

SONANT

Copyright 2011 by A. Sparrow, All Rights Reserved

Smashwords Edition

Deliverance prayers excerpted and adapted from the Gene B. Moody Deliverance Manual http://www.lakehamiltonbiblecamp.com/man/d-index.htm

To Mom

Prologue: The Pump House

Eyes shut, forehead pressing against a rattling window, a screech like a budding cellist heralded Aaron's arrival at the Red Line terminus. Eyes still closed, he rocked back in his seat and sighed.

"More pressure on the bow, please. Replenish your rosin."

Aaron's mumbles attracted the stare of an elderly Asian lady gathering her shopping bags. He took no notice. Trapped in a trance, he gathered his fiddle case and exited the train, riding the escalator into the heights of the Alewife parking garage.

The last lesson of the day lingered and haunted. Emily. Davis Square. Eight year old daughter of a Tufts professor. Ignored all his jokes. Offered not one fleeting smile during the entire half hour session. Sore fingers. Gritted teeth. He might as well have been drilling and filling cavities.

Kids like that, their parents should just let them quit. What was the point? First chance they got, they would abandon playing music for life. Why not help her find the right instrument; give her a chance to kindle her own musical fire if it was there to be kindled in the first place? Let the poor kid improvise, if that's what it took.

Music should not be torture. It should be its own reward.

Too bad Sheila never saw it that way. Aaron worked hard, seven days a week, all hours of the day. It seemed like a lot, scribbled in the squares of his calendar, yet never seemed to tally up to a decent living.

That, in a nutshell, was the rotten seed that spoiled his marriage. In Sheila's eyes, Aaron had no career. He had only been screwing around all these years. Her job at the library had paid the bulk of the mortgage and provided their health insurance.

Legs on autopilot, mind afloat, he still managed to locate his car in this concrete labyrinth. He opened the door and tossed in his fiddle case.

North Cambridge in May. The air was crisp, tainted with lilac and diesel. He spiraled down the ramp, handed five dollars to the Ethiopian in the booth and tore out of Alewife for the hills of Arlington and Belmont.

***

To all outward appearances, Aaron lived a life of grudging compliance with the judge's Order for Protection. Commuting back to his room at the Acton Motor Lodge, well beyond the specified two-mile radius, he kept to Route 2, never daring to venture into the quaint business districts that had so enchanted Sheila when they were searching for the ideal place to raise a family. She might be there right now with the girls, buying tea cakes or browsing through the toy shop.

He could understand why the judge would award custody, but to deny all visitation rights? Why? Because he was loud? Of course he was loud. He was a Levine. But he had never, would never touch her in anger. Never. Sheila knew that. Didn't she?

Pulling into the motel parking lot, all he had in mind was a glass of wine, some Chinese takeout and maybe watch a Celtics game. But as he unlocked the door and stared at the calendar hanging in his kitchenette, he remembered it was Friday. Back when he was still man of the house, that meant pizza and popcorn and DVDs with the girls.

He changed into sweats and for the third time that week, pretended to head out for a jog. But just beyond the grounds of the motel, he ducked into the woods, cutting through a thicket of saplings to the commuter rail tracks. He turned and followed along the gravel bed, back towards Concord.

A dead elm marked an axed 'x' showed him where to veer towards the river. He slogged through piney swamps to a hip-deep ford. The current tugged at his thighs as he crossed to the slick mud of the opposite bank.

He followed a path well-worn by his frequent prowls. Two hundred yards through red maple and quaking aspen, the land rose through a patch of knotweed, leveling off at the edge of a lawn he had mowed a thousand times. He crawled the last few yards on his elbows and lay in the weeds, gazing at a garden overgrown with weeds, the broccoli and lettuce already gone to seed. Pangs, deep and dull accompanied the sight of the little white house, with the clapboards he had scraped and painted through three cycles of weathering, the roof he had re-shingled as his marriage deteriorated.

The drapes were drawn on the patio doors he had added to open up views of the backyard and the deer that came to snack on the neighbor's apple trees. Maybe they weren't even home. Or maybe Sheila had drawn them to keep the glare of the setting sun off the TV.

Aaron lay among the knotweed and waited for darkness to fall. He didn't need his nosy neighbors to spot him and call the town cops. He let mosquitoes feast un-slapped on his sweaty brow, on forearms scratched from branches and briars.

How many afternoons had he come to the edge of these woods, clearing deadfalls, trimming brush? He imagined that any moment the back door would open and Sheila or Nina would call him in for dinner. Just like old times.

It was creepy, all this skulking about. It would land him in jail if he was found out. Knowing it was wrong compelled him no less.

Sheila was already seeing another man. Brian. The anti-Aaron. A ruddy and jovial bear of an architect with a perpetual smile that made Aaron feel like he had been left out of a joke. How could Sheila be attracted to such extremes? Was it reactionary?

The sky was changing behind him. He remembered the many evenings Sheila would call him and the girls to the window to admire the sunset. He would stand behind his wife, chin tucked over her shoulder, arms wrapped loosely around her waist. The girls would come and cling to their legs, oohing and aahing at clouds tinted otherworldly hues. A beautiful sunset of crimson and mango was happening right now. If only he could share it, but he wasn't even allowed to call them on the phone.

As the sun sank beneath the pines across the river, the house stayed dark. No one was home. The realization opened a void in his chest that could have swallowed the known universe. He picked himself up and in the dying light, retreated through the brush to the river.

***

He didn't bother returning to the motel. It was three miles back in utter darkness. Now that the weather was getting warmer, he had taken to camping in an old pump house on the grounds of the old W.R. Grace chemical factory. It had been built in the 1980s to house and environmental remediation system that removed the solvents polluting the groundwater from an old waste pond. The EPA sent reports every quarter, mapping out the gradients of the vinyl chloride and other less pronounceable compounds in ppms and ppbs.

The pump had long ceased to operate. Parts lay dismantled and heaped among sections of pipe outside the little hut. Whoever had built the shack added more flair and grace than such a utilitarian structure deserved. It looked like a mini-Colonial with its steeply pitched roof and deep-set eaves. The workmanship exuded pride. All he had to do to make it livable was sweep it out, repair a few screens, patch some holes with plywood and cover the floor with some carpet remnants he had rescued from a dumpster.

He changed into a set of dry clothes to replace the burr-studded sweat pants, soggy from his river crossings. An air mattress and sleeping bag was laid out crosswise at the far end of the shack. A shelf held a few Heinekens left over from a six pack. A can of chili. A box of saltines.

He cracked a beer and ate his chili cold. Afterwards, he pulled out the cheap fiddle he kept tucked away in a sack among the rafters. It was a risk to leave it in the shack, but no one ever came here except him.

Lighting a candle to keep the night at bay, he sat on the stoop and rosined his bow. With the moon hanging high and a chill settling in, he played his fiddle to the pines. He played free, unbound by chord signatures or scales. He tuned by ear and never the same way twice. He sought and cultivated wolf tones, vibrations that sang out from the body of his instrument when the wood resonated in sympathy with a string. Playing alone freed him to pursue his inner muse down avenues well-removed from western or even human music. He harmonized with owls, katydids and bull frogs.

He hoped the girls were back home from wherever they had gone. Perhaps some faint strains of his music would seep across the river to color their dreams.

A little swirl caught his eye in the candle light. The dust seemed to dance when he stroked his bow a certain way. He watched, entranced by as the little puffs rose and spun like dervishes, ever on the verge of dissipating, vacillating between structure and nothingness. They persisted far longer than any puff of dust had a right. Some spun off into the night.

There was something in their core that he couldn't quite make out; something veiled that bent the light. He adjusted his playing by trial and error, like an eager bandleader striving to keep the patrons dancing so he could study them. He found he could shape these motes with his tone alone, his fiddle a sonic lathe, carving out divots, squeezing bulges flat.

It had to be some intrinsic and peculiar resonance of the pump house caused this phenomenon. The frame was under-built, braced just enough to support the roof. Its timbers plinked like tone wood when tapped, just like the spruce that gave his violin its unique voice. The structure thrummed in sympathy with his fiddle.

***

A week later, he returned with his better fiddle, and it brought out the dervishes like never before. He played and they spun and he kept them spinning. As he wound himself into a fever of improvisation, a sparkly grit collected on the rafters.

An hour into the session, the trees rustled and something grumbled in the woods outside, sounding like a muffled foghorn. He barely noticed, rapt in the spinners in the rafters.

When he put down his bow to sip his beer, the little whirlwinds persisted. How soft and delicate they looked! He couldn't resist reaching up to touch one.

It shrieked and stung him. He yanked back his hand, rubbing a perfectly circular patch of skin that had been transformed into something like wood, grain-free but hard as maple. Blood soaked into the pores, beading into regularly spaced droplets.

The drone rumbled closer. Something big brushed and scratched against the side of the pump house, like a blast of desert wind. The dust billowed and the spinners chirped, evacuating the shack like a flock of sparrows flushed from their roost.

Why should the devil have all the good tunes?

Rowland Hill

Chapter 1: Shinjuku

Aerie drowsed in bed, her brain a ball of fuzz. Sharp pains shot through her neck when she tried to roll over. She must have slept wrong. Really wrong.

Some of the most awful music she had ever heard sifted into the room—mindless, boring post-industrial techno. Where was it coming from, so loud?

The mix combined giggling Japanese voices, footsteps clapping on hard linoleum, clanking steel, creaking hinges. These more organic sounds were underpinned by electronic rhythms—a bright and widely spaced 'bing!... bing!... bing!' overlain with a quicker cycling but duller 'wup-wup, wup-wup, wup-wup,' while beneath it all chugged a steady 'wirra-wirra-wirra-wirra-wirra.' All together, the staggered timing of their overlapping grooves produced a sort of syncopation. Only her geekiest friends at Berklee would have liked it.

The piece went on way too long. It was completely amorphous, without climax, dynamics or resolution. It reminded her of the worst of the student compositions she had been sometimes forced to accompany simply because she was one of the few who played bass.

That's what this tune needed—a bass part—to weave together its dissolute elements and provide a rhythmic center. To Aerie, basses were hammers and every musical problem was a nail.

She searched for the perfect bass line in her head, notes that would provide the piece a frame with some rebar and i-beam. Something reggae-ish and syncopated, with flurries of notes followed by windows of space wide enough to expose the other parts. Something like: Ba-dum Badumba Dum. Space. Ba-dum Badumba. Space. Repeat. That might turn this mushy ambience into something more compelling.

Aerie's eyes flickered open to find a stainless steel post dangling clear tubing. A bag of physiologic saline dripped into the catheter feeding her wrist. Bandages crinkled when she moved her neck.

"Oh, crap."

She remembered getting hurt. She couldn't remember how. Her thoughts had the half-life of soap bubbles. As soon as one would form, it would pop.

The sliver of window visible between the curtains brought a familiar view—the Hilton hotel in Ochanomizu and the green bridge traversing the Kanda River. She knew the surrounding streets for the guitar shops where she bought strings for her bass. The streets beyond harbored gaudy pachinko parlors and pay-by-the-hour love hotels. This was Tokyo. How she knew all of this, she had no clue.

She looked around the room as far her neck would allow. Shojo fairies pranced on pink wallpaper. A purple teddy bear grinned from a bookshelf.

"I'm twenty-five, for Chrissakes. Why'd they stick me in a pediatric ward?"

She wracked her weedy mind for a clue for how she ended up in this hospital. Other than a stomach bug, she had been healthy since arriving in Tokyo. It couldn't be a car accident. She always walked or took the train to gigs. Had she been hit crossing the street? Her limbs seemed intact and other than a foggy brain and a slight headache, her head was fine. She slipped her fingers under her johnnie, finding nothing but intact, goose-pimpled skin.

Most of the pain centered on her neck, confined under a rigid plastic collar with bandages beneath. This discovery triggered a vague unease but no nuggets of tangible memory could yet congeal. The full truth hovered just beyond reach at the edge of consciousness, like some neglected but forgotten chore.

A bento box sealed with plastic film lay unopened on a bedside tray. A world sports show on FNN news blared from a monitor.

An aged female voice murmured on the other side of the curtain splitting her room. A man chatted with her. They were making fun of American football. It puzzled Aerie how she knew what they were saying. Though, she remembered coming to Japan, she couldn't recall ever learning Nihongo. How long had she lived here?

It had to have something to do with jazz. Why else would she come to Tokyo? She didn't even like sushi.

She wriggled up higher on her pillows, triggering stabs of pain beneath the clammy plastic collar. She winced and cried out.

The man who had been ridiculing the NFL pulled aside the curtain and hustled to her bedside. He pocketed a cigarette he must have been itching to light, and pulled out a notebook and pen. He plopped down in a pink and green vinyl chair and leaned forward, eyes bulging, studying her with a wry smile.

"Konichiwa. Are you feeling better today?" His English was lightly accented and highly Americanized.

"Do I know you?"

He was thirtyish, with bleached highlights tipping a spiky haircut. He wore a sports coat with narrow lapels and a wide tie that made his slender chest appear even skinnier. He wore a smirk that seemed permanently creased on his muzzle. He seemed more huckster than doctor.

"My name is Toguchi. I came by yesterday, but you were kind of out of it. The staff wouldn't let me talk to you."

"What happened to me? Was I in an accident?" Her voice splintered, sounding creakier than the old lady across the curtain.

He frowned. "I was hoping you could tell me."

"I hurt my neck."

"Yes, you did. You were found hanging from a transom, silk scarf around your throat, zip-tie around your wrists. In front, curiously. Tooth marks on the plastic pull. You are very lucky. Another minute and you might have gone without oxygen long enough to harm your brain. As it was, your trachea was compressed. The paramedics almost had to intubate you."

"Hanging?" The image both repelled and intrigued her. His description triggered flashes of remembrance. She knew exactly what scarf he was talking about—the one with the forest green and royal blue paisleys. "Are you... my doctor?"

His smirk deepened. "I'm a Keibu-ho. Assistant Inspector. I investigate violent crimes for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police."

He pressed a button on an oblong device that looked like one of those bulky, first generation iPhones. "I should tell you, I'll be recording this conversation. I'm here because your incident is not yet officially classified as a suicide attempt, mainly because you left no note. This is very unusual for such a careful and premeditated... procedure. Not to mention, you are a foreigner on a work permit."

A pressure built in her core, as if the air in the room had turned to liquid lead. She remembered now; this was how she had felt that day. This feeling was why she did what she had done.

"You have not been able to tell me anything regarding your motivations. None of your acquaintances had any inkling that you were despondent. Why did you do it?"

Aerie could only shrug.

"Were you with any other people on that day?"

She remembered being in her room for days on end. Her only meals had been instant soba.

"No. I was alone."

He nodded. "Your hands were restrained in front of your body. This would be odd for a homicide." He pulled a photo from his portfolio—a baggie with a severed yellow zip tie. "The restraint had teeth marks on it—your own. Were you biting to get free or to make it tighter? Do you remember that much?"

"That... looks familiar. That's all I can say."

He studied her eyes. His smirk softened. "Do you know where you are now?"

"Hospital."

"Obviously. Do you know which one? You've been here before."

Aerie shook her head.

"Tokyo Medical University Hospital. How about your address? Do you remember where you live?"

"The hotel?" Aerie jerked her chin toward the window, grunting at the pain it evoked. "That one, in fact. The Hilton."

"Not quite. You used to stay there, that is true, but you moved out about a month ago when you lost your job performing in their nightclub."

"Kabukicho! That's right. I moved to Kabukicho."

"Very good! You're obviously improving. Yesterday, you couldn't even tell me your name. You must remember your name by now, don't you?"

"Aerie. Aerie Walker." Things were starting to click. From the dread beginning to creep into her being, she wasn't sure that was such a good thing. Her gut seemed to recall whatever her brain had forgotten.

"What brought you to Tokyo, Aerie?"

"Hollis. I play upright bass in the Hollis Brooks Quartet. We play jazz at the Hilton."

"Used to. Not anymore. Not... since Mr. Brooks went to Amsterdam."

"Hollis went to Amsterdam?"

"Two months ago. It's been almost a month since you last played any music in public."

"Holy shit. That's right!" Aerie sat upright on the mattress, twinging her neck yet again.

"How does this make you feel? Mr. Hollis Brooks going to Amsterdam without you. Are you sad? What do you feel?"

"I don't feel anything." That wasn't true at all and she knew it. She felt plenty. She just didn't know how to describe it, and even if she did, she wasn't going to share it with this twerp.

"Did you have a relationship with him? Sexual?"

She sputtered. "With who, Hollis? No way. I mean, I love Hollis, as a friend, as my mentor. He'd make passes at me when he was drunk. But he'd go after anything with breasts and a vagina. He'd get frisky, but it was never anything I couldn't handle. Christ, he's almost as old as my father."

"We were just wondering if there might be cause for extradition. Any abuse or assault, you know, rape that might have led you—"

"No way. Hollis never touched me. Nobody did this to me. This was all my doing."

"Do you remember why?"

She sank back against her pillows, careful not to jar her neck. "No. My brain is mush."

"This Tokyo gig was supposed to be practice for New York, isn't that right? Didn't Mr. Brooks promise he had connections in Manhattan? That he could book you all a stand at some clubs in Chelsea?"

Her eyes flared wide. "Who told you that?"

"Your ex-drummer. Mr. Koichi Takamura."

Aerie inhaled long and slow. "Well, maybe I did have reason to kill myself."

"Nonsense." Toguchi rose from his chair and went to the window, pulling the curtain open wider. "This is just life. Everyone has setbacks. It made no sense to react the way you did."

"Don't tell me how I'm supposed to behave."

"It's abnormal. That's why I'm here, investigating. To see if there was any possibility of hanky-panky. It's clear to me now, that this is just... if you'll pardon me... mental illness. But don't worry; they have pills that can fix you."

"Happy pills?"

Toguchi closed his notebook. "Well, I suppose my business is done. I should let you know. Your work visa has been revoked. We've made arrangements with your mother to fly you home."

Panic shot through Aerie. "My mother knows about this?"

Toguchi nodded. He came over and patted her arm gently. "Take care. I wish you the best."

"You wish me pills."

He smirked and left the room. She watched his head bob down the corridor, loose fitting trousers swaying against skinny legs. She looked out the window. A dust devil spun up atop a tall building, consuming leaves and poly film shopping bags. It whirled and whirled, refusing to die, engulfing more and more un-tethered bits of the city.

She uncurled her right hand. Sharp pains shot through her knuckles. "Jeez, what's wrong with my hand?" She tugged at the device supporting her neck.

She remembered now, how it was being on stage with Hollis on sax, Frank on piano, Koichi on drums. When things got humming their combo became a unified organism, much more than the sum of its parts. At its core, Aerie's fingers drove the pulse; her bass strings pumping the very heart of the beast.

Such synergies had arisen with other groups she had played with, but it was always a fragile and fleeting thing. Never did it come as often and or as consistently as with this very special quartet. Its chemistry and alchemy were simply irreplaceable.

The crushing heaviness seeped back, carrying a sense of implacable doom. A full-blown panic attack broke out with cold sweat seeping from her pores, heart galloping as if it were trying to wrench free of her chest.

"No! I shouldn't have to deal with this. I had ended it! It was done with."

An elderly woman visiting the lady across the curtain ducked her head into Aerie's half of the room.

"Seppuku. You know? Except no swords, just a scarf." She swung her legs off the bed, disconnected the IV and pulled off the wires monitoring her heart rate, setting off the alarm.

She went and opened the window. She was three stories up. Plenty of height, except the window only tilted out a few inches.

"Damn!"

The little speaker on the wall crackled to life with words of Japanese, aborted, and then: "Is everything okay?"

"Fine. Just fine." She bolted out of the room and down the corridor, past elevator doors just closing on Toguchi. Startled to see her, he reached forward as the doors sealed.

A nurse came running down the hall after her. Aerie flung open the fire door to the stairwell and pounded down the steps. She kept going down past the main floor and its waiting rooms, to the basement. She burst out into a hallway of unfinished concrete, passing a laundry room and then a morgue, emerging onto a loading dock crowded with orange biohazard bags of medical waste destined for the incinerator.

"Yameru!" bellowed a blue-uniformed guard in a white helmet. He lunged and grabbed her gown, tearing its straps. Aerie spun free and ran naked up the ramp. She saw daylight, heard trucks careening down a busy road. She saw a chance rectify her mistake, to restore her wish, finish what she had botched. She would close her eyes, and dash in front of a couple of tons of hurtling steel.

Atop the ramp, a suited man ran in front of the opening and crouched, blocking her way. Toguchi! Aerie tried to dodge him. He sidestepped and caught her, tackling her to the sidewalk, pinning her down like a fox claiming a rabbit. He pulled off his jacket and draped it over her nakedness.

"Don't worry. I'll make sure they take care of you. No one should have to feel the way you do. They can help you. I'll make certain of that."

Aerie just panted and glared, her senses consumed by searing pain.
Chapter 2: Ithaca

Aerie's little white Sentra shredded the 50 mph speed limit, coasting down the long straightaways, straining and sputtering up the opposite slopes. On both sides of the road, ranks of trellises marched into a valley carved by glaciers to the gleaming waters of Seneca Lake.

Cool, crisp Canadian air had replaced the sultry, myopic haze she had left behind that morning in Maryland. Puffy, white clouds shuttled across a cobalt sky. The trees etching the horizon seemed carved of glass.

The unexpected chill forced her to shut the windows. It was still only late July, but in Upstate New York, summer was already in headlong retreat.

She had survived Tokyo, only to be whisked to Baltimore and her mother's stifling presence. Samantha had been bad enough before Aerie's failed suicide. Now she was insufferable. Before she had made good her escape to Ithaca, the constant doting and interrogations had almost dragged Aerie back into the abyss.

"Why are you looking down at the floor?" her mother had said as they sat at the kitchen table of her condo, having tea. "Is something wrong?"

"I'm fine," said Aerie. "Looking at the floor doesn't mean I'm depressed," said Aerie. "Sometimes it just means... I'm looking at the floor."

"Well, how am I supposed to know that? You never share your feelings."

"What do you want? A play by play of my inner thoughts?"

"A smile would be nice once in a while. You're so much prettier when you smile."

"Am I ugly when I don't?"

"Aerie! Your face is all I have to go on sometimes. You never communicate. You tell me you're fine, when it's obvious you're not."

Aerie sighed. "You have a cracked tile."

"A what?"

"That tile... it's cracked."

Samantha pursed her lips. "I do my best. I'm on a fixed income, you realize. I'm sorry if I don't—"

"Mom, it's okay. It just... caught my eye. I wasn't criticizing. Just... let me be me. Let me mope if I feel like moping. I'll let you know if I plan to shoot myself in the head."

"Don't talk like that!"

"Don't worry about me, mom. Worry about yourself."

Only now that she had made clean her escape to her home town of Ithaca, was Aerie able to breathe freely and see the possibility of a life beyond Effexor and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Ithaca, the site of the first twelve years of her life, the best years, before her domestic situation soured and Samantha whisked her away to live with her mother in Baltimore in the throes of a divorce.

She felt like a woodchuck caught in a Havahart trap and released in the middle of the woods some impossible distance from her cozy burrow and abundant gardens. The friendships she had nurtured in Ithaca were never replaced, nor could they be. She found the culture in her new high school inscrutable. The kids might have spoken English but might as well have been aliens sent to colonize the Earth. No one listened to reggae or bebop. No one else seemed to notice Firefly's brilliant but meteoric stand on Fox. Aerie came to wonder if maybe she was the alien.

Social isolation did wonders for her music. She had plenty of time to practice, though, to her mother's consternation, she never hooked up with any of the school bands. She was a free agent, self-taught apart from a brief series of unhelpful lessons, dragging her upright to any bluegrass or jazz jam that would have her.

Old men used to laugh at her dinky half-sized rental instrument. She had to pluck till her fingers bled to make herself heard among the booming Martins and howling Selmers. But one day, as she was perusing an estate sale on her way home from school, she made a discovery that turned the tables.

The sight of the behemoth lurking in the corner nearly knocked her over. Two hundred dollars for a dusty, old bass with cloudy varnish, popped-open seams and a peeled-off fingerboard. She pulled her keychain light out of her handbag and shined it into the f-hole. A paper tag was pasted to the wood inside: 'Abraham Prescott, 1820.'

She couldn't believe her luck! Prescott was a American luthier, famous for carving ballsy three string basses intended for church choirs. Not every congregation could afford an organ. His tubs of spruce and rock maple provided affordable accompaniment for their hymns.

His basses were legendary, the tonal equal of the very best Italian and English instruments. She turned over the entire thirteen dollars she had to hold it, and ran home.

"But you already have a bass," her mom had said.

"A rental," said Aerie. "This one, I would own. It's a full size and it's only two hundred dollars. It's a steal, mom. An investment."

"Hmm, I'll need to see it. I don't want you to get gypped."

So Aerie had taken her back to the estate sale at an upscale row house on the edge of Canton. Samantha, distracted by the china on sale, had to be led by the elbow to the room harboring the bass. She took one look at the thing and gagged.

"Why Aerie, it's a piece of junk."

"Mom! It's a Prescott," said Aerie, whispering so the folks running the sale wouldn't hear.

"Look at that thing. It's not nearly as pretty as the one you rent. I mean the wood's almost black. Look at those cracks. It doesn't even have any strings."

"But it's a Prescott, mom. A genuine Prescott for the asking price of a good set of strings. It's a steal."

"Your bass strings cost that much? Really?"

Aerie nodded.

Her mom waggled her head. "Why couldn't my girl play a flute or a fiddle?"

Samantha wrote out a check and together they lugged the thing home, setting in motion a tide of events that nearly consumed Aerie in Tokyo. But in retrospect, she pondered, as the lake rippled its teeth at her, it had all been worth it.

***

She had come back to Ithaca because that's where it had all started, even though the people who mattered to her the most didn't live here anymore or had never lived here. Whenever, wherever she dreamed—Vegas, Tokyo—the setting was always Ithaca.

She rented a one bedroom place downtown for five hundred a month, by Tokyo standards, ridiculously cheap. The next morning, before she had even unpacked, she loaded her bass into the car and come up between the lakes to pay homage to someone long deceased, not a relative, someone she had never met in the flesh, who died decades before she was even born, but meant more to her than any living relative.

His name was Scotty—Scott LaFaro.

Aerie drove alone, in a little white Sentra, scabbed with rust, patched with duct tape, chosen for its cheapness and its ability to hold her Juzek double bass in the fully reclined front passenger seat. Behind her, in the only space a passenger could have sat, a beach bucket bearing a bouquet of purple loosestrife, cattails and water lilies—the best she could improvise on the drive up from Ithaca via Watkins Glen.

Like a broad river, Seneca Lake flanked Route 14 for mile after mile. In Geneva, she turned left onto Route 20 towards Canandaigua. About halfway there, near Flint Road she slowed the car, looking for a special place that she imagined would be marked with a cross, a plaque, a monument. Her idol among idols had died here. Not Jimmy Blanton or Paul Chambers, not Ray Brown but Scott Lafaro. In 1961, only 25 years old, the same age as Aerie, he had run his car off the road into a tree and died in the resulting conflagration, his Prescott bass badly burned, but not as badly as his flesh.

Aerie put on her flashers and crawled along the shoulder, scanning both sides of the road a mile to the east and west of Flint Road, finding nothing but vineyards and corn fields and copses of oaks and maples. On the outskirts of Canandaigua, she turned the car around and went back the other way.

Was she merely blind, or could the world really be this disrespectful of Scott LaFaro's genius? Why was there no marker for the man whose playing loosened the bonds of servitude of jazz bass players, the prodigy who in 1961 formed the third limb of the symbiotic organism known as the Bill Evans Trio?

The album 'Sunday at the Village Vanguard' was to some of her snootier hipster friends as tired a trope as Miles Davis' 'Kind of Blue', but it was the primal force that had initiated Aerie to her first real jazz and she had come to pay respects. Funny, that when she was growing up in Ithaca, she had not even been aware of Scott LaFaro's existence. Now that she had gone halfway around the world in service of his muse, she had come back to play for Scotty.

Back at Flint Road, she stopped the car, determined to find the site of Scotty's last moment on earth. She hopped a ditch and inspected every tree along the roadside until she found a big, old rock maple with a healed-over scar at right about the height a car bumper might have smashed it. She touched her fingers to the bulge of callus ringing a socket of dead, grey wood like a dead eye.

This was it. She squinted down the road in the direction from which he had been driving. Such a straight road. No dead man's curve. No visual obstructions. He must have fallen asleep, exhausted perhaps from the vastness of the possibilities opening up before him, giddy with his burgeoning mastery and fame.

Then again, maybe all that hoopla had frightened him. Maybe some existential crisis had seized him as he drove and he had twitched the wheel to the right, just enough to send him flying into martyrdom. She envied the kid for flowering into his skill so young, for exiting the stage just he glimpsed the peak of what life would offer him.

She went back to the car and retrieved the bucket of flowers. Swamp water and duckweed had sloshed all over the back seat. A thick musk of decay penetrated the fabric.

She carried it over to the base of the tree, arranging the cattails into the most pleasing configuration she could manage, though it came out looking like an inartful child's first stab at ikebana.

Again, she crossed the ditch and with the ghosts of Bill Evans' piano and Paul Motian's drums ringing in her head, she hauled out her bass, tuned it by ear and started into Scotty's best known composition: 'Gloria's Step,' its moody chords cycling with a startling and unbound logic before halting in a most unexpected place, as unresolved as own, short life.

A grinning truck driver stopped for a spell to gawk. A hawk landed on a fence post. But Aerie was not present in their world. Many trucks and birds later, she was still there playing, improvising over the chord changes until her fingers burned and the sun cast long shadows across the meadows. She ended with a flourish—a bowed glissando and double stop—milking the drone until it was swallowed by the wind.

***

Aerie lounged in a sourdough and prosciutto-induced stupor on the overstuffed couch she had rescued from a curb in Cayuga Heights. She curled and uncurled her right hand. It had been over a month since she had returned from Japan, and while the rest of her had healed slowly but steadily, her hand still ached like the devil's claw, the consequence of playing unamplified all those years and aggravated on that mother of an E string, a Spirocore Stark stout enough to anchor a yacht. But what a glorious noise it had made. Those Starks made it growl like a grizzly bear.

The phone rang. No caller ID, but it had to be mother again. No one else in her life even knew she was back in Ithaca.

"Hey."

"Aerie, that's not how you answer a phone," said her mom.

"Why not? I sorta knew it was you."

"You sound all... drugged. Have you been—?"

"I just woke up."

"You were sleeping? It's the middle of the afternoon. I hope you're not overdoing those pills again."

"I work nights, mom. Remember? I have a job now. The restaurant?"

"It's not healthy, a young person like you sleeping in the middle of the day. You'll be up all hours of the night."

Aerie sighed. "Mom. For God Sakes, it's just a nappie nap."

Static crackled across the land line that her mom insisted she get installed after Aerie made too frequent a habit of leaving off her cell phone. She was surprised her mom didn't equip her with a baby monitor.

But how did she expect a mother to react to their child's suicide attempt? It had been hell getting her to let her return to Ithaca, instead of staying with her mom at the condo in Baltimore. Two weeks at home was about all she had been able to handle.

"Have you made an appointment with that doctor Sadie recommended?"

"Not quite yet. I'm kinda still getting settled."

"Don't you dare let that prescription run out!"

Aerie sighed. "I still have another refill. I'm not sure I even need them anymore."

She rubbed the traces of scab and scar circling her neck.

"Aerie, don't you dare go off your meds. I'll come up there—"

"I'm not. I take them. I'm just saying; I feel good."

"Remember what Dr. Billups said. You can't miss too many in a row. There's a rebound effect."

"Mom, I'm taking my pills. Okay?"

"I really wish you hadn't gone to Ithaca. I don't know why you couldn't stay in Baltimore with me. I have a perfectly good condo."

"Mom, enough. I'm here. I'm happy. That's all that matters, okay?"

"You're happy?"

The question threw her. She couldn't remember what happiness felt like. The pills seemed to narrow her range of possible emotions at both ends of the spectrum.

"Well, I'm not giddy or anything, but yeah, I'm doing well. Better than I've been in a long time."

"Janie Masters was always a nice girl. Wonderful family. Have you seen her around?"

"Mom, I haven't been friends with Janie since third grade."

"So? I still keep in touch with some of the friends I had when I was little. You should give her a call."

"For what? A play date? What could we possibly have in common?"

"Aerie, the point is you need to get some people around you. It's not good for you to be on your own all the time. I wish you had stayed with me a little longer."

A vision of her mother's coffee klatch and her snoopy Maryland aunts came to haunt her. She would rather be kidnapped by Somalian pirates than deal with those ladies.

"I do get out. I've got a job. I like my job."

"But all you do is cut vegetables in a restaurant."

"Not just any restaurant, Mom. It's Moosewood. The Moosewood. Yeah, I'm only prepping now, but they've got kind of an apprenticeship system here. In time I could be sous-chef without having to go to culinary school."

"My daughter, the cook."

"You make it sound like I'm cleaning toilets. Cooking is an art, mom."

"Let's just say that cooking is the last thing I ever would have expected of you."

"Why's that?"

"Aren't you the girl who used to burn your mac and cheese?"

"Give me a break! I was fourteen." Static crackled across the line.

"So. Are you playing any music?"

Aerie glanced over at the bass collecting dust in the corner of the room. "No." She hadn't touched the thing since Scotty's birthday.

"Why don't you join a choir? At least it would get you out and among people. Go to church. Any church. I don't care which one. Every parish has a choir and... community."

Aerie shrugged. "But... I can't sing."

"That's not true. You have a lovely voice."

"I don't believe in God."

"Don't say that!"

"But it's true. I don't. Not anymore."

Her mother gave a sigh, long and deep.

"You used to play piano so beautifully when you were little."

"Until you signed me up for lessons."

"And what was wrong with that? Why is it you always have to do things the hard way? Always fending off anyone who tries to help you."

"I'm not fending you off—"

"I wasn't implying." Her mother expelled a gush of indignant breath. The phone crackled. It was that bad cord that mom never seemed to replace.

"Are you happy, Aerie?"

Again, that question. How could she know if she couldn't remember? She wasn't sad. She wasn't anything, really.

"Aerie. I asked... are you happy?"

"Enough to get by," she said.

She got her mom off the phone for the price of a promise to call and thank Aunt Sadie. She lay back on the sofa, staring at the partially unzipped bag revealing her other workaday bass that for five years had been her constant companion, providing her livelihood, defining her identity and felt nothing. Not frustrated, just an absence, as if some superfluous part of her body had been lopped off, more critical than an appendix, but less significant than a toenail.

Much like her, the bass was pretty, but not beautiful. The Juzek's face had a fine grain, and a pleasing color. The edges were dinged in both the upper and lower bouts, but what bass wasn't? The upper linings were worn pale and smooth like driftwood where her ribs rubbed it when she played. It was a good bass: sturdy, and sang with enough resonance to let you know it had a top of solid spruce, but nearly as spectacularly as a Prescott.

