She completed the process six times. Each time she scratched either a solid or broken line on the paper at her side. When she was finished, she tied the bundle of yarrow together reverently and handed them to Jonathan, who took them without comment. Up until that moment, the rest of them might not have existed. They stood and waited, and Sarah glanced up, catching first one set of eyes, and then another. She rose in a fluid motion, gripping the paper in her right hand.
"Hsi K'an," she said simply. They blinked at her without comprehension, and she held up the diagram she'd drawn. "The symbol is Hsi K'an," she repeated. "It is a water symbol, a symbol of containment and control." There was no reaction at first, but then heads nodded slowly and reluctantly.
"There is danger," Sarah continued. "Great danger, both spiritual and physical. There will be things revealed in this endeavor that, perhaps, you will not want to know. This will not come without cost."
More nods, and the nervous shuffle of feet. Nothing she told them was new. She repeated their own thoughts, their own fears, and they wanted to move on. In their minds, the course of action was already clear. Only their respect for Jonathan Carlson had gathered them into this small space to listen, and even he couldn't make them understand.
"There are two parts to the symbol," Sarah continued, unperturbed. "The first is the base. This is K'an, a pit—evil—a darkness or an emptiness. The second, the top, symbolizes patience. Practice. It is a symbol associated with rituals and faith."
Impatient murmurs fluttered about the room like trapped moths, looking for an escape from the light that had so tempted them a few moments before. They did not want to hear the word patience. Faith was fine, but faith backed by action, not by words, or even prayer.
"The sooner you confront this evil," Sarah said flatly, "the less chance you have for success. The rituals must be perfect. The motive behind the action must remain pure. You must be thorough and ruthless. If you do not cut this thing from the mountain and cast it out, it will grow again. Every time it is reborn, it will grow in strength."
"We can't wait," a voice whispered from the back of the cottage. "They are taking our children."
Sarah closed her eyes and had to control herself as her fingers gripped the paper in her hand too tightly. It crumpled, and her hand shook. She regained control and faced them, scanning the group with her eyes.
"Your children will not be safer if you become a part of what you seek to destroy," she told them. "If you do this thing, it must be done perfectly. You may not feel the return in your lifetimes, but your children will feel it, and their children as well."
"Let there be cleansing," another voice murmured. "Whatever the cost, let there be cleansing, and let there be peace."
"Bring back our children," another cut in.
A third whispered "Amen" and the word echoed about the cottage and seemed to drop and catch in Sarah's hair, fluttering like a trapped insect.
"The only way to accomplish this is containment," Sarah said, her voice soft. "That place will never be truly cleansed, but it can be buried. It can be burned. It can be cleansed from the surface and warded against return."
A small, florid-faced man stepped from the crowd suddenly and snatched the paper from Sarah's hand. Before anyone else in the room could move, or speak, he crumpled it between the palms of his hand. Then he realized the impermanence of this action. He unfolded it, tore it in two, then doubled these over and repeated the action until the pieces were too small to be torn again. He released them to flutter down at Sarah's feet.
Jonathan was at his wife's side, his arm protectively between them.
"Jasper," Jonathan said.
"No." Jasper Cromwell spat the words between clenched teeth. His eyes blazed and his features were contorted into a mask of sudden and unbridled fury.
"This is not our way," he said. "This is not God's way. This…" he gestured at the shreds of paper at his feet, and at the bundle of yarrow wands still clutched in Jonathan's free hand, "stinks of the very thing we speak of doing battle with."
There were murmurs of assent 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. "God 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 passed 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 passed 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 hellish 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 passed. 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 su
ddenly 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.
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