The Granite Key (Arkana Mysteries)

by N. S. Wikarski

  “Do I owe you any money?” she asked warily.

  Rhonda laughed. “Hardly. Your sister paid cash to buy her share.”

  Cassie took a sip of cola, considering the matter. “I don’t think I want to keep her interest in the store. Too many bad memories.”

  The older woman nodded. “I understand. If you want me to buy back your share, I can do it. But it will have to be on the installment plan.”

  “We can work out the details some other day when my brain is actually… you know… functioning.” Cassie finished off the rest of her soda.

  The door bell jingled again when a customer walked in. Rhonda smiled a greeting. Returning her attention to her visitor, she asked, “Are you going to stay in your dorm for a while?”

  Cassie put her soda on the counter and slumped back in her chair. “No, I actually made a decision about that. For now, I’m going to move into Sybil’s place. Take a few months and then decide if I want to go back to school in the fall.”

  “I suppose you need to take a timeout.” Rhonda’s voice sounded concerned but she made no other comment.

  Changing the topic abruptly, Cassie asked, “How did you know you wanted to be an antique dealer?”

  “How did I what?” Rhonda wasn’t prepared for the shift.

  “I mean were you always sure that’s what you wanted to be?”

  “Oh, I see.” Rhonda smiled knowingly. “I guess you must be feeling a little lost about where you’re headed.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, I guess it was just destiny.”

  “What?” Cassie sat bolt upright in her chair. There was that word again.

  Rhonda registered surprise at the girl’s reaction. “Everybody has a destiny, Cass.”

  “I don’t,” the girl said dismissively. “I don’t even have a major yet.”

  “Sure you do. You just don’t know what it is. The destiny, I mean.”

  “So how did you know?” Cassie urged.

  Rhonda turned away for a moment to see what her prospective customer was up to. The woman was circling a Chippendale armchair. The shopkeeper turned her attention back to the conversation. “I had a summer job all through college in an antique store. I discovered that I liked it and after I graduated, the owner asked me to stay on full-time.”

  “Seems to me more like you fell into the business by chance and just stayed,” Cassie observed.

  “I guess it must sound that way but the arrangement always suited me just fine. I suppose if I’d been unhappy I would have tried something else, but I never wanted to. That’s why I said it was destiny.”

  “Huh?” The girl wasn’t following.

  “I think it’s like paddling a canoe,” Rhonda explained. “If you’re traveling with the current, it all feels easy and fun and that’s what following your destiny is like. If you decide to fight your destiny, it’s like trying to paddle upstream against the current, which is going to make you miserable.”

  Cassie felt exasperated. Rhonda was no help at all. “So you think God decided ahead of time that you were supposed to own a store and you decided it was easier to go with the flow than to fight it? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  The older woman shook her head. “I never said God had anything to do with it. Destiny isn’t something unappealing forced on you by somebody else. It isn’t brussels sprouts. It’s a combination of your own interest and aptitude. It just so happens I love what I do and I’m very, very good at it.”

  The girl persisted. “But how did you know when you first started out that you were headed in the right direction?”

  The customer was walking toward the counter with a Spode teapot. Rhonda got out of her chair to assist her. “In a nutshell, it’s because it felt right.”

  “So you trusted your instincts?” Cassie asked cautiously.

  Rhonda nodded. “Yes, that’s a good way to put it. I trusted my instincts.” She went to the cash register to ring up the sale.

  “Hmmm…” Cassie said to herself.

  Chapter 14 – Latte Questions

  Faye carefully backed her late model station wagon into a parallel parking space. She’d almost forgotten how to do that. It was a skill that wasn’t needed much in the outlying area where she lived. This day she had ventured into one of the northern suburbs of the city. It had been devoured so long ago by the metropolis that one couldn’t tell them apart. The suburb had a different name than the city proper but it looked the same—narrow, congested streets blanketed with a thick layer of air pollution.