She had abandoned it in Japan after her visa expired and she had to leave the country. Her mother had gone to great lengths and expense to get it shipped back home, with Koichi's help. Now it sat, mocking her from its stand beneath a shroud of dust.

At least it was in a lot better shape than the Prescott whose pieces were heaped in a black plastic bag in the corner. Her 'bag of bones.' She kept it around the way some people kept the ashes of a favorite pet.

The urges that once tugged Aerie to play bass, that once filled her with an almost sexual longing, were long gone. She still plucked the strings on occasion, tilting it off the stand as she passed through the room, but only out of habit, as a diversion from her chores. She derived no more joy from playing than she did from washing dishes or weeding the garden.

This feeling was new and alien, so markedly different from the musical withdrawal she had felt when she flew to visit her mother in Baltimore, leaving the bass behind in Oakland because it was too big to fly. Two days away from it and she found herself twanging her fingers on the piping on her mom's love seat, on the stowed cords of the upright vacuum, on the seams of her jeans. By the weekend she found herself walking twelve blocks to a luthier's shop in Foggy Bottom to get her hands on a real instrument.

That urge had once been as strong as a physical addiction. How could it just vanish like flipping a switch or losing the art of speech after a massive stroke? She wondered if some part of her brain had died during the near asphyxiation that had nearly claimed her life.

Too bad some of the other parts hadn't withered away as well. The lobes that sent her mood spiraling into deep, dark funks remained as vigorous as ever.

She ran her hand over the strings. Mom was right to worry. Try as she could, Aerie saw no open paths ahead of her in any direction. The line about apprenticing to become a chef was all pipe dream and pretense, spoken to keep her mom at bay. At Moosewood, she was barely one step above a dishwasher.

Without the meds, Aerie couldn't see how she would last once the long, dark days of winter congealed the sky over Ithaca. The romance of suicide still beguiled her too much to have been a passing phase, pills or no pills.

Yet, fall was coming, her favorite season. She would stick around to see the leaves change, that was for sure. But after that, all bets were off.
Chapter 3: Bassist Wanted

Aerie's aunt Sadie had gotten her the job at Moosewood, a collective vegetarian restaurant of some repute from a seminal series of bestselling cookbooks by Mollie Katzen, a former member. Sadie, who ran a small organic farm near Skaneateles, supplied them with asparagus and spinach and Brussels sprouts.

There wasn't much of an interview, a hug and a handshake, a few niceties about Sadie's farm, which she had yet to visit, and that was that, the job was hers. The vetting and negotiation had all happened behind the scenes. It made her feel like such a child.

Not that she could complain. She was grateful for the job. She was already almost a vegetarian, more by preference than for health or morals, though she would never turn away a good slice of pepperoni pizza or a pulled pork sandwich.

She had showed up on Monday, filled out a time card and was immediately sent to the kitchen. Reggie, the sous-chef, had her peel and slice cucumbers for a salad with dill and sour cream. Afterwards, she had prepped apples for Lucrezia, the pastry chef, coring and slicing, sprinkling the slices with lemon juice, to keep them from browning, she supposed. She had snagged a slice as she chopped. The early Macintoshes were tart even without lemon.

She came to admire Lucrezia for the magic she wrought with her copper bowls and egg whites; the way she knew exactly how much handling a wad of dough needed to preserve the flakiest possible pie crust. But Reggie, wouldn't let her go anywhere near the baking. There were always too many potatoes to peel and onions to dice.

She liked the work well enough. Her coworkers seemed nice, though they acted awful quiet around her, too busy or incurious to pry into her past. Perhaps Aunt Sadie had forewarned them or maybe they were just preoccupied with themselves.

One waitress, Linda, was legendary among the wait staff for her ability to remain unruffled by the busiest of nights or jerkiest of clientele. Aerie figured this talent had to be chemically induced. It was the only way Aerie could stay calm and cheerful.

Her typical day had two flurries of frantic activity with a lull after lunch. On nice days she spent her break on the Commons—a pedestrian mall formed by the permanent diversion of what used to be the main road through town. She studied the faces of shoppers and strollers as she walked through the Commons, hoping to spot a face she might remember from middle school, but all were strangers. Ithaca had changed a lot since she was a kid. It felt like walking through a Broadway revival of her childhood, with a revamped set and a brand new cast.

After the hint of fall, summer had seeped back into the valley. The air was so thick; walking through town was like walking under the sea. The Commons was hopping with students returning back to school, with parents in tow. Aerie took her peach Snapple and moseyed back to Moosewood for the afternoon prep.

"It's gonna be a hot night," said Reggie, hustling over to Aerie's bench top, as she got all washed and aproned. "I'm betting the bruschettas and veggie antipastos will fly. We'll need a bunch of tomatoes prepped for salsa, as well. Cilantro, basil. Make sure you take out the stems. That buffalo mozz? Quarter inch slices. Cover 'em with a slice of heirloom. Drizzle them with the extra virgin. Top them with basil. Some salt and pepper. Mix 'em up. Cherokee Purple, Caspian Pink. Save the Brandywines for the bruschetta."

"Really? I've been using San Marzanos," said Aerie.

"Nope, Brandywines," said Reggie. "They're creamier and tastier. The San Marzanos are better for sauces."

Acid tomato juice burned the scrapes in her knuckles. She rinsed under the tap and rubbed some olive oil over it, which didn't help much. She puzzled over the flaps of skin peeling off the tips of her index and middle picking fingers. Her calluses had been so integral to her identity; she didn't think she could lose them, at least not so explicitly, peeling off in big flaps like broken blisters. If she ever did pick up her playing again it was going to mean bloody fingers again, like the old days.

Shift completed, Aerie shuffled down the echoing corridor of Dewitt Mall, a former high school converted into a funky collection of retail shops. She stopped by the Guitar Works for a gander. Not much new. A puke green G&L five string. Some Peavey crap. Nothing worth plugging in. On the way out the door she passed the bulletin board. The usual stuff, rock and roller wannabes with juvenile delusions of grandeur. General business bands looking for sight readers with tuxes. Over the hill rockers looking to salve mid-life crises. But among them, a most peculiar solicitation on a note card caught her eye, neatly lettered in what seemed to be written with a quill pen.

Acoustic bassist wanted for sonic adventures. Abandon all tonality ye who enter here. Think dissonant New Age free jazz grunge. Pays well. Call Aaron @ 607-566-6828

This one intrigued her. Normally, the "New Age" thing would have turned her away, but the dissonance and the grunge part told her that this was no vegan crystal fondler. She tore a corner from another ad and wrote down the number.

She walked home. Her car was acting funky these days. Engine lights blinked on and blinked off without rhyme or reason. She should probably change her oil, or at least check it, but for now it was easier simply not to drive.

She had snacked at Moosewood all day, so she didn't need much dinner. A salad and some bread sufficed. Maybe later, she would go out for ice cream.

She sat out on her narrow porch and nibbled at romaine, avocado and heirloom tomato drizzled with some vinaigrette, playing Angry Birds on her phone. There was something funny happening to the light. Things looked too yellow and gray for this hour of the evening. The wind was kicking up as well. She looked to the West to see if a storm was coming, but the triple-deckers across the street blocked her view.

She pulled out the slip of paper with the phone number. Second thoughts plagued her. Apart from work, she had had almost no human contact since she had come to Ithaca. She was used to being alone, reaching an equilibrium that being around people again would surely disrupt. The scars on her neck embarrassed her, not to mention the slow wittedness induced by her medications. She crumpled up the piece of paper with the number and tossed it in the trash.

She picked up the tedious freak show of a novel she had picked up from some used bin. A tremor in her lip told her that her meds were wearing off. The protective aura peeled back, exposing some of the void that had taunted and beckoned her in Tokyo. She still couldn't remember exactly what had triggered her suicide attempt, but she felt some of the futility and emptiness that might have led her down that path.

She went back to the trash can and fished out the little wad of paper she had thrown away and smoothed it out into a wrinkled triangle. She glanced at the clock. Nine-fifteen. Not so late. She called.

"Aaron here," answered a guy, in a long, sleepy drawl.

"Um. I saw your ad at—"

"Bass player?"

"Yeah."

"What kind you play?"

"Upright."

"Fully carved? Laminate?"

"Carved. It's a Juzek, if that means anything to you."

"Oh sure. Decent maker. Czech, as I recall."

"How do know so much about basses? Do you play—?"

"Fiddle. Had a lot of basses come through my house lately, though. Must have auditioned every bassist within a hundred miles of Ithaca. You might have noticed I'm still looking."

"Wow. You must be picky."

He gave a long breathy sigh. "Don't let that discourage you. I'm looking for a certain... aesthetic, you might say. I don't want sight reading, I want instincts. I don't even care about intonation that much. It's more about control over your instrument."

"Okay."

"So how does that bass of yours sound? Is she loud?"

"I've been kicked out of apartments... even with a mute."

"Well, that's promising. Can you make her growl?"

"Like a beast. And she can howl, too. I love playing arco."

"Well, well. I have to say, I'm looking forward to meeting her. Can you bring her by on Friday? Four-ish?"

"Um..." Aerie was scheduled to work lunch, but the cleanup would be done by three. Maybe Reggie could let her off early.

"Sure," said Aerie. "I'll make it happen."

"I live at 839 Summerton Hill, off Route 13 West. It's way out in the boonies. Give me your e-mail. I can send you directions."

"That's okay. I can just Google it," said Aerie.

"Alrighty, then. See you on Friday."

He severed the connection and the line hummed. The call sent Aerie's heart thumping in its wake.

A flash lit the sky. Thunder rattled the house. The weather was about to change.
Chapter 4: Blackberry

Nigel's tower of Legos clattered against the hardwood, prompting a shriek worthy of a fruit bat. John wheeled his chair around, knocking a sheath of unfinished job applications to the floor. Baby Jason's bottom hit the floor with a thud. As Nigel screamed in his face, Jason just watched his elder sibling, more bemused than upset at the reaction he had provoked."Did you just shove your little brother?" said John, sorting through the applications he had dropped.

"Jason busted my castle!"

"Give him a break," said John. "He's learning how to walk. He's still a bit clumsy."

"He busted my castle!"

"Pretend he's a dragon, roaming the kingdom, and all your little Lego people are trying to hide from him."

"Dragons gotta be slayed," said Nigel.

"Nuh-uh-uh. You can't slay your little brother. His scales are much too tough. How about all your little people run away and hide in the toy box?"

Nigel pouted. "I don't like this game."

The haunted strains of 'Ride of the Valkyries' erupted within John's shirt pocket.

"Mama!" chirped Jason.

John pulled out a bloated clam shell phone years overdue for replacement. When he first got it, during his early days working for Niagara Mohawk, it had seemed sleek. Now that he was a full-time house husband, he had neither the income nor need to replace it.

"Hi hon," he said.

"Hey," said Cindy. "So what are you guys up to?" She mumbled, distracted, as if the call were an afterthought.

"The usual," said John. "Playing with matches. Knife-throwing. Snake charming."

"That's nice. Listen, did the contractor come by today with those tile samples?"

"Um. No."

Cindy moaned. "He promised. I want to get that kitchen redone before my folks come up."

"I keep telling you, it looks fine."

"Vinyl doesn't cut it. Daddy will have a fit."

"Tell him it's temporary."

"Do me a favor, John. Call the contractor for me."

"Okay."

"See you in a couple."

"Minutes?"

"Hours, silly."

"About dinner, I was thinking of making a—" But Cindy was gone.

Jason had crawled over to the window and lifted himself up to the sill, drawing John's attention to the scene outside. The rain had stopped. All that fell now were drops dangling in the tree branches overhead, knocked loose by the wind.

After a heat wave and two days of storms, cooped up inside with the kids, John could take it no more. "Come on boys. We're going outside."

He slapped a fresh diaper on Jason, made Nigel go wee-wee in the toilet and herded them both into the attached garage where they stowed the tandem stroller. A quick walk to the cul-de-sac and back would do wonders for his sanity.

The garage door yawned open at the incomplete subdivision. Outside air swirled in, bearing traces of both the lingering mugginess and the new, crisper regime. A nearly sub-audible drone hovered lurked beneath the patter of stray drops, instilling a touch of dread in John's craw.

Baby Jason, one and a half, sang the giddy, two-tone song he always sang when he did his favorite things. He loved stroller rides. He had a natural affinity to the outdoors that contrasted starkly to his older brother's odd indifference to the natural world.

"Baa-bear! Baa-bear," said Jason.

"Nope. No blackberries. We're just going to do a loop de loop around the neighborhood," said John. "Get some fresh air. Then daddy's gonna start making dinner."

"No! Pick baa-bear."

"Mama doesn't want us to pick blackberries. That's why she bought raspberries at the store."

"Baa-bear!" said Jason, louder and ever more strident. Nigel just picked at a grommet in the awning. He would be just as happy circling between the driveway and garage.

What a strange boy, he was. At least John couldn't blame it on his genetics. Cindy was already pregnant with Jason when they met.

Jason began to bawl. "Baa-bear."

"Oh shush, now. Stop your cryin' and we'll see."

As much as John enjoyed leaving the cul-de-sac, the blackberry patch was verboten, because the only way to get there took them right past what Cindy called the 'hell house'. Nigel wouldn't blab. He never spoke much as a rule, mainly nodding and grunting. Cindy had had him evaluated for autism but the doctor didn't seem too impressed. "Count your blessings," he had told them. If anything, he was a borderline case.

Jason, on the other hand, did nothing but babble, but the information content of his gibberish was quite low. The more he thought about it, the more John was tempted to chance a dash to the bramble patch.

They rolled down the walk as the cloud-freed sun warmed their faces, the wind carrying the scent of pines and firs down from Connecticut Hill. White Tyvek flapped like loose skin against the frames of windowless houses. At night they looked particularly creepy, with window sockets as dark as eyeholes in skulls.

The subdivision was only one of a series that the developer intended to build all the way up to the edge of the Connecticut Hill Reserve, their sites evident as teardrop shaped patches of felled forest overgrown with tangles of blackberry and wild grape. Construction on the project had been stalled for nearly a year due to a financial collapse. John and Cindy's neo-colonial was the only habitable house in the neighborhood, originally intended as a model home for marketing purposes. Cindy would have wanted out if they weren't so upside down in their mortgage.

They had no neighbors in their cul-de-sac, but the main road harbored a scattering of A-frames and trailers shaded and mossy under tall trees. Their closest neighbor lived in a bizarre piece of architecture across a grove of oaks—bulbous as well as angular, with curving clapboards and knife-like fins. It looked to John like a cross between a pirate ship and a space cruiser.

Cindy, usually a walking thesaurus of real-estate terminology, was left mute for words to describe it. Hell house was the best she could do.

A wealthy eccentric seemed to own it. John once spotted him driving a Tesla Roadster. He tooled around Connecticut Hill on occasion in an all-terrain Segway. A steady parade of much less wealthy eccentrics often visited—musicians of all shapes and genders who arrived for jam sessions that were startling in their dissonance and randomness.

The music drove Cindy nuts. She couldn't abide it and had sent John over one night when it sounded like a menagerie of exotic beasts were being flogged and tortured.

A rusty old Saab parked askew in the gravel drive. It took a lot of knocking to get their attention, but the door finally opened in a waft of pine rosin. The man standing behind it seemed normal and benign enough. He wore a ball cap beneath which spilled locks of long, curly hair, salted with grey. He shared a broad smile and laughing eyes.

"Can I help you?"

"Hi. My name's John... um... I'm your neighbor? See, we've got a couple of little kids and it's past their bed time. Could you, perhaps turn down your amps just a tad?"

The man's grin grew even wider. He glanced back at the young and men arrayed behind him. "Hear that, guys? Can y'all turn down your amps a notch?"

"Sure thing." A red-haired kid with a knit cap and a soul patch bent over his ravaged acoustic guitar and twiddled the air.

"I'm serious," said John, pinching his forefinger against his thumb. "My wife... she's this close to calling the cops. I told her to let me try first."

"Cops?" said the neighbor. "What are they gonna do? I've read the ordinance. I'm allowed to make music till 10 pm. It's what the law says. And technically that's for amplified sound. We play all acoustic."

John wasn't sure he believed him. The noise... music... sounded way too loud for it not to be amplified.

"Not only that, we're allowed up to 55 decibels for residential output."

"So you've... done you're research."

"Used to live in town," said the man. "Moved out here so I wouldn't bother anybody and look who plops a subdivision right next door."

"Well, pardon me neighbor," said John. "People have to live somewhere."

"Oh? Did it really make sense for Stephanelli Brothers to bulldoze flat half a dozen new subdivisions in the middle of a housing crash?"

"Listen," said John. "Personally, I don't mind your... music... that much. I mean it's weird and all, but I can ignore it. But Cindy. It freaks her out. She gets all jumpy and snippy. Calls it the devil's music. She hung garlic from all our door frames. She prays for your house to burn down so you'll go away."

Oh, really? What a sweetheart. How neighborly and... Christian."

"Please. Just tone it down a little? It would go a long way to calming Cindy down."

The man glared at John and shut the door. The music resurrected immediately, mocking him all the way back to the house, where he found Cindy kneeling with the babies, praying a mile a minute, before the Jesus figurine her grandma had given her.

That encounter had happened about a week ago. Things had been quiet ever since, much to John's surprise and Cindy had been impressed by whatever he had done to muzzle the hell house. Today, though, the noise was starting up again. As usual, it started with a low, pulsing drone like an air horn from an old-time firehouse. Nigel plugged his ears. Jason rocked and swayed to the rhythm.

At least it was early in the day. With any luck, they would be done with their session before Cindy got home.

The cul-de-sac was so lifeless and desolate—a depressing place to walk the kids. Driveway after driveway led nowhere, most yards had yet to receive their top soil. They were wastelands of red mulch and gravel and ragweed and withered yews. At least the road was fully paved and every concrete walk complete, unlike the other cul-de-sacs up the road.

Cindy insisted that the development would get back underway and they soon would be welcoming new neighbors to the fold, but John wasn't so sure. With so much foreclosed property sitting idle in Ithaca, who would buy a place so far out in the boonies, convenient to no one except perhaps deer hunters and wood elves. If Cindy wasn't so invested, literally, in the project's success, he would have insisted that they move.

At the intersection with the main road, the sidewalk abruptly ended. The developer's glossy brochures showed a bike path eventually linking the various cul-de-sacs. For now, there was nothing to connect but a series of overgrown clearings where deer and wild turkeys went to browse, and step-dads and their step-children went to pick blackberries.

The clouds were breaking up. Wind rattled the treetops. Air as brittle as snowflakes sifted down, flushing away the fetid pockets that had become entrenched during the interminable stretch of dog days. It felt good to sally forth from the central air conditioning for a change. For days they had only made brief forays to the kiddie pool out back.

John started to turn the stroller back towards the house. Jason immediately began hopping up and down in his seat. "Baa-bear! Baa-bear!"

Nigel sat slumped, arms crossed and indifferent, looking like a bored commuter.

John glanced at his watch. Three-thirty. He wouldn't need to start dinner for another hour or so. Cindy would get home five-ish. He had plenty of time to pick the kids some blackberries, wheel them home, wash the traces from their fingers and faces, change them and get a load of clothes into the wash.

"Okay." He spun the stroller around and pushed it up the bumpy shoulder of the main road, where the line between man and nature smudged. The stroller had big, knobby wheels that could find purchase in a foot of muck. John had lobbied specifically for the BOB All-Terrain because he had visions of taking the kids the trails and dirt roads that riddled Connecticut Hill. But that was before Cindy had gotten spooked by the hell house, not the mention the unseen beasts that crunched around the backyard on the darker nights.

The rough ride aroused Nigel from his torpor. He hummed, letting the bumps modulate his pitch. "Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-oh!"

There was zero traffic on the road, not surprising for a road to nowhere. Downhill led to the bottom of the valley and Route 13, the main route to Ithaca. Up led towards the land between the lakes, but only after threading the maze that was Connecticut Hill, a former settlement that had been abandoned in the nineteenth century, leaving only cellar holes and rose bushes to testify to the folks who once lived there.

As they neared the hell house and its unkempt grounds, John quickened his pace. The owner had made no attempt to civilize his shrubberies, allowing them to assume whatever shape the sun and wind allowed. If the walls weren't throbbing, a person might have assumed that the place was just as abandoned as the settlement on Connecticut Hill.

The rusty Saab was parked cockeyed in the drive again. The same people were attending the jam, or whatever it was, as the day he knocked on the door. The action was picking up inside. The rhythm lurched and thrashed like a failing heart. The drone acquired squeaks and bleats from instruments John couldn't identify. Ragged, mistuned guitar chords crashed out of the blue like a random blast of lightning, shredding his nerves.

It had to be some sort of improvisation, no one could write such stuff. John had always appreciated jazz, but the aesthetic of the more modern, post-bebop stuff had eluded him. Charlie Parker, he could identify with. Ornette Coleman, not so much. But this wasn't jazz. It was something else entirely. Something unearthly.

He gritted his teeth as they passed, bracing against the chill rippling down his spine. No wonder it affected Cindy the way it did. John's tastes ventured oceans wider than hers, but this stuff was too far out for even him to digest. He hoped they would finish their jam session before Cindy got home or else his reputation as a household hero and savior of nap times would be sunk.

A lapsed Catholic, John had been baptized a 'whitechurcher', the congregation that Cindy had belonged to when they met. In its early days, it had been a Christian commune known as the Love Covin. Now it was the Covenant Love Community and had shed much of its hippie airs. Some Ithacans called them 'Whitechurchers', for the little white church that formed the heart of their settlement on the outskirts of Dryden.

Perhaps his background made him less sensitive than Cindy, who had been around the charismatic and evangelical branches of the faith all her life. But he was proud of his tolerance. Unlike Cindy, he never stared at the neo-Goth kids who hung out at the fringes of the Commons. Cindy had been raised in a town in Indiana where even a black t-shirt was considered outré.

She would have thrown a hissy fit if she knew he was anywhere near the place with Nigel and Jason. But weird sounds were a minor toll to pay for entry into a landscape of big trees, blackberry bushes and evergreens.

They passed a row of huge oaks with neon pink plastic ribbons encircling their boles, marking them for destruction. The first clearing was just ahead but the blackberries here were screened by a veil of poison ivy. He pushed on to the next clearing, which had a denser growth of berries anyhow.

They didn't have to venture far from the road. The berries were well past their peak, many shriveled and brown from the midsummer dry spell that had struck as they ripened. He had no problem finding plenty to satisfy Jason and Nigel, fetching plump, juicy berries plucked from nests of thorns deep beneath and behind the shading foliage. He ignored the prickles on the back of his hand as he snagged a few for himself, savoring the slight, wild musk that differentiated them from the blandly tart berries that Cindy occasionally brought home from Costco.

Trails cut through the brambles, too wide for game; probably worn by the dirt bikes he occasionally heard tooling around the woods. They were temptingly wide enough to push a stroller. A path above the brambles caught his eye; rising through a stand of beeches and mossy boulders—pale granite from afar in the north, deposited by glaciers in a landscape of shale and slate.

The look and lay of that trail intrigued him, opening possibilities he hadn't imagined just an hour ago while cooped up in the house. Someday soon he would take the little ones on an adventure. The stroller could handle it. Jason would be thrilled. Even Nigel might enjoy it, for the bumpy ride if nothing else.

An engine strained up the back side of the hill. Like an apparition, Cindy's white Camry appeared over the hump, an hour and a half early.

John flinched, squashing the berry he was about to pick. Thorns raked his thumb, drawing blood as he yanked it out of the tangled canes.

"Momma," said Nigel.

"Yes, momma," said John. Odd, that she would come the back way, though she had been showing a house up near Seneca Falls, at the northern end of Cayuga Lake.

He momentarily considered retreating up that trail with the stroller, but Cindy had certainly spotted John's yellow shirt, the red stroller and the kid's blue T-shirts. Even if not, she would find them gone from the house and out of the cul-de-sac. She would know that they had strayed.

So he stood facing the car, accepting his fate like a rabbit playing dead for a coyote. The Camry slowed to a crawl. Cindy's face leaned close to the tinted windshield, blonde hair flapping as she mouthed expletives he was glad he could not hear. The passenger window descended.

"Sweet Jesus! What are you doing up here with my children?" Her face had flushed all red.

"Cabin fever," said John. "You know, fresh air, blackberries."

"We talked about this," said Cindy. "You know how I feel bout that... place." Her eyes pooped wide. "What's that that sound? Are they at it again? And you're out here with my babies? What were you thinking, hon?"

"They weren't playing just a little while ago," said John. "I thought... nobody was home."

"Put the kids in my car. Right now!" she said, as if a pack of unleashed hell hounds were closing on them. "I can't believe you wheeled them right past that house... when they're doing... that thing they do."

"It's just... music, Cindy," said John unbuckling Jason and tucking him into the middle car seat.

"Music."

"A little music can't hurt anybody. They're avant-garde musicians. They experiment with sound. It's just art."

"I'll give you art. That's the devil's music, pure and evil. Can't you hear it? Put Nigel in the car. We'll talk about this later."

"I'll start dinner when—"

"Never mind. I have a meeting with Pastor Mac."

"Meeting?"

"About the consolidation." She avoided his gaze.

John looked at her blankly.

"Hello? About the merging with that church in Varna? There's real estate involved, so Pastor Mac wants my advice."

"Can we bring the kids?"

Cindy's lip quivered. "I... don't think you guys should come. This might run a little late."

"Oh," said John. "Okay." He untangled Nigel's buckle and snapping him in securely.

"Did you call the contractor, like I asked?" said Cindy.

"Not... yet."

Cindy sighed, exasperated. "See you back at the house."

She surged away in the Camry. John straightened up and watched it go.

He watched her signal and execute the turn, before stepping back into the brambles to pluck another blackberry, gazing again at that path into the woods. The music emanating from the hell house had grown louder and busier. Odd, that that never seemed to take a break between tunes. It was always just one long, continuous jam.

He went out into the road and pushed the empty stroller back home.
Chapter 5: Audition

The Juzek rode shotgun. Aerie gunned her little white Sentra up and out of Cayuga's valley, heading for a rendezvous with Aaron and his sonic adventurers. She felt a bit queasy, the usual shyness plus some worry that the jam would prove as fun as a train wreck.

For one thing, these people weren't trained jazzers. If prior experience was any indication, the improvisations would be spacey and self-indulgent, a bunch of hippies glorifying any twang or bleat that emerged from the collective.

At least with jazzers, you had the Real Book to provide a standard melody and chorus, and a foundation of mutually agreed to chord changes. Play the head once through and then go nuts, touching base once a while to tighten the threads. Free could work, but not without some underlying structure and discipline.

She wished she had resisted the urge to play out and used the time instead to take a nap or see a movie. A busy week at Moosewood had worn her down.

Then again, as her mother might have said, it wouldn't kill her to meet some new people. She was halfway there, might as well see it through.

The sinking sun struck the landscape with a glancing light. Tendrils of mist rose from the hayfield like captive spirits, tails tethered to the earth. Fairy jewels and rain drops glinted on dripping foliage. The storm that spawned them receded over Dryden, growling and flashing its fangs.

After weeks of doldrums, the air felt pure again, but bereft of life, as if winter had exhaled over a late summer landscape. Still, it made inanimate mists dance in the fields.

She turned onto Connecticut Hill Road, crossing some flats and then climbing straight up the side of a steep ridge. This shortcut had looked good on her Thinkpad screen, but the road tapered abruptly into a virtual cow path—cracked and potholed and cordoned with big, old trees. The next road was little better. The deeper she drove into the shadows, the more she questioned the wisdom of her excursion.

She slowed to a roll, wondering if she had made the wrong turn. There were no houses anywhere, only their remains—collapsed chimneys, cellars, rose bushes stranded under pines.

Things improved once she reached the next turn—Summerton road, which had been recently paved and had a reassuring bold yellow stripe down its center, not to mention a sign. Here at least were signs of activity—clear-cuts and dirt heaps, framed houses under construction beyond a fringe of trees.

On the main road, a house popped into view, a strange one, with two wildly contrasting architectural visions grafted to each other—on one side a starkly modern ranch, on the other, a bulbous, wooden-clad thing that bulged out like a tumor. She passed a man pushing a double baby stroller along the shoulder, oddly devoid of babies.

Aerie pulled up and squinted at the mailbox. It indeed bore three eights, so she parked beside the car already occupying the driveway.

The screen door flew open. A man emerged, grinning. He didn't seem particularly avant garde. He was fortyish, wearing black jeans and a rugby shirt.

Aerie got out of the car, butterflies churning. "Aaron?"

"Aerie, is it? So glad you could make it. Come on in."

"Sorry, if I'm late."

"Not at all. We're just finishing up practice in time for your audition."

"Audition? I thought this was just a jam."

"Well... that's true, for those who don't pass the audition. You see there's an opportunity for... well, I'll explain later." He crinkled his eyes at her. "My, you're... shorter than I expected."

"Is that a problem?"

"Um, no. Just expected someone less petite."

Aerie bristled. Typical reaction. Why did everyone think that all female bass players had to be Amazons? She lugged her bass up the walk.

"Need help with that?"

"I can manage," said Aerie.

She followed him inside. A hall split the two halves of the chimerical house. To the left were the living quarters, to the right, a cavernous music room with a loft connecting to the rest of the upstairs. Four other musicians, all quite young, gathered in the center of the room, lounging on a leather sofa and some arm chairs. They tossed glances Aerie's way, exchanged looks with each other.

The room was littered with objects that were apparently musical instruments, both wind and string but few that Aerie could identify. High ceilings blended with the walls, curving all the way to the floor, clad with bent wooden planks, like the hull of a sailing ship. Blocks of contoured wood crossed the seams like the braces in a guitar. The two skylights were shaped like f-holes.

Aaron's pocket vibrated. He pulled out a smart phone and peeked at the screen. "My daughter. I'd better get take this. Make yourself at home. There's some IPA and Riesling in the mini-fridge." He went back out into the hall.

Aerie found an empty spot to lay down her bass and unzipped the cover. The echoes sounded like a chainsaw. It was uncanny how the structure of the room propagated any little noise. All those flat, reflective surfaces and zero acoustic damping made the place boomier than a church.

The other musicians remained huddled on the other side of the room, but their whispers carried. She could hear almost every word they said, and they were mainly talking about her. She looked up from adjusting her end pin.

"How's that little peanut expect to play that big old thing?" said one of the guys.

"Sexist."

"Not cuz she's a girl. Cuz she's so small."

"Staturist!" said the other guy.

"Fuck off, Mal."

"Maybe we should go and say hi?" said one of the women.

"I don't know," said the first guy. "You know what they say on the front lines. Never befriend the new recruits. They're always the first to fall."

"Yes, but we are not quite at war, are we Ron?" said a girl with sleek black hair. She had a sophisticated, sub-continental lilt to her voice. Her hair swirled as she vaulted over the back of the sofa and trotted over. "Hello, I am called Sari."

Aerie, kneeling beside her bass, reached up and took Sari's soft and elegant hand. This was not a girl who washed dishes or played a string instrument. Aerie couldn't help staring at her coppery skin, small-pored, even-toned with nary a mole, pimple or scar. She seemed almost superhuman.

The other girl came over. Stockier, with dull brown hair, she made up for in flaws what Sari lacked. Her grey eyes were warm but pitying, like a surgical nurse greeting a patient with a poor prognosis. "Eleni," she said, her hands rough and callused. "Those fools over there are already placing bets on your demise."

"Hey! You know we can hear you over here," said the red haired fellow who had insulted Aerie's size and femininity. He wore a goat-like tuft on his chin. Tattoos covered one forearm.

"C'mon Ron. Let's get our asses over there and say, hi," said the other guy, doughy-faced with black frizzy hair that pointed skyward in natural spikes."

The two plodded over in their work boots.

"I'm Malachi but you should call me Mal. Only my mom and Sari call me Malachi." His eyes went blank. "Uh... what'd you say your name was?"

"Aerie."

"Short for Airhead?" said the tattooed redhead, Ron.

Sari rolled her eyes. "You see what juveniles I have to deal with?"

"Fuck you, Sari. It was just a joke."

Aerie waved her hand across the strange menagerie of musical instruments that littered the floor: things that looked like eviscerated pianos, twisted harps, plumbing gone awry. "What's up with all these? Did Aaron build them?"

"Ever hear of Harry Partch?" said Sari.

"Vaguely," said Aerie.

"Fifties weirdo composer," said Eleni.

"Genius," said Mal. "The master of microtones."

"He used to live in Ithaca," said Sari. "These things were in a barn in Brooktondale, all broken up. Aaron found out about it and bought them all, outbid an LA museum, rehabilitated them. These are Partch's failed experiments."

"Except for that one," said Mal, pointing to a bulky, trapezoidal box with strings that looked like the offspring of a lyre and a coffin.

"The kithara?" said Eleni.

"That was one of Partch's successes," said Sari. "Aaron bought that one outright from a collector. It's fretted at 43 pitches per octave. Mr. Partch liked it so much, he took it back to LA with him when he moved. You must realize, these instruments are extremely valuable."

"So is he rich or something?"

"Uh... duh," said Ron.

"What does he do for a living?"

Ron snickered. Sari's eyes met Eleni's.

"There are certain things we don't speak of here."

"Especially not with the acoustics as lively as they are," said Mal, whispering.

"But what about you?" said Sari. "Where are you from?"

"Here," said Aerie. "I grew up around here."

"Get out," said Ron. "A native Ithacan who plays upright bass and Aaron's just now sussing you out?"

"What do you mean?" said Aerie.

"Anyone within a hundred miles who could pluck a bull fiddle has been up here to audition," said Mal. "Middle schoolers. Octogenarians, you name it. We had some guys come from Manhattan, Montreal. Beyond."

"All failed," said Eleni. "Aaron's fussy about his bass. Why he didn't find you earlier—"

"Well I just came back to town... from Tokyo. I haven't been back here in years."

"That explains it," said Sari.

Aerie went over to the kithara and plucked a string. Ten strings rang out in response, sympathetic to the one she plucked. "Wow," she said. She wandered through the bizarre array. For musical instruments, they were unusually ugly, their curves lacking grace, angles awkward.

One object stood out from the rest. It occupied a table in the center of the room. A wide, clear space surrounded it. It was shaped like a bird cage, cylindrical and domed, sheathed in silky, white cloth. Shelves swarmed with jars filled with colored powders.

"What's in the cage?" said Aerie.

Ron snickered.

"The birdie, of course," said Mal.

"Birdie?"

"Don't ask," said Eleni.

"It's not a live bird or a real bird or even a bird bird. It's just... the birdie," said Sari.

Aerie reached for the cover.

"Nuh-uh, I wouldn't touch that if I were you," said Ron. "Not if you want this gig."

