Ancient Eyes Part 4

"I don't know," he replied, sliding back onto the bed beside her. "There was no one there, or if there was, they weren't talking."

Kat shook her head.

"That was weird," she said at last. "We haven't gotten a crank call since we've lived here. Now you start having nightmares, your mother-who you haven't talked to in years-sends you a letter to ask you to come home, and we get two in one night?"

"Someone probably just got a number wrong on their bar napkin," Abe said distractedly.

"You don't believe that." She stated flatly.

Abe started to answer, but she was too quick for him. Kat slid across the bed and wrapped both of her small hands around his larger ones, capturing the medallion he'd been casually stroking between both sets of palms.

Abe glanced down, realized what he'd been doing and closed his eyes. He didn't answer her-he knew he didn't need to. She'd read his face and his actions more clearly than he had himself, and there was no answer that would clarify the moment better than the grip of her hands.

"Let's try to get some sleep," he said softly. "All of this will make more sense in the morning."

"And you'll tell me the rest of it?" Though she worded it as a question, Abe knew that it was not.

"I'll tell you what I know, and what I think," he said, nodding. "It might help me straighten it all out in my head if I go back through it with you. Right now I'm exhausted, and we only have a couple of hours before the sun comes up."

Katrina slid in under the sheets and he wrapped his arms around her. Her hair smelled slightly of watermelon and her skin, where they touched, was soft and very warm. Abraham closed his eyes. He heard the cries of birds echoing deep in his mind, and he felt the weight of deep-set, brooding eyes between his shoulder blades. He thought vaguely that he might never sleep again, but moments later he drifted into a calming darkness.

About an hour later, Katrina woke. Abe was curled against her back, but he'd fallen away slightly. His arm dangled off the far side of the bed, and he snored lightly. She slipped carefully from beneath the sheets, rose quietly and dressed. They needed some things from the grocery, and she wanted to be there and most of the way back by the time Abe was up and ready to eat.

She stood at the door and watched him sleep for a moment before turning away. He didn't seem to be dreaming, and his breathing was regular. She considered unplugging the phone, just in case, but in the end she simply turned and left quietly. If it were going to keep ringing, unplugging it for an hour or two wouldn't help. Maybe they could change the number or get one that was unpublished.

She thought of the wild, terrified expression he'd worn the second time he'd woken her, and she shivered. Somehow she didn't believe that changing the number would help, and she wasn't ready to be freaked out by having that new number ring the minute she plugged in the phone. Things were weird enough.

She stepped onto the porch, hit the sand, and climbed in behind the wheel of her old Chevy Lumina. She pulled out quickly, not wanting the sound of the engine to wake Abraham, and turned down the road toward San Valencez.

Alone in the bed, Abraham dropped into the dream. The air vibrated with the hiss of released air, or the voices of a thousand serpents. He stood on the mountain and looked down the side. Something moved at his feet, but he didn't look down. A cloud of darkness rose from the direction of the old church and crept up the side of the mountain toward him. It engulfed the tops of trees as it pa.s.sed, and though the moon hung high above, surrounded by the glitter of stars, where the darkness touched the glow and brilliance disappeared, devoured by shadow.

The edge of that darkness fluttered. From where he stood it looked as if it were made up of thousands of flapping, leathery wings. He wondered if that was the sound he heard. Abraham had a sudden sharp memory. He closed his eyes, and in that instant he saw the grapevines on the side of the mountain, twining in and over the arbors and snaking along the ground. A cloud hovered above the vines, and in that instant it descended.

Locusts crawled over the mountainside; jaws cutting inexorably at the leaves. They swarmed over the grapevines and coated the ground. They whirled in the air and shot first one direction, then the next in solid ma.s.ses of chitinous cartilage, slamming into the earth, wave after wave driving in over the backs of their fellows and devouring everything in sight.

Abraham wanted to turn and run but something clutched rigidly about his ankles. He felt the movement again and dragged his gaze from the dark plague rolling up the mountain toward him. He thought they were more vines and that he'd stumbled into thick undergrowth and had to extract himself carefully. He tried to lift his right leg and found that he couldn't. The ground at his feet undulated, and he screamed.

Serpents twined about his legs. Their eyes glittered and long, probing tongues flicked over his jeans. He struggled, but both legs were held tight. Frantic, he kicked out, tried to lift one leg, then the other, and the effort cost his balance. Something burned his chest, and he clutched it tightly. The medallion gleamed, and then burst into brilliant golden light.

