The Stone

Cemeteries have always fascinated Sadie. She found them to be beautiful, enchanting and haunting all the same. Across the globe, people are buried. Some have been there for centuries and each grave holds a history of someone.

Sadie travels for work and often, finds herself looking up the oldest cemetery in each city. If time permits, she’ll visit: taking her time, walking amongst the crumbling headstones. She reads the names and dates of each, trying to imagine what their lives had been like. There are times a whole family had passed at the same time or closely together and she wonders what tragedy befell them.

Today is one of those instances. She was traveling along the northeast coast of the U.S. and was staying at a hotel in a town that had certainly saw better days. Sadie dressed herself in jeans and a t-shirt before leaving her hotel. She walked two blocks towards the cemetery before realizing she had forgotten a jacket. Stepping into a thrift shop across the street, she quickly browsed their selection of used coats before selecting a faded brown jacket at the back of the rack. Paying for her purchase, she slipped on the jacket and continued to the south of town where the cemetery was located.

Ten minutes later, Sadie was standing in front of a gravestone that is seven feet tall and looks to be pure marble. Curling vines and lotus flowers are carved around the edges, the detail so great that they look real. The family name is scripted across the top with each individual name, the year they all passed, and an inscription are all listed underneath.

Lightener

Markus

Marianna

Delphie

Claude

Persephone

Mikael

Skot

1829

“The light of this lifetime has been dimmed however it will never be extinguished.”

How odd, she thinks and knelt to look at the inscription closer. There’s another carved design just beneath. Reaching out and pulling back the grass for a clearer look, she could make out more of the vines curling towards the bottom center, where they surrounded a carving that was covered in dark and rich dirt. Using the sleeve of her jacket, she wiped the dirt away as best as she could.

“How beautiful,” she whispered to nothing but the graves. A symbol made up of other symbols was engraved into the marble. Lotus flowers were on each side of the Northern Star with a Celtic knot woven through the inverted corners of the star. Now clean, the star seemed to glow, despite the sunny day.

She’s entranced as she slowly reaches out to trace the symbols and the star truly began to shine as bright as the sun as soon as her index finger touched the most northern point of it. The vines around the stone began to writhe as they wrapped around her forearm. Terror and panic rose in her throat, cutting off her screams. Then with a flash of blinding light, Sadie’s arm was jerked forward pulling the rest of her body with it.

Skot had almost finished harvesting today’s lotus flowers when he was thrown back from an exploding ripple in the middle of the southern peninsula that made up the village that he and his family lived in.

He watched, in shock, as the ripple opened and birthed a grown woman wrapped in the same vines that climbed the towering trees throughout his village. She tumbled forward and lay face up on a bed of leaves as the vines withdrew from her body, returning to the trees.

He wasn’t sure she was alive until her body started to shake and a scream erupted from her. Startling him into action, he ran to the woman to check her over.

“Miss! Miss! Are you well? Miss!” He knelt in front of the mysterious woman. Her large, brown eyes were wide with fear as she scrambled away from Skot.

“Miss, I won’t hurt you. Please don’t scream,” he pleased. “You’ll wake Him. Please, miss, don’t scream.”

Thank the heavens, the woman stopped screaming, lowering her cries to a whimper.

“What’s going on?” she asked, her accent strange to him. “What happened? Where am I? Who are you?”

“I’m sorry, Miss. I’m Skot. You came through a ripple in the air just now. I do not know how, however,” he knelt in front of her. “You have landed in Ostin.”

“Ostin?”

“Yes, it is the land of my people. We are of the family Lightener.”

“Lightener? Skot? That was the name I saw on the headstone in the cemetery,” she told him, bewilderment on her face.

“You came into Ostin through the Stone? That’s impossible!” he replied, hope trickling into his heart.

“Clearly, it’s not if I am here,” she argued back. “This has to be some sort of crazy dream. There’s no way on Earth that I just teleported through a blasted headstone.”

“The headstone was blasted apart? When did it break?” he asked, panic how in his voice. “This is not good. The headstone was our only way out. We cannot get out if it is broken?”

The young woman was now looking at Skot as if he were inflicted with insanity.

“No, no. It’s not broken,” she replied. Skot felt the tension of his body start to release. “Blasted is a figure of speech. Like, damn.”

Skot gasped and the tension in his body swelled up again.

“Miss, you cannot curse. He does not like cursing, particularly from women.”

“Stop calling me Miss,” she said. “My name is Sadie.”

“Yes, Ms. Sadie,” he inclined his head towards her.

“No, no. Just Sadie. Now who is this He that you keep mentioning and how do I get out of here?” she asked.

“How you leave, I do not know. The prophecy foretold that one day we would receive a visitor from a new world. One who would come through the Stone and that that person would be the one to free us of our prison,” Skot explained. “I cannot speak His name, but he is my father. He trapped our family here many Earth turns ago, in the human year of 1829. What year is it there now?”

