“And when it’s all put to rest, what happens?”
“The stone once again becomes just a stone. Now you understand why it fears your brother and why it summoned us to kill him.”
I look across Lake Michigan. The eastern horizon has become bright blue. A streak of orange hovers just over the water.
“Will you be back?” I ask, fearful of his answer.
“Twenty-nine and one half revolutions are all we’re allotted,” the black-eyed boy says. “We are given but one moon phase to complete our undertaking.”
“You and your sister failed,” I say. I want him to hear it. I want him to hear it from me.
“I ponder the truth of that,” he responds, denying my declaration.
The sun is about to break the horizon, but his last words bother me. I’ll never sleep again if I leave here believing they’ve somehow won. I grab the icy bars of the fence and pull myself to my feet. My head throbs with the rhythm of my pulse, and I once again feel the moistness of blood seeping from the cut across my chest. All the bites on my legs scream out at once.
“What do you mean?” I say desperately. “Tell me what you mean.”
“If there was a failure, perhaps it was the stone itself which failed. Twins and half-siblings, these temporal relationships are foreign to stone. I question if the stone beckoned us to slay the correct siblings.”
I recall the surprise of the black-eyed kids at the sight of Spencer in the church. Their reaction suggested they had no prior knowledge of Spencer’s existence, which means Oswulf’s Stone had no awareness twin brothers lived in the Hawkins’ house when it dispatched the black-eyed kids to it three years ago.
And if I understand him correctly, his implication is also that Oswulf’s Stone had no knowledge of the relationship between my brother and me. We share a mother but our fathers are unknown. If Oswulf’s Stone knows only possibilities and lacks precision, it’s possible the real targets should have been Spencer and me.
Yet, this I doubt, at least in my case.
I was driven solely to protect my family, not to confront Oswulf’s Stone or what it may or may not do in the future. Perhaps this is the relationship the stone could not see. A stone knows no warmth, no humility. It has no concept of family or tenderness or sacrifice, those things which are begotten of love. For the idols of this world know only emptiness and the fear of discovery.
Before he departs Mount Herod, I leave the black-eyed boy with a verse about idols he refused to heed, a verse I had once heard Reverend Martin recite as I sat in a pew with Jeremy and Grandma in Good Shepherd Lutheran Church.
“They that make them are like unto them—so is every one that trusteth in them.”
Upon my words, the crest of the sun breaks the gleaming horizon as if emerging from the great lake itself. Daylight shines upon Mount Herod. The earth groans from the south, the direction of Oswulf’s Stone. I turn in that direction, half-expecting to see the glow of brimstone, but there is only darkness, secrets yet to be revealed by the emerging light.
The warmth of the sun falls on my face, and a metallic clatter rings to my left. I turn back to the gate.
The abandoned shell of the entity which was once the black-eyed boy hangs motionless and silent. His head rests on the sagging shoulder of his amputated arm. His knife presently lies ten feet below his empty hand on the other side of the fence. No black smoke. No fireball. No trumpet blasts.
Brushing a wisp of my hair from my eyes, I step closer to examine his face. His eyelids are slightly parted, and behind them now lies the color white instead of black. The darkness which once possessed his body is gone, presumably burning in Hell.
Beneath the black-eyed boy’s feet, lit by the dawn of a new day, hangs the plaque I saw last night but could not read in the dark: KEEP OUT.
“Rules are rules,” I say, slipping back down to the blacktop as a swell of nausea overtakes me. Once on the ground, I lean over and throw up. The bile burns my sinuses when it splashes from my nose and mouth, and not even a full chorus of singing birds can make me feel any better.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I WAKE TO the smell of waffles and the sound of dishes clattering downstairs in the kitchen. My drapes are open and snow falls sleepily outside. My bed is soft, and Grandma’s house is warm and dry and safe. Driven by an itch, my fingertips find the numb seam of a ten-inch scar running across my right collarbone, a permanent reminder of what took place three months ago.
