Stone Heart
A Novella by Lizi Clawson
Praise for Stone Heart
“It was fantastic.” Jana
“Very engaging…I enjoyed it immensely.” Jon
“Just the right amount of humor, horror and love to keep you coming back for more.” Michael
Stone Heart
Lizi Clawson
Published by Lizi Clawson at Smashwords
Copyright 2012 Lizi Clawson
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This e-book edition is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this e-book with another person, please purchase additional copies for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to www.smashwords.com to purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Chapter 1
"Girl, you look like a living statue," the brassy voice cut through Anna's thoughts. She looked up to see her co-worker Wanda frowning at her from behind no-nonsense, black framed Coach glasses. Anna admired again how put together Wanda looked, from her pleated maroon scrub pants, starched scrub top, white and pink lab jacket and spotless white Reeboks. "Anna, I'm about to hammer that head down on your neck."
"Sorry Wanda, I was worlds away," Anna said shyly, offering a small smile. She always felt like Wanda looked at her as someone who crawled out of bed, threw on scrubs that were wadded on the floor and headed to work with a hangover. Anna certainly wasn't that kind of person, she was rather fastidious for someone her age, but she understood that most of the nurses Wanda encountered were of a more colorful variety. Anna had a feeling, though, that even if she starched and ironed and pressed and preened she still wouldn't look like Wanda. Wanda was the definition of "svelte." She began to brief Anna on the patient flow since her days off. Anna had the typical nurse’s schedule of 3 days on, 3 days off, all year long. She loved helping people and making them comfortable, because no one likes to be in the hospital. Anna's favorite part of her job was the jokes her patient's told, when her patients were strong and brave, when her patients talked about God, and the way they held her hand to show how much they appreciate her care. Those little things made the death, blood, bodily fluids and paperwork all worth it.
After Wanda finished giving her a breakdown, Anna checked the board for what patient rooms she was rotating this week. She was on the "med surg" floor, a nickname for "Medical/Surgical" which was a fancy way to say they had everyone from post-surgery patients to impacted bowel patients.
As a nurse in med surg, her duties were numerous and mainly involved keeping everyone organized. Anna helped the patients with their medications, took detailed medical history, checked their vital signs, reviewed their labs for accuracy based on what the doctor ordered, clarified what "blue pill" they were taking at home with a family member, educated the patient and the family on procedures and the reason behind things, prepared their OR (operating room) reports, spoke with the departments they left about what happened there, spoke with the departments they were going to about what should happen there and basically tried to keep everyone including herself from freaking out in the process of it all.
This life was everything she had dreamed of, but she still felt adrift, unsatisfied and unfulfilled, like she was missing something vital. In recent months, she had racked her brain as to what the hole in her being could be. She had plenty of hobbies like gardening and reading, she had a dog named Skipper, she didn't have any friends except her neighbor (whom she hardly knew because she had just moved into the area) but that wasn't the feeling and she was living her dream career. She made lists of the things that made her happy, but recently she'd thought of asking one of the doctors to treat her for depression or something. She was just about up to her eyeballs with this lonely, "woe-is-me" business.
Anna had moved to Bedford, Texas about 2 months ago after graduating from nursing school. She grew up in Houston, but with her parents passing away she pretty much picked a spot on the map and drove there. She pulled up to the first pretty apartment complex she could find, a wholesome, mostly one bedroom affair with a lot of old people and single people and signed up that day. She picked up furniture from Craigslist listings and garage sales, bought a puppy at Petsmart and turned her life in the direction she wanted it to go.
Her parents were killed in a car accident while she was going through school. She couldn't stay in that house with all of the memories, even though it was paid off and left in her name. She put it up on the market and hoped the realtor would keep her posted on its status and what the selling process was and not just sell it and pocket the money. She didn't take anything with her except some photo albums. She wasn't sure exactly why, she just didn't want to.
Despite the lonely road it took her to get to the little apartment in Bedford, and the fact that almost everything in it was second-hand it looked amazing in her opinion. She had an overstuffed blue leather recliner, a blue pinstriped couch with blue and brown pillows, a small espresso coffee table and a small wooden entertainment center. Her television was a little 27 inch flat screen from Wal-Mart that she had bought on a whim. She didn't have a dining room in her quaint little apartment, but she ate at her cozy coffee table from her comfortable couch and that suited her just fine. Her kitchen was a small galley-style affair with light wood cabinets, a standard 2 sided sink, white fridge and white dishwasher. She decorated it with weird, oversized coffee mugs and Italian plaques that said "biscotti" and "café." She also had plants on just about every surface you could balance a terra cotta pot. There was some mother-in-law's tongue by the entertainment center, a small rosebush on top of it, wheatgrass in the kitchen along with garlic chives, rosemary, basil and mint, a jade plant in the bathroom and calendula in the bedroom. Skipper was such a good dog she could have plants everywhere.
