The Thirteen Stones

by Finegan, KT

  Angel pushed the door open fully and walked in first, as if she wanted to block my view for some reason. I followed her in, and gasped out loud. The door opened straight into the kitchen – Gran’s usually immaculate, well ordered, clean and tidy kitchen.

  But this kitchen was in complete disarray, as if a mini whirlwind had unleashed itself in this small space. I could see through into the lounge, and everything there was tidy and neat.

  In the kitchen the copper pots were on the floor, and broken plates, cups and glasses littered the flagstones. The walls were empty, pictures and photos now smashed on the ground. Cupboard doors hung off hinges, drawers pulled out and contents spilled.

  ‘Oh no!’ I finally found my voice. ‘Who would do this? Who would do this?’

  Tears sprang to my eyes. How could a burglar have done this to my gran, her memory? As I bent down to pick up a photo of me, Mum and Gran, which usually sat on the windowsill, Angel seemed to spring to action. She grabbed a large tub of salt lying by the sink and frantically emptied some of it onto the floor in some sort of manic, crazy pattern.

  Before I could ask her what she was doing, she ran past me through the lounge, pouring salt along the window ledges and door frames, then she ran back to the kitchen and did the same on the way back outside. I knew she was mumbling something but I couldn’t catch what she said. I chased her outside and saw that she had her arms around the big rowan tree in the middle of the garden, talking to it, or singing at it. I saw her mouth move but couldn’t hear properly.

  ‘Angel, what are you doing?’ But she either didn’t hear me or ignored me.

  Her hair was wild, her face set in a mask. As I got closer, she was making sounds like chants but not a song I’d ever heard. This was almost animalistic, primeval.

  She stopped suddenly, as if she was listening to someone or something, and then ran behind the tree into the shrubbery. I didn’t have a clue what was happening, but with the burglary, I was terrified and didn’t want to let her out of my sight, even though it looked like she had lost her mind. By the time I reached her behind the tree, she was down on the ground, pushing and pulling at a huge stone. It was the March Stone – at least three feet square, and goodness knows how deep underground it went. Made of a shiny grey stone like granite, or something, it had strange markings carved or scratched all over it, swirls and spirals. Gran always said it had been put there by the Doonies, Scottish fairies, which always made me laugh.

  Now, though, this was too bizarre. The stone had been moved. This huge rock that was part of this town’s heritage and solidly set deep into the ground, had shifted.

  Angel was trying to push it back into place. We could see a gaping hole, a dark chasm in the earth. She was straining to move it back, and a feeling of panic over took me. Whether it was adrenalin or something else, I sent up a silent prayer to whoever could help, and joined Angel on the frozen ground, seizing the stone and pushing with all my might.

  There was no way that two average-sized women should have been able to move that stone, but move it we did; like magic it slid back into position. It was almost like invisible helpers had appeared and joined with us to settle it into the position it had held for thousands of years.

  Angel’s face was white with shock and panic, probably mirroring mine. I heard her giving thanks to someone or something for helping us, and I searched her face for answers. Words failed me, and as my heartbeat returned to normal, I had a feeling that some sort of disaster had been averted. I knew nothing. I had no idea what had happened, but I was scared. I could feel fear in the hairs at the back of my neck. Across the back of my shoulders, tendons and muscles had started to ache. As my body began to cool down rapidly in the chilled air, I could see my breath misting around me. Linking arms for comfort and strength, we walked back towards the house and though the door into the kitchen.

  Unbelievably, the kitchen was now back to its usual tidy self; pristine, clean, organised, the way Granny always kept it. Not a thing out of place. The family photos sat on the window ledge, the pots, pans, crockery and glasses on their shelves. The cupboard doors and drawers were all back in place. The only thing on the floor was the pattern in salt which Angel had poured. It looked like some sort of star, a five-sided star, surrounded by a circle.

  Protection was the word that suddenly flashed into my mind. Looking around the room, mouth open, I wanted to cry. This was too much to take in. I felt like my grip on reality had faded away. Like it was a living nightmare, but I knew I wasn’t going to wake up in my bed.

