Ancient Eyes Part 5

Angel stared straight ahead. He had spoken very few words since they'd arrived at Greene's store the previous day. He had a lot to think about. He had made over thirty calls to the same phone number counting the two the previous night, and those he'd spent his time on that morning. Tommy was impatient and had threatened to take the truck and head back up the mountain, but Angel silenced his brother with a glance.

They both knew he'd do no such thing. Tommy had his visions, and his orders and Angel had some of his own. He hadn't been told to share them with Tommy, and so he didn't. Tommy had found the list of supplies they were to purchase in his pocket. In Angel's pocket a shorter note rested. It had a single name written across it, Abraham Carlson.

There were no instructions on the card. It didn't say to call anyone on the phone, or why he would want to do such a thing. Angel just knew. Since staggering out of the woods a few minutes ahead of his brother he'd known a lot of things he couldn't have explained, but it didn't trouble him.

After nearly thirty years of life, Angel Murphy knew what he was supposed to do with a certainty for the first time. He didn't hesitate, and he didn't spend time worrying over the consequences of his actions. He had a purpose, and he intended to fulfill that purpose. What happened beyond this was hazy, but again-it didn't matter. Angel lived in the moment.

He'd found the phone number easily enough. There was only one Abraham Carlson in the San Valencez directory. He'd been prepared to make the same call to fifty Abraham Carlsons, over and over, but fate was on his side.

He didn't speak to the man who answered the phone. He didn't speak the next morning when the woman answered, though he'd wanted to. She'd sounded scared, and that always turned Angel on. He knew she stood clutching the phone and waiting to hear his voice, and that was enough. If things worked out, maybe he'd be able to attach a face to her voice before too long.

Angel knew the name. The Carlsons had lived on the mountain for over two hundred years, and Angel had known Abe Carlson when they were boys. Angel would have picked on Abe given the chance, just because he was older and stronger, but it wasn't done. Abe's father was the pastor of the stone church, and you didn't cross him. Angel didn't care about much, and he was willing to take a lot of punishment if the offense proved interesting enough, but he'd never messed with Abe. Now, after so many pa.s.sing years, he wondered if he was being granted a second chance.

Once the woman answered the phone, and he called a few more times for good measure, Angel signaled to Tommy that it was enough. They climbed into the truck, piled high with building materials, paints, tarps and equipment, and turned toward the mountain and home. Neither expected to see home any time in the near future, but the road was familiar and comfortable.

They bounced along the overgrown church road and energy crackled in the air. The isolation of the drive up the mountain faded, and they sensed others waiting. The road was lined on either side by tall trees, and Tommy thought that, once or twice, he spotted flashes of motion among them. He almost said something to Angel, and then thought better of it. If Tommy had seen them, and sensed them, he was sure his brother had as well.

They broke through the brush at the end of the old road and rumbled onto the churchyard without ceremony. Clouds of dust rose as Angel ground to a halt. Birds screeched and launched from the surrounding trees. The sounds faded, and the dust settled. Angel killed the engine and the two of them sat, staring at the front door of the church.

The door no longer dangled from its hinge. It was closed tightly, and the ground outside the door was cleared. There were rake tracks in the dirt, and piles of debris lined the old walk. After a moment the door opened, and Silas Greene came down the steps, smiling.

Angel was the first to get out, and without ceremony he handed over a slip of paper. Silas took it, glanced at what was written on it, smiled, and put it away in his pocket. Then he turned to the truck.

"You got everything?"

Tommy nodded. He thought about pulling out the list and handing that over as well, but he didn't. Silas knew what was on the list, and he had probably known what was in the truck, as well.

The door to the church still hung open, and from within Tommy heard the sound of voices. He glanced at Greene.

"The others are here," Silas said. "I'll send a couple of the men out to help you unload the truck. We have a lot of work to do."

Tommy nodded solemnly. He inspected the walls of the old church, the cracks in the foundation, the peeling paint, and the tattered shingles haphazardly covering the roof.

Angel had already walked around behind the truck, and a moment later the tailgate dropped with a loud clang. Silas stepped to the church door and beckoned to someone inside. A moment later Matt Albertson and Tim Miller stepped out into the yard and blinked as if the light hurt their eyes. They stared at Tommy and Angel for a moment, and then noticed the truck. "Pile it all around the side there," Silas told them. "We'll get to it as we need it."