Abraham fell back. His legs were freed from the restraining coils, but he sensed the serpents beneath him and knew he would fall among them and be swallowed. The medallion glowed brilliantly, and as he fell he twisted, driving his arms down like twin pistons, gripping the medallion and blinded by its light. His fear evaporated, replaced by a sudden wash of anger. He screamed as he drove his fists into the earth, pounded the medallion into the flesh of the mountain.

The roar in his ears was the voices of the locusts and the hiss of the snakes, the shadows sliding up the mountain and the smooth, gliding serpent scales. His scream shattered it like gla.s.s. The white-noise backdrop of the dream burst into hissing crystals and brilliant sparks, exploding from the point where his fists met the mountain.

Kneeling on the bed, the sheets wound about his ankles and knees as if they'd coiled there of their own accord, his hands buried so deeply in the mattress that the springs embedded their form in his knuckles, Abraham woke.

He didn't move. He stared straight into the white crumpled sheets, straight past his hands, still buried nearly to the wrists in the mattress, the stress on the taut muscles of his arms so acute that he shook from the pressure. Slowly he drew in a long, ragged breath. Just as slowly he released it, and drew in another. He lifted his head and felt a sharp pain in the back of his neck. Something held him, biting into his flesh. He took another breath and realized it was the leather thong.

He still held the medallion tightly in one fist, and the thong dug into his flesh, holding his neck down. He was forced into the position of a supplicant, kneeling on the bed, and with sudden clarity he knew he was alone. Katrina was not there. He released his grip on the pendant and turned. He sat on the bed, lowered his legs over the side, and pieced the room together in his mind, bit by bit, until clarity returned.

The spot on the bed where his fists had pounded in so deep was the same spot where Katrina should be sleeping. Abraham closed his eyes and then snapped them open again. The image that filled his head was Katrina, her chest caved in by the unfettered rage of his dream, his fists, and the medallion, buried deep in her flesh. He saw a flash of her eyes, awash in terror. He shook uncontrollably. Sweat soaked the sheets, shone off his skin in the dim light of the sunrise.

He rose unsteadily and pulled on his jeans. He tugged a t-shirt over his head, stepped to the closet, and dragged his duffle bag down from the top shelf. He moved quickly, watching the bedroom door, listening for Katrina's voice, her footsteps, or the car door slamming. He packed very little, and very quickly.

He took several pairs of jeans, some t-shirts, dumped his underwear and sock drawers into the bag and yanked flannel shirts from the closet. He sat long enough to drag on socks and boots and threw his sneakers into the duffle bag. He scanned the room wildly, certain he would leave out some key item that would force him to come back and explain himself to her. He knew he would never be able to do that and leave a second time. He took a book of poetry he'd been reading, two spiral notebooks and a handful of pens, and-at the last moment-he picked up the worn leather Bible on his dresser. He hadn't read it in a long time, but the weight of the book in his hand was somehow rea.s.suring. He dropped it into the duffle and turned toward the door.

Then he stopped. He knew he couldn't just leave. He had to get out before Katrina returned, but he couldn't let her come home to an empty house, no sign of him anywhere, without an explanation. Abraham pulled one of his spiral notebooks back out of the duffle and sat down at the table. He wrote quickly, not going into long explanations. When he was as satisfied as he could be with the note he left it on the table, weighted down by the saltshaker.

The sun hadn't risen, but it lined the horizon in red and gold, and Abe stopped for a moment to stare down at the beach, and then up at the cliffs where the Cathedral of San Marcos loomed over the waves. His throat was tight, and his stomach was queasy. For that one moment he considered staying. He could just sit down on the porch, wait for Katrina to return, tell her the whole story, and the two of them could find his mother together.

Then he closed his eyes and felt the dreams hovering just out of sight, and knew he had to do it alone. She would be hurt. She would probably wait for him, and if she didn't he would find her and somehow make it right, but he had to do this alone. He'd already come closer to physically hurting her in his sleep than he was comfortable with, and he knew that things were likely to be much worse before they ever got better. Nothing about that mountain was safe, with or without the nightmares and the bitter memories that lodged between his thoughts and distracted him.

His hand strayed to the medallion, and he felt the beginnings of a bruise on the back of his neck where the leather thong had dug into his skin. The touch of the smooth metal cleared his thoughts, and he started off toward the beach at a jog. He knew if he went straight out to the road, Katrina would see him. He would have to run down the beach and come up further down the road, then double back to the bus stop.