  ‘Angel, please just tell me, what’s happening?’

  11

  Within minutes we were sitting round Granny’s table, the kettle was on, and Grizelle was on her way after a muffled call from Angel. I sat there, not really comprehending what had happened. I knew I’d experienced it, but some part of me was still processing it, and my emotions hadn’t yet caught up. It was as if I had disassociated from my body in some way. The weird thing was that I felt I had done it before.

  Time seemed to speed up, and Grizelle arrived really quickly, as if on a broomstick. Then I thought that might be too close to the truth. I mean, what was really going on?

  Grizelle was her usual calm, polite self. She gave me a hug and joined us at the table. Angel poured some tea, and Grizelle started to speak. She told me that she, Gran, and some others had ‘worked’ together for a long time to keep things safe. She asked me not to interrupt and that she’d try to tell me things in some sort of order. She wanted to start with my mother, for some strange reason.

  I had a moment of clarity, like a memory from far away bounced into my head. I blurted out, ‘That’s where I’ve heard your voice before. You were here in this house the night my mum died. I heard you. I heard Mum shouting for me. She was asking me to help her.’

  My voice broke, and with some shock I realised that I wanted to cry for the little girl I had been, and the guilt I felt because I hadn’t been able to help my mum when she needed me.

  ‘I heard voices, so I sneaked out of bed and spied from the top of the stairs. Mum was shouting and crying, and you were asking her to calm down and be sensible. Gran was talking, and Mum started to scream for me then she ran out of the cottage. Someone ran after her. I could hear them shouting.’

  Tears were running down my face as that far away nightmare came into my mind in total clarity for the first time in years. ‘Mum was crying. She was really upset.’

  In my mind I could hear her screams of fear, real terror. She looked like the woman at the grave – long hair, green eyes, looking like Granny. It had been raining hard that night. The noise of the rain on the roof in the attic must have woken me up, or perhaps it was the voices I’d heard. They’d got louder as I came out of my bedroom. I’d sat at the top of the stairs in the dark, on the wooden steps, hugging the banister and trying to see down towards the kitchen. I could hear adults talking. I couldn’t see anything, but I knew they were angry. I heard my gran, my mum and a deeper voice. No, they hadn’t all been angry. It was Mum, she was shouting at the others. She was saying she couldn’t do it, ‘Please don’t make me. I can’t. We’re going away. I won’t do it.’ I remember being so frightened.

  I snapped back to reality. ‘Grizelle, please tell me what happened.’

  Grizelle looked at me with tears in her eyes, clearly moved by my distress. ‘Kirsty, darling Kirsty. I wasn’t here that night. It wasn’t me you heard, but I can tell you what I know of it.’

  ‘If it wasn’t you, then who was it? Who did I hear? I couldn’t see anybody, I was really scared.’

  Grizelle took a deep breath. ‘You heard your father, Kirsty. Your dad was trying to reason with your mum. Your gran had told her that she had a destiny to look out for the stones, but your mum was scared and didn’t want to do it. She ran off, but that wasn’t the night she died.’

  ‘What? That can’t be true. My dad died when I was a bab
y. He never lived here with us. That was the night Mum died, I’m sure of it. She was calling for me then she ran out. It was raining, I remember that. I thought it was my fault because I was too scared to help her.’ The words hurt me as they pushed their way out. I struggled to hold myself together, feeling a sadness overwhelm me. A sadness I hadn’t even known was there.

  ‘Kirsty, listen to me. Yes, your mum did run out of the house that night. She ran a couple of miles to Hyndford Bridge, the oldest bridge in the town. Your dad found her hours later, huddled under the bridge. She was soaked to the skin. He wasn’t sure if she had tried to drown herself, or whether it was the rain. He found her, they took her to hospital, and then she was committed to an asylum when she started to talk about spirits and such like.’