The four men unloaded the truck silently. Silas watched for a moment, then pulled the paper back out of his pocket and read it again. All that was on the paper was a name and a phone number, but it was enough. He smiled, tucked the paper deep into his pocket, and turned away.

Inside the church the sound of nails being ripped from tired, rotten wood broke the silence. There was a loud snap, followed by the sound of more nails releasing their grip. The floor had rotted in places, and Silas knew they were removing the old boards and preparing for the new. Two men and a woman had gone for emergency generators and lights. At the rear of the church, scaffolding crawled up the side of the building like a bizarre metal exoskeleton. Now that the truck had arrived, they could start on the roof.

It would take time.

Silas turned to the trail he had followed those long ago years with his parents and strode purposefully out of the churchyard and into the trees. The ground was overgrown and rough, but he didn't mind. It was a good long walk to his store, and he didn't mind that, either. They could get on well enough without him at the church-for now. He had other things to take care of, and the night was young. The paper with Abraham's phone number on it crinkled in Silas' pocket as he disappeared into the woods like it was trying to escape.

ELEVEN.

There was no one in the cottage. Abraham lit a fire and wandered about the small home aimlessly, looking for any sign of his mother-any indication of where she might have gone. He found nothing but the signs of everyday life. There was food. The pot she used to boil water stood on the stove, just as it always had, and there was water in it.

The sink held a single dish and a fork, as though she'd eaten breakfast and then left, expecting to take care of the small mess when she returned. Her bed was rumpled, and her closet was open.

All of it was strange to him, and at the same time so natural it felt like waking from a long dream. He knew this place so well that he felt he would have known if there were new cracks in the wall, but it was from another time and place, another world he'd left behind that had crashed back in around him. And it was wrong.

The cottage was just as he knew it would be, except that without his mother's presence, it felt like a stage setting for a bad movie. Everything was in place, but without direction and purpose. There were old black and white episodes of the Twilight Zone with a similar feel-characters wandering through familiar settings gone surreal. He half expected the ghost of mountain past to come and drag him off to show him the years he'd worked so hard to put behind him.

Abraham noted that the protections on the door remained intact. As he wandered from room to room, he ran his fingers over books and papers. On the mantel he found the small wooden box resting where it always had, and he lifted the lid. The leather pouch was inside, and though he didn't lift it free, he stroked the supple leather and ran a fingernail along the etched impression of the cross. He breathed the names of the archangels under his breath and closed his eyes.

The world shifted suddenly. Abraham clutched the mantel for support and arched his back. Pain flashed through him in a brilliant, excruciating pulse. Though his eyes remained closed he saw light, blinding white-hot light that seared his eyes and washed over him in waves.

Then he saw her eyes. Sarah stared at him, blinked, and then he saw her features, twisted in pain, soften to a smile. She spoke, but he couldn't hear her words. Her eyes were dark, haunted pits and her lips were dry and crusted. Abraham strained to focus on that image and to hear her. His fingers dug into the wood of the mantel until the nails threatened to burst and the blood fled up his fingers into his wrists and left his palms tingling.

"I love you."

The vision pa.s.sed into nausea so quickly Abraham was driven to his knees. His hands released the mantel as he dropped painfully to the wood of the floor and he clutched them before him, directly in the face of the fire. The pain pa.s.sed, and he opened his eyes.

He knelt, clasped his hands, and stared into the dancing flames. They wavered, and he saw a dark ma.s.s within. It formed and reformed, blended with the flame, and then-for just an instant-he was staring at the stone church on the mountain. The flames danced around it, but it stood, strong and untouched in the center of that heat.

Abraham shook his head and staggered to his feet. He'd been too close to the fire and his skin was hot. Sweat dripped from his hair and face and stained his collar. He brushed his fingers over his eyes to clear the perspiration and the salt of it stung.

"Where are you?" he asked very softly.

Then he turned away, walked to his mother's small bed, and lay down. There was nothing he could do until daylight. If she returned, he'd be waiting. If she didn't he knew where he had to go, and he knew better than to try going there before morning.

In the fireplace the flames danced, and outside the wind of the storm whistled through the eaves of the small cottage and drew deeper tones from the chimney. Abe slept almost the second his head touched the pillow. He didn't dream.