But her hand was already touching it. Her fingers felt no bars beneath the fabric. Whatever lay beneath was smooth and solid and heavy. She rapped it with her knuckles. It clanked like glass.

"Hey, this isn't a cage."

"Get the fuck away from that," said Ron. "I'm not kidding."

"But what is it?" said Aerie, stepping back.

"It's a bell jar," said Mal.

"Bell jar?"

"Solid glass. See that stop cock coming out of the top?"

What Aerie took for a hanger was actually a valve. "Yeah?"

"He pumps the air out of it. There's a vacuum inside."

"Wouldn't that kill—?"

"Here he comes," said Eleni.

Out in the hall, Aaron's voice grew louder. "I'm so glad you called, sweetie. No, not at all. Say hi to your mom. I'll see you in a couple weeks when I get to Boston."

Aerie shuffled back to her bass.

Aaron hustled back into the room and picked up his fiddle. "Okay guys, let's play. Eleni? Man the kithara."
Chapter 6: The Contract

Aerie had expected the music to bore her. Instead, it filled her with a depth of dread she hadn't felt since Middle School, when her parents left her alone for the evening at their summer cottage in the Poconos. She had heard grunting in the attic; pacing, scuffling footsteps. Turned out to be porcupines, but how was she to know they weren't zombies or worse?

The jam started innocuously enough. Aaron tucked his fiddle and played an open D as a reference tone. Mal matched it with a drone from a horn carved from a hollow log. Eleni hammered the strings of the kithara with a pair of mallets. Sari stood still and straight, eyes closed, swaying like a willow in a zephyr, moaning. Ron wandered around the room with an old, cracked Martin Dreadnought, scraping his pick, cricket-like, high up the neck.

Aerie laid down roots where she could find them, sifting through a jungle of melodies that seemed completely unmoored from each other. A spider building a web, Aaron's fiddle wove connections between them, nudging the proceedings towards the arrhythmic, microtonal and dissonant.

When Sari began to sing—a piercing, haunting wall that would have shamed a banshee—shivers rippled down Aerie's back. The music converged, pouncing on her vocal like wolves on a lamb, their lines converging, ripping, eviscerating.

The pit of Aerie's stomach seized. Sweat trickled down her sides. She knew the symptoms. This was a panic attack. She didn't understand why. It was only music. But what music it was! The soundtrack to the mother of all horror films, a movie to which she was no passive observer but a victim, pursued by unseen and uncanny forces.

Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. She had to fight the urge to lay down her bass and rush outside into the sunlight and open air. She kept at it, adding complexity and chaos to the blend, building a stairway down, down to the depths. The groove kept slipping away from her in the darkness. She got it back by disconnecting her mind from her limbs, letting her fingers go wherever they wanted.

For nearly half an hour, they continued. In the middle of it all, the table holding the bird cage began to shake, legs rattling against the floor. Something buzzed beneath the cover, like a phone set on vibrate. The composition didn't end as much as it collapsed, leaving Aerie with her arms draped around her bass, panting, trembling.

"Hey, not... bad," said Aaron, regarding her with a cockeyed grin.

"Birdie didn't sing," said Ron.

"Yeah but, considering this is her first time, cold off the street..." said Aaron.

"I heard it hum... a little bit," said Eleni.

"I thought she did great," said Mal.

"Indeed. Bravo!" said Sari.

"Everyone but Aerie, huddle up in the kitchen," said Aaron.

Eleni winked at Aerie as she went by. "We're a democracy."

"Don't worry. You're a shoo in," whispered Mal.

They set down their instruments and followed Aaron out of the room.

Aerie tried to make sense of what she had just experienced. She felt unclean, as if she had just date-raped herself. She had never been affected by music quite this way and was quite certain she never wanted to feel this feeling again. She just wanted to go home, open up a bottle of Pinot and veg out on some mindless fluff on TV.

She stowed the end pin and zipped the Juzek back into its raggedy black nylon case. The others were still in the kitchen, chattering excitedly. A flutter and a scratch drew her attention to the bell jar on the cherry table. Something was in that thing. Something alive? But how? She sidled up to the table.

Footsteps clattered down the hall. The others poured back into the room.

"Congratulations," said Aaron. "You passed the audition."

"That's... nice," said Aerie, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. Her head spun. She felt nauseous.

"So?" said Mal. "You gonna sign?"

"Sign what?"

"There is a contract," said Aaron. "We have certain rules and it stipulates the compensation."

"Let me get back to you tomorrow, okay?" said Aerie. "I probably should be going."

"Hang on," said Aaron. "At least let me tell you the terms of the deal. First off, there's a thousand dollar retainer, paid monthly."

"Retainer?"

"Means you get paid even if we do nothing," said Ron.

"I know what a retainer is," said Aerie. "But that's what lawyers get, not musicians."

"On top of that, you get a hundred for each rehearsal. Five hundred for what I call 'productions', which happen about once a month, every full moon in fact. It's like a rehearsal, just longer, more focused, without interruptions."

"You actually play this stuff... for people?" said Aerie.

"Not exactly," said Mal.

Eleni chuckled.

"No club would book this crap," said Ron. "Can you imagine us playing at the Haunt? We'd empty out the place."

"Then what? Do you record?"

"Never," said Aaron.

"Then... what's the point?"

"We make the birdie sing," said Mal.

"The birdie." Aerie sighed. "I see."

"That's why... we exist," said Eleni. "To make it sing."

"So... what do you say?" said Aaron.

Aerie sighed. "That's a lot of money," she said. "And you're all good musicians and all. But... this really isn't my kind of thing. I mean... it was interesting, but I can't see myself doing this... regularly."

"Sleep on it," said Aaron. "I love the way you play. You have great instincts. Don't care much for your bass, though. She's a bit of a dullard. Fine for jazz. Nice, meaty fundamental. I can see how she cuts through the horns. But for this project I'd prefer something with a little more resonance."

"Well, I used to have a better one."

"Oh yeah? What make?"

"Prescott."

"Abraham Prescott? One of those New Hampshire church basses?"

"You know Prescotts?"

"Of course," said Aaron. "His basses are legendary. Three strings, originally. They accompanied choirs in parishes too poor to have organs. He made cellos too, but his basses are special."

"I loved mine. Got it cheap too, at an estate sale, because it had an ugly finish. It cleaned up nice though. Busette corners. Attached f-holes. I miss playing it."

"What happened to it?" said Mal.

"Got smashed by a truck in Denver."

"You kept it, I hope."

"Well, yeah. I have the pieces in a sack. I couldn't bear just to toss them in a dumpster."

"Are you crazy? You could have had it restored."

"I don't think so. It really got crunched."

"Doesn't matter. Wood can be mended. A good luthier could put it back together and make it sound almost as good as before, if not better."

"It's... a nice thought. But—"

"Tell you what. You play with us. I'll pay for the restoration. Just bring me the pieces, all of them."

Aerie smirked. "Okay. If you say so. The thing is... this music... it kind of bothers me. I can't see myself doing this full-time. It kind of... grates on my nerves."

"You'll get used to it," said Eleni. "It's gotten so I actually hum my parts in the shower now."

"Eleni, you know the rules," said Aaron. "What happens in production—"

"Stays in production. Yeah, I know. But it's not like I'm showering with anybody these days."

"None of what we play leaves this house. Understand? That's why we have rehearsals."

Aerie hoisted her bass up onto her shoulder. "We'll, it's been nice playing with you all. Good luck."

"You will play with again, won't you?" said Aaron.

Aerie winced. "I don't think so. It's really not my thing."

Aaron looked panicked. "I'll double the pay... for the whole collective. Two hundred per rehearsal. A thousand per production."

Ron and Mal looked at each other, eyes popping.

"Aerie. You have to play with us," said Eleni.

Aerie shrugged. "It's not like I need the money. I have a job. A trust fund pays half my rent. I'm comfortable." She dragged her bass out of the music room, heading for the door.

"Promise me you'll think about it?" said Aaron.

"I'll call if I change my mind," said Aerie, letting the door slam behind her.
Chapter 7. Deliverance

With the breakfast dishes all scrubbed and the boys both dressed, John settled into an armchair in the sunroom, rolling his sleeves back down to ward off the morning chill. Jason sat in the play pen beside him, slobbering over an alphabet block. Nigel sprawled in a patch of sun on the hardwood floor, coloring outside the lines of his dinosaur coloring book.

Cindy had gotten back late and was sleeping in. Somehow, she had slipped into bed without waking him. He bumped into her warm shoulder when he got up at four to calm Jason back down, relieved to have her back home. As he had dressed he had hovered over her slumbering form, with that raspy wheeze of hers that was too cute to be called a snore, sniffing for signs of other men, namely Pastor Mac's cologne. Sensing nothing but Cindy, he pecked her cheek and went off to attend the boys.

He picked up the days-old newspaper that Cindy had brought home on Wednesday. He wished they could get the paper every day, but no one delivered the New York Times to this neck of the woods. He lost.

Nigel got up, acting sluggish as an old man after a hard day's work.

"Gotta go potty," said Nigel.

"Need help?"

"No."

"That's my big boy!"

John sank himself into the sports pages, studying the fine print of who got cut, and who got traded from the NFL training camps. He had a fantasy draft coming up and needed to stay on top of things. He didn't bother to read the news anymore. There was never anything good, just the same old mistakes and crimes repeated.

The toilet flushed, drawing a smile from John, particularly when he heard the bathroom faucet turn on right after. Three months of potty training were finally drawing dividends. Now if he could only find a way to wean Jason off his dang formula.

An altercation broke out down the hall. Cindy screamed at Nigel to quit making so much noise and Nigel started to bawl. John put down the paper, taking the ruckus as a cue to bring Cindy her coffee, which was already brewed and sitting in the decanter.

"Morning Cind," he said, approaching the bed cautiously, like a zookeeper bearing a raw steak to a hungry leopard. She had the TV tuned into Good Morning America. Nigel was hunched on the closet floor, sobbing. "What's up with him?"

"Oh, I was just trying to hear the news and he's babblin' at me and crinklin' in the closet."

John handed the mug to Cindy, went to the closet and lifted Nigel to his feet and whispered into his ear.

"Go finish coloring those dinosaurs, 'kay? It's a nice day. We'll go bug hunting later."

"Draginz," said Nigel, pouting. "They're draginz. Not dinosaurs."

"Get a load of that," said Cindy. "Bank of America just put a moratorium on foreclosures. That's going to totally mess up that sweet deal we had up in Seneca Falls." She took a slurp of her French Roast. "Thanks for the coffee, hon."

"Well, I heard there'd been some fraud," said John. "Judges rushing to foreclose over bad paperwork."

"Oh, bull hockey, that's not fraud. Mistakes happen. People make mistakes. How do they expect a judge to review six thousand cases per month? It's not humanly possible."

"These are people's houses, their lives."

"I know, but... there's a very special property up on the lake the agency's had its eye on. A real sweet place, all stucco and sloping gardens. The owner's been missing payments."

John sat down the corner of the bed, settled his hand down gently on her calf. "How'd it go... at the parish last night?"

Cindy narrowed her eyes. "Fine."

"So is that... consolidation thing happening?"

"What consolidation thing?"

"The merger. You said that Covenant Love was consolidating with some church in Varna."

The blankness filling Cindy's blue eyes dissipated. "Oh, that. No, we didn't get around to discussing that."

"So... what was the meeting about?"

"Oh, various things." She took a tiny sip from the steaming mug. "One of them... being us."

"Us?"

"Our problem."

John blinked. His stomach quivered. He felt as if he had swallowed an eel.

"With the neighbors?" said Cindy, peering over her glasses. "Hello?"

"Oh. Right."

"We had a long talk. Me and Pastor Mac and the elders," said Cindy. "It's decided. We're doing an intervention."

"Excuse me?"

"Mac's gonna try to get this ministry in Georgia to come up to do a deliverance. An old friend of his runs it. Owes him a favor. He thinks he can get us a big discount."

"We have to pay? For what?"

"It's 15k. But don't worry. Mac said he'd get the congregation to put up a collection."

"Fifteen thousand? But what do they do?"

"Sanctify. Expunge evil. Cast out demons in the name of Jesus."

"Oh Lordie."

"You have a problem with this?"

"Cindy, I'm not sure this is as serious as you make it out to be."

"Not serious? We have small children in our house."

"They're just musicians. It's not like they... sacrifice babies."

Cindy rolled her eyes. "Here we go again."

"I met the man, Cindy. He seems perfectly normal. Clean. Polite. Friendly. Maybe some of the kids he plays with are a little funky looking, but they're just kids, barely out of high school."

"Looks deceive."

"Point is, I think he's just an eccentric. Maybe he's not as God-fearing as... as we might prefer, but calling him evil? Possessed? That's a bit much, don't you think?"

Cindy glared up from her coffee cup. "True evil can be felt, John. I feel it here, outside our door, comin' out through every pore of that hell house. If you can't feel it... it makes me wonder."

"Wonder what?"

"I... I just think that those who have given themselves fully unto Jesus are more sensitive to these things."

"Gosh, Cindy. After all we've been through. You're doubting my faith?"

"Oh, hush John. I'm not doubting you. Just saying you don't have the kind of sensitivity one needs to detect these things. Mac... and the elders, they understood immediately when I played them the tape. The feeling swept through both of us like lightning. We went down on our knees, joined hands. It was electric. They've got the tape confined under a lead apron."

"Seems a little extreme. Don't you think? Considering it's only music."

Cindy's jaw tightened and she swung her feet off the bed. "The way you say that... burns me. Same way you dismiss my reasonable requests to keep my damn kids out of that blackberry patch. Sometimes I wonder what happened to the man I married."

"He's right here, washing your underwear and scrubbing your toilet."

"Someone in this family has to make a living! Is it too much to ask that you help out?"

"Cindy, I'm fine with it. It's just... this exorcism thing... really? What are they gonna do, come up here and do some kind of mumbo jumbo?"

"It's called deliverance, John. And there's no mumbo jumbo involved, it's called prayer."

"We gotta pay 15K for a bunch of prayers?"

"Stop trivializing it. These are deliverance specialists. They have a ritual that involves use of the Holy Fire. A very special kind of Holy Fire."

John blinked at her. "Fire?"

Cindy's eyes rolled. "Fire that's holy. Preserved from consecrated places, miracles, disasters, tragedies. If you have a problem with this, let me know and I'll have Mac come and explain it all to you."

"No," said John. "That's okay. If you think it's gotta be done, it's what we gotta do."

"I'm glad you see things my way," she said, dryly.

"So how does this work? Are they gonna stay with us?"

"If need be. Mac says that once the case gets assigned, they'll be calling us for a screening interview." Cindy glanced at the clock. "8:30. Oh my. I've got to get to Seneca Falls by ten and I still need to shower. Be a sweetie, John and fry me up a couple of eggs, over hard? Some wheat toast?"

"Sure hon, but who exactly are these... exorcists? I think I might want to Google them."

"Deliverance, not exorcism," said Cindy. She rose up on the balls of her feet and stretched; the curls of her long, blond hair uncoiling. "They're called Last Hope. Last Hope Ministries."
Chapter 8: Last Hope

The Reverend Donald Beasley, spiritual warrior, rapped his fingers on his antique desk, a slab of polished chestnut with nothing on it but a phone, a folder and a figurine of Jesus. Sweat dampened his shirt; his pulse throbbed in his temple as he ran through his options for dealing with Mac Hargrove's request.

Anxiety was not normally part of his makeup. The sense of ease he so treasured and had worked for years to cultivate had been disturbed, and he didn't like the feeling one bit.

A man like him shouldn't have to deal with such crap. His ministry practically ran itself these days. He had small people to sweat the small stuff.

But all week long he had been on edge, ever since he had gotten that call from an old and almost forgotten colleague—MacIntyre Hargrove. Mac.

The call had come late last Friday when he was getting ready to wrap up his day and head off to his house on Lake Lanier. Things had been going so smoothly. He and his partner Jerry had just finished a training session for a set of new hires that would double the number of intervention teams they could deploy, once the new folks got up to speed. Their expansion into general Christian counseling would greatly expand their outreach and uptake.

Out of the blue, Mac had called, as if Mr. Baalzebub himself had decided things were going too well for Last Hope Ministries and decided to intervene. Mac was a pastor now, with his own congregation. Hard to believe, considering his roots.

"Well God bless! Mac? Mac Hargrove? So nice to hear you. How'd you get my number?"

"Wasn't hard. Wasn't hard at all, considering all the media you've been doing," said Mac.

"Yeah, well it's good PR, if you know what I mean. Got to get the word out so we can share our good works far and wide."

"Well, it worked. I found you."

Donnie had felt short of breath. His heart was pounding. "Well Gosh, how's your wife? You must have... how many kids by now?

"None. I never married, Donnie."

"Oh no? What happened with that girl you were always with? That perky honey-blonde."

"Michelle? Michelle left me when I was in prison. Listen, I know you're a busy guy and all. But I have a favor to ask of you. Remember what you told me during... the trial? That anytime I needed your help, you would be there for me?"

"Oh sure. Of course. Anything. Anytime."

"I need a deliverance, Don. Holy fire, the whole shebang. Everyone says you're the best, and you get what you pay for, but this one has to be a freebie. This... very special lady in my congregation, she's upside down in her mortgage. Two kids. Her husband's been out of a job for almost a year. I'm asking you to waive your usual rates. I've got myself a decent flock up here, but none of us are wealthy. We got maintenance to pay for, not to mention the service on our loans. I hope you understand. We could really use a freebie."

Donnie bristled at Mac's attitude. Here they were, two old friends, and he's not even attempting to catch up on things. He's skipping the chitchat, bringing up the money straightaway.

"Well, we do have a grant program for cases of need. Glad to put her on the list, Mac, but it might be some time before we get to her case. We got a big backlog. We got so much business we have to do triage."

"They need help right now," said Mac. "And I want you to give it. Personally. I want you to come up here."

"Me? That's not how we work here at LHM," said Donnie. "I'm an executive not an operative. I just manage the folks that do the counseling."

"That's not what you say in your interviews," said Mac. "You keep telling those media folks that you're a full blown spiritual warrior."

"Special cases, maybe," said Donnie. "But we got folks better trained on the counseling end of things. Let me see if I can—"

"Forget counseling. We need a deliverance. We need the whole shebang."

"Well, like I said, we're happy to put her on the list. The grants are need-based, so she'll have fill out a financial disclosure form. I'll even bump her up the list and make sure she—"

"I need your help, Donnie. I'm cashing in that favor you promised me. Do you understand what I'm saying? This lady is special to me. I need your help. If... you're not willing...."

A chill rippled down his back. Hearing Mac's voice again was like listening to a ghost. "Give me the contact info. We'll do a screening, as soon as possible."

***

It had been a week since Donnie had taken that call, and every day since he had been hoping to find a way to sweep things under a rug, have someone else handle things, but he could find no way out, quailing at the thought of what Mac might do if Donnie evaded his quite specific requests. Assigning others to deal with the Mac problem was simply untenable. The things Mac could tell them about their younger days. Unseemly things. Incriminating things. Things that could torpedo a cable deal. Clearly, this was an assignment he would need to handle himself.

He had known Mac since they were in their teens. For a while, their lives had been synchronized, both triumphs and failures. They played high school football together, never quite making it to varsity. They both went to Pepperdine, and both dropped out. They tried their hand at burglary, punk rock, pot farming. Both had ranted against the very holy rollers who would later become their partners in faith, and both found Jesus at a crossroads in Galax, Virginia.

It happened during the nadir of their punk aspirations. The remnants of their band, Vile, had been driving back to Georgia after an aborted tour, their implosion triggered by a pair of poorly attended gigs in Lynchburg and Roanoke. Richie, their drummer had quit with one set left to play as some pretentious little club in Roanoke. The owner had claimed breach of contract and refused to pay them.

To top their misery, the van broke down in Galax farm country. They were rescued by a man plowing his land with a team of oxen, who seemed all beard and hat and piercing eyes. The man fed them, gave them cots to sleep on, spent half a day under their van helping them replace the bearings in their differential, preaching to them all the while about the call of Jesus.

Turned out he was Rick Reynolds, a local holy man with an almost cultish following. He was never ordained, but had baptized thousands. In the 70s, folks would have called Rick a Jesus freak, but he transcended labels, and his charisma was just riveting enough to capture the souls of a couple of vagabond anarchists like Mac and Donnie, in their weak and dispirited state.

They joined his congregation, became indoctrinated into his brand of charismatic Christianity. Sundays became orgies of faith. Morning and night people came from afar to see Rick, and receive his healing graces—people with cancers, depressions, every ill in which the Devil cared to dabble.

Eventually they left Galax to attend the Rock of Ages School of Ministry in Lawrenceville, Georgia. And just like that they went off together and bought an old Pentecostal church on the outskirts of Athens. The existing congregation mostly melted away when they experienced saw the raw and crude ministry these young upstarts had to offer. But slowly, in trickles and surges they built a congregation, younger and poorer than those who had come to the church before. It was as if Donnie and Mac were building a church in their own image, so to speak.

Problem was, though they had given up all forms of unholy music, they hadn't entirely lost their taste for petty crime. Donnie wasn't proud of it, but early on, he and Mac had established a meth lab in the basement of the church. Methamphetamines provided a tempting way to fund a newborn parish that was still finding its legs. Of course they were being hypocrites and sinners, preaching one thing and doing another. But wasn't everyone in the same boat? Didn't everyone need something sinful in their lives for Jesus to forgive?

The meth operation was Donnie's baby. Mac had never cooked a batch of crystal before. Donnie showed him what ingredients to procure, how to manage the solvents without frying your ass, how to package the product and deal with unruly or financially delinquent clientele.

Once he got trained up, Mac did all the dirty work. All of it. That way Donnie kept his hands clean. On Sundays Mac was a Deacon and he was fine with that. He hadn't yet found his voice for preaching. He did his thing in the basement and all of the building maintenance while Donnie handled all the ministerial duties: writing sermons, counseling the desperate, laundering money.

As usually happens when dealers become their own best customers, they pushed the drug operation too far. A sting operation nailed Mac while he was out on a delivery. Although both had been suspects, Mac took the fall. Donnie feigned shock and ignorance and somehow got away with it, aided in large part by Mac's effusive confessions. Three years, Mac and spent in the penitentiary, with never a peep about Donnie's involvement.

Now, Donnie was surrounded by the accoutrements of a successful career: a corner office with a view of the Oconee River, the lush campus of the University of Georgia, cherry wood cabinets, a top of the line Krell sound system with a SIRIUS receiver. Awards from the National Association of Evangelicals shingled the walls, including pictures of himself with the Rev. Billy Graham, testimonials of folks he and his little army of spiritual warriors had saved. Who better to save your soul than one who had been saved, one who had been up close enough to the devil to smell the brimstone on his breath, one who had wrestled with his minions?

Business had never been better for Last Hope Ministries. He had leased an entire floor of an office building in downtown Athens. He had field teams out on assignment in five different states.

Those who knew the profession considered LHM among the elite of spiritual warfare specialists, an exclusive but critical trade among the full palette of Christian counseling services available under Soul Survivors, a consortium of ministries dedicated to helping people solve personal and social ills through prayer.

Deliverance had emerged from the fringy, back door operation it had been relegated to since the 1970s to acquire a shiny, new corporate veneer. Casting of demons was growing in popularity as a cure for everything from bipolar disorder to fibromyalgia. They had even passed muster with several insurance companies that covered claims for their services as an approved therapy for mental disorders.

An agent had even approached him about the possibility of producing a pilot for a reality TV show to pitch to Sky Angel and other faith and family networks. They would have competition from Evex, a deliverance ministry based in Florida who had one up on him and Jerry when it came to photogenics and appeal. Jerry, his security chief, was a paunchy ex-Army Ranger with a scraggly beard and the complexion of a potato, and was a mite tongue-tied and taciturn for television. Jerry's counterpart at Evex, Sue LeSarge was a leather clad biker chick who specialized in cases of incubi and succubi.

But Donnie had looks and charm enough to pull it off. He liked to think that he still had the look, with a sweep of smooth black hair, grey only at the sideburns. And he had the people skills that would compensate for Jerry's antisocial nature. Odd couples made good video.

The reappearance of Mac in his life, however, complicated things. A criminal record like his wouldn't play well on Christian cable. Sexual indiscretions could be forgiven, pushing drugs he wasn't so sure. Mac's resurrection might very well jeopardize their chances of getting a show.

Donnie called his assistant on the intercom. "Beryl, I want you to place that call I told you about. Jerry and I will take it in the board room, but give me a minute to find him."

He creaked out of his chair and went around the corner to the only office overlooking both the elevator and stairwell. Jerry 'Jericho' Winston never sat inside a building in a place where he couldn't keep an eye on every access and egress.

Jerry had stacked all his paperwork on the floor and had his shotgun all stripped down for cleaning.

"Dang it Jerry, do you really have to clean your weapon in the office?"

"Killin' two birds, one stone," said Jerry. "You said you wanted me up here for a call. So here I am."

"C'mon," said Donnie, leading him into a glassed-in conference room. Jerry took a seat across the table, facing the door. "The folks we'll be talking to were referred to us by that guy I was telling you about. My old partner."

"You considered paying him off?" said Jerry.

"That's not what he's after," said Don. "Seems he actually wants a deliverance out of this. But you listen, and you tell me what you think." Donnie pressed the intercom button. "We're ready, Beryl."

Donnie tapped his fingers on the wood, scanning his colleague's visage, wondering how well he would clean up for TV if that agent could wrangle something. Maybe, they'd prefer to keep Jerry's edges rough, and maybe even accentuate them, tease out his hair, make him look like a real wild man, while Donnie could provide a civilized, sophisticated foil.

He could already hear them go over Jerry's background in the tease. Jericho Winston, God's own mercenary, rumored Delta Force operative with action in Grenada, Somalia and Kuwait. Hopefully, they'd gloss over Donnie's own background, mentioning just a dash about his criminal record for spice.

"What you lookin' at?"

"Your hair," said Donnie.

"My what?"

"They're on the line," squawked Beryl over the intercom.

Donnie cleared his throat.

"Hello, this is the Reverend Donald Beasley, CEO of Last Hope Ministries, a division of Soul Survivors. I'm here with my head of security, Mr. Jericho Winston."

"Hi there! I'm Cindy Swain. We're so excited that you called. Our pastor, Mac Hargrove has told us some wonderful things about your mission, isn't that right John? My husband, John, he's on the other line."

The woman at the other end spoke with a small, quick voice. Donnie could tell she was a sharp one, pointy in more ways than one. A baby bawled in the background, a man's voice barely audible across a room.

"John, get your ass on the phone!"

"Sorry," said John, breathless. "Jason got stuck under the coffee table. Had to rescue him."

"Alright, then," said Donnie. "Let's get on with the interview. I think we can just skip the preliminaries. Mac's already filled me in on the basics. Am I correct in assuming that you need help with a case of satanic or demonic possession?"

"Yes, that's right," said Cindy.

"Does it involve a family member?"

"Oh no. My family's fine. This is about a neighbor."

"I see," said Don. "You realize ma'am that we have a policy of informed consent. Our subjects or their legal guardians must provide written consent before we can conduct any procedures."

"I don't think that would be possible in this case," said John.

"And it doesn't make any sense," said Cindy. "You're asking a possessed person for permission to be exorcised? What if Satan tells them no?"

"As I said... 'or their legal guardians'. Most of our cases involve minors. Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to the forces that commandeer souls. Demonic possessions are most common in the years surrounding puberty, particularly the mid to late teens. Souls lured into in self-destructive behaviors: sex, drugs, anorexia, bulimia. We conduct a full program of spiritual warfare for afflicted souls. We counsel, pray, purify."

"This is a man we're talking about," said Cindy. "A full-grown adult."

"Well, then, that somewhat limits what we can do, unless you can convince him to consent to our interventions."

"What about dogs?" said Jerry.

"Dogs?" said John.

"Animals are often the agents of possession," said Donnie. "They act as familiars. If this man has a dog it offers an avenue of access that otherwise might not be available."

"I don't think this guy has any pets," said Cindy.

"We exorcised a monkey once," said Jerry. "Terrorized a whole family. Had to put it down with a silver bullet."

Donnie coughed. "Alright, let's get on with the interview. What is this affected person's name, and would you happen to know his faith?"

"Um... Aaron, I think. Aaron something or other. And I doubt he goes to church. But I don't think it's the person that's possessed here. I think it's the house."

Donnie put down their interview script, and snuck a glance at Jerry, who was winding strands of his beard around a pencil finger like a teenage girl plays with her hair. "Haunted house," he mouthed to Jerry as a thrill welled up in him. Jerry gave him a thumbs up. He just loved hauntings. It had been their specialty early on, what had attracted Jerry to the trade in the first place.

"I call it the hell house," said Cindy. "There are ungodly sounds coming out of it every other night. Not of this earth, I tell you. Un-human."

"Heavy metal?" said Jerry. "Was it that shit they call death metal?"

"Oh no," said Cindy. "It's not rock and roll, not at all. It's much more... demonic, I suppose... than that. I'd play you a tape that I made, but Pastor Mac has it stashed away under lead."

"Under lead?" Donnie glanced at Jerry, raising an eyebrow.

Jerry nodded. "Standard containment."

Donnie shrugged. "I don't know. Takes more than weird music to make this a case of haunting."

"You gotta hear it mister and you'll know what I mean. The shrieks that happen in there. It's like murder. And there are things that creep around the background. My husband, he came in one night, white in the face. He won't even tell me what he saw."

"We live in the woods," said John. "I don't even know what it was. I was startled, that's all. Probably just a deer."

"You said it spun. Like a tornado."

"It was windy," said John. "Probably just a dust devil."

Don's gaze snapped up and he looked at Jerry, whose face had gone hard. Jerry nodded.

"Folks. This thing in your yard, did it leave a black trail behind it?"

"Black trail?"

"A smudge. Like charcoal."

"I didn't notice... I mean it was dark and drizzly. I'm pretty sure it was a deer...or a bear."

"Did it last a couple seconds, or did it persist?"

"Well... I have to say... it kinda... stuck around."

"Did it follow you?" said Jerry.

"Follow me? I'm not sure. I just went to take the trash out. I didn't stick around."

"Could be a praf diavol, as they say in Romania," said Don. "In Brazil they call it a saci _pererê; it's vumbi ibilisi in Africa."_

_"Diablo de polvo," said Jerry. "Mexico."_

_"This thing, was it in any way associated with that music?"_

_"Well... yeah, there was music that night."_

_"I had John go and close all the windows. Lock 'em," said Cindy. "You should have seen the look on his face when he came in. Had me freaked."_

_"I was just... startled," said John. "A raccoon would have done the same."_

_"Well, as you know, Mac Hargrove is a very good friend of mine. I would go to the ends of the earth for him. I was gonna him one our teams irregardless of what you told us... just due diligence. But I tell you, this case... and I think Jerry agrees... this case is sounding very interesting. This is something we might want to take on ourselves."_

_Jerry nodded._

_"Really!" said Cindy. "That'd be awesome. God bless! We'd be so grateful. Pastor Mac says you take payment in installments?"_

_"We do," said Don. "Let's not worry about all that just yet. Let me get together with Jerry here and see when we can come up. We'll be needing full access to your property. I mean, there's a bunch of equipment and such we'll need to set up... for monitoring purposes."_

_"Not a problem. We're glad to have you."_

_"Got a fireplace?" said Jerry._

_"You mean... for the Holy Fire?" said Cindy, voice trembling with excitement._

_"That's right," said Jerry._

_"Alright then," said Don. "I suppose that's all we need for now. You all take care now and we'll be in touch."_

_"Thank you so much!" said Cindy._

_Donnie clicked off the phone. He smiled at Jerry, whose eyes had taken on the gleam it obtained when he was flirting with a pretty girl or getting ready to dig into a steak._

_"God bless!" said Donnie. "We got ourselves a fucking praf diavol!"_

_"Hot damn!" said Jerry. "I'd better get some ropes knotted up."_

_***_

_Cindy put down the phone and looked across the room to John who had just plopped down on the love seat by the living room window, baby Jason on his hip with a bottle of formula. A vigorous breeze blew in and ruffled the curtains._

_"Well, that went well, don't you think?" said Cindy, blinking and beaming._

_"Yeah," said John. "Went great. They sounded eager to help us."_

_"You know could have been a little more sharing about your... little experience. That's the kind of information they're gonna need to do this right."_

_"I didn't know what to tell them," said John. "I mean... there's not much to say. They could have been deer."_

_"Swirly deer," said Cindy. "Right."_

_Truth was, his memory of the incident, and what he told Cindy about it at the time, had been heavily fogged by Glenfiddich and beer. He had gotten sloshed after a rough and restless day, both kids with fevers, spewing hot vomit all day like little volcanoes. But the things he saw in the backyard were not deer._

_"I'd better go check those pot pies," said Cindy. "You got the dishes tonight. Right? Because I cooked?"_

_"Of course," said John._

_Cindy trotted off into the kitchen, lithe and nimble as a teenager, despite being thirty with two children. She seemed to be in an unusually good mood tonight. He felt a stirring down below. Maybe later, in bed, he'd try his luck._

_He stared out the window, thinking back to the night of weirdness on the edge of the yard. It had been one of those drizzly nights, when the forecast called for patchy thunderstorms and they only caught the dribbly fringes. The grass was crunchy. They could have used a good downpour._

_It was back in July. The kids were already in bed. Cindy had gotten home late. She stayed on the phone all during dinner: with the office, Pastor Mac and then her mom. John couldn't get a word in edgewise to tell her how sick the kids had been, and she had no idea he was drunk._

_He groaned when he realized that the next day was garbage day and he hadn't taken out the trash. They had to contract a private service to come out their way and pick it all up in a panel truck. When this contract ran out, they were not going to renew. It would be cheaper just to drive their trash to the dump._

_He had pushed up from the table and gone to collect all the trash from the bedrooms and bathrooms, packed with paper towels clumped with acrid toddler vomit. Consolidating it all into a single Hefty bag in the kitchen, he made his way through the garage and out into the backyard. Drizzle whipped his face as he stepped into the darkness to where he had staged the trash bins. Jason's diapers rendered them too aromatic to keep in the garage._

_The hell house was rollicking tonight, the shrill tones of fiddle and horn cutting through the susurration of wind and forest. Funny, how that music sounded so much better when he was smashed on Scotch. Lucky the windows were all latched and Cindy hadn't noticed that the music had started up, or she would be freaking, checking all the crosses on the lintels, stashing bulbs of garlic in the kids rooms._

_Something rustled in the woods. John flinched and stumbled, unsteady in his intoxication. He had run into a skunk a couple nights back there before. He stopped and squinted into the damp and dim. The creature didn't even seem to be moving, yet it rattled the leaves around it, making a sound like sand striking paper. John shrugged and continued with his task._

_He shook his head to clear the cobwebs. He had overdone it with the Glenfiddich. A single Bud hadn't been enough to dull what needed dulling so he had taken a hefty swig straight from the bottle, a gift from some holiday party back when he was still working. The trash can creaked as he wheeled it down the concrete._

_Their street had only a few working streetlamps, one of them like at the corner of their driveway and the curb. He left the trash can in the center of a pool of glistening light. The drizzle was so light the droplets danced in the wind, swooping and swirling as they fell._

_A crackling sound across the street seized his attention. It came from the edge of a foundation hole of would have been their across-the-street neighbor's house but now just bred mosquitoes. Was it that thing from the backyard? How did it get across the street without him noticing?_

_And then it moved into the edge of the pool of light, just for a second and back into shadow. The thing was large. Man-sized, with a grey, pulsing dome. Shreds and wisps peeled off of it like rags. John turned and ran back to the house._

_He slipped on the slick concrete and skinned his knee, tumbling, smacking his forehead against a solar footlight. He re-gathered his legs and careened inside. Cindy was off the phone and cowering in the far corner of the dining room. She must have heard the music as she was clutching a crucifix to her bosom. One glance at John's bloody face and she screamed._

_***_

_That had happened weeks ago. He had put it from his mind. Skunks and deer and fisher cats had shown up since, nothing so bizarre as the thing or things he heard and saw that night. He made damn sure he was sober when he took out the garbage these days._

_"What's wrong?" said Cindy, coming up behind him, her fingers kneading into his shoulders. "What are you looking at?" John glanced up. Her eyes were narrow with concern._

_"Nothing, hon. I'm just enjoying the breeze."_

_"There's nothing out there, is there?"_

_"Nah. Nothing. Just crickets."_

_"Make sure you shut that window when you come to bed. 'Kay?"_
Chapter 9: Persuasion

The morning after the jam, an unlisted number popped on Aerie's caller ID. She let it go to voice mail. On her way into work, she checked the number against the ad on the Guitar Works bulletin board. As she suspected, it was Aaron's.