He jogged down to the beach and turned right, toward the cathedral and the cliffs. His heart ached, but he did not look back. Behind him, just out of hearing, the phone rang.

NINE.

Deep in the hills, there are different rules. Things shift, boundaries blur and time warps with the sudden, powerful draw of blood. Abraham knew this better than any. The blood of his brothers and cousins, uncles and aunts ran through the veins of the hills that towered over him. The asphalt shimmered in the bright sunlight and waves of heat rose to the heavens. Abraham stared through them and let them warp the green of the trees and the blue of the sky. He was coming home.

On his shoulder, his duffle bag was a familiar weight; as familiar as the scent of pine on the breeze and the soft whisper of wind through the trees. He turned and glanced back down the road the way he'd come. It was a good four miles to the turnoff from Cotter's Point. The trucker who'd let him off would be halfway to the state line, trying to make a warm bed and stiff drink before the orange-red of the sunset bled down the side of the hills and faded to black.

In the breast pocket of his flannel shirt the letter from his mother was neatly folded. He heard her voice whispering the words, and knew it was silly to keep the short note. He would never forget.

"He's back, boy."

The equal armed cross that was drawn on the bottom of the letter covered another symbol. It was a dark squiggle, serpentine and bleak. When Abraham studied it he got the impression of layers-one thing covering another and blocking it. There was power in the old symbols, and he knew, for the moment, that his mother's cross, like the one he wore about his neck, had proven the stronger. Nothing more was written. No explanation was offered, or needed. Civilization drained down slowly, swirled through the veins of his legs and seeped into the earth. Blood to blood; Abraham started to walk.

The final two words of the short note echoed through his mind. "Come home." In the city they would not have believed the transformation that ten miles could make. Abraham had left the truck as a man on the road, far from his cottage on the beach and his work, but attached to them by the thin threads that bound civilization into a tattered tapestry. Those threads stretched taut as he walked the four miles of burning pavement, and when he turned off the road, cut into the line of trees and climbed up and away, they snapped cleanly.

He closed his eyes, leaned on the broad, strong trunk of an ancient oak, and basked in the moment. His jeans felt stiff and restrictive, their tight creases pointless and irritating. He was glad of the boots he'd worn, and he wished he'd worn older jeans with more wear. He hadn't been thinking about the mountain then, but he had felt it, and he had known. His memories were returning full force now.

He pushed off from the tree and settled his knapsack more comfortably on his shoulders. It was a little past noon, and he wanted to reach his mother's house before the light failed. It was a long climb.

Anyone he ran into would know him despite the years and the changes they had wrought, but still, it was best they get a clear look as he approached. Normally he would have feared nothing more than a seat full of rock salt for trespa.s.sing, but now? The paper weighed heavily in his pocket, and he watched the trees to either side carefully as he walked.

Something had changed. He felt an odd detachment from the woods surrounding him, as if he were a stranger and didn't belong, but even so, he felt it. He had expected to feel alienated, but there was something dark in the air, something menacing that reached out from each shadow. He frowned and hurried his steps.

On his left, up the mountain a bit, he saw the spire of the church rising against the blue of the sky. The wood needed paint, and the roof was dark and patched. The high window on the steeple was shuttered, but one side hung limply out at an angle as if waiting for a wind to come along and put it out of its misery.

Abraham thought about cutting through the churchyard. It was a little out of his way, but he had the sudden urge to see the place. He needed to be sure that it was as he remembered it, not as it had been in his dream. If it were as run down as it appeared to be, then it was unlikely he would see the windows pouring light into the darkness, or deep, chanting voices rising from the eaves. He saw the flaking paint and loose shingles from where he stood, but these meant little. The note, crinkling in his pocket as he walked, told a different story.

Abraham had a sudden flash of memory. He saw his father's face, not angry-never angry-but set and grim. He saw torches lined up and stretching back into the forest like a giant flaming serpent, flowing away behind his father. He saw that other face, the dark branching antlers and the wide, hate-filled eyes. He heard a keening that shook him to the depths of his soul and remembered ripping his eyes from that scene to stare into the pale gleam of a long-ago full moon. He had been so young then, and the memories-though vivid-held few answers.

He shook his head and turned back to the path.