Sunlight poured slowly over the lip of the window and flooded the cottage. Abraham opened his eyes, blinked, and stared blankly at the unfamiliar walls. The fire had burned down to ash, and he was stiff from sleeping on the firm, thin mattress. The events of the previous day, the storm, the old church, whatever or whoever had followed him through the trees and the empty cottage washed through him in an instant.

He sat up quickly, went to the front door, opened it, and stared out at the forested mountainside. He turned in each direction, looking for movements or any sign of life. In the distance he saw a small curl of white smoke, but other than that he might have been alone in the world.

He stepped back inside. There was only one place his mother might have gone at a time like this. He knew where he would find her. The old stone church was the only place other than the cottage where she would feel safe.

It didn't take long to gather his things, find some food to pack and carry along, and leave a note. It was possible he was wrong, and that she'd just gone to visit someone. She might walk into the house any minute, and if she did, he wanted her to know he had returned. He didn't say in his note that he was going to the church. She would know, and if someone else read what he wrote, there was no reason for him to give himself away before he'd had a chance to a.s.sess the situation.

He didn't lock the door. It hadn't been locked when he arrived, and if he was back by nightfall he didn't want to find himself locked out. No one on the mountain was likely to break into another's home. There were plenty of bad apples, but it wasn't their way to intrude on another's property. If you visited theirs uninvited you were likely to get shot, and they figured it was much the same with their neighbors, so folks kept to themselves.

It was warm. The sun drove the morning clouds into the distance and filtered in through the trees to flicker in dancing glimmers across the trail as he climbed. It was a beautiful day, but it had the same disjointed feel of the night before in his mother's cottage. He saw no one else, which wasn't odd. No one lived on the side of the trail closest to the cottage. Only his parents had been confident enough in their faith to live so close to the white church, even after it had no pastor. The trail divided the mountaintop cleanly, and Abe climbed up from the lower side.

It was all familiar in the way a dream of your childhood is familiar. He knew where to turn. He remembered some of the rock formations, and noticed where a huge old oak he'd climbed as a boy was fallen by the road and revealed a slice of blue sky. Memories haunted the periphery of his thoughts at each turn and threatened to burst from the earth and the trees if he stared at one thing too long. He avoided those moments and climbed as quickly as possible.

It wasn't an easy trail. His father had only been half joking when he'd told Abraham the climb was the first ritual of pa.s.sage. When you communed with your Creator, it was a sacred time. It was separate from the events and concerns of life, so the church had been separated as well, and placed as high up as they could get it-closer to G.o.d.

Abraham rounded the final twist in the trail and stopped. He saw the peaked roof of the squat stone building first. There was a very small steeple, mostly a symbolic addition, and it poked up through the branches toward the clouds. For no reason he could have explained, his heartbeat sped and a cool sheen of sweat tingled on his neck and his forehead.

He thought about calling out to his mother. If she were there, he didn't want to scare her by walking in too quietly. He hesitated, and then started forward again. The sensation of being followed and watched itched at him again, and he couldn't bring himself to cry out. If she were there, he would find a way not to startle her when the time came. For now he held his silence.

The path itself was not as overgrown as he had expected it to be. It was obvious that not many had come this way in recent years, but still the trees kept their distance. The vines and shrubs found different directions to travel when they reached the edge of the trail. The earth was no longer as tightly packed as once it had been, but the way was clear.

Abe came to the edge of the churchyard and scanned the clearing. There was no sign that anyone else was there, or that they had been there recently. The door swung on its hinges and dust swirled off the stone walk out front, caught in a light breeze.

Abe stepped up, glanced inside, and saw that the building was empty. He turned and followed the stone trail around the left side of the church toward the gate to the graveyard. After all the years he'd worked to avoid the place, now he felt drawn. He wanted to see his father's grave-to touch the stone that marked the final resting place and to make peace with his past.

He stepped through the old gates without hesitation and strode down the center aisle of the tiny cemetery. He didn't examine the other stones. As he approached, he noticed that there were footprints in the soft earth at the foot of his father's grave. The sun had almost dried the mud, but a woman's prints were clearly visible, and Abraham knew they belonged to his mother. There would be time to find her, and to wonder why she had come here now, after all the time that had obviously pa.s.sed since the last time anyone tended the graves, or repaired the church. There would be time to try and find what was lost in his past, and whether she could explain it to him in the present.