After getting off of work, she walked from her small, maroon hatchback Daewoo, past the deserted and darkened tennis court, slowing her steps by the courtyard in front of her apartment. The fact that a small apartment complex in Texas even had a courtyard struck her as strange, but the statue in the middle was the oddest part of it all. The stairs leading to her apartment's black door came down and out from the center of the walkway connecting her door and her neighbor’s door, toward the statue in the middle of the small, shadowy courtyard. The statue was of a man, obviously an old statue, well-weathered and gray with a handsome, disturbed face and a strong body. He had on what Anna would call "peasant clothes," being a shirt with an open neck area and baggy pants above his bare feet, nestled in the soil. There was no base to the statue and no description, and she didn't know why it bothered her quite so much but it did. Maybe it was the look of betrayal on the man's face, maybe it was the lack of author or message to the piece, maybe it was her overactive imagination but she just got a weird vibe from the silent stone thing. The statue was surrounded by white, yellow and red rose bushes and behind it was a small but vigorously blooming magnolia tree that scented the air around her apartment wonderfully. As Anna walked up the stairs, looking nervously at the statue from the corner of her eye, she breathed in the smell of magnolia blossoms on the velvety night air and felt happy at her little peaceful abode in the midst of such a chaotic time.
She opened the door to her apartment and Skipper did a happy dance in his kennel. He was the best dog a girl could wish for, never barking or flipping out and potty trained as quickly as a whip.
"Hey my sweet little man," Anna said in a sickening baby voice, closing her apartment door behind her. She put her keys and purse on the little side table in her tiny entryway and slipped off her no-nonsense black nursing shoes. Her grandfather was from Norway, and she had always been told by her family that keeping your shoes on was insulting to the home so you should always be barefoot or sock footed in your home or the homes of your friends. She had a hard time keeping her shoes on when she visited other peoples homes, so ingrained was the "shoes off" rule. She let Skipper out, clipped on his leash and walked back outside.
Anna and Skipper made it down the stairs and slowed so Skipper could smell the magnolia tree. Skipper paused and cocked his head at the statue, as though he was listening to it. Anna's skin crawled at the sight of Skipper listening to the scary statue so late at night and she tried to hide her rippling shiver by looking out across the tennis court. The wind picked up her hair and tickled her neck. She rubbed her neck, glaring at the statue as if it were to blame, and then laughed lightly at herself. When Skipper was done reading the doggie newspaper, he pulled her away from the courtyard, and the still watch of the statue in the center of it, speckled by ever-moving black shadows.
Anna pulled Skipper inside after he finished his business and strode into the kitchen, whipping out pans and spices to prepare her dinner, Skipper hot on her heals and begging for a treat. That nagging feeling was still bothering her, the feeling that she wasn't living enough or doing something right. She pulled broccoli and tilapia out of the freezer, but set it on the counter when she heard a knock on the door. She opened it to find her neighbor Jeff standing there.
"'Sup Anna?" He had a cocky, self-assured grin that slid up half of his face, ending in some deep tan dimples. "You busy?"
"Not really, I just got home. What's going on with you?" Anna asked as politely as she could muster. She tried to widen her eyes so she didn't look like she had just worked 72 hours of non-stop care, but she probably just looked odd.
"Hey, look, I was gonna ask you what you were doing for Christmas. I don't know what your situation is," he made little finger quote marks in the air at the word situation, "but I wanted to be all neighborly and invite you to my Christmas party. No big D, just a few friends and a low key snack spread, you know that kind of thing," he said, nodding his head.
Anna pretended like she knew what that kind of thing was, nodding back at him with her weird wide eyes. "Oh yeah, no, that sounds great," she said, yawning. "What do you mean by my situation?" She asked, blinking the sleepiness away hard and managing to look like she had Tourrette's Syndrome or an eye tic.
"Oh, yeah, like if you had a boyfriend or a family dinner or whatever to do instead," he said, scuffing the dirty green carpet outside with the toe of his shoe.
She made an awkward sound with her throat before saying, "Yeah, no boyfriend, you know I just moved here and my only family is dead so I'm totally free."
