The Silent Strength of Stones

The Silent Strength of Stones

Families, Book 2

Nina Kiriki Hoffman

1995

ISBN: 0-380-77760-6

NINA KIRIKI HOFFMAN

“A name you should know.”

—
Fantasy & Science Fiction

“One of the fantasy field’s greatest talents ... Her words create worlds no one has ever seen before.”

—Kristine Kathryn Rusch, author of
White Mists of Power

“There is absolutely no other voice in contemporary fantasy like Hoffman’s. Here is a writer to follow, to heed, and, most of all, to read with wonder and enormous enthusiasm.”

—Edward Bryant

“One of the finest writers working the blurry edge of fantasy and horror.”

—Locus

“Enormously talented ... A joy to read ... What a delightful addition to the family of fantasists she is.”

—Kate Wilhelm, author of
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang

“She weaves with gold and silver, platinum and spider silk ... Nina Kiriki Hoffman magic. There is no better.”

—Algis Budrys

Other books by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

The Thread That Binds The Bones

This one is for Nancy Etchemendy, blood sister

Contents

1. Newcomers

2. Disappearances

3. Conjuring Acts

4. Questions of Ownership

5. Shocks to the System

6. Family Matters

7. Trouble Breathing

8. Business Affairs

9. Dirt

10. Stones

1. Newcomers

The first time I saw Willow disappear was a couple of days after I met her, and she didn’t know I was watching her—not unless she was a lot more devious than I thought she was, and as a master of deviousness, I was pretty sure I would know.

It was almost by chance that I saw her disappear—but not quite. I was watching her on purpose. Willow’s family had rented one of the Lacey cabins partway around the mountain lake from my father’s dream come true, his crystal clear ice/piping hot coffee/firewood/nightcrawlers/fishing gear/all-round general store and six-room motel out back, the Venture Inn. I’d spent half my life on Sauterelle Lake in the Oregon Cascades, doing chores around the business or ducking work to spy on visitors. I usually knew where to find people to watch.

The community was mighty thin of interest in the winters, when most of the lowlanders went back to their valley towns, and I had to take an hour-and-fifteen-minute bus ride just to get to school, except when we were snowed in and I didn’t go to school at all. But right now it was late spring, prime viewing time, with summer people moving in. I liked to check the long-termers out early on, get a feel for their habits and figure out which people I would spend the most time studying. There were lots of overnighters and two-weekers, too, so there were always new people to examine.

The Lacey cabins had the most interesting people in them. They were upscale fancy; the grounds held tennis courts, a four-star restaurant, a lounge, a swimming pool for those who couldn’t stand lake slime, and a community room where people could gather for barbecues or videos. People with money used the Lacey’s as a hideout, some of them people whose pictures I had seen in magazines. If they had a reason for hiding out, I figured I had a reason to be interested in them, even though I never told anybody any of the things I discovered.

Some of the more run-down lodgings around Sauterelle Lake were popular with people who thought they wanted to make love out in nature or under the moon or by a crackling fire, not figuring on bugs, poison oak, jumpy sparks, or splintery floors. I had watched enough of those people already and usually just checked to make sure they were that sort of people before dropping them from my spy route.

I met Willow at the store, same way I met most people. That was why I liked cash register duty. A grin and a “Hi, my name is Nick Verrou. Y’all enjoying our lake?” would usually get them talking.

Willow was a small dark person, probably about my age, seventeen, where you’re not allowed to call them a girl anymore, but she didn’t strike me as a woman yet. There was something soft about her face, like she didn’t have any idea how pretty she was, with those amber eyes and that soft short black hair and not a touch of makeup.

“I’m Willow. The lake is wonderful,” she said. Her voice was deeper than I had expected it would be, with an edge of honey in it. “The
skilliau
are so strong here.”

Before I could say, “Huh?” she smiled, put out her hand for change from the bill she’d given me for a Mars Bar, accepted the money, and left.

I went to the window and peeked past all the taped-up notices of community affairs, decals about soft drinks, and neon about beer. She was climbing into the back of an old black Ford truck, late thirties vintage, where two dark-haired teenage boys and a thin, red-haired preteen girl already sat, all of them in sloganless white T-shirts and blue jeans. The girl had her arm around a very furry white dog, or maybe it was a wolf. None of the others reached out to help Willow in, though she ended up sitting awfully close—kissing close—to the older of the two boys.