The venom from snakes in Mount Herod, it turns out, generally isn’t dangerous to people, but I did receive a large number of bites, so the doctors monitored me closely the first few days following the incident. They actually seemed more concerned about the risk of infection from the open bite wounds than from the relatively mild venom itself.
More critically, in two days I will receive my final rabies shot in what was a series of six painful shots over the last 90 days, a precautionary measure to fend off the disease the rats may have been carrying.
Despite my misery through the whole series of shots, Jeremy took to referring to me as the family dog, going so far as to buy me a collar for Christmas.
It’s how we deal with what happened, Jeremy and Spencer and me, with humor most of the time, and consolation at other times. It is behind us, but the most painful memories never entirely fade.
Last night, a Mount Herod detective stopped by with the news the McGovern murder case had been closed. The corpses of the dead boy and girl who attacked us in the cemetery could not be identified nor did they match any missing-persons case, though the police had not given up hope that someday they might. Until then, the cremated remains of ‘Johnny Doe’ and ‘Janie Doe’ were interred in the pauper’s lot in the very same cemetery in which they died. Their fingerprints and DNA samples would be kept on file indefinitely.
The blades on the knives matched the wound across my collarbone, the injuries to the McGoverns, and the photos and descriptions of the wounds on Spencer’s father and brother. The fingerprints of the children matched the fingerprints on the knives.
Katrina Hawkins, Spencer’s mother, will be released from Saint Thomas Psychiatric Hospital later today, the Hawkins murder case also having been closed with the discovery of the psychotic, knife-wielding kids. This, after all, corroborated the core of Katrina’s original story.
The detective regretted to inform us, however, that no motive could be determined in the Hawkins murder case. Nor could he tell us why the “runaways” were terrorizing our family and killed the McGoverns in the process. We nodded politely when the detective explained this to us, giving no hint we had determined their motive on our own. Our goal had been to clear our names, not switch places with Katrina Hawkins. We kept the supernatural elements of the story, Oswulf’s Stone, and The Edgar Manuscript to ourselves.
To the police, there was nothing overly bizarre about the story. From an outsider’s perspective and on the surface, two unidentified young runaways had been discovered, brother and sister, mentally ill drug addicts, no doubt. They pursued three innocent kids—Spencer, Jeremy, and myself—into a cemetery, where their murderous rampage finally came to an end.
For our part, Spencer, Jeremy, and myself became heroes for a few weeks. Astonished friends greeted us back at school with slack jaws and wide eyes—hugs and handshakes, too. For all my concern these events would land us on a blacklist of some type, they instead led to our fifteen minutes of fame. Fifteen minutes which were, in the end, decidedly fourteen minutes too long.
I don’t know what the county coroner saw when she autopsied the bodies. The last time I saw the black-eyed boy, his eyes had turned from black to white, but I never saw a drop of blood run out of him, unless it appeared after he died, like the whites of his eyes.
The black-eyed girl’s death would be easier for the coroner to explain. Severe burns, scorched lungs, smoke inhalation—all of them were options for the cause of death. Whatever she listed, I’m certain it wasn’t “exposure to sunlight as it passed
through Willow Tree Church’s stained-glass windows at sunrise,” which the three of us privately knew was the actual cause of death.
In the end, it doesn’t matter.
Jeremy, Spencer, and I were cleared, and no one asked any more questions. Whatever disturbing details the coroner discovered—if any—would simply grow into another branch on the Mount Herod grapevine of weirdness.
And speaking of being cleared, mere moments after the sunrise had dispatched the black-eyed boy, Officers Coolidge and Gordon showed up with a short whoop of their car’s siren and a flash of the blue and red bubbles. Spencer had been correct when he insisted we not return to the shed. A Mount Herod detective had discovered the food and sleeping bags in the maintenance shed while we hid in the Watson tomb. The detective posted the officers at the shed through the night in case we should return for our supplies. When daylight broke and we had not shown, the officers decided to make another pass through the cemetery in their cruiser.
