Ancient Eyes Part 8

Henry's voice floated out from somewhere deep in the cabin.

"He said he'd be at the church come Sunday. He said he'd like to see you."

Harry stopped rocking and stood. He stepped off the porch and turned to stare up at the peaks far above. He couldn't see the church from where he stood, but he could see the peak above the cottage.

He turned back to the doorway and started to reply, then stopped himself. The boy inside wore Henry's face, but Harry didn't know him. He sat back down and closed his eyes. A flock of birds burst from the trees to his left and flew off in a rush.

Harry glanced over his shoulder and saw that his son was coming back out. The boy had a small bag of food tucked under one arm. Harry rose and stepped past his son. As the trees at the edge of the forest parted, he closed the door and slid the bolt into place. The sun was still high in the sky, but somehow the world had darkened.

SIXTEEN.

Silas stood in the shadows at the edge of the forest, just out of sight, and watched the repairs to the church. The roof had been repaired. New plywood had been hammered into place and covered carefully with tarpaper and s.h.i.+ngles. The walls were painted a semi-gloss white with dark, wood-stained sills and frames. The foundation had been wire-brushed, sealed and painted, and the steps leading up to the church in front were repaired. It was astonis.h.i.+ng how much work could be completed, and how quickly, when you labored through the day and night without rest.

The sun dipped behind the mountain, and the flow of workers in and out the doors of the building slowed. For the most part their work was conducted in silence, but now and then a man called out to another for help, or a signal was given for the next stage of some project to begin. It was Friday night, and they were very close to completing repairs. By Sunday every pew would be polished, the light would cast bright colored prisms over the floor and walls through the stained gla.s.s windows.

Silas stepped from the shadows and approached the church as the sun dipped the last few inches. He liked this moment of pure darkness between sunlight and moonlight. No one saw him coming, but several turned as he stepped from the shadows into the dimly lit yard. Their collective gaze weighed on him, but at the same time strength flowed from the ground at his feet and spiked down his spine from the shadow antlers soaring above his head.

They lined the walk, dark forms still as stone as he pa.s.sed. There were no words, but he felt their breath, the beat of their hearts, and drew it in. When his booted foot struck the bottom step leading up to the church, a bolt of energy lanced through him and drove into his groin like a spike. He arched his back. He heard their collective gasp as the motion swiped the branching, shadow antlers across the walk behind. He took the next step and spread his arms to brace himself on the doorframe.

Someone in the rear of the church started a generator, then another. Light flooded the church in a sudden blinding flash that flushed shadows from the corners and sprayed out through the sparkling new gla.s.s of the windows to bathe the forest to either side with brilliance. Silas crossed the threshold of the church and spun slowly. He felt the shadowed caress as the craggy horns brushed through wood planks and stretched up toward her face. His sight dimmed, then focused, and the light s.h.i.+fted subtly.

He saw the solid planks of the walls, the st.u.r.dy new frames of the windows, and the buffed gleam of the hardwood floor beneath his feet. He saw the stained wood beams crossing the ceiling and the chains of the chandeliers. Sconces lit the walls in patterns and circles, each falling just short of reaching the next.

Silas placed his palms flat on either side of the doorframe. He craned his neck until his gaze fell full on her face. The walls were translucent, webbed with strands and veins and crossed with deep green, glowing lines of power. They stretched thinner as they groped for the far end of the building, grew thick and powerful near the door and swept up.

Her eyes glinted deep in the alcove, and he caught that spark. Her hair rolled in thick, root-like waves, up to the ceiling; down and out to walls and floor, strand over strand it bound the building on levels beneath the surface. Silas held his gaze locked on that wooden countenance. His body s.h.i.+vered with the strain of the pose, but his hands held his weight. Like very thick syrup the wood parted. Silas' fingers sliced in and he gasped as the tips brushed the deep green hair and tapped into the glow.

He heard voices deep and low. The others had gathered outside the doorway and begun to chant. They pressed their palms to the walls, brushed their cheeks against the rough wood and leaned close. Women ground their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and hips into the wall. Men slid up and down against the coa.r.s.e planks. Their collective voice vibrated with energy.