A thin-faced man in the passenger seat up front leaned out the window and looked back, then said something to the driver. The dusty truck started up. It rattled away down the road past Mabel’s Backwoods Cafe, taking the left turn toward the Lacey cabins and the Hidaway Motel. The driver was a heavier man with shoulder-length hair. I thought for sure they were Hidaway types. The truck didn’t say anything like enough money for Lacey’s.

But the next morning before opening time and after my first sets with the barbells, when I had dipped my fingers in the lake in my morning greeting and had walked part of my regular spy route, I saw the old black truck parked in front of the most remote Lacey cabin, the one closest to my secret forest path from the store, and farthest from the road.

Had to go sit on Father Boulder to think about that.

I had never told Pop or Granddad or anybody about Father Boulder—not even Mom when she was still living with us, though she had known more about me than anybody else. I tried not to make a track to the boulder, because I didn’t want anybody else finding him. He was in a little clearing up among the Doug-firs and mountain hemlocks and ponderosa pines, the sword ferns and bracken, away from all roads. He huddled among a bunch of smaller rocks but stood taller than all of them with faint gray-green starbursts of lichen scattered over his pale, speckled gray sunside. I could climb up on top easily by stepping on the scatter of smaller stones around him, and I went there when I really needed quiet.

All you could hear from there was the ocean noise of wind in the treetops and waterfalls of bird notes and warbles. All you could smell was the spice of pine resin and the sand of stone and damp mossy earth. Most of the day, sun touched the top of Father Boulder, if there was any sun at all.

It wasn’t like I thought Father Boulder talked to me or anything. It was just sometimes I lay on top and felt ... naw, that’s too stupid to say. I felt a way I never felt at home. When I fell asleep on Father Boulder I had weird dreams, too, not like any of my other ones (which were weird enough, in their way).

After I saw the deadbeat Ford parked in front of a Lacey cabin, I sneaked up the hill to Father Boulder and lay down. The stone was cold from the night; sun was still low enough so the trees shielded the clearing, but I was warm from hiking uphill.

Four kids, two grown-ups, one wolf dog, all living in Lacey number five, which had one master bedroom and two small singles. Crowded for six people and a dog. Big living room, though, with couches that could double as beds (I’d helped the Laceys with end-of-season cabin cleaning every year, and I knew all the layouts). What were these people doing in that cabin? What was
skilia
, or whatever Willow had said? Why did I care?

I didn’t want to think about that particular question or the way my fingers had tingled after I had touched her hand, dropping change in her palm. Stupid. Should be thinking about Kristen, the blonde in Lacey number eight; she’d been coming up here three summers now, and she had flirted with me when she stopped in at the store, but she had ignored me majorly at the Friday night dances in Parsley’s Hall. This winter I had been working out with weights and had some upper body development to show for it. I had only seen Kristen once so far this spring, but I thought maybe this year she’d take a second look at me. I was sure taking as many looks as I could at her, because her shape had improved over the winter, too, in front, and her hair was long and heavy and almost moon pale. I wanted to touch it and go on from there.

I lay on my stomach on Father Boulder, coolness soaking into me, and wondered if Paul and Jeremy were coming to the lake this summer. I had always had a hard time making friends, especially with guys, but by the end of last summer they had invited me to join them at the basketball hoop back of Parsley’s Hall, at least—didn’t need much conversation for that. I had even gone to the pool at Lacey’s with them once or twice.

My watch alarm peeped at me. It sounded dumb, this little techno noise in the middle of nature, so I turned it off right away, then crept back down to the forest floor, slapping Father Boulder once to say thank you. I would have to skip the rest of the route and get right back to the store.

As I slipped past Lacey number five, I glanced between screening trees and saw something strange: Willow and the red-haired girl were standing between the cabin and the lake, their arms stretched to the sky. They were chanting something, their voices thin, blending perfectly. I stood and listened for a little while. They were singing to my lake, after all. My mother had taught me to touch water at sunrise, letting the lake taste me while I felt its touch, and there was something about these girls singing that reminded me of that; but I couldn’t catch the words, and the whole thing was making my back twitch.

At the store I spent at least half an hour arguing with some one-day visitors, yuppies who were upset because we didn’t carry their favorite brand of sunscreen. I thought Pop should expand on sunscreen—people would spend almost ten dollars on a tube if it was the kind they wanted; I read up on it in GQ. But Pop never listened to advice from me.

For the longest time I couldn’t convince these people that we didn’t have a magic carpet that would fly down to the valley and pick up whatever they happened to want.