Nature had not done half-bad as a gardener.
The earth surrounding Jonathan's grave was fairly clear of vines and leaves.
The stone was easily visible, a jagged point of rock sticking up from the earth at an angle, as if pointing the way to Heaven. In the face of it were carved the words "The Reverend Jonathan Carlson. 1932—1992. God called him home."
The script was crude, but legible, and it had borne the brunt of sun and storm. Sarah was startled by dampness on her cheek and the sudden hot rush of tears that followed. She had visited this place now and then in the year or so following Jonathan's death. Then, as time wore on, and the elders let the church fall into disrepair, open to the weather and the animals, she slowly cut down her visits, first to once a week, then once a month, and now? Now it had been a least a year since she'd trekked up the mountain to pay respect to the only man she'd ever loved.
She remembered clearly standing next to that same grave and watching Abraham tear out through the arbor beneath the vines as if the devil himself followed on his heels. She had wanted to follow him and comfort him, but there was no comfort for the boy that day, and she had duties of her own.
Jonathan would not bury himself, though considering the selfless way he lived his life it would not much have surprised Sarah if he had.
And Reverend Forbes, from over in Friendly; what a mistake it had been to invite him into their group. What should have been a day of thanksgiving and a send off for her husband to meet his God had become a surreal blend of painful images she couldn't wipe from her memory.
Sarah hoped fervently that Jonathan had been beyond watching what transpired in the world he'd left behind by the time Reverend Forbes began the final rant that had ushered the casket into the mountain's embrace.
A sudden gust of wind caught her hair and lifted it from her shoulders. Leaves swirled around her feet, and she glanced up at the sky in shock. Moments before it had been warm, the sun bright and lighting the land with its golden rays. Now dark clouds scudded across a darkening horizon and she saw that another storm was rolling in.
Dismayed, she turned toward the gates of the cemetery and the church beyond. It was no place to weather a storm. The shutters on the windows needed repair, and the door wouldn't stay closed. She could get a fire going in one of the old fireplaces, but that would provide only minor solace in the face of a mountain thunderstorm.
It wasn't natural, that much was obvious to her.
The day had been beautiful and golden, and she had not sat in the graveyard very long. The mountain was known for its "mood swings" of weather, but there was an ominous, brooding
presence
in this wind, a biting chill that was out of season and somehow very personal.
She shouldn't have come here alone.
She shouldn't have left the protections of her home without being certain that she could return to them. She had consulted with no one before making her way up the mountain. It was a mistake that Jonathan would have warned her about, had he been present.
The front door of the old church slammed shut with a screech of rusted hinges and an explosion of sound that nearly stopped her heart. Birds erupted from the two chimneys and nearby trees, startled into sudden flight by the sound. They wheeled off up the mountain in search of shelter. Sarah followed their progress with her gaze, and she knew what she had to do. There was only one place she could go where she might be safe. She'd never make it down the mountain before the storm hit, but if she went up…
She hurried from the small graveyard and gasped as the wind whipped a spray of dust and leaves into her face. She shielded her eyes with one hand, turned away from the church and the path back down the mountain and followed the trail leading up the mountain. It wasn't too far, she knew, but it had been a very long time since anyone had passed that way.
The path was there, but overgrown and narrow, and it was impossible to move quickly.
The trees themselves seemed bent, leaning inward to block the way with new growth of slender, whip-like bows and green clinging leaves. The sun was all but gone, and the dark shadows of the storm crept just beyond her sight, darting from tree trunk to tree trunk and circling her feet when she glanced away.
Sarah's breath grew ragged.
She fought her way through increasingly thick vines. One of the ropy tendrils gripped her ankle and she lurched forward, tried to catch herself on a tree trunk, and missed. One moment she was placing her palm against the tree, and the next, it was a shadow—and she was falling.
The fall seemed to take forever.
Sarah saw the path approach at a skewed angle as the world turned on its side. The wind howled along the ground and sent a flurry of dust and debris across her vision. Within that maelstrom she saw forms move and reform. Her knee struck the ground hard and she cried out at the sharp pain. She rolled at the last second, caught shrubbery to one side of the trail with her hip and managed not to come down straight on anything that might snap.
The impact jarred her from her fog, and she struggled to all fours and gazed wildly up the trail. She still had a ways to go. The trail disappeared into what seemed to be an impenetrable maze of thorns and brambles. Leaves and small branches blew in gusts and whirling clouds that obscured what little there was to see of the path, and the darkness had grown complete. Slashing rain knifed through the overhanging branches and stung her neck and eyes, matting her hair to her skin, and the ground where her clutching fingers dug in for purchase ran with water and mud so that she sank in to her knuckles.
Sarah tried to rise. She pressed into the earth, felt it give some, and then hold. Her knees were damp through the material of her skirt, but the ground beneath her was firm. There was a tickling sensation along her chest, but she ignored it, thinking it was a rivulet of rain running down the neck of her dress. Sarah lifted one foot, planted it, and pressed herself up with a lurch she meant to bring her upright and send her stumbling up the path.
Something clamped around her neck, and as she pushed up from the trail, it held her down, suspended about two feet off the ground. She got to her knees, bent double and panicked, but whatever had her would not release its grip, and the pressure at the back of her neck threatened to send her sprawling once more. Her hands clutched at the air beneath her face and she found it. Her necklace, the equal armed cross, was caught on something. It had held her down, and the sound that erupted from her throat was near-hysterical laughter and relief. She leaned closer to the ground, feeling along the length of the chain toward the pendant to find whatever had caught it and set it free.
