Obsidian Pebble

by Rhys Jones

  But Mrs. Chambers was shaking her head. “I don’t want to let you explain. Michael was always trying to explain, and look where it got him!” Anger flared and she thumped the empty glass back down onto the table.

  “Mum…” Oz started to say, but she silenced him with a look.

  “Stop it. I won’t have any of this superstitious claptrap in my house. I won’t stand for it.”

  She pushed herself away from the table and walked to the fridge. “You want to know how I’m really feeling, Oz?” She turned to the calendar and ripped it away from the magnets to reveal Oz’s childishly ugly drawing in all its glory underneath.

  Oz felt all the blood drain from his face.

  “There! That’s how I’m feeling, okay? The black dog is well and truly out of its kennel. And having him here spouting his rubbish”—she pointed at Caleb—“makes it ten times worse. Can’t you see, Oz? It’s poison. All of it is pure poison. How many more people are going to get hurt because of some ridiculous made-up nonsense?” Her face suddenly hardened. “Well, I know one thing, it isn’t going to be me or mine anymore. As soon as the insurance money is settled for the fire, that’s it. I’ve made up my mind. We’re off.” She turned her burning eyes on Caleb. “Then you and your Puffers can have this place and everything that’s…”

  There was a sudden blinding flash of light followed by a clap of thunder that shook the crockery and sent at least one pan crashing to the kitchen floor. The house was plunged into darkness. From somewhere upstairs there was a strange thudding sound. Oz felt his way to the mudroom and groped around for a torch.

  “Have we just been hit by lightning?” Oz asked when he got back to the kitchen, pointing the beam first at his mother and then at Caleb.

  “I think so. But the turret roof has a conductor,” Caleb added in reassuring tones.

  “Great,” said Mrs. Chambers in a voice that dripped acid, “even the weather has it in for me.” She took the torch from Oz and found some candles, which she quickly lit and placed into saucers dotted around the kitchen.

  But Caleb wasn’t going to let things lie. “Gwen, hasn’t what has happened here opened your eyes? There’s danger lurking. A real danger that won’t go away, even if you move.”

  “Grow up!” yelled Mrs. Chambers, rounding on him, and in the candlelit room her face looked monstrous, deformed by her anger.

  “Oz?” Ruff’s voice called to him from upstairs.

  Oz took the torch and ran up the stairs. The bedroom was empty when he got there, so he doubled back and went straight to the library. Ellie and Ruff surveyed the room, using their phones as torches to illuminate a floor covered with books.

  “Nothing broken,” Ellie said. “We just heard this tremendous crash. Must have blown all the books off the shelves.”

  “Almost blew out the Xbox, too,” Ruff said with real concern.

  “What’s that smell?” Oz asked,

  “Ozone,” Ruff said. “Lightning makes that.”

  “Some of these books are still steaming,” Ellie said, picking up one that looked more than a bit charred.

  “It’s hot inside a lightning bolt,” Ruff said.

  “You don’t say,” Ellie replied tartly.

  After a heavy and awkward little pause, Ruff asked, “Is everything all right with your mum, Oz? We heard shouting…”

  “No, it’s about as not all right as it could be,” Oz said, feeling his face burn at the memory of his mother with the whiskey. But then he remembered about the pebble and the dor. “What about The Victorian Gentleman’s Guide to Herbalism? Have you checked it?”

  “Got it. Yeah, all okay.” Oz watched as Ellie opened the book and took out the pebble. “Ow, it’s really hot. And look, it’s glowing.” She ran her thumb over the lit-up maker’s mark and handed it to Ruff, who did the same.

  “Must have had the full force of the strike,” Ruff said.

  Oz took it from him. It felt like a baked potato in his hand, and the maker’s mark was glowing bright yellow, much brighter than he’d ever seen it before. Without really thinking, Oz put his thumb over it. He sensed the change at once. It was like flicking on a switch inside his head. He’d felt it before, in the basement last night, only this time there were no wavy lines or flickering images, just the feeling of a door opening and of something dropping into place. He realised suddenly that it was much lighter in the room than a moment ago.