Silas curled his fingers into the walls and closed his eyes. The sound of their voices was deep and rhythmic. It grew to the pulse and beat of a great heart. He balled his hands into fists and gripped the green strands of energy within the wall. He felt the pulse of energy flowing within, the transfer of life. It began at his booted feet and flowed upward slowly. His legs grew taut with heat and his groin swelled. He curled his arms like an athlete ready to chin-up on the wall, but he was a circuit, held fast to the earth by the growing current that washed through his chest and flashed to the tips of his fingers. His neck grew hot and he tried to throw back his head and scream.

The antlers had pressed into the wood as well as his hands, and they held fast. The walls pulsed and sent ripples rolling toward the rear of the building. Silas' mouth fell open, but no sound emerged. The chanting grew in strength until the sound nearly blocked all thought, and with a great arching lurch he released the impossible grip, deep in the wood, tore himself from the wall and staggered back between the pews.

There was an audible snap of energy. The chanting voices fell silent, and Silas heard the sound of bodies colliding, heard loud, keening cries of pain and surprise and low guttural curses. He ignored it all and fought for balance. The floor s.h.i.+fted beneath his feet like a restless wave and this time he stumbled forward. He caught himself on the end of one of the pews. His chest crashed into the solid wood, and he gripped it in a grotesque hug. The floor solidified, and he closed his eyes and fought for breath. When he opened his eyes again, the only light he saw was that of the sconces on the wall and the chain-shadow striped light of the dim chandeliers overhead. The walls were solid wood. He saw no trace of the veins beneath the surface, or the green glow.

Silas rose. His knees shook, but he felt strong and confident. He looked about the church slowly, searched each shadowed corner and scanned the pews. He was alone, and though he didn't glance up to where she watched from above, the other was silent.

"Holy s.h.i.+t," he said softly. "Holy Christ on a stick..."

He walked back to the door and stared out into the churchyard. They huddled around their vehicles and stared from the trees. Some gathered in small groups for security, others stood alone, shadowed and waiting. Silas scanned the grounds carefully, catching the gaze of every set of eyes at least once, holding, and then moving on. After a few moments of this, he stared straight ahead and raised his voice so they would all hear clearly.

"We will wors.h.i.+p on Sunday," he said. "You will all be here. The mark will call you. She will call you, and you will come. The pool is whole-there will be a cleansing."

He turned without waiting for a response, and strode down the center aisle of the church. He imagined that there was a boy seated in the pews to his left, cowering beside silent, austere parents, staring at his back and praying Silas would not turn around. Praying that he would not turn at the pulpit, smile down into frightened eyes, and beckon toward the baptismal pool behind him.

He did not stop at the pew. His legs had regained their strength, and his thoughts were clear and focused. He brushed aside the curtains that blocked the back room from sight and stepped through into the fluorescent lights and bubbling pumps of the baptistery.

The water in the baptismal pool sent glimmers of light to dance over the portions of the walls that weren't fronted by aquariums. These lined three levels of shelves and formed a semi-circle around the back of the pool; ten gallon tanks, 20 gallon, 55 gallon and even one 100 gallon tank stood in long, gleaming rows. The deliverymen had left them outside, stacked on pallets, and Silas directed their installation himself. The lower tanks were already filled to capacity, writhing and gleaming with silver and gold scales. Triangular heads rose from the ma.s.ses of coils to track his progress as he circled the room slowly. They didn't strike at the gla.s.s, as they would normally have done.

These were wild snakes. They weren't used to the proximity of humans or the gla.s.s prisons that held them. Their eyes were cold and devoid of emotion, but the buzz of rattles and the soft dance of serpentine tongues spoke eloquently enough.

"Yeah," Silas said softly, walking slowly past the tanks and brus.h.i.+ng his fingers lightly over the gla.s.s, "though I walk through the valley of death."

