"Let's try to get some sleep," he said softly. "All of this will make more sense in the morning."
"And you'll tell me the rest of it?" Though she worded it as a question, Abe knew that it was not.
"I'll tell you what I know, and what I think," he said, nodding. "It might help me straighten it all out in my head if I go back through it with you. Right now I'm exhausted, and we only have a couple of hours before the sun comes up."
Katrina slid in under the sheets and he wrapped his arms around her. Her hair smelled slightly of watermelon and her skin, where they touched, was soft and very warm. Abraham closed his eyes. He heard the cries of birds echoing deep in his mind, and he felt the weight of deep-set, brooding eyes between his shoulder blades. He thought vaguely that he might never sleep again, but moments later he drifted into a calming darkness.
About an hour later, Katrina woke. Abe was curled against her back, but he'd fallen away slightly. His arm dangled off the far side of the bed, and he snored lightly. She slipped carefully from beneath the sheets, rose quietly and dressed. They needed some things from the grocery, and she wanted to be there and most of the way back by the time Abe was up and ready to eat.
She stood at the door and watched him sleep for a moment before turning away. He didn't seem to be dreaming, and his breathing was regular. She considered unplugging the phone, just in case, but in the end she simply turned and left quietly. If it were going to keep ringing, unplugging it for an hour or two wouldn't help. Maybe they could change the number or get one that was unpublished.
She thought of the wild, terrified expression he'd worn the second time he'd woken her, and she shivered. Somehow she didn't believe that changing the number would help, and she wasn't ready to be freaked out by having that new number ring the minute she plugged in the phone. Things were weird enough.
She stepped onto the porch, hit the sand, and climbed in behind the wheel of her old Chevy Lumina. She pulled out quickly, not wanting the sound of the engine to wake Abraham, and turned down the road toward San Valencez.
Alone in the bed, Abraham dropped into the dream. The air vibrated with the hiss of released air, or the voices of a thousand serpents. He stood on the mountain and looked down the side. Something moved at his feet, but he didn't look down. A cloud of darkness rose from the direction of the old church and crept up the side of the mountain toward him. It engulfed the tops of trees as it passed, and though the moon hung high above, surrounded by the glitter of stars, where the darkness touched the glow and brilliance disappeared, devoured by shadow.
The edge of that darkness fluttered. From where he stood it looked as if it were made up of thousands of flapping, leathery wings. He wondered if that was the sound he heard. Abraham had a sudden sharp memory. He closed his eyes, and in that instant he saw the grapevines on the side of the mountain, twining in and over the arbors and snaking along the ground. A cloud hovered above the vines, and in that instant it descended.
Locusts crawled over the mountainside; jaws cutting inexorably at the leaves. They swarmed over the grapevines and coated the ground. They whirled in the air and shot first one direction, then the next in solid masses of chitinous cartilage, slamming into the earth, wave after wave driving in over the backs of their fellows and devouring everything in sight.
Abraham wanted to turn and run but something clutched rigidly about his ankles. He felt the movement again and dragged his gaze from the dark plague rolling up the mountain toward him. He thought they were more vines and that he'd stumbled into thick undergrowth and had to extract himself carefully. He tried to lift his right leg and found that he couldn't. The ground at his feet undulated, and he screamed.
Serpents twined about his legs. Their eyes glittered and long, probing tongues flicked over his jeans. He struggled, but both legs were held tight. Frantic, he kicked out, tried to lift one leg, then the other, and the effort cost his balance. Something burned his chest, and he clutched it tightly. The medallion gleamed, and then burst into brilliant golden light.
Abraham fell back. His legs were freed from the restraining coils, but he sensed the serpents beneath him and knew he would fall among them and be swallowed. The medallion glowed brilliantly, and as he fell he twisted, driving his arms down like twin pistons, gripping the medallion and blinded by its light. His fear evaporated, replaced by a sudden wash of anger. He screamed as he drove his fists into the earth, pounded the medallion into the flesh of the mountain.
The roar in his ears was the voices of the locusts and the hiss of the snakes, the shadows sliding up the mountain and the smooth, gliding serpent scales. His scream shattered it like glass. The white-noise backdrop of the dream burst into hissing crystals and brilliant sparks, exploding from the point where his fists met the mountain.
Kneeling on the bed, the sheets wound about his ankles and knees as if they'd coiled there of their own accord, his hands buried so deeply in the mattress that the springs embedded their form in his knuckles, Abraham woke.
He didn't move. He stared straight into the white crumpled sheets, straight past his hands, still buried nearly to the wrists in the mattress, the stress on the taut muscles of his arms so acute that he shook from the pressure. Slowly he drew in a long, ragged breath. Just as slowly he released it, and drew in another. He lifted his head and felt a sharp pain in the back of his neck. Something held him, biting into his flesh. He took another breath and realized it was the leather thong.
He still held the medallion tightly in one fist, and the thong dug into his flesh, holding his neck down. He was forced into the position of a supplicant, kneeling on the bed, and with sudden clarity he knew he was alone. Katrina was not there. He released his grip on the pendant and turned. He sat on the bed, lowered his legs over the side, and pieced the room together in his mind, bit by bit, until clarity returned.
