“It has started.”
“I know, Grace. I feel it too. How much time do we have?” Bea asked.
So, that was Mrs Paget’s first name – Grace. Those three words were unprecedented in my experience, I’d never heard her utter a single syllable. She communicated without the necessity of speech and simply appeared to cater to my whims, almost as if reading my mind. I’d given up on the mystery of how, long ago. Presently, I loitered against the wall outside the kitchen, eavesdropping on the three of them. Learning from mistakes was not my best character trait.
All of our conferences regarding my less than stellar behaviour occurred in that room. It appeared benign enough: a large rectangular space, its longest wall ran parallel to the front of the warehouse, the wall opposite an open breakfast bar lined with cupboards this side and stools on the other in the adjoining spacious sitting room, where we gathered to watch the Discovery or History channels.
A plain wooden dining table and eight matching chairs stood in the middle of the kitchen on an intricately tiled Victorian mosaic floor. The gleaming appliances were all of the commercial-grade stainless steel variety, perfect for people with the top-notch cooking skills wasted on all three of my diet-fixated guardians. There were only so many ways to prepare powdered chlorophyll.
Time to do what?
“Very little,” Grace replied. “A week, perhaps two, before we succumb to the Stone’s rising influence. The Stone must be claimed or everything we have done over millennia amounts to nought.”
“Her skills are accelerating. She is so young for such a life.” Fortescue sighed and the wall did not disguise his despair.
Bea continued flatly. “On that, we are unanimous. Winnie’s powers will be sorely tested by this catastrophe. I fear her talents will not be enough to counter the coming terrors without the usual means of accessing her inheritance. Raphaela deserves a flaying for blocking the Delta Gate.”
Raphaela? I’d heard that name before. But where? And what the hell were these skills and powers I supposedly possessed? I was good at parkour, but fairly remedial at almost everything else. My singing was especially poor, likened to a learner on bagpipes.
“Raphaela chose a fit punishment for her betrayal—”
“How can you believe that, Grace? You are far too generous,” Fortescue said. “Winsome must now pay the price for Raphaela’s selfishness. She is the only one left to shoulder this burden.”
And then realisation dawned. Seth had called Raphaela’s name when he ran from her house in my dream. My dream! Were my guardians psychic? Fortescue went on angrily, which was almost more alarming than the content of this weird discussion.
“There is a reason the Keeper stands alone. Benjamin Franklin said it best: ‘Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.’”
Bea sighed. “Grace is well familiar with the Keeper’s diary, Jerome. It is true Winsome cannot claim the Stone without accessing the Delta Gate, but we must be thankful for Finesse’s entrapment within it, at least.”
I’d often interrupted furtive whisperings over the years. Much of what I caught seemed to be in this odd code, but this time we’d managed new levels of bizarre. How could they possibly be referring to people who existed in my head? Slouching against the wall for support, I struggled to find an explanation that made any sense.
“Today’s reading may provide some small respite,” Grace said.
“We cannot rely on the Crone’s absence for long. Her imprisonment is temporary. When the occasion arises, we must be selective in what Winsome is told.” Fortescue sounded very tired. “And the time of our departure approaches too fast.”
“This constant mention of time makes me anxious,” Bea said. “After years of cursing its never-ending torture, I would suddenly beg for more. Enoch is struggling to find a way to restore the Keeper’s sacraments, and he cannot approach us without revealing his own power in the presence of an unclaimed Stone. Even with Hugo as her protector, Winnie remains in serious jeopardy from all sides. I am terribly afraid for her.”
Okay, so I didn’t understand a thing they’d said, but didn’t need to be a genius to gather it wasn’t peachy. Had they received a kidnap threat or something? And just where did they think they were going without me? I’d only just arrived.
“The Stone’s poison corrupts her mind. Soon, the visions will become tangible and threaten Winsome physically. Dare I state the obvious?” Fortescue whispered. “What if the Stone remains free and its true owner escapes?”
“Unimaginable,” Bea said firmly. “There is no cause for such sentiment, Jerome. We shall not fail Winsome. We will determine her Warrior, and then at least she will not be alone when we are gone.” Oh, no. Whatever they were talking about, surely they wouldn’t saddle me with two bodyguards? I hadn’t yet worked out a way to shake the one I already had. “As for Enoch, it is high time he accepted his culpability in this disaster. He is a hypocrite, who picks and chooses when to intervene, despite his declaration of impartiality. Grace? What could you possibly find to smile at?”
“There has only ever been one choice for the position,” Mrs Paget said.
Just then, Vovo padded up the hall, mewling loudly. “Go away,” I shushed.
My reaction increased the meow decibels and quiet invaded the kitchen. There was nothing for it, spying wasn’t really paying off anyway.
“Good morning.” I swanned in, aiming for a demeanour of virtue.
