The Serpent in the Stone - By Nicki Greenwood Page 0,50

lips, she hurried ahead of him.

She couldn’t wait until cover of darkness that night, when she’d be able to steal away to the inlet. And, she hoped, to Ian’s arms, because Flintrop was totally right. She’d never wanted anyone like this.

****

Faith sat reading in her tent, making notes in her new journal, and chewing meditatively on her pen cap. After the last journal disappeared, she’d gotten into the habit of keeping this one in her possession at all times. Rolling the pen cap between her teeth, she turned the page and continued her new entry.

Excavated the skull found in the fissure today. We haven’t dated it, but I assume it’s Norse due to its proximity to the house ruin. I haven’t touched it, but I get a strange feeling about it. Maybe I’m just creeped out lately.

We also found a silver belt buckle. It’s exciting to find our first artifacts. Too bad Sara went to Unst today.

She’s been happier than I’ve ever seen her, here in Shetland. Probably equal parts respect for Dad’s legacy, and the presence of Ian Waverly. He’s been good for her.

Now the bad news: Flintrop showed up to help with the project. Can’t say I am happy, but Flintrop supported us in the decision to stay and finish digging despite tremor activity. Wish there were a way to get his funding without having to work with him.

Sara interrupted Faith’s account by dropping a bag into her lap. Faith jumped and shot her sister a glare.

“Open it,” Sara demanded, looking grim.

Faith pulled the book from its bag. “A children’s book?”

“Take a closer look.” Her sister sat on the cot.

Faith did so. Her gaze landed on the lady’s necklace. “What the...?”

“I just finished looking at it. Basically, it reads like your usual bedtime story. A jealous evil wizard puts a curse on a princess, and her prince has to rescue her. Which, unlike your usual bedtime story, he doesn’t.”

“Huh?”

Sara sat forward and rested her hands on her knees. “The wizard curses her into an eternal sleep, and the prince who’s supposed to rescue her loses the battle against the wizard. The wizard gets mad and curses the prince, too. Prince and princess spend the rest of forever as a standing stone split down the middle, always together but never touching. Kind of romantic, in a tragic sort of way.”

“What does the necklace have to do with it?” Faith wondered, flipping through the book.

“The necklace is what he uses to curse them.”

Faith went through the pages again, pursing her lips. She stared at the cartoony necklace. “Okay, just for a minute, let’s assume this is the amulet in the story. Since the wizard had it, my guess would be that’s the druid from my vision. The prince in the story would have to be the man who killed the druid and stole the amulet. I don’t get where the girl comes in.”

“And you’re the emotional one,” scoffed her sister. “Obviously, the guy in your vision killed the druid over the girl.”

Faith frowned in thought. “God, this is familiar. Why is this so familiar?”

“I don’t know. I thought the same—” Sara ground to a halt, and they gaped at each other. Faith knew her sister had reached the same conclusion as she had.

The fairy tale book.

Faith sprang out of her chair and searched through the trunk at the end of her cot. She retrieved the disheveled copy of Fairy Tales of Western Europe, the book they’d discovered in their father’s safe box. She’d borrowed it from Sara to look for clues, and they had found it was the same book he’d read to them during their childhood bedtimes.

Frowning, Faith searched the book, then stopped short when she reached a damaged page. The top part of the page where a story title and illustration should have been was missing, torn out by a careless prior owner before the used book had even come to the Markham family.

She skimmed the story. “I think this is it. It mentions a wizard and a divided standing stone, but the necklace isn’t in it. It just talks about the wizard calling a serpent demon.” She met her sister’s gaze and laid the book on her cot. “There’s our serpent ceremony.”

“Research from children’s stories,” Sara rumbled, toying with the amulet’s leather cord. “What kind of wild goose chase was Dad leading us on?”

“Old stories and legends usually have some kind of metaphorical meaning, some basis in fact. Magic the way they would have seen it back