The trail was worn, and he saw the signs of many pa.s.sing feet. The prints ran over and around one another in a jumbled, scuffed map that Abraham read instinctively. A great number of people had been this way recently, and the knowledge itched at his mind. So much traffic didn't mesh with the unkempt steeple on the church, or the ominous, heavy emptiness of the air. There was nothing along this path but smaller trails that trickled off deeper into the woods, and the church.

Although the road he'd left behind was the nearest route to civilization, it wasn't a big draw for the locals. If they needed something from the city, they would go by truck, usually about once a month, and they would go in force. They wouldn't run out along a forest path and down the mountain. Besides that, Abraham had seen no sign of the tracks on the side of the mountain as he climbed. They moved in both directions along the trail, but without closer scrutiny, their destinations remained a secret.

When Abraham had left the mountain, the church building was already in decline. It wasn't as obvious then. If you'd seen the steeple through the trees, as Abraham had just done, you'd have seen gleaming white paint and windows open to the brilliant light of the sun. Those who had remained behind after the cleansing-that was his father's word-had tried to rebuild. They had tried to resurrect the church itself from the evil that had tainted it and re-consecrate it to the G.o.d of its original intent. The effort had changed them, eroded their faith and drained their spirit.

Something had pushed them away. Though the rituals and the words, the hymns and the praise were the same, they seemed pointless and empty when shared within the church's walls. One by one folks had wandered back out the door and into the hills, finding their own ways to G.o.d, or driving down the mountain on a Sunday. Once Abraham's father died...

He tore his mind from that thought and back to the church. It wasn't necessarily the paint and wood that had declined. Something had been won, and something had been lost. The rot that had begun within the walls seemed to have found its way to the surface and begun to eat through.

He remembered that steeple as one of the last things he'd seen as he'd walked this same trail to the mountain's side and the road beyond those long years before. The window had been open wide, staring after him like a single accusing eye.

It had not been daylight then. The woods had been shadowed and dark, the perfect cover. Now, by the light of day, his memories seemed false. The building was decrepit and on the verge of toppling over to cast its boards down the nearly sheer cliff behind it to the floor of the valley below. That image was not as incongruous with his memories as he'd at first thought it to be. To be this far gone after so few years, the building must have been broken down when he left.

There was a sound in the trees to his left, and Abraham halted. He saw nothing, and the sound wasn't repeated. After a moment he continued. Then it came again. It didn't sound like footsteps. It was more of a skittering, like leaves skimming the ground in the grip of the wind, rubbing their dry skins together in protest.

Then a shadow flitted between two trees and disappeared into a dense thicket. At the same time, the sound echoed again. This time Abraham stood very still and waited. His heart was trip hammering, but he didn't know exactly why. The shadow hadn't been large enough to be a man, nor quite small enough to be a dog. It had moved very quickly and quietly. If he had been new to the woods, he might have missed it entirely. Even his mountain-grown senses, after so many dulling years in the city, had only caught it on the periphery.

"Who's there?" he asked. He didn't cry out, but his voice carried. He kept the tremor that threatened to surface from giving away his unease.

There was no answer, but the shadow moved again, and this time Abraham was ready. At the first hint of the sound, he launched himself at the end of the thicket. This time there was more than a flicker. A shape emerged from the shadows and flew away parallel to the trail. Abraham followed.

The skittering gave way to the pounding of bare feet. As Abraham crashed through the trees, cursing as branches slapped at his face and cut his shirt, he caught sight of long, auburn hair and bare legs. The girl turned once, glared at him with feral, haunted eyes. Then she grinned widely, revealing several gaps in her teeth, and fled into the woods. Panting from the exertion and coated in sweat, Abraham slowed and finally stopped. He leaned heavily on a tree and stared after her.

Whoever she was, she was long gone. Abraham looked down at her footprints. For an instant the thought of running barefoot through those woods, with their brambles and branches, loose rocks and snakes, wrinkled his nose. Then he laughed.

It hadn't been that many years since those barefoot prints might have been his. One thing was certain-it would be only a matter of hours before everyone on the mountain knew that someone was coming.

Abraham turned and headed back at an angle toward the trail. He planned to cut across it further along than the point he'd left it and make up the lost time. The wind had picked up, and clouds scudded across a darkening sky.

"Where did that come from?" he wondered aloud. The sun that had raised waves of heat to blur his vision an hour before was obscured, and suddenly the way back to the path seemed less certain. Long shadows wove around one another and danced in the wind. Leaves skipped along the ground and whipped into his legs.

