsible for some deed unbecoming of him, as if he had mistaken her for someone else and now he realized his error. The light in the room had become brighter... she could actually see again though one eye seemed cloudier than the other. The tropical sunshine was shining through begrimed windows filled with cobwebs and enormous black spiders.

"Oh... I'm sorry, Tia Evalena... here I thought you were my mother. It was so dark before I must've made a mistake and entered the wrong room."

"Church! I'm your mother. What are you talking about?"

"Either my eyes are going bad or you're Evalena... take a look in the mirror. You even sound like her."

Church was right... her voice was strange and not at all her own. She sounded like Evalena. She remembered the odd little dream... could it have really happened? Was it possible to dream herself into another body?

Gliding to the bathroom she had no pain in her joints. At first she paid it no attention but then it occurred to her that she hadn’t walked across a room without hurting for months.

She was almost afraid to look into the mirror... what if Church was simply teasing her? She knew the boy better than that, though. Church didn’t play tricks on anyone. She often wished he wasn’t so serious but that was her son... he was who he was.

Evalena stared out of the mirror right into her one good eye. They had always been like twins though her sister's features were somehow sharper or more delineated. Yani always put that off to the girl's daring and impetuous nature taking charge of even her physicality.

She took a deep breath just to test her lungs. It'd been what seemed like ages since she could do so without the dreadful ache developing right between her shoulder blades cutting short any chance of coughing up the phlegm that continuously coagulated deep inside her chest causing a rattling sound each time she huffed a bit.

The ache was gone. She took another breath even more deeply than the first reveling in the ability to do something she'd heretofore always taken for granted. The world was full of miracles today.

"Where did the cat run to, Church? Do you see Adame?"

"He's in the other room... I hear him meowing."

"That's the living room. Something strange is going on... I thought I was sleeping in there. I'm going to take a look, Church... I want to see what the big guy is on about."

She'd forgotten how good it felt not to be in constant pain. Each step she took was a joyful bounce... if the house had been just a little bigger she would have broken into a trot just to feel the wind in her hair.

The pocket door to the living room was open a tiny crack, just enough for the cat to slip through. She heard heavy breathing... a deep labored rattling which reminded her of how she was gasping for breath just a few minutes ago.

"Is that you, sister? I don’t know what's happened to me... I can't seem to get out of my bed. My bones all ache... I feel as old as dirt."

"Yes, it's me, sister. Just lie still... there's no need to get up."

The window in the room was covered with black sheets and she didn’t want to light the lantern... it would illuminate a face that belonged to another. She could see the outline of Adame where he was lying upon the sofa next to the old woman watching the shining stone as it revolved just above his head as if gauging his chance of making another leap to catch it once more.

"Please bring me a glass of water, sister. My throat is so dry I can scarcely speak."

A deep sense of guilt descended upon Yani as she skipped into the kitchen... it was her fault that Evalena was an old woman. Could she undo what had been done without knowing how to do it? Of course not... why should she feel remorse over something that wasn’t her fault? She'd done nothing but wake up young again.

A figure stood outside the back door. Without looking she knew who it was and what he wanted... Hajdani had come just as she knew he would and in fact welcomed. He would help end it for her... the pain, the age, the eternal desire for youth.

Except now he'd come for Evalena. It was almost comical to think that the woman who had given Yani away like so much luggage was now in the same dire straits. Why did she continue to feel such a sense of kinship to Evalena? It didn’t make logical sense.

Walking back to the living room where Church waited with Evalena she glanced toward the door indicating a visitor... one that they both expected and yet dreaded.

"He's here, Church. What should we do?"

"Is he alone... mother?"

His tone was uncertain as if he wasn’t sure she really was who she said... like he might suspect Evalena of some new trickery.

"Yes... I think so."

"He's here for you, isn’t he... I mean, he's here for who he thinks you are... or who he thinks you were."

"I don’t know, Church... he's just here. He could have taken me at any time if that's what he wanted. He met me in Miami. He told me he knew where I have been all this time. I saw him again here in Cuba just after I landed on shore."

"I met him too... or should I say he met me. He's a liar and a scoundrel, mother. Don't believe him."

"Hajdani is like the devil, Church. He mixes sweet truths inside blatant lies to entice us into doing his service. He's here for me now... only he doesn't realize what's happened. Should we allow him to have what he desires?"

"Maybe it's always been about Evalena, mother... perhaps that's who he wants. He knew we would lead him to her. He has a score to settle with her, or so I heard."

"I don’t think that's so, Church. He knew where Evalena was too. I remember him saying how she promised me to her but he couldn’t take me without her permission. I thought Hajdani was my father all the time I was growing up here. I never understood how he could turn on me like he did. I loved him and I thought he loved me. But on my fifteenth birthday he drugged me and a group of his followers attacked me. I ran away that night and never returned to Cuba until just a day ago."

"Hajdani is my grandfather?"

"Yes... no... I don't know who or what Hajdani is. I just know he scares me, Church."

"I met him in town... when I told him my name he said we were related but I don’t understand how someone as young as he is could possibly be my grandfather. Perhaps he's our cousin, mother, but he can't be your father."

"I'm sure you're right, Church... but you didn’t grow up on this island. The customs here are old... their beliefs go all the way back to Africa, and even farther. The world here isn't the same as the one in Texas."

"Why doesn’t he knock, mother?"

"He knows we sense his presence, Church. He's giving us a moment to settle our thoughts. When he's ready, he'll simply walk in. There's no need for knocking on the doors of this island. That's a custom of a civilization that doesn't exist here."

"I have a gun, mother. If he tries anything, I'll shoot him if I have to. I'm not allowing him to take you."

"No... please save your bullets. There may be another way, Church."