Heart of Stone (3 page)

4.

Sophie

Valleé de Montagne, Gemmes

Emel led Henri and Sophie through the wagons, then stopped, finger to her lips, hushing them.

“This is Miora’s wagon. She is no regular stone reader. She is exquisite, and I’m lucky enough to be her student. When we enter, don’t speak until she speaks to you.”

“As you wish,” Henri solemnly agreed.

Sophie couldn’t resist laughing in the still night air.

“Stop, Sophie.” Henri glowered at her.

“Oh, shut up. I’m fine.” She twisted her lips mischievously.

“Truly though, Sophie. You don’t know my people. We are not like you. Miora demands respect.” Emel took a serious tone, agitating Sophie.

Sophie preferred to not cower under some old custom. Telling her what she couldn’t do was a sure fire way to make her do the opposite.

“Fine. Of course, Emel. We have long looked for your caravan and here you are. I won’t mess this up.” Sophie said the words Emel needed to hear, even if she didn’t quite mean them. She couldn’t help but wonder if this was stupid. Coming here, traipsing in the woods, for a stranger. The fact that Emel was here, the moment they asked for her, felt like more than a coincidence.

Creepy was the word Sophie was looking for.

Like, Emel
knew
she was coming.

Emel’s dark slender hand knocked on the worn wooden door. “Madame Miora, I am here for my lesson.”

The knock was answered by a distant sounding voice, “Come, my child.” As Emel opened the door, Sophie realized the woman was here, not far away at all. She sat in the small space that was part home, part office, and part sanctuary.

Sophie locked eyes with Henri, whose big brown eyes had grown to the size of the saucers that held their
café au lait
. Miora was an old woman, with clouded grey eyes staring past the three of them. Heavy moonstones hung from chains on her neck, and she touched them gingerly as the teenagers approached her. Miora closed her eyelids and began chanting something in a language Sophie didn’t recognize. She was not like the woman Sophie knew in the village, and from appearances, nothing like her own mother.

Sophie’s mother Francesca wore an apron as a uniform, a hard-working woman who held the respect of the villagers. She cleaned homes and cared for children and looked forward to the simple pleasure of putting her feet up at the end of the day with a glass of dark red wine.

Miora was a mystic. Exactly the sort of adventure Sophie and Henri had hoped for when they snuck in the woods.

“Child, come closer,” Miora requested as she held her hands toward them.

Emel took a step toward the mysterious woman who was her mentor. Sophie couldn’t help but be jealous of the apprenticeship Emel had garnered for herself. Henri, with flecks of flour still on his cheek, already knew the height of excitement his job at the bakery would hold for him.

In this moment, Sophie realized the mines, while far from the village, had the same redundancy Henri’s job afforded. Sophie’s lungs constricted as she imagined the life laid out for her. Even if she rebelled against the status quo and fought to work in the mines, it was still a dusty life that would end with the
Coffre au Trésor
and lungs filled with flecks of gem dust. The lungs that threatened to suffocate her now.

Henri grabbed her hand, as if hoping to ground her to the moment, not wanting her mind to fly away to the things beyond their control this night. Sophie let his hand stay there; she knew he felt better with their palms touching but knew it did nothing for her.

“Not you, Emel. Her.” Miora’s voice brought Sophie back to the moment better than Henri’s hand ever could. Emel looked at her companion, and a smile spread across her face generously.

“Oohhhh I knew you came for a reason, Sophie,” Emel said serendipitously. “Go on, don’t make her wait.”

Sophie walked the few feet toward Miora in the crowded wagon. Looking more closely she saw jars filled with herbs and roots. Yellow candles poured a soft glow over the curved ceiling. Incense burned on the table, emanating the musky smell of sandalwood. It was the sort of space that saw shadows, not just in the walls, but also in the crevices of your heart. Sophie’s lungs continued to warn her as she struggled to take a breath. It was the sort of space that made a strong girl much more vulnerable than she’d like to be.

“Sit, girl, and hold out your hands,” Miora’s hazy voice caused the three of them to lean in to understand. Sophie obeyed.

Her soft, under worked hands, were laid out on the table, palms up. Sophie heard her mother’s
voice in the back of her head, the daily incantations of prayer and supplication. The daily heeding that Sophie wasn’t doing what she should. “Shoulds” were the backdrop of her life. Sophie forever failed to be the girl she was supposed to be. Being here now would cause her mothe
r
to cry. She would light a candle to the Saints, begging Sophie to leave these fringe people in the wagon, beg her to be a decent girl.

Pushing the voice away Sophie looked stoically in Miora’s eyes. Eyes that saw beyond and between.

“What is it?” Sophie asked curiously. This was new to her; people didn’t single her out, unless it was to scold. She only had to think back to the years in the schoolhouse where her hands were slapped with rulers and she washed blackboards while classmates chased one another frivolously in the field. Sophie had a knack for breaking rules. She never understood the secret language required by the ones who played by them.

“Hush, you are thinking too much,” Miora purred, as she slowly rolled her head from side to side.

Henri snickered behind her.

“Shut up, Henri,” she hissed.

Miora ignored the two friends, and focused on her art.

“Emel, gather my stones.”

Emel moved swiftly to a cupboard, opened it, and produced a small yellow, cloth bag. The
Bohème
girl carried it to them and set it upon a table covering Sophie hadn’t noticed it until now. In the center of the tablecloth there was a design with five points, and resembled the silhouette of diamond. The bottom point, centered straight at Sophie.