Abe knelt in that soft earth. The pendant brushed his skin beneath his shirt, and he reached up to grip it instinctively. He read the inscription on the gravestone, counted the years of his father's life, and tried to a.s.sociate his memories with the rectangular plot of ground and the weatherworn stone. He thought of the cracks and creva.s.ses that had been his father's smile, the lines of laughter at the corner of those deep, perceptive eyes. The stone had cracks of its own, but they were not laugh lines, and they did not originate from his father. If there were peace to be had between them, it wasn't waiting buried in this earth, surrounded by clinging vines and eroding slowly back to dust.

Abraham rose and turned, exiting the graveyard without looking back. He returned to the path, followed it past the gates of the graveyard, and into the woods, where it turned back up the mountain. The overgrowth was less forgiving on the upper path. Either someone had been clearing the churchyard occasionally, or something wanted to swallow all remnant of this second trail and cut the stone church off from the mountain's peak cleanly. It was rough going, almost harder than walking through the trees to either side would have been, and the moment he crossed the threshold into the forest the world shifted again.

The disjointed, otherworldly sensation returned. His surroundings took on an ethereal, almost surreal quality, as if he'd left one world behind and entered another, darker place.

Roots snaked across the dirt trail and s.n.a.t.c.hed at Abe's boots. Vines and whip-thin branches lashed his arms, and his face, no matter how carefully he made his way past them. Within a few minutes he was breathing harder and coated in a bright sheen of sweat from the effort. He couldn't shake the sensation of resistance. Something didn't want him in the woods. He was just about to turn back and return to the church in search of a hoe and an axe when he caught sight of his goal through a break in the trees.

He stopped short and stared. He gasped, and then cursed himself for the lack of control, but until that second he had been certain he'd find nothing but a pile of rubble. Instead, he saw the edge of a second stone roof through the waving branches.

The clearing wasn't more than a dozen yards away, but it might have been miles. The path disappeared into a snarl of greenery and hedges. Abraham started forward, but the hedges were th.o.r.n.y. They s.n.a.t.c.hed at his clothing and cut his hands wherever he gripped them. He had rolled the sleeves of his flannel shirt up before climbing up to the old church. Now he rolled them back down and pulled his hands inside for what protection they could give. Carefully, one step at time, he pressed through. Within moments, he was swallowed, front and back, in the clinging, stabbing branches, every motion tearing clothing or skin.

As he worked his way through the foliage, he could make out the walls beneath the stone roof. They were green with moss, but sound. The wall facing him had a single window in its center. He couldn't tell if the gla.s.s was intact or not, but every inch of that building that came into view drew him onward more powerfully.

Blood streamed down his wrists and soaked his shirt. His legs screamed with the pain of deep gouging cuts, but he couldn't stop. He pressed into the vines, and they wrapped him and clutched him, caressed him and cut him. His throat had grown very dry, and he had the sudden sensation that if he looked back over his shoulder, he would see nothing but green. No path, no trees, only more vines, and more thorns.

Sound rose around him. He thought it was the wind, or that he'd walked into another storm unaware, but sunlight poured down through the gaps in the trees above and the heat soaked moisture from him like a great solar sponge. There was no direction to the sound-it pressed in from all sides. As the vines and thorns tore at him and threatened to hold him immobile and bleeding the distant hint of laughter teased at his senses. There were words, as well, and a behind it all an insistent hiss.

Abraham was lightheaded with the heat. He stared up into the sun for a moment, then, as if slowly becoming aware of the glare and the pain in his eyes, he turned back toward the clearing. The static, hissing sound grew louder. He brought his hands to his ears, tearing new stripes of blood and flesh with the motion. The sound was muted, and then gone, and he closed his eyes.

Less than six feet of hedge prevented him from entering the clearing. He knew this, but it did nothing to still the hammering of his heart, or to quiet the thoughts slamming through his mind. That sound. What was it? His mind conjured demons, and whirling clouds of insects that rose to blind him and drive him back from his goal. He was aware of the insanity inherent in these thoughts, and he fought it as he fought the rising panic.

His arms were above the worst of the hedge now-they'd torn free when he raised them to block the sound, but his legs were snarled, and he knew that if he moved too quickly, or lurched forward, that he would fall face first into the thorns.

