Stone Kissed (21 page)

The lamb shrieked in pain. Delia stumbled up the hill to him, her gait awkward because she was weighted down with St. Francis’s head. The back flanks of the lamb and the top corner of his monument lay in chunks on the ground.

“Oh, God.” Delia choked, horrified by the way his head bobbed up and down helplessly on the stone. “Oh, Heywood.”

“Delia? Delia, I’m scared.”

The Fullilove cherub flopped weakly in the grass, one wing broken off in the ground behind him. Tears streamed down her face as she knelt before him.

“How did this happen?”

“She’s up there. The hollow one. She’s breaking everyone.”

Oh, no. The twins.

Delia set St. Francis down beside the cherub. “I’ll be back for you, both. I promise I’ll be back.”

Quietly, dodging from monument to monument, hiding in the shadows as best she could, Delia wove her way up the hillside to her family.

***

After Delia she would not need another man. After Delia, she could have one because she chose him—or because he chose her.

She lay back along the slope of the mausoleum, holding her palm over the cell phone mike so her mother wouldn’t hear the scratching finger of the two gimp little girls as they tried in vain to climb up after her. Of course, it would sound like static. Reception out here was sketchy at best.

“Not…good idea…”

“It’s been months since I’ve seen you two.” Cecily pressed her eyelids with her thumb and middle finger. “Almost a year.”

“You know how I…we feel… After…for the best.”

Cecily pulled in a deep, shuddering breath. “I told you I was sorry.”

“Cecily. Sorry never fixes any of it, does it? He…wonderful gardener. It’s a wonder…the golf club.”

“I got a little carried away, I apologized.”

Her mother’s voice came in creamy and clear. “And what about those stepchildren of yours? Have you apologized to them yet?”

“You know we don’t speak.”

“I’ve warned you countless times to control your urges. What have you done this time, Cecily? Every time I read something odd in the
Gazette
I wonder if it’s you.”

“Mom—”

“Never mind. I don’t want to hear it, do I?”

“Can’t I just want to visit my parents?”

She heard the same old sigh. She could imagine the same old brown eyes beneath a whitish-yellow chignon as they narrowed and rolled. “Stay put and clean up your mess. We’ll come up and visit you for Christmas.”

“I won’t be here.”

Her mother was silent for a long moment. Cecily waited for her to ask,
Where will you be?

But mother didn’t ask. “We have a cruise…week, Cecily, and then your father wants…Mexico for a few weeks. In the mountains. After that…”

“We have mountains right here.” Why was she always putting herself in this position? She was tired and hungry. It was the worst possible time to speak to her mother. “May I talk to Daddy, please?”

“He’s not here right now,” her mother lied. Cecily could hear the TV in the background, the rumble and clatter of bowling balls hitting pins. Her father was sitting right there.

“Mom,” Cecily protested.

“You’re breaking up, dear.” With a click, her mother was gone.

Headlights sliced into the lower parking lot. Cecily crushed the phone in her damaged hand, as Delia’s voice, high and reedy, rose in the darkness. Cecily dropped the pieces and looked at her bleeding fingers, but the cuts did not seal.

***

The twins flanked Grandmère at the base of the mausoleum, their hands holding onto the older statue for support on their hobbled legs. The two of them were staring up at the woman sitting on the small roof above the entrance, but Grandmère remained unchanged.

“Cousin,” Cecily called down. “Can you help me out here?”

“She has a hammer. A large one,” Isobel said.

“She has been very rude.” Annabel was most disapproving.

Cecily.
Frank had been saying. “Cecily.”

“Could you give me a hand?”

“Why did you hurt St. Francis? Why are you doing this?”

Cecily hissed through her teeth. When she spoke, her voice held a curious warble which rode up Delia’s spine like buzz of a saw. “Didn’t he tell you? Didn’t your little spy tell you all about me?”

“He can’t talk anymore.”

“Pity. Come on, now, give me your hand and I’ll come down and tell you all about it myself.”

“I don’t think I will.”

“I’ll tell you about your daddy. I was there when he died.” Delia stepped closer to better see Cecily’s face in the sliver of moonlight. She looked even worse than she had this morning, hollow, haggard, with deep-sunken, wild eyes. Exactly as a murderess should look, Delia thought, the anger blooming inside her gut.

“Do stay back,
chère.
She’s trouble.”