"Oh, shit, oh man, I'm so sorry Anna, C'mere," he said, pulling her into a hug that smelled like Curve cologne. He rocked side to side a little then let Anna go, his hands lingering on her arms for a half-second longer than necessary. She never knew how to handle a hug so she waved my arm vaguely in the air near his shoulder to pretend like she reciprocated whatever he was trying to convey.
"Hey, no problem, I'm good," Anna said nodding and not sure why.
"I'll look out for you more, since you don't seem to have anybody," he said. "You just come get ol' Jeff if you have any problems, ok?"
Anna smiled at his attempt at protectiveness. "Sounds like a plan, Jeff, thanks for thinking of me," she said, leaning back and getting ready to shut the door before she fell asleep standing up.
"No problem, Annie, goodnight," he said, turning back to his apartment and missing her wrinkled nose at his nickname. He stepped inside and Anna peeked through the branches of the magnolia tree to the statue, bathed in an orange light from the streetlamp. She wondered who the statue was made to look like, why it was there and why someone put it in a small courtyard in an apartment complex. It seemed some things were harder to get answers for than others. She closed her door slowly, listening to the sighing of the wind in the trees but not hearing an answer.
She finished making her dinner of pan-fried tilapia with broccoli and cheese, then washed her dishes and changed into some comfortable pajama shorts and a baggy white tee-shirt. She put a few scoops of Beneful dog food into a bowl in case Skipper was famished after his walk. After flipping though television channels until she couldn't keep her eyes open anymore, she finally turned it off and stood up, stretching and making clicking noises at Skipper so he could follow her to bed. She walked into her room, her glorious sanctuary with its twin bed on a plain metal frame, soft white down comforter, white sheets, grey pillowcase with white rose watermarks on it and a pink and white sham for decorative purposes. She had a plain white dresser in her room and a small pine nightstand with a white sheet over it to look classy. Her small lamp illuminated the book she forgot she was supposed to be reading, and she collapsed onto her bed, thinking about reading a little bit but deciding to sleep instead. She clicked off the lamp, curled up with Skipper behind her knees and fell quickly into a velvet sleep.
She saw the magnolia tree just outside wavering as if under water. She sluggishly walked down stairs, feeling fibrous things similar to spider webs trail across her skin the whole way down the stairs, which seemed to stretch longer than usual. She turned the corner at the bottom of the stairs, searching for the statue among the roses but the statue wasn't there. She walked to the opening in the little courtyard and sat in the statue's place, rubbing the dirt for answers. In her dreams, his voice floated out, "Please save me from my fate," and when Anna looked up, the statue was bending towards her, mouth open, blood streaming from its eyes. She awoke with a start, scaring Skipper from the bed. She looked around her room in the daylight, realizing it was morning.
She really, really didn't want to walk outside and see if the statue was still out there. Irrationally she felt that if she walked outside, she’d be in the dream again. It was a stupid fear, but as she lay in the comfort of her bed petting Skipper, who reluctantly joined her again after her rude scare, she realized that the dream lessened the feeling she had been dealing with of drowning on the inside. She wasn’t a big believer in dreams or the meanings of them, she was definitely not a superstitious person, but she did recognize and identify the feelings within herself like the counselor she'd met with after her parent’s tragic death had advised her to. The feeling she had now was a strange completion, like a puzzle piece on the verge of being pressed in.
She rolled over, facing her serene lamp illuminated by the golden morning light. Her imagination was running away with her again, and she felt powerless to control it or the consequences of it.
###
Chapter 2
Fergal stared at the unlit candle stump sitting on a small stool that doubled as a table by his feather mattress on the floor. What am I going to do about this mess? He mused to himself, rubbing his reddish stubble with his hand. He sat up, his sheet crumpling onto his lap and stretched, considering his day. Since his self-imposed exile, he had successfully built a tavern from nothing but local forest wood and drift wood and run it as an Inn in addition to a town meeting place. Tonight one of the town minstrel’s was going to retell some of Dante’s Divine Comedy, which would be a real treat during this time. It was Samhain, November first, the beginning of the short, cold and cruel season that robbed the land of color and life. The tavern should be full of celebrating the harvest, and this year did have good pull. The oats grew lively, which he would be thankful for in the coming months.