  The old woman stepped to the curb and fed the parking meter. She was dressed in her Sunday best today—a spring floral cotton with pearl buttons down the front. Since the weather was still mild, she topped the dress with a light pink cardigan. Faye believed that one should always wear a hat in public. She had chosen a straw brimmed cloche with a green silk band around the middle.

  Toddling down the street for half a block, she arrived at her destination. A shop with the unusual name of Buzz ‘n Books. It was a two-story vintage bookstore that served coffee. Unlike its chain store rivals, however, this one seemed to have a personality. The building in which it was housed was about a century old. The brick exterior was in need of tuckpointing. The front door was glass and painted wood but the wood was so warped that the door stuck when one tried to pull the brass handle. To Faye this was a sign that only serious readers should venture inside. She proceeded to do so.

  The interior was dark and smelled of espresso and old paper. It was a good smell. One that was oddly comforting. The coffee bar was to her left as she entered. The back half of the shop consisted of floor to ceiling bookcases lined up in rows. At the front of the store, near the plate glass windows were several tables occupied by people with computers. They were probably “surfing the net” as the saying went.

  She looked around. He wasn’t here. Her eyes focused on an open stairway leading to a loft. Faye sighed. Oh well, she would get her exercise today. She hobbled up the stairs to the second floor. There were more bookcases on the back wall, more tables in the center of the room and a solitary figure seated at one of them. It was his day off and she hated to interrupt his free time but this couldn’t wait. He was poring over a page in a volume big enough to be an encyclopedia. A man in his early twenties. He was dressed neatly in a V-neck grey sweater over a white dress shirt and striped tie. Despite the casual nature of the establishment, he wore trousers instead of jeans. His hair was light brown and it curled around his temples. At the moment, he was running his fingers distractedly through it and mumbling to himself. “No, that can’t be right. I shall have to cross-check this in Robinson’s Compendium.” He spoke with a British public school accent.

  “Griffin?” Faye approached cautiously. She was wary of disturbing him when he was researching. It tended to disorient him.

  “What?” The young man looked up. His hazel eyes were blank as if he didn’t recognize his visitor. When his mind returned to the present, he looked alarmed. “Oh, Faye, do forgive me!” He jumped out of his chair and came around the table to help her to a seat.

  “May I get you something? A coffee perhaps?” He bent his six-foot frame nearly in half to hover attentively at her side.

  “Yes, I could use a pick-me-up. It was quite a drive.” Faye laid her purse on the table.

  “Of course, absolutely.” Griffin had flown halfway down the stairs before he whirled around and asked, “What kind?”

  Faye looked puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

  He trotted back up to the loft. “I mean what kind of coffee would you like? Columbian, Sumatran, Ethiopian? Would you like light or dark roast? And then there’s the question of temperature. Hot or iced. And what about milk? Soy, rice or cow’s milk? And what size do you want? ”

  “Oh, my,” she murmured. “So many choices. In my day we just said coffee and everybody knew what we meant.”

  Griffin waited nervously.

  “Why don’t you surprise me?” Faye’
s smile was angelic.

  A look of dread crossed the young man’s face at the prospect of surprising her.

  “Just do your best, dear. I’m sure whatever you choose will be fine.”

  Griffin nodded uncertainly and ran down the stairs to fetch her beverage.

  Faye looked around the loft. Very quiet. Noise didn’t seem to filter up from the lower floor and all the other customers were seated below. She knew Griffin was a solitary creature which was the reason he chose to sequester himself in this aerie. Less chance of being disturbed. That suited her needs perfectly considering what they were about to discuss.

  The young man returned in a few minutes bearing an oversized cup and saucer. “I didn’t think you’d enjoy anything extreme so I made a conservative choice.” He set it down in front of her. “There you are. A hot cup of medium roast Brazilian with cow’s cream.”

  He returned to his seat and watched in apprehensive silence as she took her first sip.

  Faye nodded her approval. “This is really very good. Just the way I like it. Brazilian, you say?”