Delia ignored the order and placed her hand on Grandmère’s veil. The fabric rippled in a wave beneath her hands. “Are you okay, Grandmère?”

“Come on, Delia. She’s a rock. You and I, now—we’re two halves of a whole. I’ve misunderstood all these years, thought those men could give me what I need. But you, you’re the other half of me.”

“I am nothing like you.” Delia balled her fists and pressed them into her thighs.

The gravel crunched at the bottom of the hill under the rapid tattoo of running feet.

Grant.
Thank God.

Cecily scuttled up onto all fours and crouched over Delia.

“You’ll be part of me.” Clutching the front corbel with her right hand, Cecily stretched down her left. “It won’t be bad. It will be beautiful. Ask your father—he’ll tell you it was beautiful.”

“What did you do to him?” She had to keep Cecily talking until she could figure out how to get her down, to tackle her or…

“Delia, step back,” Grandmère said.

“Step back.” Grant said, and it was to his voice she turned. His legs were open in a relaxed stance, but his arms were outstretched with his palms together. He held a handgun. “Put it down.”

Delia looked at her empty hands in confusion as he raised it at her. “Oh, no, Grant—”

The shot deafened her so that she didn’t hear Cecily’s body falling from the top of the mausoleum to the ground beside her. Delia felt the sledgehammer as it glanced off her shoulder, however, and the hot pain drove her to her knees beside her cousin.

“Help, me, Delia,” Cecily begged. A hand—an odd, four-fingered hand—scrambled in the gravel toward Delia’s own. Delia tried to roll away, but the pulp of her shoulder was crushed into the rocks. The fire of that pain was nothing, however, compared to the fire that shot up her arm as Cecily took her hand, and the soundless darkness sucked Delia in.

***

The bitch had hit Delia, Goddamn it. It’d been a risk, shooting, but she’d almost crushed Delia’s skull. He’d shot her, but the bitch had hit Delia anyway.

Grant was on them in an instant, but he feared he was too late. He wrapped his arms around Delia, but Cecily was already holding her, and in her supine position she had greater leverage. Grant used the blade of his palm to cut in between their faces, pushing Cecily’s head away to break the obscene kiss.

Delia was limp, and Cecily tossed her over as if she were made of rags.

“Is it your turn, handsome?” Her face fleshed out, and something small popped into Grant’s chest and clattered onto the gravel beside them—the bullet he’d just fired into her.

She lunged up at him, grabbing him by each arm. Grant slammed his chin down on her head and pinned her into the rocks.

Hold her.

Cecily bucked up against him, a feral grin on her face.

“Yes!” she cried. “Yes!” She released his arms and ripped open the shreds of her T-shirt. “Please?” She laughed.

“Hold her.”
He heard it again.

Cecily was crazed beneath him, her arms and hands working to unfasten her pants, but he’d pinned her thighs and she twisted her frustration.

“Hold her.” The voice was closer now, resonant and real. The statues of the twins flanked him. Keeping his grip on the wiry, slithering creature beneath him, Grant looked over his shoulder to see the
pleurant
’s blind, veiled torso directly behind him. The twins stood in front of her in their pinafores and braids, each holding one of her hands, guiding her. “Hold her.”

Cecily bucked, pulling her arms into her center in order to wave them out and knock him away. He knew the move, and he slammed her down into the gravel once more, holding her wrists crossed to her chest.

“No,” she gasped. “Get her away from me!”

“Hold her.” This time, to his relief, it was Delia’s voice, reedy but resolute. “Grandmère says she can stop her.”

The statues slid forward another foot and Cecily pulled her heels up into her buttocks in a futile effort to evade them. “Cousin, help me,” she pleaded one last time.

The hem of Grandmère’s gown brushed Cecily’s foot, and Cecily’s legs locked into place, pinned to the ground by some force other than Grant’s raw power.

“Grandmère, no!” Delia reached for the hem of the statue’s veil. Grant, in turn, released Cecily as the statues closed in, and blocked Delia from seeing or touching the moving stones.

“I have to see.”

“No, Delia.”

“Grant, I caused this. I make them move. I have to see.”

“Delia, I’ve seen death. You don’t want to see.”

“No.” She shook her head against his shoulder, shouting over the choked keening rising up behind him. “This is on me, Grant.”