  I looked from one to the other, then swallowed. ‘I thought I saw someone who looked like her at Granny’s grave yesterday,’ I whispered. ‘Is she alive then?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Kirsty, she died about ten years ago. She never regained her sanity, I suppose you could say. She had always been a bit sensitive and she didn’t want any part of this.’ Grizelle gestured round the room.

  I knew she wasn’t talking about bricks and mortar. She was talking about something much deeper than that.

  ‘I thought my dad had died when I was a baby. No-one ever mentioned him.’

  ‘He left to go back to Ireland a few years after your mother went into hospital. I don’t think anyone has seen him since, although I know he was in touch with your gran.’

  ‘Why didn’t Gran tell me any of this? How could she have let me believe Mum and Dad were dead? Is he still alive? I didn’t know he lived in Ireland. So many years have passed. I don’t know anything about him.’ My mind was racing, struggling to take it all in.

  ‘He came from Ireland, from a place called Drogheda. His is an old Celtic family, as is yours. They are also Guardians… Cairngeal… His family live close to Newgrange, an ancient Stone Age cairn. It’s believed to be a temple to the sun. It has now been renovated but when it was a ruin, your father played with the stones as a child.’ Grizelle paused briefly. ‘I don’t know where he is now. ’

  The significance of this was lost on me until much later.

  Grizelle and Angel exchanged another glance, and Angel leaned over the table and put her hand on my arm, patting me. I felt the heat from her hand through my clothes.

  ‘Kirsty, you wouldn’t hear a word about your mum or your dad when you were young, so your gran didn’t want to upset you by mentioning them. She took you to lots of doctors to try to help, but you were the one who said they were dead. Maybe it was easier for you to think that way. Your gran did try to talk to you…’

  I looked at them in disbelief. ‘Why would I do that? It doesn’t make sense. Gran used to talk to me about Mum and show me photos. Why would I say she was dead when she wasn’t? It doesn’t make sense…’

  ‘I think your gran was trying to keep your mum’s memory alive,’ Angel said, ‘and hoped that there would be some sort of reconciliation. Unfortunately your mum’s mental state got worse and she died suddenly.’

  ‘Died suddenly? What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m sorry to be the one to break this news to you. As your gran’s oldest friend, I can tell you that she was always looking for the right time to tell you, but she said you would always change the subject, and it went on so long that she didn’t know how to tell you that your memories of that time were all mixed up. Your mum lived in a hospital for people with… mental health issues. She fell from the window. They didn’t know if it was an accident or not, but she had been unwell for a long time. She was always confused, scared about life. She had always been anxious, from when she was little.’

  Could that really be the case? Could I have misremembered the most important time of my childhood? I sat with my head in my hands, weary, confused and shocked. My brain just couldn’t take it all in. I had the separation feeling in my head again. Like everything was at a distance from me.

  ‘You said something about guarding the stones? If that’s so… how could that one have moved today, Angel? How could a stone that size move? Is this something to do with Gran dying? How could anyone have moved it?’

  ‘Kirsty, we do have to talk about what’s been happening recently, and about your gran, and the stones.’ Grizelle spoke first, in her deepest most solemn tone. Her eyes were full of support for me, and I knew she didn’t want to hurt me. ‘Your family has had a very important role in the survival of this town, and this town has had an important role in wider issues, shall we say. I don’t believe the stone was moved from above.’

  For the first time in my life I knew what people meant when they said words hung in the air. The room felt cold. I was aware of a shiver running through me. It started somewhere in my toes and finished at the top of my spine. Angel looked behind her and out of the window.

  Darkness had arrived, but the moon sent silver light and shadows through heavy clouds to play across the room. Whilst Grizelle was talking, she lit the large candle sitting in the middle of the table so that we weren’t in total darkness. The flame flickered with invisible draughts, wax slowly sliding down the candlestick, and pooling on the old wooden table top. We’d spent so much time at this table, Gran and I. Always the two of us when I was young. I sighed in the sadness of the moment, feeling the memory across the years.

  ‘I think we should go somewhere else before we get into any of this.’ Angel addressed Grizelle. ‘Given what happened earlier, I think we need more protection before we speak of this.’ The other woman nodded.