He turned his back on the snakes and stepped to the edge of the pool. The inside was painted a deep green that gave the water the appearance of the same color. Lights imbedded in the base glowed softly, globes of green light that clung like great spider's eggs to the base of the pool.

Silas stood for a long time staring into that clear, slowly swirling water. He felt pressure at the base of his neck, and he smiled. She wanted him to dip his head into her water. She hungered. He knew the danger, now more than ever, but she would have to wait. They would both have to wait. Sunday was soon enough.

The water sped slightly in its slow, circular motion, and he frowned. There was no mechanism for this, it was a natural occurrence-or unnatural. He didn't trust her, and he didn't trust the pool. He knew it too well for that.

Silas closed his eyes. The water's motion was irritating him, s.h.i.+fting through his thoughts. She was trying to seduce him into the pool. It didn't matter to her that she might have to wait another thousand years if she took him; she was hungry. He had to balance her need against the strength of the shadow that controlled him. He wasn't certain how he could know this, but he did.

Almost the second he closed his mind, his thought s.n.a.t.c.hed him away. He'd seen this pool before. He'd been one of the last to see it before it was broken. He'd walked the center of the aisle under Reverend Kotz's hot scrutiny, and now, after so many years, he understood what it was that had bothered him about the man's eyes. He knew why it seemed like Kotz was taller than his body indicated, and more powerful than his skinny frame should have allowed for. He felt the tingling weight of those dark, wooden eyes drill through to his heart, and he gasped at the memory. For the first time in his life, Silas Greene wondered who Reverend Kotz had really been, beneath the dark surface. A farmer? A sailor? Someone who happened to walk in out of the weather one day and got caught up in the spell of those black, black antlers, or charmed by that other's deep, wooden eyes and snared in the roping curls of hair?

Silas dropped to his knees before the pool, then slipped down beside it and turned. He pressed his back into the stone, dropped his head into his hands, and remembered.

The sun sliced through the church windows and crisscrossed the interior of the church with patterns of dust motes. Silas tried to watch Reverend Kotz attentively. He had seen what happened to those caught daydreaming. He squinted through the stripes of sunlight and focused on the tall, dark figure behind the pulpit.

His mother sat rigid beside him. She held her hands firmly planted in her lap, her knees pressed together and her feet drawn back so that they disappeared beneath the austere length of her skirt. On Sunday she tied her hair so tightly atop her head that it pulled the skin. She spoke slowly and carefully when it was time for the congregation to respond, sang in a subdued, melodic voice during the hymns, and never removed her gaze from Reverend Kotz. Sometimes Silas saw goose pimples on the back of her neck and knew she felt that other-that thing above the door-but she never looked at it.

No one looked at it but Reverend Kotz himself, and even he avoided eye contact most of the time-if you could have eye contact with a carved head. The Reverend's words droned sonorously through the church, reverberated off the wooden rafters and echoed from all corners at once. Silas had difficulty understanding the mixture of King James scripture and fiery rhetoric. He couldn't be certain, but at times there were other words. He heard them whispering along the edges of the room. They called out to him from shadows and rippled along the walls and ceiling.

Silas saw the church move the first time when he was three. He'd been seated beside his mother, fidgeting as the service continued interminably, when he saw the planks on the right hand side of the church, the wall he saw just over the curve of his mother's shoulder, stretch. There was no other way to describe it.

The wood planks were about a hand's span in width, tightly joined with tongue-and-groove slots. Silas's father had explained such construction over dinner more than once, and he'd shown Silas their own porch, where both roof and floor were built in the same manner. Tongue and groove was solid and permanent, two pieces of wood meshed and sealed, painted and strong.

Except that day the boards thinned. Silas watched, Reverend Kotz's voice s.h.i.+fted octaves, and the planks widened. The color lightened slowly from pure, bright white to a sickly green, and instead of being solid, Silas saw straight through to the center. He saw long ropes of something that glowed and pulsed. He saw thick strands like roots, stretching up, down, and out to the sides. He felt the room expand and contract, breathing, and in that instant his lungs synchronized with that rhythm. He couldn't get enough air into his lungs, and his skin was damp with sweat.