Aaron called every few hours day that and into the next. Aerie never picked up. She wanted nothing to do with those people, that music. She hadn't touched her Juzek since the jam, leaving it zipped in its black nylon cover. She couldn't even listen to music on her ipod without conjuring the nausea that had gripped her playing that weird stuff.

She chalked up the abortive experience as another sign that the muses had deemed that she was done with music, not only as a career but as a hobby as well. She had emphatically and irrevocably moved on to other things. She applied herself to imagining how she could make this foodie thing work. Yes, she had come into the restaurant business at the bottom rung, but she could see a lighted path towards aspects that intrigued her, like the magic that Lucrezia wrought with her dessert-making.

Apple season had arrived and Moosewood celebrated with pies and crisps and chutneys and cider. As much as she wanted to nose in on Lucrezia's gastronomical alchemy, Aerie was allowed nowhere near the actual pie making. Lucrezia was a snarly old bitch with no tolerance for extra hands on her dough. Aerie spent her shift peeling and coring and slicing Cortlands, husking walnuts, gutting pumpkins.

On her off days and breaks she browsed book shops, cruised the sidewalks and the Commons, hoping to bump into someone she knew. But every face she passed was strange, glances never connecting. It didn't have to be old friends; she was game for meeting new people, but she had no competence for that sort of thing. She generally came up empty in these fishing expeditions.

Maybe it was her built-in glare that put people off. Nothing she could do about it, it was the natural resting position of her face. Forcing a smile only made it worse. Kids in school always used to ask her what was wrong. Why so sad, so mad? But that glare was simply the visage she shared with the world even when she felt cheery inside.

The only semblance of a social life she had began and ended with her shifts at Moosewood. Reggie was a motherly sort, always asking after her feelings, apologizing for how little they paid the help, touting how great the benefits were. She got along fine with the wait staff, both male and female even though they were a bit caste-aware and cliquey. Dishwashers came and went except for Bobby, a thirtyish, alcoholic wastrel with jowls much too leathery for his age.

The one person she wanted to know most, Lucrezia, happened to be the hardest to befriend. She was always snapping and grumbling at everyone and everything. Her mantras were: "Get the fuck out. Get the fuck away from me. Get your ass outa my kitchen." Her glare made Aerie's look like a grin. But man could she bake.

The restaurant was busy for a Tuesday night. The colleges were in full swing by now. The shift had started off fine. She snatched wedges of apple as she chopped: Empires, Macouns and Cortlands picked that morning.

As the night wore on, though, she wore down. Her mood sank. Is this how the rest of her life would go? Chained to a chopping block? The world warped around her. Aerie realized she had forgotten to take her pills.

When the shift finally ended, she zipped her hoodie and hustled out the back door, hopping down off of the darkened loading dock at the bottom of a steep ramp leading up to the street. The ramp up to the street was slick and shiny from the showers that kept spitting on and off.

Without those pills, she felt all jittery. It didn't help that she had skipped dinner. Nothing in the kitchen appealed to her that night. The food was always great. Sometimes she just got tired of eating vegetarian.

She had a craving for a pepperoni pizza. Maybe she'd pick one up, go home and watch the Daily Show.

As she turned the corner off the ramp, three figures loomed out of the darkness. Aerie lurched back and threw up her hands. They were the musicians from the jam: Ron, Mal and Eleni.

"Hah!" said Ron. "She thinks we're muggers."

"You just... startled me," said Aerie.

"Why do you take the back door?" said Eleni. "Hiding from someone?"

"You been spying on me?"

"Just wanted to meet up with you," said Mal. "We came last night, too, waited inside the mall, by the front door. But the restaurant closed and no Aerie. You never came out."

"You've been avoiding us," said Eleni, flipping back the hair screening her face. "Aaron says you won't pick up his calls."

"How did you even know I worked here? I never told—"

"Sari," said Eleni. "Comes here a lot. Said she saw you in the kitchen."

"She could have... said hi," said Aerie.

"Sari doesn't care if you play with us," said Eleni.

"She's independently wealthy," said Mal. "Trust funds, you know."

"Well, you all could have come in, had dinner, said hi, instead of lurking out here like... criminals." She knew full well that the sight of these specters from Aaron's jam would have sent her into a panic.

"Me, eat at Moosewood?" said Ron. "Get real. I need more than sprouts to sustain this physique."

"Their food's good, Ron," said Mal. "It's just expensive."

"Listen, I'm tired. What is it you guys want?" said Aerie.

"We're here to twist your arm," said Mal. "So to speak."

"We want you to be our bass player," said Ron.

"I'm sorry," said Aerie, fingernails picking at the bark of a Linden tree. "But that just isn't my thing. I don't care if I passed the audition. I can't see myself playing that kind of music."

"Because it scared you, didn't it?" said Eleni. "You felt it in your core?"

Aerie just stared back at her and blinked.

"Never bothered me," said Ron. "I grooved on it right from the start."

"Qaaludes," said Mal. "Old school sedatives. That's what got me through. Not to mention—earplugs. Hard to get these days, the 'ludes, I mean."

Aerie shifted her weight between her sore feet. "Listen guys, it's late. I'm hungry. I just want to go home."

"We'll walk with you," said Eleni. "That way the boogey-men can't get you."

"She probably thinks we're the boogey-men," said Mal.

"She may be right," said Ron.

Aerie sighed and started walking. "It's nothing personal, I hope you realize. I mean, you're all very talented. In another context, I would have no problem playing with you all." She crossed Cayuga against the light and made for Court Street, trailing her little entourage. Ron took his sweet time crossing, holding up his middle finger to an approaching car. The group drew nervous glances from an elderly couple and a middle schooler with a violin case.

"It's not just the money," said Mal. "It's for a good cause."

"How do you figure that?" said Aerie.

"Mal's got a theory," said Eleni. "This all has something to do with stopping global warming."

"What?" said Aerie, crinkling her nose.

"I'm not at liberty to share," said Mal. "Aaron's had me sign a non-disclosure agreement."

"Mal was a chemist," said Eleni. "He flunked out of Cornell."

"Biochem," said Mal. "And I didn't exactly flunk. I just couldn't take it anymore."

"Me and Eleni are dropouts, too," said Ron.

"Yeah, but... Ithaca High School," said Eleni.

"I hated chemistry," said Ron. "All those stupid little atoms and bonds."

"What does chemistry have to do with this?" said Aerie.

"Tons," said Mal. "That's all I can say."

"So... I'm gonna save the world by playing this... I hate to say it—noise?"

"Perhaps," said Mal. "If things go well."

"You'll save me, that's for sure," said Ron. "Fuckin' double pay'll get me out of hock and out of my grandma's basement."

"Somehow Ron, I don't think that's a big motivator," said Eleni.

"This music is special," said Mal. "There's nothing like it... in the world. You'd be part of something totally unique."

"I don't care." said Aerie. "I just don't like it."

"It grows on you," said Mal.

"Like a drug."

"Shush, Ron," said Eleni. "It's not an addiction. It's more like developing a tolerance. Like going from hating the bitterness of Budweiser, to drinking India Pale Ales."

"But why go after me? I'm just a dime a dozen bass player."

"Oh no you're not," said Mal. "You're the cornerstone Aaron's been looking for. You've got a feel for this stuff that's rare."

"Bottom line. You make it easier for all of us," said Eleni. "Not even thirty minutes, we had that bell jar on the verge of humming. That usually takes hours."

"If we get it to hum at all," said Mal.

"And we like you," said Eleni. "Aaron likes you. Even Ron likes you."

"Shit," said Ron, a blush filling the space between his freckles.

Aerie was a block away from her house. She stopped under a street lamp on the corner of Court and Plain, not wishing to give away where she lived.

"Can't you give us another shot?" said Eleni.

Aerie fidgeted, agitated. "Honestly guys. Playing that stuff made me feel sick. I don't think I could go through that again."

"I can let you try my 'ludes," said Mal. "They can really shave the edges off of things."

"Just one more time?" said Eleni.

"We'll be your best friends forever," said Ron, feigning sweetness.

"You're not gonna find a better gig than this," said Mal. "Ever."

"Got that right," said Ron. "Getting paid even when we don't play. That's what I'm talking about."

"Not to mention," said Mal. "The notoriety. There's a buzz around us in Ithaca. Like we're some secret super group."

"We ever got a gig, half the town would show up," said Ron.

"Doubtful," said Eleni. "To the musicians I know, we're a running joke."

"Hey. We're not chopped liver," said Mal. "We have chops."

"Except for Ron, that is," said Eleni.

"Hey! Fuck you," said Ron. "I'm all about tone."

"No denying," said Mal. "Ron can make an old Martin sing like no other."

"If only he could strum on the beat he'd be dangerous," said Eleni.

"What beat?" said Ron.

Eleni took Aerie's hand. "Give us another shot. If it gets to be too much for you. Just stop playing. We'll help you through. Remember, it's only music."

"One more rehearsal, Aerie. What about it?" said Mal. "There's a full moon coming up which means a production."

"Double pay makes a thousand bucks," said Ron. "Aaron's good for it. He needs that bass. He's been looking for it... how long?"

"Since before he found us," said Eleni.

As much as she hated the music, Aerie liked being around these guys. She was almost glad to have been accosted atop the loading ramp, to have had their company walking home.

Perhaps she had over-reacted a mite during the jam. They all seemed to deal with the music just fine. She had to admit that the extra money was attractive. She could cut back on shifts.

"Alright," she said. "I'll give it another shot. I'm off Friday. And I'm going on lunches all next week. Tell Aaron, next time he calls, I'll pick up. I won't delete his messages without listening to them."

"Oo-rah! That's more like it," said Ron, his ever present grin acquiring a bit more torque. Mal gave him a high five.

Eleni rose up on her toes and gave Aerie a peck on the cheek.

Aerie was surprised she had given in so easily. Yet, she no longer had the impression that she was entering dark, dead-end cave. There was a light on the other side of the passage.

"Good night you all," she said.

"You live... here?" said Mal, craning up at a big Victorian.

"Couple houses down," said Aerie. "G'night, you all."

Eleni nudged Ron and Mal and whispered to them.

"Good night," said Mal, as the trio ambled back towards the center of town.

Aerie waited until they turned the corner and made her way back home. She could already feel a touch of the queasiness returning. Maybe she didn't need that pizza after all.
Chapter 10: Radiator

With a brilliant sky and chiseled hills before him, John surged away from the last traffic light between Ithaca and home, singing along to some cheesy 80s synth pop that happened to match his mood.

He sang along, half a beat behind. "Take... me... on. Take. On. Me. I'll... be... gone, in a day or... TWO!" He followed the vocals up the ladder, reaching but missing the last unreachable rung, voice cracking like an adolescent's.

Cindy's mom and dad had taken the boys to Syracuse for the day, for a long-deferred outing to the Gifford Zoo. They weren't due back till dinner.

John told Cindy that he was headed to Career Services at Cornell but as he drove into town, the futility of the exercise dissuaded him. He kept up well enough with the dismal employment situation on-line, and already knew that there was nothing happening in the local market for electrical engineers. The folks at Cornell wouldn't be telling him anything different.

Not that Cindy cared that much whether he found a job or not. Despite her grumblings, she enjoyed being out of the house, being the professional breadwinner, having her own personal house husband.

John went instead to the Pyramid Mall, trolling the bookshop, playing with iPads in the Apple store. He considered sticking around to see a movie but nothing on the marquee interested him. Puerile comedies, CGI effect-fests. Hollywood didn't make 'em like they used to.

After he left the mall, he had dropped by Wegman's to pick up some groceries and sundries. He loaded up on Huggies, Go-gurts and Juicy Juices for the boys along with a smattering of grown-up food—strip steaks, broccoli, some buffalo wings from the deli for lunch.

He happened to be the only male in the store apart from a few doddering old men pushing carts for their elderly wives. It made him wonder about his manhood.

The Aha song ended and shifted into Depeche Mode's version of 'Route 66,' part of a solid block of post-punk pop, a veritable golden oldies marathon. He loved 80s music. He had grown up on it; it was the first music he paid attention to post—'Old MacDonald Had a Farm'.

A white plume rose above Route 13 like smoke from the Sistine Chapel. A small white car was pulled over in the breakdown lane up ahead. Patches of silver duct flapped from a fender. A young woman stood before the open hood, hands on her hips. He pulled over to lend a hand.

As he approached he noticed the Darwin fish bumper sticker and winced. That would have been enough to send Cindy packing, but John was more tolerant of diverse lifestyles and opinions. One insult to his faith was not a deal breaker. Who knew, it might not even be her car.

The woman glanced up at him and glanced away, pretending he wasn't there. She wore jeans holed at the knees, a Jamaican flag T-shirt and an unzipped grey hoodie. She had an oily rag wrapped over her hand and was struggling to open her radiator cap. The sickly sweet smell of anti-freeze hung in the air.

She gave him a glare as if he were some barfly coming over to hit on her. But what a look! The shape of those eyes—subtle folds that made her look the tiniest bit Asian. Hair couldn't get any blacker or sleeker, as it whipped around in the swirling wind, screening her milky complexion like a burkha. She would be stunning if she would only smile.

"Don't open it," said John.

"Why not?" she said, her voice potent with challenge.

"You open it now; it'll explode in your face."

"Did you see than damn geyser? Hard to believe there's any pressure left inside."

"Oh, there is. Believe me." John noticed the black hulk lying in a fully reclined front seat—an upright bass zipped up in a tattered nylon case. He recognized the car as one he saw pull into the hell house's driveway the other day. A weird little ripple slid through him.

"Got a container I can borrow? I want to get some water from that brook."

"Uh, sure." John went back to the Volvo and opened the trunk, exposing the half dozen brown paper bags. One of Nigel's beach buckets would have been nice to have, but Cindy had emptied his trunk of anything related to beaches or picnics and sequestered them in a large Rubbermaid bin labeled 'SUMMER' in neat, permanent marker.

He peeled away the shrink wrap from a case of Poland Spring and handed her a bottle. "You'll probably need a couple more bottles at least."

"Are you sure you want me to use this?"

John shrugged. "I've got a whole case."

She took the bottle and peeled off the wrap. The column of steam had thinned to a strand. Water sizzled and bubbled out of the radiator cap. She topped off the reservoir. It didn't need much.

"Hmm," said John. "That tells me you have a clog, or a stuck valve. You might want to replace your thermostat. That's probably why you overheated, unless one of the hoses is clogged. Maybe get it flushed. And get some anti-freeze in there. Water's not sufficient with the winter coming on and all."

"You think I'm an idiot?" she said, wiping her hands on a batch of fallen leaves.

John blinked, and blinked again. "No. Of course not."

She slammed the hood, trapping the drawstring of her hoodie.

"Shit. I can't do anything right."

John reached into through the driver's side window and released the hood latch, so she could free herself. He admired the figured maple peeking out from rips in a ragged bass case. "Wow. You play that big old thing?"

Her glare intensified. "Why? Do I look small? Weak?"

Her reaction took him aback. "Not all. I just meant... that's got to be a hard instrument to play... for anyone."

She struck him as the anti-Cindy. No polite façade. She kept her feelings on the front-burner, in full display. Physically, as well. Not unfeminine at all, just as muscular as Cindy was sleek.

"That music you play," said John. "Pretty... unique."

Her expression went from bituminous to anthracite. "How the hell do you know what I play?"

"That Aaron guy? I'm his neighbor. I saw your car parked there the other day."

She relaxed slightly. "You live there? You poor thing."

"Oh, it's not that bad... at least not for me. Cindy's the one who closes all the windows when you play."

"I don't envy you having to listen to that crap. Even gives me the heebie-jeebies."

"Why do you do it?"

"I don't know. I... I just started. Pays well, I guess."

He chuckled. "Cindy thinks you're Satan worshipers. As if you're scratching pentagrams on the floor or something."

The young woman looked at him blankly. "She might have something there."

John chuckled again, more nervously. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, even I think it's some pretty damn weird stuff."

"You got that right." John's conscience gnawed at him. Should he tell her, or not? He broke. "Listen. There may be some unusual activity up at our place in the next week or so. Cindy has this idea this guy Aaron... or at least his house... is possessed... or haunted. So our church is sponsoring a visit from these people who do... basically... exorcisms. Deliverance."

"No kidding?"

"So... you might ask this Aaron guy to maybe tone things down a bit. I have no idea what these guys will do, but I sure don't want any trouble."

"Maybe it's a good thing," said the woman. "That they come."

"Huh?"

"A little prayer won't hurt anybody," she said. "That's what they do, right? Pray and cast out demons and all that shit?"

"I suppose."

"Can't hurt, then. By all means, go for it. Well... I'd better get going. I'm running a little late."

She hopped in her car and slammed the door, turned the ignition. The starter only clicked.

"What the hell?" she said through her open window.

John had started back to the Volvo. He stopped mid-stride. "Maybe something got wet? Shorted out?"

"Listen. Can you give me a ride? Since you're going my way?"

John balked. Cindy was up in Geneva today. Her mom wouldn't be back with the kids until dinner time. "Um... sure. Let me shuffle around some groceries."

She wrestled her bass out of her car's front seat, along with a sack of what looked like bits of broken instrument parts from her trunk. John lowered the rear seats of his wagon and slid the groceries to one side. The bass fit perfectly. The sack of parts tinkled as she set it in.

"Man, I should get me one of these cars. It's custom made for a bass player." She hopped into the front seat, a vision that made John's heart jump to a quicker beat. He felt stirrings beneath his jeans.

"Maybe you should leave a note for the cops," said John.

"What are they going to do, tow it? They'd be doing me a favor."

"More likely, they'd ticket you. You should lock it, at least."

A raspberry sputtered from her lips.

John started the Volvo and pulled away from the shoulder, cutting off a lumbering tractor-trailer in his distraction. The steering wheel felt slick in his grasp. What was he so nervous about? He was only being a Good Samaritan.

"What's your name?" said the woman.

"J-John. Paciorek."

"I'm Aerie."

"Nice to meet you."

The radio played the Cure's 'Friday, I'm in Love.'

"Radio wasteland," said the girl, Aerie.

"Huh?" John liked that song. A lot.

"Ithaca's a radio wasteland. I wish they had a decent jazz station in range."

"You play jazz?"

"Used to," she said. "Big time."

"I used to play, too," said John. "In high school. A little in college."

"What instrument?"

"Clarinet. Some flute."

"No shit?"

"I listened to a lot of jazz back then. Not so much since I got married. Coltrane gives Cindy a headache."

"A shame," she said. "That you stopped playing."

"Oh, I still play," said John. "Cindy's little boys love that clarinet. It puts them into hysterics. I'm talking Funny Home Videos. Makes me feel like a clown."

An awkward silence ensued as they passed through a tunnel of trees leading up the side of Connecticut Hill.

"Did you ever... play out?" said John.

"Ever hear of Hollis Brooks?"

"The trumpet/sax guy? Mr. Double Threat?"

"Don't let him fool you, he's a sax man. The trumpet thing is just a gimmick. Anyhow, I used to play in his quartet."

"Get out!"

"Really."

"Where? Manhattan?"

"Out west mainly, and then... Japan. But we did have a three night stand at the Village Vanguard once."

"Really?" he said, with amazement in his voice.

"We bombed, but it was glorious."

John glanced over. Her face had transformed into something ethereal and beaming, teeth revealed like rare pearls; eyes shining.

She caught him looking. Her countenance slammed shut like a clam shell.

"So... what are you all rehearsing for?" he asked, reaching the top of the ridge. "Do you have a gig coming up?"

"Not exactly," said Aerie. "These guys... as far as I can tell... never gig."

"How strange."

"Yeah, it is," she said. "Don't know why exactly. I'm still feeling my way around with them."

"Well, if you do play out...."

"Yeah. We'll let you know. We'll poster your neighborhood."

"Yeah, right." He smirked at the thought of Cindy ripping down posters.

John turned onto the road and pulled into the driveway of the hell house. The situation made him feel odd, as if he were consorting with the enemy.

"Well, thanks for the ride and the help. Sorry, if I was a cool with you. You never know what weirdoes are out and about."

"Not a problem," said John. He got out and tried to help. She nudged him away when he went to help her with the bass.

"I can handle it."

As he removed the sack of parts, his eyes drifted across the yard and through the trees to the subdivision. His heart jumped as if stung by a defibrillator. Cindy's Camry was parked in the driveway and she was outside, kneeling next to the front flower beds.

"Oh Christ," he mumbled.

"What's wrong?" said Aerie, wobbling towards the door. Stray squeaks and bleats emanated from the house. "Are you alright?" She crinkled the bridge of her nose.

"I'd better get going." He saw Cindy peer over her shoulder at the hell house. There was no way she could have missed seeing his car. He considered and rejected driving back to Ithaca, pretending some other blue Volvo that had dropped by the hell house and disgorged a bass and its player. That would have been futile. The icthys appliqué and canary yellow "Jesus Saves" sticker were dead giveaways.

"Bye," said Aerie, as he got back in the car, insides churning, and roared out of Aaron's driveway, pulling into the cul de sac, swinging wide into the driveway.

Cindy stood wide-eyed, disbelieving. "I thought that was you. What were you doing—?"

"I g-g-gave them a warning," said John. "Told them we're not taking any more of this crap."

"What'd they say?"

"They told me... they told me to go fuck myself."

"How rude. But what do you expect from a bunch of Satanists? You didn't tell them... about the deliverance, did you?"

"Nah," said John.

"Don't go near that place, okay? I don't even drive past it anymore. I go the long way around. Let's let Reverend Beasley handle it when he comes."

"What are you doing home? I thought you were gonna be in Geneva all day?"

"The closing fell through. Again. The couple couldn't come up with the financing. So I came home. Thought, I'd surprise you."

"Surprise, surprise," he said.

She tossed another glance towards the hell house. The walls were starting to throb. "Let's get inside. They're doing their thing again. Glad the kids aren't here, at least."

"I got groceries."

"I'll help you with 'em later." She winked, leaned up and kissed him on the lips. John let the kiss linger for a moment, then pulled away and made for the trunk.

"Later," said Cindy. She took his hand and led him towards the front door, something predatory in her eyes.

"But... there's ice cream."

"Let it melt," said Cindy. "I need you inside."
Chapter 11: Road Trip

It was four am. The eastern sky gave no hint that the dawn would ever come. He stood under a street lamp at the corner of North and Willow waiting for his ride. He had a briefcase in one hand, a valise at his feet packed with five pairs of slacks, ten shirts and as many sets of socks and tightie-whities as he could stuff into the side pockets.

Donnie could feel that there were spirits in the air. They were always about at this hour of night on the fringe of the old warehouse district of Athens.

Every sort of death that could happen had happened here: Sherman's March, union busters, thugs with knives, suicides. Most folks would not have noticed anything unusual, but Donnie was attuned to the world of specters and sprites, like a dog to a whistle. There was a stir to the air that told him that the night crawled with Satan's minions.

Something rustled in the darkness, clawed feet against metal. He whirled defensively and reached for the Glock in his shoulder holster.

Coos spilled down from the gutters of the warehouse behind him. Pigeons.

He took a deep breath and waited for his heart beat to wind back down to a more sustainable rate.

If he was a little bit jumpier than usual he could blame it on the MP3 file that Mac Hargrove had emailed him earlier that day. Mac had captured a snippet of the recording that Cindy Swain had made of the so-called 'hell house.' The sounds that came off that tape had burned his eardrums. He had his IT people scour that sound clip, purifying the hard drive through prayer and incineration. The world didn't need any more demonic verses going viral on YouTube.

He had faced formidable adversaries before, none more daunting than that thirteen year old girl in Decatur. No, her head didn't spin and she didn't vomit in his face but she had the wit and logic of twelve centuries of atheist intellectuals packed into that little head, challenging every notion of his faith.

What was worse, she had Richard Dawkins' sense of humor. She had obviously read his books. She kept bringing up "Flying Spaghetti Monsters" and equating Donnie with those who worshipped them.

Such a shame. She had such God-fearing parents. Her case was one of the few absolute failures he had ever experienced in the deliverance profession. She had given him the distinct impression that he was tussling with Satan himself.

God help that family. They had gotten a full refund.

Once he had calmed, Donnie prayed out loud to the pigeons that had spooked him, his voice rebounding among the warehouses: "Jesus, Oh Lord. You who hold all creation in Your hands, caring for the birds in the air and the lilies in the field. Watch over and protect us in all things. Frustrate the intentions of the evil ones who would harm us. Grant safety to us as we travel. Bless our efforts to increase our security. Teach us to place the safety of ourselves and our loved ones into Your hands, confident that in Your wisdom You will work all things for our good. May we return to our loved ones unharmed. Should we be harmed, may our wounds heal. Should we perish in the struggle, may You embrace us and find for us a place in Your Kingdom, Oh Lord Jesus Christ, Amen."

When Jerry still hadn't arrived with the truck, he kept praying under his breath, as was his habit when someone or something was running late. He had found that doing so had a way of conjuring the tardy, like a spell.

Donnie had considered flying up to New York with Jerry and letting the interns drive the truck, but air travel left him too vulnerable to whatever force might want to put a leak in the fuel tank or jam the landing gear.

Not that he was scared of flying, no. If he was in any other business but deliverance, he'd be a frequent flyer. But he had cast out too many demons in his day for them not to hold a grudge.

Jerry for his part was thrilled to be driving. He loved the open road and probably would insist on taking the wheel the entire way, the whole twelve to fifteen hours it would take to get to Ithaca. Google maps said fifteen, but Google didn't know Jerry the way Donnie did.

Like a charm, as his lips evoked in silence the words of Psalm 23, a white extended cab Ford F150 roared around the corner, pulling a twenty inch Horizon Smokers Grill-N-Wagon, complete with stovepipe and red enameled wood carrier.

Jerry was alone in front, wearing cammie Carhartt canvas and a black ball cap embroidered with the word 'Ranger' in a yellow arc. The two interns, Tammie and Rand sat in back, looking a bit sleepy, though Rand sprang out the door and unlatched the back hatch of the pickup. The bed was crammed with monitoring equipment, but they had left room for Donnie's suitcase.

The distinct smell of roasting meat wafted up as Donnie made his way around the smoker.

"He didn't," Donnie muttered to himself, swinging open the barrel of the smoker to reveal a whole suckling pig lashed to the rack with wire and slowly beginning to roast.

"Jerry, really? Did you have to?"

"We gotta eat, don't we?" said Jerry, stepping out of the cab. Rand skipped out behind him to stow Don's suitcase. "Besides. If we get stopped, we got a better story for taking a smoker on the road."

"Who's gonna stop us, the barbecue police? What worries me is all that fat is gonna make the fire burn too hot. We're gonna use up all our fuel before we get there."

"So? It ain't like there's no trees between here and Ithaca."

"Fine." Donnie sighed and hauled himself up into the cab. "Long as you packed extra sauce and rolls."

Jerry winked and ducked his head into the back of the cab. "Whattaya say little girl? Ready to kick some demonic butt?"

"Uh-huh," said Tammie, meekly.

"What? You're not scared now, are you?"

"Just don't know what to expect," said Tammie. "But I got no reason to be afraid. I'm in the company of experts, right?"

"Just listen to us, you'll be fine," said Jerry.

Donnie was already in the passenger seat, buckling up. He opened his briefcase and removed his Thinkpad and plugged a 4G dongle into the USB port. He had operations in three states to track.

"Jerry! Quit your flirting and let's roll."

Rand squeezed in behind Donnie.

"Flirtin'? I ain't flirtin,'" said Jerry. "Just being sociable. You want to see flirtin'—?"

"Get your ass in here and drive! We got twelve hours on the road ahead of us!"

"Well gosh Donny, just say so." Jerry hopped in and threw the truck into gear, heading north for Route 85. His shoulder strap dangled, unbuckled.

Jerry shut the windows as the truck picked up speed and the cab slowly filled with musky emanations from his coveralls. Donnie sniffed and crinkled his nose.

"You got something burning in your pocket?"

Jerry grinned and slipped out a charcoal-fueled hand warmer, its chromed shell peeking out of a red flannel cover.

"Like you always say, Donnie, redundancy is the key to keeping the Holy fires burning."

Donnie nodded, trying not to frown, and powered down the window just a crack. Next time, if there ever was a next time, demons be damned, he would fly.
Chapter 12: Pills

Aerie lugged her bass through the unlocked door, zippers scraping against the frame. The others were in the music room going through the preliminaries, playing scraps and shreds – lizard chirps, frog croaks, snaky rattles—while Sari plumbed the depths of her vocal range.

Aaron burst out into the hall, fiddle tucked under his arm. His mouth dropped at the sight of Aerie.

"Sorry I'm late," she said. "My car broke down."

"Well, you're here now. That's all that matters," said Aaron. "Come on in."

She struggled to meet his gaze, her glances rebounding off his stare like hail hitting the side of a barn. He said not a word about the phone calls and messages she had ignored, as if afraid to press his luck. He just took her by the hand and led her to a bare space in the music room where he wanted her to set up her bass.

"Whoa," said Ron. "Looks like I owe you, Mal."

"Dang it, Aerie," said Mal. "I was getting worried."

Aerie shrugged as she slid a cake of rosin down her bow. "I left early. But my car blew up on Route 13."

"Blew up?" said Mal.

"Okay people," said Aaron. "Let's get back into it. You join in when you're ready, Aerie." He made the rounds from person to person, coaching them up. When he got to Aerie, he patted her shoulder.

"Whatever you did last time. Do it again. That was perfect."

He started the proceedings with same reference tone that began the last jam –a note slightly sharper than a Bb. Aerie could adjust easily with a shift in her fingering, but it made her wonder how Ron and Eleni managed with their fretted instruments, though Ron, for his part, didn't seem to bother to conform to any formal tuning.

They played for a solid hour, Aaron prancing from instrument to instrument, conducting their efforts in crude pantomime. Mal kept switching from winds to percussion back to winds while Ron stayed glued to his guitar. Eleni kept her mandolin in its case, while she wrestled with a bloated accordion with legs.

Sari's singing was restrained. She seemed to have a catch in her throat, as if she were coming down with a cold. Aaron ran into the other room and came back with something fizzy for her to drink.

Aerie picked her way through the chaos, filling lacunae, following wherever she heard paths being worn, stepping up to blaze the way through featureless morasses, busting through the tangles of repetitive loops.

Aaron's kept coming over, standing in front of her and clapping, urging her on, praising her. He probably didn't realize that his actions had opposite the intended effect. They broke the spell of the music, ripping Aerie out of the trance she needed to create what this music demanded.

That was okay with her, because Aerie could sense the improvisation nudging her towards a place she had no desire to go—a dark place like the opening above basement stairs, like the edge of a cliff—stepping back into the light was okay with her. Aaron's interruptions kept things from getting too insane.

"Enough!" Aaron shouted, drawing his finger across his throat. The improvisation trailed off with a whimper.

The bell jar sat inert on the cherry wood table. Aerie had lost any desire to peek under its shroud, or make any 'birdie' sing. She was happy to let sleep whatever lurked inside. She felt queasy, glad to have the music stop.

Disturbed as she was, her reaction didn't seem as harsh this time. She felt none of the abject pee-your-pants fear, the impulse to run away and hide, that the first session had provoked. This time, the fingers of dread crept a respectful distance outside her skull.

The harsher edges had worn off the music, perhaps because she was no longer experiencing the shock of hearing it for the first time, or maybe because she had remembered to take her pills on her lunch break. She would have to remember that trick for next time, and maybe pop another one or two for good measure.

Even though they failed to make the bell jar hum, Aaron seemed satisfied with their effort. As he made the rounds with their pay, Aerie's hand shook as she signed the contract and accepted an envelope of cash, to applause from Eleni and cheers from Mal and Ron.

Sari sat in an armchair, sipping a glass of ginger ale on the rocks, glowering. She kept her gaze fixed at the wall when Aerie asked how she was feeling.

"I'm fine."

Her aloofness made Aerie wonder is she had insulted her somehow. It made no sense. They barely knew each other. It wasn't like Aerie would be competing with her for the lead vocals. Aerie never sang in public and for good reason. She had a voice like nails on a blackboard.

Maybe Sari had a thing for Aaron and didn't care for the way he fawned over Aerie's bass playing? Even that seemed weird. Aerie didn't normally care what people thought of her, but she wasn't used to being despised right off the bat. She took it personally.

Aaron called his hands. "Okay, listen up guys, I want you back here, same time tomorrow. We've got a full moon on Friday. I know this is pushing it, now that we have our bass, but I want to try for a Production. I'll need you from four till midnight. That do-able?"

"Sure," said Ron. The other nodded.

"Aerie? You're the only one with a real job."

"I guess... I'm available," she said. "I've got morning prep and lunches all this week."

Aaron nudged the bulging plastic bag that Aerie had brought with his toe. It clanked. "What the heck?" He peeked inside. "Oh my God. Is this your Prescott?"

"What's left of it," said Aerie.

"It's in worse shape than I thought," he pulled out the curved slab of ebony that had been a fingerboard. "Are all the parts here?"

