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 scraped 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 bumped into one another so often they joked about living in a shoebox 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.
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 passing 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 enoug
h. 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 passed 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 passed, and he opened his eyes.
He knelt, clasped his hands, and stared into the dancing flames. They wavered, and he saw a dark mass 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 assess 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 passage. 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 God.
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 branche
s 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 passed 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.
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