Of all the pain and flames he had witnessed that night, all of the things he was not supposed to have seen, but could not have been kept from, in the end, it was that face that had etched itself in his mind. He recalled Reverend Kotz's wild-eyed glare and the screams, so many screams that he'd never been able to sort them by voice or person, but none of that was as clear as that carved wooden face with its ropy hair.
"I should have burned it," he said softly, repeating the words like a mantra. "
We
should have burned it and carried the ashes to the corners of the forest, thrown them into the sea, anything but what we did. We should never have walked away."
He stirred the coals to life once more, and this time when he went to the cot he laid flat on his back, draped one arm over his eyes, and slept. With the windows and doors sealed against what remained of the night, the small fire warmed the air.
Tiny flickers of firelight caught in the geode lens in the ceiling and sent tiny sparkles rippling over the walls, but he did not see them.
There were no more dreams.
The tiny cottage grew to huge proportions with Abe gone. Katrina sat in the chair where he had sat so many times and stared out over the beach. The sun was setting over the waves, a sight they usually shared, and it blurred into a surreal wash of fuzzy color as tears welled in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She made no attempt to brush them aside.
Before sitting down she'd locked the doors and checked the latches on every window in the house. The phone was back on the hook, and she stared at it off and on.
Prior to the calls that had started so recently, she'd been unaware of it.
There were infrequent calls from Abe's agent, or from a few editors.
They had few friends, and their families were equally unlikely to call. Now it lurked in the background. She turned now and then, caught the telephone table out of the corner of her eye, and started, as if it might suddenly spring to life.
Her coffee sat cold on the table beside her, and to the left of that her book lay open and face down. The spaghetti she'd made for her supper lay cold and hardening on the plate. She hadn't been able to do more than pick at it, and noodles crusted the edge of the pan on the stove.
She was frightened. She didn't know why. No one had spoken to her any of the times she'd answered the phone, and it had been hours since it had last rung. No one had knocked on the door, and though she watched the beach carefully, she hadn't seen a soul. There weren't many lights nearby, and as the sun failed, the sense of isolation deepened. It was warm, but she wrapped herself in one of Abe's flannel shirts and shivered.
The worst was that he hadn't told her everything.
Despite all of the promises, he had taken off without a word, and she didn't know why.
She knew where, or she was pretty certain that she did, but Katrina couldn't think of a reason in the world why going home to help his mother should be such a secret. Or why the phone ringing should freeze her blood. Or why sitting in the cottage they'd shared for so long, which always made her feel warm and welcome, suddenly felt disjointed and wrong.
The silence was too much. She stood, walked to the stereo, and flipped on the local rock station. With a soft backdrop of sound, she paced the main room of the apartment. There had to be something more he'd left, or something more that she could do. There had to be something she had missed, or forgotten, something that was implied or that she should infer from the stories Abe had told her.
There were only two explanations, at the root of it.
Her insecure side believed that Abe had just gone.
She had never had anyone love her as he did, and the thought that it was an illusion, and that he was really just like all the others she'd met in her life hovered in the back of her mind and haunted her thoughts. She'd fallen prey to such stories and fabrications before, and each time a bigger and more important slice of her heart was cut away. If Abe had lied to her, and this was just his idea of "goodbye," then he was the worst of the lot—too cowardly even to face her with the decision.
The stronger half of her believed Abe was in trouble, and that he only intended to shield her from it by leaving her behind. She knew that his main line of defense in any given situation was to suppress his emotions. Abe almost never spoke in anger. He had soothed her through many long nights of fear and hurt, but he had never shown the same depth of emotion in regard to his own life—until now.
She remembered his eyes when he'd come out of the last nightmare and the way he'd lurched for the telephone, as if allowing her to answer it might usher in something he couldn't protect her from. That was the bottom line of the whole thing. Abe was ignoring whatever danger or pain he faced and using his love for her to distract himself from it. He was afraid he couldn't shield her from his past, so he'd fled into it and left her to wait for him to sort it out.
Kat grabbed a sheet of paper off the computer printer and a pen. She turned on the stove and re-heated the kettle of water, then poured out the dregs of cold coffee and rinsed her cup.
Sitting around would drive her insane; it was time to take some action of her own. Abe wasn't the only one with something—and someone—to protect.
When the coffee water was boiling, she flipped off the burner and poured a tall cup of hot water.
She mixed in the strong, European instant coffee Abe always kept on hand and went back to her seat. She didn't know much, but maybe she knew enough to find a way to help. Anything was better than sitting and staring at the telephone, wondering who was heavy-breathing at the other end, or watching the windows for some horror-movie freak to plaster his face to the glass with Abe's head held high in one hand.
Sipping the coffee, she went over the facts she knew in her mind. She was a good listener, and if she closed her eyes, she could almost hear Abe's voice telling his story again.
His family lived on a mountain.
The mountain wasn't that far away, and there was a town—Friendly? Yes, Friendly California.
She wrote this on the paper and continued to sift through her thoughts.
She couldn't remember the name of the general store, but she remembered that Abe had said it was the only place on the mountain that had a phone. Finding the name of that store would be a good start.
If she could do that, she could get a phone number, and if she could get directions, she could follow Abe up the mountain. She didn't know where to go when she got there, but surely the man who ran the store could help her.
If everyone up there knew everyone else, it should be a simple thing to find someone—anyone—who could tell her where Abe's mother lived and help her find him. She knew he'd be upset if she followed, but it was better than being a raving lunatic waiting for him to return.
