The Stone of Blood

by Tony Nalley

  “That aint that old road after ya pass uh, pass that little store down here?” Dad asked.

  “That little liqueur store, yeah, the road that goes back in there, yeah.” Grandpa answered.

  “After you get to the top of that hill, the road to your right that goes back in there?” Dad asked.

  “No, you go on down to the next road, around there what they call the Hardin road and things now.” Grandpa stated.

  “Yeah, I know where that’s at, yeah.” Dad said.

  “That’s the, that’s the road that they got there now.” Grandpa said. “But back there at that time I think they called it the old Kurdley place. It used to go all the way back. It used to have alot of farms and things back in there. And Bernhiem has probably taken em’ all over now.”

  “I don’t think I would have stopped to do any damned shootin’. I’d have been turnin’ that horse around.” My dad said.

  “Well I just never did see anything you know that I was afraid of! But I uh, I always had the sense enough to know when to go; when to stay and when not to stay!” Grandpa said. “But I really believed I could kill that damned thing! I wasn’t foolin’ with you; I thought I could kill it! And by god I was gonna find out what it was! And I know that I was puttin’ that bullet right between them eyes! Cause I shot that gun too many times. I know where that bullet was goin’ but it didn’t do no damned good.”

  “And I’m gonna tell ya right now, I didn’t feel too safe.” Grandpa said. “I knowed enough and I said, ‘now by god it was time for me to be someplace else!’”

  Well if I’d a shot that first time and another eye had popped up there it’d been time for me to go; because I’d have been too scared to pull that trigger. Cause when things like that happen, that…” My dad related.

  “I never did see anything like it that I could agree that what you called scared me. But I’ve seen things I didn’t know what it was, and never did find out! But I really wasn’t scared.” Grandpa said. “Well, as Daddy and Edgar and all of em’ always said, “I never had sense enough to be scared!”

  “Grandpa.” I interjected once I’d found an openin’ to ask. “Have you ever heard of any ‘werewolves’ around here?”

  “‘Werewolves’?” Grandpa replied. “Now Toby, I can’t say that I ever seen one. Not that I can remember you know, seein’ one of em’ myself or knowin’ what they was or nothin’.”

  “But I do know one damned thing though!” he continued. “Around these parts and things there wasn’t no what you call sightings of ‘werewolves’ or ‘bigfoots’ and things around here up until the Civil War come through here! You see it used to be all just woods and things around here because there weren’t hardly no people! And people mostly kept to themselves and raised their families and things. So if there was them things around here, nobody seen em’, or was left alive to tell about em’!”

  “Hell! You wouldn’t ever see anybody till you come into church on a Sunday!” Grandpa looked at me then the way he always did, with a glimmer in his eye and a sly smile on his face.

  “You seen one of em’ did ya?” He asked and I nodded. “Well then, you need to be real careful and stay away from em’ if ya can Toby. Cause there aint nothin worse than gettin’ one of them kind of creatures mad at you, exceptin’ for maybe a witch! Now you see if you can make a witch bleed, then you will break the spell on her! But it’s a mighty hard thing to do! So you have to be quick! Cause they aint just gonna just let you do it!”

  “But when it comes to a ‘werewolf’’, now that’s a whole nother story! Cause you can even shoot one of them things and that won’t kill em’! No sir! Now they can die from it or they can die just like any of us regular folks can die and things, you know people! But they can get better over time too! And they can handle more things bein’ done to em’.” Grandpa said. “I mean, you can shoot em’ and shoot em’ bunches of times and it might not kill em’. They’d just run off you know and get better and come back another time!”

  “Now it might kill em’ too! It’s just hard to tell with em’ cause you don’t know if they are real ‘werewolves’ or if there was a spell put on em’! If there was a spell put on em’ by a witch, then there aint but one thing that’ll kill em’ for sure!” Grandpa said. “And that’s a silver bullet! But if you can break whatever spell is on em’ …well then you won’t have to kill em’ cause they won’t be ‘werewolves’ no more. They’ll just be regular folks again.” Grandpa said.

  “But Grandpa, how do you know if there’s a spell been put on em’?” I asked.

  “Well now, that there’s the thing Toby. You don’t!” he answered. “Unless one of em’ was to tell ya. And see they aint likely to be lettin’ you know who they are, let alone be tellin’ you about a spell or nothin’!”

