by K. T. Tomb
Julie didn’t mean to sound so desperate, but she was. She was certain that they were facing a curse, and Sheila was walking right into it.
“These aren’t even ours to sell!” Gerald chimed in. “They belong to the church; they should be in museums for the public to see. Not sitting in a collector’s vault. Sheila, we aren’t selling these.”
“Baby, I’m gonna be fine. I didn’t actually sell them. It was just an inquiry. Nothing more.”
With that, she walked out the door.
Chapter Five
The past several days, given the deaths and the heavy weight surrounding what to do with the coins, had been long and arduous ones and Gerald was ready for nothing more than to call it a night. He’d just tossed his keys on the dresser when he felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. He didn’t even bother to look at the caller I.D. before accepting the call.
“Hello?”
It was nearly midnight and if he’d had half the energy he typically had, he would have been a lot gruffer with his answer, but he was too tired to be irritated.
“Gerald?” He could barely make out his name, much less the voice that had muttered it through streams of tears and sobs.
“Gerald,” the voice groaned again.
He pulled the phone back to see who the caller was on his phone’s display. Julie.
“Julie, what’s going on? What happened?”
The girl mumbled something incoherently, but he understood none of it. “Are you at the apartment? I’m on my way now. Just sit tight.”
He didn’t bother knocking and just pushed the door open. Julie was in a crumpled heap on the floor with Piers huddling over her, pulling her close but unable to help her control her heaving. “What happened?”
“Sheila!” Piers offered nothing else, no other clue.
Julie’s arms were wrapped around herself in an attempt to hold everything in, but now she forced herself unsteadily to her feet.
“Sheila.” Piers tried stopping her, telling her she didn’t have to talk about it, but Julie continued. “Sheila killed herself.”
“What?” He couldn’t contain his shock and disbelief. “She would never! No, she couldn’t have done that. She wouldn’t have.”
It had only been that afternoon that she had been with them at the café and he had a hard time believing that the woman they’d had such gripping conversation with had wanted to end her life. “I don’t believe it.”
“We saw her,” Piers said solemnly. “Julie wanted to talk to her about the curse, to warn her to not get greedy and try to sell the coins, so I drove her over there.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, then stopped for a moment to gather his thoughts. “There were cars everywhere; cop cars, ambulances, a fire truck. I couldn’t even pull into the parking lot. It’s like Julie knew, though, before we even got out of the car. She took off running to the dorms before I’d even shut off the car, and by the time I’d caught up to her, she had been cut off by yellow tape and flashing lights. They were everywhere.”
He stopped again, reliving the moment. Gerald urged him on.
“God, I just don’t know. It was like Robert’s death all over again, only worse. Sheila, my God, she jumped. Can you believe she jumped? From her dorm window. I didn’t even know those things opened far enough for something like that, but they do, and there she was. Face first on the sidewalk, her red hair lying around her like a gruesome halo, almost like she’d been aiming for it just so they could give her a perfect chalk outline.”
He paused, his eyes pleading with Gerald. “There was so much blood, and it was still gushing, like she had just done it. But what could I have done? What could we have done differently? I should have known, somehow, but how could I?”
“Nothing. You couldn’t do anything.”
Gerald wasn’t sure what else to say to that. It was the third death within a week. They’d only buried Robert the day before, so what could he say to console someone, anyone, when this was the third time they were facing it in such a short time? They hadn’t even had the time to recover from one, even a whisper of healing, before they had to bury another. So what could he say to his friends to make this all okay? Nothing. Nothing would make it okay. It wasn’t okay. Frustrated, he turned toward the kitchen and started the coffee.
“How long ago did that happen?” Gerald asked, gesturing to Julie this time.
“Not long. I didn’t even know she had called you.”
Just then, Valery walked through the door. For the first time in days, she appeared somewhat composed, though there was panic in her eyes.
“Val!” Piers said, surprised. “Did Julie call you too?”
“Yes, she left a voicemail. I didn’t understand what she was saying, so I’m here.”
She turned abruptly towards Julie. “Do you know what time it is? Have you not looked at a clock lately? I was in bed so this had damned well better be important. What’s this about?”
Piers told her what happened, or rather what he knew of what happened, to Sheila. While Valery listened quietly, her left hand never left her back pocket. Even as she heard the news, her face remained one of disinterest.
“Did you hear what he just said?” Gerald asked, sure that she couldn’t be so unattached to the loss of yet another friend.
“I heard, and I’m sorry, but what can I do?”
Her words were ice gliding across her tongue and through the room. She cared nothing for Sheila’s death, nothing for the hurt that her friends were currently feeling. Or were they her friends any longer? Something had changed and it was beginning to feel like their friend Valery was not the same.
“Why did you come then?” Gerald demanded, angry with her casual attitude. How could she show no remorse, no pain, no anger, nothing? In fact, her words and tone seemed to suggest contempt.
“I came,” she started, glaring through thin glass, “because I thought someone might have more information on the coins! So Sheila died! It was bound to happen sooner or later!”