  Oz heard Ellie gasp, quickly followed by a shaky “Wow,” from Ruff. Oz spun around and saw what had caused Ruff’s surprise. In the centre of the room stood a girl with coffeecoloured skin, short dark hair and grey eyes. She wore a short-sleeved orange tunic and seemed to glow from within, like a TV set.

  “Welcome, Oscar Chambers.”

  Oz couldn’t speak. He’d seen the face and heard the voice before, in his head, but this was… He glanced at Ellie and Ruff and stammered, “Ca…can you see her, too?”

  Ellie nodded. Ruff swallowed loudly and said tremulously, “Is it a genie?”

  The girl turned to Ruff. “I am a Siliconano Osaka-Protocol Holoquantum five fifty point…” Her voice petered out and she looked momentarily confused. “Apologies. Memcore analysis reveals permanent damage has been sustained to manufacturer attribution comms.”

  Oz had no idea what she was talking about, but he couldn’t help noticing that she shimmered slightly and seemed to hover a good two inches off the floor. She was older than them by perhaps four or five years. Her accent was slightly odd, but Oz couldn’t put his finger on why.

  “Who are you?” Oz asked.

  “I am a Siliconano Osaka-Protocol Holoquantum—”

  “Soph,” Ellie said brightly. “S.O.P.H, Soph. As in Sophie.”

  Ruff’s face cumpled in cringing alarm. He put a hand up to his mouth and whispered to Ellie, “Soph? Are you mad? She’s some sort of alien spirit, not a piece of furniture.”

  “I have no objection to that name,” said Soph.

  “Do you have anything to do with the pebble?” Ellie asked, throwing Ruff a triumphant grin.

  Oz felt a faint tickle in his head, and then the girl said, “You are referring to the base unit, Ellie Messenger. Yes, I am the base unit’s avatar.”

  “How do you know my name?” Ellie said, startled.

  “I have accessed your preferred epithet through Oscar’s database.”

  “Ask her to speak English,” Ruff hissed.

  “I know what she means,” Oz said in a whisper. “She’s getting your names from me. I can feel her inside my head.”

  Ruff stared at him as if he’d suddenly turned bright purple.

  “So, let’s get this straight. You are the pebble? You are the artefact?” Ellie went on.

  Oz felt another tickle. “If by artefact and pebble, you are referring to the base unit, then the answer is yes.”

  “I’ve seen you before,” Oz said, “in my head.”

  The girl inclined her head. “Limited power has not allowed full manifestation up until this point. The base unit is damaged and the main memsource and cognitive linkage devices are disconnected.”

  “Does she mean the other two artefacts?” Ruff whispered. “The pendant and the ring?”

  This time she answered Ruff directly. “I do, Ruff.”

  Ruff staggered back against the wall. “Whoa, she knows who I am, too,” he quavered.

  “The lightning,” Oz said. “Of course. It switched the pebble on, somehow.”

  “Correct,” said Soph. “My severely depleted power source has been charged through a recent antimatter positron emission.” She tilted her head and smiled. “Otherwise known as lightning.”

  “Then how come the mark glowed before, if you were so low on power?” Oz asked.

  “The base unit is designed to absorb many forms of energy—radio waves, light, heat. Enough to allow hibernating functions such as REM sleep linkage.”

  “REM sleep linkage?” Ellie asked.

  “Does that mean helping me with revision? Maths, for e
xample?” Oz already knew the answer, because somehow it was already inside his head. But he also knew that Ellie and Ruff needed to hear it.

  Soph nodded. “A modular sublimsert was all that was required. You were already in possession of the knowledge; a modification of your perception output was all that was necessary.”

  Ruff was still wide-eyed. He mouthed “SUBLIMSERT?” fearfully to Oz.

  Soph answered before Oz could ask. “It is simply a synaptic rerouting and reinforcement programme which runs without the need for consciousness.”

  “So, in other words, you read my mind while I was asleep, knew what I was struggling with and then pimped my brain for maths?” Oz asked.

  “Yes,” Soph said, “in other words.”

  “Told you she was a genie,” Ruff whispered unhappily.

  “Is it permanent?” Oz asked.

  “Of course.”

  Oz was helpless to prevent a grin from spreading from one ear to the other.

