Ancient Eyes Part 9

There were murmurs of a.s.sent from the rear of the room, but no one else stepped forward.

"We can't stand by and watch our mountain rot out from under us," Jasper concluded. "We know what has to be done, Reverend, and so do you. She," he pointed at Sarah again, "should be out of it. Just by her being here you have jeopardized all that we stand for, all that our ancestors have built and believed."

Jonathan cut him off. "Are you trying to tell me, Jasper, that you know the ways of my church better than I? Are you ready to step forward? The pulpit belongs to only one, and he is chosen. I am chosen. Do you dispute that choice?"

"Now, Jonathan," Jasper began, backing away slightly.

"I asked you a question." Jonathan's voice was hard and powerful. The crowd shrank back toward the walls, and the door. Jasper backpedaled so fast he nearly toppled; only the supporting hands of those behind him kept him from careening through the door and out into the night. A sudden flash of light illumined the small room, moonlight refracted through the crystal lens in the ceiling. The light caught Jonathan's face clearly. He was furious, but contained; emotion rippled across his features and threatened to crash down on the gathering like thunder.

"N..no." Jasper whispered. "G.o.d no, Jonathan. I..."

There were no further words. Jasper spun on his heel and raced for the door, crashing through those behind him and knocking several of them off their feet. Some of those who remained returned Jonathan's stare evenly, but they held their tongues and filed out the door into the darkness.

Harry George and Ed Murphy were the last to go. Ed stood with one foot in and one out of the cottage, and glanced back over his shoulder. "It's nothin' personal, Jonathan," he said, trying to find words that wouldn't sound like what they were. "She isn't one of us. This..." he waved his hand at the floor, where Sarah had sat with her yarrow wands and where the shredded bits of paper still remained, "isn't a part of us. It doesn't belong on the mountain."

He didn't say that Sarah did not belong on the mountain, but the implication hung heavy in the air. Harry didn't meet Jonathan's gaze as he pa.s.sed through and out of the cottage, but he felt that gaze bore through his shoulder blades and into his heart.

Harry blinked and stared at the trees. The hexagram he'd seen, formed of tall, soaring pine trees, was gone. All but the ache of remembered pain fled with it.

He stood and turned back up the trail. The day was nearly half over. It took him longer to get anywhere now, but he knew he was lucky he could make such a climb at all at his age, so he didn't complain-not even to himself. He concentrated on watching the trail, which was overgrown and rough, and on what lay ahead.

The sun bore straight down on the mountain as Harry approached the stone chapel. The door was closed, and he saw marks in the ground outside where someone had used a rake. The grounds were clean. The walk leading around to the rear of the chapel had been cleared of vines and weeded carefully.

He tried the door, and it opened easily. Harry stepped inside and scanned the chapel in surprise. It was very clean. The pews stood in orderly rows, and the dust had been swept from the floor. The windows were open, allowing a small breeze to wash through and freshen the air.

Harry turned in a slow circle. The chapel was just as he remembered it. It was as if he'd been yanked back through time, and tears rolled suddenly and unexpectedly from his eyes. He thought that if he closed his eyes, he'd hear Jonathan Carlson's voice, soft and melodic, leading him in a prayer. Instead, he kept his eyes open wide and spoke the words himself, words that hadn't pa.s.sed his lips in over a decade.

"May the Lord keep and guard this place," he whispered at last.

"May the mountain kiss Heaven and bring her blessing upon us all. Amen."

Abraham's words followed so perfectly after his own that it was a moment before they registered. Harry leaped back, nearly collided with the wall, and spun, his eyes wide.

Abraham stepped forward and grabbed Harry by the arm to steady him.

"Easy," he said with a grin. "That wall isn't very forgiving."

