M. Rose - The Secret Language of Stones

“No, no. Jean Luc, even if I spend the rest of my life missing you, I’m not sorry. Do you know why pearls are so rare? Each one begins as an accident when a microscopic grain of sand becomes trapped within an oyster’s mantle folds. Perceiving the sand an irritant, the oyster then manufactures layers of nacre to soften the irritation. Hundreds of very thin layers covering one another, building up a metallic, mirrorlike luster. Of the millions of oysters, how many contain pearls? Very few. We know to find just one luminous pearl, thousands of oysters must be killed, opened, and searched. And when one is discovered, what a treasure. What value it has. The incandescent glow of a pearl is like nothing else. The colors that play on its silky surface are one of nature’s most unique and striking rainbows. I don’t have any pearls, Jean Luc. But I have you. And forever I will be able to take out the memory of you and look at it, like the glorious rainbow on a pearl, and remember what it was like to be with you. Would I regret being able to wear a queen’s pearls for a day? No. Not even for an hour.”

In answer, his warm wind blew against my cheeks. I wish I believed that. I don’t. I’ve seen grief. You’ve seen it.

“You are fixated on the raw, early grief. But think about what happens later. What happens when we build up our own protective layers of nacre and our very misery turns to something beautiful, a memory of love.”

He didn’t respond.

“Jean Luc?” My voice sounded panicked even to me.

Yes.

“What happened? Suddenly you weren’t there, were you?”

No, I wasn’t.

“Why?”

I’m not sure.

“Has it happened before?”

Only the last few days. I try to reach you, and it seems you’re just too far away. Or I’ll be listening to you and then suddenly I feel as if I’m being pulled back.

“Are you telling me it may be time for you to go?”

It might be. I don’t think I’ll be allowed to remain in this limbo for much longer.

I nodded, feeling tears springing to my eyes.

The warm wind wiped them away.

But not yet. And not here. Not until you are safely back in Paris. I promise.

What could I say? Was I meant to go to him? I stood beside the window and, hiding my tears, looked out at the sea. What if I just walked out onto the cliff and stepped over the edge? Then we could be together. There would be no separation between us. I could go be with him wherever he went. Life wouldn’t separate us.

No!

The word was so loud in my head I put my hands up to my ears. He’d shouted his admonition inside of my very soul.

There is a pattern to all of this, a method, a weaving. You cannot pull the threads out and control it yourself.

“Are you sure? How do you know? Do you believe in fate?”

Don’t you? You are a daughter of a witch, a Daughter of La Lune. Isn’t that fate? Isn’t there a pattern to whom you are born to and whom you become?

“I don’t know, I am not sure.”

And for what seemed the hundredth time, I cursed my mother and my history. This had been foisted on me. All of this. I leaned forward and pressed my forehead against the cool glass. My headache had worsened. I needed coffee and some headache powder. Resolving to find the kitchens, I walked to the end of the long corridor, alone now, without his voice in my head, and continued on.

Through a door, down a hallway. A stone staircase I hadn’t seen before. I smelled the scent of age, of undusted newel posts, of mice behind the walls and spiders that feasted on the neglect. Much older than the rest of the castle I’d seen-from the construction of the rough-hewn beams and cracked stone steps, I guessed this section dated from the Middle Ages.

As I followed the spiral down, the temperature continued to drop. The never-ending circle of steps went deeper than one flight, deeper than two or three. I thought about stopping, going back up. I really was lost. And then I heard a voice-indistinct and far off.

“Jean Luc?”

No response. In silence, I descended deeper, taking another step and then another. Suddenly I heard the voice again. More distinct. Two voices. Good, I could ask for help, get directions to the kitchens.

I hurried. The voices getting louder. I came around another spiral. Only a dozen steps now to the bottom.

Before me lay a darkened cavern. I peered into its depths to find the men, to call out, to tell them I was lost, to ask for help. I saw them. Opened my mouth to yell out-and then instead put my hand up to stop myself from screaming.

Two men stood with their backs to me: Grigori and Yasin. But they were not alone. The Dowager was with them. She was seated in a tall-backed wooden chair. Fury in her eyes as they bent over her, tying her arms to the chair with thick, rough rope.

In Russian, Grigori asked her a question.

And she answered him back, shaking her head no.

He asked the same question again, even more loudly.

She repeated her answer, this time without shaking her head.

Yasin yelled at her.

She only shook her head, no.

With a burst of anger, Yasin pulled a white handkerchief out of his pocket and stuffed it into the Dowager’s mouth.

Grigori went to work tying her ankles together with another length of rope. Her expression remained stoic.

And then she noticed me. She shook her head slightly-the regal movement, an order telling me not to try to help but to leave, to escape. Then her eyes met mine. I wasn’t looking anymore at the Imperial Dowager who’d ruled Russia alongside her husband. In her eyes she was nothing but a frightened elderly woman begging me to save her.

My instinct was to run the rest of the way down the stairs, but something held me back. My horror? My understanding that I couldn’t fight two men? My shock that Grigori, my sometime lover and certainly my friend, was in the process of committing a violent act against the tsar’s mother?

As stealthily as I could, I crept backward up the stairs. Worried my panic could be smelled. That my pounding heart could be heard. Why were they tying her up? I wanted to help her, but first needed to figure out how to help her. Rushing ahead wouldn’t do her any good if they restrained me as well.

The stairs turned, and I could no longer see into the dungeon. I climbed and climbed up those endless steps. There were servants in the main part of the castle. If I could just get back there, I would find Briggs. Explain. Get him to call the police. Gather the rest of the staff. Take on the two Russians.

Panting, I reached the top of the stairs. Looked around. Of course, nothing had changed. Still lost, I had no idea how to find my way out of the ancient wing of the castle. And I knew if I wandered around for too long, Grigori and Yasin might find me there and suspect I’d seen something.

I forced myself to take deep breaths and assess my options.

I stood in a circular stone room, with ancient tapestries covering most of the walls. Like the rest of this wing, the room appeared abandoned. I turned in a full circle. Trying to see something I could use to help. I focused on the narrow casement windows illuminating the stairs.

Finally, I thought of an idea. Maybe the view would help me figure out where I was.

Peering through the rectangular opening, I looked into fog and incessant rain. Straining through the atmospheric morass, I thought I saw the sea. But that was no help. The whole of the back of the castle faced the sea. I sank to the floor. If I was going to help the Dowager, I needed to understand what I’d witnessed, but first, I needed a hiding place in case Grigori and Yasin came this way leaving the dungeon-they mustn’t find me.