Part 9 (1/2)
There were murmurs of a.s.sent from the rear of the room, but no one else stepped forward.
”We can't stand by and watch our mountain rot out from under us,” Jasper concluded. ”We know what has to be done, Reverend, and so do you. She,” he pointed at Sarah again, ”should be out of it. Just by her being here you have jeopardized all that we stand for, all that our ancestors have built and believed.”
Jonathan cut him off. ”Are you trying to tell me, Jasper, that you know the ways of my church better than I? Are you ready to step forward? The pulpit belongs to only one, and he is chosen. I am chosen. Do you dispute that choice?”
”Now, Jonathan,” Jasper began, backing away slightly.
”I asked you a question.” Jonathan's voice was hard and powerful. The crowd shrank back toward the walls, and the door. Jasper backpedaled so fast he nearly toppled; only the supporting hands of those behind him kept him from careening through the door and out into the night. A sudden flash of light illumined the small room, moonlight refracted through the crystal lens in the ceiling. The light caught Jonathan's face clearly. He was furious, but contained; emotion rippled across his features and threatened to crash down on the gathering like thunder.
”N..no.” Jasper whispered. ”G.o.d no, Jonathan. I...”
There were no further words. Jasper spun on his heel and raced for the door, cras.h.i.+ng through those behind him and knocking several of them off their feet. Some of those who remained returned Jonathan's stare evenly, but they held their tongues and filed out the door into the darkness.
Harry George and Ed Murphy were the last to go. Ed stood with one foot in and one out of the cottage, and glanced back over his shoulder. ”It's nothin' personal, Jonathan,” he said, trying to find words that wouldn't sound like what they were. ”She isn't one of us. This...” he waved his hand at the floor, where Sarah had sat with her yarrow wands and where the shredded bits of paper still remained, ”isn't a part of us. It doesn't belong on the mountain.”
He didn't say that Sarah did not belong on the mountain, but the implication hung heavy in the air. Harry didn't meet Jonathan's gaze as he pa.s.sed through and out of the cottage, but he felt that gaze bore through his shoulder blades and into his heart.
Harry blinked and stared at the trees. The hexagram he'd seen, formed of tall, soaring pine trees, was gone. All but the ache of remembered pain fled with it.
He stood and turned back up the trail. The day was nearly half over. It took him longer to get anywhere now, but he knew he was lucky he could make such a climb at all at his age, so he didn't complain-not even to himself. He concentrated on watching the trail, which was overgrown and rough, and on what lay ahead.
The sun bore straight down on the mountain as Harry approached the stone chapel. The door was closed, and he saw marks in the ground outside where someone had used a rake. The grounds were clean. The walk leading around to the rear of the chapel had been cleared of vines and weeded carefully.
He tried the door, and it opened easily. Harry stepped inside and scanned the chapel in surprise. It was very clean. The pews stood in orderly rows, and the dust had been swept from the floor. The windows were open, allowing a small breeze to wash through and freshen the air.
Harry turned in a slow circle. The chapel was just as he remembered it. It was as if he'd been yanked back through time, and tears rolled suddenly and unexpectedly from his eyes. He thought that if he closed his eyes, he'd hear Jonathan Carlson's voice, soft and melodic, leading him in a prayer. Instead, he kept his eyes open wide and spoke the words himself, words that hadn't pa.s.sed his lips in over a decade.
”May the Lord keep and guard this place,” he whispered at last.
”May the mountain kiss Heaven and bring her blessing upon us all. Amen.”
Abraham's words followed so perfectly after his own that it was a moment before they registered. Harry leaped back, nearly collided with the wall, and spun, his eyes wide.
Abraham stepped forward and grabbed Harry by the arm to steady him.
”Easy,” he said with a grin. ”That wall isn't very forgiving.”
Harry stood very still and stared at Abraham. It had been a lot of years since he'd seen the boy, and they'd been kind. Abraham was a little taller than his father had been, and much younger, but you could see Jonathan in the smile, and hear the echo of his voice when Abraham spoke.
”You look like you've seen a ghost,” Abe commented, stepping back. Harry stared a moment longer, then managed to get his mouth moving. ”I'm sorry, son,” he said. ”You look enough like your father to be a ghost. You gave me quite a start.”
”Sorry about that,” Abe was still smiling. ”I couldn't resist. I heard your words, and the others came to me. I don't know if I could have kept them from coming, even if I'd tried.”
Harry waved it off. He turned and swept his gaze over the church again. ”You've been working hard,” he said. ”I was up here a few years back. The door was loose, and there was enough dust here to choke a mule.”