She whirled around and stepped back through the entryway. Julie, Piers and Gerald stared with bitterness at the slammed door. Where was the sweet Valery they had known? What was happening to her? Julie could only surmise one thing. The coins, but she had been certain that they had to be in one’s possession to be affected by the curse. Could she have been wrong?
“Piers?” Her tears were drying on her cheek, making them stiff and sore. Her throat was dry and scratchy, her stomach turned and ached, but this was important.
“Hmmm?”
“We need to put the coins up somewhere. Somewhere safe.” She turned to face him, Gerald was looking on from the couch where he collapsed with a frustrated sigh at Valery’s attitude and cold departure.
“What are you talking about? What’s safer than right here where we can keep an eye on them?”
“Did you not see Valery tonight? Something’s wrong with her, she isn’t herself, and I’m sure that the coins have something to do with that.”
No, she was positive. She knew that the coins had everything to do with it, but she couldn’t figure out how, not yet anyway.
“What do you think she’s going to do?” Piers asked. “We’re talking about Val, here. Sweet, quiet, kind Valery. If your theory of the curse is right, she would be the last person to be corrupted. Val is the least greedy of us all.”
Julie didn’t seem convinced by his words.
“She’s going through a tough time. Give her a break,” he added.
He hoped that his voice wasn’t cracking under his words, but he feared that it was, feared that they would see through to his thoughts. Grindlay was gone. Robert was gone. Sheila was gone, and Valery had become the most affected. She was still here physically, but mentally, Piers suspected that she was gone too. Someone had to be the sane one, though, and he was determined that it would be him. Julie already had her beliefs, and Gerald was being reeled into them as well. Piers was trying to not believe
, was trying to be the logical one, but it was getting harder to stand his ground.
“It’s not just that she’s upset. Did you look at her eyes when she was talking? Look at the way she was carrying herself. I don’t know what it is, what’s gotten into her, but it’s more than just grieving.” Julie pointed out.
She was desperate to make him see, to make him understand. Valery was beyond the point of helping herself, and she, Piers and Gerald were to blame. Even Sheila. They’d allowed Val to hole up in her room, seclude herself and dwell on Robert’s death to the point that it had changed her. She was no longer Valery.
“Let it go, babe. Give her a few days to come around. Okay?” Piers pleaded. “For God’s sake, it’s only been a week since Grindlay…”
He stopped without finishing the sentence. Everyone knew full well what had happened to their professor and there was no point in bringing it to the surface again. He muttered a final thought.
“We’re all a little freaked out and probably not thinking clearly.”
Julie wasn’t convinced, but for the sake of not upsetting Piers any further, after the outburst at the coffee shop, she dropped it. He had apologized for his explosion at the café, but she could see that her theory still bothered him. He didn’t want to think that some unnatural force had interfered with his friend’s life. He couldn’t accept that, couldn’t accept that Robert’s death had been a part of a game, a spiteful curse over two thousand years old. He was searching for another answer, something logical, something concrete, but no one could give it to him.
“Look, it doesn’t matter if there is a curse or not,” Julie responded in a quiet tone. “It certainly won’t matter if we just lock up the coins somewhere. They can’t corrupt us, or I don’t think they can, if we don’t have them in our possession. And, if you don’t want to believe in the curse, that’s fine, but let’s just agree to keep them safe until we can figure out what to do with them. Can we at least agree on that?”
She had no doubt about the power that the coins held within them, had no doubt that locking them away was what was best for everyone’s sanity. She couldn’t stand the thought of losing another friend or, God forbid, Piers.
Julie looked to Gerald, begging for him to have her back. Reluctantly, he had to agree. He wasn’t so sure why and how Valery had changed, but she was definitely not herself. Was it because of the recent deaths or was there something to Julie’s curse theory? He’d seen the look on Valery’s face when she’d come through the door a few minutes earlier, had seen the cold emptiness that filled her at Robert’s funeral. It wasn’t that he was necessarily convinced of the curse on the coins, but what he was convinced of was that Valery was going through something more than just mourning.
“Okay, let’s put them in the vault at the museum first thing in the morning.” agreed Gerald.
He glanced at his watch, which was pushing four in the morning. Would he ever get a good night’s sleep again? He felt that all of the previous days had just been one continuous sequence and that it would never end. He sighed heavily, feeling the weight of his eyelids like iron under his brow.
“Can I crash on the couch for a few hours? We can head over there after we’ve gotten some sleep and be done with it.”
Chapter Six
“Don’t touch anything,” Gerald warned, though he really didn’t need to say a thing. It was just what you said when you were walking through an empty museum before business hours.
He pulled out a chair at a table in the center of the room, the fluorescent lights burned their eyes as they cast stark shadows along the floor. Julie and Piers sat across from him as he poured the contents of the pouch onto the table. The light glittered off of every silvery surface acting as prisms, reflecting the light back around the room and amplifying their brilliance. Each coin seemed freshly polished, each crevice and crease brushed clean of the dirt and grime that should have built up over the years. The edges of each coin were smooth, rounded off with time; some of the edges even curled up and over themselves. They were beautiful.
