“Except what?”
“There?s no granite in the Barrens, or anywhere near here.”
Jack never understood where Weezy got all her information, but he?d learned to believe her.
She wasn?t a bull slinger.
Eddie joined them, saying, “So that means somebody cut these pizza slices somewhere else, drove them all the way out here, and made a teepee out of them. What for?”
Jack was thinking that “teepee” was a pretty good description when Weezy said, “?Drove?? I don?t think so. Can?t you see how old these are? I?ll bet they were dragged here on rollers.”
Jack looked at the stones and tried to imagine their weight, and the work it must have taken to carve each from a block of granite and then transport it here from wherever. He remembered Eddie?s last question.
“But
“And look,” Eddie said. “It?s not even put together right. They left spaces between the rocks.”
“They?ve probably shifted over the ages,” Weezy said.
Jack wasn?t so sure about that. He?d noticed the spaces, but they seemed pretty uniform.
Wouldn?t shifting and settling over time have resulted in uneven gaps? These all looked to be an even ten or twelve inches apart at their bases, tapering as they went up. That couldn?t have happened by chance.
He peered through one of the gaps. The empty space within was lit by strips of daylight streaming between the stones. Its floor lay about three feet below ground level under a couple of inches of rainwater. Jack could make out a layer of sandy soil beneath the surface. A stone column, maybe a foot in diameter and four feet high, stood in the exact center of the space.
Weezy and Eddie had moved up to gaps of their own on either side of him.
“It
Weezy?s voice dripped scorn. “A teepee is a place to live, so it needs a doorway—you know, one of those handy openings you use to get in and out? Plus, it?s supposed to protect you from the weather. This flunks on both.”
“All right, Miss Know-It-All, what is it then?”
Weezy hesitated, then, “I don?t know. But maybe if I look at it from another angle …”
To Jack?s surprise, she turned sideways, squeezed through the gap, and jumped down to the inner floor. She landed with a splash. He noticed she was wearing old sneakers. He looked down at his own battered Converse All- Stars. They?d been soaked before, no reason they couldn?t get soaked again.
Jack squeezed through his gap—a tight fit but he made it—and eased himself to the floor to avoid splashing Weezy. Cool water filled his sneakers as he looked up and saw Eddie watching from outside. He made no move to join them. Jack was about to coax him in when he realized that even if Eddie wanted to join them, he couldn?t. No way he?d fit through the narrow opening.
Or worse, if he forced himself in, he might not be able to get out.
Jack turned in a slow circle, uncomfortable with the trapped feeling that stole over him. He saw a triangle of cloudy sky above the damaged megalith. The broken-off apex rested at an angle against its base.
What had happened? A weakness in the stone? A lightning strike? He?d never know.
“Look,” Weezy said, pointing to the perimeter of the sunken area.
Jack saw how the sides sloped away at an angle, following the inner surfaces of the megaliths.
“How deep do you think the stones are buried?” she asked.
Jack shrugged. He had no idea, but the megaliths were even bigger than they appeared from the outside.
He heard splashing and turned to see Weezy making her way toward the short column in the center. Her speed increased until she all but leaped the last few feet.
“Jack! Look at this!”
When he joined her he found her running her hands over the top of the column.
“Look! It?s the same shape, the exact same size!”
Jack immediately saw what she meant—a six-sided indentation in the top of the column, a perfect fit for their lost little pyramid. No doubt about it now—the two pyramids were connected.
“What do you think it did here?”
“I don?t know but …” Anger washed across her features, leaving steely determination.
“But what?”
“Somehow, some way, I?m going to get our pyramid back and find out.”
Jack shared her desire but couldn?t see any way to make that happen, so he looked for a way to change the subject. He turned and pointed to the megaliths.
“Why go to all the trouble to drag these things here and set them up like this?”
Weezy shook her head. “Stonehenge was set up as a sort of solar calendar. Maybe this is something like that. Maybe the sun shines through one of these cracks and—oh my god!”
“What?”
“Our pyramid. I?ll bet they placed it right here in the center so that at certain times of the year a shaft of sunlight hit it and …”
“And what?”
She looked at him with a lost expression. “I don?t know. But I?ve
But Jack was thinking about something else. He did a slow turn, taking in the placement of the megaliths, the spaces between, the way they were tilted inward, making them virtually impossible to climb …
He felt a little squeeze in his chest as it all came together.
“I don?t know about sunbeams and that sort of stuff, but look around. Imagine you?re a tiger or a lion … those openings are wide enough to toss food inside but too narrow for something big to squeeze through. I think this is some sort of cage.”
4
After a moment of stunned silence, Weezy said, “You could be right, but … but we?re
talking a major, major project. Chiseling these huge stones somewhere and dragging them here, then somehow setting them upright with exactly the right spacing between them, all to cage a lion?”
Eddie?s voice was hushed. “Who says it was a lion. Maybe it was the Jersey Devil.”
A glance told Jack that Eddie wasn?t kidding. He liked to bring up the Jersey Devil as the cause of whatever couldn?t be explained in the Pines—and there was no shortage of the unexplained here—but usually he was at least half kidding. This time, however …
Supposedly, back in the 1700s, a certain Mrs. Leeds, on learning she was pregnant for the thirteenth time, cursed the baby, saying she?d rather bear the devil?s child than another for her husband. Well, that child was born with the head of a horse, bat wings, cloven hooves, and a spiked tail.
At least that was one version. Jack didn?t buy into the JD. Neither, of all people, did Weezy, who bought into just about everything else.
Weezy did believe that
“Eddie,” Weezy said in her must-I-explain? voice, “this was built
“No way!”
“Why not? Stonehenge was started in something like three thousand B.C.”
Eddie shook his head. “Nuh-uh. The only people around here back then were the Lenape Indians, and they didn?t build this.”
Jack smiled up at him. “Well, you did say it looks like a teepee.”
Eddie drew an invisible “1” in the air. “Got me.”
“Other people were here besides the Lenape,” Weezy said.
Eddie frowned. “Like who?”
“The Ancient Septimus Fraternal Order.”
“The Lodge? No way!”
