wood, light brown like oak but Mason couldn’t quite place its type.
He ascended into a wood-lined hallway that darkened first, then filled with a transient sprinkling of light. He found himself counting the stairs until finally reaching twenty-one, and emerging into a clearing, expecting a surge of exposed brightness but finding another pleasant surprise: just as advertised, a rooftop glen, complete with eight standing stones, dolmens polished white, in a circle around the stairwell. Beyond the circle, under a hanging canopy of vines and flowering violets, were set two oak chairs, carved exquisitely to resemble a twisting of roots and swollen tree limbs, extending out over the shoulders, all expertly entwined to provide comfortable support.
Rising from the eastern chair, from where he had been sitting in thoughtful repose, glancing out through the vines toward the rising sun, Avery Solomon stood. He took large strides, yet seemed to be moving in slow motion, his smile widening, his red hair waving in the gentle wind. He passed between two of the great stones, bowing his head slightly as he entered the circle. “Mason Grier, it’s my pleasure.”
Extending his hand, Mason clasped that of his host and gave it an assured squeeze, matching the intensity that was offered. But he spoke coolly. “I recognize the voice, but I don’t know your name.”
“Forgive me. I am Avery Solomon.” His eyes twinkled and a pair of dragonflies suddenly appeared, hovering over his right shoulder, fluttering closer as if inspecting Mason and gauging his threat level. He gripped Mason’s hand tight and intently scrutinized him, as if looking for a spark of familiarity or recognition in Mason’s eyes, as if they’d met once, ages ago or in another lifetime.
“Mr. Solomon,” Mason pulled his hand back, and his throat tightened in a sudden feeling of vulnerability, like he realized, standing in the middle of these stones, that he might be intended as a sacrifice in some pagan ritual. “I am told I have you to thank for my daughter’s miraculous cure?”
“You have the earth to thank for that, Mason.” At the chairs he motioned for his guest to sit first. “Our world is full of secrets. We just need to know where to look, and how to look.”
“And how is that?” Mason asked, following Solomon out of the circle, where the air somehow felt clearer and his head too was lighter, freed from a low buzzing he had at first imagined to be from the dragonflies.
Solomon smiled as he surveyed the mountains rising as if birthed from the treetops. “Carefully.” He took a seat, settling into the carved oak chair. “Reverently.”
“So let’s get to it. Why am I here?” Mason shifted, feeling a little in awe, like standing before a great king, saint or wizard. “Why the attention, the drama, the cloak and dagger? The nearly giving my wife and I dual heart attacks, and me a concussion, only to come back and grant us the best gift of our lives?”
Ignoring the question, Solomon blinked and raised his head to the rising sun. “Let me ask you something, Mason. Looking out at the sky right now, watching the trees, feeling the wind, what would you, in your meteorological capacity, predict to be the forecast for the day?”
“What?”
“Just humor me.”
“I’m off the clock.”
“Just give it your best shot. Out here, without your computers and satellite links, without the weather maps and almanacs, what would you predict for the next few hours?”
Mason sighed heavily. “Okay, it’s going to be mostly sunny, seventy-six to seventy-nine by mid-day, with a clear starlit night, temps dropping into the low sixties.”
“Chance of rain?”
“None.”
“Really?”
“Yes, zero chance.”
Solomon turned slightly, and his eyes sparkled when they met Mason’s. “There’s an umbrella behind your chair. I suggest you get it ready.”
“For what?” Mason started to ask, when he saw Solomon get up and walk back into the circle. Once inside, ringed by the great eroded stones, he turned and spread his arms wide, with his palms up. His suit coat rippled and his ponytail whipped in a sudden easterly wind.
“I prefer to feel the weather first-hand Mason. Can I call you Mace?”
Mason was about to object. How did he even think of that nickname? Pamela was the only one.…
Solomon continued. “To become one with the weather, experiencing all its power and ferocity, tenderness and mercy …”
Mason again looked to the sky, but now with less confidence. The wind had indeed risen, gusting suddenly; ten miles per hour, now twenty. The pressure plummeted. He turned, and over the