Except that she could not. There was something wound around it, a string, or a cord—a vine. Sarah whipped her head to the side to get the dripping locks of hair out of her eyes. She gripped the thing and tugged, but it wouldn't come free of the earth, and thorns tore into the soft flesh of her palms. She cried out again, and then bit back the sound. She didn't know who or what might be out there to hear her.
Under her breath, Sarah began to pray.
She worked at the necklace, then at the vine, sawing at the green ropy loop with the links of the chain, but making no progress.
She murmured her thanks to each of the archangels in turn through the shuddering sobs and the shaking, shivering spasms that the icy rain drove through her in waves. She spoke the ancient words carefully, and she worked the chain back and forth, fighting the urge to jerk back and away, to break free at all costs and flee back down the mountain to whatever fate awaited, as long as she could be off that wet, cold ground and free of the throbbing, biting pain at the back of her neck.
She spoke the final name and in that instant, a small light broke through the pines overhead. She saw the trail. Huge drops of rain splashed in the rushing torrent of water rolling down the trail. She saw the vine, snaking out from the trees at the side of the trail and wrapped round and round her chain, forming a cocoon of greenery around the equal armed cross. She saw other vines reach tentatively for her fingers, hoping to snare her as well.
And she remembered. Her mind cleared just long enough to remember that the chain was not whole. It had a clasp, and if she could get that loose, she could slide it free and put it back on. Then she would run and slide and scramble back to the old church, despite the cold and the wind and the rain, start a fire and huddle there until the sun and the daylight returned, or someone came looking for her.
She released the vine, and the light disappeared. Fumbling at the chain, she found the clasp behind her neck and in moments she had it free. She gave a soft grunt of satisfaction and started to pull back, reaching for the pendant as she did so.
Her wrists were grabbed roughly from behind and held there, over her head, as the chain and pendant dropped to the mud beneath her and washed slowly down the hill. The darkness dissipated slightly, but instead of the golden light of moments past, it was the deep yellow-green of thunderstorms, and the rain caught glistening droplets of that light and flung them to the ground all around her in sparkling circles.
She cried out as the grip on her wrists tightened. She was lifted to her knees in the mud. Water ran down her face and dripped from the grey strands of her hair.
Her body ached with the strain, and she blinked through the rain, trying to make out what was happening, to see, or to hear, who or what had her.
Beneath her, the pendant glinted in the odd light, caught for a moment on a branch, and then washed off down the trail, the chain sliding behind it like a tail.
And he was there. She didn't know at what point Silas Greene stepped in front of her, because her attention had been focused on the pendant. When she glanced up he stood before her, his face a dark, smiling mask of triumph and something she could not quite make out rising up and away from him. The shadows of overhead branches had detached themselves from the trees and come to light above his head as if he'd sprung branches of his own.
"Like antlers," she breathed. And she remembered. A huge shudder rippled through her frame, and her breath caught in her throat. "You," she choked on the word, but managed to spit it free.
"Yes," he agreed.
"And one other you may recall, though it has been many years. I think you'll remember her, Sarah.
I know she remembers you—you and that fool husband of yours. It's really too bad the boy isn't here—it would make such a party."
Sarah struggled. She fought at whatever held her wrists, but all her effort won her was a tightening of the bonds and more searing agony in her wrists, and then in her shoulders.
"What do you want?" she asked, knowing the answer but fighting for time. "What do you want from me?"
"I want nothing," he said with a quick shrug. "But I am not the only one involved here, am I Sarah? You may remember that my companion can grow—hungry."
There was an odd sloshing sound, and the pressure on Sarah's wrists and shoulders increased. She was lifted slowly, and the strain made it too painful to struggle. She cried out at the new pain, but Greene stood calmly watching her, as if she were no more to him than the leaves blowing about his feet. Sarah's vision blurred as the pain drove her toward darkness. As she faded she saw Silas Greene silhouetted against a huge horned shadow figure, at least three times his height, wrapping around him and moving with him like a shroud.
The light dimmed, and by the time Sarah's legs dangled helplessly in the air, and the rope-like roots that bound her began dragging her toward the trees, the shadows were complete.
Halfway down the trail toward the old stone church, the chain of Sarah's pendant had caught on a stone.
Water ran down and around it, splashing over the squared arms and the intricate, deeply carved design. Greene stopped as he passed it, glanced down, and watched for a moment as dirt and stones gathered around the glittering object, hiding it from the dim light. When it was no longer visible, he stepped on top of the grit and ground in the heel of his foot. Then, without a glance over his shoulder, he started down the mountain.
The second phone call was the same as the first. When Abraham lifted the receiver and held it to his ear, no one spoke.
"Who is this?" he asked, his voice sharper than he'd intended. He didn't want to alarm Kat any more than he already had, but the dream, and the confession afterward, had drained him.
He thought there was the sound of breathing at the other end of the line. He thought, maybe, that he heard traffic, trucks passing on a highway, but he couldn't be sure.
Then he heard the distinct click of the line disconnecting, followed by the dial tone.
Abe stared at the phone for a moment, frowned, and hung up. When he turned, Kat was staring at him.
"Well?" she asked.
"I don't know," he replied, sliding back onto the bed beside her. "There was no one there, or if there was, they weren't talking."
Kat shook her head.
"That was weird," she said at last. "We haven't gotten a crank call since we've lived here. Now you start having nightmares, your mother—who you haven't talked to in years—sends you a letter to ask you to come home, and we get two in one night?"
"Someone probably just got a number wrong on their bar napkin," Abe said distractedly.