Keeper of the Black Stones

by P. T. McHugh

  The final bell rang, releasing us from seventh period, and I made my way upstream through the hall, navigating wave after wave of students to reach my locker, where I shuffled books from the locker into my bag without paying attention to what I was doing. My mind had already moved on to the night ahead of me, and my options. I’d been thinking about them all day, and now was the time for making a decision.

  “Wait up,” Paul said. He brushed up against me and threw his own textbooks into the locker. I turned to walk away before he’d finished, hoping to avoid the company.

  “What’s your hurry?” he asked, grabbing my arm before I could get away.

  I didn’t have an easy answer. I had a terrible need to get out of school, to a quiet place, where I could think and try to figure things out. I had no idea what I was going to do about anything yet, but I knew that I had to come up with a plan, and quickly. I couldn’t get Doc’s journal out of my head, no matter how hard I tried, and I wasn’t going to be any good to anyone until I figured out my next move.

  I couldn’t say any of that, though, so I settled for a shrug. “Just ready to go home, that’s all.”

  Paul grabbed his backpack and threw it over his shoulder. “Well, what are we waiting for then?” he asked brightly. He slammed the locker door shut and shoved past me toward the closest exit. I smiled and slid after him without answering. Paul might have been difficult, but he usually supported me when it counted. And if I didn’t want to talk about why I was doing something, he wasn’t going to make me.

  We walked past Camp’s field, then sliced our way along the dirt path that separated the football field from the soccer field. We always took a different route home than we did on the way to school–it took more time, but provided better scenery. I wanted to get home, but still didn’t know what I was going to do when I got there, so I didn’t argue with the path.

  After a few minutes of walking in silence, Paul got tired of letting me be. “Hey, did you hear about the substitute teacher who took out Derrick’s friend Hunter today?” he asked. I shook my head, but didn’t answer. Derrick was Paul’s older brother, and the biggest bully in school. Anytime anything happened to him or one of his friends, Paul gloated over it for at least a week, which meant that I would probably hear this story about ten times between our walk home and our arrival at the house. Still, it took my mind off Doc, and that was a blessing. I looked at him and lifted both eyebrows in encouragement.

  Paul smiled, warming to his subject. “Yeah, I was there. Saw the whole thing. This Mr. Slayton is subbing for Fulton in History. It was amazing. This kid was shouting from the back of the room, just giving the sub nothing but crap. So the guy gets up, real smooth and no-nonsense, walks over to the kid, and makes his point. Ends up taking the kid’s wrist and twisting it around behind his back.” Paul breathed out in a low whistle. “Real Special Forces move, you know? Never even broke a sweat. But I swear he scared the hell out of everyone in the room.”

  “Impressive,” I answered, despite myself. “That kind of move takes some serious skill. What happened?”

  Paul snorted. “Hunter was mouthing off, as usual, and the sub wasn’t having any of it. He walked up and said so, and Hunter actually took a swing at him. That’s when the sub grabbed his wrist and twisted his arm around his back. Smooth and easy as you like. And get what he told the kid.” Paul’s voice dropped, to better imitate the teacher. “‘Beating kids up on the playground isn’t the same as taking a swing at a grown man. You’re out of your weight class, boy.’”

  I whistled in appreciation, and Paul nodded emphatically.

  “I know, right? He towed the kid out of the room and directly to the principal’s office.” Paul finished the story triumphantly, as if it had been his own personal accomplishment.

  “Sweet,” I grunted.

  We continued on in silence, considering the actions of the new Special Forces substitute, and heard a car pull up behind us. Turning, we saw two girls from our school sticking their heads out the car’s passenger-side windows.

  “Hey dorks, catch!” someone inside the car shouted, amidst heavy laughter. A plastic cup flew out of the car and landed at our feet. Before I could answer, the driver punched the car’s accelerator and screeched away. We were left standing in a cloud of smoke and gravel, a puddle of Mountain Dew at our feet.

  I looked down at my sneakers, disgusted.