Fergal stood and went to the stone basin he had hollowed out himself. Since the black plague, the monks had been spreading information that washing especially the hands in a solution of water and vinegar could balance the humors enough to prevent the Devil’s scourge. Fergal chewed his full bottom lip as he recalled the devastation of the Black Death while washing himself in the cleansing solution. He wrung out the simple woven cloth one of the town’s widows had given him and placed it on the edge of the basin to dry. He rubbed himself briskly with a larger woven cloth to dry and then dressed quickly against the chill autumn air. His smooth flesh was riddled with goose bumps, and he pulled back his long hair to search for his woolen socks. Finding them behind a simple wooden chair by the fire, he put them on, then curled his toes in and out while grabbing a skinny log and poking at the embers. He layered a few more small branches on the embers and then blew on them, careful not to stir the ashes out of the grate and into his small home. Soon, a small but feisty fire appeared which he promptly covered with more small branches. As the fire settled, he stared into it, lost in thought of the turns his life had taken. I could've had everything, he thought. A princess, the castle, land...but not love, not with her.
He shook himself from his reverie and grabbed his griddle. Smoothing some lard onto it, he set it on the grate to heat in the fire. When an internal time passed in which he knew the griddle was heated through, he poured some oats, water and salt into the griddle and let it cook. The silence of his peaceful tavern was broken only by some sheep bleating in the distance. Auch, the farmer must be taking them to pasture, he thought with a smile. If he could barter with the farmer for some wool, that lovely widow would make him some new socks and there were few things he wanted more from life than her thick, soft socks.
He sliced his oatcakes thickly and ate them slowly, savoring the density of them, the feeling of thankfulness for food and life blossoming in his chest. He was raised nobility and taught to love God. His time as a boy studying with the monks only served to reinforce what he knew deep down was true—that there was a God who provided for him and a reason to be thankful for what he had. His thoughts turned dark, remembering who he used to be, and the feeling vanished, leaving emptiness in its place. His mouth in a grim line, he put down the half-eaten oatcake and held his head in his hands, his silky, auburn hair falling around his eyes which were tightened with pain against the memories flooding his mind.
Fergal Mac Rowan Fial Stewart was raised as royalty, in the Broderick castle on the isle of Arran. He wore his plaid proudly belted, his auburn hair flowing free, the entire isle his to roam and conquer. It was the reign of King James III, who spared no expense on entertainment and art for nobles. His jousting tournaments were legendary, carrying on through challengers even if deaths and other gory accidents occurred. The fine art, jousting, beautiful and simple Gaelic court music and hunting were all perfect for his passionate and fast paced ways. He was impatient, temperamental, often described as pigheaded and his father thought he'd make the perfect heir to the throne.
Fergal, unlike his adventurous brothers, wasn't much for female conquests although as royalty he could have certainly had his pick. While his brothers were out for a roll in the hay, he was usually to be found in the aviary tending to the hawks, in the kitchen speaking with the staff about the goings-on within the castle, reading in the study or learning a new skill from the craftsmen. He felt that he had an insatiable appetite for life that often drove him to perfect a new technique, even if it took him all night to do it. His father expressed concern over his obsession with perfection, but he quieted down when he saw Fergal had memorized the entire history of the Stewart clan, and the strengths and weaknesses of its leaders. In self-defense, he was a tenacious and unbeaten fighter, often having to be told to stop his task. His mother was worried that he didn't seem to feel the blows, or empathize with his opponents. "Ruthless," his father would whisper, enthralled, while his mother gripped the arms of her chair and looked away.
His father told him he was to court a princess. Like an obedient son, he rode on horseback to the princess' castle and began to court her as instructed. Her family's chaperone was an old crone who could hardly move without pain, and seemed to suffer from St. Anthony's fire on occasion. The first courtship was without note, Fergal sipping his tea quietly while the princess chatted and laughed for an hour straight. The second courtship, the old crone fell asleep after one of her spells and the princess, who had been speaking frivolously, was on him like a hound on a fox. Her lips trailed over his neck and cheek and her hands slid all over his body. He pushed her away repeatedly until she sat back, her face shocked and angry. "Fergal, what is wrong with you? Give me what I want," she said, leaning towards him again. He pushed her more forcefully; standing quickly and walking away, blood thrumming in his ears and pumping behind his eyes with fury. The princess began to speak low, vicious things to him, threats about not marrying her and how she would see to it that if he didn't belong to her he would be ruined.
"I will not marry her," Fergal said that evening, speaking to his father. His father leaned back in his chair, folding his hands on his stomach. "Is that so?" he said quietly, his eyes cold and calculating beneath their black brows.