The room felt less empty now that she had formed something of a plan. It had felt like an ending, but Katrina shifted it to a beginning. She wrote down all of the names and descriptions she remembered from Abe's story.
Next she carried the phone over to her makeshift desk and dialed information. She knew it wasn't going to be easy to track down the number she needed without a city to reference the store to, but it was possible that it would be listed under Friendly, since that was the only town on the mountain.
After a moment, a friendly voice answered, asked her what city and area code she needed, and Katrina began. The sun was long gone beyond the horizon, but the moon was bright and nearly full. As she waited, she tapped her pen on the paper and stared at the silver-crested waves beyond the beach.
The pleasant young operator informed her that there was, indeed, a single listing in Friendly California for a General Store.
"It's called 'Greene's General Store,'" the girl informed her.
"There are only about a dozen phones in Friendly, and half of those belong to county officials.
Greene's is the only store."
Katrina thanked the girl and jotted down the number and the address. One step closer. She sat and stared at the phone for a while, gathered her courage, then lifted the receiver and dialed the number. The ring echoed. The connection had a tinny quality, and there was no answer.
She let it ring ten times, hoping for an answering machine, but there was nothing. She hung up and rose.
Her suitcase was tucked up in the back of the shelf on top of the closet. It was small. Katrina had left her old life behind in a very literal sense. Most of her clothing, all of the furniture accumulated over a five year marriage, all of her books and papers, everything—presumably—had ended up in the garbage, or a Goodwill store.
The sight of her bag dredged up memories, and she placed it on the edge of the bed carefully. It would hold enough for a few days, but if she stayed on the mountain longer than that, she'd have to find more clothes. One glance at the closet was enough to show how things had begun to come back together. She had a lot of clothes now, nice things that she'd bought, and that Abe had bought for her.
Danny, her ex-husband, hadn't been one to spend money on anyone but himself. She'd had plenty to wear, but mostly because she could still fit into clothes she'd owned in high school, and they hadn't all worn out.
Even the small suitcase was the same she'd left home with after high school.
Now she was taking off again.
This time, though, she wasn't going to run away from anyone, or anything. This time she was going to run
to
someone, and once she was close enough to grab him, he wasn't getting back out of her sight until things were back to normal and they could both return together.
There was a lot to accomplish. She ran down the list in her mind. They had plenty of money to cover a few months' utilities. She would have to put a hold on the mail—she could do that when the mail carrier arrived the next morning.
She packed quickly and efficiently.
The bag held more than she remembered, and she chose sturdy, outdoor clothes, t-shirts and blue jeans. She had a pair of boots that Abe had insisted she buy for hill climbing, and she tucked another of his flannel shirts in on top for extra warmth—and comfort. She had a second bag, much smaller, that held her few cosmetics and necessities.
She returned to her list and wrote down a few names. One was Abe's agent.
Another was the shelter in San Valencez where she worked part-time as a counselor, the first steps at recovering her lost direction and career.
She added the name of their nearest neighbor. She didn't know what she would tell them when she called, but she didn't want to leave everything as Abe had done.
If she intended to help him, one way to do that would be to make certain he had something stable to come back to.
There wasn't anything left that she could think of to do, so she carried the bags to the front door, then returned to the bedroom and slipped into bed to try and get some rest. She had a lot to accomplish in the morning before she could head off up the mountain, and she wanted her wits about her. She was thrilled to be doing something, though it terrified her. With the lights out, and Abe gone, the empty house regained its sinister aspect. Katrina pulled the blankets up around her ears and burrowed into the warmth of Abe's pillow.
It was a long time before she managed to sleep.
Katrina almost missed the turnoff that led up the mountain. There was a sign that said Friendly, 23 miles, but it was faded and tucked in behind a wild growth of shrubs. She pulled to the side of the road and parked just off the pavement.
She had a Styrofoam cooler with sandwiches and bottled water in the back seat with her bags. The water was cold, and she drank gratefully. The old car hadn't had air conditioning for years—not since she'd owned it, in fact—and the day was blisteringly hot. She hoped it wouldn't overheat, but if it did, she had also thought to bring a couple of gallon milk jugs full of water.
When the bottle was empty, she slid back in behind the wheel and turned off the highway and up into the mountains.
The road wound steadily upward, but it twisted around rocky outcroppings and huge, immovable boulders. It was impossible to get up any speed with all the turns. Katrina gritted her teeth and concentrated on the road. There were some hairpin turns and apparently it had never occurred to whoever had build these roads that guard rails might be a good idea.
As the highway below dropped out of sight, she felt a subtle shift. It wasn't a thing she could explain, but the further up the mountain she drove, the more out-of-place and detached she felt. The trees to either side of the road were no different than any other trees she'd seen, and the road itself, while not well tended, was much like a thousand other country roads she'd driven and ridden over in her life. This was different.
She lost the San Valencez radio station about fifteen minutes off the main road, and no matter how she turned and twisted the dial, she couldn't get anything else to come in.
The mountain blocked most of the larger cities, and some oddity in the stone had apparently rendered reception difficult.
She drove in silence with the windows down, and that silence grew until it flowed around her.
Twice she caught herself gripping the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles went bloodless and white. More than once she caught movement in the shadowed spaces between trees, but when she turned to look, or stopped to get her bearings, there was nothing but sunlight filtering through the upper branches and the road itself, stretching up and away.
It was nearly noon when she saw the fork ahead.