  I was still trying to catch up with all the evening’s revelations.

  As I looked from one to the other, it was as if the kitchen suddenly exploded. Like a bomb had gone off and every window shattered into a hundred million pieces. As I stood, with no time to cover my eyes or my face, I could see tiny slivers of glass travel through the air. I could feel the draft from the glass passing me by. I blinked and was looking at the ladies for a reaction. I knew my mouth was forming words slower than my mind was formulating them. I had no time to speak. Again there was that feeling of disassociation from my body as it stood there in the middle of the kitchen, with glass hanging in the air like mist.

  Neither Angel nor Grizelle had made a move to cover their faces. Nor did they make a sound. The church bells rang and broke the spell for me.

  12

  I had crouched down, instinctively covering my head with my hands, letting out a shout of warning even though I knew it was too late. I had felt the glass screaming past my skin. Ready to gouge out patterns of pain.

  Slowly, in the silence, I dropped my hands from my face and looked at Angel and Grizelle, expecting devastation. They were fine. They were whole. There was no broken glass. There were no shattered windows. It was all in my mind. Like the woman I’d seen at Gran’s grave. Like the feeling of being pushed, or the monster in the fog or in my room. All in my mind. I was going crazy. Like my mum.

  ‘Come now, come.’ Grizelle grabbed me and gently hurried me out of the kitchen, blowing out the candle on the way. We stopped on the threshold and I noticed that the fog had appeared again, moving in silently to surround us.

  Angel asked me for the keys and I robotically found them in my bag and handed them over. She locked the door quickly and I was guided towards her car. Grizelle jumped into a large dark estate car parked in front of the Beetle, and led the way back to the town.

  Angel didn’t say a word to me, just followed Grizelle’s tail lights and drove round past the graveyard and then straight into the churchyard of St Mary’s.

  I had not expected that. If they had taken me straight to a mental hospital, I would have been less surprised. Of all the places in the town, we ended up at the church. I wanted to scream and not stop. What was going on? None of this made sense.

  Angel and Grizelle helped me from the car and together we wa
lked towards the church. We didn’t say a word. Angel pulled my keys from her pocket and, after a couple of attempts, unlocked the door. My gran had a key for the church! This was mad.

  We walked inside and the intermittent light as clouds danced in front of the moon guided us down the aisle towards the altar. The high stained glass windows lit up the ornately-carved interior, but it was still dark. Saintly statue shadows smiled down at us. Empty pews stood ready for whatever we would do. In front of the altar, Angel pulled over three high, wooden-backed, leather-seated chairs. I sat down. Angel stood behind me holding my head, one hand on my forehead, the other at the back of head. Grizelle held both of my hands and was the first to break the silence.

  ‘Kirsty, you are okay. You didn’t imagine it. We felt the glass. It wasn’t your mind playing tricks. It was something much deeper.’

  I was shocked. I hadn’t told them anything about the glass. How did she know? I wanted to go home. Back to London. I had no business here. This was too crazy for me. I didn’t trust myself to make any coherent words; I wanted to cry, scream or vomit. I was shaking.

  Angel told me to keep my eyes closed and focus on my breathing. She told me to breathe in and out slowly as she counted. At the same time there was a sense, a feeling of comfort coming into my head. I’d had Reiki years before, and this was a similar sensation. Like a warmth, a tingle spreading throughout my body.

  I could also feel something like that from Grizelle. A vibration, a stillness supporting me in the silence. She was quiet, with her eyes closed. The only sound was Angel counting my breaths. She told me to imagine that I had little roots coming down from my feet and digging themselves into the floor. To feel the roots push down gently and spread out, to feel the sensation of becoming anchored to the floor. To feel grounded, feel that the earth supported me from beneath. It held my weight, it looked after me. She called it Mother Earth, and there was something about the simplicity of her words which connected in me. She then guided me to bring green nurturing energy up from the earth, through these roots, and to feel that colour come up through my body into my heart.