  Griffin relaxed and flashed a smile. “Yes, the trick, you see, is in the roasting process. A medium roast will give just enough body without overpowering the palate.”

  “Heavens, it sounds as if you’re discussing wine.” She laughed.

  “In a way, I suppose they’re quite similar. Coffee drinking in this country is a very serious business.”

  She took another sip. “What do you drink when you go back to England for visits?”

  “Instant coffee.”

  “Really?” Faye sounded shocked. “Can’t you get anything better?”

  “Oh, it’s quite normal, I assure you. Europeans drink it all the time. And with no ill effects, I might add.”

  Faye gave a half smile. She wasn’t convinced of his enthusiasm.

  Griffin sighed guiltily. “All right. You’ve caught me out. I confess I prefer the marvelous variety one finds in American coffeehouses.”

  Faye made a mental note. Given his high-strung behavior, she wondered if he liked American-style coffee a bit too much for his own good. Of course, she was polite and didn’t tell him that. Instead, she opened her purse to retrieve a thick envelope which she slid across the table. “What do you make of that?” she asked.

  Griffin removed the envelope’s contents. He scanned the photographs with growing excitement. “I say, is this what I think it is?”

  Faye nodded gravely.

  “But this is brilliant!” He shuffled through them again before placing them on the tabletop side by side. “Fascinating pictograms.”

  “Can you translate any of them?”

  He shook his head, still intent on the pictures. “Sorry, but I haven’t a clue what they mean.”

  “You will try though, won’t you?” she urged.

  Griffin looked up and stared at Faye, bringing his mind back into focus. “Oh, absolutely! This is quite exciting, isn’t it? We had no idea what object Sybil was recovering and here we sit with photographs of it.” He scowled for a moment. “By the bye, how do you come to have these?”

  “Cassie brought them with her when she visited me.” Faye sounded troubled.

  The young man took note. “Didn’t your talk go well?”

  “It went very well. During the course of the afternoon, I discovered that she is our new Pythia.”

  “What!”

  Griffin’s exclamation was so loud that Faye winced. “Please, dear, keep your voice down. We do belong to a secret society, after all.”

  The young man overcompensated by lowering his voice to a whisper. “But this is incredible, Faye! This is beyond coincidence! If I believed in such things, I would call it a miracle.”

  Faye sighed. “It is certainly a stroke of good fortune for us but Cassie is having some trouble coming to terms with it.”

  Griffin’s face took on a look of owlish concern. “You mean she doesn’t want to be the Pythia?” He sounded as if he could barely comprehend such a possibility.

  “I think she needs time to accept her new role. I do believe that she’ll come around in the end.”

  “But what if she doesn’t?” Griffin’s tone was anxious. “What are we to do then?”

  Faye remained serene. “I am quite confident she will reconsider. After all, we are the only people who can give her the answers she seeks about her sister’s death. I expect her to realize that soon enough.” She picked up the page with random numbers scribbled across it and pushed it toward him. “Cassie thinks these are the dimensions of the object in the photographs.”

  The young man took the page and puzzled over it for a few moments. “Dimensions, but why—”

  Faye cut in. “I think Sybil wanted us to build a replica in case we no longer had the original.”

  “But why should we want a replica?” Griffin was mystified.

  The old woman picked up one of the photos and contemplated it. “Cassie gave me a hint when she talked about our elusive cowboy. She had a dream in which she saw the encounter in the antique shop. She said he wanted Sybil to tell him where the key was. When he ransacked her apartment, he took only this stone ruler. I would assume it is some kind of key. In order to know what it unlocks, we would need an exact copy. Do you think you could make one using the measurements I’ve given you?”

  The young man became pensive. “I can’t do it myself, of course, but I think there are a few chaps at the vault who may have the necessary skills. I’ll get in touch with them first thing tomorrow.”

  Faye took another sip of coffee. She chose her next words carefully. “I believe building this replica should be your top priority.”

