Augusta, Georgia, 1950

If, as he suspected, there had in fact been a space of years prior to the discovery, a period during which he'd labored under the weight of an unspeakable burden, a load that stooped him like a wretch and forced him—forced him!—to wander the steel-paneled halls of the chemical laboratory swearing and swiping at air; if the laughter he'd heard then was real, and if the men he worked among really did eye him with a cold and pitiless amusement; if his body had indeed fallen numb from despair; in short, if everything truly was as it must have been before . . . even so, Richard could not remember.

Because—because one autumn evening, as he drove his black Buick around the side of the perimeter guard station, and the bar tipped slowly downward, and the man behind the window grinned squint-eyed into his sleeve, a red flash flooded the car and stopped, lingered, then dissolved. Richard leaned forward over the wheel. He wiped his bare hand across the smeary windshield, gaped out into the night. The signal light flared and then darkened.

Something in the throb he felt at once behind his eyes called to mind the town he missed in Tennessee.

The signal flashed again, and this time Richard held his gaze. He focused on the bulb, the hatched grooves across the glass. A smoky blaze churned underneath. He sat there like a hunchback, both fists curled between his knees. The red globe floated above the hood. His hand jumped automatically to the knob that tripped the headlights. He pinched the switch between his fingers, slapped the dash with flattened palm. But the bright beams failed to flood the lowered gate.

Then a form appeared to twist inside the center of the bulb—an open mouth, a hole within a hole. Richard peered, abashed, into the throat. A writhing liquid rippled up like silver paint pushed through a tube. The sight froze every inch of nerve and bone. Richard groaned and clutched his head and shook with fear and rocked from pain. When at last he looked again into the dimming purple twilight, he knew he'd glimpsed the source of inmost sorrow.

The gate rose ceremoniously as a wand. And so he found himself alone, sizzling over blacktop through a canyon of shadowed pines. His headlights flickered on, spilled a pale glow onto the road. His tires thumped like steady kettle drums. With one hand planted firm against each side of the steering wheel, he pressed his body deeper into the ruptured seat.

Richard dipped his fingers beneath the flap of his left breast pocket and fished out a wrinkled foil pouch. One cigarette pointed upward through the folds. He closed his meaty lips around the yellow paper end, dropped his fist, then raised his eyes and stared. The road unreeled and dim stars shone before him. He scraped a match across his thumbnail, cupped one palm against his cheek. Tobacco crackled as he sucked the glowing fire.

Then the smoke sank down and soothed him, drifted cool into his veins. A spinning ring tipped forward through his mind. He watched it tumble out and rise above the rolling forest-then right itself, turn back, and lock in place.

In the hollow of his gut a muscle pumped and cramped and knotted as a woman's figure rose in snapping scarlet. Her red robes rippled wavelike in the wind. Her right hand bore a torch outstretched—white sparks spiraled backward. In her hair a silver comb flashed beams of light. Richard watched her slow procession down the tunnel toward his car. Her gray eyes bore two holes through smoke and glass.

"Richard!" The woman's voice thundered. "You, Richard!"

"Claire?"

"Yes."

Cold air blasted sideways through the trees. "I don't understand!" Richard cried. "What are you doing here?"

Claire drew a sunburst pendant up from a pouch inside her gown, swung it to and fro on a gossamer chain. Red jewels flashed with incandescent light. "Do you remember the time, my love, when we roamed over Tennessee mountains? Buttercups speckled the grassy slopes. Clouds like stretched taffy twisted across the sky. It seems we carried a picnic basket, a divining rod, and a spade. We wandered across a cove into a forest. I crouched beside a stream, lay my hand on a tangled root. You promised you'd scoop a minnow from the mud."

"Cold! The water was icy cold!"

"And up came creatures God saw fit to bury."

"You handed over the mason jar. You wanted a fish—"

"But never a clot of worms."

Dull pounding throbbed inside his ears. He trembled, clutched the wheel, punched the ceiling with his fist. "A cannon up the garbage chute for the cowboy that kissed his mother! Off to the bunker, boys, out to the shit house! Fall in, march in time, don't let me catch you looking!"

"Easy, Richard."

He gave a grunt of disgust. "Well. I been there, that's all."

And Claire said: Now you'll recall the church we found standing in Bear Shadow Valley. As we emerged from the forest at noon that same day, we spotted its squat peeling steeple. A hot wind blew through the gorge, and the branches of dogwoods, crooked and black, raked the white walls and square windows. You took my hand. We trudged slowly forward. Two mountains flanked our narrow path. To the east, Red Tail. To the west, Old Foggy Bluff. As we neared the stone steps leading up to the door, the sun seemed to roar with new fire. Something inside us lifted, then fell. A bare plank hung over the lintel. Do you remember the words painted there on that plank?

