Siege of Stone Read Online Free Page A

windows. When there was enough lead chiseled away, Tom opened the lid.
    Inside was something made of cloth, pale yellow in color, the threads glistening metallically. Loosely woven silk , Tom thought. But then, what made it glisten so? And what did it conceal?
    He carefully folded back the first layer of cloth, but there was only more of the garment, if that was what the thing was. He pressed on it, but felt nothing beneath but a yielding mass of fabric. Still, he peeled back every layer, just in case.
    No. Nothing but the cloth. He stood up, holding it, looking down into the now empty chest, feeling somehow betrayed. Well, he thought, the cloth seemed to be in decent shape for all its time below ground. Being sealed up had probably helped. There couldn't be many cloths this old that had survived so nicely.
    He began to open it up, and was further disappointed to find that it wasn't any type of garment, but seemed rather to be a blanket or coverlet, a meter wide and two long. What was worse, there was a large piece missing from the one corner. Grand. There went any real collector's value.
    Tom shook the thing out the way his wife did when she was shaking the dust out of blankets, first up and down, then side to side, as though he were waving a flag. He saw no dust come from it in the flashlight's glare. It had been sealed up well.
    He gathered it in his arms again, and bent down to put it back into the chest, thinking that maybe he could get some money for the container, if not for what it contained. It was a strange box, brass cased, but lined with some dark material. He scraped a fingernail across it and guessed, from the softness and weight of it, that it was lead, the same metal that had sealed the damned thing.
    Tom had just closed the lid, turned off his flashlight, and picked up the box when he heard a gentle voice speak to him from out of the darkness.
    "Nice soft night, eh, Tom?"

Chapter 4
     
    T om Kerr's heart jumped up into his throat, and he felt the air stand on the back of his neck. He froze, afraid to turn around. Then a light hit him from behind, and he knew it was no ghost, but something that inspired even more fear. He turned, and in the bright flashlight's peripheral glow, he saw the round and lovely face of Inspector Molly Fraser. Her head was cocked to one side, and she was smiling like a mother who's caught her son at the sweets jar. Her long brown hair seemed to pour out from under the knit tartan tam she wore.
    "Aye, Inspector," Tom stammered. "A wee bit cold, though."
    "And what've you got there, Tom?" The inspector shined her light on the box he was holding. "An old box? And what's in it?"
    "Oh, just an auld cloot, that's all."
    "Mmm-hmm. Let's have a look." Tom opened the box, and held it toward her so she could see. She shined her light on it, then turned it off. "A strange old cloth, though, Tom—you've got to admit that. Aren't many cloths that glow in the dark, are there?"
    Tom looked down. He had always had a light on the cloth before, but now that it was in darkness, he saw that it was indeed glowing dimly, with the same pale yellow color. He was so startled he almost dropped it, and the first thing that came into his mind was the childish fancy that it might be a fairy cloth.
    "And what's that lining the box, Tom?"
    "I think it's lead, Inspector."
    Molly Fraser looked at the bit of lead lying on the ground. "Sealed with lead, too, was it?" Tom nodded. "You know what lead does, Tom?" He looked at her dully. "For one thing, it doesn't allow radioactivity to pass through it," she said. "Now you've got something glowing there in a box that's lined and sealed with lead, Tom. What might that lead you to think?"
    His eyes grew wide and he slammed the box lid shut, set it quickly on the ground, and backed away from it. "Do you . . . do you think I'm all right?" he asked her, thinking of all the horror stories of what large doses of radiation could do.
    "Don't know, Tom. Did you handle it?"
    "Well,