“You can’t stop it now,” he said, raising his voice over the inchoate shrieks behind him.

“I don’t want to,” She was so quiet he almost didn’t hear her. “But I must know.”

He respected her wishes and shifted to the side. As Delia witnessed the revenge of the stones, he held her, supporting her damaged shoulder. She clutched his thigh with her fingers and sobbed.

Grandmère knelt behind Cecily in the gravel, her arm around Cecily’s waist. Cecily’s head lolled forward as she wept, but then suddenly she snapped it back—and the back of her skull stuck to the face of stone veil. Her skin shriveled back against the bone and her clothes fell away as Grandmère absorbed her, the liquid stone arms flowing down, embracing Cecily and sucking her in. As the outline of her bones faded and the stone smoothed, the statue rose and backed itself into position, guarding the doorway of the mausoleum where she belonged.

But oh, how she’d changed. The veil had been flung back, and Grandmère had a face. A stone face, young and beautiful—Cecily’s face. Instead of hanging at her sides, the figure’s hands were folded across the slight belly of her gown. The tip of the left pinky was missing, however, as if it had been chiseled off.

“Grandmère.” Delia winced as she peeled herself up from the gravel. Grant held her under her elbow to protect her injured shoulder, and she reached out her skinned palm to touch the stone. Delia hesitated, however, as she looked into Cecily’s flat eyes.

“She’s not there,” Annabel murmured. Annabel tucked her legs up under herself atop her tomb. Isobel nodded at Delia once, and resumed her position gazing down at the Bible before her.

“What do you mean?” Grant asked.

“That’s just a lump of stone,” Isobel explained. “Hollow.”

“But what about—”

“They’re gone. Both of them.”

“Good,” Grant said. He knew Delia would miss Grandmère, but if her loss was the price of saving Delia, he couldn’t regret the metamorphosis.

“Take care of Delia.” Isobel’s words bled away like sand.

“I will.” Grant reached for Delia as she wrapped her right arm around the cold marble, her tears rolling down the silver stone into the earth below. He placed his palm between Delia’s shoulder blades and lowered his face to her hair. “Come back to the house with me. I’ll call the guys. We’ll make it look as if I’ve donated a Virgin Mary to replace the
pleurant.
”

She leaned back into his chest. “You hear them.”

“I did, but they’re fading. Come on—you need to see a doctor.”

Delia sniffed and wiped her cheek with her good hand. “I’m fine. I heal quick.”

“Delia—”

She shook her head and stepped forward. “I have work to do.”

He should insist, but he understood her. He patterned himself after his grandfather. He sheltered and protected his beloved sister. He trusted Lars with their lives. But in this moment, Grant admired Delia above all others. She loved through pain and she gave out of loss. He’d become a better man if he could be with, be like her.

She took his hand in hers and tugged him down the hill. The night was quiet but not quite silent. He imagined the dampened chirp of the stone bird and the cries of the bleating lamb as he and Delia approached the Bolger grave.

Grant tucked St. Francis’s skull under his arm, feeling the stone vibrating against his chest. Delia picked up a fragment of stone on the ground and laid it into place on Heywood’s flank. At first nothing happened, and she looked up at Grant with wide, fearful eyes.

He placed his hand on her shoulder and kissed her hair, then he rested his palm on top of hers. Together they felt the stone melt, flow, congeal and cool beneath her fingers.

“Sleep, Heywood,” She brushed her hand over the curls between his ears and they both felt the tremors ease. “Sleep, now.”

***

She’d never known such exhaustion, but she still couldn’t sleep. They spent two more hours in the cemetery. She inspected the monuments for the random damage Cecily had left behind, picking up fragments and, when she could, melting them into the living stones. Grant made calls, his low voice thrumming in the quiet dark night. Two moving trucks up drove up the gravel drive and blocked off the plot.

The doorbell at Steward House rang at four in the morning and he rose up to answer it, leaving her curled on her side in his bed, where she was not supposed to be.

“You awake?” His voice came from just inside the door. She rubbed her eyes so she could watch the long, lean shadow of him wearing only his dark boxer briefs. He pulled a manila envelope from his briefcase in the leather side chair. “It’s done. Ralph and Travis said this is the easiest job I’ve ever given them.”

“You should have told them about the chess set. It would have given them something to do while they sat in the cemetery.”