The Lebrus Stone (15 page)

I didn't know what to do, and the thoughts made me tired.

I tucked them away for a later date, for a time when I didn't feel so bullied into a corner, where I didn't feel forced to face the extremely far-fetched.

~ * ~

I had skipped breakfast.

When I went downstairs in the late afternoon, the coast was clear.

There was only chattering and guffawing in the lounge, and taking priority was somebody and his discussion on anti-Semitism and a lumberjack named Flax.

I wasn't sure how the two had mixed in real terms of casual conversation. But I had a feeling it would have been seen as extremely adversarial of me to dare ask.

I headed to the kitchen.

Syd and Milton were skinning and slicing sweet potatoes and piling them into a baking dish lined with a sheet of pastry. They were so engrossed in a whispered conversation they hadn't seen me enter.

"Everything ok?" I asked. They looked up and shifted uncomfortably.

"Crystal, just the girl." Milton smiled, changing his upset frown.

"Milton is helping me since we have an extra mouth to feed tonight." Syd nervously said. "A neighbor and friend of the family." She dried her hands with a cloth and came over to me. "How are you feeling?" she asked, pressing a hand to my forehead and the pulse at my neck.

"A little better," I mumbled.

I didn't want to admit to a speedy recovery. I decided it could work to my advantage. I could miss the dinners, think some more in my room.

"You look better," Milton winked, dicing without looking.

"Yes, you've even tanned…slightly," Syd said.

I wasn't that tanned from my few visits outside. I was still a pasty olive.

"What did you paint?" Milton asked, breaking the awkward silence.

Just the landscape view from the balcony." I fibbed.

I had drawn the owl, but didn't want to have to go into why.

Minutes after my request, Isobel had returned with a selection of paints and a large canvas. She'd had them stored in the attic after Zella's stint at watercolor painting.

"You'll have to let us see it when you're finished." Milton chomped on some leftover pieces of mushy potato.

I made an uncommitted sound as agreement and went to the table laden with food and dishes.

"So what's for dessert?" I asked.

"Apple Tansey," Syd replied proudly. "It's Colonial Williamsburg recipes tonight."

"What's that?"

"It's from the historic district of the independent city, Williamsburg," Milton elaborated, stopping what he was doing to grin at me.

I sensed one of his intellectual historical overviews on the land coming along.

"For most of the eighteenth century," he continued. "Williamsburg was the center of government, education and culture. Many helped mold the democracy in the commonwealth of Virginia." He paused, maybe waiting for me to say congratulations.

"Oh," I mouthed.

Syd patted my back, possibly in pity at my lack of local knowledge. "The motto of the city is that the future may learn from the past."

They both looked at me then, ardent and seriously, as if the quote was specifically designed to send an important message to my brain. But it didn't. It only made my stomach growl.

"You must be hungry," Syd cried, pushing me into a chair. "You haven't eaten all day." She rustled something up out of a top cabinet drawer.

Milton was still watching me, absolutely pokerfaced, then blinked and turned away like something had caught in his eye. For a moment I thought he was getting tearful.

But of course he wasn't. There was no reason to, and he was a grown man.

Syd returned with a bowl of diced melon and apricots. "Here, eat this, honey, dinner won't be long."

I didn't wait for a spoon.

"Right, I'll be on my way," Milton announced rather bleakly, turning to catch Syd's eye. But she was avoiding him.

It felt rude of me to watch a personal problem exchange between them. Yet I was transfixed.

Was it a lovers' quarrel?

"Syd," he said, apprehensively.

She turned, juggling a bowl of fruit and canapés.

"Yes," she said.

"Take a rain check."

The look of disappointment meant she understood.

Milton grabbed a shiny red apple out of the fruit bowl and took a large bite. With a nod and wink at me, he swept out of the back door.

It was the strangest I had seen in him behave since I arrived. He was almost volatile, but without the display of anger. And there was something else. The way he looked at me was…changing. There was a definite flash of despondent sorrow that had somehow merged onto the outer frame of his smile. Syd had been mirroring his underlying mood, except her eyes never lost their warmth.

She handed me a spoon, but I had already finished eating. She seemed disgraced by her mistake.

"I'm sorry, Crystal, there's been so much to take care of today. It must have slipped my mind." She looked left and right. "Where did I put that spatula?" she asked herself, cleverly hiding her frustration.

I picked up a plastic white spatula from behind the baking dish. "Is this the one you're looking for?"

"Oh, thank you, honey, what would I do without you?" She smiled. Her one eye glistened as she turned toward the stove.

I didn't get it. Why did they both seem so upset?

Syd placed the dish in the oven and began peeling the cooking apples.

"I actually came in here to help," I said.

Syd peered up from her peeling, as though I was talking to nobody in particular.

"Can I help?" I asked. An outright question was needed.

"Help?" she echoed.

"You know, help with the cooking. I could cut those." I stood and grabbed the knife.

Syd grabbed my hand to stop me. "Don't be silly."

She looked in desperate need of counseling more than I did just then. Her soft brown eyes watered.

"Why not?" I asked as flippantly as I could, even if she was worrying me.

"You're a guest; family."

"I wouldn't go that far," I smirked.

She wasn't amused; she didn't even blink or move an eyebrow. I didn't know what to make of this new side of her.