  “You see there’s three kinds of ‘werewolves’ that I knowed about.” Grandpa related. “There’s the ones that are true blood ‘werewolves’, they are the ones that are born into it and then there’s the ones that were bitten or scratched by a ‘werewolf’ and it turned em’. The last kind are the ones that were cursed to walk and live as a ‘werewolf’ by a witch or somethin’. They are the ones that are probably the most dangerous. Not that any of em’ are what you call safe!”

  “But those kind of creatures Toby, they can live for a long time, and most of em’ have! And see if you go breakin’ the spell on em’ then they go back to bein’ human and livin’ like we do! And dependin’ on the strength of the spell, well …you never know what might happen!” Grandpa said.

  “Well …what if you figured that there was somethin’ like a spell or somethin’ that was put on a stone or somethin’ like that!” I questioned him tryin’ not to let him know how much I knew cause my mom and dad were in the room listenin’. “Somethin’ like that …that was makin’ em’ stay or become ‘werewolves’.”

  “Break it!” Grandpa said matter of factly.

  “You break that stone, and you break that spell!”

  .

  Part Three

  Providence

  The leaves danced,

  And the snow fell,

  And the blue sky shown down in all of its radiant glory.

  And there was peace for a moment.

  Twenty

  The Depths of My Darkness

  Destiny is believed by some to be the hidden power controllin’ that which will occur throughout eternity, in both the past and future spectrums of time; some call it fate …while still others choose to see it as fortune or predestination. I myself was not a believer in a predetermined set of outcomes for the events and challenges that were to make up my life or for the events and challenges that were to make up the lives of others for that matter. But I was a believer in the gift of ‘free will’ and that sense of purpose that lay within me that told me that there was somethin’ more; somethin’ more that I was placed here upon this earth to do.

  Now I didn’t exactly know what that purpose was mind you, but I was bound and determined to be ready for it whenever it happened to come along!

  Grandpa had told me that in order to break the spell, I needed to break the stone.

  But I had to wonder if that was what I was supposed to do.

  “Could a curse that had been placed upon a people for so long, bindin’ their very souls to its purpose, be so easily cracked?” I wondered.

  Perhaps the ‘Stone of Blood’ had been lost, and therefore they were unable to free themselves from its hold. Or perhaps it couldn’t be broken by their hand alone, and they were in need of a young King who would rise up to face the challenge and pull the proverbial sword from the stone! Just as it was once done by a young and otherwise scrupulous Arthur Pendragon!

  I laughed at myself openly then as I had blatantly compared my own situation and journey to that of King Arthur’s! But I reasoned that my last name did mean ‘the son of a werewolf’, and somehow their blood …was my blood. This series of events had been set into motion in my life, with a direct path and sense
of purpose laid out before me. They were viable reasonin’s not havin’ anyone else there to circumvent em’, and they allowed me to reach even deeper into the depths of my own darkness.

  I had found the darkness cloudin’ my thoughts then, as I lay there upon my bed, beckonin’ me deeper into the murky recesses of my own mind.

  …I was back in the cave now; with unconscious whispers summonin’ me onward. I felt the old stone and the coldness of the rock, as I was whisked away along lighted paths and elongated passageways. I saw their faces as they watched me, men, women and children; their faces seemingly familiar yet indifferent, older and in uncommon garb by way of oddly colored shades of brown and white; their lips unmoving, their eyes of ice, fillin’ my mind with their thoughts; hundreds of voices speakin’ to me at once, beggin’ me to hold fast to their request.

  I walked along the cobbled floors passin’ through the extent of the void as time and space immersed themselves again upon the ceilin’s and the walls. I saw a great silver sword, shinin’ in the glimmerin’ of the twilight …a sword that was hauntingly familiar to me. And I sat down upon the thrown lookin’ out upon the Grand Hall as the ghosts of its past danced merrily through the murky visions in my mind.

  ‘Werewolves’ howled as the moon shown red, raging, transformin’ into a full blood moon that illuminated in the midnight’s sky!

  I saw three people walkin’ then, across an open field of grass. One man dressed in black with a tall wide brimmed hat followed by a younger woman with long straight black hair adorned in a white flowin’ gown with still whiter flowers in her hair. A third man followed them with cold blue eyes.

  And the third man carried a gun.

  I watched as he turned then within my vision and looked me squarely in the eye. And I watched him as he raised his gun and pointed it directly at me.

  He stood silently as I sat peerin’ down the barrel of his gun. And I listened as the shot rang out! And I watched the bullet leave its chamber…

  I awoke in a pool of sweat!

  My heart poundin’ rapidly as I sat straight up in my bed!

