The Stone of Blood

by Tony Nalley

  You ever just know when somethin’ was right? I mean when it just felt so smooth that it hardly even took any effort at all? That’s how it felt for me to be around my grandpa. He always had my back.

  One time when I was a kid and sick with a fever and there weren’t nothin’ that my mama could do to make me feel better, my grandpa come over to see me just cause my mama had told him I was sick. And just like that, when he got there …I got better!

  “Dad, I did everything I was supposed to do.” My mama told him. “He just keeps on running a temperature.”

  “He just misses his grandpa, that’s what it is!” Grandpa said with a wink and a smile.

  And you know my fever just went away!

  I liked him alot! It just came natural.

  It has been said that we all have some “Grandpa Joe” in us! All of us grand kids that is! And whenever there was some sort of stubbornness that came up out of one of us, that’s when we’d hear it! “Boy, you sure can tell you’re kin to ‘Grandpa Joe!” They’d say. And then they’d laugh about it and mess up our hair and all. I never really liked that part, the part about gettin’ my hair messed up. But I didn’t mind bein’ compared to my grandpa at all!

  Grandpa was born in nineteen and thirteen. I remember this distinctly cause he was always lookin’ for one of them nineteen and thirteen V nickels. There was only five of em’ made, and I think one of em’ was found by a man at the bottom of a can of beans one time when he’d opened it up to eat out of it. Now that was one lucky man! Good thing he was hungry for some beans that day!

  “Toby, you keep a look out for a V nickel like that” My grandpa would tell me. “They’re worth a quite a bit of money!”

  Now Grandma and Grandpa lived way up on Heaven Hill; up on the top through tangled woods that stretched along a windin’ and darkened graveled road. The road crossed a couple of rollin’ creeks by way of two thick and heavy wooden bridges. There was an old yellow bar gate that sat down in the holler at the entrance right across from Heaven Hill Distillery. It was a place where moon shiners would’ve set up their ‘moonshine still’s’ durin’ the times of prohibition.

  Their house set all the way back up in there on the cleared out part of the hill, and it was surrounded by great big large and beautiful trees with limbs just made for climbin’ on! There was one tree that was so big that it would’ve taken six or seven grownups stretchin’ there arms open wide to reach all the way around it! It was an awesome old tree! And me and my sister Anna always liked to play on it! Especially Anna! She liked to swing from its long thick vines!

  The house was kinda small, but it had a real ‘home’ kinda feelin’ to it …so we liked it too! But in the winter time it could be a real ‘booger’ gettin’ up there to visit! But we did it, several times! One time we even walked the whole mile and a half or so back there on foot! I remember the snow bein’ all the way up to my knees! But my dad said that “it wasn’t so bad.” And that I “wasn’t knee high to a grasshopper back then anyways!”

  I could hardly wait to see my grandpa and talk with him about all the stuff that me and Colby had discovered. I wondered what he’d think about what we’d seen or if maybe he already knew about that kind of stuff …and was just waitin’ for one of us to ask him about it. My grandpa was real smart like that.

  I sat there by the window in our livin’ room and looked out at our front yard. The lavender skies that had come up that mornin’ had led to an overcast and otherwise dreary lookin’ day that was filled with intermittent sprinklin’s of rain. Small droplets of water lay upon the windows glass as I looked out through it. It made the whole outside seem to me, a little bit colder.

  I called Colby on the phone, but nobody answered. The rain probably hadn’t stopped him from playin’ ‘Huck Finn’ on the boat he’d found down by the creek. And since his mama and daddy didn’t even know about it, they probably didn’t know enough to tell him not to go down there!

  Not that it would’ve stopped him anyways!

  I wondered too, if he was bein’ hunted like I was. But I guessed that if he was …then he wouldn’t have paid any attention to it!

  And he probably wouldn’t have even told me about it anyways!

  So …since I couldn’t go outside until after my Dad had come home …and since it was rainin’ and all, I decided that I would find me a good book and do some more readin’.

  I had begun to piece things together. And I had determined that somethin’ had transpired between the ‘Prince of Blood’ Louise Phillippe and Father Flaget that was much more than just the common niceties and the exchange of a few simple trinkets and paintings for the Cathedral.

  John Fitch I surmised had been an unwillin’ pawn in this cruel game of chess, while at least three notable people from the pages of history had been listed as givin’ gifts to the church via Father Flaget; Louise Phillippe, the King of the Two Sicilies and the Roman Catholic Pope, were the three.

  I found in Mama’s encyclopedias under Louis Philippe that: “In 1809, he married Princess Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily, daughter of King Ferdinand IV of Naples and Maria Carolina of Austria.” and that “Ferdinand (1751-1825), son of Charles III of Spain, was king of Naples as Ferdinand IV from 1759 to 1806, and king of the Two Sicilies as Ferdinand I from 1816 to 1825. Ferdinand became king of Naples as a boy when his father ascended the Spanish throne (1759) as Charles III.”