”Most of that is in my hair and on my clothes,” Abraham laughed. ”I've been expecting to see you. I saw Henry on the trail yesterday.”
Harry's smile vanished. ”He told me.” The silence hung untouched for a moment, then Abe spoke again. ”He wouldn't let me see his forehead, Harry.” Harry nodded. ”He has the mark. A lot of them do. I locked myself in the barn that night. We have a hex sign painted over the door. It's old, and the colors are faded so you can barely tell what they once were, but it helped. I curled up with the cows, half-buried in a pile of straw until it was over. Henry was out that night, and when he finally came back he was...changed.”
Harry glanced up and met Abraham's gaze. ”He's back. Not Kotz, but the other. It's Silas Greene this time. When the rest came out of the woods, Silas was the one that remained. He isn't around so that you'd see him, but he shows up. Sometimes he stands at the edge of the woods, and it's like he's calling to them. I've resisted that, but only because I escaped that first night.
”They intend to hold services this Sunday,” he added solemnly.
”They'll be bringing in new folk, folk who don't have the mark, but don't know the danger. There are a lot of new families on the mountain, and youngsters who were too small to understand what went on at that church at the time and don't really believe now.”
Abraham nodded. ”I hope we can change that,” he said. ”I hope there are still a few who will come here. I hope I didn't stay away for too long, and that it isn't too late.”
”I saw your mother about a week ago,” Harry said softly. ”She...”
”She's dead, Harry,” Abraham replied. ”I found her up near the cottage. It was bad. I buried her in the yard myself.”
”Him?” Harry asked simply.
Abraham shook his head and frowned. ”I don't know for sure. Something. I don't think she was killed by any ordinary means. When I found her she was trussed up in living vines and hanging like she'd been crucified. There was a time when I would have believed there were a number of people on the mountain who'd like to see her come to such an end, but now?”
Harry hung his head. He flashed quickly on the memory he'd relived such a short time before, then banished the thoughts from his mind.
”That was a long time ago, Abe,” he said finally. ”I won't claim folks have gotten any smarter, but they've forgotten so many things that I can't believe they'd remember old hatred. No one has wors.h.i.+pped here since your father's death. The old ways are fading, and folks have s.h.i.+fted their loyalties and the set of their minds to other voices and other places. That's part of what's made it so easy for Him.
”Things had changed. There were some who went to your mother for help. She was always good at healing. They might have gone to her over this, too, but the call was too strong. She didn't go into that forest, but she wasn't able to prevent others from going.”
”That's probably the night she wrote to me,” Abraham said. ”All her note said was, 'He's back, boy . . . come home.'”
”And you came.” Harry shook his head in amazement. ”I thought we'd seen the last of you. Most young folks who make it off this mountain never look back. It's more of a place to live and rot than it is to grow.”
”There are things here that needed to be watched,” Abraham said with a sigh. ”My father knew it, and he took that responsibility very seriously. When I left, I was only thinking of myself. Now...”
”It's good to see you, Abe,” Harry said. His voice broke, and he stepped forward, wrapping Abe in an unexpected hug.
”Are there others, Harry?” Abe asked as he pulled back. ”Will they come? I know I don't have a right to push-not after so much time-but I don't think we can afford to wait very long.”
Harry thought the question over. He ran lists of names through his mind, clipping off those who had died and mentally marking those who had already been marked. When he'd finished and had all the details clear in his mind, he looked up in dismay.
”Maybe a dozen,” he said at last. ”There were some who would have come before, but not now. Those we might reach, in time. Ed Murphy is one, and Irma Creed.
”I'm going to walk around to the others,” he said. ”I was going to do that no matter what I found when I climbed up here. We have to try and do something before the mountain is swallowed and the evil pours down her sides like some sort of h.e.l.lish volcano. What was it your mother said?”
”Contain it,” Abe said thoughtfully. ”She said we had to contain it.” Harry nodded. ”That's it. I don't know what else we can do, but we can't let that thing off the mountain.”
Abraham wondered if Harry meant Silas Greene, and whatever inhabited his mind, the church, or that thing that inhabited it-the face with the cruel, ancient eyes.
”We should have burned it,” he murmured. ”Should have burned it to the ground.” Harry nodded, but didn't speak. ”I'll find the others that believe,” he said at last, turning to meet Abraham's gaze. ”I'll tell them that you have returned, and I'll tell them about your mother. There won't be many of us, not at first, but those who come will be true believers. The old ones.”
”Are any of the other elders still here?” Abraham asked.
”There's Ed Murphy,” Harry's face darkened as he spoke. ”He won't come-not easily. There's Eerie Hanes and Josh Stoots.