"She is a rat, a detestable, weak woman who will bed with anyone at anytime, who only wants our kingdom because her family is poor and weak and who will birth weak children that will suck the life from our lineage!" Fergal tried to calm himself, but his heavy breathing gave away his anger.
"Fergal, I and the princess' father have decided on this union, to break it would cost you everything," his father remarked without emotion. Fergal rarely felt anything, but at that moment a heaviness settled in his chest knowing that his emotional disconnect was inherited from a father who cared nothing for his sons. "All you have to do is marry and fulfill my wishes, and when I die this will all be yours."
Fergal, with a feeling of blackness deeper than the deepest bog nodded his understanding, turned on his heel and left to make apology to the princess unannounced. He arrived again at her family's castle, long into the dark when the wolves were out and the road was dangerous. He was given entry at the gate and navigated the many empty, cold hallways and staircases to the princess. When he arrived at her door, he knocked several times and received no answer. Frowning and thinking the sleeping crone was surely with her, he opened the door and stepped into her room. It was a large circular affair with a featherbed upon a beautifully woven rug, silk tapestries on the wall that were moth-eaten and not cared for, more toiletries than Fergal thought existed and curtains over the stone opening to a balcony that were open. He didn't see the crone or the princess anywhere, and just as he was to leave he heard voices on the balcony. He strode across the room quickly, his lithe and muscular legs quiet even on the stone floor and stepped from the curtains to the balcony outside. He saw the princess lying behind the turret wall with a man, holding her ankles and pumping into her body busily. Her dress wasn't even undone, merely flipped up carelessly, her face contorted in its silence. Her eyes opened on him, the man inside her unaware, and she turned her face away.
Fergal flew out of that room faster than his mind could process the movement. Every inch of him trembled and burned. That he should be betrothed in a way to such a low woman, sleeping with the castle staff, gluttonous in her vanity judging from the contents of her room, who didn't even care that he saw her that way so deeply was she accustomed to her disgusting lifestyle. He cursed her in his mind, although he knew the marriage wouldn't have been full of the love of the poets it could have at least been a peaceful and dignified affair. He slammed the stable door after getting out his horse, mounted and rode away from that awful place as fast as the wind could carry him. And that she would think to possess him, to make him hers so that she could continue to live that way under his very nose! His blood began to boil over again and he vowed to never trust or love a woman. He turned his horse away from the pressures of his father who didn't love him, the princess that would destroy him and the kingdom that was once to be his.
It took him a month to get from Broderick castle on the isle of Arran to Argyll, a small coastal town across the Firth of Clyde. There, a sweet widow took pity on him not having a place to stay and let him stable his horse in her stables and sleep in the stall next to the horse, an offer Fergal took seriously, knowing how dangerous it was for the widow to accommodate a stranger. He immediately began to inquire about a public lodging, which the town had none, referring to larger ports and cities several months' journey from Argyll. Fergal spoke with the guild leaders in the town about building and running a tavern in the hopes that it would boost commerce and provide entertainment to the citizens. They approved it after weeks of negotiations, and thus his beautiful tavern, the Fairy Flag Tavern was made, named for the fairy flag of Dunvegan which protected all of Scotland.
Fergal worked tirelessly to build a secure place for the guild leaders to hold meetings, the town to gather for entertainment at night, strangers to lodge in while traveling and a small place in the back for him to live out his days comfortably. He had given up everything for this life, carved this new purpose from the earth with his own two hands and he would change and soften for the people of this town and embrace this new, simple life.
###
Chapter 3
Anna collapsed on her couch, exhausted and still wearing her scrubs. Skipper was doing his happy dance in his kennel, but still she lay on the couch, face down. Today had been brutal; MRSA had been raging around the hospital so extra precautions had to be taken to prevent infections from spreading. A patient Anna had really admired had passed away, the grieving family taking their emotions out on her as though hospital procedures were to blame for the patients passing and not colon cancer. Anna squeezed her eyes shut and breathed deeply; counting all the things she loved in her head until she felt human again. Then she sat up slowly, looking at Skipper and said, "Let me change and I'll take you outside." She went into her bedroom and pulled some comfortable sweat pants and a pink-and-purple short sleeved shirt. She slipped on some cheap plastic flip flops and let Skipper out of the kennel. After clipping on his leash she stepped out into the brisk morning, her shift having ended at 6 a.m. She skipped down the steps where Skipper immediately stopped at the magnolia tree to sniff and mark to his heart's content. Anna found herself studying the statue again for the millionth time, as if it contained the answers to her empty life. The statue was at least of a well-muscled handsome man and not a hunchback, she thought to herself. She studied the statues serious, mournful face, the neck with incredible detail on the slight bumps of tendons and veins around his Adam’s apple, his strong, broad shoulders, heavily muscled arms, thick pectoral muscles peeking from beneath his open shirt-like top, well defined thighs visible through his baggy trousers and bare feet pressed into the rich Texas soil surrounding him. Anna decided that it wasn't his body language or bare feet that bothered her, it was the definition on his face that made him seem as though at any moment he would turn to her and begin to speak. "Please save me from my fate," she heard that voice from her nightmare in her head and, shuddering violently, turned from the statue.