Harry stood very still and stared at Abraham. It had been a lot of years since he'd seen the boy, and they'd been kind. Abraham was a little taller than his father had been, and much younger, but you could see Jonathan in the smile, and hear the echo of his voice when Abraham spoke.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," Abe commented, stepping back. Harry stared a moment longer, then managed to get his mouth moving. "I'm sorry, son," he said. "You look enough like your father to be a ghost. You gave me quite a start."

"Sorry about that," Abe was still smiling. "I couldn't resist. I heard your words, and the others came to me. I don't know if I could have kept them from coming, even if I'd tried."

Harry waved it off. He turned and swept his gaze over the church again. "You've been working hard," he said. "I was up here a few years back. The door was loose, and there was enough dust here to choke a mule."

"Most of that is in my hair and on my clothes," Abraham laughed. "I've been expecting to see you. I saw Henry on the trail yesterday."

Harry's smile vanished. "He told me." The silence hung untouched for a moment, then Abe spoke again. "He wouldn't let me see his forehead, Harry." Harry nodded. "He has the mark. A lot of them do. I locked myself in the barn that night. We have a hex sign painted over the door. It's old, and the colors are faded so you can barely tell what they once were, but it helped. I curled up with the cows, half-buried in a pile of straw until it was over. Henry was out that night, and when he finally came back he was...changed."

Harry glanced up and met Abraham's gaze. "He's back. Not Kotz, but the other. It's Silas Greene this time. When the rest came out of the woods, Silas was the one that remained. He isn't around so that you'd see him, but he shows up. Sometimes he stands at the edge of the woods, and it's like he's calling to them. I've resisted that, but only because I escaped that first night.

"They intend to hold services this Sunday," he added solemnly.

"They'll be bringing in new folk, folk who don't have the mark, but don't know the danger. There are a lot of new families on the mountain, and youngsters who were too small to understand what went on at that church at the time and don't really believe now."

Abraham nodded. "I hope we can change that," he said. "I hope there are still a few who will come here. I hope I didn't stay away for too long, and that it isn't too late."

"I saw your mother about a week ago," Harry said softly. "She..."

"She's dead, Harry," Abraham replied. "I found her up near the cottage. It was bad. I buried her in the yard myself."

"Him?" Harry asked simply.

Abraham shook his head and frowned. "I don't know for sure. Something. I don't think she was killed by any ordinary means. When I found her she was trussed up in living vines and hanging like she'd been crucified. There was a time when I would have believed there were a number of people on the mountain who'd like to see her come to such an end, but now?"

Harry hung his head. He flashed quickly on the memory he'd relived such a short time before, then banished the thoughts from his mind.

"That was a long time ago, Abe," he said finally. "I won't claim folks have gotten any smarter, but they've forgotten so many things that I can't believe they'd remember old hatred. No one has worshipped here since your father's death. The old ways are fading, and folks have shifted their loyalties and the set of their minds to other voices and other places. That's part of what's made it so easy for Him.

"Things had changed. There were some who went to your mother for help. She was always good at healing. They might have gone to her over this, too, but the call was too strong. She didn't go into that forest, but she wasn't able to prevent others from going."

"That's probably the night she wrote to me," Abraham said. "All her note said was, 'He's back, boy . . . come home.'"

"And you came." Harry shook his head in amazement. "I thought we'd seen the last of you. Most young folks who make it off this mountain never look back. It's more of a place to live and rot than it is to grow."

"There are things here that needed to be watched," Abraham said with a sigh. "My father knew it, and he took that responsibility very seriously. When I left, I was only thinking of myself. Now..."

"It's good to see you, Abe," Harry said. His voice broke, and he stepped forward, wrapping Abe in an unexpected hug.

"Are there others, Harry?" Abe asked as he pulled back. "Will they come? I know I don't have a right to push-not after so much time-but I don't think we can afford to wait very long."

Harry thought the question over. He ran lists of names through his mind, clipping off those who had died and mentally marking those who had already been marked. When he'd finished and had all the details clear in his mind, he looked up in dismay.

"Maybe a dozen," he said at last. "There were some who would have come before, but not now. Those we might reach, in time. Ed Murphy is one, and Irma Creed.