Before Sophie or Henri had a chance to ask what the stones she requested were for, Miora began to explain.

“I have moonstones around my neck, and they warm when someone is near who needs a reading. Feel this, child,” Miora grabbed Sophie’s hands from across the table and pressed them to the stone necklace.

Sophie pulled away, immediately, and rubbed her palms together.

“It’s on fire,” she said, raising her eyebrows at the old woman. Disbelief was written across Sophie’s face.  

“So it is. Yet you are cold.”

Sophie swallowed, discomfort grabbing hold of her. She wanted an adventure tonight, but she didn’t understand the power of the travelers she sought.

“Stones have existed longer than you or I. The king your village serves has claimed what was never his. See, the stones were here, buried in the earth’s hills, long before man walked on the mountains. Before kings ruled the countryside.”

“I know gemstones are old. I’m not sure what that has to do with me, or your hot moonstone,” Sophie said.

“You have a connection with the stones, I feel it even now. This yellow bag has twenty-two stones within it, the stones I have mined from the earth myself. These stones were the ones drawn to me, and I to them, and now, they are drawn to you. The shift is in the air, do you feel it?”

Emel’s bright eyes flitted about the room, as if she was grasping to find a change in the air. Henri looked nervously at Sophie, keeping his eyes on the girl he came with.

“Sophie, you doing okay? You seem like you’ve seen a ghost,” Henri asked quietly, leaning to her ear. She shook her head quickly, as if thinking longer on his question would cause her to reconsider.

“Does she see ghosts?” Miora asked Henri.

“No, but they would probably be friends. Sophie has always had, how do you say it … a problem getting along … with people.” Henri smiles at his own joke, the serious tone Miora had didn’t affect him.

“A shift?” Sophie asked, bringing the group back to the stones. “What do you mean?”

“The stones connect to us, if we let them. You were called to me tonight, my stones called you. Perhaps that is why our band of travelers is here in the first place. So the stones can speak to you.”

Sophie leaned into the table, slightly.  Biting her lip, she asked, hesitantly, “What do they say?”

“That is where the reading comes in. I will have you draw five stones from the bag, and you will set them on a corner of this diamond, starting in the lower left, moving clockwise. The stones you draw will tell us a story. The story you need to hear.”

“You believe in this, these readings?” Henri asked, Emel. It was clear he did not. Arms crossed and smirking at the table, he looked like he was having fun. It wasn’t serious to him; he didn’t feel the shift in the air like Miora did. Like Sophie did.

“Of course I do. Miora is the wisest woman I know. She leads our caravans, by telling us the safest routes to travel. She is never wrong. I am lucky to be her protégé.”

Sophie looked at Henri, knowing he felt this was all a joke, and maybe it was. It was still the thrill they were looking for when they crept in the forest tonight. It was still better than sitting at some meaningless
café
listening to boring people discuss monotonous things.

“After my reading can you do Henri’s?” she asked Miora.

“No, my child. I only read when the stones tell me to. Now draw.” She said this as if her life depended on it, and by the way she was rubbing the moonstone, perhaps she was.

Emel took her cue and picked up the bag from the table, untied the cord, and held it out to Sophie. Sophie put her hand inside and swirled at the gemstones.

It was difficult to feel for a specific stone. Sophie had few opportunities to hold gems more precious than the jasper in Henri’s pocket. She never had gems of her own, why would she without a job? Her mother had a modest savings chest she garnered from her earnings from various jobs. She stored them with the small monthly stipend of gems she received from the king. Compensation for losing her husband, Sophie’s papa, in the mines.

Sophie closed her eyes, and clasped her fingers around a stone, drawing it out. Miora’s eyes widened at the sight of the gem in Sophie’s hand. Sophie didn’t know the significance.

“Place the Agate here,” Miora pointed to the first point. “The first stone represents the emotions involved in your problem. You drew The Fool.”

“And that means…?” Sophie asked, her guard flaring, a Fool couldn’t mean anything good.

“Emel, explain,” Miora prompted her assistant.

“Umm, well … The Fool means imbalance, pride, ego … waste.” Emel didn’t want to meet Sophie’s eyes; she looked at Henri awkwardly instead.

Disclosing her annoyance admitted The Fool was spot on. So she kept her red lips in a straight line and proceeded to dip her hand back in the bag and produce another gem. Miora indicated the corner to place it.

“The second stone indicates obstacles you must face, ones you may not yet be aware of.” Miora leaned back with her eyes shut, taking in the moment. “You drew The Chief.  The white topaz stone represents captivity and abandonment.”

The words hung in the air, and Miora locked eyes with Sophie, looking inside her, as if trying to reach for something.

“Well, that’s silly,” Sophie stated, blocking the moment from penetrating her. “I am clearly not captive. I came here on my own.”

“Draw again,” Miora requested.

This time Sophie did it with an exaggerated swell of the stones. She fished loudly, her way to avoid reflecting on Miora’s words. She drew a fossilized fern.

“This point represents the foundation of the problem and the fossil is for Rebirth. It could mean childbirth, or some reversal of outcome.”

“That means nothing to me. I have no problems with childbirth. I’m not with child and don’t want to reverse that,” Sophie said, louder than necessary for this small room.

“It’s okay, Sophie, no one said that. It’s just for fun, remember?” Henri tried to reassure her, but Sophie’s eyes were hardened. She wasn’t enjoying this game.