The Twelve Stones (3 page)

The decision was easy
.
Of course.

“
Scott you
stay here.
I’ll go get my dad. He’ll know what to do!”

Scott, unable to reply, sighed slightly as his breathing became shallow and quick. Alex got up and began running with every ounce of strength he had.

Fortunately, his house was only a few hundred yards away from the constructed park meadow
,
so it didn’t take long for Alex to burst
through
the front door of his house
,
screaming for his father.

“
Dad! Dad! Where are you?” Alex cried, his voice echoing through the house.

“
Alex? What’s wrong
,
pal?” Ted McCray stepped out of the kitchen, a tall sandy-haired man whose laugh lines crinkled around his face in worry as he watched his son burst into the kitchen
in tears
.
H
e dropped
his butterknife
on the counter and moved towards Alex
,
crouching
to
his son’s
eye level
,
wiping his tears away
.
“What’s goin
’
on?” Ted asked calmly.

The words tumbled out of Alex, too quick
ly
at first for his father to understand him. “Scott’shurthe’soutinthemeadowhefell!”

“Slow down
,
champ
.
Scott’s hurt?” Ted st
ood
up
,
grabbing Alex’s hand as he le
d
him out the door
.
“Where is he?”

“
Outbythemeadowwhereweplayedwiththestream
.
” Alex burst into a fresh batch of tears, “I’m so sorry
,
Dad!”

“OK
,
buddy, I need you to take me where Scott is, all right? Where is he?” Ted urged his son.

“Follow me!” Alex turned and dashed out the back door towards the meadow, his father hot on his heels.

A deep pit of fear began stinging Ted’s stomach
,
and it only worsened as he
drew
closer to the still body next to the small seasonal stream. Seeing blood around the small body, Ted whispered, “No…” and pushed himself to run even faster. As he reached Scott, he fell to his knees, using
his
momentum
to slide
the last few feet.

“Good Lord,” Ted breathed softly to himself as he examined Scott’s broken and bloody condition. Ted ripped off his flannel shirt
,
tearing it up into small rags
and
using them to bind the wounds.
H
e
turned to his son.

“Alex, I need you to run back to the house and dial 911. No dawdling
,
no arguing, just go!”

“But I want to stay with Scott!” Alex whined, fat, salty tears running down his cheeks. “I want to help you.”

“I know
,
bud, and the best way you can help him is by going and calling the doctors to come help him right now
,
OK?” Ted
said soothingly
. Alex nodded and grabbed his best friend’s hand.

“I’ll get help for you
,
buddy.
I promise!” Alex began to turn away, but something stopped him.

Clutched in his other hand and forgotten through
the excitement, he held his new
found stone. It flashed brightly, and Ted cried out as he shielded his eyes away. After a moment, a warm blue light began enveloping Alex
,
spreading
across his arms and down the length of his entire body.

Ted watched, partly fascinated, partly horrified
,
as Alex began to shiver
.
T
he
energy passed from the stone clutched in
the boy’s
ten
-
year
-
old fist, through his body to Scott’s. As the light spread, Scott
screamed
loudly in
obvious
pain. But
at the same time
, Scott’s injuries began to heal, his body
repairing
itself in front of Ted and Alex’s disbelieving eyes.

Broken bones exposed to the elements
slid
back into Scott’s body, finding the precise points of fracture, repairing
themselves
instantly without a trace of the previous trauma. Blood that had
freely gushed
out of Scott's wounds slowed to a trickle
,
until finally, the wounds sealed themselves shut with
out a single
hint of a scar.

As his last gash finished healing, Scott stopped crying out in pain, and only muttered a few unintelligible words. Alex, unsure of what had happened, dropped Scott’s hand, and the blue glow surrounding his body faded away, retreating back into the stone from
whe
nce
it came.

Ted watched it all incredulous and stood, slowly stepping back from his son and his friend. Barely able to croak out any words, Ted looked at his son in amazement
.
“What was that?”

Alex was also too shocked to react, and just stared dumbly at Scott
,
completely stupefied by what he
had
just seen. Ted shook himself back to reality
and
joined his son in
look
ing
down at Scott
. As the miraculously-healed boy began to come around, Ted shook him gently.
“Are you OK?”

Scott, as if awoken from a peaceful nap, turned on his side away from Ted
.
“Fine
.
N
eed
sleep.”

Soon the meadow, once filled with the cries of pain and anguish from the 11 year old,
was filled with
Scott’s gentle snores.

Confused, Ted picked up Scott’s tiny body, turning to his son
.
“
Let’s get him back to the house
,
all right
?”

Alex wordlessly complied
,
grabbing his father’s hand and
h
olding
it tight, like a drowning man looking for rescue.

