Heart of Stone (2 page)

The constable took off his hat, “Sorry
madam to be troubling you so late but we need you to come down to
the morgue right away, we think it's your uncle and need you to
identify the remains”.

Tyra sucked a breath in and then
paused to calm herself. “Come in while I go and put some better
clothes on.”

It would have been cliche to say the
morgue was deathly quiet this time of night...but it was. Tyra
could see now why the hurry to have the remains viewed...there
wasn’t much of them. No doubt it would all be pretty putrid by
morning. The heavily slashed body looked like it had been savaged
by some large animal. She wasn’t feeling anything, her emotions had
shutdown for the time being to protect her. Glancing at Uncle
Jack’s rigor mortused right hand she could just make out a piece of
paper scrunched in a tight ball. Her librarian’s curiosity got the
better of her and since the cops were letting her have a moment on
her own before they bombarded her with questions she quickly prized
his fingers away from it, retrieved the paper and saw that it had
her name on it. She stuffed it into her pocket.

The doors opened and the two tall,
burly Central Investigations Bureau cops who had met her when she
arrived at the morgue came in. “Its him then? Your
uncle?”

It was hardly morning. A pale peach
coloured sky tentatively bloomed and then gave way to grey clouds
and drizzle.

Tyra’s mum opened the door.
“Shit”

“
Thanks Mum, what’s that
for?” Tyra was somewhat taken aback.

“
Let me see: it’s Friday
and you’ve never missed a day of work in your life, two it's six am
and you know I’m not an early riser and three you’re white as a
sheet. It can’t be good”.

Tyra’s shoulders slumped and she
sighed. “No it’s not good. Can I come inside?”

Annabelle Goodwin, Annie to her
friends, took Tyra in her arms, gave her a big hug and led her
inside. Stepping back a little she looked appraisingly at her
daughter. “You’re cold as ice, come and have a cuppa and tell me
all about it”.

Tyra sat down on the couch, listening
to the kettle filling sounds coming from the kitchen, wondering how
to break the news to her mum.

A few minutes later Annie put a tray
of tea down on the coffee table then looked up to the left as if
hearing or seeing something. “Ah it's Jack!” She turned a
no-nonsense face to her look at her daughter. “What’s
happened?”

Tyra shook her head in amazement at
her mum’s ever reliable ‘intuitions’. She explained her late night
call and visit to the morgue, then on the verge of her emotions
breaking she handed the confusing note to her mum.

Annie peered at her brother’s
unfailingly messy scrawl and deciphered. “Dear Tyra, If you’re
reading this note then the guardianship has passed to you. Don’t
mourn me! I did what I came to do and now I return to the
all-spirit. I’m sorry I didn’t have time to pass onto you the
knowledge you need. Simon’s been on to me for some time to get you
up here but I must confess I selfishly decided to let you have your
life as long as possible as I knew your career was important to
you. Annie knows some of the tale. Simon can tell you the rest. I
ask you to override any initial judgements you may make of the man.
I trust him with your life. Go to my property up in the lakes.
Claim your destiny. Most importantly remember the year 1525. It was
the year our ancestors escaped the Din who under the guise of the
Spanish Inquisition attempted to eradicate our family. They’re
still trying. The heart of stone by love be free. Love.
Jack”.

Annie put the note down, came over to
the couch, cuddled Tyra against her and they both had a good
cry.

After a while Tyra got herself
together but the grief still hung heavy in her gut. “Thanks Mum, I
needed that. How about you? Are you alright?”

Annie straightened herself and got up.
“It was expected. I’ve been having dreams”, she said as if that
explained everything. She went over to a Hans Heysen reproduction
hanging on the wall, taking the picture down to reveal a small wall
safe. She took out an ordinary looking key and some papers and
handed Tyra the key.

“
This is the key to the
farm gate on Jack’s property. It’s a long time since I’ve been up
there, Jack tried to keep the family away from it, for good reason.
That’s why you’ve only seen him here or in town. One thing I do
remember is that you will need that date, it’s a combination code
to get in his front door. I’d advise against forcing entry without
it as I expect he has certain security measures in place. After the
Vietnam war he was never quite the same and he got more wary as
time went on. I wouldn’t have called him paranoid because he had
good reasons for most of his fears. The place is probably booby
trapped”.

Tyra raised an eyebrow at that. “The
CIB asked me if he had any enemies”.

Annie took a deep breath. “Oh he had
enemies all right but none the police need to know about, for their
own safety if nothing else”.

“
Is that what the ‘Din’ is,
the enemy?” Tyra asked, somewhat curious at such a strange term in
the letter as well as whether an enemy that was around in 1525
would still be around.

“
I think it’s best you ask
Simon about the enemy. Suffice to say they have hounded our family
and a few other families for as long as anyone knows. In part I
think because each family guards something they want, or want
destroyed. But I also think they’ve wanted to destroy us as well, I
don’t know why. In any event Jack has … had, one of what they seek
and spent his life guarding it.” Annie paused, thinking for a
moment about how much to reveal at this stage while Tyra was still
reeling from her Uncle’s death. “Perhaps it is this ‘heart of
stone’. Family myth says that when the First People were being
slaughtered almost to a man by the invaders to their land they
asked one of our ancestors, Arthur Goodwin, a free settler, to take
over the guardianship. Somehow they recognised him as being from
one of the guardian families and knew they could safely hand the
duty over to him. There’s been someone of our family living at the
property up there ever since. Even I stayed there while Jack was
away at that horrid Vietnam war. I think you should go up there
straight away. I’ll deal with the will and transfer of deeds for
you but you have the key so there is no need to wait”.

“
Mum! I have a job.” Tyra
exclaimed. “I can’t just go traipsing up the highlands at a
moment’s notice”.