The spot on the bed where his fists had pounded in so deep was the same spot where Katrina should be sleeping. Abraham closed his eyes and then snapped them open again. The image that filled his head was Katrina, her chest caved in by the unfettered rage of his dream, his fists, and the medallion, buried deep in her flesh. He saw a flash of her eyes, awash in terror. He shook uncontrollably. Sweat soaked the sheets, shone off his skin in the dim light of the sunrise.
He rose unsteadily and pulled on his jeans. He tugged a t-shirt over his head, stepped to the closet, and dragged his duffle bag down from the top shelf. He moved quickly, watching the bedroom door, listening for Katrina's voice, her footsteps, or the car door slamming. He packed very little, and very quickly.
He took several pairs of jeans, some t-shirts, dumped his underwear and sock drawers into the bag and yanked flannel shirts from the closet. He sat long enough to drag on socks and boots and threw his sneakers into the duffle bag. He scanned the room wildly, certain he would leave out some key item that would force him to come back and explain himself to her. He knew he would never be able to do that and leave a second time. He took a book of poetry he'd been reading, two spiral notebooks and a handful of pens, and—at the last moment—he picked up the worn leather Bible on his dresser. He hadn't read it in a long time, but the weight of the book in his hand was somehow reassuring. He dropped it into the duffle and turned toward the door.
Then he stopped. He knew he couldn't just leave. He had to get out before Katrina returned, but he couldn't let her come home to an empty house, no sign of him anywhere, without an explanation. Abraham pulled one of his spiral notebooks back out of the duffle and sat down at the table. He wrote quickly, not going into long explanations. When he was as satisfied as he could be with the note he left it on the table, weighted down by the saltshaker.
The sun hadn't risen, but it lined the horizon in red and gold, and Abe stopped for a moment to stare down at the beach, and then up at the cliffs where the Cathedral of San Marcos loomed over the waves. His throat was tight, and his stomach was queasy. For that one moment he considered staying. He could just sit down on the porch, wait for Katrina to
return, tell her the whole story, and the two of them could find his mother together.
Then he closed his eyes and felt the dreams hovering just out of sight, and knew he had to do it alone. She would be hurt. She would probably wait for him, and if she didn't he would find her and somehow make it right, but he had to do this alone. He'd already come closer to physically hurting her in his sleep than he was comfortable with, and he knew that things were likely to be much worse before they ever got better. Nothing about that mountain was safe, with or without the nightmares and the bitter memories that lodged between his thoughts and distracted him.
His hand strayed to the medallion, and he felt the beginnings of a bruise on the back of his neck where the leather thong had dug into his skin. The touch of the smooth metal cleared his thoughts, and he started off toward the beach at a jog. He knew if he went straight out to the road, Katrina would see him. He would have to run down the beach and come up further down the road, then double back to the bus stop.
He jogged down to the beach and turned right, toward the cathedral and the cliffs. His heart ached, but he did not look back. Behind him, just out of hearing, the phone rang.
NINE
Deep in the hills, there are different rules. Things shift, boundaries blur and time warps with the sudden, powerful draw of blood. Abraham knew this better than any. The blood of his brothers and cousins, uncles and aunts ran through the veins of the hills that towered over him. The asphalt shimmered in the bright sunlight and waves of heat rose to the heavens. Abraham stared through them and let them warp the green of the trees and the blue of the sky. He was coming home.
On his shoulder, his duffle bag was a familiar weight; as familiar as the scent of pine on the breeze and the soft whisper of wind through the trees. He turned and glanced back down the road the way he'd come. It was a good four miles to the turnoff from Cotter's Point. The trucker who'd let him off would be halfway to the state line, trying to make a warm bed and stiff drink before the orange-red of the sunset bled down the side of the hills and faded to black.
In the breast pocket of his flannel shirt the letter from his mother was neatly folded. He heard her voice whispering the words, and knew it was silly to keep the short note. He would never forget.
"He's back, boy."
The equal armed cross that was drawn on the bottom of the letter covered another symbol. It was a dark squiggle, serpentine and bleak. When Abraham studied it he got the impression of layers—one thing covering another and blocking it. There was power in the old symbols, and he knew, for the moment, that his mother's cross, like the one he wore about his neck, had proven the stronger. Nothing more was written. No explanation was offered, or needed. Civilization drained down slowly, swirled through the veins of his legs and seeped into the earth. Blood to blood; Abraham started to walk.
The final two words of the short note echoed through his mind. "Come home." In the city they would not have believed the transformation that ten miles could make. Abraham had left the truck as a man on the road, far from his cottage on the beach and his work, but attached to them by the thin threads that bound civilization into a tattered tapestry. Those threads stretched taut as he walked the four miles of burning pavement, and when he turned off the road, cut into the line of trees and climbed up and away, they snapped cleanly.
He closed his eyes, leaned on the broad, strong trunk of an ancient oak, and basked in the moment. His jeans felt stiff and restrictive, their tight creases pointless and irritating. He was glad of the boots he'd worn, and he wished he'd worn older jeans with more wear. He hadn't been thinking about the mountain then, but he had felt it, and he had known. His memories were returning full force now.