"Pretty much," said Aerie. "I had to toss the bridge."

"That's no big deal. We can carve you a new one. Mind if I take a shot at restoring it? I know this incredible luthier in New York, a veritable wizard of wood. He mainly does cellos, but only because that's where the market takes him. I'll pay for it."

"Um. Sure," said Aerie. "I think it's a waste of time, personally. I just hung onto it for sentimental reasons. I couldn't bear to toss it in a dumpster."

"Oh no," said Aaron. "That'd be a crime."

"Mind if I leave my Juzek?" she said. "Since... I don't have my car."

"Need a ride?" said Eleni. "You can squeeze in with us." Sari's face puckered, but she said nothing. The Saab in the driveway was hers.

"What exactly happened to car?" said Mal. "You said it blew up?"

"Overheated, and then it wouldn't start. Aaron's neighbor gave me a ride."

"No shit?" said Aaron.

"He's a musician, too," said Aerie. "Plays clarinet."

Without a word, Sari rose from her chair, key ring jangling from her elegant fingers, leading a motley parade out into the dusk.

***

Route 13 was submerged in deep shadow when they reached Aerie's Sentra. A bright orange state police citation emblazoned the corner of the windshield. Aerie stepped out of the Saab, disturbed to find that her cell phone not only had a weak signal, it was on the last dregs of battery.

"Sorry, we can't linger," said Sari. "I have business in Ithaca."

Eleni leaned out the front window. "I'd stay with you Aerie, but—"

"Eleni has a date," said Sari, smirking. Eleni ducked her chin and forced a smile.

"We can stay and help," said Mal.

"We?" said Ron.

"Get your ass out there," said Mal. "You know? Be a gentleman for once. What a concept." He shoved Ron out the door.

Sari and Eleni zoomed away in the Saab, the gears stepping up to overdrive like notes in a scale. Mal and Ron had the hood up and were staring at the glistening mass of cast metal, tubing and wires looking as confused as surgeons facing the open chest of some unearthly life form fallen from the sky.

"Guys, if we can't get it fixed let's just hitch a ride back. I can call and have it towed."

Ron started pulling off wires and drying the contacts with his shirt. Mal followed suit with his bandanna, letting free the springy coils of his unbound hair.

"You said it wouldn't start?" said Mal.

"Uh-uh," said Aerie, topping off the radiator with the remainder of John's Poland Spring bottle.

"Could be the engine just got too hot," said Ron. "Sometimes these things have a safety cutoff." He laid the back of his hand against the block. "It's cooled off now. Why don't you give it another shot?"

Aerie sat down and turned the key. The engine sputtered to life.

"Who knew?" said Mal. "That Ronnie's a mechanical genius."

***

Ron and Mal rode with Aerie to the next rehearsal. She hadn't had time to get the radiator flushed, so Mal thought it prudent for them to tag along, just in case, Ron's attempt to clear the blocked hose with a wire coat hanger didn't work.

She picked them up at the Cayuga end of the Commons where, in their flannel shirts, Ron's watch cap and Mal's bandanna, they were indistinguishable from the little gang of skater kids that hung out in the parking lots.

Having these two rogues hop into her car sent a warm feeling buzzing through her. She barely knew these two, but they treated her like an old friend. She had no romantic inklings for either of these doofuses. But their presence and banter, with Mal in front, Ron in the back, made her feel part of the human race again.

When they got to Aaron's, Aerie fished through her purse for her pills, chugging them down with a swig of Gatorade, adding a couple from a previous prescription for good measure, before following Ron and Mal inside.

Aaron had them go at the improvisations for two solid hours, building greater complexity and linkages between the parts than they had attempted before. The table holding the bell jar began to vibrate in fits and starts. Whenever it did, Aerie flinched. She tightened up, her playing suffered and the table's shaking would recede.

When the pills kicked in, she got lost in the music and stopped dwelling on the birdie. The cocktail of SSRIs and beta blockers and whatever those little pink ones were, calmed her heart and let her breathe without the sense that something was going to explode out of the jar and squash her like a fly.

But the pills didn't stop there. They made her lose track of her surroundings. For all she knew, she might have been in some club in Vegas or her high school band room. In spells of clarity, she knew she had overdone it. Ron or Mal would have to do the driving back to Ithaca.

She chugged along, the meat of her fingers digging into her strings, left hand navigating the fingerboard as effortlessly as a spider on her web, optimizing the pull and pressure to make her bass sing out with a hearty mwah with every note, until her bliss was interrupted by a shriek like the whistle of an oversized tea kettle building beneath the shroud.

Aaron untucked his fiddle and waved his bow like a sword. "That's a wrap, people."

A wave of nausea swept through Aerie. She laid her bass down and made for the bathroom, giving the bell jar a wide berth as she wobbled.

***

The next day, at work, Aerie was feeling nervous, so she took her meds early, approximating whatever combination had worked so well the day before, washing them down with a glass of apple cider from the keg in the kitchen.

An hour later, as she washed and trimmed a batch of baby beets, Reggie came up behind her. "Aerie, you're cutting off too much of the tops. Are you feeling okay?" She looked into Aerie's eyes. "I hate to ask this, but... have you been drinking?"

Aerie wasn't at all fazed by Reggie's inquiry. The meds made certain of that. A gorilla could come storming through the scullery, smashing all the china, and it might have evoked a yawn. Without a word, she went and got her purse, pulled out three bottles of pills: Zoloft, Wellbutrin and Inderal.

"Pesscripshin," she blurted.

"All of them?" said Reggie. "What kind of doctor is making you take all of those?"

"Three doctors," said Aerie, holding up three fingers in case Reggie wasn't familiar with the numerical concept. "Tokyo. Baltimore. Ithaca."

"I don't think you should be taking all of those at once," said Reggie.

"No it's fine," said Aerie. "They work great."

Reggie picked one up and read the label. "Are these for... depression?"

Aerie nodded.

Reggie's face softened. "Oh hon. I had no idea. I didn't mean to pry. I mean... it's never affected your work before this, but... are you doing okay?"

"I'm fine. As long as I take my pills."

Reggie bit her lip. "You know... there are other ways. Herbals. Acupuncture."

"No thanks," said Aerie. "I'm happy with my little pills."

"Talk to your doctor," said Reggie. "Make sure he or she knows about all of those? Okay? Promise me?"

"Yeah."

***

After work, another rehearsal—their last before the production. Mal drove, Ron rode shotgun, while Aerie dozed in the back. She roused herself as they started up the bumpier roads leading into Connecticut Hill.

Passing the half-built subdivision, she noticed some activity at John's house—trucks and trailers and some guys laying wire.

"What up with that?" said Mal. "Cable TV coming to Connecticut Hill?"

"Civilization at last," said Ron. "Aaron can get rid of his rabbit ears."

"Do you smell... barbecue?" said Mal.

Aerie took up her bass as if she were slipping into an old, favorite sweater. She played automatically again, under the influence, letting her mind drift to more pleasant places where the music couldn't intrude.

But intrude, it did. Sari sounded particularly unearthly at this jam. Her voice climbed heights, penetrated barriers, pried around borders that heretofore had limited her. When the table holding the bell jar began to rattle, Aaron un-tucked his fiddle and whirled around to face them all. "Okay, that's enough. Let's save something for Production tomorrow. I've got a feeling, this one's gonna be a doozy."

"Wow, Sari," said Ron. "You sounded like you might be coming into heat."

"Plug it, Ron," said Sari, lips askew in a sneer.

"I meant that as a compliment."

"Such charm. No wonder you live in your Grandma's basement."

"Now, now, kids," said Aaron. "Where's our camaraderie? Remember our team spirit."

"Rah rah," said Eleni.

"Oh, come on guys," said Aaron. "Get over here. Everyone huddle up. I need to remind you what this is all about. Tomorrow's the full moon. It's production time. And this is gonna be a good one, and not just because we have a bass. You know that unified, single organism thing I'm always talking about? Well, we got it down cold, at times. Our sum gets greater than the sum of its parts. We get the synergy thing going on. We get spirit. Capeche?"

"You mean... we got soul?" said Ron. Eleni giggled, and Aerie couldn't help but snicker along.

"No joke," said Aaron. "That's exactly it. At times we create a collective soul. I'm talking a real soul—the emergent complexity of an actual consciousness. None of that metaphorical Motown bullshit. We conjure a soul worth sending to Heaven, or wherever it is that souls dwell. Understand?"

"No," said Ron.

"Ron, my boy. You wouldn't know it if it bit you. But listen up, guys. I want you to all get your rest. You all look like you're dragging. At least Aerie's got an excuse. I don't know what it is the rest of you do with yourselves all day, but tomorrow—don't. I want you all here bright-eyed and well-fed no later than six. We're gonna start at sundown and go as long as it takes to have a really great Production. And in case you're wondering, Ron—double pay, like I promised. One k per person if we make the birdie sing. Got it?"

"Oo-rah!" said Ron.

"Make that birdie sang!" said Mal, his voice all warped and nasal.

As they broke up and made their way out to the cars, Aerie gazed up at the sky. The moon was the tiniest sliver this side of full. Seven pinpoints of light formed a chain along the road – people, bearing candles, wearing robes of white.

"What the fuck?" said Ron. "What's this? The Ku Klux Klan?"
Chapter 13: Candles

John had mowed the lawn and run a vacuum across every carpet in the house. The guest rooms were airing; their beds fitted with fresh sheets.

He took eggs and bacon and spinach out of the fridge and prepared to shred cheese for some quiches Lorraine. Nigel and Jason sat in their high chairs, pink strawberry yogurt smeared on their bibs and faces.

"Momma!" said Nigel.

John peeked out the window to see a convoy of vehicles pulling into the subdivision, led by Pastor Mac's pearly platinum Lexus and Cindy's Camry followed by another car that John didn't recognize and a pickup truck pulling something that looked like the engine of a steam locomotive. Apparently, a rendezvous had been coordinated, but as usual, the last person to know about it was him.

He scrambled to wipe the yogurt off the boys' chins, wetting down Nigel's hair with a dish cloth to get a cowlick to stay down. Jason was groggy and sucking on a sippy cup after a long nap, onesie unsnapped and riding up on his belly. His diaper felt like a sack of concrete. He probably could use a change. Would it have troubled Cindy to give him a head's up?

He plucked both boys out of their chairs and carried them to the door, one in each arm, backing through the screen door which was already ajar.

The deliverance folks were stretching out in the driveway, slapping hands and hugging Pastor Mac, Cindy and a couple he recognized from their church. Other that the guy in the ZZ Top beard dressed like a bow hunter, they looked pretty normal for demon caster-outers. The lead guy had a booming voice that carried across the lawn. He wore a blue blazer and chinos and seemed to be about the same age as Pastor Mac, just a bit greyer at the temples and thicker at the waist. They had with them a preppy looking pair, a mousey-looking girl with a Baylor sweatshirt and a kid with lightly spiked hair whose freckled face looked too young for his full-grown body.

"And these are my boys," said Cindy. "Nigel's going on three and Jason's a year and a half."

"What about the big one in the middle?" said the bearded one.

"Oh," said Cindy. "That's John."

"Au pair?"

Cindy smirked. "He's my husband." She giggled through her teeth.

The man in the blazer strode towards the John on the front stoop like a big, friendly dog. They had an awkward moment when John couldn't find a free hand to shake with without dropping one of the boys onto the walk. The man clapped his hand firmly on John's back.

"Reverend Donald Beasley, Last Hope Ministries. You can call me Donnie. This man here's my associate, Jericho Winston, director of security."

"I go by Jerry."

"Randall and Tammie over there are our interns."

"John Paciorek. Pleased to meet you."

"Paciorek?" said the Reverend. "I thought your name was Swain."

"Cindy kind of... kept her name."

"Ah," said Donnie.

"For business reasons," said Cindy. "Besides, nobody can pronounce Paciorek." She crinkled her nose. "It just makes things easier."

"He's got nothing on Tammie," said Donnie. "Say your last name for us, Tam."

"Kolaszkiewicz," said the intern, sighing.

"That's why we call her Tammie K," said Donnie.

"Tammie Kola is what I call her," said Jerry, sharing his bad teeth with everyone.

"Aw, Kolaszkiewicz is nothing," said John, winking. "It's phonetic."

"For you Slavs, maybe," said the Reverend. He looked across the lawn towards all of the empty and unfinished houses in the subdivision. "So sad they never finished this place. All this emptiness might be part of your problem. Evil loves a vacuum. Having a quorum of Christian souls come together in a small area actually confers protection. It's part of the power of faith, what they call herd immunity. If these houses were occupied, you would have that."

"Unless they were Jewish," said Jerry.

The Reverend shook his head ever so slightly. "Ignore him."

"The developer's in receivership," said Cindy. "But I hear they have a buyer. Once the paperwork clears I assume they'll resume building. We can only hope."

"Hard times, wherever we go," said Donnie.

"Y'all consider moving?" said Jerry.

"Move?" Cindy blushed. "The market's not quite right for that right now. We're a bit under water with our mortgage. Maybe if things improved, but... maybe I'd like to stay. I mean, it's pretty up here, don't you think? Not to mention, I've got exclusive rights to negotiate all these properties. You know all the commissions that would mean?" She exhaled slowly and folded her arms. "Yeah, I still have a vision. If this place got built... it would be a really nice place to raise kids. That is... if it weren't for the neighbors." She gazed through the trees at the hell house.

"That the place up there?" said Donnie.

Cindy nodded.

"Thought so."

"Goll, would you look at that thing?" said Jerry. "I mean that one half is a regular house but that other side... that's some warped architecture. What kind of mind comes up with a shape like that?"

"Not human, that's for sure," said Donnie. "It's not often, that with one glance, one can tell that a structure has issues with the occult. Normally, the Dark One is not so blatant. But lo and behold."

Jerry waddled out to the trailer, unlatched and lifted open the bay, steel hinges creaking. The pungent aroma of applewood and hickory-smoked pork wafted out.

"Yeeha! Who wants dinner?"

***

Tammie unpacked case after case of sensors and cameras from the pickup truck, while Rand unrolled reels of cable to every corner of the yard. John had no idea that deliverance could be so high tech, but then again, what wasn't these days?

He brought out some lemonade and a quick cucumber and tomato salad that he had thrown together while Jerry shredded the pork loins with a pair of forks on a turkey platter, mixing in liberal gobs of barbecue sauce.

"Will you look at that!" he said. "Thirteen hours slow cooked on the road. Tender. Moist. Meat falling off bone. Perfect. Another hour in traffic and it would have been overdone."

"I brought some extra barbecue sauce, in case we need it," said John, setting down a jar.

Jerry picked up the jar. "I'm not familiar with this one. Dinosaur? Wango Tango?"

"It's a local chain. We go to the one up in Syracuse."

"New York barbecue? Spare me." Jerry's lips pursed behind his beard as he tore away at the meat.

"It's not bad, Jer," said Mac. "You should try some."

Jerry gave a mock shudder.

"We ready to eat?" said John. "Should I call the interns?"

"Ah, let 'em finish up," said Jerry. "It's easier to set everything up while there's still light."

The Reverend sat across from Cindy at the picnic table on the back patio, along with a middle-aged couple from the church whom John didn't know very well. Jason hopped in the baby bouncer like Neil Armstrong on the moon, while Nigel alternately stacked Legos into a crude tower and smashed it to pieces with a crash of his little fist.

John sat down next to Cindy, resting one arm on her back. She was going on and on about her family, how she had grown up in Virginia, relocating up north in her early teens when her dad took a position at IBM in Elmira.

Jerry set down the platter of meat, triggering a cascade of oohs and aahs. They went after it like jackals to a wildebeest. Tammie and Rand came running over, appetites not to be denied.

"Let us join hands," said Mac, proceeding to sing a blessing to the tune of 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.' "Thank you for the food we eat. Thank you for the world so sweet. Thank you for the birds that sing. Thank you God for everything."

Tammie clapped and cheered. Donnie squinted. "Interesting way to say grace."

"For the kiddies," said Mac, tossing his head towards Nigel and Jason.

John added some sliced cucumber to the smidgeon of pulled pork on his roll.

Jerry shook his head. "Sacrilege! Puttin' vegables in your bun."

"Gives it some crunch," said John, through a mouthful.

"Hey, this is really good," said Donnie, biting into a soft roll loaded with meat. "I thought it'd taste like carbon monoxide or 10W-40."

"Don't sound so surprised. I told you it would be fine," said Jerry.

"Mac was telling me that you two are old friends," said Cindy.

Donnie coughed. "We... we certainly go back a ways."

"Donnie here, showed me the ropes," said Mac.

"You all are so lucky to have Mac as your pastor," said Donnie. "He's not one of those twerps who graduates from seminary and thinks they can guide a flock. Mac's experienced life in all its gradations. You got yourself a man here who knows hardship as well as glory, great and small."

"It's nothin' special," said Mac. "There's no shortage of folks who've had difficult lives. We're a dime a dozen."

"But not everyone has a talent for ministry," said Donnie. "I hear your little white church is growing by leaps and bounds."

Mac resisted Donnie's flattery, his face hard—a shell, a trace of bitterness in his demeanor. There was something off about the chemistry between these two.

A beeping sound started up, like a truck backing up. It was unobtrusive at first, but persisted until it was joined by other beeps and clangs, speeding up slowing down, rhythms chopping and splicing in and out.

"That them?" said Donnie.

"Uh-huh," said Cindy, her eyes looking worried.

"That don't sound too bad," said Jerry, through a mouthful of food. "We heard worse on your tape."

"Oh, believe me, they're just starting up," said Cindy. "You ain't heard nothing yet."

"Ma'am, you might consider taking the little one's inside," said Donnie. "Little ears and brains are especially sensitive to demonic influences. We wouldn't want to take a chance."

Cindy looked over. "John, would you mind?"

"Just a sec," said John. "Let me finish what I'm eating."

"For Heaven's Sake," she said, rising abruptly. "I'll do it." She hadn't touched her food. She unstrapped Jason from his baby bouncer and yanked Nigel away from his Legos.

"Mac says you and Cindy are newlyweds?" said Donnie.

"Not exactly," said John. "We got married a little more than a year ago."

"How'd you all meet?"

"Church," said John. "I, uh... had a friend invite me out to Covenant Love for a Sunday dinner. Cindy was pregnant with Jason. She was feeling a little self-conscious and out of sorts and I was being kind of shy. We were the misfits of the group and just sort of gravitated. We got to talking. Hit it off. The rest is... history."

"Mac tells me you're unemployed?"

"Yeah. Since Christmas last year. It was a total shock when it happened. I was in line for a really good position up in Utica. But the company expansion got turned into a contraction. Guess I'm... not alone."

"You got that right," said Donnie. "Everywhere we go, people are hurting. It's that Obama economy."

"I call the Obanomy," said Jerry.

"Part of all the overall Obomination," said Donnie, winking.

John bit his tongue. He didn't particularly care for the way the current President was handling things, but he knew better than to blame it on Obama. He also knew better than to get into a squabble with any Tea Party types, if that's what they were. He was an Independent himself, who had voted on both sides of the aisle.

An inhuman screech wound up like a siren and shimmied through the trees, causing Donnie to dump a slew of lemonade onto his chinos. "What the hell was that?"

"That's... their singer," said John, who had heard it plenty of times before. Cindy's mom said it sounded like a banshee in labor. John supposed she knew that from experience. This particular performance was notable in its volume and tremolo.

As the ungodly wail hung in the air, Jerry bolted to his feet. "Singin'? That's not singin.' That's pain. I know pain. They're torturing the poor girl!"

"Nah. I'm pretty sure that's how she sings," said John.

Donnie's eyes looked agitated. "Everyone, join hands." He bowed his head and chanted as rapidly as an auctioneer:

"In Jesus' name I cut and burn all ungodly cords and lay lines. All you war clubs and ungodly weapons I break down, undam, and blow up all walls of protection around all witches, warlocks, wizards, Satanists, sorcerers, demons and the like, and I break the power of all curses, hexes, vexes, spells, charms, fetishes, psychic prayers, psychic thoughts, all witchcraft, sorcery, magic, voodoo, all mind-control, jinxes, potions, bewitchments, death, destruction, sickness, pain, torment, psychic power, psychic warfare, prayer chains, incense, incantations, ungodly blessings, hoodoo, crystals, rootworks and everything else sent our way, and I return it and the its demons to the sender, one hundredfold and I bind it to them by the Blood of Jesus, Amen."

He looked up when he was done, breathless and panting, as the music continued to build. "Sun's going down. We all better get inside. Rand, Tam, if you're done eating, let's get that equipment hooked up. We've got some monitoring to do."

***

The music persisted long after dusk. Everyone had retreated indoors to the family room. A couple more folks from the parish had come by to lend their support. Cindy stood in the kitchen, sipping non-alcoholic margaritas with the ladies.

Jerry had set up a folding card table with a big old Dell desktop with two 24" LCD screens, some kind of junction box with a tangle spaghetti of cable wires heading out to the various devices and cameras they had posted around the yard: EMF detectors, low-light video capture, infrared sources and cameras. John just knew they would get one whopping electric bill next month.

Nigel stood by Jerry's ample hip, chin resting on the table, sucking on a Lego as he stared at the greenish images shimmering across the array of split screens. John noticed the assault rifle and shotgun propped up on the other side of the table. He put his hands on Nigel's shoulders. "Step back a ways, buddy, okay?"

"That shiny," Nigel touched a greasy finger to one of the monitors. "Whassat?"

"This?" said Jerry. He enlarged the window for the infrared camera to reveal a brilliant patch of light perched on the limb of a white pine. "Great eyes! That, my little buddy, is an owl. Hoot! Hoo!"

"Those guns of yours," said John. "They aren't loaded are they?"

"Course they're loaded," said Jerry. "But don't worry. Safety's are on both and the rifle's not cocked. I'm licensed to carry in 48 states."

"Why do you need... two guns?"

"The M4 is for people problems. The shotgun's got number nine birdshot. One hundred percent silver."

"Silver, huh? What are you worried about? Vampires? Werewolves?"

"Silver's good for more than that," said Jerry. "It's a general protective. That's why I got Tam and Rand settin' misters in the bedrooms."

"Come again?"

"Lunar caustic solution," said Donnie, as he passed through the room.

"Also called silver nitrate," said Jerry. "They're pumping it into the air. We'll be literally breathing silver."

Donnie and Mac were going around to all the outside doors, muttering prayers and tacking up laminated cards with bold red printing.

John picked up Nigel and went over to see what was written on the cards.

"Whoever or whatever enters this room is covered in the Blood of Jesus."

"Whassit say, daddy?" said Nigel.

"Oh, it just tells the bad things to stay outside."

"What bad things?"

"Oh, I don't know. Whichever. All of them." He set Nigel down.

Rand came down the stairs wearing a white robe, and carrying a stack of others. "Hey, Mr. Swain, we're about to go out and do an intervention. Care to join us?"

"A deliverance?"

"Not quite yet," said Donnie, taking a couple robes from Rand and handing one to Mac. "Got to know what we're up against first."

"I'd like to, and all," said John. "Got the kids to watch."

Cindy came up behind. "It's okay John. I'll watch the boys. You go ahead." Her eyes were wide and earnest.

"Alright, then," said John. "What the hay?"

"Large or medium?" said Rand.

"Large, please." He pulled one of the shapeless garments over his head like a rain poncho. His head emerged to the sight of Nigel back at Jerry's side, flicking the safety lever on the assault rifle off and on.

"Nigel! Get away from that!" He lunged across the room and whisked him up.

Jerry looked down, startled, and snatched up the rifle.

"Jeez, Cindy! You're supposed to be watching."

Cindy was flustered. "Well... I... just walked in the room."

"Mr. Winston. If you don't mind. I'd appreciate it if you could you keep your weapons locked up, when you're not using them. How about that coat closet in the foyer?"

"Yeah, sure," said Jerry. "Sorry about that."

"Da octopus guy! I taw him," said Nigel pointing at the monitor.

"What's that, Nigey?" said John.

"I taw him! Da octopus guy. On da TV."

"What's he talking about?" said Jerry, maximizing his camera views one at a time.

"I have no idea," said John.

Something dark, much darker than the background, flickered into view on the infrared screen. It drifted through the rhododendrons at the edge of the property, hard and distinct against the soft glow of sun-warmed cedar mulch.

"What is that thing?" said Jerry.

A shiver cascaded down John's back. "Uh... a raccoon?"

"No way that's a coon," said Jerry. "It's got no heat signature on IR, at all. Might be a shadow. Or somethin' real cold."

Nigel scurried over to the corner of the room and fished through his toy box.

"Quick, isn't it," said John. "And smooth, like it's gliding."

Donnie came over. "What're you all looking at?"

In a blink, the shadow was gone, slipping out of camera range.

Jerry looked up and rubbed his beard. "Not a clue, Donnie."

Nigel trotted over to the table and slapped a pair of linked Legos onto the table: a black octopus figure with swirling tentacles and deep set eyes snapped onto the base of a transparent blue piece shaped like a cone. "Da octopus guy."

***

The white-robed volunteers lined up behind the open smoker, Rand shining an LED flashlight on the remnants of the pig carcass. It looked like carrion, torn apart by vultures, or the grisly remains of a torture victim, bones wired to the rack. Donnie blew on the embers to make them glow and lit a taper.

"This is Holy Fire," he said. "This particular strain descends from a lightning strike on the First Baptist Church of Doraville, just outside of Atlanta, April 20th, 1995. It's one of our purer extracts, our weapon of first choice. We have more potent options in our arsenal, but those all carry a taint of human darkness in them, and the results can be... less predictable. This one comes straight from the Lord, unsullied by the passions of men."

When his taper flared to life, the others—John, Mac, Tammie, Rand and two young men from the parish—held out their candles to be lighted.

"I'll take the lead," said Donnie. "As we go, I'll call out the prayers by number. You'll find them in order on those cards I gave you all. Keep in mind, this is not a deliverance per se, though we'll use some of the same protections. This first expedition is just probative, to find out exactly who we're dealing with, how vulnerable they might be. Understand?"

"What if... that thing—?" said Tammie.

"Jerry's in there watching over us," said Donnie. "If he sees something, he's got us on walkie-talkie. He'll let us know. Remember. We got the Holy Fire. It's a powerful protection. Any candles go out, relight them off your neighbor."

Seven candles flared and guttered.

"Everyone ready?"

Nods all around.

"Alright. Follow me, with prayer number three. I'll lead, and everyone repeat: Most precious Lord Jesus, gentle and wonderful God, truly awesome and ever-present Holy Spirit."

Donnie paused to let the others echo his words, before continuing on.

"Bring your holy angels down and surround me with your love to protect me against the evil seeking to attack my body, my heart and mind, my friends and family. Bring your holy angels down and surround me with your love to protect me against my doubts, questions, and misgivings. All these things I humbly pray in the name of my most blessed Lord Jesus Christ, my mighty God, and my ever-present Holy Spirit upon whom I can rely. Amen."

They marched down the road, rounded the corner, and headed up hill towards the hell house. The music had stopped, revealing the patter and scurry of falling leaves.

John breathed rapidly. His fingers felt frigid.

"The door," said Tammie. "It's opening."

"Good," said Donnie. "Let's see what we're up against. Keep on going, right up to the house. Join me now. Number... seven."

"We use the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ and cover us with the Blood of the Lamb! We agree with The Covenant of the Blood. We use the Psalms as imprecations and pronouncements against the enemies of God, and call down the wrath of God upon spiritual foes. We sing about the Blood of Jesus. We command that every knee to bow and tongue to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord."

"We break evil curses, vexes, hexes, jinxes, psychic powers, bewitchments, potions, charms, incantations, spells, witchcraft and sorcery. We break all cords, snares, controls and bondages. We ask that the power of God be manifested. We command the demons to go to Tartarus with the fallen angels, or wherever Jesus sends them."

"We come against unholy spirits, fallen angels, demons, devils, empire of evil, and the entire Kingdom of Satan in humans and animals. We come against councils, principalities, powers, world rulers, and wicked spirits in Heavenly places. We come against chiefs and kings, princes, kingdoms, dominions, generals, rulers, captains, centurions, strongmen, and imps."

They came up to end of the driveway and fanned out across it. The people who had come out of the hell house, stood by their cars, watching. Hot wax dribbled onto the back of John's hand and solidified.

"John?" said the girl he had given a ride—Aerie. She looked dazed and unsteady. Something looked wrong with her eyes.

Mac gave John a quizzical look. "You know this girl?" he whispered.

"I helped her, when her car broke down."

"You did this, knowing—?"

"I had no clue who she was."

"We come to you covered in the Blood of Jesus!" Donnie shouted.

"Eew, ick!" said a young woman, eyebrows raised, nose scrunched. She hugged an instrument case against her chest.

The owner, Aaron, burst out of the house. "What's going on? Who are you people?"

"We've come to save you!" said Tammie.

"Sheesh," he said. "Listen. We don't need any saving. Can you kindly get off my property?"

"Mr. Levine, I presume?" said Donnie.

"That's right"

"Do you have any idea what your music brings? Do you know what fell creatures prowl outside your doors?"

"Matter of fact, I do," said Aaron. "It's you all, have no idea what you're dealing with."

Donnie stepped forward, his face grim and glistening in the candle glow. He lowered his chin and stared. "Oh, I think we do, Mr. Apollyon, of Abaddon. I think we do."

Aaron looked perplexed. "Napoleon? What?"

"An angel fallen is nothing more than a demon."

"Get out! Out of my driveway." Aaron came forward and shoved Donnie in the chest, making him stagger back. Rand scrambled to brace his mentor, singing his robe with the candle. The others closed ranks behind them.

"Listen," said Aaron. "Take your bloody candles and robes and get off my driveway. You're blocking my friends. Alright?"

"They're definitely possessed," Mac whispered. "Look at their faces."

"Number nine!" Donnie shouted. The chanting arose in unison.

"Father, I come before you in Jesus' name, and I thank you for giving me all power and all authority over all demons."

"Demons?" said a frizzy-haired guy, his locks bound in a bandanna. "They think we're demons?"

"This is most creepy," said a young woman with a dark complexion and a subcontinental accent.

"I need to sit down," said Aerie, collapsing into a lotus position on the pavement.

"We cover ourselves in the blood of Jesus. I thank you for your giant warring angels that are surrounding us, protecting us from all harm of the enemy."

One of the young men snickered. "Giant angels?" His friend burst out laughing.

"We take our authority and attack from the third Heaven. We bind the strongman and spoil his goods. We command you to leave this house in Jesus' name!"

The Indian girl woman bustled down the driveway, coming face to face with Donnie, invading his personal space. Candles were raised in defense. "That is totally unnecessary. I am not intending to hurt anyone. Please, we are only wanting to go home. If you will please get out of our way...."

This was embarrassing. John wished he had stayed behind. Yes, the music disturbed him. Yes, he'd been freaked by the animals or whatever they were that seemed to be attracted by it. But this deliverance fiasco had been Cindy's idea. Let her deal with it. He should be the one back home tucking in the boys for nighty-night.

Aaron slipped behind the cars and between the shrubberies of his flower bed. The volunteers continued with prayer number nine in ragged unison.

"We bind up every demon that was sent here. We command you to extract yourselves from their conscious, subconscious, unconscious minds, from all parts of their bodies, wills, emotions, all in Jesus' name."

A valve creaked. Aaron reappeared, pulling a garden hose.

"Everyone, back!" said Donnie, panicking. "Retreat to the house. Don't let him quench your flames."
Chapter 14: Hiatus

Aerie lay on a sun-struck carpet watching a sugar maple sway. She kept her head still to avoid jangling the mesh of pain that stretched cross her brain like a too-tight hair net. She hoped the mug of coffee by her elbow would make her feel better. Otherwise, the purse with her pills beckoned on the counter.

The maple's leaves were beginning to change—a single branch so far, and only the fringes of each leaf was orange, the veins and cores remaining green, much like that first grey hair she had found in her bangs last spring—grey at the tip, dark at the base.

It had been years since she had experienced an Autumn in Upstate New York. She looked forward to the slow-motion fireworks that would end with the brick and leather of the oaks—her favorite part of the sequence—if only for how she admired the oaks' stubbornness in clinging to their leaves when the rest of the trees had become mere skeletons.

Aerie had already called in sick to work. Reggie had acted quite alarmed and had even offered to stop over to see if she was okay. She assured her supervisor that she was simply under the weather, nothing more, nothing pill-related. Truth was, she had avoided taking her pills this morning, and was paying the price.

She hoped to get her head clear and pain-free for a change, not because she wanted to be free of those pills, but that she wanted to save them for later when she went to Aaron's. She would need them to get through this Production thing. She kept telling herself it was only music.

The thousand dollars Aaron had promised everyone was nothing to sneeze at, much more than she had ever been paid for a single gig. Never mind that two hours, at a jazz club, comprised a single set. She wished she knew how someone like Ron could shrug off and even laugh at music that turned her into a quivering wreck.

It might have helped if someone could tell her what Aaron meant by 'Production' meant. A show, perhaps? But he gave the impression that a 'Production'' was something more industrial than thespian.

She got up from the carpet and put the kettle on for a cup of tea. Something had transformed the neighbor's Yorkie into a snapping, snarling ball of fur and tooth and claw, probably the mailman. Yorkshire terrorist, indeed.

Her cell phone started playing 'Killer Joe,' the MP3 ring tone she had set for generic calls. She plucked it from the cabinet by the front door. The display read: 'Unlisted.'

"Hello? This is Aerie.""Aerie! Man, I'm so glad I reached you." Aaron. As she expected. "No-one else seems to be picking up. Listen. My daughter's in the hospital. I'm headed to Boston. I need you to—"

"Is she alright?"

"Car accident. I don't know much yet, but I need you to get a hold of the others. The Production's cancelled... or, I should say, postponed. I'll try to get back as soon as I can."

"She gonna be okay?"

"I think so. I hope so. My ex won't tell me nothing, except that she's not critical."

Trickles of relief washed over Aerie, less for Aaron's daughter, than for skipping the Production that night. She glanced at her vacant bass stand.

"My bass. I left it... at your house. Could you drop it off on your way through Ithaca? Either that or I can come by your place. I can be there in half an hour. Less than."

"Um. I'm already driving, Aerie. I'm almost in Cortland."

"Is there any way I can—"

"I'll be back soon. Soon as I can."

"When?"

"I don't know exactly," said Aaron. "As soon as I can."

"I hope... everything's alright."

"Listen, Aerie. I've got another call coming in. I left a message for Sari, but I couldn't reach any of the others. If you can help pass the word, I'd appreciate it."

"But... I don't know their—"

"Gotta go." He hung up.

How was she supposed to get in touch with anyone? She didn't even know their last names.

A weird mix of feelings came over Aerie—relief that she wouldn't have to play that scary music tonight, pangs of regret that she wouldn't be seeing any of her new friends any time soon.