He rocked back and his head struck the wood of the pew. His mother turned slowly, her movements dream-like. She frowned at him, never moving her hands from her lap. Silas' body grew taut and he stared down at those hands. He saw her fingers knead the flesh of her thigh, saw her nails slide up and down the dark pleated skirt. Her back arched in the seat, and her body undulated, matching the pulsing beat of the walls. The floor trembled, and Silas dragged his gaze from his mother's hands. He leaned forward to stare at the floor beneath his feet, but he moved too quickly, or the floor jumped, or the walls bent inward like an accordion-or the pew leaped up to meet him.

He struck his head hard on the back of the wooden seat in front of him. Sparks ignited in his head and he cried out. Hands gripped his shoulders and his arms and lifted him, but his mind blanked and he fell back into darkness. As he pa.s.sed out, he heard the cry of the rooster, strutting in slow circles, one ruined wing dragging behind it and the blood of its opponent dripping from the spur on its leg. He heard Reverend Kotz's voice rise to a fevered chant. The words flowed so quickly from the man's lips that the air vibrated-or maybe that was the throbbing pain in his head?

Darkness claimed a portion of his life in those moments. Silas remembered hitting his head. He remembered being lifted. He remembered the roaring wash of sound, crested by Reverend Kotz's voice. The next thing he remembered was utter silence so dense you could run a finger through it and watch pieces cut from the fabric drop away. It was empty, bleak, and terrifying.

He opened his eyes and a brilliant flash of sunlight from one of the windows burned away his sight, leaving everything a fuzzy wash of silhouettes and dimly discernible shapes. He knelt on the hard floor, and at first he couldn't understand where he was. The pew should have been close enough in front of him to touch, and he looked in vain for any shape that might be his mother. He remembered his last sight of her, the motion of her hands, and her body, the way her thighs had pressed to the skirt and the deep, ragged heaving of her breath.

His head reeled. He closed his eyes, tilted his face to the floor, and opened them again more slowly. He saw the grain of the pine floor first. Dust swirled across the surface, visible in the beams of sunlight that lanced down from each window, then disappearing into the shadows between. The patterns of light and darkness made his eyes water, and he nearly closed them again-would have closed them again-except he knew where he was. In a flash of realization so sudden and absolute that the blood froze in his veins, he took in his surroundings and tried to gather the air into his lungs for a scream.

He managed only a quick puff of breath and a sound lost somewhere between a squeak and a wail. Footsteps approached from somewhere ahead of him. He turned his head to the left. He glanced up and found his father's emotionless, glazed eyes staring back at him. Beyond his father, he saw his mother, her hands still clenched in her lap, rocking up and back like the metronome old Dame Multinerry kept on top of her piano. Silas turned his gaze to the floor once more and found that two polished black boots now broke the even pattern of planks. He slowly ran his gaze up pleated pants legs and the tails of a dark jacket until Reverend Kotz's dark gaze snared him.

He saw the cold, calculated glare of the fighting c.o.c.k in those dark, endless eyes. Reverend Kotz's lips were pressed firmly together in a grim line. Silas s.h.i.+vered, and as he did so, something shook loose inside and he became aware of his body. Thudding, pounding pain crashed against the inside of his temples where he'd struck the pew. His balance was strange, canted forward, and he gaped, suddenly aware that his hands were between his legs, and of what he was doing. He felt the stiff heat and whipped his gaze upward once more.

"The Lord has called you, boy," Reverend Kotz boomed. "There is evil among us. It floats in the air. We breathe it in and it soaks out in our sweat. We take it in and it burns away our purity in its heat. I know you feel that heat, boy. You have it in your hand-it's soaking your s.h.i.+rt-I can see it swimming behind your eyes and watching me.