The traitor cat slunk into the room behind me, purring and shameless. Bea was not the gormless Principal Bird; my aunt could detect deceit at thirty paces. I covered any guilt over my eavesdropping by bending to hug Mrs Paget hello. She embraced me as if I was about to embark on an extended voyage, her tiny, bony body trembling. She let go reluctantly and bestowed me with a luminous smile. I peered around the table and my face fell.
“Are you all okay? You look sick!”
“Just a touch of the flu. Nothing to worry about, Winnie. Take a seat, please.”
Bea’s reassurance wasn’t the least reassuring. Overnight they’d sunk in upon themselves; skin stretched taut and papery, eyes hollowed and dull, bodies noticeably shrunken like flowers withering at summer’s end. Their flu seemed closer to leukaemia.
Even though the trio combined were probably as elderly as Stonehenge, they’d always radiated abnormal vitality. Currently, they resembled shucked-out cadavers, the walking dead. I hadn’t paid attention to Fortescue this morning in my room, but their ill visages took all of my notice now. Opening my mouth to demand they all go back to bed while I phoned the doctor for a home visit, Bea thwarted the appeal. She raised her hand, pushing a cloud of the lavender perfume she always wore my way.
“Please, Winsome. No fuss. We have a lesson planned.”
My fears eased, somewhat. I slumped onto my chair. I’d been home for a solitary night! My education couldn’t wait? In consideration of their medical condition, I resigned myself to cooperate, belatedly inspecting the strange assortment of articles on the table.
Along with a Japanese tea set, which comprised of a teapot full of vile green tea with lemon myrtle, and dainty cups, sat an unfamiliar golden key on a fancy key chain and a large cardboard box. Bea distributed cups and poured tea for the others, before filling her own cup with unsteady hands. She traditionally performed every act with the scalpel-precision of a surgeon.
“Tea for you, Winsome?”
She knew I didn’t drink the horrid stuff unless forced. It was another lapse in a morning full of them: something as rare as Bea’s most priceless vellum codex from the fifteenth century written in cipher text. The manuscript was so unique, on purchase she’d had it frozen at minus 36º Celsius for three days to kill any chance of bookworm.
“No, thank you,” I replied with strained patience.
The key wasn’t necessary. Bea’s security measures to protect her invaluable objects meant none of us required them to access the building, relying instead on facial recognition software.
“Well,” she said, possibly looking even tenser than I felt. “We’ve decided to review your security plan.”
When your guardian was wealthier than an oil sheik and dealt in rare and highly-sought-after goods, grand-nieces represented a bargaining chip for the criminal element. I was protected with an obsessiveness greater than that of even the most neurotic helicopter parent.
“You will now be allowed to come and go as you please. With Hugo, of course. After fulfilling any task required by me.” My budding hope evaporated like a puff of steam from Bea’s tea. “And you may have friends visit. After they have been thoroughly screened.”
The shock clearly showed. I could not care less about the friends. They were a burden I’d gone cold turkey on after one too many moves. But I’d never had the privilege of inviting people over before. I was tempted to scrape someone up from the street just to test the truth of it.
“Er, what’s the task?”
I sensed an enormous catch in this less-than-inspiring deal. Aunt Bea really wasn’t the type to miss an opportunity for learning, which always meant homework or an exacting chore of some sort. She nudged the cardboard box in my direction with the very tip of one finger, seemingly unwilling to handle it.
“Go ahead,” she encouraged. “Take a look.”
I stood reluctantly to part the flaps and see inside. Praying for a puppy, I was instead presented with the troubling whiff of something burning. A fat book in tan leather nestled on the bottom, about the size of a trade paperback and held firmly shut by a buckled belt. The jacket showed wear in places from many years of use, but it was still a fine-looking volume. Next to it rested a long, golden box, filigreed with inset rubies. It had a small padlocked latch. I glanced at the tiny gold key on the ring.
“The diary first, please.”
Bea held her breath as I reached in to pick the book up. Fortescue and Mrs Paget gripped the table and leaned forward. I sank back into my chair and Mrs Paget whipped the cardboard box away to give them an unobstructed view. I undid the belt, beneath which sat a raised golden triangle that took up about a third of the length of the cover. The metal was flat and etched with complicated symbols.
The rest of the leather was covered by imprinted pictures that were small, very detailed and hard to make out. They gave the impression of movement. I ran my fingers over them, stopping to feel along what might’ve been a sword. Closer inspection revealed my error. The long shaft connected to the groin of an evil-looking creature with pointed fangs and slanted inhuman eyes, thrusting out at the world with a glare of pure hatred.
“Oh!” I pulled my fingers away and dropped the horrible text to the table. Similar sickening imagery blanketed the dust jacket – except for the space within the triangle, which remained pure. “What is this? A nasty grimoire?”