  “Well, of course,” Griffin readily agreed. “It’s quite a fascinating puzzle, isn’t it?”

  “It’s more than that,” Faye countered in a low voice. “It may have something to do with the Sage Stone.”

  “What!” Griffin half rose out of his chair at the mention of those words.

  This time a few curious people on the lower level glanced upward toward the loft.

  Faye raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

  “Very sorry.” Griffin cleared his throat uncomfortably and resettled himself. He leaned in closer across the table. “How can you be sure this object is connected to…” he trailed off as if afraid to utter the words.

  “I can’t be sure. Simply an offhanded comment Sybil made several months ago. She said she was on the trail of ‘the find of the century.’ Since I hear that phrase from field operatives almost every week, I didn’t pay much attention. Until now. I believe she may have been right. We need to be certain before I alarm anyone else so you’ll have to proceed with the utmost secrecy.”

  “You haven’t even told Maddie?”

  “No and I won’t until we know what we’re dealing with.” Faye sighed. “For the time being, I want a semblance of normality to prevail. Especially when it comes Cassie. She shouldn’t be pulled into this maelstrom unless it becomes absolutely necessary.”

  “But Faye,” the young man protested. “I’m a terrible liar!”

  “I’m not asking you to lie, my dear. I’m asking you to avoid the topic with your colleagues and refrain from mentioning it to the girl altogether. As an added precaution, I think it would be wise to accelerate the training of our new Pythia if and when she agrees to join us. Poor child! She’ll have only weeks to learn what took Sybil years to master.”

  Griffin lowered his head in acquiescence.

  Faye glanced down at the photo of the key resting next to her coffee cup. “One person has already died because of this object. If this key can somehow lead the Nephilim to the Sage Stone, then one death will be only the beginning.”

  Chapter 15 – Paranormal Antiquity

  Two weeks after she fled the place in terror, Cassie found herself standing on Faye’s front porch once again. Somehow she had talked herself around to this spot despite her misgivings. She knocked on the door.

  After a few moments, Faye appea
red. She was wearing a kitchen apron. Her cheeks and forearms were streaked with flour. When she saw who her visitor was, a perceptive smile crossed her face. “Come in, my dear, come in. I’ve just popped a few loaves of bread into the oven. They won’t be ready for a while but I can fix you a sandwich if you’re hungry.”

  The girl entered the house hesitantly. “No, thanks. I just want to talk. There’s a lot I need to say.”

  “Why don’t we go out into the garden then,” Faye suggested.

  Cassie nodded and followed the old woman to the yard. By now, leaves had formed around the wisteria blossoms and tulips and daffodils were starting to join the ranks of early spring flowers. It was a little cooler and more overcast than their last visit but still warm enough to be pleasant.

  The girl hesitated before seating herself. It was the same chair she’d sat in when her brain started collapsing into somebody else’s consciousness. It wasn’t a happy association. She braced herself and sat down.

  Faye took the opposite chair. She wasn’t hiding any mystic bowls in the shrubs this time, Cassie noted with relief.

  “I guess I should start,” the girl began abruptly. “I’m sorry I called you crazy.”

  Faye chuckled. “I’ve been called worse than that, believe me. No harm done, my dear. Now what is it you’d like to talk about?”

  “This Pythia business. What is it exactly?”

  “Then you don’t know what a Pythia is?” Faye didn’t sound entirely surprised.

  Cassie shook her head.

  “Wait here and I’ll show you a picture.” The old woman shuffled back inside the house. It was several minutes before she emerged with a book. She placed it on the table between them and flipped to a page that had been tabbed. “Look,” she instructed.

  Cassie leaned over and gasped. The page contained an illustration showing a cup decorated with two figures dressed in ancient Greek costume. The first was a woman in white seated on a high stool. She held a shallow bowl in one hand and a laurel branch in the other. The second figure was a man in a toga who stood facing her. “That’s…that’s…” Cassie stammered.