"I'm going to walk around to the others," he said. "I was going to do that no matter what I found when I climbed up here. We have to try and do something before the mountain is swallowed and the evil pours down her sides like some sort of h.e.l.lish volcano. What was it your mother said?"

"Contain it," Abe said thoughtfully. "She said we had to contain it." Harry nodded. "That's it. I don't know what else we can do, but we can't let that thing off the mountain."

Abraham wondered if Harry meant Silas Greene, and whatever inhabited his mind, the church, or that thing that inhabited it-the face with the cruel, ancient eyes.

"We should have burned it," he murmured. "Should have burned it to the ground." Harry nodded, but didn't speak. "I'll find the others that believe," he said at last, turning to meet Abraham's gaze. "I'll tell them that you have returned, and I'll tell them about your mother. There won't be many of us, not at first, but those who come will be true believers. The old ones."

"Are any of the other elders still here?" Abraham asked.

"There's Ed Murphy," Harry's face darkened as he spoke. "He won't come-not easily. There's Eerie Hanes and Josh Stoots.

Most are dead, or moved on. Every now and then a son or a daughter comes back and carts someone off, determined to take care of him or her somewhere else. They don't understand."

"No," Abraham agreed, "no one does. I didn't for a very long time-not sure I do now."

"Will you stay?" Harry hadn't meant to ask this question so soon. He'd intended to wait, see how things went on Sunday, and get their plans in order before he brought it up, but the words spilled forth and it was done.

The question hung in the air for a moment, and then Abraham shook his head slowly.

"I don't know," he answered. "I don't know what will happen in the next week or so. I have a life out there," he waved in the general direction of the road and the ocean beyond. "I have someone waiting for me-at least I hope she'll wait. I didn't explain this very well when I took off. There was no way I would drag her into it-particularly not after my mother...well, I didn't want to bring in another outsider."

Harry nodded and sighed. He'd expected the answer to be a flat no, so this was at least hopeful. "We have a lot to do, and not much time to do it," he said. He turned toward the door, and Abraham laid a hand on his shoulder.

"If you want to stay with me until morning, that's fine," he said. "There's been some trouble on the trail up the mountain, but I think it's pa.s.sed. The more I clear away the debris, the more I feel the strength of the mountain. You'd be safe here."

"I'll be fine," Harry chuckled. "I'm going to head down and take the branch over to the Stoots cabin. They owe me dinner, and I'll get them to send their boys out-any that aren't marked. I can get there well ahead of sunset, and I won't have to go through the forest to do it."

Abraham nodded. Harry stepped through the doorway and back into the afternoon sunlight. Abe followed. Before he could say anything further, Harry gasped and stopped walking so suddenly Abe nearly crashed into him.

Abe followed the old man's gaze out over the trees toward the bottom of the trail. Smoke rose in a thick, black swirl from somewhere below. They couldn't make out flames from where they stood, but something big was burning. They shared a single thought. The smoke rose from the direction of the white church. Harry started toward the trail, but Abe stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

"You go to the Stoots place," he said. "I'll go down and see what's happened. I'll be faster on my own."

"What if he's down there, Abe?" Harry asked softly. "What if it isn't the church, and he's standing there, waiting for you?"

"It's going to come to that soon enough," Abe countered. "As well today as any other."

He didn't wait for an answer. Hitting the trail at a sliding run, he started down the mountain as fast as his legs would safely carry him. Harry watched for a moment, frowned, and then shook his head. He closed the door to the old church securely and started downward at a more leisurely pace.

The stench of burning permeated the air.

EIGHTEEN.

Katrina woke in shadows. She tried to sit up and failed. Her hands were bound behind her back with some sort of cord. Her ankles were also tied. A bandanna had been tied around her mouth to keep her from crying out. Every muscle in her body ached, and she wondered how long she'd been lying there.