“
I am afraid dear that this
is your job now.” Annie explained firmly. “ You have a
responsibility and destiny to fulfill”.

“
Destiny? What
destiny?”.

Annie just smiled.

Tyra followed the hand drawn map her
mum had given her; some GPS co-ordinates would have been better.
The turn-off from the highway, once she’d backtracked and found it,
hadn’t been too bad but now, as the geriatric Subaru 4WD sedan
she’d borrowed from her mum came over the brow of the hill, she saw
that the road dipped into what must be some ancient crater. Recent
rains had washed much of the surface gravel off the crown of the
road leaving little more than a bullock track and she worried about
the ground clearance for the car. She picked a careful path
avoiding the worst of the ruts and only had to ‘go bush’ once to
find some surface for the wheels. Getting back up the hill was
going to be fun...not!

At the bottom of the road Tyra could
see a clearing with a small cabin off to one side, a heavily
fortified small cabin half above ground and half seeming to
disappear into the rock of the crater. The walls of the front of
the cabin had been built from what looked to be the local rock but
were covered with enough lichen to make her wonder how old the
place really was. Two small windows were covered with a strong grid
of security mesh. The front door looked like it was off a large
bank vault. There was no chimney she could see and there was no
obvious water or electricity supply. There was however a satellite
dish on the corner of the roof of the house, whether it was for
television or phone she wasn’t sure but at least that meant there
must be a power supply somewhere.

It had been a long drive so Tyra was
keen to get inside and unpack before nightfall. She could go into
the town of Boswell in the morning to get some supplies. She parked
the car off to the side and took an arm load of stuff to the door
where she found a keypad. The date given in her uncle’s letter did
indeed open the locks. Nothing exploded, no alarms, a quick check
that she was still in the land of the living. “Phew! Not so bad
then”.

Inside was not as forbidding. It was
small but all the basic creature comforts seemed to be there: a
reasonable modern kitchen, a table and chairs, a comfy chair, an
entertainment unit, a small bedroom and bathroom adjoining. Not
much but just about everything you’d need. In the bedroom a few
pictures of Tyra’s family graced the walls including one of her
grandfather who she only vaguely remembered as he’d died when she
was seven. There was a built-in wardrobe that took up one wall and
seemed to contain a good array of warm clothes, wet weather gear,
fishing tackle, some equipment she couldn’t identify and a very
large gun safe. “Hmm!” She might have to work out what to do with
its contents or at least find a legal way to transfer the guns into
her name, if that was even possible in these days of strict gun
laws. She assumed the same code number would open the safe. She’d
check later. On the other wall of the bedroom she gleefully
discovered a large bookcase filled with a varied assortment of
books on everything from ancient history, heretical theology,
magick, weapons, self defence and the works of more than a few
conspiracy theorists. There was a good array of novels too, mostly
science fiction but also a complete set of Tolkien's works and what
looked to be a first edition ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’. “Always
meant to read that”, she muttered to herself. With a librarian’s
respect for rare books she reverently carried the novel into the
kitchen to read later after she made something to eat.

The stove and everything else
electrical worked okay, wherever the power was coming from she’d
find out later. Tyra quickly cooked up a simple meal of red lentils
with carrots and spices from the supplies she’d brought with her.
Thirty odd years ago she’d realised that she had inherited her
family’s tendency to glucose intolerance. Since then she’d fought
an escalating battle to stay healthy and keep the weight off around
her middle. Keeping to a low-gi, vegetarian diet helped and was now
second nature.

Tyra’s mother, had extracted a solid
promise from her daughter that she would take extra care of
herself, being up here on her own. So, feeling somewhat like an
overly obedient child, she locked up the car for the night and
bolted the front door before settling down to her meal and the
book.

It had gone past 11pm, she must have
dozed off. Tyra then realized with a start what had woken her.
Peering out the window she saw two Holden utes rumbling down her
road, their hunter’s lights on top of their vehicles glaring
brightly. The men on the back of the utes were shouting and
carrying-on as if drunk. A few started shooting their rifles in the
air.

“
Hey girlie, we know you’re
in there, come out and play with us”, one of the guys yelled
out.

Tyra’s heart pounded, as she ducked
out of sight of the window, probably too late as her shadow there
and the fact the lights were on in the cabin made it unlikely they
wouldn’t have seen her.

It was then that Tyra realised that
she hadn’t seen any phone in the cabin. If there’d been a satellite
phone it was long gone. Pulling out her mobile phone she could see
that it wasn’t going to be much help either. There was obviously no
signal this far down in the crater. She wasn’t a particularly
religious person but a quick “God help me” call to the almighty or
whatever universal force might be out there didn’t seem to
hurt.

There was a loud bang as a bullet
glanced off the window above her head. Okay, that’s good, must be
some kind of super strength armour plated glass or something. Maybe
she was safer in here than she thought. If she could just calm
herself so as not to do anything stupid in a panic.

A loud bashing sound against the door
didn’t help Tyra’s nerves but the door did hold. “Come on girlie,
we only want to fuck our new neighbour. It’s rude not to ask us
in”, said the derisive voice from the other side.

Just then she heard more shots and an
exclamation of “fuck” from outside. “Let’s get out of
here”.

“
Got to go girlie” said a
receding voice, “but we’ll be back, don’t you worry about
that”.

Curious to see what had led to the
quick turn of events she stood up to look out the window. A lone
man was walking down the hill. Clothed from neck to ankle in a long
dark coat and a black beanie on his head it was hard to make out
any details except that he seemed to be of medium height and
carrying some kind of rifle. He stood and waited while the utes
left, apparently totally unsurprised that his presence alone
sufficed to see them off. Why he thought himself bullet proof she
could only imagine, arrogance or malignant optimism, she wasn’t
sure.