The Omen of Stones

by Casey L. Bond

  The sound of Omen’s scream made the hair on my neck stand up. “I thought something had happened to you,” I admitted. “You were terrified.”

  Sky looked between us, a frown on her brow. “You two seem like more than friends,” she pointed out carefully.

  I felt my face flush, and it wasn’t because of the fire or the fact that their mother had left the room. It was because even though we weren’t more than friends, I wondered what it might be like if we were, and if Omen had ever considered the same.

  Sky stood up. “West?” she repeated her mother.

  “West Village is at the base of the mountain in that direction,” Omen told us. “I’ve never been, but Lindey told me about it. We need to go there.”

  “It’s what your mother wants,” I agreed.

  “You asked her if there was a third. What did that mean?” Sky slid a sharp look over Omen again.

  Omen’s eyes caught mine, searching for an answer to the same question.

  “I believe you have a third sister, that you are part of a set of triplets.”

  Sky’s eyes widened in disbelief and Omen’s glittered with unshed tears. She covered her mouth with her hand.

  “Why?” Omen asked simply. “Why were we separated?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not sure, but I think when we find your other sister, your mother will lead us to the truth.”

  The bones.

  The bones were still in the soil near the river, and I had a good idea of what they’d show. She died there. I’d felt the lingering sorrow in the air. But if I held one, I’d know exactly what happened to her. If I had the time to focus and linger, I might be able to tell who had taken the girls, and maybe we could figure out why each was placed in a different village.

  My heart cracked for Omen. And though I didn’t know Sky, and despite her bitter reaction and wariness of us, I felt for her, too.

  Sky began gathering things, quickly stuffing them into a small pack. Satisfied, she came back into the front room where Omen and I still stood. “Ready?”

  I looked to her feet, amused to see them still bare like her sister’s. “Can you spirit yourself there?”

  She smirked. “I call it breezing, but yes.” Sky stood across the room, smiling.

  Omen grinned, whispering to me, “If she can do it, I can learn.”

  “Of course you can. You can do anything, Omen. You’re very powerful.” I wasn’t sure she knew how strong her magic was, or if she appreciated how precise she was with it. Not just because of how she used the stones, but how she innately knew the weight and balance of each one. I was sure the very mountain would bend to her if she commanded it.

  She could level it and build it back up again if she wanted.

  I offered a hand and our palms met. This time, she wasn’t afraid as I spirited us off the mountain toward the rolling hills I saw to the west from the first spot we’d landed. We didn’t end up in the village, but were close enough to see smoke rolling from a few hearths. It wasn’t cold in the valley like it was on the mountain, where fire was still a necessity. But it wasn’t warm at night the way it was during the day, either.

  “Where is Sky?” Omen wondered, searching for her new-found sister in the dark.

  “Maybe she’s waiting for us in the village.”

  “She’s so different,” she said quietly.

  She hadn’t let go of my hand and I found that I loved the feel of her soft palm against mine. I gave hers a gentle squeeze. Omen then pulled away, searching the darkness for Sky. The hills were alive with cricket song and the scurrying footsteps of nocturnal animals through the tall grass.

  The spirit of their mother appeared very suddenly right in front of me. She clamped onto my forearm again now that she knew it helped strengthen her presence. “Illana,” she said.

  “Is that the name of your third daughter?” I asked.

  Omen’s sweet scent wafted from beside me. She searched for her mother, reaching out to touch her, but her hand drifted right through, like a boat sailing through a mist-covered sea.

  The woman pointed to Omen and said her name, then put her hand on her own chest. “Illana.”

  “Your mother’s name was Illana,” I told Omen.

  “I heard her,” she said. “I can’t see her like I did on the mountain, though.” She reached out for her mother again, her hand sinking through Illana’s stomach. Suddenly, Illana began to fade. She pointed to West village before disappearing.

  “We need to find Sky,” Omen announced. “And our triplet.” The word seemed hard for her to say, like it had lodged uncomfortably in her throat. Like she still hadn’t fully swallowed the truth her mother revealed.

  I couldn’t even imagine what she was going through. She couldn’t have foreseen anything that had happened since I walked into her life. First, she broke every covenant her Founder mandated she keep, and then she learned she had siblings she never knew existed. On top of that, though their mother was dead, she obviously cared for them greatly.

  We started toward the village, moving as softly as the breeze that brushed across the grass’s swaying, seeded tops. When the fields ended and we stepped into a copse of trees, a hum began, curling into my stomach like a hard knot.

  Omen looked from me to the tree branches and leaves, an awestruck smile breaking out onto her face. “The ward is a song,” Omen exclaimed, wonder lacing her voice. She turned a circle, studying the canopy. “It’s everywhere.”

  The farther into the trees we walked, the louder the noise became. A woman’s hum, constant and strong. Foreboding. It made me want to turn around immediately.

  It wasn’t cold or blinding like Sky’s fog, or an impenetrable shield like Omen’s stones. The song was a spell in and of itself, commanding us to leave and never return.

  Omen nudged me. “Are her wards stronger?”

