Sacrifice In Stone by Patricia Mason Page B

strange.”
    “What?” Lucy croaked, earning herself a
glare from Mara.
    “I could have sworn this statue was
holding a dagger in his left hand…and his other hand was in a different
position.”
    Mara glanced at Sacrifice and saw the hand, now returned to marble whiteness, had
fixed with fingers open and palm up. As the woman stared at the statue, Lucy
thrust the stone dagger into Mara’s hand. Mara shoved it into the deep pocket
of her cotton dress.
    “It couldn’t have moved,” the matron said
almost to herself.
    “Ha,” Mara tried to laugh and failed. “He
couldn’t have moved. That would be unbelievable.”
    The matron turned back and centered her
gaze on Mara. “Don’t I know you?”
    “I don’t think so.” There was something
about the woman that made her want to back away, but she stood her ground.
    “I’m Eliza Allen, the museum’s director.
Are you certain we haven’t met before?”
    “No. I mean, yes I’m certain.”
    A flutter of change crossed the woman’s
expression. “Ah yes. I remember now.” The woman smiled but it didn’t reach her
eyes. “Hobart showed me your photo. Does he know you’re here?”
    Damn and crap. Mara had no idea this
woman knew her uncle. This could seriously undermine her whole plan. “Yes, of
course.”
    Of course he didn’t, but she couldn’t
tell this woman that.
    “Uncle Hobbie and I are like this.” Mara
twisted middle finger over index. “You know? My uncle did tell me about you. He
said to say hello and give you his best regards.”
    The woman blushed. “He did?” Smiling, she
straightened her skirt. “Maybe I should give him a call.”
    Double crap with chocolate on it. Mara
didn’t want a phone call, at least not yet. “You definitely should call him.
He’d love to hear from you. But I would wait until Tuesday. He’s negotiating a
business deal until then.”
    “All right.” The woman giggled. “Let me
know if you change your mind about that bandage or if I can get you anything
else.” The director walked out of the room with a schoolgirl grin on her face.
    Mara returned her stare to the statue.
    Lucy placed a hand on her arm. “Let’s get
out of here.”
    “No, Lucy. I’m staying. I’ve got to free Sacrifice .”
    “You really think there’s someone in
there?”

 
    * * * * *

 
    Garrick heard the voice called Lucy
speaking from where he was trapped inside his stone prison.
    “Yes, and his name is Garrick Lawson,”
Mara said.
    Mara knew his name. His Mara. Garrick had
clung to thinking of her as belonging to him in the last years. Years when he’d
been locked away in this museum.
    He’d heard Mara for the first time when
she was just a child. She’d been playing a game of tag with her father. He
heard them laughing as they ran around him.
    “How do you know?” Lucy asked.
    “That’s what it says in the book,” Mara
answered.
    He heard them open the Transfero Vita and page through it.
    “Where did that book come from?” Lucy
said.
    “I found it years ago in my uncle’s study
where the statue was kept.”
    Garrick remembered the moment Mara found
the journal, because at that instant something changed after more than two
hundred fifty years. He was still trapped inside the marble. His skin was still
petrified, still solid stone. Yet something inside quickened and came alive.
    Mara’s voice was so delicate. A treat for
the only sense left to him. “This’ll sound crazy.”
    “Why not. We’re doin’ crazy today,” Lucy
said.
    “Anyway, I had a dream about the journal,
and somehow I knew it was in the study.”
    “There are thousands of books in there.
How did you find it?”
    “I don’t know. It just drew me,” Mara
said.
    A connection had been forged between them
that day. He didn’t know how. For the first time in centuries he had hope. Hope
that someone would be able to release him from this prison. He’d heard them
talking over the years and so he’d known her name, but it wasn’t until that