"Do you know why it watches me, boy?" Silas shook so hard his teeth rattled. He wanted to pull his hands away from his flesh. He wanted to bow his head to the floor, lay it beside the man's boots and pray for the moment to end. He wanted to feel the sunlight on his back, not in stripes through the high windows, but in warm, pleasant waves. He wanted his breathing to slow to normal and for those breaths to be sweet, fresh air.

Reverend Kotz bent suddenly and gripped Silas by the hair.

"The evil is in him," the Reverend intoned. "It has driven its spike into his heart and his mind, and claimed his flesh. We may be strong, but the evil is stronger. You cannot fight it brethren. You cannot ignore it. You cannot escape it. It brushes over you with the heat of a thousand tongues and whispers into your ears to deceive you, twisting everything away from the light."

A murmur of voices rose and s.h.i.+vered through the air. Silas couldn't make out the words, but he'd heard this sound before. He shuddered and pulled back hard, trying to yank his hair free of Reverend Kotz's grip. It didn't matter that they were all watching, that his parents would see and be angry and fear for his soul.

"Cleanse him." The voice was high-pitched, shooting at Silas from his right and behind. Whispered echoes floated around the room. Voices rose together to form a rhythmic chant. They swayed in their seats and as Silas looked around wild-eyed, they became a single flowing motion of bodies, arms raised and heads thrown back. Hats dropped to the floor, hair came unbound, and they pressed, one to the other and in toward the center aisle where he knelt. Their collective heads turned and their gaze fell full on Silas' young, trembling face. He knew they saw him clearly-the sweat coating his body and the way he gripped himself, the heat where he still stroked himself uncontrollably. They watched him squirm, and their voices rose in volume, almost drowning out Reverend Kotz's own impa.s.sioned plea.

"Cleanse him!" they cried. "The evil is in him, wash it away. The spirit is pure-cleanse the clay."

Over and over they repeated the words, some missing a beat and falling into the chant in the s.p.a.ces between beats, fles.h.i.+ng out the sound and driving it in waves that shook the rafters and rattled the gla.s.s in the windows far above. The sunbeams wavered with it-like heat waves rising from blistered stone, s.h.i.+mmering and blurring their vision.

Tears streamed down Silas' cheeks. He struggled like a fish on a hook, held easily in Reverend Kotz's iron grip. He rose when the Reverend lifted and stumbled to his feet. The room faded to a rainbow-hued dream. Everything he saw had a s.h.i.+mmering aura formed of bright sunlight and hot tears.

Reverend Kotz backed away down the aisle, and Silas stumbled after him. His scalp screamed in pain, but he could not free his hands from their labor, could not release himself long enough to ease the pain of being led by his hair. His tears dripped in a spotted trail toward the pulpit, and the chant, louder with every beat, drove him onward. The heat in his groin had grown maddening, but he couldn't form a clear thought. He knew it was wrong, that he should be thinking about-something-but he could not.

Then the weight of that glare hit him, the palpable sensation of twin beams of pure hatred drove in on either side of his spine and he arched. His knees grew weak and the heat flowed out and down. Reverend Kotz lurched backward and pulled Silas through the curtained arch toward the room beyond the pulpit. Toward the pool.

The chant of "Cleanse the clay" roared in his ears, or maybe just his pulse, hot blood pumping too fast. He heaved in gulps of air, but he couldn't catch a full breath. The curtains closed behind the two of them, m.u.f.fling the sound and weakening the weight on his shoulders, but all this did was focus the pain in his scalp as he was dragged forward against the wall of the baptismal pool.

He slammed his eyes closed and pressed his hands, which had swung worthlessly at his sides since the heat in his groin released, into the pool wall. He tried to press himself back and away, but Reverend Kotz held him easily.

"It is our way, boy," the man said softly. "It is her way."

Another voice intruded. Silas tried to concentrate on Reverend Kotz's words. He knew they were important. He knew he should remember, that if he survived the next few minutes he would need them-the words and the knowledge behind them, but he couldn't concentrate. Someone, or something, hissed loudly in his ear and he shook his head from side to side, even as Reverend Kotz pressed down on the back of his head and forced him toward the pool. Silas s.h.i.+fted, and the world s.h.i.+fted with him. He screamed.