I couldn’t believe Bea would give me such a study in demonology, in spite of some of the more ghastly pieces in her collection. The book was definitely occult and I shuddered to think of the inner subject matter. Any curiosity about the golden box faded. It might be more of the same.
“It is your new project, Winsome. For today, only the opening pages, please.” Bea’s face was dour.
“Must I?” I didn’t mean to sound defiant, but there was a bad feel about the book. I wasn’t keen to touch it again.
“It is non-negotiable.” She used a teaspoon to push the diary closer.
Several thoughts competed in my head: confusion, what was so important about this book? And an inkling of dread, quashed by the knowledge they would never deliberately do anything to hurt me. Why was reading it so necessary? Mrs Paget twitched from across the table’s divide, looking unhappy. Fortescue was as unfathomable as ever.
No gain in dithering, I took a breath, pulled the diary to me by its edges and flipped the page, trying to ignore the front illustrations. What followed was a bewildering anticlimax, as I silently read from an unadorned page: That contained herein is for the Keeper of the Crone’s Stone and the Sacred Trinity alone. Singly, they stand afore the onslaught and must prevent the unleashed. The Stone can never be returned to its original owner.
It wasn’t a story I knew. And I read. A lot.
Uncharacteristically flustered, Bea instructed, “Read it aloud, please.”
A slight breeze ruffled my hair, as I cleared my throat and began the speech. Goosebumps travelled my skin. My voice didn’t seem my own, a choir of several women whispering while I completed the words. The kitchen’s eerie acoustics hadn’t been apparent before. My psychiatric symptoms seemed to multiply faster than fungus.
“The next page, Winsome. Out loud, if you please.” Well, I did not please! “Focus, Winsome.” Bea admonished in response to my stubborn silence.
I turned to the designated page. It was in the same fancy writing as the last excerpt. I mumbled without enthusiasm, “Amongst the Faiths it is seldom recorded the mightiest of the Fallen took for himself a wife of ageless beauty and guile. And so the Witch-Demon of Perpetual Dark became Lucifer’s only love.”
“Are you joking?” I asked.
“A tad more pep please,” Bea glowered.
I sighed and did as ordered. “Above even him, she was wicked and never inscribed was her true name. She remained unbound by the shackles of his enduring punishment and roamed wherever she pleased across history, bestowing freely of her ceaseless cruelty and sating her tastes too perverse. She called the earthbound realm her home, her favoured recreation mischief most evil against all humanity, her command fiends of the night and their pestilence.
Mesmerised by charms Lucifer alone found enduringly desirable, her husband fashioned for her a wedding ring of special magnificence in which was set a Stone forged by the fire of infatuation with as much care and affection as one so devoid possessed. Above all else, she cherished this Stone, a token from her twisted and insatiable love, whose wicked intent for humanity outshone even her own, enhancing her power and channelling his hatred. As the sands of time slipped by, her foulness smeared the land, wrought upon generations by their own weak and self-centred desires, exploited to suit her aims. So too, in a moment of inattention, the Stone slipped from her most guarded possession and was lost.
And to this day, she seeks its return, calamity held at bay by her wanderings.
Evil goes not unchecked on the plane of flesh and blood. Ever the Watcher stood awaiting the chance to tip the balance and elevate divine justice in the cosmic order. The Heavens opened and fate intervened – The Watcher retrieved the lost Stone. Like a haven in the tempest, peace from the Crone’s plague was humanity’s reprieve.
And to this day, she seeks the Stone’s return, calamity held at bay by her wanderings.
Thus, the Sacred Trinity was born. Anointed with gifts Ethereal, the three hold civilisation in their ordained embrace: The Watcher, The Warrior, and elevated above all, The Keeper. Blessed by maternal grace everlasting, the fate of the collected peoples is her province, the love of the world in her heart, the heavy burden of a life’s long sacrifice concealing the Stone her existence. Should the Keeper of the Crone’s Stone falter, allowing its return to ruin’s mistress, the chasm of despair will vomit excrement to scourge all who dwell in blissful ignorance, her vengeance the Apocalypse, and forever happiness no more.
And to this day she seeks the Stone’s return, calamity held at bay by her wanderings.”
Grateful to be rid of it, I placed the diary on the table and rubbed my hands together. “Happy days.”
My cheekiness earned me a row of sober frowns. Bea, Fortescue and Mrs Paget had listened avidly, collectively exhaling in relief at the finish. They seemed to view this fairytale with uncommon seriousness.
I was keen to finish this bizarre lesson and impatient to get to the beach. “So, to summarise: Once upon a time, there was a vile Crone who married …” She married Lucifer, really? “Hubby gave her a wedding ring with a specially forged Stone that she cherished above all else. This Crone was truly evil and caused pain and suffering wherever she went on earth.” A question popped to mind. “Was she so vicious because her husband was not able to break free of his prison and be with her? And how did they get together in the first place if he’s trapped … in hell?”