Abraham opened his eyes. He breathed slowly and pulled his hands away from his ears. The hissing returned, but there was something familiar in the sound now. He concentrated, trying to keep the blood pounding through his temple from crushing his thoughts before they took form. Something was wrong-something very real and very imminent, but he couldn't put his mental finger on it.

He studied the trees, and then lowered his chin and swept his gaze across the briars, vines, and hedges, wondering how they had come to be there-who had planted them. Surely they couldn't have randomly grown to block the path. And why had he plunged into them so eagerly? He tried to make out his ankles through the murky shadows in the undergrowth, and in that instant, he knew. If anything, he froze more completely than he had been before.

Not a foot from his ankle, wavering in the air like a dark-skinned metronome, was a rattlesnake. The serpent's head wove back and forth with an eerie fluidity, tongue flickering red and wet between its gleaming fangs. It was not advancing, but Abe knew that if he moved quickly-maybe if he moved at all-it would strike.

He didn't know if he could back away without tripping. His legs were hopelessly bound up in the vines and the lower branches of the hedge. Thorns dug into his flesh and promised new cuts regardless of what he did. His flannel shirt was damp with sweat and fresh blood. His arms, still held above the level of the thorns, ached with the effort. His gaze locked with that of the snake, and he almost swayed in time-would have done so had it been possible in the forest's primordial grip.

Something-someone?-moved in the periphery of his vision. Abe didn't look up. He didn't call out. He focused on the snake. He was a tree-a stone-a part of the mountain. His shoulders screamed with exertion and his arms trembled, but they didn't fall.

Something moved in the periphery of his vision. A branch broke with a snap. Sweat poured down his face and burned the corners of his eyes. The sun burned down on him and the lightheadedness was returning, full force. Another branch snapped.

Abe stared at the snake. It had grown very still, hovering between the idea of striking, and the sound approaching from the direction of the clearing. Abraham didn't breathe, but his lips moved. He brought the words up from deep inside, half-formed prayers-his father's words, lost and forgotten, just as the man had been; just as the stone church on the mountain had become. There was a sharp intake of breath from the clearing, and Abe could stand it no longer.

Abe turned his head, very slowly, and peered through the trees, scanning quickly for any sign of someone who might help. He wanted to call out, but was afraid the sudden sound would startle the snake.

There was nothing there. No one moved. For just a moment, he caught sight of a set of branches that looked wrong. Then he focused, fighting the urge to close his burning eyes and squeeze the sweat out at the corners. They were not branches. They were antlers, half-lost in shadow. They were there, and then they turned and slipped back into the forest.

Abe snapped his gaze back to where the snake had been only seconds before. It was gone. He glanced to either side, trembling with the effort of keeping his arms up and free of the brambles. Nothing. He forced his chin lower, checking the ground at his feet. It wasn't possible to tell for certain-the brush was very think, and he'd managed to tangle himself almost completely, but he didn't see the snake. There was no sound.

Abe let out a slow breath that he hadn't been aware he was holding. Sweat streamed down his face, but he had nothing to wipe it away with. He lowered his hands and winced as they dropped back into the th.o.r.n.y hedge. He moved his right foot tentatively and found it was reasonably loose. The same was true of his left, and the vines that wrapped about him were suddenly just that. They were soft, pliant, and while a ch.o.r.e to press aside, no real barrier to his forward progress.

He didn't allow himself the luxury of thought. If he did, he knew he would panic. The snake might not be poised to bite his ankle, but that didn't mean it hadn't moved a few feet away to wait and see if its prey were really alive. He gripped a vine in each hand, yanked them to either side and plunged forward. He made slow, steady progress, looking neither to the right, nor the left, and listening carefully for any sound of the rattlesnake.

Moments later he burst from the tree line into the clearing and stood, alone and panting for breath, streaming sweat and blood and near hysteria, before a low-slung stone cottage. It was even smaller than his mother's place, the walls built of layer upon layer of stone. The mortar that held them in place formed of silt and sand and clay from the mountain's crust. The window, he saw, had indeed held up against the onslaught of wind and time.

Abe stumbled forward and rested a hand on the wall for support. He saw that he had left the print of his blood on the stone, and a thrill ran up his arm, lodging in his throat and constricting his breath for just a moment. His father had helped to build this, as he had built the walk around the church. Others had come before, his grandfather, and before him a different family altogether, but just as old. All of their blood had soaked the stone at some point, joined in its permanence and strength. The thought sprung full-blown into his mind, and he stood very still and studied the vision.