Silas sat bolt upright. He glanced down and saw that he still sat with his back to the baptismal pool. He heard the hiss again, very close, and he frowned. He glanced slowly around. They were everywhere. The floor was alive with writhing, serpentine bodies. Rattles whirred, and smooth scales slid over one another, over his arms and legs. They had wrapped about him and adorned him. His head bowed slightly and he lifted it, aware of the added shadow-weight and carrying it easily.

Silas didn't panic. He rose slowly, keeping the serpents twined about his arms and allowing them to slide in and around his legs. He turned and stared at his reflection in the pool, a modern-day Medusa with serpents dangling from every limb and curling down over his collar like hair.

He threw back his head and laughed. The sound echoed off the walls and down the aisle between the pews. It shot out the open door into the darkness beyond and echoed off the hills.

Silas lowered his head, shook it back and forth in disbelief, and then smiled at his reflection. He winked at himself and said softly.

"I remember."

As if on cue, the generator that had powered the lights sputtered, low on gas, then died. The church and baptistery dissolved into silent shadows.

SEVENTEEN.

Harry George picked his way slowly up the trail. It had been many long years, and though he knew that the act of climbing was part of the faith, and that he should trust in the mountain to lift him and bear his weight, he struggled. His breath was ragged, and sweat coated his body. He held a cut branch in one hand as a walking stick, and he leaned on it heavily.

As he climbed, he remembered. The final march down this trail had drained something from him, and he fought to get it back. He thought of the others who had climbed with him that night. He remembered Jonathan Carlson's furrowed brow as he heard their pleas. He remembered the boy, as well, and remembered how they had forsaken him after his father's death. The flood of memories was dark and deep and he had to concentrate on putting one foot before the other to prevent a misstep that would send him tumbling back down the mountain. There were others he would have to see. He didn't expect to sleep under his own roof until it was done. They would come, at least some of them, but they would have to be approached one by one. He would have to remind them of their duty. He smiled ruefully as that word slid through his thoughts. It was such a tricky thing, duty, sneaking up on a man in the twilight of his life to bear down on tired shoulders with its full weight. As a younger man, filled with fire and outrage, this climb had taken an eternity. Nothing happened quickly enough. Now he stumbled up the mountain, bent by years and stooped from carrying his guilt through most of them, and the climb took an eternity. He paused about halfway up to the old church and sat heavily on a large outcrop of stone. It was hot, but the trees blocked most of the sun. Harry took out his canteen and tipped it, letting the still cool water run down his throat and splas.h.i.+ng a bit onto his forehead to trickle over his face and under his collar.

He saw the sky through a pattern of tree trunks and limbs, blue and white backdrop to nature's line drawing. He blinked. The lines formed by the trees were familiar, and he frowned. He tilted his head slightly, searching for perspective, and the memory flashed into view.

Sarah Carlson's hands were slender, her fingers long and deft. She shuffled what appeared to be a small pile of sticks before her rapidly and spoke softly under her breath. Harry craned his neck to watch her flying fingers. Others were gathered, as well, and he had to lean in over young Ed Murphy's shoulder to see. None of them could make out what she was saying.

They were gathered in the small stone cottage, far up the mountain. Reverend Carlson sat beside his wife on the floor, and the others gathered around. Abraham sat huddled in one corner of the room, near the fireplace, and watched with wide eyes. The room held more bodies than it had been designed to hold. The air was hot and sticky, and everyone except Sarah Carlson felt it. Their faces ran with sweat. Their hearts raced.

They weren't sticks, Harry knew. They were Yarrow stalks. He knew because he and two others of the elders had gathered them, fifty in all, careful to make them even in length and to dry them in the sun. Sarah's instructions were exacting, and strange. Even as Harry had plucked the flowers from the earth and carefully cut the stalks, he'd prayed. This was not his way-it was not the way of the mountain, or of the church.

