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 grass 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 passed 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 thorny 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?"
"Why did you come all the way back to the mountain to kill your own mother?"
Questions without answers. They all knew what they wanted to hear, and they would all get back to their beer and reality television quicker if he confessed. Telling the truth would not be easy in a situation like that, and almost certainly would not prove successful.
He could go down to his family on the mountain—his father's family. He could gather some of those who'd attended services when his father was alive, if any such still lived on the mountain, and he could put together a burial party. They had no minister, and after the fiasco at Jonathan Carlson's burial it wasn't likely they'd send to Friendly, or anywhere else, to get one.
Abraham turned to the cottage and walked along the walls again. Around one side was a smaller structure, tucked into the shade of two tall pines. Abraham walked to the small building. The hinges were rusted, and they screamed in protest, but with an effort he managed to get the old door to swing outward. The interior was shadowed, and he heard something scurry deeper into the interior. He waited for his eyes to grow accustomed to the gloom, and for the dust to settle, and then he stepped inside.
He saw the shadows of implements lining the walls. Rakes and hoes, a pickaxe and several saws lined the wall. He knew most of them would be rusted and corroded from disuse and lack of care. There was time to deal with all of it later.
A spade and a shovel leaned against the wall by an old, decrepit wheelbarrow. Abe saw that the solid rubber tire had finally suffered enough dry rot to cripple it. A large chunk was missing from one side, and the rest was flaked and crumbling. He flashed on the stone walk at the church below. He felt the handles in the old wheelbarrow dragging left, then right as he pushed across rough earth. He heard his father's softly spoken instructions and encouragement as clearly as if he'd stood in that past moment, and the tears he'd finally managed to bring back under control slid wet and hot down his cheeks.
He took the spade and the shovel out the door and searched the yard surrounding the cottage. He didn't want to come too close to the building, nor did he want his mother's final resting place too close to the trees. He had the sensation of something waiting, just out of his sight, writhing vines and clawing roots. The sun was well along its path to the west, and Abraham doubted that the clearing yard would provide much protection against the encroaching darkness.
He chose a spot to the right of the two large pines by the shed. It was just to the left of what was, once again, the entrance to the path down to the church below. Abraham glanced down that half-cleared expanse, and then averted his gaze. There was no sign of the thick hedges. There were shrubs and vines slipping free of the heavier growth to ei
ther side that sent feelers across the trail, but for as far as he'd seen in that quick glance, the path was relatively clear. Impossible, but right in front of his face.
Abraham dug as quickly and carefully as he could. He shaped the grave in a rectangle about five feet long. He knew he'd never reach six feet through the rocky soil with only the spade and shovel, but he worked steadily, placing the dirt in mounds to either side, and after about an hour he had to step down into the grave itself to go deeper. He stopped at a little over three feet and clambered back out of the grave.
He slammed the blade of the shovel into the earth and turned, but something stopped him. He turned back, closed his eyes, and saw the image of the equal armed cross he wore about his neck. It surrounded the grave. He took the spade in hand again and cut the arms of the cross carefully into the soil, extending them to either side of the grave. The shadows had grown very deep by the time he stopped, satisfied with his efforts.
He dragged his mother's limp body to the grave and knelt by her side. He lifted her easily, ignored the queasy sensation in his stomach, and knelt again to lay her gently into the earth. He wished he had more time. There were words he should speak. He also wished he'd brought the small leather bag from the box on her fireplace mantel, because he knew her rituals as well as those of her father. He knew how to call to the archangels, and he knew that, whether or not there was actually any power in such actions, his mother had believed that there was.
He stood and clutched a handful of loose earth in his right hand. He tossed a pinch of it to the North. He whispered the names, but somehow the words gained strength as they were released. He heard them and would have sworn they echoed off the peaks, each in turn.
He circled the grave slowly, and each time he turned a new direction, he tossed another pinch of earth into the grave in the proper direction. When he had finished, he knelt at the head of the grave and bowed his head. He spoke a single word.
"Charon."
The last of the dirt trickled between his fingers and down into the grave, dusting his mother's pale, bloodless face. Abraham reached into the grave, leaning down so close his chest brushed the earth. With two fingers he closed his mother's eyes gently, then he stood, and with even, rhythmic scoops, shoveled the soil back into the grave. When he was done he patted the top of the grave carefully. There were stones piled beside the shed, and he went to them, gathering them up one at a time and carrying them to the grave. He placed them as he had tossed the soil, and he repeated the names, a little louder this time. He also placed stones along the lengths of the arms of the cross he'd dug. When he was done, the grave was marked, top to bottom and side to side, with strings of stone.
He stood and stared for a long moment. He willed his mind blank, and then he concentrated on her face. He remembered words he'd heard her speak. He remembered the smell of her and the warmth of her arms. He remembered long nights reading by the fire as she rocked and sewed, and late nights filled with the magic of her stories. Images of his father wove in and out of the memories, blended, and took root.
Abraham turned back to the cottage. The trees seemed to have backed away from the stone walls. The sun had passed beyond the tree line, but it glowed in the uppermost branches and lent an eerie half-light to the clearing. Shadows filled the corners and leaked from the trees, but they held no particular malice, only a lack of light.
Abe leaned the shovel and the spade against the wall beside the door, opened it, and stepped into the old cottage. In the distance a bird cried, and he flashed on his dream, the church windows glowing and voices chanting, those eyes, searching and malevolent. He shook it from his thoughts and closed the door behind him.
