Part 2 (1/2)

The moon's radiance was dying away, and he knew that before long dawn would kiss the skyline. Something was in the air. The dreams had left him alone for more than a year, and they had been fading in intensity even before that. The longer he spent away from the mountain, the less real it all became, and the less his past invaded his sleep and his life. Until this last dream he had hoped they would disappear entirely.

Somehow this nightmare was different. The dreams had never been so real or powerful in the past. He still saw those eyes, and if he stared too long at the vast expanse of white sand on the beach below, he saw the opaque lens and the dark things moving beyond it.

He grabbed the leather thong that hung around his neck and drew out the medallion he'd worn since childhood. Staring at it in the dim light, it caught a wink from the moon and glistened in his hand. The dark lines of the equal-armed cross ran like liquid ebony around and through the design. The same design he'd cut into his hand in the dream. The skin of his palm ached as he thought of it, and he clasped the pendant tightly, feeling it press exactly where its phantom twin had been carved. He almost expected to feel the drip of fresh blood.

Light footsteps sounded in the hall. He didn't turn, but moments later, Kat was there, her hands light on his shoulders. He saw her reflected in the window, slender with long legs, long dark hair and dark brown eyes that showed up black in her reflection. She wore only a long t-s.h.i.+rt and he reached back to stroke her thigh, running his palm up a little way beneath the soft cotton to give her a gentle squeeze.

”What's wrong?” she asked softly.

”Nothing,” he replied, not sure if he was lying. ”I had a bad dream, is all. I couldn't sleep, and I didn't want to wake you, so I came out to watch the waves for a while.”

The red hint of dawn licked at the edges of the horizon. Katrina leaned close and kissed his neck, letting her hair fall over his shoulder and tickle his cheek.

”What was the dream?” she asked.

Abraham stared out over the ocean, thinking. ”It was an old nightmare,” he said at last. ”One I thought I'd left far behind me. I'd rather not talk about it now, but I'll tell you.”

”No secrets,” she said.

The words had the ring of a mantra, a statement that she only half-believed, and Abraham felt a pang of guilt. Katrina had come to him fresh from bad years, and it wasn't always easy for her to believe how much she meant to him.

”No secrets,” he agreed. ”I promised that long ago. I'll tell you, I'm just not quite ready to revisit it. I guess I'm afraid if I start talking about the bad memories and thinking about them that this won't be the last of the nightmares. I don't know if I'm ready to wake that dragon all the way.”

She kissed him again, satisfied, and turned toward the kitchen.

”I'll make coffee.”

He glanced down at the beach, but the rising sun had banished all hint of symbols and shadows, and suddenly the nightmare, and the fear it had brought seemed almost silly. He rose decisively.

”I'm going to go down for a run,” he called over his shoulder.

He changed into shorts and an old battered t-s.h.i.+rt and stretched carefully, loosening the muscles and tendons in his legs. Kat came back into the room with a steaming cup of coffee in her hand. She sipped and watched him quietly. ”Careful,” she said somberly. ”Don't tear anything important.” Abraham grinned, rose to his feet, kissed her on the cheek, and slipped out the door.

The morning sun was just starting to tease heat from the sand in soft waves, and the morning breeze was cool, blowing in off the waves. Abraham started off slowly down the access path to the beach. He would keep the slower pace for the first half mile or so, then, when he was loose and on the open sand, he'd push it for a couple of miles and then turn back.

The beach never lost its magic for him. In all the years of his childhood, the times he remembered best were the few trips down from the mountain with his father, seeing the ocean for the first time and feeling the tug at his heart as waves crashed up over huge damp stones and lapped at the endless sand of the beach. Now it was all so much a part of him that the idea of living isolated on a mountain seemed alien and surreal.

By the time he hit the damp, hard packed sand near the water and turned up the beach, all thoughts of white stone faces and b.l.o.o.d.y symbols had faded to the haze in the back of his mind.

Katrina heard the familiar chug of the small mail truck drawing up to the end of their drive, and she stepped onto the porch with a smile. She shaded her eyes against the sun and saw the young woman who delivered their mail wave as she ducked back into her truck and headed down the feeder road, hitting each cottage in its turn and winding back out toward the coast road back into San Valencez. Katrina left her coffee on the small wicker table on the porch and walked lazily out to the mailbox.

She knew Abe was expecting several payments. His work as a photographer, and the articles he wrote for outdoor and travel magazines brought in a steady, if erratic income.

The sand was warm, and the paving stones that formed their walk were just plain hot. Kat danced to the side and felt the warmth of the sand press up between her toes. She loved this place. The solitude, the ocean, and Abraham had begun to return to her what ten years of abusive marriage had all but beaten out. Even the simplicity of sensation provided by walking barefoot in the sand helped to magnify the pleasure of it.

