Chapter 24

Two hours later, Samantha and John found themselves riding single file behind Isabel, on a trail that ran north, along the cliffs. At first, Samantha had balked at taking the trail but John had simply sent her a look that said, “You asked for this.” So she had swallowed her fear and nudged her horse forward while keeping her eyes directly on Isabel’s back.

Harrowing was not a word she commonly used but as she glanced to her right, she understood how useful it was as a word. Ten feet to their right the world fell away and far below, she could hear the ocean as it rolled and crashed on the rocks. Somewhere down there she also heard gulls.

In the distance she could see where the shelf dropped to the dark blue of depths. There were no steps along the cliff here, no inviting beach waiting below. One slip and she and her mount could be shattered, splattered and broken on the rocks and their bones left for the gulls to pick clean and then be washed to sea at high tide.

Sam shuddered and turned her head to the left and studied the thick, dark, encroaching forest that seemed to loom over the road. She thought of the green men and how they had simply melted into the forest. Would she even know if they were watching now? She sighed, imposing and intimidating she could deal with as long as it didn’t involve great heights.

Half an hour into the ride, the forest fell away and they entered a large round meadow at the base of the mountains. Samantha’s whole attention was drawn up in amazement. She had never seen the mountains and the stories of her childhood coming to life before her were awe-inspiring. They weren’t snowcapped peaks and probably not true mountains, like those mentioned in the encyclopedias back in the library, but for Samantha, they were the tallest things she had ever seen. And their emerald flanks glowed in the sunlight.

Isabel dismounted and ground tied her horse. “John, unsaddle them and let them graze. They love it here and it is a treat they don’t get often.” Then she pulled her saddle bags off and turned. Samantha pull her eyes from the heights and looked around her. Two circles formed by stones that seemed to rise out of the ground. The first ring seemed to form low seats and Isabel sat down on one and waited.

Sam studied her surroundings more closely. They were in a broad, flat plain covered in rich, green grass and meadow flowers, bordered on the east by the sea and cliffs, on the north by a mountain, on the west and south by woods. The stones where they sat formed an outer ring while twenty feet away taller stones formed an inner ring. She realized that the outer rim of the plain was also lined in stones shorter than those on which they sat. So that meant that there were actually three concentric rings of stones, each slightly larger than the last. Inside the rings only thick grass grew and outside the first ring were trees, bushes and tall grasses. There were no other unusual features. Unless one considered the silence unusual.

A path, not well-worn but clearly definable in the grass, led through the rings to a stone table in the center. She thought fleetingly that the heavy use of the trail didn’t coincide with this slightly worn path into the center of the rings. In the distance, probably a hundred yards away toward the west stood a stone arch, like a doorway into the forest.

“Aunt Isabel. . .” Samantha began.

“I know you’re curious, Samantha,” she said, “but you’ll get the tour later. Right now I want you to sit down and listen.”

John rejoined them and sat on a stone nearby. “Quite an interesting place. Do you come here often?”

“I’m probably one of the few people who actually enter the circles. This place is taboo and that is why I come here.”

Sam frowned at her and said, “You come here because it’s forbidden?”

She smiled. “You have to remember, it wasn’t that many years ago since I was considered taboo. I find it peaceful here. There is a sense of eternity here that one doesn’t get elsewhere. It is a very old place. I don’t know if it was a building or if there has always been these stones. I understand beyond the Mist there are such places, equally mysterious. It is thought they were pagan shrines or calendars of some sort. Personally, I find that here it is very easy to commune with my maker. I believe this place was a place of worship.”

“Why?” Samantha asked.

“There is a sense of . . . reverence.” She flashed an embarrassed smile. “I may be the only person who feels it. I don’t know. But if you sit here alone and listen you can hear something. Not just the birds and squirrels, the trees and ocean. No, there is a sound, beneath all that, just beyond hearing. And I keep coming back, hoping that the next time, I will be able to understand it.”

John said, “Why do we need to come here to have a talk?”

“It’s the one place I can be certain we won’t be interrupted. Few people will come here at all. Most of those who do, won’t stop.” She paused and looked around before continuing. “And I brought you here because it is a place that Samantha should experience.”

Sam again studied the landscape but the stones, although interesting, held no significance for her. She said, “What am I supposed to see?”

Isabel searched her face, a frown creasing her brow and then, she turned her gaze out to sea and began to speak. As she did, Samantha noticed that she had clenched her hands in her lap and was twisting them.

“I began having visions as a small child. The earliest I can remember was when I was about seven or eight years old. It was so frightening that I became ill, refusing to eat and terrified to sleep. My mother was a gifted healer, skilled in the use of herbal remedies. She had even studied some of the books in the library to gain surgical skills. Some people didn’t have access to the skills of a doctor. She took it upon herself to help those people and managed to travel all over the island, including the Outland. She tried to use her herbal knowledge to help me but nothing changed.

“When I began to tell her what I was seeing, she was stunned. She knew about such things from her travels. A woman she had treated in the Outland, a very old woman, had an ability to see things but Mother had not really believed.