She turned off the stove and went to change out of her pajamas. A few swipes of a brush, a hair tie, a quick daub at the bags under her eyes and she was out the door. The air was astringent and spicy with leafy decay. She pulled a utility bill and a post card from the mail box. She stuffed the bill in the purse and excitedly glanced at the post card. It had a picture of a gaudy fountain in Prague. Her heart accelerated. Was this from Hollis? Who had told him where to find her? Koichi?

She flipped the card over. It was from Susan, a cousin she hadn't spoken to in years.

"Hey Aerie. Europe's a blast! Hope you're feeling better. I'm back next week. Let's talk."

No doubt this was Aunt Sadie's doing. Why else would Susan send a postcard? They had butted heads ever since they were toddlers—Susan always ten pounds heavier and ten times more argumentative—a bad combination for a bully. Aerie had no interest in making amends with her. What was Sadie thinking?

She continued down the walk, feeling even more discombobulated. As she approached her car, the sight of it annoyed her, as if her car was scolding her silently about her inability to get it to a mechanic. Maybe she would this afternoon, if she had time.

She left it parked, deciding to spare its balky engine and walk to the Commons. She took the back way via State Street, giving Dewitt Mall a wide berth lest any co-workers spot her roaming town when she was supposed to be out sick. Finding Mal or Ron there was a shot in the dark. She had no reason to expect to find them other than that was where they always asked to be picked up and dropped off. As for Eleni, Aerie had not a clue where to find her. At least Sari had already been contacted.

A small gaggle of teenagers surrounded a knife-scarred and disfigured bench, rough-housing and insulting each other. Aerie recognized a guy with silver studs in the corners of his mouth that he had seen Ron joking around with, and approached him.

"Hey. Do you know a guy named Ron?"

"Ron who?"

"I don't know his last name."

"Millions?" said a pudgy girl in leggings and a baggy sweater.

Aerie looked at her blankly.

"That's his name," she said. "Ron Millions. Plays guitar? Black beanie?"

"Yeah," said Aerie.

"Ron lives out behind Napoli's," said the guy with the studs. "Next to the creek. You play with him, doncha? You're in the collective?"

"Behind it? What do you mean?"

"Out back. There's a busted up building. That's where his crib is at. His shack."

"But I thought he lived with his grandmother."

The other kids started laughing.

"C'mon, I'll take you," he said, hopping on his board.

She followed him out through the parking garage, across Green Street and down a set of back alleys she never knew existed, one of those forgotten corners that every town seem to have. A low cinder block building with busted-out, plywood-covered windows hunkered down the end of a drive. The skater led Aerie around the back corner.

"Hey Ron," he said, yelling into what looked like a trash heap between the print shop's back wall and the concrete wall hemming in the creek.

"Whassup?" came a groggy voice.

"Ya got company."

Ron staggered out of a flimsy conglomeration of plywood, cement board and canvas.

"Aerie?" He tucked his shirt and smoothed his fly away locks. "Jeez Vince, did you really have to bring her here? You could have just told me."

"This isn't exactly your grandmother's basement," said Aerie.

Ron shrugged. "She made me move out last Spring. Mal knows. What are doing here anyway? Isn't it kinda early?"

"Aaron's cancelled the—"

"Noooo!" Ron wailed, making a face as woeful as anything Edvard Munch could paint. "Fuck no! I need that money."

"It's because of his daughter, she's in the hospital."

"So when we gonna play now?"

"He didn't say," said Aerie. "Next full moon, I presume?"

"Don't say that! No fucking way. He doesn't need the moon. He just likes doing it then. Thinks it makes it better. Don't tell me he went to Boston."

"Yeah, I think he did."

"That little bitch. She couldn't wait another day?"

"Ron, this was a car accident. It sounded serious."

"Bullshit," said Ron. "She's pulled this crap before. She pretends she's sick or runs away and her mom has a conniption fit. Aaron goes and tries to help but makes everybody hate him and, oh, it's just a mess. But... shit. I don't know what I'm gonna do. I told this guy I'd have the money by tonight."

"I... can lend you some... if it's not too much."

Ron narrowed his eyes at her. "Nah." He kicked at the gravel. "I just gotta find another place to crash. Christ. I'm sorry you had to see me like this, Aerie. This is only temporary. I'm getting an apartment soon as I get above water."

"Sorry to be the bearer of bad news."

Something buzzed in Ron's shirt pocket. He pulled out a battered and bulky clamshell phone. "Text from Sari," he said. "Telling me the same shit."

"What's your number, Ron?" said Aerie.

"Why do you need my number?"

"Well... if Aaron comes back—"

"This ain't my phone," said Ron. "I'm probably not gonna have it much longer."

"It's hot," said Vince, the skater, chuckling.

"Believe me, the minute Aaron gets back, we'll all know about it. He's gonna want to feed his fucking birdie."

"Feed it?"

"Make it sing," said Ron. "And boy is it gonna be hungry." He knelt down and crawled back into his shed.

"Ron? Before you go. How do I get a hold of Mal and Eleni? Aaron asked me to pass the word."

"Don't worry about it," said Ron. "Sari's got that covered."

***

Aerie went home and baked some oatmeal cookies, attempting to recreate one of Lucrezia's secret recipes. In lieu of molasses she substituted brown sugar. She used raisins instead of the dates and goji berries that Lucrezia preferred.

They came out of the oven dense and brittle, edible but risky to teeth, better suited for plugging bathtub drains. She sighed, and dumped them all into the trash.

She wondered if she just showed up unannounced at work, if Reggie could let her finish her shift. She just wanted to be around people, but if she went in there would be curiosity and questions about her health.

She went into the living room and collapsed onto the couch, staring at her empty bass stand. Why did she have to go and leave the Juzek at Aaron's? If she had broken her addiction to playing over the summer, the jones was back with a vengeance. Having her axe with her right now would have gone a long way towards salving her loneliness.

She used to own an Ergo electric upright bass, a cheap and portable slab of mahogany, but had pawned it just before the move to Tokyo. Now she wished she hadn't. She didn't even have the sack of Prescott parts around to fondle, the way some cultures polished their ancestors' bones.

She would have to pick up another electric when she had a little more money saved up. Something fretless, preferably. At least it would keep her fingers from getting too itchy at times like this when she didn't have her Juzek.

She grabbed her little netbook off the end table and logged on, going straight to Koichi's page on Facebook. Aerie never posted anything on her own page, but Koichi was a tagging, liking, posting fiend. His page was a vicarious one-stop shop for catching up on all her Tokyo friends and acquaintances.

Koichi had a new gig at the Kokubunji Music School in Western Tokyo. His wife had had a baby girl they had named Arrietty. Nothing about Hollis.

To find Hollis, the Luddite, Aerie did a Google News search, finding an old promo for a jazz festival in Germany, a mention of a CD he had played on. And then there it was—a review of a gig in Pittsburgh performed only last week.

On a hunch, she checked a listing of jazz events in the New York Metro area, and there he was—Hollis Brooks—playing tomorrow night at the Baggot Inn in the West Village, not with his own group but with some obscure combo called the Arthur Davis Quartet.

Hollis. In Manhattan. Five hours away by car.

Aerie fought the urge to hop in her car, crippled as it was. But even if she got her car fixed, why should she go see him? He would probably just diss her in front of his latest gang of cronies. He was always that way when he was with the boys, and plenty of his boys still hung around The City.

Boys! They were septuagenarians, some of them.

Aerie wasn't even clear on how she felt about Hollis. She only knew that he still haunted her heart and mind.

She had met Hollis in Cheyenne, Wyoming, of all places. How she got there from Boston was a bit of a long story.

She had dropped out of the Berklee School of Music and transferred to CU Boulder to major in biology. Her time at Berklee had been a blast. As a bassist, she was always in demand for umpteen different pickup bands. The problem was, her sight reading skills had never caught up with the other students, despite several tutors and remedial classes. Her counselor advised her to consider another career. She had always loved animals. Biology seemed like a logical alternative.

Traveling cross-country by bus was insane, but she didn't have a car back then and to fly her Prescott from Baltimore would have cost more than the price of another round-trip ticket. Leaving it behind was out of the question. She was in love with that hunk of White Mountain spruce, rock maple and persimmon.

The bus ride took two days, with connections in Chicago, Omaha, and Des Moines. She had left a week early to get away from her warring parents, who were on the verge of the divorce proceedings that would be consummated by Christmas. It had been a horrible summer, the worst of her life, working for a custodial service by day, coming home to squabbles and skirmishes.

Jazz was the only thing that had kept her sane that summer. From Philadelphia to Arlington, she attended every open jam she could find. She developed a grip that could crush walnuts, calluses that could fend off knife attacks, the forearms of an orangutan. Four hours sleep and then off she went downtown to clean toilets in government office buildings.

She had quit her job a week earlier than planned. After 20-odd sleepless and hellish hours of busted air conditioners, obese seatmates, and psychotic, ranting Jesus Lovers, she had finally dozed off, missing at least three stops where she could have corrected her course—Denver, Loveland and Fort Collins.

She remembered waking on a dark and deserted stretch of I-25 North. A sign read Laramie 15 miles, I-80 Cheyenne 7. She had panicked. This couldn't be happening. Cheyenne was a good 90 miles from Boulder. She slumped in her seat and checked her purse to see if she had enough cash for another bus ticket back to Boulder, and the answer was—just.

When she got off in Cheyenne, the waiting area and ticket desk were closed. The next bus south wasn't due to roll till about five a.m..

There was an all night diner kitty-corner to the station but there was no way she could haul all her stuff across the street, so she made a fortress of her bass and suitcases and hunkered down for the night. At least she was well-rested from her nap.

A battered, white hulk of a Mercedes convertible arrived—the kind of car some people buy on its last legs just to say they owned a Mercedes. A thirtyish Native American woman drove it, and she disgorged a middle-aged black man with a shoulder bag and two rectangular, black cases.

He had a milk chocolate complexion and hair tufted and twisted, gray peppered with black. He glanced at Aerie, checked his watch, and did a double take at her.

Her first thought was: 'creepy old man', the way he kept looking over at her and the Prescott. Then she spotted his instrument cases and thought: 'creepy old trumpet player.' As the people who had gotten off Denver bus got picked up, the gaggle thinned down to Aerie, the creep and some cowboy-looking fellow with pack loaded with rope and pitons.

Aerie had stiffened as the creep sidled over to her down the walk.

"You play that thing, little girl?"

"Yup."

"Bluegrass?"

"Nope."

"Jazz?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well, take that thing out. What the heck. Let's jam."

"Here? Now?"

"Why not? Who's gonna care? He turned to the cowboy rock-climber. "You care?"

"Go for it."

He opened up his cases. One held a trumpet, the other, a sax. Playing both was unusual in jazz, but not unheard of. Benny Carter did it in the 40s. Ira Sullivan and Hermeto Pascoal still do it. And she had heard about some other guy on the current scene, famous for his versatility on multiple instruments, though not famous enough to remember his name.

And so they played: 'Stella by Starlight,' ''Round Midnight,' 'Green Dolphin Street.' They traded melodies and leads, just her bass and his tenor sax in the dusty, chaparral-scented wind. Aerie's bass got swallowed by the open spaces around the isolated bus station, but the Prescott had plenty of punch and bite to be heard.

"That's one hell of an axe you got," said the creep.

"I know," said Aerie, proudly.

The creep shifted between sax and trumpet, playing graceful, understated solos, never too busy, but with startling leaps of harmony. The cowboy whistled and applauded every solo, until his ride finally showed and hauled him away.

"You play... real nice," said the creep. "You not only got the chops... but the instincts. And that's rare, chick or no chick."

"I'm afraid instincts are all I have going for me," said Aerie. "I don't read very well."

"You do fine, with what you got. Do you play regular?"

"What do you mean?"

"You got a steady gig?"

"I'm a college student. In Boulder."

"You wanna play in Vegas?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I'm starting a month-long stand at a brand new Wynn casino just opening up. We're gonna be the house band at the night club, and... we ain't got no bass. I mean, we do. This guy who plays a Fender is supposed to sit in. But the last thing this world needs is another Fender guy playing that slappy chickabugga shit. I need someone who can stay in the groove and walk it. And I tell you, people would dig the sight of a little girl standing up to a big, old bass."

"Uh, thanks, but I don't think so. I'm starting classes in a couple of weeks."

"Music major?"

"Um, no. Pre-Med. My parents—"

"Do you know who I am, little girl?"

Aerie stood there, blinking. Come to think of it, his face looked familiar.

"Course you haven't. You're talking to the best damn jazz man nobody's ever heard of."

"Hollis... Brooks?"

He looked stunned, lost for words. "That's right."

Hollis was second-tier, by no means a celebrity—at that time at least—but he was certainly well-traveled and well-recorded. He showed up in discographies everywhere from London to Hong Kong. Name any contemporary jazz musician and chances were Hollis had played with them.

"Come to Vegas with me," said Hollis, his face gleaming in the streetlight. "Take a semester off."

"Right," said Aerie, imagining how her parents would react if she pulled such a stunt.

"I mean it. It pays real good. We'll have big players, I mean real big players, sitting in with us from time to time."

"Like... who?"

"Like Paul Motian. Dexter Gordon."

"Get out!"

"S'true," said Hollis. "They all come through Vegas from time to time. And they all know me. We'll be the welcoming committee."

"But why me?"

"I like your chops. Simple, but dead on. And you'd look really good on stage. You'd be a real hook for us."

"A what?"

"Not a hooker, a hook."

"A gimmick?"

"You're more than a gimmick. You can play. People come in, they see this chick bass player, they say what the hell is this, and they stick around to see you."

"There's plenty of great female bass players out there. I mean... Esperanza Spaulding—"

"When does school start?"

"August 23."

"You got time. Come out to Vegas for a week. We start on Sunday."

"I don't think so."

"Just a week and we'll ship you back, unless...."

"That's crazy. You want me to just show up and play? No rehearsal. I'm moving into the dorm on the nineteenth."

"No problem. We do standards until you're up to speed. You got fake books?"

"I have a couple of the 'Real Books.'"

"Fake books. Yeah. That's all you need. You'll have your own room, buffet pass. Two sets a night. It'll be a gas. Turns out you gotta go back to Colorado, that's fine. It buys me time to find another bass player."

Aerie was speechless. Hollis looked straight into her eyes, with that near-telepathic, penetrating gaze he had.

"Pre-Med, huh? Do you wanna be a doctor?"

"No."

"Shit, then. Follow your dreams girl. You wouldn't haul that thing around with you if you didn't love the music. Am I right?"

"Well, yeah, but...."

A pair of headlights broke Aerie out of her reverie. Plenty of cars came down this road, but this one crept along, stopping in front of every house, and then took about nine steps to parallel park that should only have taken three.

Aerie hovered in limbo, netbook warm in her lap, waiting to resume daydreams on the verge of becoming night dreams. She was too sleepy to get up and put on her PJs. She pulled a blanket down from the backrest and settled in. The sofa would do just fine.

Quick little steps clapped up her front walk. The porch light was off. A silhouette appeared, hovering confused between the doors of the duplex. Her doorbell rang.

Aerie dragged herself off the couch and over to the door. She flicked on the light.

"Can Aerie come out and play?"

"Sari?"
Chapter 15: Hare

Sari wore a feathered hat, a green felt jacket with wide, floppy lapels, tights that made it seem she wore no pants. She carried herself with verve, as if she thought she looked quite stylish, but her clothes made Aerie think of hobbits or Robin Hood's merry men. Her gleaming black locks did look stunning against the green.

"Aaron already told me," said Aerie.

"Told you what?" said Sari, crinkling her eyes.

"About his daughter. That the Production is cancelled."

"Feh! That's not why I'm here."

"Then why—"

"You live... here?" Sari peeked inside Aerie's living room and sniffed. She was cradling a waxed paper deli container filled with something hot and pungent.

Aerie picked up some orange peel that had lain on the carpet since breakfast and snuck it into her pocket.

"Where do you want me to live?"

"An accomplished and traveled and experienced musician like yourself. I don't know. Cayuga Heights, maybe?"

"How do you know that I've traveled?"

"The Google search. What else? Pages and pages of Aerie Walker, Aerie Walker. Jazz, jazz, jazz. Tokyo, New York, Nassau."

"You didn't find my address on Google, did you? Because I never—"

"The Moosewood told me," said Sari. "I stopped by; they said you were out sick. I tell them want to check on you and this woman, this Reggie, she helps me. This is for you, by the way." She shoved the container she had been holding into Aerie's hands, her expression barely containing its disgust. "Some kind of pumpkin or zucchini soup, I believe. Come. Put this soup away, dump it down the drain, whatever, and I'll take you to get something a little more special. I am assuming you are not actually sick?"

"Um. Nah, I'm okay."

"Put on some clothes," said Sari. "Something fashionable, preferably. They don't allow jeans where we are going."

"Where are we going?"

"Fineline Bistro."

"Never heard of it."

"Heaven sends us good meat, the devil sends us cooks."

"What?"

"That is their motto. You're not actually vegetarian are you?"

"Not exactly."

"Good."

Aerie put on some black slacks and a white blouse that left Sari shaking your head as she watched from the bedroom door. "These things in your closet. Pitiful. A middle-schooler's wardrobe. Worse—a tomboy middle-schooler."

"I'm not... really into fashion."

"Nooo!" said Sari, in mock surprise. "I need to take you shopping in Toronto. But not today, we have dinner to eat, matters to discuss."

"What exactly are we discussing?"

"Music," said Sari. "What else? What else do we have in common besides our vaginas? But not now. Over dinner. I'm famished."

They went out and climbed into her Saab. The night was clear and cooling off rapidly. A jaundiced and bloated moon hung low over the heights.

Sari started the car and lurched out of the space. Her feet were heavy on the accelerator as well as the breaks. She was a contradiction on wheels, both sluggish and aggressive, wary and impulsive. She came to a stop sign with plenty of time to make a turn before the oncoming traffic, but waited too long, and surged out, cutting off a van.

"I want to thank you taking over some of my taxi duties," said Sari. "The ride to Aaron's house is so much more pleasant now, without Ron despoiling my car. Malachi is not so bad. I like Malachi. But he comes as a package deal with Ronald, who stinks, literally stinks like he never washes and he thinks insulting everyone is the proper way to make small talk."

"I don't mind them," said Aerie. "They were actually very helpful to me."

They passed the Chanticleer pub and its neon rooster. Aerie spotted a familiar figure standing on the corner, hands in pockets, mandolin case leaning against light post. Her face lit up as the Saab zipped past.

"Hey! That's Eleni."

Sari slammed on her brakes and twisted around to look.

"She's waiting where she waits for her ride. Did not anyone one notify her about Aaron?"

"Ron said... that you did."

"Phah! Do I have to do everything? For everyone?"

Eleni trotted up to the car. Aerie rolled down the window. "Hey guys! Running late? Or did you forget me?"

"There is to be no Production," said Sari.

"Oh?"

"Aaron's daughter had a car accident," said Aerie. "He left town this morning."

"Oh. That's too bad."

"Ah! Ah! I see a parking space. Eleni, we will be right with you."

"Let me get out!" Aerie scrambled out the door. She stood with Eleni in front of a dive called Pete's, watching Sari dart across the traffic, nearly clipping a bicyclist, and crosswise into a space that could barely accommodate her Saab.

"How long were you waiting?" said Aerie.

"Oh, I don't know. About an hour."

"I'm so sorry."

"It's okay. I had nothing better to do. Me and my bodacious social life."

After a struggle, the Saab shuddered to a halt, its back end jutting out into the road, impeding one lane of traffic.

"So what are you guys up to?" said Eleni.

"I have no idea," said Aerie, glancing across the street at the gang of skater punks on the end of the Commons. The pair who had helped her was still there, but the group seemed to have accrued a few more friends.

Sari came skipping across the street, jangling her keys. "Come. Let's eat."

***

The restaurant seemed too chic for Ithaca, all exposed brick and fiery paint, brushed aluminum tables. It seemed excised and transplanted out of an actual city, a refuge for urban exiles in the hinterlands.

One look at Sari and the maître d' smiled and led them immediately to a table by the window even though there was a line and they had no reservation. The waitress came by and chatted amiably with Sari about some gallery showing. She wore a buzz cut, thick glasses and some big, dangly hoop earrings. As she distributed the menus, Sari snatched them up and handed them back.

"Since this is my treat, I will do the ordering. Appletinis all around. For tapas, the rabbit wings and crab fritters, and the angel hair pasta for everyone."

"Rabbit... wings?"

"Actually, the front paws. Battered and fried. For good luck."

"You're kidding, right?"

"It's scrumptious. Comes with a celery salad and Stilton aioli."

Aerie took a deep breath.

"Now for business. With Aaron gone, yes there is no paycheck, but we have an opportunity. We can have our own public performance. To play in front of real, live people."

"A gig?" said Aerie.

"Of course. I have another band, you realize. We can't tour and rarely play out, because of Aaron's bloody contract. You know what stipulation I'm talking about?"

"No."

"That we can't leave town without his permission, and are always on call, two hours notice any time of day or night."

"I... didn't realize that."

"You signed the thing. Did you not read it?"

"I don't know. I can't stand reading legalese," said Aerie, shrugging. "So if we leave town... what's he gonna do, sue us?"

"Worse. He could terminate us," said Eleni.

"It constrains my ambitions, to say the least," said Sari. "My main band, Vida, had to gig without me last month when they played Ottawa and Toronto. Now Aaron, I must say, does not abuse this stipulation. My main band, Vida, has played Syracuse, Watkins Glen, for example. But when Aaron takes a holiday—"

"Holiday?" said Aerie.

Sari's lips tightened. "When he goes away... we need to take advantage of this opportunity to perform. Thus, I have arranged for a gig, right here in Ithaca."

"For... your other band... Vida?"

"For both bands," said Sari. "A joint performance. You... we... the collective, believe it or not, would be the draw. I'm not sure if you realize the level of hype... no, not hype... mystique... that has built up around us here in Ithaca."

"Nope. I had no idea," said Aerie. The appletinis arrived. Tart. Dry. Not bad at all, she thought.

Eleni shifted in her seat. "It really is weird. People talk about us like we're some kind of secret super-group, wood-shedding for a world tour or whatever."

"Based on what?" said Aerie.

"Based on every unaffiliated musician for hundreds of miles auditioning for Aaron and failing," said Sari. "We are the special ones. The crème-de-la-crème. The survivors."

"Hmm," said Aerie. "Mystique, huh?"

"And you now, with your background in big time jazz. We simply have to use your name in the marketing."

"Big time? Not quite. Not even third tier. More like a hanger-on."

"Oh? Then how is it I find your name mentioned in the Downbeat magazine? How many Ithaca musicians have enjoyed such a distinction?"

The cognitive dissonance rattling around Aerie's skull wouldn't go away. "Let me make sure I understand you correctly. You want us to perform the same stuff that Aaron makes us play, stuff that happens to make me sick to my stomach... in public? As your opening act?"

"Correct."

"Sari, that's insane. Who would want to listen to this crap?"

"You'd be surprised," said Sari. "In my circles, anyway, people are quite curious. Not just other musicians, but the arts community in general. The cognoscenti."

"Even the skaters would come, I bet," said Eleni. "Not to mention the Goths and the Punks."

"They might think they want to hear us, but... once we start playing, who's gonna stick around? If you want people to hear Vida, Vida should go first."

"You want Vida... to open... for the collective?" Sari's eyes acquired a glaze. "That's not how it works. You open. We... Vida... the main act, headline. You all are the sideshow that draws the curious. We give the people what they want to hear—the collective—and then we give them what they don't know they should want—Vida—but they will want once they hear Vida play. Sublime, I tell you, and I'm saying this like a proud mother, mind you. It's not solely due to my talents."

"I... don't know about this," said Aerie. "What do you think, Eleni?"

"I'm okay with it," she said. "But we'd better bring a mop. I'm pretty sure someone's gonna pee their pants when they hear us play."

"Oh posh! That's ridiculous," said Sari. "It's only music. I am totally at ease with it, as I was from the start. I think your discomfort is a cultural thing with you European-Americans. You expect your music to be packaged tidily in scales and meters, and when it's not it upsets your tummies."

"Like I said, I'm game," said Eleni. "But then again, I'm jaded. The stuff doesn't bother me anymore. I suppose it would be a little bit easier to take without Aaron and his damned fiddle, pushing the envelope."

"That's a good point," said Aerie. "Maybe it won't be so bad if it's just us."

"That's my girls," said Sari. "Now look, I have already arranged a venue. The Ithaca Arts Coop is renting us use of their dance studio above the old theater. We have it Thursday and Friday, six to twelve. It's short notice, so we will need considerable promotion to have this succeed. I have already prepared a block ad for the Ithaca Times. We may also want to consider the entertainment listings in the Journal. I'm trying to interest them in an interview and full story about me, but so far my charms are failing."

"I can make a poster," said Eleni.

"That would good," said Sari. "Make sure you vet it by me before you print anything, though. We can enlist Ronald and Mal to help put them up. My people in Vida can help."

"What name do we put on the poster?" said Eleni.

"How about... the collective?"

"Too plain. Too... ordinary," said Sari.

"That is how people know us," said Eleni.

Sari sighed. "Alright. But how about we use K's instead of C's. One L. No E at the end?" She fetched a pen from her purse and scrawled something on a napkin. "Like this."

"Kolektiv," it read.

"Remember, Vida at the top, big letters, and make sure you mention Aerie's Downbeat appearance, with the name of her group. What was the name?"

"Hollis Brooks... Quintet."

"I like that. It's good. Gives us... gravitas."

"I played with the Horseflies once," said Eleni. "And... and Donna the Buffalo."

"Nobody knows or cares who the Horseflies are," said Sari. "Or Donna the Buffalo."

Eleni sighed. "My friends do."

"When do we rehearse?" said Aerie.

"Rehearsal? No. Well, I am to be rehearsing with Vida, of course, but for the collective, I don't think it is necessary, do you?"

"Suppose not," said Aerie. "I have one small problem, though."

"What's that?"

"I left my bass at Aaron's."

Sari blinked back at her. "Not a problem. Malachi knows where Aaron keeps the extra key. Take him out there. He'll open the door for you."

The waitress came with their dinners, setting a bowl before Aerie—thick, chilled noodles slathered in tahini, peas and scallions. Something braised and suspiciously rodent-looking (dark meat, leg bones protruding) rested on top.

"I thought you ordered angel hair pasta," said Aerie.

"Angel hare," said Sari. "H-A-R-E."

"What's with this place?" said Aerie. "Can't they make anything without... murdering bunnies?" She nudged the meat aside with her fork, and went after the noodles. Maybe she was turning into a vegetarian after all.
Chapter 16: Infernal Properties

Another clear night. The moon, a sliver past full. The hell house remained as silent and dark as it had been all day. Since sundown, the infrared monitors picked up nothing but a skunk nosing about for grubs in the lawn and a quick, little rodent that might have been a shrew.

John stood, nose to the picture window, staring at the rhododendrons in the side yard. Despite Jerry's conviction that the shape that had glided across the monitor last night was some demonic manifestation, John was not convinced that it had been anything more than the play of light and shadow.

But the thing he saw in the drizzle last July still nagged at him. He hoped that had been the whiskey talking. Glenfiddich, in the quantities he had consumed, might conjure all sorts of phantoms, maybe even elephants—if he drank enough of it.

He sank into his easy chair with a long neck Budweiser, glaring at the tangle of cords and monitors that had invaded their living room. Jerry was huddling with Tammie and Rand, going over some of the arcane EMF data they had been collecting all day. Rand had staged an assault on the hell house itself, installing radio-based listening devices on several windows and yet more EMF detectors in the shrubberies.

The Daily Show and Colbert were coming on, two of his few illicit pleasures. Cindy tolerated Jon Stewart, but could never make it through an entire hour without grumbling and walking away to find something better to do. John worried about changing the channel with Rand and Jerry in the room. Rand was a Glen Beck fan and Jerry had kept Fox News on in the background all day. John made like a good host and let Fox drone on.

He went up to check on the boys. Cindy had just given Nigel and Jason a bath, and was cleaning up in the bathroom. The boys were both in their bedroom, playing with Duplos in Jason's crib.

"Daddy read?" said Nigel. "Da one about the bears? Da bears?"

"Um, sure," said John, fishing through a pile of books on the floor. He settled down onto the carpet.

"I think we left off here. Remember? It was getting dark and Jonathan's getting ready to go over the mountain to get a cooking pot from his Aunt Emma's?"

He shifted into his storytelling voice. "There are no bears on hemlock mountain. No bears. No bears at all."

Cindy ducked into the room. "What is that you're reading?" she said, crumpling her brow.

"It's da bear book, momma," said Nigel, all chipper.

"I thought I had tucked that one away. I know it was a gift from Nana, bit don't you think it's a little too advanced for them?"

"Nigel likes it," said John. "And Jason just likes to hear the words. He could care less if I was jabbering in Swedish."

"Point is, John... see those numbers on the spine? The 6-8? That's the reading level. The publisher put that there for a reason. Little brains can't deal with stuff that's too advanced."

"But... I'm reading it to them."

"That rating's not just difficulty," said Cindy. "It's age appropriateness. There's stuff in there that might be a little too scary, don't you think? Considering what we're going through?"

"But it's 'The Bears on Hemlock Mountain.' It's about how Jesus can keep you safe when you're scared. How you're not alone when you think you're alone. It's a nice Christian story."

"I'm sure it is," said Cindy. "But look at those eyes on the cover, peeking out of the trees. It's creepy. As if they didn't have enough to worry about already. You're gonna give them nightmares. I just don't think my babies are ready for it." She gave John the tight, toothy smile she displayed when she was on the verge of losing her patience.

John closed the book. Nigel started bawling. "Noooo! I wanna hear da bear story!" Cindy glared at John. He kissed the boys good night and stormed out of the room.

If he had his way, and if these were his kids, he would be reading the Hobbit to them, the way Grandpa Joe had done for him when he was four, moving on to through the Lord of the Rings trilogy from kindergarten through first grade. Just a little bit every night, just enough to keep the story smoldering in his imagination.

John suspected that the presence of a Tolkien novel in this household would provoke a deliverance ritual out of the Reverend. The book would then be relegated to the Holy Fire in Jerry's smoker, freshly stoked with rock maple wood from the cord that John had helped him split earlier that day. But at least the LOTR series could be seen by some as Christian allegory. He shuddered to think of how Cindy would react if Harry Potter made an appearance in her household.

Cindy would be taking the kids up to their grandparents in the morning, against John's protestations. He was sure that staying with Cindy's well-intentioned but toddler-challenged parents would be more traumatizing to Jason and Nigel than anything he would encounter here at home. But Donnie had insisted.

Donnie seemed a mere shell of the backslapping, prayer-spewing, dynamo that had shown up on their doorstep the evening before. He had begged off dinner and was looking a little green around the gills. John hoped it had nothing to do with the chowder he had re-heated for lunch. But everyone else seemed fine. Maybe it was just the stomach flu that had been going around the parish.

Cindy came into the room with tray loaded with mugs of hot cocoa. Donnie, slumped on the sofa, waved her off.

"I'm so sorry that you're not feeling well, Reverend. Would you like some tea?"

"That's kind of you, but um, no thanks. I'm thinking of heading back to the hotel, get some rest, given the lack of activity and all."

"We can set you up here with a room," said Cindy. "It's no problem at all."

"That's alright. All my bags are there. I just need to get some rest. Tam? Rand? We'll head out after you have your cocoa, alright?"

"Sure, Donnie," said Rand. "We can go now, if—"

"No, that's okay. Have your chocolate. I can manage."

Rand guzzled his cocoa in large gulps, practically choking.

"It's amazing," said Cindy. "What you were all able to accomplish, in such a short time."

"Well thank you," said Donnie, "But we haven't done anything yet. We have yet begun to fight, as the saying goes."

"One quiet day means nothing," said Jerry. "They know we're here. They may just be lying low, hoping we'll go away."

"True," said Donnie. "Much too premature to declare victory. We haven't even begun the casting out rites. Still, their silence is a good sign."

"I don't think this Aaron guy is even home," said John. "His car's been gone all day."

"All I know," said Cindy. "Is that three nights in a row they were going at it every night. You guys show up, and it all stops. That's gotta be more than a coincidence. It's your doing, with the good Lord's blessing."

"It's kind of you to think so?" said Donnie, who was looking awful antsy. Sweat gleamed on his brow. His face was pale. "Rand, Tam?"

Rand slammed his emptied mug on the counter. Tammie abandoned hers still three-quarters full.

"We'd best be going," said Donnie.

"I hope you don't mind if I crash on your sofa again," said Jerry.

"There's no need for that Mr. Winston," said Cindy. "We have an extra room."

"I'd prefer, if you don't mind, to stay close to my equipment. In case something pops up. Know what I mean?"

Donnie rushed towards the door. "If there's any action, don't hesitate to call, Jerry. We'll come straight out here. Hopefully... things will stay quiet. Oh, Lord!" He moaned and vomited into the yews off the front stoop.

"Oh my," said Cindy. "Let me get you some wipes." She rushed into the backroom and came out with a travel pack of baby wipes. "Sure you don't want to stay?"

Donnie clenched his jaw and nodded, climbing into the cab of the pickup, as Rand hopped into the driver's seat, Tammie in the back.

"God Bless you all," said Cindy. "Mac was right. You guys are certifiable heroes."

***

John's eyes popped open about a minute before six am. He never needed an alarm; he had a body clock you could set a watch with. Every morning it was this way, no matter how late he had stayed up the night before, no matter how restless the night.

John was what they called a 'morning person.' He didn't need coffee, had never drank it before he met Cindy. But because he didn't need caffeine to function and because Cindy did, John was the one who brewed the coffee every morning.

By that same logic, John was also the one who attended to the kids during the night. Nigel, thank God, was a sound sleeper and didn't need much tending. He was a lot like Cindy that way—slow to rouse from a slumber, slow to calm from an upset.

Jason, though, always woke up once or twice, hungry or with a wet diaper. But not last night, and John rushes down the hall to the kids' room, a little concerned.

He found Nigel curled like a kitten in the corner of his bed, whistling gently through his nose. Jason stood in his crib, cooing and playing with the shadows of leaves flickering on the wall. His head jerked around and he smiled as John entered the room.

"Hey buddy! Whatcha doing? Shadow puppets?"

This start was atypical for Jason, who usually woke up screaming. After a quick change, John hoisted him off the changing table and onto his hip. They went downstairs for breakfast.

A constellation of LEDs glowed in the living room. Jerry wheezed under a fleece blanket on the sofa. With Jason snapped into his high chair with a sippy cup of juice and a bowl of mush before him, John transitioned into what he called the 'coffee ceremony.'

Three hundred consecutive mornings of brewing Cindy's coffee had allowed the process to evolve into a ritual dance whittled to an absolute economy of motion—half Tai Chi, half Japanese tea ceremony.