After walking Skipper, Anna made some lunch and lounged on the couch for a couple of hours, wasting the day and enjoying every second of it. A knock on her door made her move, and although she groaned when she got up from the couch she was grateful for the distraction from trashy daytime programming.
Opening the door revealed her neighbor Jeff, charming as ever, smiling his best self-assured grin. "Hey stranger," he said.
"Hey Jeff, what's up?" Anna asked, leaning her hip on the open door.
"Are you still planning on coming to the party?" He asked. Anna tried to keep her features smooth, considering that it had been about a week since he'd last asked her.
"Yup," she said, deciding to play nice.
"Right on, alright. Well, how's Skipper?"
"He's good. You know, sleeping, eating, walking, all that jazz," She said absently, peering at his face. He wouldn't make eye contact with her, which she thought was strange. Anna really had no patience for waiting for him to get to his point. "So, what's on your mind?" She asked, raising her eyebrows expectantly and trying not to look too irritated.
Jeff smiled at his shoes, bringing his dark green eyes up to hers. "Uh, what're you doing for dinner?"
"Tacos," she said, nodding her head.
"Oh," he said, his shoulders drooping a little. "That sounds delicious."
"Would you like for me to make extra? Is that what you're trying to say oh so awkwardly? As long as you know I'm okay with hanging out with my neighbor and you promise you're not a serial killer, then I'll make extra," she stated matter-of-factly.
His face looked like a fish out of water. Anna was sure as usual she had made him feel awful, appreciated and perplexed. She was pretty good at that.
"Well, it's like 3 p.m., so you want to come back at 6 p.m.?"
"Yeah, totally, and I'm not a serial killer--you just said that stuff yesterday and I thought I'd hang out with you," he said, his eyes wide and his words slowly drifting off.
"Alright, see you in a few hours, then," she said, starting to close the door.
"Hey, you need me to bring anything?" he asked.
"I have all the taco fixing's, so bring anything other than tortillas, cheese, meat or lettuce," Anna said, smiling briefly and closing the door.
After she closed the door, she sprinted across the apartment to make sure she had said groceries, which thankfully she did.
Since all was well on the supply front, Anna headed back to the couch to be lazy for a few more hours until she absolutely had to get up and participate in life. At about 4:30 p.m., she peeled herself from her cozy little nest and changed into jeans instead of sweatpants, brushing her couch hair into a respectable bun.
Walking into the kitchen, she washed her few plates in the sink while she defrosted the ground beef. Then as it sizzled and browned in the pan, she rinsed and shredded the lettuce, turned around and drained and seasoned the meat then grated the cheese, feeling like Emeril. Anna then warmed the tortillas and just as she was about to fill the tacos, a knock sounded at the door. She wiped her hands on a kitchen towel, walked hastily to the door and opened it to see Jeff standing there in shredded up designer jeans, a tight black t-shirt with a brown leather jacket and Curve cologne wafting towards her. Considering that it was November in Texas, which meant that the mornings were a little nippy but the afternoons were generally about 85 degrees Fahrenheit, Anna thought to herself, he can’t be comfortable.
“Hey neighbor,” he said at the door, holding up a brown bottle she didn’t recognize. “I brought a present!”
“Cool,” she said stepping back to let him into her humble apartment. “What is it?”
“Drambuie!” he said loudly, as if that explained everything.
“Neat, what is it?” she asked again, feeling like a parrot.