THIRTEEN
Abraham knew that, as he'd been alone in burying his mother, he would have no help in what he did from here on out. He circled the small cottage slowly, took in all the chips and chinks the years had doled out and filed them away in his mind. He thought briefly of the house on the beach, and of Katrina. His life away from the mountain had seemed very simple. Now, with the daunting task ahead of him of clearing a way back to the church through that thicket, patching the walls and roof of the cottage, and lugging what he needed up the mountain from his mother's place, the cottage and the life he associated with it hovered in the distance like a great spider's web of complexity.
Water, phone and electric bills. Taxes and rent, budgeted groceries and cable television. Each of these things, taken by itself, would not be a challenge, but as a group the drag on time, energy, and spirit were staggering.
Abe's arms ached from the scratches and gouges of the thorns, and his new jeans were a torn, ragged mess, stained with blood and sweat. A small cloud of gnats had gathered to dine on his blood, and he batted at them to absolutely no affect.
The walls were solid, as he had known they would be. There were places where the mortar was working its way out between stones, but he could replace that easily enough. Without effort his memory conjured the formula his father had taught him so long ago—how much sand, how much mud from what part of the creek bed would mix to for just the right consistency. Abraham smiled at the ease and comfort the thoughts brought in their wake. The door had not opened easily. Weather had sprung the wood of the frame slightly, and the planks that made up the door itself had swollen and curled slightly at the ends. It still sealed, but before too many days he knew it would have to be taken down and straightened, any recalcitrant wood being replaced. He noted all of this, but only on some level below the conscious. There was one more thing he had to check on before he started to work.
He stepped deeper into the cottage and coughed as clouds of dust rose to sting his eyes and tickle his throat. He staggered to the near wall, found the inner shutter and swung it open. This did nothing for the dust, or the air, but it did allow the hint of light into the place. When the moon rose fully, it would be brighter. It was hot inside, but not as hot as he had expected. The trees and vines surrounding the cottage provided some relief, and the building itself had been dug from the bedrock of the mountain. The stone floor was a good two feet below ground level.
As a boy, he'd paid little attention to the long lectures his father had given him on the history of this place, or its construction, but he found that despite his earlier inattention, the facts surfaced when he needed them. There was a curved base on the up-mountain side of the cottage that ran around the two sides and off into two channels dug to carry rainwater away and down, should there be any flooding from the mountain's peak. A similar curving clay apparatus ran around the sides of the stone roof to catch rainwater. If it had still existed, a barrel would have sat beneath the spout and by now, with the storms of the past few days, would be brimming with water that needed only to be boiled, filtered, and bottled before drinking. Of course, in this cottage, on this mountain, that had never been enough. The water would be collected, filtered, boiled—and blessed.
Abraham opened another shutter, closed his eyes and mouth against the new onslaught of dust, and found that there was enough light with two open windows and the open door to see the interior clearly. He stood very still and let the moonlight pour over his shoulder as the dust settled. He would need to open the rest of the windows and air the place out before he could attack the dust with a broom, but there was time for all of that.
The air cleared and he saw that nothing had changed. He didn't know why this was a thing he might have doubted, since no one but his mother and himself was likely to have crossed the threshold of the old cottage since his father's death, but seeing everything in its place had a calming effect. Like the path that led around the church, its stones set deep in the Earth, and the walls of the cottage, extending two feet into solid stone, the impression was of age and strength.
There was a squat fireplace, fronted by a small grate for cooking. To the right of this was a table that doubled as a desk, and farther along that wall stood a narrow cot. On the opposite side of the hearth were several small shelves and a taller cabinet that woul
d hold a few articles of clothing on hangers, with drawers beneath. It was all very simple, yet somehow elegant, even in its thick coat of dust and neglect.
It wasn't the furniture he sought, however, or the inventory of windows and wood that needed repair. Stepping as lightly as possible to keep from raising another cloud, Abraham moved to the center of the room. There was a sparkle of light on the floor here, and he glanced up.
Set into the ceiling, molded into a hole that had been cut into the stone and fixed in place with the same mortar that held the walls in place, a huge cluster of crystals, cut from the center of a single geode caught the early rays of the moon and sent them flickering along the walls and off through the shadows. Abraham caught his breath and held it. That one simple thing—so beautiful, and so natural, not formed by the hand of men, but borrowed from the Earth and shared with the moon, brought the tears back to Abe's eyes. The moon was still low in the sky, but it caught the tips of the uppermost crystals, bending and refracting through the natural lens. The light had a silver blue hue, as though deep water had been tapped and run inside the cottage walls through glass pipes.
Abraham tugged his gaze from the spectacle on the ceiling and glanced at the floor. Moving slowly and working carefully, he brushed away the dust in the very center with the toe of his boot, and then worked out along a straight line. There were patterns carved into the stone, centered by a raised, circular cover with two handles. From the circle's outer edge, lines shot arrow straight at the walls, cutting the room into fourths, then eights, like the points of a compass.
The same cross symbol that was carved so carefully into the wood of his mother's front door adorned the circular space in the middle of the floor. Abraham didn't touch it—not yet—but he examined it carefully. There was no sign that it had been tampered with, or disturbed. The dust was as thick at the edges of that compartment as anywhere else, and without the secret of its opening, it would have taken sledge hammers and chisels to get through. Again, he sensed permanence and strength, and this time it flowed up from beneath, the mountain recharging his energy from its own vast supplies, seeping back into his blood through the soles of his feet.
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