“There’s someone down there,” I told Stephen.
Flame rushed deafeningly upward, so he couldn’t hear, but he followed the direction of my pointing finger. We could see the whole ridge clearly as Jilly ran into the open. She looked up to see our balloon floating overhead, and waved her arms wildly. The motion wasn’t one of greeting, but as though she signaled desperately for help.
There was no reason for her to be in that place, and her presence there alarmed me. We had no way to reach her on that slender spine of granite, and I could only watch helplessly.
She ran toward the old men and no sound of singing reached us. I caught movement among the Stones as Julian stepped out to block Jilly’s way. A gust of wind lifted the balloon from the ridge, and the human figures below grew smaller even as I strained toward them over the side of the basket.
When the burner was silent I cried out to Stephen. “We’ve got to get down there! Somehow we’ve got to reach her!”
Stephen spoke to Tony. “Can you put us down at Oleander Acres? We’re almost over it now.”
At once Tony spoke to the ground crew and sent them on their way. The farm lay just ahead on our drifting course, but we could only obey the whims of the wind.
Tony dropped us closer, lower, and now we needed to float in the direction of a field where we could land. A stream down the mountain gave us an air current to follow, and Tony allowed the balloon to drop still closer to the ground as we drifted along.
When I looked down into a pocket among dark evergreens, I saw the gray house that had belonged to Stephen’s grandfather, and which Vivian and I had visited. We were very close, but even if we found a field to land in, there would be no quick way to get up to the Singing Stones—and whatever awful thing might be happening there. Something was terribly wrong about both Jilly and Julian being there at all. My car was back at the take-off place, to which the van had expected to return us, so we’d have no transportation even if we landed.
First, however, we must reach the ground.
Fields opened close beneath us, some with stone walls, others with wire fences. I saw paddocks and horses, and in another field cows were grazing. We couldn’t land where we would frighten the livestock or become entangled with them. Tony was accustomed to searching out the safest landing place, and with spurts of hot air he kept us moving over fences and toward a level area where no animals grazed. We’d have to put down quickly, or we’d be too far away. A road ran close by and the van was closing in.
Luckily, the wind cooperated, and we dropped gently over the last stone wall and into the field. The crew tumbled out of the van, running toward us as the basket touched the ground without so much as a jolt. Tony pulled a rope that opened a hole at the top of the balloon to let the hot air out, and the envelope of cloth began to settle. One of the crew pulled on a crown line and ran with it away from the basket so the balloon wouldn’t come down on top of us. The folds settled gently, tipping to one side along the grassy field. After the noise of the burner, it was as though someone had turned off all the sound in the world, so that everything was happening in what was almost a numbing silence.
The crew members were there to steady the basket and keep it from tipping over. Someone helped me out, and others lifted Stephen to the ground and handed him his crutches.
Before we had time to wonder what we could possibly do next, Meryl’s car appeared at a nearby gate, and she got out and ran toward us.
“Thank God I saw you coming down!” she cried. “We’ve got to do something quickly. Jilly has run away again. She got a phone call—though she wouldn’t tell me who called her. She said she had to go back to your house, and when I told her that wasn’t possible, she seemed to accept it. But then she gave me the slip, and I suppose that’s where she’s gone.”
“She’s up at the Singing Stones right now,” Stephen said. “Julian’s with her, but that doesn’t reassure me. Can you drive us to where we can climb up there? There’s a path up the mountain from behind the house. I remember it from when I was a boy.”
Meryl recovered quickly and ran toward her car. Stephen thanked Tony and Bill and the Air Dancer crew, who were already engaged in the tedious and meticulous job of rolling up the balloon to place it in the trailer. Stephen followed Meryl more slowly on his crutches, but he was becoming pretty good at this, and I came with him.
Meryl didn’t speak again until we were driving toward the house. “Lynn and I can make that climb,” she said. “But you’ll have to wait for us, Stephen. There’s no way you can get up that steep path.”
When we reached the place where the way up began, I could see how right she was. I hated to leave Stephen behind—he looked so angry and frustrated—but there was nothing else to do if we were to reach Jilly. We might already be too late.
The path was not only steep but stony. Meryl and I pulled ourselves along by means of branches and tried to avoid the scree that would slide us backward. It took us twenty minutes or more to climb to where the boulder had fallen from far above, blocking the way to the cave. When it had fallen we’d been on the other side, cut off from this path.
I was winded and my knees were shaking, but I had to get around that rock somehow. Meryl sat down on the ground, unable to go on without a rest, but there was no time for me to rest. The boulder had settled forever in its new place on the earth, but while it couldn’t be moved, I might be able to force my way around it through the hemlock branches, some of them torn by the rock’s fall.
Somehow I fought my way to the cave’s entrance, my clothes torn and my hands bleeding. Nothing mattered except to go ahead. Every moment was precious—if there were any moments left to stop what might be happening up at the Stones.
Meryl called to me as I disappeared into the cave, but I knew she wouldn’t follow. I crawled on hands and knees along the passage through which Jilly had led me, and came out into the big cavern. The way to the top looked more perilous than ever, now that I knew its dangers, but I had to follow it anyway.