She tried again to sit, shifting her weight and rolling her hips. She dropped back to the floor, smacked her head on the wooden planks and sent a small puff of dust into the air. She coughed, fought for breath, closed her eyes, and lay very still. In a few moments the air cleared, and she fought to calm her racing heart.

She had to get untied. That was the first thing. Visions of movies like "Deliverance" swam through her thoughts and kept her from focusing. She tried to work her hands around so her fingers could reach the knots. She was able to move them just a bit, but the cord was too tight for her to get any purchase, and the effort tired her quickly. She tried bringing her ankles up in back.

At first she was too stiff. She had no way to know how long she'd been tied. There was some light showing at the crack under the one door she could see. It was impossible to tell if it came from a lamp, or sunlight through a window. As her eyes adjusted to the dim room, she saw piles of boxes lining the wall, jumbled shelves and a file cabinet bulging with papers. There was an old wooden desk littered with Styrofoam cups, file folders, and small boxes. The dust on the floor was thick, and though she could see that it had been disturbed recently, it was obvious the room hadn't been swept in a very long time.

She arched slowly. She bent her legs and groped with cold, bloodless fingers. At first it seemed she'd fall just short. Then she remembered the beach cottage, watching Abe stretch before his run. She closed her eyes and concentrated. She let her legs relax and took a deep breath, then reached again, slowly. She fell short again, and her breath caught, just for a moment. Tears threatened at the corners of too-dry eyes, and a sob began worming its way free of her chest.

She relaxed again. The breath calmed her slightly, and she stretched a third time. This time she felt the tip of one boot and almost cried out in grat.i.tude. The outburst tightened her stomach muscles, and the boot slipped back out of reach. She took two slow breaths, stretched, and managed to work her fingers in among the laces of her boots. This time when she relaxed she held this grip, and when she stretched again, she felt the cord wrapped tightly around her ankles. She gripped it tightly and willed herself to relax. Touching it was not enough; she had to stretch a bit further.

There wasn't much strength in her fingers. The cord on her wrists was tight, and as she stretched and worked her wrists her fingers lost circulation and throbbed. She knew she didn't have much time before they were stiff and worthless. Another breath, a last effort, and she slid her hands around the cord. At first all she felt was more strands, and she nearly panicked. Then she caught herself, slid her hands back the other way, and found where the ends had been tucked in. She felt the knot and nearly sobbed with relief as she felt how loose it was.

Whoever had tied her had made their initial knot tight, but then they'd wrapped the cord a few more times and tied it again before tucking the ends in out of sight. This left the outer knot looser. Katrina tugged and worked at it, drawing one end free, then the other, and finally she felt the knot slip apart. She held one end between the nearly limp fingers of her left hand and pulled the other end out through the loops of the knot with her right. It was slow work, and each time she drew her wrist back to loosen the cord another inch, pain shot though her wrists, and she was certain she couldn't go on. Then she did.

As she worked, she listened. She had no idea who had tied her, or where they had gone. Every thump of her arm on the floor sent her heart racing. She kept watch on the crack under the door in case shadows moved on the far side, and she listened carefully to every sound. There were no pa.s.sing cars here. There were no kids pa.s.sing on bicycles, or joggers to hear her if she called out. There were people who might hear her trying to escape, though. There was at least one person who knew where she was, and if he returned, she wanted to know about it.

He'd seemed so harmless. A small, nondescript old man with dark hair that had turned almost completely gray. His eyes were bright, but she hadn't noticed until it was too late. When he opened the door, Katrina thought he looked like a million other men she'd met. Lonely, harmless, and in need of a shower. There was a scent that clung to him, and to the store, that itched at her senses. It was an earthy smell she'd instantly a.s.sociated with mud. It should have been repellent, but instead it drew her thoughts inward. She knew the scent, but she couldn't put her finger on what it was.

"Mr. Greene?" she'd asked.