Abraham broke into a jog, being more careful with the whipping branches and low bushes than he had in pursuing the girl. He knew these mountain squalls well, and he didn't want to be caught in the trees when this one hit. Besides falling branches and the cold, slashing rain, the danger of being caught in a lightning strike, or becoming disoriented and lost deep in the woods was very real.

As the sky darkened, the trees leaned closer. Their branches bowed toward the ground and their leaves swept in quick spirals across the path. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and the ground shook slightly.

There were other sounds as well.

At first Abraham told himself his mind was playing tricks. Too many years in the city had bred distrust of things he had once taken for granted.

Deeper parts of him knew better. He had heard those sounds before, furtive steps just beyond the reach of his senses. Voices t.i.ttering and whispering at the edges of his mind. A forest is a gathering of many things, trees, rocks, shrubs-even the trail that wound through its heart was a separate thing-but he knew this was wrong.

At moments like this, when nature screamed for blood and the light grew harsh; when the wind spoke with the voice of a thousand banshees and roared over the land and water dripped and splashed, whipping across the trail like the lash of a great whip, the forest was a single thing. It surrounded him, and vertigo hit hard with the realization that if that forest were a single ent.i.ty, he lay in its center. He could be part of it, or he could be consumed.

Abraham came up hard against the trunk of a tree, barely catching it with a hand before his face collided with solid wood. The shock cleared his head, and he took advantage of the moment to dig in and crash ahead. He found the trail, and with wind and water howling at his back and the invisible weight of a thousand eyes that could not be there pressing him forward, he burst suddenly from the trees.

Abraham stopped despite the storm. He stood, soaked and dripping, and stared at the little cottage nestled up against the woods. No smoke poured from the single chimney. No lights glowed in the windows. He thought of the fairy tales of his childhood, witches gathered around cauldrons who shoved unwitting children into stoves. Then the images pa.s.sed, and all he saw was the dark, desolate lines of his mother's cottage.

Memories threatened to overwhelm him, and he brushed them aside angrily. This was not the house he had grown up in; though it was the last place he'd laid his head on the mountain before his "escape." Now he stood, trembling, more willing to brave rain and storm than those clear old eyes. More willing to melt into the earth at his feet and become one with the mountain than to brush his fingers over that carved wooden door, or to hear his name pa.s.s her lips.

Once again he had the sensation that something was wrong. There was no sign of life in the home. No one stood on the hearth to greet him. Abraham started forward once more. He knocked on the door and waited. After a few moments he knocked again, but there was no answer.

Abraham hesitated, then reached out and turned the k.n.o.b. The door was unlocked. He opened it and stepped inside.

TEN.

Katrina knew that something wasn't right the second she climbed out of her car. The phone was ringing. This shouldn't have seemed odd. The sun was peeking over the horizon, and Abe should be down running on the beach. He ran every morning, and he was an early riser. She had wanted to get back before he woke, but the lines had been long, and a traffic snarl leaving the main road had held her up. She hurriedly gathered her bags and climbed the steps to the porch. Nothing looked out of place, but the house felt different. The insistent jangle of the phone grated on her nerves, and she frowned. Coming home was one of the small, hidden pleasures of her life. She had lived in a lot of places, but this was the first of them that she thought of as home, and the idea that someone waited inside, or down on the beach-someone who cared for her-made each homecoming special. She fumbled with the door. The phone stopped ringing, and the silence in the wake of it was deafening. The door was locked, and that was odd. If Abe had gone running, he wouldn't have locked up. He wouldn't have any place to carry his keys, and they were so isolated here that the danger of break-ins was slim. The door was almost never locked. Once inside, she went straight toward the table with the groceries. She saw the note, trapped under the saltshaker, when she was still several steps away. She nearly dropped the bag she was carrying, and cried out in shock. She stumbled forward and put the bag down, but before she could s.n.a.t.c.h up the note and read it, the phone rang again.

Katrina didn't think. She jumped, frightened by the sound, then dashed over and grabbed the receiver. She thought it had to be Abe, that something had happened, or he'd run too far and wanted her to pick him up-that he'd had a sudden urge for seafood and she should meet him at one of the restaurants up the road.

"h.e.l.lo?" No one spoke. She listened for a moment, then tried again. "h.e.l.lo? Abe, is that you?" No answer, but she heard a snapping sound, then a cough, and after that she was almost certain she heard someone breathing, harsh and heavy, and her hand shook.