  “But where are you from?” Ruff asked, finally addressing Soph directly.

  Soph tilted her head slightly and blinked. “That information remains with the memsource.”

  “I suppose it’s no good asking why you’re here, then, either, is it?” Ellie asked.

  Soph blinked.

  “But how come you didn’t appear when Ellie or Ruff pressed the mark?” Oz demanded.

  “The base unit has a genlock,” Soph said. “Access is through a DNA key. You are the only one who matches.”

  Of all the things she’d said, that was the one that made Oz look for a chair and sit down heavily. “So Caleb is right. The artefacts do find their way to people.”

  “It has been two hundred and fifty-two years since the key was programmed,” Soph said.

  Oz’s maths brain did the computation. “But the Bunthorpe Encounter was in 1761 and it’s 2012 now. I make that two hundred and fifty one years ago.”

  “That is correct.”

  “So something happened in 1760,” Ellie said.

  Soph said nothing.

  “Don’t tell me. Memsource missing,” Ruff said.

  “It was you who put the images on Oz’s laptop, too, wasn’t it? The image of the dor and the cinder symbol?” Ellie said.

  “That is correct,” Soph said.

  “But why?”

  “A prime directive.”

  “So long as we know,” Ruff said, looking increasingly perplexed.

  “Oz’s laptop gave off enough heat for me to absorb energy for single message transfer. The ‘dor,’ as you describe it, is the base unit power source. Its appearance was a device error message so that the user could rectify if so desired. The symbol, however, was programmed as a primary directive.”

  “Clear as mud,” Ruff said, looking totally lost.

  “She means that the dor is her battery. It was flagged up as an error message, just like an ‘out of ink’ message on a printer when you need to change the cartridge,” Oz explained. “But the cinder symbol was something she had to deliver. The message we were meant to get.”

  Soph looked calmly at him but didn’t elaborate.

  Oz thought furiously. This was amazing, brain-boggling stuff. Everything everyone had ever said or believed about the artefacts was true, and he was hearing it from the mouth of a mysterious avatar who had no idea where she was from or why she was here. He realised what the Bunthorpe Encounter was all about. If Soph had shown herself to those bell ringers, they would have totally freaked out. As it was, Ruff looked like he was about to throw up. Oz felt himself tingling from head to foot. If only his dad could be here to see this. When he looked up, Soph was watching him intently.

  “You are sad, Oz. Would you like to see Michael Chambers?”

  The world suddenly tilted on its axis. It was a long moment before he said anything. Ellie and Ruff just stared.

  “What did you say?” Oz whispered.

  “Basic functions include holotrack recording. Would you like to see the day your father found me?”

  Oz heard footsteps in the stairwell and his mother’s still-angry voice calling to him.

  “Oz, is everything all right up here?”

  But he wasn’t listening. He didn’t even have to say it. In his mind, Oz thought one word. Yes.

  He saw his mother and Caleb walk into the library, her face as dark and cold as the passages behind the library wall in the dim light from the candle she held before her. Caleb followed, looking unhappy and strained.

  But then something so weird and so unexpected began to happen that Oz forgot the tension between Caleb and his mother. He forgot everything, because, in front of his eyes, the library melted away to reveal another place full of bright daylight. He could still see Ellie and Ruff and Caleb and his mother and the books on the floor, but this new place was all around him, like a film projected on the walls of the library, but in three dimensions.

  Oz leaned back in his chair and instinctively shut his eyes before opening them again. The dim library had all but disappeared, but the other place hadn’t. It was there as plain as day. He was in a tiny shop crammed full of strange items—jars of all colours and hookahs with elaborate silver stems, urns with sealed stoppers, dried flowers hanging from the ceiling in bunches. The noise of the clattering rain was replaced by the faint clamour of a market in full swing—someone shouting out wares in a strange language, the rattle of carts on hard, dry ground. Rich odours of roses and jasmine filled Oz’s nose, and gold filigree danced in elaborate patterns around a door where the globe atlas should have been. An old-fashioned bell rang as a figure pushed the door open. Into the shop stepped a man of average height, with pale blue eyes and dark hair a tad too long for someone of his age.