He opened the cabinet and retrieved the coffee grinder, unwinding the cord with a swirl of his wrist. He slid two fingers down its length till they seized the plug, guiding the prongs towards the outlet like a Soyuz mating with a space station. With a wiggle, the prongs slid home.

He shifted his weight, swooping like a speed skater to reach the drawer with the coffee beans, tipping it, catching it, stabbing his finger between the foil walls to create a spout, tilting it, filling the grinder. Down went the cap, smothered by a dish towel. On went the switch.

The grinder shrieked. The blanket leaped. Jerry shouted and thudded to the hardwood floor.

"What the fuck?" said Jerry, befuddled, from the floor.

"Sorry," said John, wincing. "I didn't think it'd be so loud, with the towel and all."

John finished the operation without the usual grace, like a dispirited gymnast after a fall, spilling grounds all over the counter, sloshing water out of the reservoir, punctuating the spoiled routine with a double hit of the switch.

"S'alright," said Jerry. "I should get my ass out of bed and check those graphs, anyhow."

"Graphs?"

"EMF sensors. I'm curious about new ones Rand planted." He ran the cursor over each window, maximizing them one at a time.

John came and peeked over his shoulder. "Anything?"

"Eh... not much. Looks like background noise."

"That's... good. Right?"

"Depends what you mean by good. I mean it's great we didn't get slaughtered by demons. Not so great we didn't find what we're looking for."

"Maybe... there's nothing to find?" said John.

"Nothing? We both saw that thing cross my monitor."

"But it didn't show up on your detectors."

Jerry took a deep, slow breath. "Doesn't mean it don't exist. EMF and infrared don't cut it, sometimes. There's stuff crossing the void that goes beyond our ability to measure. You'd have to be in my business, see all the stuff I've seen, to understand. As for these gizmos—we gotta make do with what we got." He looked out the window into the woods. "There's something out there alright. Probably attracted to that noise your neighbors make."

The coffeemaker snorted, percolating its last drips. "Coffee?" said John.

"Sure," said Jerry. "I take it black."

John poured two regular cups and a larger mug with extra sugar and half and half for Cindy.

"Much obliged," said Jerry, taking a cup. He took a sip and gasped. "Whoa! That'll put hair on your chest."

"Yeah, I should have warned you. It's an Italian roast, espresso grind. Cindy needs the caffeine or else—"

"Oh, I'm not complaining," said Jerry. "Sure beats that dishwater they serve at Dunkin Donuts."

"No argument there," said John. He climbed the stairs, keeping his elbows loose. He had a knack for carrying a mug filled to the brim without spilling a drop.

Cindy had the TV on, but her eyes were closed.

"Here you go, hon. I'll set it down." He placed the mug on the night stand. Leaning over the bed, he gave her a peck on the cheek.

She winced and squirmed. Her eyes stayed closed. "What was all that racket?"

"Um. That was Jerry. The grinder kinda startled him. He fell off the couch."

"Oh my," She sat up and blinked at the harsh light beaming through the window. "You shoulda set it up before we went to bed."

"Yeah. Wasn't thinking, I guess."

"Any stuff happen? Outside?"

"Not as far as I can tell," said John.

"Good. That's good, right?"

"Not according to Jerry. Sounds like they actually want to catch something... or kill it."

Cindy shuddered. "I just want them to go away." Her eyes grew wider, and fully alert. "Do you think Donnie's prayers did the trick?"

"Don't know." He sat down on the edge of the bed.

Cindy yawned. "Mac's coming over this afternoon with some folks from the parish. Would you mind stopping by the grocery store?"

"Sure."

"Make sure you get some mint chocolate chip ice cream, for Mac. And tortilla chips. He likes chips and salsa. Extra hot."

"For... Mac?"

"Well, he's gonna be staying with us for a while. The Reverend didn't look so great last night. Mac said he could come over and lend some extra support. The kids will be up in Syracuse. He can sleep on Nigel's twin."

"Nice of him... I suppose. I hope that Donnie's feeling better."

"Mac's worried, this might be more than a stomach bug. But Mac said he can do the rites if he has to. He has a copy of a deliverance manual. Same one that the Reverend uses."

"If Mac knows how to do these... then why did we—"

"John. We talked about this. Last Hope is the best in the business. Mac's just trying to give a little support. It's taking him away from his other work. Least we can do is make him comfortable."

"No problem. I'll get him his ice cream."

A steely coldness crept into Cindy's eyes. "You've got a thing against Mac, don't you?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, whenever I talk about Mac you get a little bristly."

"No, I don't. I like Mac. He's our Pastor. He's a great... Pastor. Quiche for dinner, alright?"

"Seriously, John? Don't you'd think steak'd be a better bet with these folks?"

"But... we like quiche."

"Think about our guests, hon. I'm not even sure quiche is in their culture."

"What? They don't know eggs and cheese and bacon? They're Georgians, Cindy. It's not like they're from... East Uzbekistan."

Cindy wrinkled her nose and gave him a palliative smile. "Get us some nice steaks. Some burgers. Chicken. Those kind of things. 'Kay?"

"Okay," said John, sighing.

***

After a morning of catching up with chores, he and Jerry had sandwiches for lunch. Tammie and Rand showed up just as he was about to head out to Ithaca to shop for groceries.

"Where's Donnie?"

"He's still under the weather," said Tammie. "He's gonna try to come out later with Mac."

"There's some cold cuts in the fridge and bread in the cupboard. Help yourselves."

"Thanks," said Rand. "We stopped to eat on the way out." He held up a crumpled Wendy's bag.

At Wegman's he rolled his cart down the aisles, he had to fight against his foodie inclinations. He let culinary cliché guide his choices, loading up the cart with collared greens, pork skins, red beans and rice, grits. Did southerners really eat grits for breakfast? He didn't even know how to cook them, but he picked up a box regardless.

Jerry had made a special request for some Miller Lite. A case jingled beneath the basket of the carriage. He paid for the groceries, six bags worth, using a debit card with a balance barely large enough to cover the damages. Cindy had better cash that commission check she had been hanging onto or they would be in the red and soon.

As he waited for the receipt, a frizzy-haired kid with a black raincoat came rushing past a row of shopping carts with a ream of posters and a stapler, stuck one up on a bulletin board, and ran back out to a white carpet cleaning van which zoomed across the lot.

John glanced at the poster as he went by. It announced a performance by Vida, a well-known local band. They had played last Spring at the Ithaca Festival in Stewart Park. He remembered them playing a sort of retro progressive rock, Yes/ELP with minus the wankery and with a hip-hop sensibility. They got good write-ups in the local rags, weekly, but John couldn't care less about hearing them again.

His eyes trailed down a blurb describing the opening act—Kolektiv. He had never heard of them. There was a small photo in the corner of a woman with her arms wrapped around an upright bass, her face in the throes of what could pass for ecstasy or agony.

The caption read: 'Featuring: Bassist Aerie Walker, formerly of the Hollis Brooks Quartet. A jolt shuddered through him. This was the girl he had met on the roadside. The hell house gang was playing a gig in Ithaca—an ordinary gig with an ordinary rock and roll band.

He chuckled. His chest heaved in vindication. Here was the evidence that he had been right all along. This was only rock and roll. No demons, just a normal band, avant-garde maybe, but with the same aspirations and motivations as any group of youthful musicians.

He was tempted to yank down the poster and stuff it in his pocket. Too many eyes watching. He thought the Reverend should see this, but then again, maybe not. Why inflict these deliverance folks on these poor kids? It would only ruin their gig. It would be like sending in those crackpots from Kansas who crash military funerals to protest gays.

He noted the date and the location and continued on his way. He might have to find a reason to be in Ithaca on Thursday night.

***

Back home, the white pickup was still parked in the driveway, but Cindy hadn't made it back from Syracuse. He found Jerry in the kitchen all geared up in camouflage coveralls, boots and slouch hat. He was standing by the kitchen sink filling a matching Camelbak water pack from the tap.

"What's up?" said John, as he loaded the two half gallons of ice cream into the freezer: one vanilla, one mint chocolate chip. "Going for a hike?"

"You know these woods out here?"

"Kinda. I went on some walks when we first moved in. Got lost once."

"I'm about to do a reconnoiter. Care to join?"

"Um. Sure. Let me put away these groceries." He stuck the fresh veggies in the crisper. "Heard from Donnie? How's he feeling?"

"Like crap. He stayed back at the hotel. Rand and Tam are here, though. They'll keep watch over the house."

"Keep watch?" John snickered. He went upstairs and changed from khakis to jeans and put on a chamois shirt, and his Orange Syracuse ball cap. It felt strange not having to look after the boys, but he jumped at the chance to be out in the woods. He was never a hunter, but had been an avid hiker before he met Cindy, who did her only rambling in shopping malls.

Downstairs, he found Jerry pacing nervously by the front door. He shouted into the family room. "Rand, we'll be on Channel 7. Give us a radio check every half hour."

"Roger," said Rand, over the radio.

As they left the house, Jerry took John's elbow and redirected him into the side yard. "I want to show you something interesting."

They crossed the lawn to the rhododendron border. "This is where we saw that shadow. Notice anything strange?"

John looked down and saw only cedar mulch and fallen leaves at first. And then a faint line caught his eye, a strip about a centimeter wide that passed through some of the dead leaves. At the end of the bushes it curled and doubled back.

He picked up a leaf. Only the veins remained, the intervening patches having been turned into a greasy black powder that sifted away in the breeze.

"Looks burned," said John.

"Feel it. It's slippery. Like graphite."

John rubbed his thumb against it, leaving a greasy streak.

"Never seen anything like it," said Jerry. "I tried tracking the line up through that woodlot, but it disappears halfway up the hill, almost as if, whatever it was fell out of the sky... or crawled out of the ground."

A queasiness gripped John. He was having second thoughts about this hike.

"C'mon."

"Where're we going?"

"I saw some trails heading off that other road. I wanna see what kind of terrain we're dealing with."

They crossed the street and cut across the woods to the main road. They passed the hell house, finding its driveway vacant, interior silent. Jerry gripped his shotgun more securely as they walked by. From the bulges under his coat, John suspected he was packing a handgun or two as well.

"Right here," said Jerry cutting in towards the blackberry patch at the head of the clear-cut for the abandoned subdivision.

The blackberry bushes were turning purple and red, their leaves mimicking the cycle of berries long shriveled or eaten. Jerry strode through the patch and onto a path that led straight up into the forest, past the glacial boulders that flanked the path like sentries. This was no mere game trail. Many saplings bore the mark of machetes and hatchets. Hunters, it seemed, from the deer stand high in a broad-limbed beech tree.

Jerry kept his eyes on the ground. They found plenty of deer sign—scat, hoof and browse marks. Behind a dead oak, he toed some canine looking turds that must have come from a coyote.

Mushrooms sprouted everywhere and were of every imaginable type: spongy and gilled, peaked and domed, both solitary and in massive clusters of all ages.

They passed through areas of secondary growth that had once been fields in which were embedded groves of towering beeches and oaks that had probably been woodlots when the area had been farmed. The massive boles awed and humbled John. He doubted it was virgin forest, but these patches were certainly ancient.

They passed traces of the former inhabitants: dimples in the ground that had been their root cellars, partially collapsed stone walls. They nearly didn't notice a tiny cemetery with grave markers of nondescript shale, their names and dates flaked off by frost.

"No wonder these folks didn't make it," said Jerry. "This is bad land to farm. Steep. Rocky. How did they ever expect to plow up here?"

Wings exploded behind them like a muffled machine gun. Jerry swung his shotgun around, its arc crossing John's torso.

"Easy! It's just a grouse."

Jerry breathed hard. Sorry about that. "Sucker startled me."

They crossed an unpaved and overgrown road. The land began to decline. Through gaps in the trees they could see deep down into a valley to a small lake flanked by marshes.

"Cayuta, must be," said John.

"That's Cayuga?"

"Nah. Cay-u-ta. With a 't.' Cayuga's the big one east of here. Cayuta's a puddle by comparison. It's the only Finger Lake that drains southward. All the others drain north."

"Really?" Jerry seemed alarmed by that factoid for some reason. "Sun's getting low," he said. "Let's head back. I think we can cut across this way and catch that first trail farther down. And if not, Connecticut Hill Road runs east and south. Should be easy enough to find."

They bushwhacked through a soggy patch of red maples, entering a cleft crowded with hemlocks and their black and musky humus, flat needles choking light, making it seem like night. John picked up the pace, passing Jerry, striving to reach the light atop a ridge. Emerging into a brighter stand of white pines was a relief.

The radio clicked. Tammie's voice came over the air. "Demon One this is Mission Central. Radio check, over."

"Roger Mission Central, Demon One here. All clear. I say all clear. Over."

"It's getting late out there guys. Y'all coming back soon? Over."

"Yeah, Tam. We're heading home. Over."

The hill seemed stacked upon other hills here, slopes deflecting them from the beeline they attempted to follow. They paused to rest on a hilltop with a view into the main valley. They could see the little hollow harboring the little town of Alpine, at the junction of the road to Watkins Glen. Across the valley another expanse of sparsely inhabited uplands caught the light of the sinking sun.

"You know, this ain't wilderness. Not even close. But I gotta say, this place is a lot wilder than I ever expected to see in a place like New York."

"What'd you expect? The whole place was like Manhattan?"

"Pretty much so."

A patch of oak leaves rose up in a swirl of wind, and collapsed. And then another farther down the slope, longer lasting.

"Praf diavol," said Jerry.

"Excuse me?"

"These whirls," said Jerry. "I been seeing an awful lot of them. There's something a little more twisty to the winds in this place."

"They're just dust devils," said John.

"Nah. Not just. These woods are potent with signs. Those abandoned settlements. That lake flowing opposite the others. Those are examples of what Donnie calls 'infernal properties'. Things going against nature. Moss growing on the wrong side of trees. Roots branching out of the ground. Water flowing uphill. That sort of thing."

"You saw water flowing uphill?"

"Not here. Those are just examples," said Jerry. "But there's enough going on here to make me concerned."

John felt his nerves kick up, and add to the sweat pooling in the small of his back. "Shouldn't we have crossed that trail by now?"

"I woulda thunk," said Jerry. "Maybe we overshot it?"

"Hope not. I don't want to be out here in the dark. You got a flashlight?"

Jerry patted his front pocket. "Nope. Didn't figure we'd need one."

They started down the hill, and up and over the next ridge. Too many trees surrounded them to reveal the lay of the land. The going was easy for the most part, the trees widely spaced, the undergrowth sparse.

Around the next rise, they chased a buck out of a bed amidst a tangle of wild grape vines. One of its antlers was broken and jagged. Jerry clutched his heart, his face looking a little ruddy above his beard.

"We should have hit the road by now," said John.

"Let's cut due south," said Jerry. "I think we got suckered into angling too far east."

They were on the back side of Connecticut Hill now, in shadow as the sunk sank low over Seneca Lake. John's heart was beating hard, not just from the exertion.

Something sickly sweet invaded their nostrils, like road kill.

"Jesus!" said Jerry, recoiling from a dark lump at his feet. "What the fuck is that?"

John was almost afraid to look. It was the corpse of an animal with charcoal fur and a pointed snout. Its open mouth revealed powerful canines.

"Well, what do you know," said Jerry. "It's a fisher cat."

"Doesn't look like any cat I've ever seen," said John. "Looks like a ferret on steroids."

"Oh, they're not feline at all," said Jerry. "They're in the weasel family." Jerry pulled out his cell phone and snapped a flash picture. "We don't have these in Georgia."

They moved on, maintaining a steady course south by keeping the brightest sector of sky to their right. The trees thinned out. They passed stumps and other signs of logging: brush piles, wood chips. A large cloud of leaves and dust spun up, towering over their heads before dissipating, leaves floating back down to the ground.

"Where the hell's the road?" said Jerry. "We must have walked twice as far coming back as we did going out."

The slope leveled off onto a mossy terrace. A smudge stretched through the leaves underfoot, thicker and greasier than the one in the rhododendrons.

John froze. "Um, Jerry?"

Holy shit!" Jerry crouched down and ran a finger across it. "Whatever thing made the one at your house...."

"This one's a lot bigger," said John.

"You got that right," said Jerry. "I wonder... if this is what killed that cat?" He got up and they tracked the line into a series of moss-covered ledges. The path led them on a circuitous course, looping back on itself, veering and snaking.

"Jesus," said Jerry.

The line cut through a patch of moss, lush and green everywhere except for where a perfect circle had been burned down to bedrock. Other lines breached the outer expanse of moss and converged on the ring, which was down to soil and bedrock, as if someone had poured gasoline in a circle and ignited it. A pale grit, like coarse beach sand, sprinkled the interior of the ring.

"A fairy ring?" said John.

"Ain't no fucking fairy ring. Fucking thing reeks of the infernal. Look at all that black slime."

John found it difficult to believe what he was seeing. He struggled for a benign and natural explanation. A candle-lit picnic gone awry? It looked more like a landing site for a UFO.

Something rumbled behind them.

"What's that?" said Jerry.

"I think it's a... a truck," said John.

They hurried towards the sound. At the lip of the terrace, the bulldozed clearing that the developers had abandoned opened up below them. The one functional street light in front of the house had come on in the twilight and shined through the trees.

"Hallelujah!" said Jerry. They started jogging down the hillside.

A white van swung around the corner, headlights glaring through the dusk.

"It's them," said Jerry. "Get down." He crouched, shotgun cradled in his lap.
Chapter 17: Visions

Holy Fire guttered in a nub of a candle on the desk. Donnie slumped in a chair in his non-smoking room, watching the muted talking heads on CNN jabber in silence.

His bed looked like Gettysburg, the day after. Sheets all twisted and tangled. Blankets on the floor. A pillow uncased and stained.

The night had been as miserable as any he could remember: writhing, rolling, staring at the ceiling, the cramps in his belly making it impossible to pay attention to the fluff crossing his TV screen, or to think about anything but his intense discomfort.

He had even lost the will to pray. But that, of course, was the intention of whatever had possessed him. He fought against this infernal apathy as best he could, muttering a prayer of healing under his breath, repeating it until it poured forth from his lips on automatic, disconnected from his brain.

When it first struck, he thought he had simply over-eaten, that it was just a little indigestion. But then the cramps started and then the chills and then wave after wave of vomiting, diarrhea, sometimes bloody. He prayed for the respites in between, the twenty glorious minutes of calm, before the next bout clamped down on his bowels and sent him moaning and stumbling towards the bathroom.

He had to get his ass out of bed and fetch a fresh candle from the suitcase candle before this one burnt out. He had packed a box of La Flor Dominicans as well, but didn't think his stomach could take the smell of a cigar right now. As it was, he found it hard to convince himself to budge from the only position that didn't make his head throb.

Sharp raps on the door, like ice picks in his ear drums. "Reverend Beasley? Are you still in there?"

Donnie didn't want the interns to see him this way, with his cheeks all bristly and sunken, his hair pointing every which way. He couldn't let them know what he suspected, that he had taken the brunt of a counterattack from whatever possessed the Swains' neighbor, that the Good Lord was using his body to shield the others. He stayed where he was, on the bed.

"I'm skipping breakfast, Rand. You all go on ahead, without me."

"Breakfast? It's lunch time, Rev. Are you feeling any better?"

"I'll be fine. The worst is over. I'm just... resting." His voice wheezed and cracked. The stomach acids had done a job on his throat.

"Well, we're heading out to the Swain's to help Jerry. He says things are quiet out there, but he could use the backup. You want us to wait?"

"Nah. You all go on ahead. I'm gonna rest up, review my notes, come up with a deliverance plan. It was only a bit of food poisoning, but you know, it kind of robs your strength."

"Funny... that nobody else took ill."

"Hallelujah for that. But maybe my tolerance was just low. You all go on out and give Jerry a hand. I'm sure the Swains appreciate the support. Keep me posted if anything happens."

"Can we... bring you anything?"

"No, I'm fine. Really. I'm fine. Just... getting my energy back. If I don't hear from you I'll touch base with you all in the evening, okay? Hopefully, things will stay calm."

"Jerry thinks they're bluffing us, playing possum."

"Could very well be. Let me know if anything pops up."

"Will do," said Rand.

He hoped to God that nothing would happen, not while he was in such a frail state. He had a feeling that there was a direct correlation between the calm out at the Swains and the storm that had raged in his gullet. The infernal force they were dealing with apparently did not have the power or ingenuity to strike two places at once. Hopefully, that meant they were dealing with a lesser foe—a demi-demon with limited power. But if he survived this first blow and re-gathered his strength, God help them. Donnie would take no prisoners the next time he was on his feet. But for now all he wanted was some sleep.

***

It was mid-afternoon when he awoke. He hadn't eaten all day but he still had no appetite. He dragged himself to the shower. It felt good to let the hot water wash away the sour smell on his skin. He scraped the stubble off his chin, put on some clean clothes and went down to the lobby and had the staff send someone up to clean his room.

He was sitting in the hotel restaurant having some iced tea, which came oddly devoid of a single grain of sugar, when he spotted Mac standing at the front desk. Donnie whistled to get his attention, startling the couple the next table over.

Mac wheeled away from the counter and came striding over, lips peeled in his jackal's grin. He was still a handsome man. No gut. Full head of hair. Smidgeon of salt and pepper. He was only a couple years younger than Donnie, but it looked like more like ten. Not bad for a guy who had survived a crystal meth habit and a prison term. Though, unlike Donnie, Mac hadn't been in hand-to-hand combat with Satan for the last fifteen years.

"Hey, how're ya feelin'?" said Mac, taking a seat. "The kids told me you picked up a case of the trots."

"Oh, I'm okay," said Donnie. "I'll survive."

"Something you ate?"

Donnie flicked his head. "More than that."

"Oh?"

Donnie glanced at the table behind them. "I think it's a possession," he whispered. "Attempted, anyhow. Don't tell the others. I don't want them to worry."

"Might just be a virus, Donnie. The 24-hour flu's been going around."

"Nah. This ain't no bug. The timing's too neat for happenstance. I'm pretty sure we're talking about infernal mischief here. Means we're dealing with a pretty active foe, if that's the case."

"Really?" Mac said, unfolding and refolding a paper napkin. "I gotta admit Donnie, I didn't put much stock into this whole possession thing when Cindy came complaining to me about her 'devil worshippers.' But when we heard that tape...." His head shook, as he struggled to find words. "We really appreciate you all coming up here. I mean, Cindy's just ecstatic to have you."

Donnie crossed his arms around his tea and whispered. "There was no need to lean so hard on me, Mac. We would have come up here gratis. Me and Jerry, we scrounge for cases like this. If the Swains had applied for aid, they would have easily gotten a full award... just based on that recording."

"I'm sorry Donnie, but you gotta forgive me. Cindy... she was desperate. I just wanted to make sure we got her some help."

"You've got something going on with this lady," said Donnie. "Don't you?"

Mac's eyebrows bunched. "Is it that obvious?"

"To me. But then again, I know you. Haven't changed much, have you, Mac?"

"Aw Donnie, now this is different. We're both adults. And she's active in the church... practically an elder."

"Not to mention, married... with two kids."

"She was troubled. She came to me... for guidance."

"So you slept with her?"

"Like you never...." Mac's face went sour. "Listen, it hasn't been easy for her. I'm helping her... with the transition."

"Transition." Donnie sighed. "Funny, we used to call it adultery. That's the difference between you and me, Donnie. I've changed. I wouldn't be surprised to see you growing crystals in your basement again."

"Haven't touched the meth... not one bit... not since I got out of the pen," said Mac. He grinned. "But that doesn't mean we don't have alternative sources of revenue."

Donnie inhaled slow and deep. "Don't tell me—"

"It's just 'shrooms, Donnie. Psilocybin. We grow and distribute. It's completely discreet. The money goes into a foundation, totally separated from the church finances. But we didn't get involved for the money. My elders—our inner circle—we use these mushrooms... for visions... to get closer to God...and it works. We're modern day mystics, Donnie. Those Mexican shamans, they knew what they—"

The blood rose in Donnie's face. "Bloody Hell Mac! Drugs like those are a doorway to hell. Satan's minions... that's how they make their inroads. Drugs of any sort, even alcohol. Half of my ministry is taken up cleaning up the messes these drugs leave behind. You of all people should know better. If I had known you were involved again—"

"But these visions of ours, they've been purely Christian in nature," said Mac. "That's a good sign, no? I mean Jesus Himself has come to me."

"You sure that was Jesus?"

"What? You think I don't know my own Lord?"

"Being high on 'shrooms, I don't see how you can be sure. They call them hallucinogens for a reason."

Mac frowned. "We know what we're doing, Donnie. Our ministry is thriving. We've got a school, we do outreach."

Donnie, his mouth parched, took a swig of his tea. "Mr. Swain... does he know... about any of this?"

"John? Listen, John's a nice guy. He doesn't work, but he's been a big help to Cindy. But Cindy's going places. She's well on her way to becoming an elder in our church. John's just... a stepping stone. I'm sorry, but that's just how it is."

Donnie shook his head. "I don't get it Mac. You know this stuff would never fly in Marietta—any of it. But I guess... we're not in Georgia anymore."

Mac's phone buzzed. Places and times were discussed and revised until a consensus was reached. He was arranging a date, or a dalliance. He hung up.

Mac rose from the table. "You'll have to pardon me. Got some things to do. I can swing by later, if you want a ride to the house.Donnie slumped in his chair. "Give me a ring. Let's see how I'm feeling."
Chapter 18: Gear

Aerie showed up early for work the next day. Reggie seemed surprised to see her, but her pleasure was tangible. As she spent the morning in the prep room, washing lettuce, de-stemming spinach, she sensed a change in the air. It was as if someone had died. Things were quieter, the bawdy repartee of her co-workers toned down a notch, particularly when Aerie passed through the kitchen.

Reggie must have told them all what was happening with her, a feeling confirmed when she spotted Reggie whispering to Lucrezia, throwing glances in her direction. She assumed they were discussing her drug habit, her instability or unsuitability or some such deal. Aerie half expected to get a pink slip before the end of the day.

Instead, right after lunch, when the prep and baking was done, Aerie found herself being instructed sternly by Lucrezia in the art of mixing pastry dough. No smiles, no sentiment, just instruction in the art of pastry. Aerie was astounded; so thrilled in fact, that she forgot to take her pills.

A white van was waiting for Aerie at the end of her shift, its side emblazoned with: "Mason's Carpet Cleaning—'When we pull in, the dirt pulls out.'" Ron sat leering behind the wheel.

"Wherever did you get this thing?"

"My uncle. His business went bankrupt. We only got it till Friday. It's going up for auction."

Mal came running past the Hilton, a sheath of posters flapping in his grip. He had a wild gleam in his eyes, like a mad bomber. "I hit the hotel big-time. Every floor and elevator."

Aerie grabbed a poster. "Let me see."

Her eyes went straight to the picture in the bottom corner. "What the...? That's me in Tokyo with Hollis. Where did you get this?"

"Sari found it on 'the Google,'" said Ron, making quote marks with his fingers.

Aerie shuddered. "What an awful picture. The way I'm grimacing, I look like I'm giving birth. 'International Recording Artist?' What kind of bullshit is that?"

"Did you not record a CD in Japan?" said Mal.

"Well, yeah, but—"

"Case closed," said Mal.

"Come on. We gotta hit the Commons again. Those little skater bastards keep tearing them down."

"Get in the van," said Ron.

Mal backpedaled down the sidewalk. "Wait. Let me stick a couple posters up. The bookstore. The theater."

Ron thrust his head out the window. "Yo! I said... get into the van!"

Mal came skulking back. "Pushy pushy."

Aerie slid open the sliding door. "Hey there's no seats back here."

"You can sit in my lap," said Mal.

"Thanks, I'll pass." She climbed in a sat cross-legged on the corrugated metal floor, flopping over as Ron zoomed away from the curb. He ran a yellow light as it turned red, rounded the Commons, and ran another completely red, swerving left into an alley. Aerie, tossed about, clawed for something to cling to in the bed.

Three skaters leaned on their boards below a loading dock. They started to scatter, but then one stepped out into the alley and started towards the surging van. Ron squealed to a halt inches from the guy's chest. It was Vince. A musty odor with a hint of urine wafted in through the windows.

"I hear you're fucking with our posters?"

"Can't help ourselves," said Vince, smirking. "They're such collector's items."

"You guys are gonna go and replace every one you pulled down. Mal, give him a stack."

Mal made a face. "Give 'em... posters? But they'll just trash 'em, Ron."

"We didn't trash nothing," said Vince. "Got mine hanging in my room." He winked at Aerie. "I was hoping maybe Aerie Walker, International Recording Artist, could come autograph it."

"Pass," said Aerie.

"Give him the posters, Mal, plus a roll of tape. I wanna see them covering the Commons, end to end. The bagel shop, the pottery place, end to end, understand?"

"Why the fuck should we bother?"

"Because I'll bust your ass if you don't."

"You don't scare me Ron, you scrawny fuck."

"How about, we let you into the gig for free?" said Mal.

"There's... a cover?"

"Twenty bucks," said Ron.

"Why so steep?"

"Exclusive engagement," said Mal. "Once in a lifetime."

"Okay. Deal," said Vince.

"Give him the posters, Mal."

***

As Ithaca's only country station blared on the radio, Ron accelerated away from every stop light like a drag racer. Aerie clung to one of the metal tie-down rings that protruded from the bed of the van. She had fashioned herself a seat with several coils of pressure hoses and extension cords that had hung from hooks on the windowless sides of the van.

This ride was providing great incentive to get her car fixed as soon as possible. She was never again riding in any vehicle with Ron at the wheel. That was for certain.

Mal shuddered and writhed as if he was in pain. "Damn it Ron, will you change the fucking station already? If I have to listen to another country song, I'll barf."

"Driver picks the tunes. That's the rule," said Ron. "I don't hear Aerie complaining back there."

"Doesn't bother me," she said. "I used to listen to plenty out West."

"Oh God, no, not Taylor Swift again," groaned Mal. "I'd rather listen to Tibetan nose flutes."

Aerie closed her eyes. She had put in a long day already, but getting through this little excursion would be worth the ordeal. She would have her bass back. She pictured it back on its stand in her living room, an image as calming as a bottle of whiskey on a shelf might be to an alcoholic.

When the coils began to slide, she knew they had turned up Connecticut Hill. "Easy on those turns," she said. "Remember, I'm not strapped in back here."

"Fragile cargo, Ron. You heard her. Ease up."

"We're almost there," said Ron.

A couple hard turns and Ron was pulling into Aaron's gravel driveway. They found a taut, white ribbon encircling the entire house.

"What the...? This place looks like a fucking crime scene."

"It's those Jesus freaks," said Mal. "Some kind of barrier... against evil? Are we evil?"

"Don't know about you guys, but I sure the hell am," said Ron chuckling. He hopped out of the van and ran over to a gnarled red maple in the front yard, reaching up into a half-rotted knot hole where rain water had pooled. He extracted a wad of rotten leaves and a set of keys dripping muck. He ducked under the ribbon, unlocked the door and slipped inside, Mal right behind him.

Aerie hovered by the ribbon. It was pure silk, off-white and anointed with a streak of oil its entire length. It smelled of garlic.

"Oh my," she said, and followed the guys inside.

Mal had made straight for the music room, but Ron lingered in the hall, peeking through a door into Aaron's living spaces.

"Ron? What are you doing?" said Aerie.

"Casing the joint, what else?" he said, veering back across the hall. "I mean, aren't you curious about this guy? He ain't no dot com millionaire like he tells some people. I never even seen him use a computer."

Mal's dark shape prowled through the dim music room, bumping into instruments, stirring drones and rattles. "Try turning on the fucking lights, idiot." Ron flipped a switch.

"I think he's a gem smuggler," said Ron, slipping a cover over the tone wood marimba-like instrument that he played when Aaron told him to put down his flute. "Sari's uncle runs a jewelry shop in Binghamton, said he came in one time trying to fence some stones. She thinks maybe they were blood diamonds."

"Unlikely," said Mal. "He hardly ever leaves this house, never mind go to Africa. I've got a notion that he makes whatever he's selling."

"Makes... gems?"

"Gems or... whatever. I think he's got a lab in this place. I majored in chemistry at Cornell. When Aaron found out, he kept drilling me on all this organic chemistry stuff. He's obsessed with carbon."

Aerie plucked her E string and let it ring. It was good to feel those vibrations under her fingers again. She unfolded her tattered nylon case and sheathed her bass.

Ron rummaged through a box of what looked like claws. They were guitar picks, slivers of stone and shell and exotic wood. He slipped a good handful into his pocket.

"Hey guys, help me with the kithara," said Mal.

"Um... maybe we should leave Aaron's instruments alone," said Aerie.

"Nah," said Ron, hoisting the other end of the desk-sized instrument. "These are what make our sound."

"Got that right," said Mal. "Kolektiv wouldn't be Kolektiv without the weird instruments."

"Who cares?" said Aerie. "Nobody's ever heard us play besides Aaron... and his neighbors."

The guys ignored her. She let them do their thing while she replaced her end pin with a wheel and rolled it out to the van. She found a spot against the padding of the front seats to prop it, and adjusted her little nest of tubing and wires.

Mal and Ron ran back inside and came back with the giant accordion that Eleni usually played, then went back in for more.

"That's... probably enough, don't you think?" said Aerie. "It's getting a bit crowded back here."

Ron and Mal looked at each other with matching gleams and grins.

"The birdie!" they said, almost in unison.

"No!" said Aerie. "Absolutely not."

"But the birdie is what makes us special," said Ron. "We get that ringing... it'll blow their minds."

Mal had already trotted back into the house. Ron joined him, leaving Aerie in the van with her bass and a sinking stomach. They came back hefting a slab of three-quarter inch plywood with the green vinyl-covered bell jar set in the middle.

"There's not enough room in here," said Aerie. "How about we leave it?"

Mal turned the kithara perpendicular, creating a space next to Aerie.

"Guys, please. No. I don't want that thing next to me."

"No worries," said Ron. "The birdie... she doesn't bite."

They slid the slab of plywood across the bed of the van, disturbing Aerie's nest.

"You're gonna have to go slower around these curves," said Aerie. "I don't want to all these nasty things to crush me."

"Nasty?" said Mal, raising one eyebrow.

"They all look like torture devices," said Aerie. "You have to admit, they're not the prettiest of instruments."

"You're one to talk," said Ron, starting up the van. "Someone who plays a fucking coffin with strings."

"It does not look like a coffin," said Aerie. "I think it's rather elegant, myself."

"Fuckin' wooden tuba makin' fart noises," Ron muttered. "Fer geetar player wannabes."

"Ease up, Ron," said Mal.

"Oh, I forgot, this is Aerie Walker, International Recording Artist."

Aerie lifted the cover of the bell jar a tad with her sneakered toe. Tingles of anticipation or dread prickled her chest. But the glass was opaque, as if the inside had been frosted or coated in dust.