  “Neither of their wards are stronger than yours, but each is different. This humming is a strong suggestion, while Sky’s wards work to confuse and conceal.”

  “And mine?” she asked.

  I felt the power of Omen’s wards repelling me when the men dragged me to the river, but they didn’t bother me when she ushered me into East Village. It was a completely different experience leaving them tonight. As soon as we stepped outside them at the base of the mountain earlier tonight, her magic overwhelmed me. It felt like the stones were magnetic, holding me to them, and I had to tear my soles away just to take a step.

  “Yours make me want to run in any direction but the one you’re protecting. But when your magic told them I could pass, they allowed it. When we left the boundary of your wards tonight, I could feel their strength again. An army could lay siege to East and if your wards protected it, not one soldier would be able to step within them. Not a single bullet or arrow would penetrate your will.”

  Omen was still. She stared at me for a long moment before turning her attention back to the trees. To the hum that enveloped us both.

  19

  Omen

  The ward’s voice was female, ruffling the leaves overhead and sliding between the trees, soft as silk. I wondered how her magic worked, whether she asked the breeze to carry her warning or if the air itself held her song. I wondered if she looked like me and Sky, if we were identical triplets, or if Sky and I were twins and she was an older or younger sibling.

  Anything was possible. In a matter of hours, everything I thought I knew had shattered like the shards of a hand mirror dropped from up high. Fragments of my life scattered, some crushed, others showing revelations I wasn’t sure I wanted exposed.

  This was all happening so fast. Too fast.

  And yet…too slow.

  The eastern horizon was beginning to lighten. The dark sapphire of the night sky was gone, and Lindey would soon wake up. I walked faster through the humming ward and entered West Village. It wasn’t as
compact as North, nor was it as spread out as East.

  Quietly, River and I navigated the pathways knitting the village web together. Where Sky’s home was a rustic cabin made of roughly hewn timber, these homes looked much like my home in East Village. Still, the feel of West was not the same, and it wasn’t just because we weren’t home.

  The main difference was the tufts of moss stuffed in between slats of wood that comprised each structure. It was colder here, and West would be in the mountains’ shadow for much of the day, if I had my bearings right. I could almost picture the snow clinging to the village in winter, refusing to melt away.

  The soil here was barren and rocky under my bare feet, whereas the river gave our village much more than we credited it for. It made our fields fertile. Our flocks thrived in the fields it fed. Our gardens flourished. The ones that had been plowed here looked hopeless.

  Beyond that, the river allowed me to hear Fate through the stones. In this village, he was silent. I could feel the power within each pebble that littered the ground and every boulder being used as a cornerstone, but I didn’t hear Fate. I knew he was pushing us in the direction we should go, but there was an easier way. If he had asked me to leave and find my sisters, I would have. Why was it so important that we find each other now? How would we find our triplet at night?

  Inwardly, I waited. Waited for my mother to show up again and point us in the right direction. And I waited for Sky.

  Sky – who looked like me but was vastly different.

  Who acted nothing like me.

  I wondered what the third sister would be like. I knew her magic lay in her voice, but needed to know so much more.

  River stopped abruptly. He glanced up, unfocused, and I strained to see what caused him to stop. The air hadn’t changed. I couldn’t see or hear my mother.

  “What is it?”

  “A song.”

  He walked toward the melodic sound like a sailor to a siren and suddenly, I didn’t want him to hear or see her. Which was ridiculous. She was part of me, and beyond that, I had no claim on River. His feelings were his own.

  Besides, he would be going home soon enough, and it wasn’t like any of us would be going with him. But that left the question of what we were going to do now that we knew about one another. Would Sky simply return to her life in North Village or would she want to leave? How would our third sister react to the news we were about to deliver?

  My palms began to sweat. I wiped them on my dark skirt. River noticed and gave me a reassuring smile.

  River noticed everything.

  “It will all be okay,” he whispered.

  “How? What are we supposed to do after we find her?”

  He pressed a finger to his lips and motioned toward a house whose hearth was lit, the fire flickering in the windows.

  Inside, a woman sang. Sky was suddenly beside me, making me gasp and jump. “You’re quiet as a cat,” I choked.

  Sky just smirked, then jerked her head toward the songbird’s door, motioning for me to go with her. River stayed a few steps behind. Sky knocked on the wooden door, inscribed with runes of some sort. When it swung open, the truth was confirmed.

  We were identical triplets.

  Our mother was dead, but she had been communing with River.

  I had no idea what happened to her or what fate might befall us, but a feeling of unease slithered over me as I examined our sister.

  Her hair was so long it brushed the backs of her knees. She wore a simple, thyme green dress.

  No matter how long I looked at her or at Sky, this just seemed too surreal to be true.

  River

  Their triplet was shocked, but quickly recovered. She waved us in without uttering a word. From outside the house, her singing voice had sounded almost tinkling. If gold had a voice, it would have sounded like hers. I wondered if her speaking voice was the same.

  The triplet’s eyes were gray-green. Her mouth gaped as she stared between Sky and Omen. After a few seconds of shocked silence, Sky introduced herself, and then Omen introduced herself and me. Finally, their triplet crossed the room and grabbed a smooth slab of slate and a piece of chalk. My name is Lyric, she wrote. How is this possible? She drew a harsh line beneath the word possible.