  Oz felt the breath catch in his throat as he watched the man wander in. The face that looked around the shop with unbridled interest was achingly familiar. Oz heard his mother gasp, but she didn’t say anything. No one said anything. They were all completely mesmerised by what they were experiencing. It was simply impossible, unfathomable and incredible, yet it was also as if they were actually there, smelling, hearing and seeing this wonderfully exotic place, which looked to be a million miles from Seabourne.

  Dr. Michael Chambers crossed the small space between the door and the counter, stopping to examine the ornate urns and bits of armour on display, until a man appeared from the rear of the shop. He was dressed in a brightly coloured striped robe that stretched to his feet, and on his head was a brown fez.

  Dr. Chambers smiled. “Good afternoon.” He held out his hand. “Michael Chambers. I believe you’re expecting me.”

  The sound of his dad’s voice, so clear, so unmistakable, made Oz grasp the arm of his chair as a surging tingle of excitement trilled up his spine. He saw his mother put her hand over her mouth, saw Caleb’s incredulous expression, saw Ellie and Ruff gawping like idiots, and he knew that they were all seeing this miracle, too.

  In the shop, the man in the long robe shook the offered hand and spoke in a heavy accent.

  “Doctor Chambers, welcome to Achmed’s. It is my great pleasure to meet you.”

  “What a fantastic place you have here. Was that a Phoenician Tanit amulet I saw on the way in?”

  “It was. We have many things of interest here to a man of your scholarship.”

  “I can see that.” Dr. Chambers looked about him in wonder.

  “But that is not why you are here, I think.”

  Dr. Chambers’ face rearranged itself into a wry smile. “No, it isn’t. You received my email, I gather?”

  “I did. I have been expecting you. As for the item in question, I have it here.”

  The shopkeeper turned and reached up to a shelf, from which he took a small wooden tray, upon which nestled the obsidian pebble.

  Oz had a moment to wonder how it was they were seeing this, when the source of the image—or whatever it was they were experiencing—was surely the pebble itself. If there was a camera somewhere, why wasn’t it in the pebble? But there wa
s too much going on in the shop to make him dwell on this conundrum.

  Dr. Chambers stared at the pebble and then looked up into the shopkeeper’s face. “May I?” he whispered.

  The shopkeeper smiled and shrugged. “Of course.”

  Dr. Chambers took the pebble and held it up to the light. “The craftsmanship, it’s incredible. It’s like nothing I have ever seen,” he said in awe. “And you’re sure it’s for sale?”

  “For sale?” The shopkeeper frowned. “Unfortunately no, it is not for sale.”

  Dr. Chambers’ face clouded. “But I understood—”

  The shopkeeper held up his hand. “Doctor Chambers, may I ask that you do one small thing?”

  “What?”

  “On the underside there is a symbol. See…here…the maker’s mark. Please, let your thumb rest on the symbol.”

  Michael Chambers did as he was asked. “Like this? It feels…goodness…” The symbol glowed a faint yellow beneath his thumb. “Is that supposed to happen?”

  The shopkeeper fixed Dr. Chambers with a wide-eyed stare. “It is supposed to happen, but it has never happened in my lifetime.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means,” said the shopkeeper with a fierce conviction, “that though the pebble is not for sale, it is yours by right.”

  Dr. Chambers looked up, shocked. “By right? But…”

  Again, the shopkeeper held up his hand. “We both know what this really is. Achmed’s has existed in this bazaar for centuries. We have sold many exotic and valuable artefacts. But this item…it is not ours to sell. We are merely its keepers. We have been watching over it until its owner claims it.”

  “Owner?”

  “The last time the symbol lit up was almost eighty years ago. Another Englishman. Perhaps you know of whom I speak.”

  Dr. Chambers nodded. “Daniel Morsman?”

  “My great-grandfather was very proud of the day Daniel Morsman came to the shop,” the shopkeeper said softly. “Sadly, he was unable to make use of it, and so it was returned to us.”

  “Well, that is a bit of a coincidence, since I now live in Morsman’s house. We were distantly related, you know.”

  “Here at Achmed’s, we do not believe in coincidence. What is meant to be will be.”