  So it appeared to me that the King of France could have persuaded his ‘father-in-law’ to donate items to the church. I didn’t know it for certain. But it could be assumed that he did.

  The third person who was listed as bein’ a donor to the cathedral was Pope Leo XII. I read that:

  “Pope Leo XII (22 August 1760 – 10 February 1829), born Annibale Francesco Clemente Melchiore Girolamo Nicola Sermattei della Genga, was Pope from 1823 to 1829.”

  “Leo XII’s domestic policy was one of extreme conservatism: He was determined to change the condition of society, bringing it back to the utmost of his power to the old usages and ordinances, which he deemed to be admirable; and he pursued that object with never flagging zeal.”[5] He condemned the Bible societies, and under Jesuit influence reorganized the educational system, placing it entirely under priestly control through his bull Quod divina sapientia and requiring that all secondary instruction be carried out in Latin, as he required of all court proceedings, also now entirely in ecclesiastical hands. All charitable institutions in the Papal States were put under direct supervision.”

  The Pope had condemned ‘Bible societies’ and anything ‘under Jesuit influence’.

  “Did that mean that he condemned all other faiths and religions?” I wondered. “And most specifically …the Jewish religion?”

  I researched Pope Leo XII further, and I found a part of a speech that he once delivered.

  “1824 MAY 5 Excerpts from the: UBI PRIMUM ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XII ON HIS ASSUMING THE PONTIFICATE

  17. You have noticed a society, commonly called the Bible society, boldly spreading throughout the whole world. Rejecting the traditions of the holy Fathers and infringing the well-known decree of the Council of Trent, it works by every means to have the holy Bible translated, or rather mistranslated, into the ordinary languages of every nation. There are good reasons for fear that (as has already happened in some of their commentaries and in other respects by a distorted interpretation of Christ's gospel) they will produce a gospel of men, or what is worse, a gospel of the devil!”

  I had read previously that this Pope didn’t like ‘French’ people as a whole, cause he had once been held hostage by em’ durin’ an earlier time in his life, back before he had been ordained as the Pope.

  So it occurred to me, “Why was he supportin’ Father Joseph Flaget, a ‘French’ priest? And if he didn’t like ‘non-Catholics’…then why did he present gifts to Flaget at all? Flaget was a friend to many regular people who could be considered ‘non-Catholics’?”

  I wondered if people remembered the things t
hat this Pope had said or the way he had treated people. I mean, since this had been so long ago and all. And also, I wondered if it would matter to anybody. I mean, even though I wasn’t a Catholic, it mattered to me! “If nobody remembered that the Head of the Roman Catholic Church had called all other Bibles the ‘Gospels of the Devil.” I thought. “…then maybe somebody should remind em’!”

  I thumbed through more pages then, …pages filled with words and descriptions and meanings. And havin’ nearly exhausted my efforts I happened upon a picture …a picture laid out on glossy print …at the center of one of the books!

  A picture that I hadn’t seen before! And I could not believe my eyes!

  It was a painting by one of the great masters of the European Renaissance era. His name was Raphael.

  The painting was called “The Sacrifice at Lystra”.

  Within Raphael’s paintin’, a statue of a ‘werewolf’ was positioned in its backdrop, with patrons displayed in a virtual state of transition …changin’ from man to beast upon its canvas! The ‘coup de grace’ bein’ the child holdin’ a golden box left of center of the paintin’s heart; a golden box with silver and pearl inlay!

  “I had seen that golden box before!” I realized. “It was the golden box from my vision! It was the golden vault that carried a crystal stone …the color of blood!”

  “The Stone of Blood!” I said to myself. “I remember it now!”

  “Could this have been a clue left behind by Raphael for someone to follow?” I wondered.

  The painting was dated 1515 and the official description was laid out beneath his artwork.

  ‘The Sacrifice at Lystra (Acts 14:8). After Paul miraculously cures a cripple, the people of Lystra see him and his companion Barnabas (both standing left) as gods, and want to make a sacrifice to them. Paul tears his garments in disgust, whilst Barnabas speaks to the crowd, persuading the young man at centre to restrain the man with the sacrificial ax’.

  “Perhaps Raphael had hidden the true meanin’ within his painting.” I reasoned. “So that only those who held the key to its knowledge would be able to understand it’s meanin’.”

  “But how could he have known?” I wondered further. “…unless he’d also been a member of their secret society?”

  I turned then to the Bible and read straight from Acts 14:8-18

  ‘8 In Lystra there sat a man who was lame. He had been that way from birth and had never walked. 9 He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed 10 and called out, “Stand up on your feet!” At that, the man jumped up and began to walk.’ 11 When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in human form!” 12 Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker. 13 The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them.’

  ‘14 But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: 15 “Friends, why are you doing this? We too are only human, like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them. 16 In the past, he let all nations go their own way. 17 Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.” 18 Even with these words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them.’

  The words that held my attention were held within the line that read, “We too are only human, like you.”