Sarah placed the first of the stalks on the floor in front of her. She split the remainder into two piles. She placed the pile in her right hand on the floor and plucked a single stalk from it, placing this between two fingers of her left hand. Then it began, so rapidly that none of them were able to follow her movements. The counting was precise; sometimes in fours, sometimes in fives, and each time another small pile of Yarrow wands crossing those that had been counted before, until all were accounted for in a single stack. Sarah stared at them for a moment, scratched a broken line onto the paper at her side, and continued. She gathered the entire pile of fifty wands up and started again.

She completed the process six times. Each time she scratched either a solid or broken line on the paper at her side. When she was finished, she tied the bundle of yarrow together reverently and handed them to Jonathan, who took them without comment. Up until that moment, the rest of them might not have existed. They stood and waited, and Sarah glanced up, catching first one set of eyes, and then another. She rose in a fluid motion, gripping the paper in her right hand.

"Hsi K'an," she said simply. They blinked at her without comprehension, and she held up the diagram she'd drawn. "The symbol is Hsi K'an," she repeated. "It is a water symbol, a symbol of containment and control." There was no reaction at first, but then heads nodded slowly and reluctantly.

"There is danger," Sarah continued. "Great danger, both spiritual and physical. There will be things revealed in this endeavor that, perhaps, you will not want to know. This will not come without cost."

More nods, and the nervous shuffle of feet. Nothing she told them was new. She repeated their own thoughts, their own fears, and they wanted to move on. In their minds, the course of action was already clear. Only their respect for Jonathan Carlson had gathered them into this small s.p.a.ce to listen, and even he couldn't make them understand.

"There are two parts to the symbol," Sarah continued, unperturbed. "The first is the base. This is K'an, a pit-evil-a darkness or an emptiness. The second, the top, symbolizes patience. Practice. It is a symbol a.s.sociated with rituals and faith."

Impatient murmurs fluttered about the room like trapped moths, looking for an escape from the light that had so tempted them a few moments before. They did not want to hear the word patience. Faith was fine, but faith backed by action, not by words, or even prayer.

"The sooner you confront this evil," Sarah said flatly, "the less chance you have for success. The rituals must be perfect. The motive behind the action must remain pure. You must be thorough and ruthless. If you do not cut this thing from the mountain and cast it out, it will grow again. Every time it is reborn, it will grow in strength."

"We can't wait," a voice whispered from the back of the cottage. "They are taking our children."

Sarah closed her eyes and had to control herself as her fingers gripped the paper in her hand too tightly. It crumpled, and her hand shook. She regained control and faced them, scanning the group with her eyes.

"Your children will not be safer if you become a part of what you seek to destroy," she told them. "If you do this thing, it must be done perfectly. You may not feel the return in your lifetimes, but your children will feel it, and their children as well."

"Let there be cleansing," another voice murmured. "Whatever the cost, let there be cleansing, and let there be peace."

"Bring back our children," another cut in.

A third whispered "Amen" and the word echoed about the cottage and seemed to drop and catch in Sarah's hair, fluttering like a trapped insect.

"The only way to accomplish this is containment," Sarah said, her voice soft. "That place will never be truly cleansed, but it can be buried. It can be burned. It can be cleansed from the surface and warded against return."

A small, florid-faced man stepped from the crowd suddenly and s.n.a.t.c.hed the paper from Sarah's hand. Before anyone else in the room could move, or speak, he crumpled it between the palms of his hand. Then he realized the impermanence of this action. He unfolded it, tore it in two, then doubled these over and repeated the action until the pieces were too small to be torn again. He released them to flutter down at Sarah's feet.

Jonathan was at his wife's side, his arm protectively between them.

"Jasper," Jonathan said.

"No." Jasper Cromwell spat the words between clenched teeth. His eyes blazed and his features were contorted into a mask of sudden and unbridled fury.

"This is not our way," he said. "This is not G.o.d's way. This. . ." he gestured at the shreds of paper at his feet, and at the bundle of yarrow wands still clutched in Jonathan's free hand, "stinks of the very thing we speak of doing battle with."