He nodded and invited her into the store, and that was the last thing she remembered until awakening on his floor, bound and alone. She hadn't had a chance to ask about Abe, or to introduce herself. Had he called her by name? She couldn't recall his exact words. All she remembered was concentrating on the scent and trying to place it.

The first strand of cord came free and the outer wrap of the cord loosened. This didn't give her enough freedom to tug her ankles free, but it returned her circulation. Katrina relaxed her arms and her fingers throbbed at the sudden return of blood. She cried out softly, and then bit her lip to silence the sound. She felt her heartbeat in her hands, felt it thundering behind her ears and pounding in her chest. She closed her eyes again and tried to breathe. It took longer this time-too long. She opened her eyes, gritted her teeth, and arched her back again.

It was easier to reach the cords this time, and she gripped them fiercely. The inner knot was on top of her ankles, close to her back. This made it harder to reach, but not impossible. She worked quickly, fighting the urge to panic. She knew she had only so much time to free herself, and that the time was running out. She didn't believe Silas Greene, or whoever the man had been, had left her to die in the back room of the store. They would be back, and she didn't intend to be here when they arrived.

She thought of Abe, and the tears returned. Was he hurt? Had they gotten to him first? What exactly had drawn him back to this place-a place where something like abduction in a public store was simple to get away with? She wished she'd made him talk. She should have pounded on his chest and screamed at him until all the secrets broke free. She was sure he thought he was protecting her, but who was protecting him? More importantly, what exactly was it he needed protection from?

The knot loosened slightly. She gripped one of the strands of cord, followed it carefully around the knot and tried to picture it in her mind. She could waste a lot of time pulling on the wrong bit of cord, and she wanted to be sure. She tugged again, and the knot loosened further. She fought the urge to kick.

The knot slipped another notch and she held her breath. She focused on her fingers. The cord suddenly felt larger and easier to manage. The knot slipped just a bit more, and she dragged one end quickly through the loops that bound it. She tried to remain silent, but the effort of hurrying her motion brought little puffs of air to her lips and she moaned from the effort of maintaining the arched position. The cord dropped away and she straightened with a sudden burst of breath and sound. She coughed again as the motion raised another dust cloud and closed her eyes.

The cord fell away from her ankles, and she relaxed. She pulled her knees up to her chest, worked her arms down and pulled her bound wrists around her feet and knees and up in front of her chest. They were stiff. Every movement shot pain through her arms and shoulders. Her fingers ached from the returned circulation. Katrina pushed on the floor clumsily with both hands and tried to rise. Her arm slipped, and she slumped back to the floor with a grunt. She'd spent all the strength she had fighting the knot; her arms did not want to support her weight.

She took another deep breath and braced herself to try again. Before she could move, a clatter shattered the silence. Someone was on the porch out front, rattling the k.n.o.b. Was it a customer? Police? Katrina reached for the bandanna tied across her lips. She had it in her hand when a key turned in the lock out front and the door swung open. She heard heavy footsteps, a grunt, and then the door swung closed with a bang. She lowered her hands to the floor and rolled on top of them, then drew her feet behind her and out of sight, knees bent. It wouldn't fool anyone for long, but it might give her a chance at escape if she were careful, and very lucky.

The light from the crack beneath the door had grown dimmer as she worked at her bonds. Whoever had entered the outer room hadn't bothered to turn on the lights. She saw vague shadows pa.s.s across the room accompanied by the sound of heavy boots. Her mind raced. Was it Greene? The footsteps were very loud, and they seemed to belong to a much larger man, but she couldn't be sure that she wasn't magnifying the sound in her mind, or that her proximity to the floor didn't cause the steps to echo. She could barely hear him over the hammering of her heart, and she bit her lip behind the bandanna to keep from crying out.