“You are crazy if you expect me to believe that you’ve been alive for 200 years,” she replied.

“Miss…I apologize, Sadie, I can assure you that I am not inflicted with insanity,” he scoffed at her, offended by such an accusation. She tilted her head to the side and stared at him quietly. Without the fear and the talking, he realized she was quite beautiful. Her large brown eyes graced were set without being too wide apart or too close together. A delicate nose with a slight upturn and pink lips that were currently pressed into a line as she seemed to think about what he was saying. All framed by thick straw-colored hair that cascaded just past her shoulders.

“No, I suppose you’re not crazy,” she said at last. “I’m the one who just traveled into another…,” she trailed off momentarily. “What is this? Are we on Earth, another world, or another dimension?”

“I suppose you could call it another dimension,” Skot explained to Sadie. “We lived on Earth for several life cycles until my father grew weary of humanity. The burning of our fellow witch brothers and sisters cast a darkness in Him. When they came for my family, my father put a curse upon our family. That our human image would die but we were to be doomed to live here in Ostin until the end of time. With the only clause that one day a person could possibly free us: whoever traveled to our land through the Stone.”

He sank onto the bed of leaves beside Sadie, the sadness of loss heavy in his heart.

“How terrible,” Sadie whispered. “But there’s no way I could be the one to save you.”

“200 years, you said?” He asked her. She nodded.

“Almost. It’s 2025.”

“200 years and not one soul has ever traveled through the Stone. Until you. So yes, I do believe you’re the one. You must be. You have to be.”

“I can’t though,” she cried to him. “This has to be an accident. I’m not a “saving the centuries old family” type. I barely take care of myself.”

Skot looked at Sadie again and could see the heartbreak of loss on her face as well. Despite what her story may be though, he knew within the depth of his own heart, that she was their answer: their freedom from Him.

“Here, walk with me,” he asked as he stood and held his hand to her. “I’m going to take you to our village. You must meet my mother and siblings. We can hope that my mother knows what to do now that you have arrived.”

Sadie took Skot’s hand and stood.

“Again, I’m not sure how I can help you, but I don’t think I can stay in this spot either. Let’s go.” She gestured for him to walk so she could follow him. Skot picked up the basket holding today’s harvest of lotus flowers and began walking. Sadie trailed behind, stopping occasionally to observe the land around. Land stretched for miles and towering trees were wrapped in the heavy vines that had pulled her into the portal. The land was broken by pockets of water that were filled with lotus flowers of every color under the rainbow.

Sadie’s heart had stopped racing, but her mind had not. She had never believed in magic of any kind, though she did love reading fantasy books. And now she was in the middle of her own epic adventure.

Sadie studied Skot as she followed behind him. He was tall and built like a man who had worked outside his whole life: square shouldered with a muscular frame. His light brown hair was almost as long as hers, tied low with a ribbon. During their talk, his kind face and easy smile had not been lost on her senses. She may lead a solitary life outside of work but could still appreciate a handsome man.

Skot didn’t speak much as he led her to his village, only glancing back occasionally to check that she was still behind him. After some time, the trail they had traveled on widened as it opened to a tall gate and fenced area.

Skot lifted the latch on the gate and opened it enough for Sadie to slip through before he followed her. After lowering the inside latch, he grabbed her hand and began to pull her towards the house set in the middle of the land.

“Mother! Brother! Sisters!” he called out. “Come quickly. You must see what has happened.”

The door to the house opened and a woman stepped out.

“Skot, hush now. You know you must not shout,” she scolded him though her face was soft and kind like his. Seeing Sadie with Skot, she stopped and clutched at her throat.

“Skot, what is this? Who is this?”

“Mother, this is Sadie. I was gathering the flowers when she came transferred here. Mother, she came to be here through the Stone.” Skot’s mother gasped.

“How?” she asked Sadie.

“I’m not quite sure, ma’am. I was visiting the cemetery and was drawn to your family’s headstone. I cleaned off the bottom of it and when I did, the symbol glowed. I touched the symbol and suddenly, I was here.”

Skot’s mother studied Sadie as she explained how she had got there and they were joined by another man and two women.

“Sadie, this is my mother, Marianna. These are my sisters, Delphie and Persephone and my brother, Mikael. Family, this is Sadie. She came here through the gate.” Skot’s siblings all gasped and the looks of hope gripped at Sadie’s heart. They too questioned her on the how. Sadie repeated her story once again.

“Wait, weren’t there more names on the gravestone?” she asked. “I understand your father isn’t here but wasn’t there another brother?”

“Yes, Claude,” one of Skot’s sisters replied. “He joined our father some time ago.” Five heads lowered in shared agony.

“We do not expect him to return,” Skot’s other sister said.

“He can rot out there with Father,” Mikael said vehemently.