Gerald cleared his throat, pulling both Julie and Piers from their trance, and began counting the coins. They’d agreed to count them right before leaving them to ensure they were all accounted for. It wasn’t that they didn’t trust one another, but well… hell, they didn’t trust one another. Piers followed along with Gerald and they both came to the same final count. Twenty-eight. Piers looked up angrily, accusing Gerald with his eyes.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“What?” His face had gone pale, confused. “What do you mean what am I doing?”
He paused, aware that he was being accused of theft. “What are you doing?”
He hadn’t done it, but it was always like the guilty to cast the first stone.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t notice that we were short two coins?” Piers asked, sarcastically.
Gerald pushed away from the table and was looming over them, preparing to leap at Piers if given a chance. Piers hopped up to meet him, their faces only inches apart as they slung accusations back and forth.
“Why didn’t you just take the whole damned bag and run off into the sunset? That’s what you wanted to do, wasn’t it? To slip out in the middle of the night while Julie and I slept!”
“That’s exactly what I should have done, if I’d thought about it! But I’d have been a couple coins short, wouldn’t I? Those two coins could make you millions, so what are you planning to do? Sell them and pay for a wedding?” Gerald sneered at his friend. “Or were you just going to leave Julie behind while you run off with your fortune?”
Piers reached across the table and wrapped fingers around Gerald’s neck, but Piers had never been a big man and Gerald, though gentle and kind, was built like an offensive lineman. He pried the smaller man off of him with ease.
“And what do you hope to accomplish here? You think you can take me down and run off with the rest of the thirty? You are severely twisted if you think you can handle that!”
He shoved Piers backward and marched around the table to meet him before he could rise from the floor.
Gerald was on top of him before he could push himself upright, but Piers threw his hands up just in time to block a blow.
“You’ve lost your mind, Gerald! It’s sad that you’re even starting to believe your own bullshit! I bet you didn’t expect us to come with you, right?” He strained as Gerald pressed down above him, wearing down his strength. “That was your plan all along, but when we said we were going to join you, you knew you couldn’t just make a run for it. You had to put on this little show, didn’t you?”
He kicked at Gerald, throwing the man back, into the table, sending chairs sprawling and coins clattering to the floor, but he kept on coming.
“Stop it!”
Julie had been forgotten in the moment, but both men stopped and looked over at her. She had moved several feet from the chaos and had been watching the two roll around like junior high boys with far too much built-up testosterone, neither really gaining much over the other.
“What is wrong with you two! It wasn’t either of you who took the coins. We’re all going a bit crazy here, but who has lost their mind the most?”
Piers and Gerald were still on the floor, but she could see them thinking.
“Valery,” Piers said quietly, simultaneously releasing Gerald’s collar. “But how? She hasn’t been around the coins since the night Robert died.”
Gerald stood, holding out a hand to help Piers from the floor.
“What about Robert?” he asked, thoughtfully. “I mean, think about who we’re talking about. Bobby wasn’t going to just give in and leave all those coins behind, right? No, I bet he took one with him and had it on him when he was killed.”
“Okay, so that would explain his death by greed.” She lowered her eyes from Piers for a moment. “Sorry, but I’m still going with a curse here. It’s the only explanation for all the oddities.”
Piers
grabbed a chair and collapsed into it, leaning over its back, his wrinkled brow demonstrated the depth of his thoughts.
“It’s okay. I’m not sure that I don’t believe it anymore. Logic just doesn’t seem to be working. But what about Sheila?”
“Well, after you left the café the other day, Sheila told us she had gone to see a numismatist. I didn’t even think about her having a coin then, but she must have had one in order to have it appraised. She wouldn’t have just killed herself. She had no reason to. It has to have something to do with the curse.”
“Okay,” Gerald chimed in quietly. “So that’s everyone but Valery. Robert had a coin and Sheila had a coin, and with these twenty-eight that makes thirty coins? That doesn’t help to explain Val’s behavior if she doesn’t have a coin.”
Julie thought for a moment.
“What about Robert’s coin?”
The two men’s eyebrows furrowed as they tried to comprehend what she meant. Hadn’t they just discussed Robert?
“Robert had a coin, but what happened to it? Did anyone else see Val hanging around Bobby’s family during the viewing? I mean, she hasn’t spoken a word to any of us for days, but she was engaged with them. I don’t think it’s so hard to believe that they might offer the coin to her, knowing that they had been working on the excavation project together; they probably thought nothing of it.”
Piers shrugged. “It’s possible, but wouldn’t she be dead by now? Professor Grindlay, Robert and Sheila all died pretty rapidly, didn’t they?”
Julie and Gerald contemplated what he’d said. He was right. Grindlay had died almost immediately. Robert and Sheila had both been within one day. So if Valery truly had one of the coins, and if Julie’s theory was correct and she’d had one for several days, why wasn’t she dead?
None of it made sense to her and as much as Julie wanted to turn to her books for answers, she knew that they held nothing more for her. History and records could only provide so much for them, so from here on out, they were on their own.