There was a slight catch in her voice. Abe looked around the room and saw that there was no cot. The chair she sat in had a blanket draped over the arm.

"Have you slept?" he asked her.

"I caught a little rest," she replied. "I was worried. I..."

"She's a very strong girl," Barbara cut in, breaking the awkwardness of the moment. "Strong and good. You've done well for yourself, Abe."

Abe nodded. He took a bite of the soup and smiled. It was good. He hadn't had anything like it since he left the mountain.

"I know," he said.

He ate in silence for a moment, gathering his thoughts. He had too many questions. He also had a h.e.l.l of a lot of explaining to do, and he didn't know where to start with that, either. On top of that, he'd lost two days.

"It was a timber rattler that bit you," Barbara told him. "It was a big one. You must have stepped on him on the way out. No one else was bitten; the snakes were in too much of a hurry to get away from that fire."

"It wasn't the fire." Katrina said this with conviction, and both Barbara and Abe turned to her curiously. "They were rushing out around me before there was a fire. I was standing in the doorway, by the curtains, and they slid over my feet, around my legs-hundreds of them. I've never seen so many snakes."

Abe dropped the spoon onto the tray and reached out to lay his hand on her leg. She put her own on top of his, but she didn't look at him. Her gaze was far away, and he wondered what she saw-what she remembered.

He wasn't sure what he remembered. His last memories were of fire and impossible images in the flames. He knew what he'd faced, and what he'd seen, but now he leaned back on perfectly ordinary pillows in a plain, ordinary room with sunlight pouring in the window. His leg ached, and he knew he'd been bitten, but it was impossible. His hand strayed absently to the medallion still hanging around his neck. Something was odd, and he glanced down.

He wore two. Someone had found his mother's necklace in his pocket and hung it around his neck beside his own. He remembered how she had hung in the trees. He flashed on the hedges. His arms still bore scars from the thorns.

He closed his eyes, and he saw the front of the white church, moonlight spilling down through the trees to illuminate its surface. Green light poured from the windows, and Silas Greene stepped into the doorway. The images tumbled forward and he saw the skinny old man on the ground, the fallen sword and the death stroke.

"What happened to Greene?" he asked softly. "And who was that old man?"

"Silas Greene is dead," Barbara answered. "He never knew what hit him. That blade-we never knew-it expanded. When it pierced him and slid between his ribs, it stuck. He keeled over, and the tip of the blade stuck into the mountain."

Abe thought about it, picturing it in his mind.

"The man who killed him was one we never thought to see again. You should remember him, Abe, but he was taller then, and younger. It was Reverend Kotz. He disappeared the night your father performed the cleansing. We a.s.sumed he was dead."

"But," Abe's brow furrowed. "He must have been over a hundred years old..."

Barbara nodded. "There wasn't much left of him. He was as thin as a stick. He must have been living in some cave in the woods. G.o.d only knows what he's been eating-what he's been doing..."

"They couldn't get the sword out, Abe," Barbara continued. She sat down on the edge of the bed, and her eyes took on the same confused glaze as Katrina's. Her voice dropped nearly to a whisper. "Jacob tried, and then Harry. They tried to cut it, too, but nothing they had would make a mark. That sword stuck down through Silas Green, and there was a fissure in the ground. It opened where the blade struck. All the while we watched it, that crack widened. Sometime late yesterday afternoon it opened far enough and Silas slid down the blade. He should have fallen off. It should have been too deep, but it wasn't. The blade grew, Abe, right through him and into the earth.

"This morning, when they went back to finish digging the pit and sifting the ashes, he was gone. There was no hole at all, only a small, thin sapling. It's a pine."

Abe stared at her, and then shook his head.

"It's over, then," he said. The sword is gone. The lamp was broken to make the fire. And that thing above the door-it's gone?"

"It seems to be so," Barbara replied. She didn't look at him. "I think the tree that was planted will see to it. I think it's a guardian of sorts, born of the mountain."

"That sword was over a hundred years old," Abe said. "How could it grow?"

"Until we lost our way," Barbara answered, finally turning to meet his gaze, "I spent every Sunday of my life in that stone church. I've seen things and felt things that I can't explain. I've seen the lives of my friends and my relatives swallowed by that other place and the evil in its walls, but I've seen good things, as well, Abe. Your father was a great man, and he held secrets we may never find again. I know we'll try. It may seem like we lost something-the sword, the lantern-but I don't think so. I think they served the purpose they were created to serve, and have returned to the mountain.