He pushed off from the tree and settled his knapsack more comfortably on his shoulders. It was a little past noon, and he wanted to reach his mother's house before the light failed. It was a long climb.
Anyone he ran into would know him despite the years and the changes they had wrought, but still, it was best they get a clear look as he approached. Normally he would have feared nothing more than a seat full of rock salt for trespassing, but now? The paper weighed heavily in his pocket, and he watched the trees to either side carefully as he walked.
Something had changed. He felt an odd detachment from the woods surrounding him, as if he were a stranger and didn't belong, but even so, he felt it. He had expected to feel alienated, but there was something dark in the air, something menacing that reached out from each shadow. He frowned and hurried his steps.
On his left, up the mountain a bit, he saw the spire of the church rising against the blue of the sky. The wood needed paint, and the roof was dark and patched. The high window on the steeple was shuttered, but one side hung limply out at an angle as if waiting for a wind to come along and put it out of its misery.
Abraham thought about cutting through the churchyard. It was a little out of his way, but he had the sudden urge to see the place. He needed to be sure that it was as he remembered it, not as it had been in his dream. If it were as run down as it appeared to be, then it was unlikely he would see the windows pouring light into the darkness, or deep, chanting voices rising from the eaves. He saw the flaking paint and loose shingles from where he stood, but these meant little. The note, crinkling in his pocket as he walked, told a different story.
Abraham had a sudden flash of memory. He saw his father's face, not angry—never angry—but set and grim. He saw torches lined up and stretching back into the forest like a giant flaming serpent, flowing away behind his father. He saw that other face, the dark branching antlers and the wide, hate-filled eyes. He heard a keening that shook him to the depths of his soul and remembered ripping his eyes from that scene to stare into the pale gleam of a long-ago full moon. He had been so young then, and the memories—though vivid—held few answers.
He shook his head and turned back to the path.
The trail was worn, and he saw the signs of many passing feet. The prints ran over and around one another in a jumbled, scuffed map that Abraham read instinctively. A great number of people had been this way recently, and the knowledge itched at his mind. So much traffic didn't mesh with the unkempt steeple on the church, or the ominous, heavy emptiness of the air. There was nothing along this path but smaller trails that trickled off deeper into the woods, and the church.
Although the road he'd left behind was the nearest route to civilization, it wasn't a big draw for the locals. If they needed something from the city, they would go by truck, usually about once a month, and they would go in force. They wouldn't run out along a forest path and down the mountain. Besides that, Abraham had seen no sign of the tracks on the side of the mountain as he climbed. They moved in both directions along the trail, but without closer scrutiny, their destinations remained a secret.
When Abraham had left the mountain, the church building was already in decline. It wasn't as obvious then. If you'd seen the steeple through the trees, as Abraham had just done, you'd have seen gleaming white paint and windows open to the brilliant light of the sun. Those who had remained behind after the cleansing—that was his father's word—had tried to rebuild. They had tried to resurrect the church itself from the evil that had tainted it and re-consecrate it to the God of its original intent. The effort had changed them, eroded their faith and drained their spirit.
Something had pushed them away. Though the rituals and the words, the hymns and the praise were the same, they seemed pointless and empty when shared within the church's walls. One by one folks had wandered back out the door and into the hills, finding their own ways to God, or driving down the mountain on a Sunday. Once Abraham's father died…
He tore his mind from that thought and back to the church. It wasn't necessarily the paint and wood that had declined. Something had been won, and something had been lost. The rot that had begun within the walls seemed to have found its way to the surface and begun to eat through.
He remembered that steeple as one of the last things he'd seen a
s he'd walked this same trail to the mountain's side and the road beyond those long years before. The window had been open wide, staring after him like a single accusing eye.
It had not been daylight then. The woods had been shadowed and dark, the perfect cover. Now, by the light of day, his memories seemed false. The building was decrepit and on the verge of toppling over to cast its boards down the nearly sheer cliff behind it to the floor of the valley below. That image was not as incongruous with his memories as he'd at first thought it to be. To be this far gone after so few years, the building must have been broken down when he left.
There was a sound in the trees to his left, and Abraham halted. He saw nothing, and the sound wasn't repeated. After a moment he continued. Then it came again. It didn't sound like footsteps. It was more of a skittering, like leaves skimming the ground in the grip of the wind, rubbing their dry skins together in protest.
Then a shadow flitted between two trees and disappeared into a dense thicket. At the same time, the sound echoed again. This time Abraham stood very still and waited. His heart was trip hammering, but he didn't know exactly why. The shadow hadn't been large enough to be a man, nor quite small enough to be a dog. It had moved very quickly and quietly. If he had been new to the woods, he might have missed it entirely. Even his mountain-grown senses, after so many dulling years in the city, had only caught it on the periphery.
"Who's there?" he asked. He didn't cry out, but his voice carried. He kept the tremor that threatened to surface from giving away his unease.
There was no answer, but the shadow moved again, and this time Abraham was ready. At the first hint of the sound, he launched himself at the end of the thicket. This time there was more than a flicker. A shape emerged from the shadows and flew away parallel to the trail. Abraham followed.
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