Find part one of this story here.
“Now I know why they called you in,” June said, following Shannon down a path already muddy from the tromp of soil and potsherds to the makeshift work facilities.
Peter’s presence at her back was a comforting contrast to the unease that had woven through her intestines when the archaeologist had mentioned a curse.
“Well, it’s been a while, but I remembered you helped a lot back in Arizona,” Shannon tossed back through the floppy hat that had been with her through decades of digs. “Not that us mere mortals were supposed to know exactly what you were doing, or that magic is real.”
“Magic is real?” Peter managed to channel his diplomat parents’ tone of interested, bland politeness with perfection.
“And you know it. I swear science will prove it someday, too. Plus, I’ve been around it — just enough, you know — that I can tell the mages. You sort of glow.”
“I told you she’d know.” June felt the corners of her lips twitch slightly. “Our good doc here is special. What you might call a sensitive. She gets those digs, the ones that freak everyone else out.”
The curly haired woman leading the way stopped with a sigh and pushed back her hat again. “This time there might be reason. We found this block of stone pretty quickly. You wouldn’t believe what technology can do these days.”
“LIDAR?” June shook her head in negation. “Never mind, tell me over a drink later.”
“What is this, an altar?” Peter paced around the pit that held the stone block in a slow circle. Oddly, this one held no volunteers or student workers like the other trenches. “Da would know what type of stone it is with his earth magics, but looks like your basic granite to me.”
Shannon nodded. “Pretty common in New Hampshire, obviously.”
June wrenched her gaze away from the polished stone. “Mesmerizing.”
“That’s the start of our problem.” Shannon pursed her lips. “Give it a minute.”
Birdsong filled the air with chirping as they waited, the distant mumble of conversation and overhead human sky travel cutting through the atmosphere of thickening tension.
“I don’t hear anything,” Peter said quietly. “Are you sure we will?”
June jumped as a knocking sound came from within the stone.
“It usually happens when someone says that,” Shannon said. Her lips were thin and tense, a brittle expression.
From within the stone, the clanking noise grew louder.
“It’s not just that something wants out,” the archaeologist said with an artificial level of conversationally to June. “It’s that whatever it is, it also knows we’re here.”
***
This week’s prompt was courtesy of Becky Jones: The clanking sound grew louder.
Mine went to Cedar Sanderson: The Finlays always had a dog, except for one terrible, glorious year.
Find it, and more, over at MOTE! New prompts tomorrow – get them in now!