I remembered Jilly’s voice saying, “Don’t look down!” and I kept my eyes on the bright spot of sunlight far up the rock wall where the opening lay at the top. All around me the shadows of the caves showed me the dark interior of an earth that had seemed so bright to me a little while before as I looked down from the balloon. Here, the air smelled old and dusty and dead.
I found the handholds I’d used before, and clung to the wall as I followed the narrow ledge to the top. Now and then a stone would fall beneath my feet, and I heard it go bouncing down into emptiness. I tried not to think of what would happen if I stumbled and fell like one of those stones. Jilly was up there, and I had to reach her. I would reach her!
At last the opening was there, and I could stand in the sunlight on solid ground. I held back for a moment while I was still hidden and looked out. The Stones crowded nearby and the ridge beyond seemed empty. Then Jilly crept toward me from behind one of the old men.
“Quick!” she whispered. “Come in here where you’ll be safe. I knew you would come.”
That other time I hadn’t stepped in among the Stones, and I now saw that they crowded about a hollow center, shielding it from the rest of the ridge. This was where Julian was supposed to have hidden in that other life, when Vivian was an Indian maid and had been torn to pieces by a panther. He was there now—but he was a man I’d never seen before. He sat on the ground, sheltered by one of the Stones, his knees drawn up and his head pressed against them—a pose of utter despair and dejection.
“She’s out there,” Jilly whispered. “I got away from her, but she’s waiting for me.”
I crouched beside her and looked out from behind a tilted stone. The woman stood near the trees at the far end of the ridge. She wore dark green pants and a green sweater that blended with the evergreens. Vivian Forster was watching the Stones, and she knew very well where we hid, though I didn’t know whether she’d seen me join Jilly and her husband.
“She’s afraid of the Stones,�
� Jilly whispered. “But she won’t let us out. And Uncle Julian won’t leave.”
As she spoke his name, Julian looked up at me, and I saw his torment and helplessness.
“Why did you come here?” I asked Jilly.
“Aunt Vivian phoned me. She said Uncle Julian was here and he was badly hurt. With two of us, we could help him, so I must come right away. But I wasn’t to tell anyone where I was going. I didn’t understand why, but she scared me about Uncle Julian, so I had to get away and come up here as quickly as I could. He was here—just like that. But he wasn’t hurt, and I knew by her face what she meant to do. That was the way she looked at White Moon that time when I saw her there.”
The woman in green was moving toward us now, and I could see how strangely happy she seemed—as though she were meeting her destiny and knew she would be triumphant.
“Come out and talk to me, Julian,” she called.
“Don’t go,” I pleaded. But Julian stood up and walked away from the enchanted safety of the Stones.
Vivian held out her hand to him, smiling. “Bring Jilly with you, darling. Then we’ll hold hands and just walk out into another life together.” She waved toward the cliff behind her.
Though alarmed and grieving, he moved toward her, but he didn’t bring Jilly with him.
Recognition came suddenly—not a recognition of face or voice, for even the sex was different—but I knew. The essence was there, the essence of the man who had been Scotty when I had seen the life of Alice Lampton played out before me.
Vivian didn’t see me at once, and Julian stopped a little way from her. All her focus was upon him.
“I knew from the beginning that we had to be together,” she told him. “I didn’t understand why until you took me back into other lives. Larry didn’t matter anymore—I wanted only to be with you. So when he and I came for a walk up here that day, I knew I had to release him, so that he could go on to a happier life. He almost went over when I pushed him suddenly, but he struggled back from the edge. His release came anyway because he was frightened, and his heart simply gave out. So then you and I could be together, Julian.”
Julian’s look told me that he had known none of this, and that her words had shattered him completely.
Vivian held out her arms. “Don’t stay so far away. Come here to me, darling. And bring Jilly with you. She must go with us, you know. She belongs to us now. You’ve taught me that.”
Julian’s voice broke, but he managed to speak. “Jilly must stay where she is.”
“It would be so beautiful for us.” Vivian sounded gentle, innocent. “If it hadn’t been for Luther Kersten, we might have gone on as we were in this life. But he changed everything. He came up here after Larry that day. He was such a suspicious young man, and he was Larry’s protégé so he felt he owed Larry something. He saw everything that happened, but he told me he would go for help. I left the ridge—because I knew I mustn’t be found there. Luther brought help and he never told anyone that he’d seen me with Larry.”
As he listened, Julian seemed as frozen in time as one of the Stones that still sheltered Jilly. “You caused Luther’s death, Vivian?”
“It was necessary. He blackmailed me for a long time. I had money that Larry left me, so I could pay him. But I knew it had to end. I told him I would meet him at White Moon that Sunday and make another payment. But when I found that Stephen and Jilly were there, everything changed. There was a fight and Luther knocked Stephen down. Jilly flew at him wildly and he struck her, knocked her aside. He didn’t see me coming closer, watching for my chance. His back was toward me and he was off balance when I pushed him, and this time I was successful. Jilly had been knocked out for a moment, and when Stephen got up, he went through a plank and dropped two stories down. So all Luther’s wickedness ended for this life. He has a great deal to pay for in the next. Only Jilly saw me there, and she knew that if she told anyone I would have to let people know that her father had killed Luther Kersten.”