They may have saved my life. The nurses at the hospital said my blood loss accompanied by my concussion, animal bites, and exposure to the cold would have killed me had I remained out there alone much longer.
Still, it was a redemptive moment for me when Officer Gordon stepped up to the black-eyed boy hanging from the top of the fence. I’d felt from the very beginning he believed we were the victims of a childish prank, a harmless but cruel practical joke we’d somehow brought on ourselves.
After I told the officers to hurry to the church to make sure Jeremy and Spencer were all right, I delivered a flippant “Told ya” to the dumbfounded Officer Gordon, and I left it at that. He got in the cruiser and headed for the church while Officer Coolidge tended to my head wound and radioed an ambulance.
Spencer and Jeremy’s injuries were nowhere near as serious as mine. Spencer was out of the hospital in a day, and Jeremy was never even admitted, the knife never having penetrated past his shoe. As for me, I was in the hospital for a week before being released home with a long list of short-term restrictions.
Incidentally, we unanimously decided to skip the Halloween party in Old Downtown.
To my surprise, weeks after I’d been released from the hospital, Spencer and Jeremy told me they had gone back and quietly investigated the curse of the black-eyed kids themselves.
They told me they couldn’t determine anything spectacular about the tomb the black-eyed kids hijacked in the cemetery, other than it belonged to a man named Howard Jefferson Ward, a depression-era Mount Herod banker who had taken his own life on Halloween night, 1929, two days after the stock market crash known as Black Tuesday wiped out his wealth. The cash found in his house provided just enough money for his family to lay him to rest as if he died a rich man.
Spencer also asked his mother more about the priest who had told her about the importance of Chokecherry Bluff Cemetery, a critical clue which led Spencer to the discovery of the Herod family tree, Oswulf’s Stone, The Edgar Manuscript, and ultimately the black-eyed kids.
Katrina knew little about the priest, saying he had visited her only twice. The first time to tell her about the cemetery, the second time a year later to check on Spencer’s progress. She was, however, able to remember the priest’s name.
“Father James Delevan,” Katrina told Spencer, who pledged to someday meet and speak to the priest. This meant very little to me. Father Delevan, though important to Spencer and his mother, had little to do with what Jeremy and I went through. I had little if any desire to ever meet him.
In fact, I regard all of this with growing indifference with each new day.
I slip out of bed, get dressed, and wander down the stairs to the kitchen. Grandma’s back is to me at the stove. Jeremy sits at the table with two waffles stacked on the plate in front of him.
“Hi, Abby,” Jeremy says brightly.
Grandma looks over her shoulder at me. “Well, good morning, Abigail! How are you this morning?”
“I’m good,” I say, smiling, and I take a seat across from Jeremy.
The three of us don’t talk much about what occurred in October. Grandma was immeasurably relieved when the police informed her we had been found injured but alive that Sunday morning in the cemetery. As for herself, she has since recovered entirely from the spider attack. I have a feeling she senses there is something more to the story we told the police, but Jeremy and I have never told her the entire truth, fearing the impact it could have on her health and peace of mind.
A FOR SALE sign staked in the McGovern’s front yard is a sad, daily reminder of what took place there. Mrs. McGovern had left everything to Dooley, and Dooley had no heirs. A public administrator is liquidating the estate, and it sounds as though the money will eventually land in Mount Herod’s account of unclaimed funds.
Mr. Donaldson is expected back at the hardware store within two months. He’s living with his daughter in Palmetto, Florida in the meantime. Part of me hopes Mr. Donaldson stays in Florida for his own sake. If I ever get that far away from Mount Herod, I’ll never return.
As for Oswulf’s Stone, it still stands near the knoll where the former Tyburn Tree once stood. Jeremy and Spencer have taken more precise measurements of it and believe it’s around 4,200 pounds, way too heavy to move by hand, and far too large to dissolve with acid or melt with fire.