  “How much time do you have?” Sky teased, walking into the living room and making herself at home on one end of a set of matching couches that faced one another in front of the crackling fireplace.

  Lyric laid her slate and chalk down and moved to the kitchen, raising a glass to offer us a drink. We all gladly accepted, providing her a moment and a mundane task to busy her hands and gather her wits. Omen and I settled on the couch across from Sky.

  Sky watched Lyric move. So did Omen.

  Lyric moved like music…elegant and purposeful, with grace and poise.

  She quickly filled four cups with water and placed them on a tray. Then she carried it into the room, setting the tray on a small rectangular table between the couches. Domestic duties completed, she sat next to Sky.

  For the next few minutes, we sipped water and the three young women stared at one another shyly, easing back into the stunned silence that each had felt so passionately this night.

  I wondered why Lyric didn’t speak, or whether she could only communicate through song.

  Omen smoothed her hands down her thighs. She’d never left East Village, and now she’d been to two others in the same night, discovering two sisters and a dead mother along the way. It was a lot to swallow. I longed to hold her hand and stroke the back of it to calm her. To assure her all would be well.

  The early sun casted orange and gold across the sky as Sky succinctly summarized the entire situation in her dry, cynical way. Lyric’s eyes bounced around as the story unfolded, focusing on me when Sky told her about their mother’s spirit, then Omen when she explained about her power with the stones. Then back to Sky when she told her about her magic.

  My power lies in my voice, Lyric scribbled. I was found abandoned near an aviary. She erased the words with a swipe of her hand and continued. The woman who found me said I was humming to the birdsong, as if I was singing with them.

  “Speaking of humming, your wards are like nothing I’ve ever seen,” Sky marveled. “Not that I’ve had the chance to see yours yet, Omen.”

  Omen took no offense, worrying her hands as she told Lyric about Lindey. “She’ll be terrified if she thinks I’m missing. She’ll search the river, then go straight to Edward Smith.”

  “The Founder?” Sky said as Lyric scratched the same words.

  Omen’s mouth dropped open. “You know him?”

  Sky spoke first. “He has a house in North Village, but he doesn’t visit often.”

  Lyric nodded and wrote, He has a home here, too.

  “He lives in East, not far from my home,” Omen affirmed.

  Edward Smith knew every villager in East, and I guarantee he knew every villager in North and West. That meant he knew of the girls and kept them apart intentionally. He probably murdered their mother as well. Her spirit was agitated and restless, a sign of a tragic death, one that occurred far sooner than the dead expected. Especially since Illana was a witch. Witches lived a very long time if nothing prevented it. If the witch was powerful, he or she could live five hundred or even a thousand years. Potentially longer, if the magic agreed.

  What do you need from me? Lyric wrote, looking to Omen before adding, Is it safe to stay here now? Should we go with you to warn Lindey?

  That she was willing to help without hesitation calmed Omen. Tension oozed from her shoulders, but a warning flared in her eyes and tone when she spoke. “I’m not sure what Edward Smith’s role in all of this is, but we need to stay together until we find out the truth and learn what happened to our mother.”

  Can you question her, Spirit tongue? Lyric scribbled, holding her slate out for m
e to see.

  “Fate gave you his title, too,” Omen mused, watching Lyric for an answer. It came in the form of a delicate nod.

  She smiled and erased the slate, nodding to Omen and writing, You are the Stone bearer. She looked to Sky and pointed at her, scribbling, Storm bender. And then she pointed to herself and we waited as she wrote her own title beneath Sky’s…Song spell.

  Song Spell. Storm Bender. Stone Bearer. Spirit Tongue. The titles resonated through me.

  Lyric’s brows knitted. She wiped the slate clean and re-wrote the question she’d posed, then held it up for me to read. Can you question our mother?

  “I’ll go to her instead of calling her to me. She seems to be having trouble remaining on our plane.”

  “How does that work?” Omen asked.

  “I have to enter the plane of the dead,” I explained. “It doesn’t harm me. My magic allows it, as does Fate.”

  Omen’s tension tightened her shoulders again.

  “I’ll be fine. I just need a few moments.”

  Sky sat up straighter, elbows on her knees. She watched me as intently as Mira watched her broadcaster.

  I gave Omen a reassuring glance and took a moment to memorize the room and its contents. The color and warmth slowly bled away until only shades of black, white, and gray remained. I imagined Illana and called out her name. A pale mist formed just in front of me and their mother appeared. “Tell me how you died,” I pleaded.

  She shook her head.

  “Please. If you want to help your daughters, you have to tell me, Illana. It’s the only way. I know they’re in danger, but I don’t know what or whom we’re fighting unless you reveal it to me. I can’t protect them if you won’t tell me what I’m protecting them from.”

  The cold deepened and she began to fade away.

  “Wait! Reach out for me. Draw energy from my life.” I offered my arm, but she wouldn’t take it.

  “River,” she said so low I could barely hear her.

  “I’m right here. Tell me what happened to you on the day you died.”