"They read: 'The House of Our Lord of Light with Signs Following.'"

And do you believe we were led to that place?

"Maybe. I don't know."

Next the doors opened and a blast of gray dust burst through from inside. Our eyes burned. In the air around us a ghostly music shuffled and swirled—banjo, accordion, bones, and tambourine—yet we could not discover its source. Shafts of spinning light, evenly spaced, threw yellow pools across the empty floor. We entered. And as a stale wind whipped through us and around us, the doors slammed shut, an owl screeched in the rafters, and a deep rumble rattled the frail windows. Gradually, the darkness faded. At the back of the room, a stooped man grinned broadly through the shadows. He wore a frayed black coat, and his filthy hair sprang from his head in spikes. His eyes flared with eerie green light. One hand held a Bible, the other a thrashing serpent. You'll remember the secret he showed us.

"No!" Richard cried. "Please!"

He stepped to one side, pulled a rope from the floor. A trap door flipped back on steel hinges. The cry that rose up brought us both to our knees. He pointed inside and said, Look.

"And we looked. Yes, we looked."

And saw?

"A child. Naked and small."

Yes.

"Deep in a deep deep well."

A child.

"Bound to a bed. And in pain."

Why?

Sweat ran slick down Richard's burning face. "I remember the man shouted: 'Here is the price of a covenant broken! Here is the blood made corrupt by rebellion! Here is the voice that will wake you from dreaming! Here is the soul who will greet you in hell!' Then he clapped down the lid, thrust the serpent into my hands, and vanished. Disappeared through a shaft of pure fire."

And the serpent fell limp against your knees.

"Dead. Its mouth splayed open."

Yes. And then I told you a story. Do you remember it?

Richard nodded. "Once there was a man—you said—who lived on a farm in the blue hills of Virginia with his wife and his dear beloved daughter. The three shared a house overlooking the fields. Now this man's name was Hezekiah Drake, though everybody called him Hash, and his wife's name was Nora, and his daughter's sweet name was Sadie Angeline. And Hash took a powerful interest in little Sadie's education.

"When she was only just a baby, lying wide-eyed in her crib, Hash brought in a sprig of trumpet vine and brushed it gently under her nose. When she grew old enough to walk, Hash marched her to the top of the highest hill and stood her upright on his shoulders. When she proved that she could listen, he read her chapters from the Bible. And when she came home from the school house with stacks of books and charts and papers, Hash sat with her at the kitchen table and stared into the oil lamp and answered a question when she had one-which was rare. Easy to see that Sadie had brains, and Hash's satisfaction was knowing just exactly where they came from.

"Well, time passed and Sadie grew and soon Hash and Nora had a young woman on their hands. Though she still worked hard at school and helped her mother with the chores, she also took to roaming over the lonely hills and hollers. Many a night her parents sat up late, watching the wind throw shadows across the moon. Sometimes morning broke before the girl came stumbling home. And by the look in her eyes and the knots in her curly brown hair, they understood she was in serious trouble.

"One night she arrived with a dead hornets' nest under her arm. On another occasion, two men left her passed out and barefoot on the porch. Soon she began singing to herself, then shouting curious words. Logjam, altitude, carousel, avalanche. Poor Nora heard them even in her dreams. Then, one morning, Sadie stood up from her breakfast, tears streaking down her cheeks, and tore open her checkered blouse with both hands. Her bare breasts trembled in the yellow sunlight.

"After that episode Hash and Nora found little peace. While Sadie was away at night, Nora sat silent in her rocker and Hash paced the parlor floor, swinging his fists and swearing. He said he had a mind to go after those two boys. Why, if they turned up around here again, he said, he wouldn't be ashamed of what he'd do to them, given the chance. As a matter of fact, there was a quarry he knew about over in Hacksaw County where they kept a sizable stash of dynamite. He allowed he could find many an inventive use for a handful of that material.

"Nora said nothing and soon Hash fell silent. The ticking of the mantel clock echoed in their ears. Then, with a wounded wail, Hash fell to his knees. As Nora looked on from her chair, he sobbed helplessly into his hands. He swore God Himself had betrayed him, that the sorrow that had come upon his family was too heavy for any to bear.

"When at last he looked back up and turned his trembling face to Nora, he saw his daughter standing tall behind the rocker. She held a sprig of trumpet vine in her fingers. Father, she said. Father. I've found something."

Richard watched the yellow lines shooting past him on the pavement.

"Well?" said Claire.

Richard nodded. "Yes," he said. "I think I understand."

Claire giggled for a moment, then stopped and cleared her throat. "Perhaps. I hope at least that you're beginning to catch on."

She floated gently now above the hood. Her bright torch flickered in the roaring darkness.

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