"I don't know, not exactly. None of us do, not that we can remember. There was a kind of explosion. It seemed like one. The light was blinding, and the force of it knocked me back. Lifted me right off my feet. Screams, but I've never known if they were mine, Fox's, Gage's, or something else. The fire shot straight up, there seemed to be fire everywhere, but we weren't burned. Somethingpushed out, pushed into me. Pain, I remember pain. Then I saw some kind of dark mass rising out, and felt the cold it brought with it. Then it was over, and we were alone, scared, and the ground was scorched black."

Ten years old, she thought. Just a little boy. "How did you get out?"

"We hiked out the next morning pretty much as we'd hiked in. Except for a few changes. I came into this clearing when I was nine. I was wearing glasses. I was nearsighted."

Her brows rose. "Was?"

"Twentyone hundred in my left eye, twenty-ninety in my right. I walked out ten, and twenty-twenty. None of us had a mark on him when we left, though Gage especially had some wounds he brought in with him. Not one of us has been sick a day since that night. If we're injured, it heals on its own."

There was no doubt on her face, only interest with a touch, he thought, of fascination. It struck him that other than his family she was the only one who knew. Who believed.

"You were given some sort of immunity."

"You could call it that."

"Do you feel pain?"

"Damn right. I came out with perfect vision, not X-ray. And the healing can hurt like a mother, but it's pretty quick. I can see things that happened before, like out on the trail. Not all the time, not every time, but I can see events of the past."

"A reverse clairvoyance."

"When it's on. I've seen what happened here on July seventh, sixteen fifty-two."

"What happened here, Cal?"

"The demon was bound under the stone. And Fox, Gage, and I, we cut the bastard loose."

She moved to him. She wanted to touch him, to soothe that worry from his face, but was afraid to. "If you did, you weren't to blame."

"Blame and responsibility aren't much different."

The hell with it. She laid her hands on his cheeks even when he flinched. Then touched her lips gently to his. "That was normal. You're responsible because, to my mind, you're willing to take responsibility. You've stayed when a lot of other men would've walked, if not run, away from here. So I say there's a way to beat it back where it belongs. And I'm going to do whatever I can to help you do just that."

She opened her pack. "I'm going to take photos, some measurements, some notes, and ask a lot of annoying questions."

She'd shaken him. The touch, the words, the faith. He wanted to draw her in, hold on to her. Just hold on. Normal, she'd said, and looking at her now, he craved the bliss of normality.

Not the place, he reminded himself, and stepped back. "You've got an hour. We start back in an hour. We're going to be well out of the woods before twilight."

"No argument." This time, she thought, and went to work.

CHAPTER Nine

SHE SPENT A LOT OF TIME, TO CAL'S MIND, WANDERINGaround, taking what appeared to be copious notes and a mammoth number of photographs with her tiny little digital, and muttering to herself.

He didn't see how any of that was particularly helpful, but since she seemed to be absorbed in it all, he sat under a tree with the snoring Lump and let her work.

There was no more howling, no more sense of anything stalking the clearing, or them. Maybe the demon had something else to do, Cal thought. Or maybe it was just hanging back, watching. Waiting.

Well, he was doing the same, he supposed. He didn't mind waiting, especially when the view was good.

It was interesting to watch her, to watch the way she moved. Brisk and direct one minute, slow and wandering the next. As if she couldn't quite make up her mind which approach to take.

"Have you ever had this analyzed?" she called out. "The stone itself? A scientific analysis?"

"Yeah. We took scrapings when we were teenagers, and took them to the geology teacher at the high school. It's limestone. Common limestone. And," he continued, anticipating her, "we took another sample a few years later, that Gage took to a lab in New York. Same results."

"Okay. Any objection if I take a sample, send it to a lab I've used, just for one more confirmation?"

"Help yourself." He started to hitch up a hip for his knife, but she was already taking a Swiss Army out of her pocket. He should've figured her for it. Still, it made him smile.

Most of the women he knew might have lipstick in their pocket, but wouldn't consider a Swiss Army. He was betting Quinn had both.

He watched her hands as she scraped stone dust into a Baggie she pulled out of her pack. A trio of rings circled two fingers and the thumb of her right hand to catch quick glints of the sun with the movement.

The glints brightened, beamed into his eyes.

The light changed, softened like a summer morning even as the air warmed and took on a weight of humidity. Leaves budded, unfurled, then burst into thick green on the trees, casting shade and light in patterns on the ground, on the stone.

On the woman.

Her hair was long and loose, the color of raw honey. Her face was sharp-featured with eyes long and tipped up slightly. She wore a long dress of dusky blue under a white apron. She moved with care, and still with grace, though her body was heavily pregnant. And she carried two pails across the clearing toward a little shed behind the stone.

As she walked she sang in a voice clear and bright as the summer morning.

All in a garden green where late I laid me down upon a bank of chamomile where I saw upon a style sitting, a country clown...

Hearing her, seeing her, Cal was filled with love so urgent, so ripe, he thought his heart might burst from it.

The man stepped through the door of the shed, and that love was illuminated on his face. The woman stopped, gave a knowing, flirtatious toss of her head, and sang as the man walked toward her.

...holding in his arms a comely country maid. Courting her with all his skill, working her unto his will. Thus to her he said, Kiss me in kindness, sweetheart.

She lifted her face, offered her lips. The man brushed them with his, and as her laugh burst like a shooting star, he took the pails from her, setting them on the ground before wrapping her in an embrace.

Have I not told you, you are not to carry water or wood? You carry enough.

His hands stroked over the mound of her belly, held there when hers covered them.Our sons are strong and well. I will give you sons, my love, as bright and brave as their father. My love, my heart. Now Cal saw the tears glimmer in those almond-shaped eyes.Must I leave you?

You will never leave me, not truly, nor I you. No tears.He kissed them away, and Cal felt the wrench of his own heart.No tears.

No. I swore an oath against them.So she smiled.There is time yet. Soft mornings and long summer days. It is not death. You swear to me?

It is not death. Come now. I will carry the water.