Houses of Stone, KATHY [classic literature books TXT] 📗

the older woman said critically, "You aren't dressed for this. Why didn't you bring gloves? At least roll down your shirt sleeves."

"I didn't know you were planning a trek into the jungle," Karen grumbled.

"You knew it was a jungle, you've been here before. I only surmised as much. Oh, well, all right, I'm sorry. I should have reminded you."

She had also brought a pair of heavy clippers, which she used briskly and effectively to cut away brambly branches and vines that blocked the path. No country girl herself, Karen was astonished to see how much the weeds had grown in only a few days. The moisture left by the last rain had had no chance to evaporate under the enclosing shade; the ground was slick and the leaves glistened wetly.

She tried to concentrate on finding solid footing and on avoiding the branches that, despite Peggy's efforts, swiped at her face and caught in her clothing. She had not dared object when Peggy proposed the expedition. Any excuse she could have invented would have sounded suspicious, for under normal circumstances she would have been on fire to locate the structure Meyer had told her about. And under no circumstances would she have mentioned the voice she had heard. The auditory hallucination, she corrected herself.

When the distant murmur of sound—of water, just water, nothing else—reached her ears she burst into speech. "How did you know it would be like this? It really is like a jungle, hot and steamy. You can almost see tendrils shooting out and weeds growing, like a speeded-up nature film."

"Oft have I wandered Virginia's woods," Peggy said, stooping under a dangling branch. "Watch your head . . . And North Carolina's woods and so on."

"Bird-watching? Or are you interested in wildflowers? What are those pretty little pink things that look like tiny bells, on very thin stems?" She knew she was babbling, but she was afraid to stop talking. Silence might not be ... entirely silent.

"What pretty little pink things?" Peggy stopped to look. "You mean spring beauties? I don't see any."

"I must have seen them someplace else." She had run out of conversation, and Peggy was staring at her curiously.

The sound was like the wordless babble of an infant, rising and falling in the imitation of human speech patterns that leads doting parents to claim unusual precocity in their offspring.

"Do you hear it?" she asked.

"Hear what? Oh—running water. Can't be coming from the river," Peggy said calmly. "More like your standard poetic babbling brook. Sounds close. Do we have to cross it?"

"No."

"Your face is the funniest color," Peggy said, chuckling. "The way the sunlight filters through the leaves makes it look almost greenish."

She turned and went on walking. Karen took a deep breath. Water running over stones. Right.

By the time they reached the clearing she had dismissed her fears. Imaginary horrors hadn't a chance with Peggy around; she was too matter-of-fact, too rational. And—Karen noticed—in much better condition than she. Peggy's face was wet with perspiration, but she hopped over puddles and fallen branches with youthful agility and her breathing wasn't even quick. She let out a crow of discovery when they came out of the trees into the sunlight.

"This must be it. I wonder why this one spot is so open? There's water enough, and sunlight. Something in the soil, maybe." Her tone dismissed the question even as she raised it. "I don't see any structure, do you? Wait a minute—what's that?"

Karen had seen it too—a heap of tangled vines, intertwined like green snakes. There was an animal-like ferocity about them, as if they were fighting for survival, seizing and strangling their weaker fellows; and a kind of triumph in the way they had overcome and buried the ephemeral works of man. She recognized the signs now—edges of stone, too regular to be fallen boulders—and the raw breaks in the vines where someone had cut and pulled them away.

Peggy trotted briskly toward the tangled mass, clippers at the ready. Karen followed more slowly. Peggy had been right, she wasn't dressed for this project. Her sneakers were soaked, and it would have been reckless to attack the vines bare-handed; blackberry brambles and poison ivy mingled with flexible canes of honeysuckle, strong as rawhide. She watched with rising excitement as Peggy tugged cut branches aside, gradually exposing a stretch of fitted stones. Only a few courses remained intact, but they obviously formed part of a wall. The upper portion must have collapsed into the interior of the structure along with the roof, which had probably been built of more perishable materials, to form a tumulus-like mound.

With a grunt of satisfaction Peggy stepped back. "This is it, all right. At least it's an enclosure of some kind; I just found a corner. Have a look."

Her face was bright red and streaming with perspiration, but she looked extremely pleased with herself. As she had every right to be, Karen thought. She ought to have spotted that mound of vegetation herself. It didn't take an archaeologist to realize that vines wouldn't form a pile that high unless they had something to build on. If she hadn't let her imagination get the better of her . . . There was nothing unusual about the sound of the brook. It was just a pleasant musical murmur.

She reached the wall and leaned forward to examine it more closely. If there had been mortar between the stones, none was visible now. The longer she studied it, the less certain she was that it had been a house— or a dwelling of any kind. Surely stone was an unusual building material for that region and that period. Clearing the land for planting provided the settlers with a wealth of hardwood for construction . . .

It came without warning. There was no darkening of the sky, no rising wind, no change in the murmurous sound of water. This was a different sound entirely. It came from behind her, shrill and distinct, rising in volume as if it