The Stone of Blood (45 page)

He rose up then from his seat upon the pulpit, and he turned his head instinctively and looked up at me where I sat!

I moved backwards quickly into the shadows! But not before I had gotten a glimpse of his eyes! His eyes were cold, cold blue eyes that pierced me like a bullet from a gun!

“WHO LET HIM IN HERE?” The leader shouted and pointed to where I was. “HE’S ON THE BALCONY!
GET
HIM!
GET
HIM
NOW
!”

I heard the howlin’ of the wolves and the thunder of their growls as I backed up again into the shadows against the coldness of the wall! They had found me! They were comin’! I heard rattlin’ like that of chains upon the stone steps as they ran up em’! The ‘
werewolves
’ were comin’ to get me, comin’ to feast upon my flesh! I heard em’ as they cackled with their eerie sounds of laughter!

“CRICKET!” I shouted. “CRICKET
RUN
!”

The ‘
werewolf
’ was upon me before the words had left my mouth! Grabbin’ me up from where I sat and hurlin’ me through the air! I fell against the stone wall by the openin’ and looked into the eyes of a snarlin’ beast; eyes that seemed altogether familiar to me, big beautiful clear blue lovin’ eyes that I remembered!

She dropped an old matted piece of paper upon the floor beside me, drippin’ wet from her drool and then she motioned for me to go back into the passage.

There wasn’t time to think …there wasn’t time to speak …but I reached my hand out to touch her; to touch the
glowering
beast! And I placed my hand upon her heart, to let her know that I ‘
saw her’ …
and that I finally understood. And then with the paper in hand I crawled back through the openin’ within the wall.

I heard great wailin’ and gnashin’ of teeth behind me …behind me and then below me as I climbed; climbed up …up …up into the ancient tree and out into the waning daylight!

And I breathed in the fresh summer air of the wood!

I caught a glimpse of her then, as a lone wolf runnin’ by way of the light that danced through the distant trees. She had found her way out! And she would make her way home!

And as I looked up into the heavens and into that golden amber sky, with oscillating clouds movin’ across a disappearin’ sun …I thanked God that she was safe!

And I said my goodbyes to the risin’ of the Crescent Moon.

Twenty Five

A Stone in the Road

She came to me in the night, a vision floatin’ in the air just outside of my bedroom window, tappin’ on the windows glass, whisperin’ my name. “Toby…” She whispered hauntingly and slow. “Toby…” She whispered again beggin’ me to let her in.

I opened up my window and the girl floated into my room, crawlin’ like a cat upon my bed. And as I went to her she reached out for me …and ripped the flesh from my bone!

And then I was standin’ in a darkened room, deep within a freshly dug grave. I laid my shovel down upon the leveled ground and bent and wiped the dirt from the coffin below. I opened its lid and looked down upon the bones of the man within its embrace, dressed entirely in black holdin’ a golden box tightly within his grasp. I reached down and grabbed up the box, prying it from his cold dead hands and I opened it!

A reddish glow of light filled the room! And I looked down upon the Stone of Blood!

And the dead man was awakened!

And he reached out for me with his hands of bone and he seized my fleshly throat!

“Wake up! Wake up Toby!” My sister Anna said as she shook me. “Wake up! Mama says it’s time to get up for school!”

It had only been a dream.

But had it
all
been a dream?

When was it that the dream started, and which part that I remembered hadn’t been real? And if this were all a dream …when would I awaken from it?

It seemed as though a million kids’ inhabited
one
small insignificant piece of space and time when those big orange school buses let out and that homeroom bell would ring! Kids would be runnin’ to and from everywhere, gettin’ to wherever they were supposed to be gettin’ to, before the teachers could get after em’.

“
And what were we supposed to be learnin’ there anyways?
” I wondered. “
How to stand in line at lunch or how to sign our names at the top of our papers before we turned em’ in?”

School was always a stone in my path with nothin’ ever really good comin’ out of it except for maybe meetin’ people you’d otherwise never meet, unless they was in the same boat as you!