Even so, the black-eyed boy told me the method to destroy Oswulf’s Stone is not a physical one. Thwart it, he said, confront it, unravel its mysteries until its dark spirit dies of malnutrition.
It’s not a task for me. Not in the least.
It’s up to Jeremy and Spencer now, two boys—someday two men—entirely capable of not only taking care of themselves but taking care of others, dealing with whatever supernatural and paranormal challenge Oswulf’s Stone draws into Mount Herod next.
Still, I sometimes wonder what makes Jeremy so special. I wonder what caused Oswulf’s Stone to paint a bullseye on his back and send the black-eyed kids after him. I think about Spencer’s story about the holy order of knights called the Knights Templar.
Not to be outdone by my brother and Spencer, I did some research of my own while I was recovering.
After King Phillip the Fourth of France issued the infamous arrest warrant back in 1307 and had the Templar Knight leaders burned at the stake, many of the knights fled to different orders. Some fled the country. Some disappeared altogether.
Almost certainly, some of the knights left the order and returned to the countryside, becoming anonymous, laying down their swords and leaving behind once sacred vows. No doubt some even fell in love, married, and had children, children who went on to have children of their own, sending descendants of knights down through the centuries…
A far-fetched thought occurs to me as I watch my half-brother eat breakfast. But then Jeremy absently stuffs a giant forkful of waffles into his mouth, and a stream of gooey maple syrup dribbles down his pimply chin. Disenchanted, I abandon my far-fetched thought.
For now.
I wonder how much Oswulf’s Stone knows. What kind of secrets has it learned standing idle, listening for thousands of years? What does it know about Jeremy? What does it know about Spencer?
Let it moan in fear, I say. In fact, let all the darkness in Mount Herod moan in fear of Jeremy Cooper and Spencer Hawkins.
As for me, I wish I could say my life was somehow better because of all of it, but as long as I’m stuck in Mount Herod, I don’t know that will ever be the case.
I still believe my fate will someday bring me to a large stucco home with a terra-cotta roof somewhere in Southern California. I’ll marry a man who makes me laugh, and I’ll have four children who will play in our avocado orchard while I watch the sunset from my backyard, sipping whatever it is they sip in Southern California.
***
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THE REAL OSWULF’S STONE AND TYBURN TREE
CURSE OF THE BLACK-EYED KIDS makes many real-life, historical references. Oswulf’s Stone, the Tyburn Tree, and Queen Victoria herself are a very real part of London’s history, but very little written about them in this novel is factual.
London’s actual Tyburn Tree once stood at the current intersection of Edgware Road and Bayswater Road near the Marble Arch. The gallows stood on the spot for over 150 years before its removal in 1759. Its former location is commemorated by a trio of trees surrounding a stone plaque bearing the inscription THE SITE OF THE TYBURN TREE.
The original form of poetry called Tyburn probably did not resemble the same precise form as today’s Tyburn poetry. Early Tyburn poetry may not have been so much a form as a theme, a dark theme sometimes revolving around capital punishment, fatality, or repentance. Today’s Tyburn poems are much more about form and structure, though it most often appears cloaked in dark themes, holding true at least in one way to its origin.
Oswulf’s Stone, also known as Oswald’s Stone, was an ancient monolith predating the Roman occupation of England. Like the Tyburn Tree, it was located in the village of Tyburn, and it is presumed to have marked an ancient meeting place, perhaps for elders, councils, or soldiers. Its exact size is not known, but it was undoubtedly a fraction of the size of the fictionalized version portrayed in this book. Its association with pagans and the occult was entirely fabricated by the author.
Oswulf’s Stone was, in fact, buried in the early or mid 19th century only to be excavated in the late 19th century, the former having occurred probably due to either unawareness or carelessness, and the latter having occurred after the stone’s potential historical significance was realized. Queen Victoria’s involvement in the matter was devised by the author to give the illusion of authenticity and conspiracy to the story.
Curse of the Black-Eyed Kids (Mount Herod Legends Book 2) Page 23