  “Well, that was classy!” Paul yelled at the quickly receding car. We heard faint laughter, but got no other response.

  “Did you catch who it was?” I asked.

  “Boothie was driving. Another charming friend of Derrick’s,” Paul replied, shaking his head. “Another gift from my lovely older brother. What an ass!”

  “Still feeling so bright and shiny?” I asked, annoyed.

  Paul snorted. “Of course. You’re not letting those losers get to you, are you?”

  I shrugged, but didn’t answer, and Paul snorted angrily. “Forget them. Someday they’ll be working for you. They don’t have half your intelligence or drive.”

  I snorted back. I wasn’t too worried about anyone working for me. I’d settle for just getting out of this town and doing something with my life. But I didn’t think now was the time to outline that subtle difference. Even if I had, I didn’t think that Paul was the type to understand what I was talking about. I was saved from the thought of explaining by the sound of another car slowing down behind us. I turned around, grinding my teeth and trying to harden myself against the insults I figured were coming.

  I was surprised, though, to see a car I knew very well pulling up next to us. “Gentlemen, may I offer you a lift?” my grandfather asked. We were already almost home, but Paul and I jumped into the convertible without a word and sat down. My grandfather had screeched back into the road before we had time to put our seat belts on. He was always in a hurry to get somewhere, and today seemed to be more of the same.

  We drove in silence for several minutes, watching the scenery fly by, before Doc decided to focus on us instead of the road.

  “Did we have a good day today?” he asked cheerfully.

  The phrase ‘monumentally confusing’ entered my mind, but I bit my tongue.

  Paul nodded with excitement. “Yeah, there was a new sub in History, and he totally beat the…” His voice faded as we pulled onto Patriots Drive, where we lived, and came on a scene straight out of a cop movie.

  “What the hell…” he breathed.

  My eyes scanned the street and I nodded in wordless agreement. At least four police cars were parked in and around our driveway, along with a State Trooper SUV. Men in bulletproof vests and black jumpsuits lined the driveway and filed in and out of our house. Police tape covered our lawn, the black words “crime scene” stark against a bright yellow background. Above it all, the constant din of the police radio screeched in the background. I stared around, completely shocked. Everyone in our town knew that at least two police cars responded to every call–even if it was just a cat in a tree–but this was ridiculous. Unless the President of the United States was lying dead in our living room, there was no need for this many cops in one place at one time. Especially at our house.

  Doc parked the car on the opposite side of the street to give us a moment. We watched the activity wordlessly, then started to slowly unbuckle our seatbelts. Before we could get out of the car, a cop came out of our house, looked in our direction, and turned to walk directly toward us.

  4

  The officer was young and overweight, and his legs looked to be both too short and too thin for his torso. In a less serious situation, I might have laughed at him. As it was, I just watched silently as he walked up, pulling a heavily starched sleeve across his sweaty brow.

  “Are you Mr. Richard Evans?” the officer asked breathlessly. He placed his hand on the driver’s side door and leaned forward until his head was halfway through Doc’s window.

  Doc leaned back slightly, his mouth turned downwards. “I am. What seems to be th
e trouble? I certainly hope that you people have a good reason for being in my house.”

  The officer huffed defensively. “I’m sorry, sir. We received a call from one of your neighbors. She reported some suspicious activity at your residence. It appears that someone broke in this morning.”

  “In broad daylight?” Paul asked, shocked.

  My grandfather grunted and attempted to open his door. “Are they in custody?” he asked curtly. The cop stayed put, and Doc pushed against the door again, harder this time, and with an air of intensity that seemed rather … well, odd. After several quick attempts, he finally dislodged the cop from the side of the car and climbed out. When the officer tried to block him off to finish his statement, Doc shoved past the man and darted across the street.

  Paul and I watched in awe, then jumped out of the car and ran after him. Doc was standing in the driveway, gazing intensely at the house, when we caught up with him. The overweight cop waddled up a few moments later, grumbling.