The most awful part of Vivian’s story was that she told it so sweetly and calmly. As though she had worked everything out in the best and most logical way. Perhaps this was the danger that could lie in dabbling with psychic matters if one’s inner being balanced on the edge of sanity and became too vulnerable—to what? Evil, perhaps, if such a thing existed. The man, Scotty, had never known his own wickedness, and neither did Vivian. So when was the lesson learned and the payment made?
Julian had begun to sway, as though he might faint, and I went to take him by the arm. Vivian focused on me then, and I saw the possibility of my own death in her eyes. But there was more that must be said.
“Carla was the next one, wasn’t she?” I asked softly. Vivian’s chosen weapon was a cliff top.
“You mean to be released to a better life, Lynn? Yes—of course that had to happen. Carla knew that Luther had been blackmailing me, and she finally made Jilly tell her that I had been there at White Moon the day he died. It was Carla, you know, who left that note on Stephen’s chair to frighten him before she knew who was really to blame.”
“How did you persuade Carla to go with you to White Moon?”
She smiled her gentle, angelic smile. “Carla actually intended some punishment for me. I’d tried to make her afraid by destroying her photograph of Luther, but that didn’t stop her. In a way, Jilly helped me by upsetting her room.” Vivian stared at her own hands as though something about them surprised her. “I never knew I could be so strong. I brought a tire iron from my car, and she never saw the blow coming. I only needed to release the brake and start her wheels rolling down the incline. It was over very quickly. I didn’t expect anything to be left, because the car would surely burn. Only it didn’t. Of course Jilly knew too much. I’d kept her quiet as long as I could. But that had to end too.
“So I told her a story that would bring her up here today. I knew Julian would come after me, and that was right. There has been enough of this life for us all. I was happy for a while, but now I’m ready to go on. Jilly is Julian’s child and mine, and she must come with us. I tried to release her once before when I pushed that boulder down on you. But your karma saved you.”
She was very calm—and completely mad. I had never been more frightened, or felt more helpless. Listening to all this, Jilly had come to stand beside me, no longer protected by the Stones that Vivian feared. She saw Jilly and ran to grasp her by the arm, drawing her toward the edge of the cliff. Anything at all could send her over, and Jilly would go with her.
“Vivian, listen to me,” Julian pleaded. “You’ve always listened to me and you must listen now.”
She shook her head at him sweetly. “Come with us, darling. You can’t let us go out into the new adventure alone.”
Julian straightened himself, his attitude of futility falling away. He raised his arms toward the sky—the magician calling for a spell to save us all? Or only a man who asked with all his being for help, for strength, for guidance? Perhaps for a miracle?
The wind had risen again, blowing over this mountain ridge, blowing up through the cave so that the Stones began to sing. The sound sent a prickling up the back of my neck. A sound that was almost human—a high keening—a moaning that rose in volume and carried away into the distance, only to be renewed with the next rushing of wind through the tunnel of the cave. The old men were crying out in full voice—and their cries seemed to strike through Vivian. She dropped Jilly’s arm and put her hands to her ears, twisting back and forth as though the sound pierced her very being.
I caught Jilly by the hand and drew her quickly to safety among the Stones, where Vivian would not go. Jilly clung to me while we watched the two out there. Now the wailing all around us seemed to form a wall of protection—its volume cast outward along the ridge.
Julian had stopped praying and his arms fell to his sides. For a moment the Stones were silent, as though the old men drew breath. Then the moaning rose again, and Vivian flung up her arms as if to ward off some attack. In sudd
en terror, she turned her back on the cliff and moved around the Stones toward the entrance to the cave.
For an instant she paused at its mouth. “Good-bye, darling,” she said to Julian and went into the rocky passageway.
Her words roused him, and he hurried after her.
“Please, Lynn,” Jilly whispered, “I want to find my father.”
We followed the other two into the cave and began our descent along the wall. As my eyes grew accustomed to the shadowy darkness, I saw that Vivian had found her way down the precarious wall path and stood at the bottom, looking up at Julian, who was still clinging to the rock above her. The wind through the funnel had died to a faint whistling, and she turned her head, listening.
As we watched, she moved toward the narrow opening from which the sound emerged and spoke to Julian for the last time.
“I will wait for you,” she said softly and disappeared through the black cleft into the mountain.
I wondered if she would feel as Jilly had—that something waited in there—so she too would back out.
All I wanted now, however, was to take Jilly to her father.
We left Julian staring at the place where Vivian had vanished, and fought our way through thick hemlock branches that crowded about the fallen boulder. Meryl had waited for us, and—impossibly!—Stephen was with her.
Jilly hurled herself upon her father, and he held her in a desperate anguish that I sensed clearly as I tried to tell him what had happened. Meryl’s only concern now was for Stephen.
“I’ll go down to the house and phone for help,” she told him. “We’ll need to get you home.”
How he had climbed up here at all was a miracle. I saw his torn jeans, and blood on his knees and hands, and knew that he must have crawled up the hill with sheer will and determination.
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