He looked at her like she had sprouted an extra head. “It’s a Scottish Liqueur,” he murmured, rummaging through her upper cabinets for two mugs. He opened the bottle and poured a little into each mug, holding his up and saying, “To dinner!” before drinking it and pouring another one. Anna made her taco plate and looked up to see him nudging her mug towards her, his eyebrows raised and an expectant smile on his face. She picked up the mug and pretended to sip from it. “Mmm, that’s good,” she said, taking her mug and plate to the coffee table and couch area. He followed behind her with his monstrously huge meat and cheese tacos, sat down and devoured them so fast she expected to see smoke rise from the little piles of meat rubble on his wasteland plate. Anna shook her head internally at her overactive imagination, reminding herself to pay attention to what he was saying to her and not get lost in the tangle of her own thoughts.
“So that’s why I left Minnesota and moved to Texas, and I’ve been in that apartment next door for 3 years now,” he finished, drinking another shot and refilling his mug for the third time. Anna listened to him talk about his job as a computer technician, video games, movies, popular culture and everything else that popped into his head, pretending to sip from her mug in the meantime. After his fifth or sixth shot, his cheeks were rosy and his eyes glazed over, so Anna decided it was time to walk him to the door.
“Thanks for coming over, Jeff,” she said, handing him his bottle of Drambuie.
“Oh no, that’s a gift for you,” he said very seriously of the half-empty bottle.
She tucked it under her arm as she opened her front door. “Well, thanks that was very nice of you,” She said to his back. He nodded, stumbled to his door and unlocked it, closing the door softly behind him.
Once he was inside and she wasn’t worried he would go tumbling down the stairs, she let her eyes roam outside to the statue. It was bathed in the golden afternoon light, the shadows from the magnolia tree making the side of his face look patient as if he was a real person, waiting for someone in that little garden. I should name it, she thought to herself. The wind picked up and moaned through the breezeway violently, causing the magnolia branches to thrash against the statue's back. The clouds moved over the sun and the shadows on his face deepened, looking sinister and violent. Anna shivered at the sudden cold and closed the door, thinking the statue didn’t need a name after all.
###
Chapter 4
Fergal uncorked the barrel behind him and let the ale flow into the simple metal flagon. He set it on the table in front of Aingus, his favorite cantankerous fisherman in Argyll. Aingus frowned at him and nodded, as close to an acknowledgement as he would give anyone. Fergal grinned and shook his head, grabbing another of Widow MacDonald's woven cloths to begin wiping down empty tables.
The air was thick with the sweet smell of hay that Fergal grew in the land behind the tavern, drying it and using it to sweeten the floor by absorbing water and tamping down the dirt. It also covered up any food scraps nicely and made a good bed for any dogs that came with their master's to the Fairy Flag.
The day had been a particularly chill, damp and foggy day that seemed to drag the hours of daylight slowly. The tavern wasn't too full, only a handful local folks and a couple of strangers, nothing like the roaring crowd celebrating Samhain yesterday. One of the strangers was lodging at the Fairy Flag, the other had just wandered in, leaving their cloak on with the hood covering their face and sitting away from everyone. Fergal didn't ask for a drink order, figuring if privacy is what the stranger wanted he could accommodate that--so long as no trouble was caused.
The stranger lodging with him was staying free of charge for a month in exchange for a milking goat and helping Fergal clean the tavern. His name was James and he was a nice young lad, very helpful and seemingly honest. The door to the Fairy Flag opened again, and Fergal glimpsed the same cold, curling fog by the light of the lanterns outside.
"Falite," he said with a nod to the newcomer, a Gaelic greeting meaning welcome. The newcomer spoke with James, who promptly made him feel welcome from the cold with a glass of warm ale.
Assured that all was well, Fergal picked up the empty cups and cleaned them in the vinegar and water solution that the monks recommended be used. Fergal was not a superstitious man and he believed the monks had much knowledge from the records they kept about the best herbs and solutions to be used for almost all ailments. At home in Castle Broderick, Fergal had studied herbology and enjoyed the science of the apothecaries. He came to admire the monks for their attention to detail with record keeping of all of the illnesses that spread, how many were affected, if there were fevers, of those that bloodletted whom it helped and other items of note. Fergal was given a broken wagon wheel by someone in the town, and he used the soil that was made rich under the pile where he threw the used floor hay for an herb garden outside of his back door. He was trying to make the various tinctures and ointments from memory, but thus far very few of them were successfully done. He had dreams of being able to help the townspeople, make an ointment to relieve their pained joints, a tincture to clear the lungs, a sleep aid and other things more useful to health and hearth.
His thoughts were interrupted by a draft blowing through the Fairy Flag, causing the candles on the tables to go out, and the wind to sigh dramatically through the tavern. The lanterns held their light, although it was very dim it was enough for Fergal to see James. "Auch, James please relight the candles with the lantern flames, or use the fire if you can't get the lanterns down," he said, turning from the tables to the bar area.