  “Unfortunately, sir, the perpetrators left before we arrived. We did get a license plate number on the vehicle, thanks to your neighbor.”

  Doc glared at the man, his face growing bright red with frustration, his mouth compressing into a grim line. I moved to stand in the space between him and the officer, worried about what he might do.

  “Mrs. Grey,” I said, glancing at my grandfather. Mrs. Grey was the neighborhood’s busybody, and everyone here knew it. Nothing went on without her noticing, and she usually followed up with an opinion or advice. Sometimes both. Though the way Doc was acting, her attention was less than welcome this time. He looked like he wanted to pin someone to the wall and take shots at them with his new dart set.

  He shot the officer another angry look and moved toward the house, evidently intent on getting in. I grabbed his arm and held him in place, then turned to the officer.

  “May we go inside?” I asked quickly. I was freaking out; someone had broken into our house and gone through our stuff, and now the place was crawling with cops and who knew what else. I couldn’t figure out why there was so much police action over a break-in. But Doc had already been inexplicably rude to this guy and the last thing I needed was for him to walk in when no one was expecting him and get arrested. Or shot.

  Instead of accepting the white flag, though, the officer decided that he was going to play hardball.

  “Actually, son, we’re still working on our investigation.” He spoke slowly and clearly, like he was afraid that I wouldn’t understand him. My fists clenched in response, and I bit my tongue. This wasn’t the time for brash actions.

  Doc took a more vocal route and growled deep in his throat, leaning toward the cop as though he wanted to shake him. The cop backed up a step, startled, and looked toward the house for help. Another police officer appeared at the front door at that point, looked in our direction, and waved us forward.

  The cop next to us coughed, embarrassed. “Okay, well it looks like you’re free to go inside. Please take your time and look very closely to see if anything’s missing.” He paused and allowed a moment to pass. “I’ll be back in the morning to take a police report, which you’ll need for your insurance claim. Make sure that you’re careful with that report or you’ll have trouble.”

  Doc jerked angrily past the officer, and Paul and I ran past him to enter the house. As I darted through the front door, I looked back to see if Doc was following us, and couldn’t find him. I shrugged, sorry for whoever had delayed him now, and turned to survey our house.

  We passed quickly through the mudroom, where the bench, chairs, and coat rack sat undisturbed. My Wellies were still lying under the bench, where I’d left them the day before. For some reason, this made me even more nervous, as if this room’s innocence predicted even worse for the rest of the house. I gulped and shoved past the cop standing in the mudroom doorway to rush into the kitchen. Doc had redone our kitchen two years ago, and it still had that sparkly, freshly painted feel. The cabinets were a sharp, clean white, and the countertops were sedate slate-gray granite. The oven and refrigerator were brand new, and white to match the cabinets. The colors lacked a certain creativity, and were definitely those of a confirmed bachelor, but the room always seemed orderly and clean.

  Now everything in the kitchen was wrong. Pots and pans lay scattered on the countertop, and canned goods rolled across the floor. A broken bag of rice littered the stove. Stacks of dishes were spread across the kitchen table like decks of cards. All of the cabinet doors were left open to reveal empty shelves.

  I turned around wordlessly, too shocked to respond. These were our things. Granted, they weren’t overly valuable–food, glasses, dishes that Doc had owned since the ‘70s. But they were ours, and someone else had gone through them, tossed them around, and disposed of them. The sense of violation was overwhelming. It started to dawn on me that this might not be the safest situation. What if these guys were still here, waiting? If they could do this to our kitchen…

  Paul had stepped ahead of me and gone into the den. “Holy crap!” I heard him say. I snapped out of my thoughts and followed slowly, unwilling to see what they’d done to the den, which had been my favorite room in the house.