Having just seen his kid perform a miracle, Ted felt his mind running a mile a minute. 
It wasn’t something you got up in the morning expecting
, he thought
. He swallowed and put on his dad face.

Shoving the kitchen door open with his foot, Ted brought Scott’s slumbering body upstairs
,
lying him down on the guest bed. Staring at the serene Scott,
who slept
as if the last fifteen minutes had never happened, Ted looked back to his son, who stood fearfully in the doorway, watching his father and best friend.

Ted took Alex by the hand and led him to the bathroom. He wiped Scott’s blood off of his son’s hands and cleaned him up. Alex, still not saying a word, refused to look at his father. Ted didn’t know what to say
;
he knew that Alex was confused and unsure of what was going on. Nothing in his ten years on Earth could possibly compare to what they had just witnessed.

“Listen
,
pal, I know you’re a little...” Ted paused struggling to find the perfect words for what they had just witnessed, “
taken aback
at what you just saw, but it’s important that I know exactly what happened out there
,
OK?”

Alex nodded slightly as he decided to trust his father.

“Me and Scott, we went to the stream to try and pan for gold. I wasn’t paying attention to him
,
and he climbed the big tree…
I’m sorry Dad, I should’ve never let him...”

“It’s OK
,
buddy
.
I told you, no one’s in trouble.”

Ted placed his hand on his son’s shoulder
s,
looking to reassure him that everything would be OK. Alex swallowed and looked up at his father, bravely continuing his story.

“Well, I found this stone,” Alex raised it up to show his father, “
a
nd I thought it was pretty cool
,
so I yelled up at Scott to come down and look at it with me. When he started down, a branch broke
,
and then he fell.” Alex burst back into tears as he finished the sentence, “I wish I had been paying more attention
.
T
his
is my fault!” Ted grabbed his son
,
clutching him tightly to his waist as Alex’s eyes poured tears all over his jeans.

“No, it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. In fact, I think thanks to that stone of yours, Scott’s gonna be just fine. Say…” Ted leaned down again, “
d
o
Scott a favor and go get him some water
,
all right?”

Alex nodded and ran to the kitchen. Ted walked back over to the bed and examined Scott’s prostrate body once again
,
checking for broken bones, cuts or bruises
;
anything that proved Scott had just fallen
from an eighty-foot tree.

“Not so much as a scratch on you,” Ted muttered to himself. He moved closer to the bed, sitting on the edge as he examined Scott’s leg
,
which
Ted had been certain was the scene of a protruding broken bone. But there was no trace of any injury.

“Incredible
,
” Ted said out loud to himself. Alex rushed back into the bedroom with a glass half full of water, having managed to spill most of it in the short run back from the kitchen. Ted dipped a rag made from his former
favorite flannel shirt into the water and began dabbing it onto Scott’s forehead. Scott stirred slightly, awakening from his nap.

“Scott, you with us
,
buddy?” Ted worriedly asked.

“Yeah, I…” Scott replied, looking around in the room
in confusion.
“I think I’m all right. Where am I?”

“You’re at our house, so you can just sit back and relax
,
all right?” Ted
said soothingly
as he dabbed the damp rag on Scott’s face some more
.
“Tell me something
,
son, do you remember anything?”

Scott’s face scrunched up hard in concentration. “I remember…” Scott struggled for a moment as his memory retur
n
ed, “I remember falling,”

“Then what?” Ted asked.

“And then, I remember
…
something hurting, like a lot.” Scott took a deep breath as he recounted the experience. “Then it really started to hurt, but then there was this
,
like, blue sorta glow, and then I was happy and it didn’t hurt anymore.” Scott looked around and worriedly asked, “Am I dead?”

Ted chuckled at that
.
“No
,
buddy, you’re just fine. Just a close call today, that’s all.”

Ted got up and went to the door.
“Hey Alex, help Scott settle down for a minute or two
,
all right? I’m gonna go call his mother and have her come pick him up.”

Alex nodded silently
, still clearly shaken
.
Then
, like any normal ten
-
year
-
old boy, he walked to the TV, plugged in his game controllers, and handed one to his friend. The TV lit up with the animated adventures of Mario and friends, as the two boys began arguing
over
who would be first player.

Forcing
his
queasy feelings back down to his gullet,
Ted
moved towards the phone, dialing Scott’s mother.

After explaining what
had
happened, and extracting a promise from her to not sue him so long as there wasn’t a hair harmed on her little boy, Ted hung up the phone
,
relieved. He turned
and looked
at his son
,
who had retreated from the bedroom with an empty glass.

“Scott wanted some Pepsi, and I said it was all right,” Alex said
.
“Is that all right?