School days and people always seemed to blend together for me too! There were people who you talked to, and there were people who you didn’t. There were people that you sat with at lunch time and there were the people who only came around you whenever they needed to borrow a dollar! There were people you avoided cause all they ever wanted to do was to fight you for no apparent reason, you or anybody else for that matter! And there were people that you just hung around with for no obvious reason whatsoever, other than just cause you did!

When school started …everythin’ else changed for me. Fun, playin’ games, goin’ outside and ridin’ bikes, everythin’ just changed! My sleepin’ patterns changed, my eatin’ patterns changed! Everythin’ changed except for the way I felt about that girl.

My dream had scared the ever lovin’
crap
out of me! Don’t get me wrong, it really did! But what had happened in the dream
really
didn’t happen. It
had
only
been
a dream.

What
had
happened had been incredible!

No one would ever see that girl the way that I saw her. She had been the one who had taught me
how
to see. And she had saved me, in more ways than I could imagine.

She saved a seat for me too, on the bus ride home beside her. And I sat down with her and I held her hand. Unspoken words could say more than a whisper or a tender touch in the darkness when no one was lookin’. But holdin’ a girls hand in public where everybody
could
see you said somethin’ too.

Now our school bus driver, Mrs. Fergusson, didn’t allow boys and girls to sit together on her bus! So I had to sneak back a seat or two whenever she wasn’t lookin’ through her mirror. And then we’d both sneak down in the seats so that she couldn’t see our faces! It was about the only fun we could have on the bus I reckoned; sneakin’ around and tryin’ to get away with stuff, that and holdin’ each other’s hand.

And though the days seemed to pass by slowly …almost drudgingly and solemnly between classes, homework and chores, time passed by quickly! The seasons soon began to change and the leaves began to fall!

The full moon of October would soon be risin’! The Blood Moon foretold of in the
dark prophecy
!

And then it hit me! It hit me like a brick! Hit me as my name came across the school’s intercom system! I was summoned to the Principal’s office like a criminal accused of a crime!

“
What had I done?”
I thought to myself. But more importantly, “
What had I done that they knew about
?”

My heart raced and my knees felt weak as I got up from my chair and grabbed for my books.

Someone yelled “
You’re gonna get it now Toby!”
just as I walked out the door.

The long dreary walk down the hallway to his office felt the same to me as the way I felt the day I’d planned on returnin’ to the cave. My legs grew heavy and my insides felt queasy!

I didn’t know what the Principal looked like. I’d never even seen him or spoken with him at all. But I guessed that he was the one sittin’ behind the large desk in his office, as I walked in and told him ‘
hello
’.

I also didn’t know the other man who was standin’ in the middle of the room, but I did know the woman who sat nervously upon the couch in the corner!

She was my Aunt Jemma! She was Colby’s mom!

“
Why was my Aunt Jemma there?
” I thought. “
What was goin’ on? Had somethin’ happened?
”

“Come on in here Son, and have a seat!” My principle suggested. “You’re not in any trouble.” he said shakin’ his head. “We just want to know what’s been going on.”

“Please!” he said again as he gestured to a chair right beside him. “Have a seat!”

There was a long dramatic pause as I accessed the situation and sat down and looked about the room like an animal caught in a trap!

“So Toby, can you tell us what’s been goin’ on?” My principal asked me.

At this point I had no idea what in the world they were talkin’ about. And I was smart enough to lay low on certain things. I had learned that it was best not to divulge information outright, that someone might not otherwise be aware of!

My principal spoke up again then and said, “You’re not in trouble or anything. We just want to help you.”

“
Okay.
” I thought. “
Bein’ as how I didn’t have any idea what they were talkin’ about, I figured that whatever it was, it must not have had nothin’ to do with me! At least they didn’t find out about nothin’ that pertained to me or they’d have already come out with it! This must have been
somethin’
to do with Colby!”
I thought again.
“He must have made me a part of somethin’!”

So I sat there and I did my best to look as innocent as possible. And I waited for one of em’ to speak again.

“Colby tells us that you and he had an altercation with some boys at the movie theater.” The other man stated. The man who I then found out later was the Principal of Colby’s school. Colby went to the
City
School
. I lived in the country so I went to the County’s school. “Can you tell us anything about that?” He asked me as he smiled an uneasy smile.