The stranger who was hidden beneath a heavy brown cloak stood before him and he started before he could help himself. "Gob mo leisgeul," he said, excusing himself, "I didn't see you there, traveler."
Gnarled, liver spotted hands pulled the thick cloak off of an old and haggard woman, with stringy gray hair barely clinging to her mostly bald and age spotted head. Her wizened skin was yellow tinged and she looked to be in ill health. When she spoke, what few teeth she had were crooked and blackened. "The princess you shamed has sent me to fetch you back," she rasped, spittle forming in the corners of her mouth.
A feeling like a fist punching him in the gut slammed into him, and he was sure that she saw his horror and rage on his face even in the barely lit room. Without thinking, his hand whipped out and grabbed the old crone's arm violently, pulling it down in his anger. "What do you know of this? Who does she fancy herself?" He snarled at her, every fiber of muscle in his body tight with rage.
The old crone smiled, her chin shiny with drool seeping from a mouth with her few teeth marking the wasteland of her gray gums like grave markers. "You don't worry about what she's done; you just return to her and your life will be complete. The princess will not be told no and the consequences are steep," the crone advised with narrow eyes and trembling lips.
Fergal was incensed at the princess who would flaunt herself to everyone and expected to own him like an animal to be hunted and possessed. He had lived peacefully in Argyll for months, built the Fairy Flag, and planned a life away from his family, his castle, his land, his life. She may have taken that from him, but it was his choice to move to Argyll. If he joined with that evil princess, she would escalate her pleasures, mock him daily and destroy everything he loved so she could watch the devastation come over him. He could not acquiesce to that. "I will never return to that stinking, rotting slut," he whispered, towering over the old hag.
She laughed a wet, phlegmy sound. "You've made a poor choice, Fergal," she said. She reached into her sleeve and pulled out a corked bottle, unstopping it and pouring the contents onto his shoes, splashing some onto his legs. Before he could react, she began to chant something in an odd, twisted tongue. His legs burned and smoked and he tried to step away from her, only to find his legs would not move and a numbing cold was setting into his limbs. "Only the embrace of true love can warm your stone heart and return you where you both belong," the hag said in Gaelic, the only words Fergal understood. He looked down at his legs, which were completely stone; his skin turning hard and gray. Before he could say one word the stone spread under his skin, stiffening his lips. His warm, vital body became cold and tight and without life but what was trapped deep inside, screaming to get out.
###
Chapter 5
"Oh the holidays," Anna murmured tiredly as she walked in the door. Med surg had been bearable; very few incidences of infections and death, but Wanda had told her about all the failed suicide attempts showing up in the ER lately. Wanda said one man had tried to sever his femoral artery, the large artery located near the groin, and his wife found him in enough time to save him. The family was devastated, wailing in the hall like haunting banshees, the two children terrified and not understanding what would drive a father to do that. Wanda said he'd lost his job because of the economy, and he couldn't bear to look at his wife and kids and not get them gifts or put a roof over their heads. This modern, fast-paced, electronic world was a cruel and hard place. Anna decided another reason she liked being a nurse was to make the world a slightly warmer place to live for even just herself and Skipper.
"Speaking of which," she turned around quickly, grinning at her dog and unclasping his kennel door. Skipper trotted out, his tiny little feet a one-dog parade of the finest order in Anna's opinion. She rubbed his head, back, behind his ears and belly really well, and then stood up. "Let me change, little prince, then we'll go for a walk outside," she said, walking to her bedroom with Skipper on her heels. She put her grungy scrubs, bearing the germs of a day's hard work into a hamper she used only for her scrubs and changed into a simple light blue sweater and some dark jeans. She slipped some comfortable faux moccasins on her feet, clipped Skipper's leash on and stepped outside. She had randomly gotten off of work at 4 p.m., so it was nice to be out in the middle of a work day. Usually she got off of work at the crack of dawn or well after sunset. She came home and took quick care of Skipper on her lunch breaks, leaving one of those silly doggie DVD's on for him so he wouldn't be lonely. He never seemed to hold it against her, she thought fondly, looking down at his little eclectic body. He was a mutt and she had no idea what he was supposed to be. Anna thought he looked kind of like a Jack Russell Terrier and Daschund mix, but it could just as easily be Shiatsu and Chihuahua for all she knew.