Her own background was in counseling, and from the isolation of the beach house, and the warmth of Abraham's love, she often looked back over the years in stupefied horror. How could she have gone on helping others, or thinking that she was helping others, when every part of her own mind, body and soul had been so broken and scarred?

She opened the old metal mailbox, smiling at the large happy face Abe had painted on the side. She was tempted, as always, to take a pen and draw in a bullet hole, but she satisfied herself with pulling out a small pile of envelopes and shaking her head.

She walked back toward the house, shuffling through the mail slowly. There were two that were obviously either requests for articles, or payments. There was one from the lady in New Jersey that Abe continued to stubbornly refer to as his ”agent,” though the woman had done nothing for his career, as far as Katrina could see, except to provide him with rejections for the one novel he'd written more quickly than he'd been able to collect them without her.

The last envelope was small, dingy, and yellow. The printing was neat and bold, and there was no return address. She stopped to examine it, and a sudden gust of wind kicked sand up in a quick swirl around her ankles. Her hair lifted, tickling her arm and shoulder, but she paid no attention. Something about the envelope filled her with an apprehension she couldn't explain, and she was tempted to take it back to the mailbox, or to chase down the mail truck and slip it into a crack in the back where it could be lost. The envelope was sealed with wax-something she'd not seen more than once or twice in her life, and the wax bore an odd symbol.

She was still standing hesitantly at the end of the walk when Abe's voice cut cheerfully through the morning air.

”What's that you've got, pretty lady?” he asked, stopping a few feet away and leaning on the porch rail in mock fatigue.

Katrina glanced up, knowing she looked like a child with her hand caught in a candy jar. That knowledge only served to magnify her sudden embarra.s.sment, and the nagging fear brought on by the envelope in her hand. She started to hide it from him, caught herself, and stared down at her hand. What was wrong with her?

”Just the mail,” she said at last. Her voice sounded very small and quiet in the odd moment of silence.

Abe was at her side in seconds. He took the papers from her hand without even glancing at them and tossed them over the porch rail onto the wicker table.

”What's wrong?” he asked. When she didn't answer, he tilted her chin up so that she was forced to meet his eyes and repeated the question softly.

”Nothing,” she said. ”I don't know. Nothing. There's a letter...” she waved at where he'd tossed the mail, and Abe glanced over at it as if seeing it for the first time.

She fell into his arms and laid her head on his shoulder, where he couldn't see her eyes.

Abe held her for a while, letting the sun bake them both. She smelled his sweat and felt the strength of his arms and the sudden fear melted away. Finally she squirmed free.

Abe stepped onto the porch without a word and flipped through the mail. As usual, he tossed the payments aside first, unopened. He held the other two in his hand. Any other day, whatever else had arrived would take a back seat to the ever-important correspondence from New Jersey, but the sight of the small, yellowed envelope and its odd seal had brought him up short. Very gently, he placed the letter from his agent on the table and then stood silently and stared at the yellow envelope with a frown creasing his brow.

When he glanced up he saw that she'd been holding her breath and watching him watch the envelope. Abe shook his head and stepped back off the porch and into the light.

”What is it?” she asked.

He started to answer, stopped, glanced down at the envelope again, and then shook his head. ”I don't know. It's from back home, but there's something ...”

He seemed unable to finish the thought, so she did it for him. ”Wrong. There's something wrong with it, Abe. I felt it too.” He shook his head again, almost angrily, and yanked the flap of the envelope open. He drew out a small piece of paper and read it quickly. His face flushed, and his hand trembled. Kat saw that there was something large and dark at the bottom of the note, but she couldn't make out the words.

”What is it?” she repeated.

At first she thought he wouldn't tell her. He gripped the note so tightly his knuckles went white, and his arm shook. Then he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and simply held the note out to her.

She hesitated, but only for a second. Stepping forward, she slipped the paper out of his hand and read quickly. It was written in neat, simple script. Very short.

”He's back, boy. Come home.”

There was no signature. At the bottom of the page was a hideous black squiggle, surrounded by the solid lines of an equal-armed cross. Katrina gasped, stepped forward, and before Abe could pull back, she gripped the leather thong around his neck and slid the medallion from beneath his s.h.i.+rt. It glistened in the sunlight, wet with perspiration and warm to the touch.

Kat held the paper alongside it. The design was the same without the dark swirling mark beneath. She twisted her hand into the thong and pulled it tight, nearly choking him.

”What is it?” she asked. Her voice was tight now, fierce.

Abe gently broke free and tugged her hand from the medallion. He held her hand and then stared off over her shoulder for what seemed an eternity, gazing toward the mountains in the east. Then he spoke softly.