“She despises our species, who flaunt their capacity to love so freely,” Bea said. “She is apart from her husband for eternity, but for a brief window when he summoned her. This separation is their punishment for crimes against heaven, to love each other but not have the freedom to ever be together. He covets her across eternity and she knows he is always watching. Continue please, Winnie, what else?”
“Oh, he must be super pissed she’s lost the Stone he gave her as a wedding gift.”
Fortescue interrupted. “Super pissed? With a vocabulary dependent on such phrases, your proper education has not arrived too soon, Winsome.”
“It’s great to see you too,” I muttered, hurrying on before the lecture had a chance to expand. “This Watcher fellow found the missing Stone and gave it to a Keeper to guard, helped by a Warrior. The Crone has been preoccupied searching down the years and hasn’t really had a chance to cause the usual mayhem. I guess her power is lessened without it?”
“Correct, Winsome. However, not only a Warrior and a Watcher assist the Keeper, who fulfils the task of hiding the Stone in seclusion,” Bea said. “You will recall the Sacred Trinity from the first reading. The Trinity train the novice Keeper and her Warrior, until she claims the Stone in a ritual that occurs on the death of her predecessor.”
“Cool, because it sounds like this poor sucker, the Keeper, needs all the help she can get. This is an interesting story. Where did it originate?”
Fortescue shot Bea a meaningful glance. “It is as old as humankind,” she said vaguely. “The Keeper’s tradition has continued unbroken for over a thousand years.”
“What happens if the Keeper stuffs up and this charmer, the Crone, gets her Stone back?”
“The Crone will first annihilate any who stood in her way. If she obtains the name of a Keeper, both she and her ancestors will be wiped from existence. Nothing would ever challenge the Crone and we can only guess at her wrath and vengeance. Perhaps this time around Hitler would triumph or the Cuban missile crisis end in a nuclear winter.”
“You mean with the Stone, she can travel through time? Change our history?”
“Yes,” Bea continued. “And much more besides. Through the Stone, she channels the full malevolence of her captive husband.”
“Well, the Keeper can hardly be blamed for the Crone’s poor choice of husband! Where does the legend say the Stone is presently?”
“It does not, Winnie. Nor will it. Only the Keeper ever knows where the Stone is hidden. It is the Keeper’s duty to conceal the Stone for as long as she is alive, before the task is taken up by the next in line. The transfer occurs in a Claiming Ritual just before the preceding Keeper’s death, which is the only time the anointed are ever in direct communication.”
I squirmed in my hard-backed chair. “What happens if a Keeper doesn’t want to accept the job? It doesn’t seem like anyone ever asked them.”
“An unclaimed Stone remains the greatest peril. Not only does the Stone call to its mistress, the hateful spirit it contains will smother those who thwarted the Crone over millennia by amplifying their own fears. First in the mind and then, these very lifelike visions war with reality, until they eventually manifest to cause actual harm. If not madness first. An unclaimed Stone is a toxic blight that drains life and destroys with spreading malignancy.”
“Lovely. I suppose then, it’s lucky the Keepers have fulfilled their duties without fail.” Bea looked more uncomfortable than she had throughout this entire lesson. Mrs Paget’s eyes widened and Fortescue cleared his throat. “This witch-demon seems a bit casual with an item so precious to her. How did she lose it?”
“The legend does not say.”
Did I detect a lie? Where on earth had they dredged this myth up from? “Why exactly am I reading this?”
“Trust me, Winnie. Its pertinence will become clear soon enough. Now, that’s enough for today. I am sure you would like some time to yourself. To adjust to being home. I ask only that you do not leave the warehouse without Hugo. He is presently downstairs in the gymnasium.”
I gazed at Bea, and no matter how much I wanted to escape the cloying attention, her doubtful wellbeing had me stressed. It was as if they wilted before me. I was reluctant to leave them in case of an emergency, a heart attack or stroke. I had never considered losing one of them before. It was ironic. I’d cursed their intrusiveness into my life countless times in the past, but I’d totally taken for granted what having them around meant to me.
“You know, we don’t have to go to the judge’s party tonight. You really don’t seem up to it. I could make dinner and wait on you all, tuck you up in rugs with hot carob and a menthol rub.”
“Nice try, Winsome,” Bea said briskly. She rose from the table and headed for the door, the others following. “If I am able to attend, given my sinusitis, so are you.”
Sinusitis? I thought she said she had the flu. “Well, what about the risk of contagion? Going out is not a responsible attitude to the health of the community.”
Mrs Paget sniggered, but cut it short when Bea threw her a scathing look. “Do not encourage her, Grace. I am well medicated and pose no threat to the health of the community.” Her tone was wry. “Thank you for your concern, Winnie. Very benevolent.”
That purple mohawk seemed my final defence.
