Chapter 16: Frost and Stone

She lay face down on the road and the ice seeped into her soul. The cold felt good. It dulled the pain, it pushed her thoughts away. The cops were talking.

"How was I to know she'd collapse on us? The bus hasn't made it to the hospital yet. All the rest are busy."

"We could load her into the car."

"Yeah, and if she dies, it's all on us. Damn this full moon stupidity, and we still have another five hours on this shift."

"Wonderful."

Footsteps crunched on the ice and a pair of boots appeared in front of her.

"Hey, she's moving!" Hands lifted her and carried her to the car. One of the cops shoved something in her pocket.

"I think this is yours," he said.

"Do you have somewhere we can take you?" the female cop asked.

"Yeah," Siobhan said, "home isn't far from here." She gave them the address, and the cops drove carefully through the icy streets to drop her off in front of her house.

"Stay inside until the ice is gone," one of them said.

She walked into the house and closed the door. It didn't feel like home. Not without her Mom and Dad around. It was always them that made home with all the moves they made. This was just one more. She thought of her mom bleeding her life away in the hospital, her dad with his mind empty of her. She let her coat drop to the floor and heard a faint crackle of paper. What had the cop put in her pocket?

She pulled it out and flattened it. It was the last page of the letter from her aunt.

All this sounds dire, and I'm sure you're wondering how you will ever succeed. Siobhans have failed before, they have fallen or given in to the addiction, but they have also succeeded. They've made life better, maintained their balance. Lived with joy. Remember this; no last stands, no dying in hopeless battle. It is better to fail than die, because you can always learn from a failure. You can't learn when you're dead.

Though I've never met you, I named you for this task. I trust that you are worthy. I will be watching from wherever I go when I'm gone, to hell if the pastor has his way, but I hope to surprise him yet.

Your Aunt Siobhan

Even her aunt was dead. Had probably died before all this started. Lot of help she was. Siobhan dropped the letter to the floor.

Failure was better than death. Siobhan wasn't sure. Death looked inviting right now. She went into the living room and flopped into the closest chair. Grandmother's chair. Her back ached immediately, so she tried a different position. It was no better. It was too much work to get out of the chair and sit on the couch. So she pushed herself up and tried sitting how she had for Riordan. It took too much energy. Something she didn't have. She turned around and knelt facing the back of the chair. The carving was at eye level. It looked like an eye watching her. She'd never noticed it before.

The angle of the seat that was impossible for sitting welcomed kneeling as Siobhan was. The carved eye watched her, and she saw more and more details. Its grain looked like wrinkles in an old woman's skin. They looked like laugh lines, but the kind that are accompanied by wisdom. Siobhan had met a few women with faces like that. It comforted her that the chair didn't judge her. She felt at peace, more than she had for days, or even years. She looked into that wooden eye and wept. The arms of the chair seemed to wrap around her and hold her tight.

She climbed out of the chair and took a deep breath. The night wasn't over yet.

Dawn came late in the winter.

Some of the calm of kneeling in that chair guided Siobhan to take a shower. The running water felt a little like the energy from Pwyll. She let it soak into her. She had done what she could for her friend. Now, she needed the strength. Siobhan dried off after the shower and went digging for some different clothes. She didn't feel like wearing the black right now. Instead, she found some old jeans and a raggedy sweater. It had belonged to her mom, before Siobhan had wheedled it out of her. She went into her room and stared at the walls. The cleanup hadn't got past sweeping. The bloody mess on the walls still mocked her anger. Only it wasn't random.

She looked again and saw there was a pattern beneath the mess. It looked like odd shaped letters made of twigs. She'd seen writing like it before. There was a memorial, something about the potato famine and the town welcoming settlers. A hundred years later they'd brought a stone from Ireland and set it up in the park. The stone had this kind of writing on it. She went still and let the pieces juggle around. The writing was a warning and a barrier. A door. She'd opened a door in her rage and the grey man had come through. If she had just...

She pushed away the thought. Later, she might indulge in what ifs, but she didn't have time now. She needed to think. Why did she know about the stone? It wasn't the kind of thing they taught at the school. In fact, they would have hated it. Anything that didn't match their idea of the faith was the devil's work. Mr. Riordan had mentioned it during a service at Chapel. He'd warned the students to stay away because it was the devil's stone. Caitlin had made a joke about the shape that Siobhan only now understood after seeing the grey man the first time waddling toward her.