"Hel..." She stopped halfway through her third attempt and slammed the phone back into its cradle. She stood and stared at it for a moment, then turned back to the note. When she did, the phone rang again. With a soft cry Katrina turned back, grabbed the phone and unsnapped the cord from its base. She heard the softer ring from the second phone in the bedroom, but she ignored it. She dropped the phone and went for the note.

She sat without looking up from the paper.

"Dear Kat, "I couldn't leave without telling you where I've gone. If I had waited, and seen you, I couldn't have gone at all. I have to go to my mother, and I have to sort this out. There is darkness on that mountain, evil I didn't even begin to explain. I will, I promised you that I would, and I will, but I can't take you into this danger. I woke up this morning from another nightmare, and if you had been there, I believe I might have hurt you. I'm caught up in something I can't escape-the only way out is through, and that is where, and why, I've gone.

"By the time you read this I'll be well along the road to the mountain. Please don't follow. I'll call as soon as I can-there aren't many phones. If you need me, leave a message through Greene's General Store. The owner's name is Silas Greene. He's the closest thing the mountain has to a Post Office.

"Remember that I love you. Abraham."

For a long time after finishing the note, Katrina sat still, held the paper in her trembling hands, and stared off over it toward the windows that overlooked the beach. He was gone. She had felt that when she stepped out of the car. Now it wasn't a fear-it was real. She was here, and Abe was not, and she didn't know where he'd gone-not really-or why. She only knew he was gone.

She rose and went mechanically through the motions of putting away the groceries. She made a pot of coffee. She didn't want any coffee, but she made it because in the morning she always made coffee. She made it fresh, the way Abe liked it, and when he came up from the beach, coated in a thin sheen of sweat and grinning like an overgrown boy they would share it, hers milk-toned and sweet and his as black as night.

She didn't make breakfast because she knew she couldn't eat, but she cleaned the kitchen. She saw that the small trashcan beside the stove needed to be emptied. She stopped, frowned, and reached for the bag. It was Abe's job to empty the trash, and normally she would leave it there until it annoyed him into action, but not today. Today the sight of it reminded her that he was gone, and she didn't need any further reminders. She knew he was gone because something inside her was broken. A frozen ball of barbed wire had coiled up like a snake in her stomach, and every time she moved it sc.r.a.ped away a little more of the comfort Abe had brought her.

She tried to watch television, but she hated to watch alone. Half the fun was the running commentary she and Abe provided behind the programming, and like the full garbage can, the droning voices only served to remind her of his absence.

Eventually she reconnected the phone line. She waited a long time, but it didn't ring. Then, when she turned away, she stopped and looked back. There was no ring. Whoever had been calling had found the correct number, or gotten the answer they sought.

The late afternoon sun dropped away over the waves, and she shivered. It wasn't cold, but shadows loomed on all sides. The small cottage where she and Abe b.u.mped into one another so often they joked about living in a s...o...b..x grew, moment by moment, into a huge, empty cage.

She'd found where he'd hit the bed. He'd hit it so hard that the springs were bent. Katrina stared at the mattress, then sat on the bed and ran her hand over the dent. It seemed impossible, but that's what it was. There was a dent in their mattress where Abe had smashed his fists into it, and that dent was right where her heart would have rested if she'd been home.

Was he right? Was he losing it? Was there some form of insanity in his family, or his past, that had finally caught up with him and was beginning to exact its price for all the sane, steady years of his life? Katrina had never even seen Abe get angry, but the violence of his nightmares was undeniable. Even if she didn't trust her memory, she had the evidence of the mattress.

When the shadows grew too long for her to dodge between as she slipped quietly and aimlessly from room to room, she curled up on Abraham's side of the bed. She pulled the sheets and blankets up around her neck and tucked her head up under his pillow. The sheets and pillowcase smelled like Abe. She curled into a tight ball and closed her eyes. She thought she would lay awake all night, but the tension that had wrapped her into knots since that morning released, and she drifted off into dark, dreamless sleep.

Tommy and Angel drove slowly past Silas Greene's General Store and turned off onto a rutted, overgrown trail that veered into the woods. They followed this even more slowly, the truck jolting through potholes and the tires cracking dry branches. This road curled around the side of the peak and approached the old church. No one had driven down it in over a decade.