  And I remembered the words, the words that had been written upon the marbled rock within the cavern; words that were written beneath the thrones. They were Christian words. I had wondered about them at the time. Gen 1:26 “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”

  I couldn’t say that I knew for sure the true meanin’ behind Raphael’s painting. But I did know that the best way to hide somethin’ was to hide it in ‘plain sight’. And this ‘somethin’ seemed to have been hidden in ‘plain sight’ for nearly five hundred years!

  “Could Raphael have meant to depict these ‘werewolves’ as ‘human like us’?” I wondered.

  Theories were beginnin’ to take shape, but ‘circumstantial’ evidence and a cave at an abandoned rock quarry didn’t provide enough ‘physical’ evidence to prove nothin’ to nobody!

  “And what of the ghost in the barn?” I thought again. “Did the Confederate Soldier find out somethin’ that he shouldn’t have? Just like Colby had joked about back at the quarry? Or was he one of em’? And did he simply choose to fight on the wrong side of the war?” I’d have to admit that I didn’t have a clue where a Confederate Soldier would fit into all of this.

  But I had surmised an intricate and detailed chain of events that were culminating from the pages of history into my real life and present world! And by evidence of this painting by Raphael and the images within my vision at the cave …it was all revolving around this same golden box that the image of the small child was carryin’; a golden box with silver and pearl inlay that held within it a crystalline stone the color of blood.

  I had never made the connection before; the ‘Prince of Blood’ and the ‘Stone of Blood’. But it all was makin’ sense to me now!

  “And what was it they called them?” I whispered out loud no longer worried who might hear. “Somethin’ I remembered from my vision in the cave …where children were runnin’ …men were chasin’ them …there were horses …and there was fire …guns …their words filled my mind!”

  “The chosen!” I gasped.

  Nineteen

  Of Witches Ghosts and Werewolves

  Saturday mornin’ had finally come and we’d gone over to visit Grandpa and Grandma up on Heaven Hill! It was a beautiful day! And they had lots of company! Of course, with my mom and dad both havin’ eleven brothers and sisters each, it only took a few of em’ to be over there with their families and kids to make for a whole lot of people and for a whole lot of company!

  Grandpa was sittin’ in his chair in the livin’ room talkin’ and all the grownups were in there talkin’ too. So I found myself an open spot on the floor and I sat down and listened. I knew that the odds of my gettin’ a word in edge wise in their conversations was gonna be next to impossible bein’ as how I was a kid and all, but I didn’t mind. We’d have our time to talk. And in the mean time, I would just sit back and listen to my Grandpa’s stories.

  “Me and Dad …we went over there to that man’s house and played poker. And when I left there, I had every goddamned thing he had …and all of em’ had and even the goddamned furniture! By god I left there with better’n eight hundred dollars cash money and I had every damned thing he had in his house! I had his furniture and every damned thing he had in there! I gave it all to Jessie. He and Hinny had just got married. And hell, I wasn’t married then. And I give him enough furniture by god to go to house keepin’ on! Well me and him hung around together and things.” My grandpa said.

  “Yea, well that bunch over’n there liked to gamble.” My grandpa continued. “You know …you take a people oh, that get that gamlin’ fever …if you don’t gamble; well they’ll find somebody that wants to gamble with em’! Yes sir! And alot of people gambled because they can’t help it …they just have to gamble.”

  “Now I didn’t do it! I gambled for the damned money! And if you didn’t watch me I was gonna get it too! Because I’m gonna tell you back there in that time …now Berthy can tell you that I could get anything out of that deck that I wanted!” Grandpa said. “But I had the best trainers there was in the world over there helpin
’ me …over there at that Coffee Pot Inn.”

  “I spent pert near two years over there and that was a gamblin’ house! And it was that the best dealers in the state by god were there! That’s all they done! Well, it was called the Coffee Pot Inn.” Grandpa reflected. “I don’t reckon it’s over there now. It used to be out there at the fork of 31E and 31W over there in Indiana way up there on White River. Where they crossed like this.” he said as he held up his fingers in the shape of a cross. “And it, well it was supposed to have been a restaurant. And they called it the Coffee Pot Inn but all down in the basement and things was a gamblin’ place.” Grandpa continued. “They had the restaurant up above. You’ve seen like that hadn’t you? They got a restaurant one place and in the back room or someplace they got a gamblin’ place. And I spent pert near two years in there learnin’ how to handle, get them cards, handle them cards. And I got so damned good that you could be a dealin’ and I could cut em’ and I could cut them cards and get what I wanted to out of that deck!”

  “Now you can do it, if you put your mind to it and don’t put nothin’ else on your mind.” My grandpa continued on. “Now …but that’s all I had on my mind. That’s where I made my livin’. I didn’t care if anything happened. I wasn’t gonna do nothin’ else. Because anytime that I had ten dollars to get in a poker game …yea, yea it was alot of money! By god you could work all the week by god for five dollars or less!” My grandpa said. “Oh yea. Anytime when you’re a gambler, when your gamblin’ on the outside if it aint a friendly game like when you’re at home and things, you run the chance on getting’ killed!”