"Then, I began to have my dreams. She took me to see this woman. We spent a week there. She taught my mother how to deal with the things I was experiencing, how to help me not be afraid. At least, she tried,” she paused, took a deep breath and looked at Sam, “tried to teach me to trust my visions, to. . . well. . . in her words, “allow God to speak to me.” And while I knew God, the things I was seeing would not be accepted among the Provincials. Only witches had visions. Much of what she taught me, I, in turn, tried to teach your father when he came to me after your first vision.”

Her voice had become strained now and John pushed a canteen into her hands. She took a long drink and handed it to Samantha. She, in turn, took a long drink. Isabel continued.

“When I was a young woman, a bit younger than you, Sam, I had a vision. You may call them dreams but in reality, they are visions. I saw someone come through the mist. And in my vision I saw him murder a woman who lived near us. I had never had such a vision before and it terrified me. I saw it so clearly I could see the reflection of the knife in the moonlight. I clearly saw his face in the light from a lantern in her living room. I saw and felt her absolute horror at what was happening to her. And I was as helpless as she. I came out of the vision screaming.”

Isabel paused and Samantha watched as a shudder passed through her and she seemed to draw into herself. Her shoulders rounded and her head dropped. She curled her arms around her body. For a time they just sat and waited but when the silence began to stretch long, Isabel drew her shoulders back, lifted her head, and continued, “I’d never told anyone but my mother about my visions. She was the mediator between me and my father. They both hid the truth from everyone except my brother, your father. I always trusted Mother and relied on her to understand but this. . . this was so horrific that I couldn’t find the words. I struggled, knowing someone had come through the mist is one thing, but seeing that person commit a horrible crime was . . . I didn’t know what to do. My mother’s friend had never spoken of such things.

“I felt isolated and alone. I felt I couldn’t tell anyone. What would my mother think? They’d all think I was crazy. They would think I was a witch or worse, a devil. I struggled for three days before I broke my silence. I told my best friend, a young woman I’d grown up with and in whose company I had spent countless hours and whom I knew would surely understand. The day I told her, they found the body of Priscilla Ward. I had been wrong to keep quiet and I was so terribly wrong about my friend.” Her voice broke and she stopped and stared out toward the mist.

The sun was high now and the meadow had grown warm. Samantha looked at John but he was staring off at the mountains, his eyes squinting and a muscle twitching in his jaw.
Samantha didn’t know if she wanted to hear the rest of the story or not. The telling was obviously painful to Isabel. And for Samantha, her aunt’s life struck too close for comfort. The events of the past week were too much like history repeating itself.

“I’ve never seen things like you do, Aunt Isabel,” Samantha said. “I didn’t see anyone killed. I didn’t even know about that until after it had happened.”

“Your brother said you described the boat they arrived in.”

Samantha paused, shooting a sharp look at John who had conveniently turned his back. She swallowed hard and looked at the toes of her riding boots. “Yes.” She looked up, darting desperate looks at John, who still would not meet her gaze, “My God, I don’t want to see anyone killed.”

Isabel reached out and took one of her hands. “Tell me, when you first had the dream about the boat and the men coming ashore at the white beach, did you remember the details when you woke up?”

Sam looked away and searched the ground around her, as if there was something she had lost. “No. . . no, I. . . don’t think I did. . . exactly.” The grass was so green here and thick as a carpet. For an instant she felt compelled to stretch out on it and close her eyes. But reality bit into her conscience. “When I got angry with Ryder, I saw it again, clearly. It all came spilling out like an over-turned bucket of milk.”

A great sigh escaped Isabel and her body seemed to relax. Samantha look up and saw she was smiling. “Yes. Finally. Tell me every detail, Samantha. No, wait. . . I’ll tell you. That will work much better.”

Brother and sister were puzzled now. They exchange confused looks and then looked at their aunt. John sat down on the grass between them but far enough so he could watch both of them.

“They came through around two in the morning. The mist was white and roiling like a sheet in a boiling pot.” Isabel closed her eyes and fell silent for a moment, a frown creasing her forehead.

“It was cold and all sound was deadened like a cracked bell. It was a Whitehall rowboat and contained six men, only one was clean shaven. He was young, with black hair. There was. . . no talking. They did land on white beach but it was by design, not accident.”

Her eyes flew open and she stared at Samantha. “They changed course once through the mist or they would have landed in the port. They knew they would be caught if they landed there!”

John sat up straighter, “What?”

Isabel stopped and her eyes locked with Sam’s. The sound of crashing waves gradually filled the waiting silence until Sam looked away and stood up.

“Samantha?” John’s voice was soft, concerned.

She walked into the circle, following the dim path through the thick carpet of grass, through the tall, inner ring until she reached the table at the heart of the circle and placed her hands flat on the cold surface of the stone.

At the heart, she thought. That was it. The heart of her world, bound by a circle of mist, circled by the outside world, circled by the universe, spinning in every tightening circles all spiraling to this point. For one moment, Samantha knew she was right, with absolute clarity she knew everything. She knew what the stones meant. They were the representation of this place in space. And then, she felt her own body beginning to spiral. The trees, the sky, the mountains, the sea all began to spiral away from her, out of control and she was sent spinning out, into the black void of space.