by Amy Cross
***
The trek over to the north side of the island took much longer than she'd expected, but Kate finally reached the ring of stones that stood on the highest cliff. It was almost the middle of the day by the time she arrived, and the unrelenting heat of a midday sun was blindingly intense. Even with sunglasses, Kate was shocked by how bright everything was, and as she reached the stones and put her hand on the nearest, she found that it was warm.
For the next few hours, she was in her element. Gone was the awkwardness and self-doubt that usually dogged her. Out here, with no other people around to cause distractions, she lost herself in her work. She'd read extensively about these stones back in university, and she'd refreshed her memory with a few academic articles before setting off on this journey. She had come for a holiday, but for Kate a holiday meant less time on the beach and more time simply pursuing her own interests. The stones, which had never been fully explained despite a number of in-depth studies, represented a mystery from the dawn of European culture, and such things were Kate's bread and butter.
Each of the thirteen stones was around ten feet tall and at least two feet wide. They appeared to be made of an unusual type of granite that certainly didn't come from the island itself, and there had been much debate in the academic world about how they had been transported here, and from where. There was also debate about who would bother, since there were no other signs of human habitation on the island during the period around four thousand years ago when they were erected. Arranged leaning slightly inwards in a rough circle, the stones clearly had some purpose, but some of the finest minds in the academic world had failed to come up with a convincing explanation. There had to have been a reason for the stones to be placed here, however, and Kate could feel the mystery tugging at her thoughts.
She muttered to herself as she examined each stone individually and made notes. It was a long, laborious process, but it consumed her attention entirely. She was in her element, and she was happy.
Lost in her work, she finally checked her watch and was startled to find that it was almost five in the evening, which meant that she had been examining the stones for almost six hours. Even for a work-obsessed woman such as Kate, this was something of an achievement, and as she took a step back she tried to work out exactly how the hours had managed to slip past so easily. Still, she'd been able to examine each of the rocks in great detail, and her notebook was filled with sketches and ideas. There were symbols carved into some of the stones, and of course no-one had ever been able to decipher them or to understand what they meant. Up close, Kate felt that some of the previous studies had represented the symbols inaccurately, and she was already excited about the prospect of doing some work here on the side.
Hearing a distant rumble, she turned and looked out across the sea. In the distance, dark clouds were headed toward the island, threatening a storm.
The walk back across the island didn't seem to take as long, since her mind was filled with ideas and theories regarding the stones. Kate was never happier than when she had some juicy bone to chew on, and she had already decided that instead of forcing herself to go to the beach the next day, she'd head back to the stones. She knew it wasn't particularly normal to spend her holiday working like this, but at the same time it made her happy, and she figured that was the point of getting away in the first place. She could always lie to Annie about what she did, or maybe even nip down to the beach for five minutes in order to bolster the lie and turn it into a sliver of truth. Either way, she was already making plans to sit in her room during the evening and go over her notebooks, and the prospect filled her with excitement.
As she walked, the storm continued to roll in behind her, and the first fringes of rain had just arrived as she reached the port town on the south of the island.
Still lost in thought, she barely even noticed that the store was empty as she made her way past the unmanned counter and headed up the stairs. When she reached her room, she laid out her notebook and went through to take a shower, before returning to the room and settling on the bed. For the next few hours, as rain fell gently but persistently outside, Kate was thoroughly absorbed with her work, and she soon began making detailed notes for her return to the stones on the following day. She didn't pay any attention to the sound of footsteps running past her door, nor to the raised voices that could be heard from the store below. Even when there was eventually a knock on the door, she paused for a moment before looking up, and she waited until a second knock before accepting that she was to be disturbed.
“Hang on,” she called out, quickly slipping back into some clothes before opening the door to find a rattled-looking Ephram outside. “What's -”
“It's my grandmother,” he replied, interrupting her with panic in his eyes. “I've been looking for her for hours, but I can't find her. It's as if she's disappeared from the island completely!”
V
“Someone saw her heading out of town!” Ephram said as he led Kate along the street, with rain continuing to fall as the low evening light began to settle. “I just spoke to Maximo Marco and he said he saw her walking along the street that leads past the orange groves. Why she would go there, I don't know, but please, we must go and look for her!”
“Of course,” Kate replied, still feeling startled by the fact that she was being corralled into Ephram's two-man search party. “It's not a problem.”
“She's not a strong woman,” Ephram continued. “I'm sorry to drag you into this, but she and I, we live alone and I didn't know who else to ask. She can get about, sure, and it's not unusual for her to maybe go to the cafe, but she's been missing all day!”
“We'll find her,” Kate replied, hoping to reassure him. “Don't worry, she can't have got far. I mean, how fast can a hundred-year-old get about, anyway?”
As they got to the end of the dirt road that ran to the north-east out of the town, they stopped for a moment. Ahead was the hill, beginning its slow, three-mile rise toward the Le Compte mansion at its summit, and as Kate looked up at the distant building she was suddenly filled with a sense of concern. If the old woman had indeed come this way, there was only one obvious place she could be trying to reach. Again, she wondered if she should tell Ephram that the old woman had been at the window the previous night, but she was worried about sending them off on a wild goose chase. After all, it seemed highly unlikely that a centenarian would try to climb such a steep hill.
“Ephram,” she said after a moment, “is there any chance that your mother might be going up to the mansion?”
Ephram turned to her, and then he looked up toward the top of the hill.
“Saints preserve us,” he said, with a sense of shock in his voice. “Why would she... She's not that crazy, surely, but...” Finally, he turned back to Kate. “Why do you suggest such a thing?” he asked, with a hint of suspicion in his voice. “Is there something I should know?”