The sun was high in the sky, and the clearing was awash in the brilliance of its light. The gra.s.s and weeds had not encroached too closely on the foundation-or someone had cleared them. Abraham stood slowly and turned. He walked along the wall and trailed a finger across the stone as he went. His mind was years away, and though he heard voices again, they were not those of snakes, or the whisper of antlers through the trees. He heard his father, and he heard himself, and the tears came again unbidden. He pa.s.sed around the corner of the cottage and out of sight.

Then, as he rounded the rear of the building and glanced into the trees, Abraham screamed.

TWELVE.

The scream echoed down the mountain. Abraham backed so suddenly into the wall of the cottage that he cracked his head. His boots ground into the soft soil as he tried to drive himself through the stone.

His mother hung suspended before him. She was crucified. Her head lolled onto her left shoulder. Her arms were flung out on both sides, wound round and round with damp, clinging vines. Her eyes swarmed with insects, and her hair was so bedraggled and frayed that it shifted about in the grip of the breeze like a nimbus of dandelion seeds that were ready to let go and blow away.

Her clothing hung in tatters, and her legs, bound similarly to her arms, were held tightly together at the ankles and knees by thicker vines. There didn't seem to be anything but the vines supporting her, but she hung as motionless as if she'd been nailed to a cross.

Abraham shook his head, felt his hair grind against the stone wall behind him and pushed off slightly. He gulped in huge breaths of air and fought to steady his knees so they could continue to support his weight. The other choices were to black out, possibly crack his skull on the cottage wall, or come too close to the woods. He remembered the th.o.r.n.y hedges that had blocked his progress, and he remembered the snake. He had the feeling he didn't want to be in among those snake-like vines and thick shrubs without his full wits about him.

"Jesus," he breathed. He walked toward his mother. His steps were slow, unsteady, and weak, but he forced one foot in front of the other, and he never shifted his gaze from her face. There was no expression he could read, no emotion stamped onto her final visage. He stepped closer and studied her. He traced the lines the years had etched into her face, mentally smoothing the ravages of death. He tried to imagine the sparkling, deep-set eyes and quick smile he remembered so clearly, but the images would not reconcile with the husk hanging limp before him.

Tears burned the corners of his eyes, but he didn't look away. Abe pulled out his pocketknife, a blade his father had given him at age ten, and that he still carried. It was sharp and well cared for. The blade opened easily to a flick of his thumb.

He cut the vines from her legs first. They weren't wrapped as tightly as they'd seemed to be. Once he'd stripped them away her legs dangled, and she swayed slightly. Abe reached for the vines wrapped about her left arm.

With a sodden, rotten sound, she fell. The vines retracted. It was the only word that worked when he tried to sort them out in his mind. He stared at them with his arm raised, the knife poised to slash, but there was nothing left to cut. Where strong, green strands had held his mother in place, limp green tendrils dangled in the air. He reached out, grabbed one of them and pulled on it. The strand broke off in his hand, and he frowned. It wasn't possible they had supported his mother's weight. Not one or two of them, probably not ten, but he'd seen it.

He reached out again, but the vine shifted. It was only a slight motion to one side, but it stopped him cold. There was a rustle in the weeds, and, again, he remembered the snake. Abe glanced down at his mother's body, and his tears flowed freely. He bent at the knees and squatted, grabbed her arms by the wrists, and spun her. Marveling at how little she weighed, he dragged her toward the wall of the old cottage, then along the wall. He laid her out carefully just beyond the doorway, careful not to lay her too near to the woods.

His mind raced. He knew he should rush back down the mountain and find a sheriff. There was no real law on the mountain, but they had a sheriff up in Friendly, and there was a State Trooper's shack out on the coast road. He could call from Greene's store, tell them what happened and where he'd found his mother.

Then he thought about explaining the church, and the note he'd received. He thought about telling the story of how he'd had these dreams, and then a note had come from his mother, so he'd packed up a few possessions and left his life and lover behind to come back to a place he hadn't visited in years because he had a bad feeling. They would ask only a few questions, and the conversation would end badly.

"Where were you the night of your mother's death?"

"Why were you alone on the mountain?"

"What were you doing, and why?"