"We're not actually related," I joked, trying to free her from whatever tension she was bearing alone. It only made her worse.

"Unrelated guests are still supposed to
be
served. They don't do the serving." She grinned, returning from her moment of delirium.

"I see."

"You're related by marriage, but you're still family to Isobel. Sophia was like a sister to her, as you know." She stroked the back of my head. "You have their strong eyes, you know." There was another silence. "Brave eyes."

A grunt sounded from behind me.

"Ha! Brave? That'll be the day. And any relation of mine would have a backbone," Marsi said with her witless tongue.

Syd grabbed her bowl of apples and busied herself at the sink.

"So you're back to the world at large huh?" Marsi asked as she approached the table. I ignored her.

With a filthy sounding harrumph, she picked up a slice of apple and popped it into her mouth. "More's the pity." She swallowed and took another piece. "Maybe you should consider neurotherapy or past life regression to see why you're losing your mind so early."

"Miss Mornay, please," Syd said, turning around.

"Don't you Miss Mornay me," she slurred back, obviously due to drinking too much again.

Syd gasped.

"I hear you softening the girl up. Think you can outdo our hospitality, do you?"

Was that what she called it?

"Well, do you?" She pointed at Syd. It made her jaw drop and quiver. She looked shaken and unable to answer.

"Yes, and she does it well, thanks," I said, feeling the need to step in. "Plus, you should try and run a comb through that hair of yours. Maybe then you'll look less like a breed of troll."

This time Marsi's jaw dropped.

I left, relishing that and the delicious apple crunching in my mouth.

It felt good to be back and on form, and most importantly, on time.

~ * ~

"Please pass me the spade, Crystal."

I handed Milton the rusted contraption and crossed my legs.

The sky was the palest blue, the clouds transparent and thinly roaming. The sun shone a lot more brightly.

I was glad the gloomy weather hadn't lasted long after my arrival. Thinking back, though, maybe the unwelcome feelings weren't imagined, and it had been a way to let me know my trip was going to mostly suck.

Even so, I felt better watching Milton garden. My mind felt clearer from all the painting, and I could think straight, a lot more positively to decipher my next move.

Milton also seemed in an uplifted mood and his usual self.

I had been all geared up to ask him to drive me into Old Town to see Elandra, but I hadn't been able to find him after he left the kitchen. It was getting late now, and public transport was far and few. Besides, it was almost time for yet another strained dinner.

I hadn't seen much of Gal, Zella, Marsi, or Isobel after all that chatting in the drawing room. They had left with the guest I hadn't even met.

I figured Isobel mustn't have known I'd come downstairs. As for Cray, he hadn't been around. But the less I thought of him the better.

"No plans for tomorrow?" Milton asked, tearing at weeds and flinging them into a plastic tray. So far, he had managed to dismantle half a garden's worth.

"Not really. It'll probably be another lazy day, with plenty of sitting around and being unproductive. Unless Isobel and Zella have something planned."

He stopped plucking to look at me despairingly.

"Are you sure that's wise?"

"Yes," I chirped, my mood happier than expected.

"Aren't you supposed to be somewhere?"

"No, are you?" I suddenly realized he might have been hinting at me to leave him alone.

"I was meaning tomorrow," he said. "I was going to join the family in attending the church fundraiser."

Darn it.

"Is that tomorrow?"

Isobel hadn't said. She mustn't have wanted to pressure me.

"Afraid so." He wiped his hands on his shorts, split open a packet of compost and poured it into a small hole he had dug with his bare hands.

I had forgotten all about the fundraiser. It wasn't exactly on my priority list.

"Is everyone really going?" I asked.

I doubted it was Gal or someone in particular's scene. I wasn't ready to say his name just yet. Not even in my head.

"They have to. They're even missing dinner to attend. I think they'll be eating there."

"Why's that? I thought family dinners were sort of compulsory?"

"It's like community service. You have to attend."

"Or else," I challenged.

"Or else you get shot."

"By who?" I asked, not sure whether to take him seriously.

"Of course, I'm joking." He laughed. "Still, Isobel doesn't take kindly to being overruled. The Lockes have a reputation to protect."

"What kind of reputation?" I sure as hell knew they didn't.

"To prove people wrong I guess."

"To prove they're not strange, you mean?" I bit my lip for saying too much.

Milton only smiled at my comment, and wiped his hands with an equally dirty cloth before removing a pair of clippers from his pocket to prune a rose bush.

"So you've noticed?" He smirked.

"Noticed? It keeps slapping me in the face."

Concern lined his forehead.

"Not literally," I added.

It did little to change his look of concern.

He dropped his clippers and took my hand. Dry grit and coarse grains of dirt rubbed my palm. I didn't know him enough to be allowing him to place his hand on me, but it didn't feel wrong, or unusual, just nice and comforting. Needed. My eyes even pricked.

"Crystal, make sure you tell me if you experience any…problems."

"With who?" I asked, coming back from my slipping emotional state.

"With anyone you feel to be a…danger to you."

Well that was an exaggerated thing to say.

"Do you think anyone is capable of wanting to harm me?"

I was now just as worried.

Milton didn't reply, just looked at me with fear in his eyes. "No…but you're vulnerable and susceptible to others' emotions. You shouldn't take them to heart."

I withdrew my hand. I wasn't sure whom to trust.