"You returned to the mountain. Maybe it's the same for you."

Abe reached out, fumbled in Kat's lap and found her hand. He gripped it hard.

"You know I can't stay, Barbara. I have a life...we have a life." He turned and met Kat's gaze levelly, searching for agreement, acceptance-forgiveness. Her eyes washed with tears, and her lip trembled. She leaned in and hugged him fiercely, nearly upsetting the tray in the process, and he held her to his chest.

Barbara nodded and surprised Abe by smiling. "I know that Abe. We all know it...knew it when we first saw you back. You have your father's eyes, and his heart, but you don't belong to the mountain the way he did. You have some of your mother in you, too, and something more. You'd wither and waste away here, and what kind of way would that be for us to thank you?

"If you have no argument with it, Cyrus Bates is going to move into the cottage above the church. He remembers things-more than any of the others-and he has no one left. He wants to spend the rest of his days searching for things we may have lost and tending to the trail, and the church. I think it's a good choice for him, and we're going to need someone up in front when we worship. All of us are going to need some time to forget this, and to find ways around what we did, and what we've seen. The mountain may be cleansed, but it isn't healed. That takes more time."

The door opened again, and Abe started, backing into the headboard in alarm. It was Elspeth. She kept her eyes on the floor, and her steps were slow and shy.

When she looked up, Abe breathed and almost laughed. Her forehead bore no sign of the mark he'd seen there only a few days before. Her eyes were clear, and she seemed no worse for her experience.

"They're all getting over it, more or less," Barbara explained.

"The fire cleansed more than just the church. Some things have changed, but for the most part folks are back to themselves.

"The Murphy's buried Angel today, and Tommy is going to move down and run Silas' store. There's some paperwork to take care of, but we're all behind him, and I think it will work out. His pa has moved in with Irma Creed, and the two of them are going to be attending services together at the stone chapel.

"It seems that before Silas pulled it out of his head, Tommy already had eyes for our girl."

Elspeth blushed, but she smiled. She stepped to the bed on the opposite side from where Kat was sitting, leaned in and gave Abe a hug.

"Thank you," she whispered.

Before he could answer she spun and skipped out the door. This time Abe did laugh. Then, before Kat could pull away, he pulled his mother's medallion from his neck and slid it over her head. She sat up-held it in her hands-then glanced up at him.

"To help take care of you," he said, "in the few minutes of every day of the rest of your life that I might be out of arm's reach."

She fell back into his arms, and this time Barbara caught the tray and lifted it with a soft chuckle. "I'll bring this back later," she said.

Abe nodded at her as Kat slid onto the bed. He held her close up against him, and pulled her head to his chest. He stroked Kat's hair and stared through the slits in the blinds. He was thinking about running on the beach, and the gleaming white walls of the cathedral of San Marcos by the Sea, visible from his bay window. He was thinking about books and stories and photographs and a million things that had ceased to exist when his footsteps reached the foot of the mountain.

He was tired, but he felt good. He closed his eyes and leaned back into the pillows. As he drifted off, he thought of his mother's smile, and his father's voice. He thought of great birds soaring over the peaks above the stone church, and the tall, strong trunks of pine and oak in the forest beyond the wall in front of him. He felt all of this through the handmade wooden frame of the bed and the floor beneath, and felt the blood of his family coursing through his veins.

It felt clean; he felt clean. It was time to go home.

OTHER CROSSROAD t.i.tLES BY DAVID NIALL WILSON:.

NOVELS:.

Ancient Eyes.

Deep Blue.

Sins of the Flash.

The Orffyreus Wheel.

Darkness Falling.

The Mote in Andrea's Eye.

On the Third Day.

The Second Veil.

Heart of a Dragon.

Stargate Atlantis SGA-15 Brimstone (With Patricia Lee Macomber) Vintage Soul NOVELLAS:.

Roll Them Bones The Preacher's Marsh The Not Quite Right Reverend Cletus J. Diggs & The Currently Accepted Habits of Nature 'Scuse Me, While I Kiss the Sky COLLECTIONS:.

The Fall of the House of Escher & Other Illusions Defining Moments.

A Taste of Blood & Roses.

Spinning Webs & Telling Lies.

The Whirling Man& Other Tales of Pain, Blood, and Madness.

Joined at the Muse.