Web of stone (standard:mystery, 1873 words)
Author: La Futiere	Added: Mar 29 2010	Views/Reads: 3630/2298	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Mysterious powers used by accident victim to gain revenge. ESP?

TANITH AND THE WEB OF STONE			La Futiere. A short story of 1850 words. 

Harry and Mary stumbled out of ‘The Crown',  happy with each other's
company and the joy of living.  They giggled their inebriate way across 
the car park and, after much fumbling, Harry persuaded the electronic 
magic of the BMW to open its doors and let them in.  The car started at 
the fourth incompetent attempt and the driver threw the powerful 
machine onto the A4.  They were going home. 

Harry and Mary sang lustily at the tops of their voices as they
approached the roundabout at high speed.  Centrifugal force and 
impaired reflex did the rest.  The vulnerable Mini broke like an 
egg-shell when the BMW ploughed into it.  Suddenly sober, full of 
remorse, the perpetrators of this nightmare gazed upon the scene 
through the falling snow in the still bright headlights.  It had been a 
good Christmas up to now. 

Harry and Mary stood in the falling snow numb with shock.  Two lorry
drivers clawed frantically at the wreckage.  From within the tortured 
metal, an ominous rivulet of blood traced its way through the virgin 
snow.  No sound other than the panting breath of the rescuers disturbed 
the scene.  Finally, with one great heave, they rolled the car onto its 
shattered wheels and scanned the interior.  One of the men turned away 
and retched uncontrollably, the other, looking at what he had seen, 
silently acknowledged that the driver was very dead.  The passenger, a 
young girl, had sustained injuries but was breathing.  It took fifteen 
minutes for the emergency services to arrive.  The lorry drivers gave 
there evidence and a breatherliser confirmed the police suspicions. 

Harry, despite his considerable influence, did not escape completely. 
The publicity was bad for the business, his political career was ruined 
and the insurance company were tiresome.  The heavy fine was merely 
irritable but the three-year driving ban seemed most unfair.  After 
all, it wasn't as though he had deliberately planned the death of the 
woman. 

Tanith recovered disturbingly withdrawn and morose.  Her career as a
talented artist lay tangled in the wreckage of the car.  The slender 
fingers, once so perfect were insensitive and across her head, 
carefully hidden by a fringe, ran a vivid red scar.  Her hopes, her 
dreams were crushed.  David, her father, also suffered, his wife Janet 
was gone and Tanith displayed no emotion whatsoever, speaking little 
and brooding much.  She keened for her dead mother, stealing items of 
her mother's clothing that David  had hidden away to dull his own pain. 
 She strived desperately to snatch a part of her mother from the grave, 
a silent quest that none but she could comprehend. 

‘Her eyes are damaged and so are her hands,' said Doctor Petersson 
‘these we can heal in time.  The main concern is within her mind.  
There is no obvious brain damage, but she is extremely traumatised'.   
A few days later, a psychiatrist confirmed that she was suffering 
severe trauma and seemed unable to come to terms with her condition.  
There was a deep centred emotion, probably hatred which, hopefully 
could be cured by counselling.  But the therapy was a failure. 

Tanith lived with her Mother inside her head.  Sitting for hours on the
window seat gazing with dull eyes across the wilderness of the 
Wiltshire Downs. When not in this trance-like state she would read her 
mother's publications and notes.  She read eagerly devouring every 
word, but as quickly would lapse again into inactive stupor. Janet had 
been a leading entomologist, she had specialised in the predatory 
skills of the arachnids, the web builders.  Her PH D had been earned by 
a brilliant and unchallenged study of high frequency signals 
transmitted by arachnids and she had researched the conversion of 
energy to resonating signals such as are emitted by mineral crystals 
and had equated them with the taut lines of the spider's web.   Tanith, 
 through some undefined mental osmosis, was slowly beginning to absorb 
her mother's knowledge . 

As summer spread its warmth over the cottage and the earth blossomed,
Tanith began to paint again.  Her subjects were disturbing and her 
obsession with spiders and webs was only contrasted with sombre and 
melancholy pictures of Sarcen stones and  dolmens so prevalent in the 
vicinity.  She was eventually coaxed out into the warm sunshine and as 
her delicate frame strengthened, she became more adventurous. 


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