Tears stung her eyes again. When the steps neared the door again, she tensed. As inconspicuously as she could, she positioned her palms flat on the floor, or as close to flat as she could get them in their binding. She pulled her knees slightly forward. She wasn't certain she could get to her feet, but if she could, she intended to run for the front of the store. She might be able to kick the door closed behind her and stumble to her car. She had no idea how she'd drive with her hands tied, and in a panicked moment she wondered where her keys were. Then she remembered she'd left them in the ignition, and her resolve strengthened.

The footsteps stopped, then turned toward the door. Katrina pushed back against the wall, hoping it would lend her a little support when she made her move. The doork.n.o.b turned, and the door swung outward slowly. It creaked loudly. A tall form stepped into the room.

It wasn't Greene-she saw that right away. This man was slightly taller and broader. He had s.h.a.ggy dark hair and wore heavy leather work boots. He stopped in the doorway and scanned the shadowed office storeroom. He didn't know where she was. Katrina held her breath and willed her heart to beat more quietly.

The man shuffled into the room and turned toward the desk. He took a step in that direction, looked over his shoulder, then turned to the wall. Katrina saw that he was reaching for the light switch, and chose that moment to move. She lurched back against the wall, curled her legs beneath her and pushed off the floor with her fingertips. The cord ground into her wrists, but she ignored the pain.

The man cried out in surprise as she staggered past him toward the door and he tripped as he turned, making a wild grab that just missed yanking her back by her hair. In a second she was through the door and managed to kick out with her left leg and slam it closed. She ran clumsily toward the front door, nearly fell as her balance shifted, then righted herself and yanked the door open, holding the k.n.o.b tightly between her bound hands.

Outside it was nearly dark. She saw a glow off to her right, but she ignored it. She slammed the door and headed for her car, heaving great gulps of fresh air into her lungs through the bandana and ignoring the pain in her legs, arms and back. She heard a crash and a loud curse behind her, and then she had the car door open and slipped around it and inside. She yanked the door closed behind her and slammed her hand down on the lock. Frantically she twisted over to the pa.s.senger side and did the same. For the first time since owning the little car, she was thankful it was a two-door.

At the same moment she pressed down on the pa.s.senger side lock and groped for the keys, her pursuer crashed out through the front door. His eyes were dark slits, and his lips were curled back in a crazed expression of fury. Katrina met that wild glare for just a second. Her bound hands banged painfully on the steering wheel as she reached desperately for the keys. She groped once, missed, then brought her fingers together and gripped the edges of the empty ignition slot. The tears she'd held in check burst free and she leaned, searching the floor and the seat.

The man ran to the car and slammed his fists into the window. It shook, but held. Katrina backed away and pulled her hands up to shield her face. She pressed into the door behind her and held her face in her hands. She screamed, and then screamed again.

The man didn't hit the window again. As her screams subsided into sobs that wracked her frame, Katrina opened her eyes and peered into the moonlit parking lot. The man stood just outside the driver's side door and stared at her. His rage had melted away to a dark calm. When he saw that she was looking, he smiled.

He lifted his hand, and she saw her keys dangling from his tight-knuckled grip.

Abe reached the bottom of the trail in less than half an hour. Running downhill was dangerous, especially in the failing light of late afternoon, but the smoke rising up over the trees and the scent of burning wood drew him on and down. He ran because it was comfortable. As long as he could remember, running had helped him clear his mind and sift through conflicting thoughts. It didn't matter what was burning, there was little he could do about it. If all the folk on the mountain gathered, they could build fire breaks and dig trenches. They could cart in barrels of water and pumps. There was no fire department up on the mountain. No trucks with sirens were likely to rush in and stop the blaze unless it burned completely out of control and started to eat away at the mountain. Wildfires were no rarity in California, and the citizens of San Valencez would see to it that firefighters kept the flames contained.

There was nothing Abe could do about the fire, but he had to know. The flames had appeared in the distance as he'd spoken of burning. The coincidence was not lost on him, and he wondered if someone else had shared his thoughts. The smoke came from the direction of the white church, but there were other things in that direction. There were plenty of dry trees, for one thing. There were families who lived further in, past the church and well off the path.