  It was in worse shape than the kitchen. This was our haven; the place where we kept our treasures. The walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases, complete with a sliding ladder (my idea). Doc’s desk dominated the center of the room with its deep mahogany presence, and the worn leather chair he kept was older than me. Leather-bound history books sat next to physics tomes, biology texts, and the classics of literature, along with my personal collection of comic books and graphic novels. One shelf was dedicated to knick-knacks and figurines from our travels. The room had always been warm, cultured, and welcoming.

  Its current state made me want to turn and run away. Every book, every figure, even our old globe had been ripped off the shelves and thrown into the center of the room. It looked like someone had been trying to build a campfire.

  My heart lodged in my throat as I bent down to pick up my copy of Robinson Crusoe. I gulped and set it back on the shelf, as if one book in its place could cancel out the chaos on the floor. Then we continued on into the living room. The shelves next to the TV had been emptied, their contents spread out in the middle of the floor. The three large oil paintings of our home in the winter lay on the floor. But the flat plasma television still hung on the wall next to the fireplace, and the stereo and DVD equipment were untouched.

  “So they left the expensive stuff, and made one hell of a mess with the rest of it,” Paul observed. “Why bother?”

  I shook my head and looked down just in time to keep from stepping on the picture frame on the floor. Lifting my foot, I saw that the frame held a wedding photo of my mom and dad. I bent and lifted the photo, careful not to cut myself on the broken glass. Suddenly the break-in was even closer and more personal. Painfully real. I must have made some sort of sound, because Paul stopped in the doorway and looked back.

  “Hey, are you okay?” he asked.

  I shrugged, unwilling to admit how close I was to crying. “Let’s just go upstairs,” I said. I put the photo carefully on the coffee table and walked toward the staircase. This was no time to get emotional.

  My grandfather’s bedroom was the first room on the second floor. His door was open and the scene was more of the same–bedcovers stripped, mattress turned, and all of the contents of Doc’s desk on the hardwood floor.

  Paul glanced at Doc’s room but didn’t stop. Instead, he continued down the hallway toward my bedroom. His shout pulled me out of Doc’s room and toward my own.

  It hadn’t been spared; everything I owned was on the floor.

  “Someone was looking for something,” Paul said quietly. “What could you guys possibly have that someone would want?”

  I gasped. Paul was right, and I had completely missed it. Everything was on the ground, and in complete disarray. But I was willing to bet that everything was still here. Th
ey’d been looking for something specific, but hadn’t had any idea where it would be. I wondered what it was, and whether they’d found what they were looking for. Then, for reasons I couldn’t fathom, I wondered if it had anything to do with Doc’s strange behavior.

  “Maybe someone thought you guys were loaded,” Paul said, interrupting my train of thought.

  “Oh yeah, I can see why. Doc installed new gutters over the garage this summer,” I replied sarcastically.

  Paul laughed, but without any humor. “What a friggin’ mess. I’ll call my mom and tell her I’ll be late.”

  I stopped going through my stuff and stared at him. “Why?”

  “Someone’s got to help you clean up,” Paul replied matter-of-factly. He reached into his backpack and pulled out his cell phone.

  I smiled in response, thanking whoever was in charge of these things for a friend like Paul. I wouldn’t have considered asking him to stay, so the fact that he was volunteering meant more than he probably realized. I turned from him to gaze around my room again, overwhelmed. Books were everywhere, and my desk drawers were emptied out on the floor. The mattress and box spring from my bed were upside down, and it looked like every scrap of clothing from my closet had been pulled out. I closed my eyes in disbelief, and turned to my bedroom window. I half expected it to be covered in graffiti or broken, but it was intact, and I moved toward it instinctively, wondering what had happened to the yard.

  Everything seemed to be in order out in the yard, though, and I almost turned my eyes back to the room. Then a movement caught my eye. Doc was slowly walking around our garden shed, going over the walls with his hands. I did a double take. Was he looking for damage? On the garden shed? Before I could say anything to Paul, Doc grabbed the padlock on the door and unlocked it. He looked secretively over his shoulder, then disappeared into the garden shed. My jaw dropped. What on earth was he doing? And in the garden shed, of all places?