  The time on the clock said a quarter past three, as I wiped the cold sweat from my forehead. Everyone was asleep. And the house was quiet.

  I recalled the faces from my dream as I lay back upon my bed. Some were the faces of my neighbors while still others, though they seemed familiar, were unknown to me. The three people who had crossed the field I did not recognize, nor did I want too. But I did recall the sword.

  “A knight had stood vigil at the entrance to StoneCastle.” I remembered vividly. “And he had held this same silver sword in his hand.”

  It was way back at the beginnin’ of summer.

  StoneCastle was the name of a toy soldier museum in town. I had only been inside of it one time, and that was when Colby was with me. The buildin’ was made of old mortar and stone and it actually did look a little bit like a castle on the outside of it, except for that there wasn’t a moat around it or nothin’.

  The floors inside were carpeted with dark red patterns in varying degrees in shades of the color of blood. And its walls were heavily laden with shelving and weaponry, of any manner of soldier’s insignia from a hundred unnamed wars …an eerie feelin’ swept over me as I stepped inside its hold; where haunting whispers echoed with the spirits of times past.

  Colby had found a class ring that someone had lost, just outside of the Museum on the grass by one of the tall trees growin’ by the side of the buildin’. And instead of him keepin’ it or sellin’ it or whatever, he decided to take it inside and turn it in.

  This was a very brave act for Colby, since he was the absolute ‘King’ of sneakin’ stuff and freein’ captured boats from creeks and other things like that! I was actually proud of him. It showed a depth to his character that I hadn’t previously been a witness to.

  While Colby went to the manager’s office to return the ring to its rightful owner, I stood as close as I possibly could to the front door. I really didn’t wanna be in there in the first place! But I stood there in that eerie place anyway, right beside a suit of armor; a suit of armor that held this same silver sword.

  It was a sword that King Author might have carried, with intricate detailed metal engravings and with a special crushed velvet handle. I placed my hand upon its blade to feel the coolness of its steel. It was smooth and cold; with foreshadowing’s of untold events yet to be revealed.

  “Why would my dreams take me back to a time when I was near this sword?” I wondered. “And what was the meanin’ of the three people walkin’ and the man with the gun?”

  “It was probably nothin’ more than a dream.” I reasoned. “And it was way too early in the mornin’ for me to be tryin’ to make reason out of some old dumb dream anyways!”

  I lay there starin’ up into the darkness about my room at my red, white and blue striped ceilin’ for what seemed like hours. If I stared at those stripes long enough, they would play tricks with my eyes and create optical illusions that made the lines stretch out and race each other as I watched em’.

  I was tired! But sleep would not find me and my brain refused to disengage.

  I knew that I was gonna have to go back into the cave then. I knew that was what was keepin’ me awake! I figured I’d learned about all that I was gonna be able to learn from books and from the grownups that I knew. So goin’ back into the cave was somethin’ that I was just gonna have to do.

  It had been over a week since we’d been in there, Colby and me, and I figured that since they hadn’t killed me yet then it should be somewhat safe to go back. At least that was what I was tellin’ myself. And then maybe too, since it had been so long …maybe they weren’t really lookin’ to kill me after all.

  “Now that wouldn’t explain why I was chased from the barn. But that could have been a regular old wolf, right?” I surmised.

  It was the last day before school started and it was also Sunday mornin’. And maybe its bein’ the Lord’s Day and all would add an extra added bit of protection for me. I couldn’t say that I knew if that would help out or not, but I was willin’ to believe dang near anything if it would help! And Colby was all the way over there on the other side of town at his house!

  He’d told me the other day when we’d talked that he had had a dream about the ‘werewolf’ cave, and that it had scared him. And that he wasn’t ever goin’ back in there again! So I knew it would’ve been useless for me to call him up and have him come over here and go back in there with me. But I did think it was kinda funny though, how a person could go from actin’ all brave and stuff one minute and then become a total and complete ‘scaredy cat’ or ‘chicken’ the next! I guessed maybe he’d just reached his limit.

  If Colby was actin’ this way, what did that say of me? I mean, Colby was the brave one. Like when we were campin’ out at the quarry and those ‘policemen’ come. And when we were deep inside the ‘werewolf’ cave with only our flashlights and he was runnin’ through the tunnels all fast and stuff! I was always the cautious one, the one who tried to be brave. But Colby was the brave one.

  I’d have to admit that I really wasn’t feelin’ very brave or even tryin’ very hard to act that way now! Cause I didn’t wanna go in there alone! Not all by myself!