“Mikael!” Marianna scolded. “While they may be dark, we are not. We speak with love.”

“Of course, Mother. I am sorry that I spoke in anger. Ms. Sadie, please forgive me for showing you a side of us that we do not like to display,” he apologized.

“Ah, no worries,” Sadie reassured Mikael.

“No worries?” the first sister repeated. “What an odd phrase. As are your clothes. Breeches and a young boy’s shirt that has pictures on it? Is that the fashion now? What year is it there?”

“Delphie!” Marianna scolded again. “I do apologize, Sadie. It has only been us for so many Earth turns. My children seem to have forgotten their manners.”

“It’s okay,” Sadie replied. “But yes, this is the fashion of my time. It’s the year 2025. Women and men both wear anything they like. Whether it’s jeans,” she gestured to her pants, “or dresses, skirts, or shorts. People wear whatever they are comfortable in. I like jeans and t-shirts. I just bought this jacket today, before I came,” Sadie continued to explain. All of Skot’s family looked mesmerized at her explanation.

“How quaint,” Persephone finally said.

“Mother,” Skot interjected to change the subject, “now that she’s here, do you know how Sadie can free us?”

“I do have the incantation,” Marianna told her children and Sadie. “And we do have many of the ingredients necessary, aside from soil from the cemetery.”

“Would this help?” Sadie asked, holding out her arm. “I used the sleeve of my jacket to wipe the family headstone. Maybe there’s still dirt on it?”

“Possibly! May I?” Marianna held out her hand for the jacket. Sadie carefully shrugged it off and handed it to Marianna. After inspecting it for a moment, she nodded. “Yes, I think this will do.” She began calling out instructions to each of her children.

“Delphie, we need moon stone. Persephone, please gather lavender and sage. Skot, you take Sadie to gather my ritual book and tools. Mikael, please get my small spell cauldron.”

“Yes, mother,” all the children replied and left to gather all that Marianna requested. The hope was clear in their actions. They moved with speed. In just moments, all returned to the front of their home, carrying what was needed for the ritual.

“Now, you won’t be able to take much but do gather any items of sentiment,” she told them.

“There’s nothing here that I want to remind me of the last 200 years,” Delphie stated, her brothers and sister nodding in agreement.

“Very well,” Marianna said. “In that case, let’s go before the dark settles. I need not remind you to be quiet. We cannot wake Him or Claude. Sadie, will you please carry my ritual book?”

“Of course,” Sadie told her, gripping the old, leather book tightly to her, pleased to be trusted with the task.

“Let us go, dear family,” Marianna said. Mikael and Skot held the gates open as the women filed through. Marianna stopped just outside the gates and looked back at the land they had made their own over the last 200 years. “Goodbye,” she whispered before turning away.

The family and Sadie made quick haste back to where Sadie had come through the portal.

Reaching the southern tip of the peninsula, Marianna instructed everyone but Sadie to set their materials down in the spot where Sadie had appeared.

“Skot, prepare the fire. Mikael, gather water and five lotus flowers,” she continued to instruct. “Girls, prepare the herbs for us to mix. Sadie, turn to page 72 of my book, please. You may read it over but do not read it out loud.”

Sadie opened the book, flipping through the spells. Coming to page 72, she read over the ingredients and instructions. She gasped as she read the steps necessary and glanced up at Marianna, who was watching her. Pain and sorrow filled her eyes as she shook her head at Sadie to not mention what was on the page. In just moments, a fire was lit, and the cauldron was set up over it. Marianna stirred as she dropped the ingredients in.

“Okay, children, please surround the cauldron. Hurry, the darkness will settle in soon and they will be awake.” Sadie, Skot and his siblings gathered around the cauldron.

“Children, you must repeat after me as I speak the incantation. And I must ask, no matter what happens, do not stop incanting. No matter what.” She leveled a look at each. Sadie mutely nodded her head in agreement as she tried to hand the ritual book to Marianna. “No dear, I do not need the book. I know what to say. Please hold on and keep it safe.” Sadie nodded again.

Marianna began to chant the spell in Latin, everyone repeating after her. After five turns of the chant, Marianna looked at her children and whispered, “I love you all” before planting her palms onto the cauldron. Her children shouted in protest. “Keep chanting!” Marianna screamed. Everyone resumed their chants, tears rolling down their faces.

Marianna’s body jerked forward, a purple mist rising from her mouth. The mist swirled into the air before plunging down into the cauldron. An exploding light shot back up, carrying vines with it. The vines wrapped around Sadie, Skot and his siblings tightly then jerked.

Five people tumbled into an old and crumbling cemetery. One was dressed modernly and gripping an old book. The other four were dressed as if they just left a renaissance fair and all were sobbing. One of the males turned to the woman holding the book and asked her, “Was there another ingredient?”

Lowering her head, she replied, “Yes. A soul given out of love.”