"Jesus! What's that thing coming out of the woods?" said Ron. "Look at the beard on him. It ain't hunting season yet, is it?"

Mal gripped his seat. "Fucker's got a shotgun pointed at us. Gun it, Ron!"

Ron hit the accelerator and all went sliding towards the back. The bell jar tipped on its plywood base. Aerie grabbed it and righted it before it could overturn. The glass felt oddly warm in spots, and cold in others.

They careened down Connecticut Hill Road, throwing gravel up at the shoulders, through a dark tunnel of trees until the valley opened up and the lights of Route 13 welcomed them back to civilization.

***

As they homed in on Ithaca, Aerie relaxed. She had her evening all planned out – a hot shower, some pizza delivered, and then maybe an hour on her Juzek, pizz and bow.

"Thanks for the all help, guys," said Aerie, prepping for a drop-off as they approached the turn to Court Street. "It's nice having her back." She patted her bass. "I missed her."

"Your bass is a girl?" said Mal.

"Shouldn't have told him that," said Ron, roaring past her turn without even slowing down. "He's gonna put the make on her."

"Hey! Where you going? That was my—"

"Didn't we tell you?" said Mal. "Sari's having a pre-gig party tonight."

"Honestly, guys. I think I'll pass. Can you stop the van and let me out?"

"That's a negatory," said Ron. "It's being catered. We'll miss out on the food if we get there any later."

"Besides, it's a band party," said Mal. "You're with the band. Ergo, you must attend the party."

"But I can't go looking like this. I've got tomato stains on my blouse. I smell like onions. Drop me home, please."

"Sorry," said Ron. "But that's a no go."

"Not cool, guys, taking me prisoner in the back of your van."

"Don't worry, it's casual," said Mal. "We'll make our appearance, grab a quick bite, and run you home. How's that?"

Aerie sighed. She pictured herself running a gauntlet of Sari's snooty friends to reach a buffet of rabbit hors d'ouvres, rabbit entrees, rabbit salads. She slumped amongst the coils.

The bell jar rattled against the plywood base as the van passed over the brick cobbles leading up the steep incline of Buffalo Street. She noticed her leg brushing up against the bell jar and jerked it back.

Aerie sorted through her purse, rattling her pills. She couldn't remember if she had taken any of them. The days all ran together. From the way her nerves thrummed, it sure didn't feel like she had, although the proximity of that bell jar to her rump didn't help her anxiety, not to mention the stress of heading un-groomed to a party full of strangers. And Sari's crowd was likely to contain an unhealthy share of fashionistas.

She found a hairbrush, at least, and did her best to sort out the rat's nest on her head. She wished she had a hat of any sort. She had left all her makeup in her 'going out' purse at home. The cylinder floating amidst the detritus at the bottom that she hoped was lipstick turned out to be ChapStick.

The van pulled into a hedge-lined driveway just bellow Collegetown, leading to an ornate Victorian perched on the edge of Cascadilla Gorge. At first Aerie took it for a Cornell fraternity, but the gardens looked too well-kept and there was nary a Greek letter in sight.

"Who lives here?"

"Friend of Sari's," said Mal.

"Rich friend," said Ron.

"No shit, Ron."

They all climbed out. The turnaround at the end of the driveway was crowding with cars. Techno pop pulsed within, above the steady drone of voices. Aerie used Mal and Ron as a shield as they approached the door. In the porch light, she picked dried tomato seeds off her cuff, and scraped at a green smudge—spinach?—with her fingernail.

Several large Persian rugs had been rolled up against the wall revealing wide pine floors on which a throng of guests bounced to the steady throb of the music.

Sari was standing near the door holding a bright pink cocktail. Her eyes lit up when she spotted them. Ron blew her a kiss and went straight for a table with a row of warmers holding a selection of vindaloo, tandoori and basmati. Aerie snatched a piece of garlic naan.

"I thought you all would never show," said Sari. "Everyone is wondering: 'where is this infamous Kolektiv?' Are they fashionably late or simply cultivating the mystique?"

One side of Sari's face looked all bloated, as if she had been in a fight, but there was no bruising.

"What happened to you?" said Mal.

"It's called anaphylaxis!" said Sari. "Can you believe it? I am allergic to mollusks and these silly caterers bring a dish contaminated with lake mussels. I didn't eat it, thank goodness, but I picked one out of my food with my fingers. One touch to my eye, and voila! I look like Quasimodo. It's not a good look for me, no?"

"Get yourself a hunchback and you're in business," said Mal.

"Mussels?" said Ron, returning with a plate heaped with rice and curry. "I love mussels!" He gestured back at the warming trays. "Which one...?"

"It's long gone," said Sari. "We made them dump it in the bushes and bring us replacements. But it worked out well. They brought extra for free and the new platters arrived just when we were running out of food."

"Lucky for us," said Mal.

"Where's Eleni?" said Aerie, hoping to commiserate with a fellow fish out of water.

"Does Eleni even know you're having a party?" said Mal.

Sari's eyes flashed blank for a moment. "I... think so."

"It's Wednesday," said Ron. "If she ain't here, she's in T-burg. Bluegrass jam."

"Jeez. What's with this music," said Mal. "Sari, you mind if I—"

Sari rolled her eyes. "Go ahead, Mal."

Aerie noticed a guy with shades and a long ponytail tracking her movements, glancing over repeatedly. There was nothing flirtatious about his manner. He had the suspicious manner of a secret service agent.

"That guy, he keeps staring at me," Aerie whispered.

"Who? Him?" said Sari. "That's Peter. He plays bass in Vida. I've been telling him a lot about you. He likes to scope out the competition."

"Competition?"

A couple came in to the room and waved at Sari, flashing big, exaggerated smiles.

"Excuse me," she said, drifting away.

Mal hunched over the sound system thumbing through an iPod Classic. Stacks of CDs spilled from a milk crate. The techno pop transitioned to something frilly on top and light in the bottom end. It sounded almost like a parody of the genre. It sounded awful, worse than the worst Tokyo teenybopper dance hall music. Aerie half expected hamsters to break into song.

Mal came bounding over, beaming.

"What do you think?" said Mal.

"Frankly," said Aerie, between nibbles of her naan. "It sucks."

Ron burst out laughing—big, convulsive belly laughs.

"What's wrong?"

"This is Mal's mix," said Ron. "It's his side project."

Mal looked crushed.

"Oh Mal, I didn't mean it that way. I mean, for what it is, it's... nice. I just never cared much for techno pop."

"I'm with you Aer," said Ron. "It's total crap."

"Ron? Fuck you! This happens to be hot on the Brooklyn club scene."

"Oh yeah? What kind of clubs? Lithuanian euro trash?"

Mal looked flustered. "Sari likes it," said Mal. "She thinks it's cute."

"Yeah, it is," said Aerie. "It's... cute."

Someone grabbed Aerie from behind, one hand too high, one too low. Aerie wheeled around to belt them. She found Eleni.

"Easy girl!" said Eleni. "It's just me." Her speech was slurred, and she wore a slightly cross-eyed expression.

"Well, well, the band's all here," said Sari, squeezing between the dancers. She pecked Eleni on the forehead. "See? I did invite the little dear."

"No you didn't," said Eleni. "I heard about it from Peter."

Sari shrugged. "What matters is that we are all here—Vida, Kolektiv—the musical elite of Ithaca, whether Ithaca appreciates us or not." Her eyes gleamed. "But they will, after tomorrow."

Mal sidled off to the sound system in the corner of the room, thumbed the iPod in its cradle and squelched the music in mid-beat. The dancers groaned and complained. What came over the speakers next stunned her. 'All the Things You Are,' the up-tempo version from the CD, the only CD, that she had recorded with Hollis Brooks in a tiny basement recording studio in Western Tokyo—Koichi's nifty brushes on the drums, Hollis' staccato trumpet, Arthur's minimalist comping on piano and behind it all—Aerie's peripatetic, lost-in-the-woods but always reaching home walking bass.

People whispered, pointed. Eyes drifted in Aerie's direction.

Mal returned, sporting an impish grin.

"Where did you ever get a hold of this?" said Aerie.

How it had come into Mal's possession baffled her. It had been released only on a tiny, local Japanese label. Aerie stomped over to the sound system. "How did you—?"

"Sari found it... on Amazon," said Mal.

"Impressive." Aerie swiveled to find Peter, Sari's other bass player, holding a drink, his eyes animated. "How do you learn how to walk like that?"

"I don't know," said Aerie, the blood rising in her cheeks. "It's just jazz. It's like breathing to me."

"You should see her walk... in heels," said Eleni.

"What?" said Aerie. "You've never seen me— Oh! Eleni, are you sloshed?"

A chubby guy in a fedora, looking annoyed, worked his way over to the sound system and stopped the music in the middle of Aerie's bass solo. The dance groove resumed with a harsh, industrial beat.

A couple ran inside. They looked concerned. "Anybody here own a white van?" said the guy.

"Why? Are the lights on?" said Ron.

"There's a puppy... or something... inside. Sounds like it's... dying."

"That was no puppy, Alice," said the guy, a pallor in his face.

Ron exchanged a glance with Mal dashed outside, Aerie rushed after them.

They reached the van. Ron unlocked the door and slid the door open a little too hard.

The interior as silent as a hearse, the bell jar inert. Mal reached for the shroud and lifted it slowly.
Chapter 19: Burgers

Jerry pushed through a patch of mountain laurels, keeping his shotgun leveled at the van. John stumbled after him, keeping his eyes on the woods behind them.

The sight of that circle etched in the moss galvanized him. He felt as if awakened from a long slumber, struggling to disentangle dream from reality. His mind had no neat compartments in which to file the flurry of oddities he was witnessing.

The van peeled out of the driveway, spewing gravel.

"Look at them riff raff scram," said Jerry. "Buncha cat burglars."

"Did you have to point your shotgun at them? What if they call the cops?"

"Don't worry. The shells are in my pocket. Didn't want to waste them on a grouse."

John kept glancing back up the slope they had just descended. "That circle in the moss... what could make such a thing?"

"Beats the hell out of me," said Jerry. "I see a lot of weird shit in this job, but that's a new one."

They crossed the road to the hell house. A white ribbon now encircled it, wrapping around the young birches and dogwoods that dotted the yard.

"Rand must have put this up," said Jerry, twanging the taut ribbon with the muzzle of his gun. "Must be a Catholic thing, holy oil and salt and all that mumbo jumbo."

"What's it for?" said John.

Jerry shrugged. "It's supposed to keep whatever's inside, inside."

Again, John glanced up the hill. "What if... whatever it is... is outside?"

"That's... a problem," said Jerry.

***

John kept dinner simple—Angus burgers and fixings—all grilled over charcoal on the little black Weber out back—no Holy Fire for this meal. Potatoes wrapped in foil. Corn stripped of silk, soaked in water, husks replaced. He couldn't restrain himself from whisking together a little balsamic aioli to brush on the corn.

As he stood by the grill, Heineken in hand, his eyes kept drifting to the edge of the yard. Every breeze, every rustle of bush by bird or a squirrel caused his eyes to dart into the trees, silhouetted by the sky's residual glow.

Headlights appeared on the main road. Cindy's Camry—John knew well the geometry of its lights, from many a night rushing to the window to see if it was her car heading home. Another set of lights followed close behind.

John flipped the burgers, rotated the cobs and, tongs in hand, rushed around the side of the house to greet them. Cars pulled in. Doors opened. Cindy emerged.

She glanced at John, flashed a smile and looked away, her face rigid. She bustled past him down the walk and into the house, without saying a word.

"Cindy—?" His eyes followed her. The screen door slammed.

Mac climbed out of his car and went around to help extricate Donnie, who was moving like a geriatric.

"Good timing, you all," said John. "Burgers are about done. Let me know if anyone wants cheese on theirs."

"No burgers for me, thanks," said Donnie.

"Still under the weather?"

"A bit."

"What can I get you?"

"A small glass of ginger ale might be nice. I'm taking baby steps right now. Last night I couldn't even keep down water."

"Be right with you." He ran out back and filled up the platter with the last of the burgers and brought them inside.

Cindy shot up from the computer desk, whisked through the living room and up the stairs. Mac, looking fidgety, settled down hard on the couch and picked up a three-day old newspaper.

John watched her go as she fetched some pickles and condiments from the fridge and set them on the counter besides the paper plates.

"Okay guys," he said. "Dinner's ready." He poured a glass of ginger ale and brought it out to the Reverend, who had sunk deep into an easy chair.

"Why thanks."

"Sure I can't get you anything else? Some soup, maybe?"

"I'm fine for now. Thanks."

As Jerry and the interns herded into the kitchen, John made his way to the stairs. He heard the shower creak on in the master bathroom, and trotted up the stairs.

He rapped lightly on the bathroom door with his knuckles. "Hey Cind? Everything okay?"

No answer. He knocked again. When there was no response he slipped into the bathroom and shut the door gently. Cindy sang low, like a lullaby, her petite form softly suggested behind the translucent curtain. The scent of her lavender soap wafted through.

"Cind?"

She squealed. The shower curtain leaped. A shampoo bottle thudded against the acrylic floor.

"It's okay. Just me."

"Don't sneak up on me like that! Can't I shower in peace? What are you doing in here? We've got guests in the house."

"I was just... I hadn't heard from you all day. Is everything alright?"

"Everything's fine."

"How... how'd it go with the kids?"

"Fine," said Cindy. "Let's talk about it later, okay?"

"Alright." He sighed and slipped out of the bathroom, releasing a puff of billowing steam into the hall. He went back downstairs. Mac and the deliverance folks were arrayed on the sofa munching burgers in front of the TV, watching NCIS.

John went into the kitchen put together a plate of his own, noticing that no-one had disturbed the sliced avocado and shredded arugula that he had arrayed around the tomatoes and onions. He sighed and helped himself, slapping on a dash of habanero sauce instead of ketchup.

Jerry sat facing the Reverend, at his monitoring station, filling him in on the events of the day.

"Have to say, I'm not surprised," said the Reverend. "Just the unkempt look of these woods—I mean look all the tangled vines and the chaos—it all suggests an infernal hand."

"Can't we... do something about it?" said Jerry.

"Nothing to be done about the wilds," said Donnie. "It's... beyond our means. I mean we're talking nature, here. Do you know how many square miles of forest there is out there? That house is going to be challenging enough."

"I know what you're saying," said Jerry. "But if we could trap them or hunt them down or... something, or at least consecrate their hot spots, their nests, the places they gather—"

The Reverend took a tiny sip of his ginger ale. "From what you're telling me, they're obviously attracted to that house. If we focus our efforts there... I bet the problem will disperse."

Jerry looked pained. "Yeah. I know what you're saying and all, but... chasing them out of that house... I can't help it... feels like sweeping we're something under a rug instead of cleaning up the mess. You get my drift?"

Cindy came downstairs in a bathrobe and with a towel wrapped around her head. She kept her eyes on the carpet, not looking at anybody, not Mac, not John, not Donnie. She went into the kitchen and made a plate of avocado and corn, with a little arugula on the side.

John rose and swung around the counter to face her, smiling, trying to catch her eye.

"Did you have a good day, Cind?"

She shrugged. "Fine." Her gaze flickered into his and fluttered away like an elusive gnat.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing... I'm just... tired. Let me have my dinner. I haven't had a bite since the bowl of soup Nana made me for lunch."

John sensed it was a bad time to broach his plans for Thursday, but if not now, when?

"Hey... um... tomorrow night. I was thinking of meeting up with some of the guys I used to work with... have dinner... and whatever... maybe go to a bar... hear some music."

Cindy perked up, her eyes meeting John's full on. It was like he had flipped a switch. "Why, that's a great idea. It's good for you to get out and network. You've been all cooped up in the house with the boys. How long has it been since you—?"

"It's been a while," said John.

"So... it's Dale?"

"Huh?"

"Is it Dale you're meeting up with?"

"Um... yeah. And some of his friends... probably." He realized that now he would actually have to call Dale and try to set something up for real. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Have dinner with Dale early, then go on and do his own thing.

But what if Dale wasn't reachable or available? What then? He had the sense of sinking into an ever deeper hole. He should have kept things vaguer.

Cindy picked a piece of corn silk off his shirt. A vague smile crept over her lips. "I think that's a great idea. We should take advantage of the kids being up at Nana's... while we can. You need to get cracking on the job hunting. The economy's not going north anytime soon. Don't worry about the house. Donnie and his gang seem to have things under control here. It's quiet, John. Two nights in a row! Isn't that wonderful?"

"Yeah. It's great."

"Excuse me," said Cindy. "I'm going to be sociable." She hustled off into the living room and exchanged pleasantries with Donnie.

John stared down at his half-eaten burger. There was no way he could bring himself to eat any more of it. He wondered where his appetite had gone, why that thin film of perspiration slickened his palms. What was he afraid of?
Chapter 20: The Arts Coop

Under the glow of a faux gaslight, the bell jar glistened like a dinosaur egg in the bed of the van, ensconced in its nest of instruments. The sight sent spasms rocking Aerie's stomach. She backed onto the flagstone walk, bumping into Ron. "What up?" said Ron. "Did the birdie sang?"

"Holy shit," said Eleni. "You guys brought the freaking birdie?"

Mal slipped his fingers beneath the green vinyl cover and lifted.

"Careful," said Aerie.

Mal raised the sheath slowly, exposing the lower half of the jar, which remained cloudy and opaque, as if misted with condensation.

Mal touched his fingers to the glass. "It's... hot," he said, with surprise. He removed the cover entirely and pressed his ear against the dome. He drew back suddenly, making Aerie flinch.

"Something scratching. Faint, like leaves rustling."

"For once... will someone please tell me," said Aerie. "What exactly is this thing?"

"Beats the hell out of me." said Ron. "I just work here."

"Some kind of machine," said Mal. "A music box. Piezoelectric induction, maybe. Turns friction... vibrations... into electricity."

"Nu-uh," said Eleni. "I think there's a wee little faerie who lives inside."

Ron sprayed a mouthful of beer against the side of the van.

"Can't be anything living in there," said Mal. "How would it breathe?"

"Maybe we should punch it some air holes," said Ron, his voice dripping with snark. "Hang on, let me get a screwdriver."

Eleni scrunched her face and punched him in the side. "I didn't mean literally," said Eleni. "Not an actual pixie-type faerie."

People gathered to gawk. Flashes went off, as some captured photos with their cell phones. Mal pulled the cover back over the jar. "Harry Partch built some strange instruments in his day," he said. "But this one's gotta be the strangest."

Sari came onto the porch, her face in a pout. "Whatever is going on out here? You are making everyone leave my party." She commenced to shoo and cajole onlookers back into the house.

"Sari thinks this thing something to do with spheres," said Eleni.

"Spheres?" said Sari. "Oh my, you brought the jar! Oh, yes. Very much so I believe this contains the music of the spheres. A piece of it, anyhow, that Aaron has somehow captured. He is obviously a wizard of some sort. Now come back in, all of you. They are just now bringing out the desserts."

Mal gave the door of the van a heave and slammed it shut.

The talons of a headache began to grip Aerie. "I think I need to go home," she said. "Can someone please give me a ride?"

***

A full night of sleep did wonders for Aerie's disposition. It helped that she remembered to take her pills at breakfast. Not the pink ones this time. Those went straight into the trash.

At Moosewood, Reggie surprised her by having her work exclusively with Lucrezia all morning—none of the usual dicing of carrots and parsnips, chopping onions, peeling garlic. Instead, she mixed and kneaded dough for the rolls, rendered fillings for the pastries and rolled out pie crusts. She was covered in flour and happily in thrall by the end of her shift.

She walked home, finding the white van where Ron, last night and without her knowing, had parked it in the grass to get it off the street. That bell jar with that thing in it had spent the entire night outside her bedroom window. She wondered how well she should have slept had she known it was there.

A bright orange parking citation flapped under a wiper blade. She had hoped that Ron would have come for it while she was at work.

She trotted onto the porch and unlocked the door, peeling off her dough-encrusted jeans as she passed through the living room, straight into the bathroom for a quick shower. As she shampooed, she even found lumps of bread dough in her hair. No one could accuse her of not getting into her work.

After her shower, she pulled on some black leggings and a loose black shift that fell just above her knees. She went heavier than usual on the makeup, shadowing her eyes just short of Goth. After all, this wasn't old man's jazz dive they were playing, she had some avant-garde mystique to live up to.

She felt all tingly and amped up—a little too excited, maybe. She took her evening dose of pills, washing it down with some soy milk.

The garbage was starting to stink. There was nothing worse than decayed broccoli. She couldn't bear the thought of coming home to a house smelling like this so she gathered up the drawstring back and hauled out the trash, wishing she had thought of doing it before she got showered and dressed.

A pile of collapsed moving boxes on the porch began to heave. A figure rose from the corner. Aerie shrieked and leapt back.

"It's me, damn it," said Ron, emerging grumpy and disheveled. "Simmer down."

"Why are you ambushing me?"

"Can't a guy take a fucking nap? I can't go near my shack without getting hassled. And I told Julius, I'd have some of his money tonight."

"What this about money?"

Ron smirked. "Everything's cool. I think maybe the word from Julius just hadn't filtered down to his guys."

"Does this have anything to do with drugs?"

Ron seemed startled. "Hell no. Not at all."

"Then... what?"

Ron stuck his hands deep into pockets of his baggy thrift store dress pants and twisted. "Betting. Fantasy sports. Baseball. Football."

"People actually bet on that stuff?" said Aerie. "How much can you possibly owe?"

He shrugged. "Couple thou."

"Jeez Ron, really? How did you ever manage that?"

"What can I say? Small bets add up. Particularly when you hit a losing streak."

Ron looked ever more pathetic and smaller. Aerie felt sorry for him. "You want to come inside, wash up?"

"Nah, we'd better go," he said. "I told Mal we'd be at the Coop by five."

"Let me dump this. And then I'll go get my bass." She picked up the sack of reeking trash and hauled it around the side of the house.

Ron brushed the dust from his jacket. "Did you know... corrugated cardboard can keep you just as warm as a quilt?"

"That's nice, Ron," said Aerie, as the metal lid of the trash can slipped from her grip and crashed like a cymbal against the cobbles.

***

Aerie rode downtown with Ron in a front seat littered with coffee cups and Burger King sacks. The excitement she had felt about playing out was starting to evaporate, leaving behind a residue of trepidation over the prospect of making fools of themselves in front of an audience with overhyped expectations, not to mention, the freakiness of making music again with that thing in the bell jar. She almost wished that she hadn't tossed away all of her little pink pills from Japan.

Half a block from the head of the Commons, Ron pulled in next to a hydrant where Mal stood nursing a Starbucks grande. The thud of drums and electric bass rattled the sidewalks.

"Is that Vida playing?" said Aerie.

"None other," said Mal. "So what do you think of 'em?"

"Hard to tell," she said. "They're certainly loud." She strained to distinguish the parts. There was a synthesizer buried in the mud, but no trace of vocals. She squinted towards Mal as a guitar solo unwound. "I don't hear Sari. Is this supposed to be an instrumental?"

"They're finishing the sound check without her," said Mal. "She had to go pick up Eleni."

The Arts Coop was on the second floor of a brick building. A dozen posters taped onto the sidewalk in the shape of a V, pointed towards an open door leading to a stairwell.

Ron slid open the side of the van, and Aerie retrieved her Juzek and swung it around, bearing its weight on the point of her hip as she headed up the stairs. The second floor opened into a dance studio with gleaming maple floors, padded columns and mirrors against the wall.

A short guy with a shaved head and thick-framed glasses made a slash throat sign and Vida aborted their tune mid-chorus. The guitarist continued to noodle with flurries of gnat notes. The drummer came around his kit to adjust the pillow he had stuffed into his bass drum.

Aerie stood in the corner, embracing her Juzek, as Mal and Ron wrestled the kithara up the stairs.

The sound man came around his board and came up to Aerie. "Just the people I wanted to see. Hi, I'm Edison."

"Aerie." She shook his hand, limply.

"Regarding mics. How many do you need and where do you need them?"

"Um... none. We're all acoustic."

"Yeah, but you probably want a little reinforcement, no? At least for the bass and vocals. It's a big room. Crappy acoustics. You get a crowd of people in here, all talking, it's gonna swallow up your sound. Your bass have a transducer? We can run it through an amp."

"We'll be fine, trust me," said Aerie, peeling the tattered black nylon case off her Juzek.

Mal and Ron came inching by with the kithara and plunked it down in the corner opposite where Vida had set up.

"We're unplugged, man," said Ron. "Totally. One hundred percent."

"We plug into the universe," said Mal. "As Sari would say."

"Oh... I get it," said the sound man. "It's like chamber music. Quiet. Intimate. A little background music before Vida comes and rocks out big time. I like it. Contrast is good."

Mal started to say something, before Ron elbowed him. "Let him think what he wants," Ron whispered. "Shock and awe is good." He peeled off his leather jacket and tossed it over the kithara.

The sound man shrugged and went back to his board. Aerie noticed the Vida crew milling about in their corner like opposing boxers, tossing furtive glances.

Mal looked at Ron. "Ready for the marimba?"

Ron nodded, and they headed back towards the stairs.

"Need help carrying?" said Aerie, as she cleaned the rosin off her strings with a cloth dampened in alcohol.

"We got it," said Mal.

The phone in Ron's jacket went off—bells ringing—his old school analogue ring tone. Ron's gait stuttered and froze.

"You mind getting that, Aerie? If it's Julius, tell him I'm on for 11 o'clock, right after the gig. State Street Diner, like we said. If it's anyone else, tell 'em I'll call 'em back."

Aerie pulled Ron's jacket off the kithara, unleashing a musky odor as ripe as a male goat's. The pockets were empty, but the fake silk lining was torn and objects floated along the bottom hem—small change, a Buck knife, a strip of condoms. Finally her fingers located and extracted Ron's buzzing beetle of a phone.

She flipped it open. "Hello?"

"Aerie? Is that you?"

Ron lingered at the top of the stairs, urging Aerie through pantomime to give him a hint who was calling.

Aerie mouthed: "Aaron." Ron looked relieved. He trotted down the stairs to catch up with Mal.

"Hello? Anyone there?"

"Aaron! It's good to hear from you. How's your daughter?"

"She's gonna be fine, thanks," he said. "She's a very lucky girl. Went through a windshield and came away with only cuts and bruises. They were worried about her hip, but turns out it's not broken – just a pointer. She was released from the hospital this morning."

"That's great news," said Aerie.

"Hey listen, I won't ask what you're doing over Ron's but, hey, I can kill two birds with one stone. You know that Production we were going to do before I had to go?"

"Um, yeah."

"Well it's on. Tonight."

"You're... back?"

"On my way," he said. "I'm just outside the Berkshires. I should be home in three or four hours, depending on whether I decide to stop for dinner."

"It's awful short notice."

"Not according to the contract you signed," said Aaron. "I realize it'll be late, but... we really need to get this done. If you can help gather everyone up... I'll promise triple pay for everyone."

A void hovered over the line.

"Aerie? You still there?"
Chapter 21: Boys' Night Out

John waited for Dale for a full half hour in front of Madeline's. He paced the nearly empty patio. It had been balmy all day, but now few diners braved the cool, stiff breeze that had kicked up out of the northwest.

He noticed people staring at him so he moved out closer to Aurora Street and leaned up against a concrete support post. He watched the shadows deepen, revealing every crack and wrinkle in the pavement.

Even though he had Dale's cell number, he opted not to call. Honestly, he didn't care whether he showed up or not. Their meeting was just a cover for Cindy and to kill time before the event at the Arts Coop.

It wasn't as if Dale was some close buddy of his. Mere circumstance connected them. They had been coworkers in the same department at NYSEG, both cut loose in the same layoff. The difference was, Dale had found a job right away with a prominent consulting firm, while John had honed his home-making skills.

When the half hour was up, he took a table inside. It was six thirty, one hour before the show. He ordered the scallops with a caramel soy reduction, mango chutney, green papaya salad and pandan rice. When it came, sizzling on oven-heated stoneware, he savored every bite. He rarely got to enjoy seafood much since he and Cindy got married. The only fish she could tolerate were red and Swedish.

He had just ordered the tiramisu for dessert when he was startled to see Dale rushing through the restaurant to reach his table. He stopped, breathless, across from John and extended his hand for a shake.

"Hey man... good to see you. I'm so sorry I stood you up. I was gonna call, but I couldn't find your dang number. Things were real crazy today at the firm."

"Have a seat," said John. "Want a bite?"

Dale frowned and shook his head. "I'm gonna have to take a rain check. I'm double-parked outside. I just couldn't stand the idea of going home without finding you, letting you know what happened."

"Sure you don't want some coffee? Dessert, maybe? The tiramisu's great."

"Can't. Got work I'm bringing home. Might be a contract riding on it. But we'll have to do this again soon. It's really good to see you, man. You're looking good. You've put on some weight. Good weight, though. How's Cindy... and the babies?"

"Um, they're doing great." John struggled to remember the name of Dale's significant other. Frizzy-haired gal, with a piercing laugh. He came up empty. "They're not babies anymore. They're regular old boys now."

"Happens," said Dale. "Paula's expecting, so we'll be finding out that stuff soon enough." He glanced towards the door. "Hey listen, you asked about positions. We get this next contract... there just might be something for an electrical engineer. Particularly if you're willing to relocate."

"Relocate? Like... where?"

"Well... Adak for one."

"Adak?"

"Alaska. It's an island in the Aleutians. They're closing up an old Navy base up there. It's a temporary job, just to help with the transition. But it could lead to other opportunities, particularly if you're willing to travel. Places like Kabul. Baghdad. Now I know what you're thinking but we send consultants there all the time and it's not nearly as bad as they say."

"Wow," said John. "You know, me and Cindy, we like Ithaca. I was hoping for something local."

"Ain't gonna happen," said Dale. "There's just nothing going on in the Southern Tier these days. Even Adak is iffy. We survived the first round of bidding, but we've still got competition." He looked towards the door again. "Hey listen, I really need to go. But I'll keep you posted. You got a card?"

"Um, not really," said John. He scribbled his phone number on a napkin. "Thanks for stopping by. Let me know about that Adak thing. Not quite what I was looking for, but who knows, life is funny. I bet the salmon's great up there."

"You got that right." Dale clapped his hand over John's shoulder. "Good luck, man. I know things are brutal out there."

As the waitress brought John's tiramisu in a chilled glass bowl, he watched Dale thread his way back through the tables. Now he wished he hadn't ordered it.

***

Aerie found everyone on the sidewalk, standing around the bamboo marimba. Eleni stood beside Sari with mandolin and fiddle cases in each hand. Mal was attempting to refasten a length of thick bamboo that had knocked loose.

"What do you mean no equal share?" said Ron, looking a little pink in the face. "Two bands. We should split the proceeds evenly. Particularly, if we're the draw."

"Kolektiv may be an attraction," said Sari, "But only the way a sideshow is to a circus. Vida is the headliner. It is only fair they get seventy-five percent. From what I understand, this is a very typical arrangement. In some circles, it may even be considered somewhat generous."

"I just assumed it would be fifty-fifty," said Ron, scraping the soles of his sneakers against the concrete. "What does it matter to you, Sari? You're in both bands so you're getting a hundred percent share."

"Hey Ron, don't knock it," said Mal. "For a single set, twenty-five percent ain't bad. Ain't that right, Aerie?"

"Guys. Aaron called. He—"

"How's Marta?" said Eleni.

Aerie looked at her blankly.

"His daughter," she explained.

"Oh. I guess she's fine. The thing is, guys. Aaron's on his way back. Tonight. He wants us at his place by ten, for the Production. Triple pay."

Four sets of eyes locked onto her face.

"No way," said Ron.

"Has he left Boston?" said Sari.

"He's already in the Berkshires," said Aerie.

"That's it. We have to cancel the gig," said Eleni.

"Nonsense," said Sari.

"Did you say t-triple?" said Ron.

"That birdie. We need to bring the birdie back, pronto" said Mal, eyes bugging.

"You don't have time," said Sari. "The Kolektiv is going on in less than an hour."

"Wait a minute," said Ron. "There's no reason we can't do both gigs. We got plenty of time to do a set and get our asses over to Aaron's. He's still three hours away... at least. We go on in an hour. Play for an hour. That gives us another hour, at least, to pack up, get out to his place and put everything back."

"Forty-five minutes," said Mal. "No need to play a full hour. That's the equivalent of one set. That'll still get us our twenty-five percent, won't it, Sari?"

"Why not?" said Sari, sighing. "The only problem is... I'm going on with Vida for two sets at least. And this ruins everything. I planned an after-party up at the house. There's no way I can be at Aaron's by eleven."

"We'll start without you," said Mal. "Get there when you can."

"Hot dawg! Two gigs in one night," said Ron. "This is turning out like a dream."

"Help me grab the marimba, Ron," said Mal. "Someone else get the birdie."

"Uh... I'm not touching that thing," said Aerie.

***

Wind blasted John as he stepped outside the restaurant, heart thumping. Clouds rushed overhead, obliterating the waning moon, unveiling patches of stars. Hints of Hudson's Bay ice mingled with sultry swamp air straight from the Gulf of Mexico.

Knots of people moved across the Commons, crossing Aurora Street to the brick building besides Mayer's Smoke shop, where the event would be getting underway in a few minutes. Stalling, he studied them, trying to guess who was going to the event, and whether they accepted Jesus as their savior.

Cindy insisted that she could tell from a glance who was Christian and who was pagan, atheist or Jew. John suspected that she just picked out folks whose appearance reinforced her prejudices: those with fresh haircuts, clean, bright clothes and no jewelry impaling anything other than earlobes. No telling how many Buddhists she had counted among her own.

There were plenty of folks in their congregation who defied her stereotypes: hippies with pony tails and scruffy beards, women who dressed like tramps, even on Sundays. To Cindy, they were merely the exceptions that proved the rule.

To keep up appearances for Cindy, he had dressed business casual—a polo shirt with sport coat and khaki slacks. It made him worry how much he would stick out among this crowd heading for the Arts Coop.

It wasn't so much how he looked, as how awkward he felt among these folks, their jaunty gaits and easy laughs, at ease with their place in the universe. They weren't impostors like him, a fraud come to faith solely to get closer to Cindy.

But he could not deceive his heart. It pounded well beyond its normal pace. He knew his presence in Ithaca had nothing to do with networking.

Nor had he come to spy for Reverend Beasley. He didn't care where or what these kids played. He saw no connection between their music and whatever weird beasts roamed the woods of Connecticut Hill. These were musicians, not necromancers.

He had come for another glimpse of that girl—Aerie—to further explore the nature of the feeble ember that had sparked during their brief encounter on the road side. He had no expectations, no intention to even speak to her. He just wanted to be in her presence again, to see her in the flesh.

A bass drone sliced through the air and hung and hummed like a power line. Clots of people converged on the Arts Coop, drawn to the call like Eloi to the Morlocks' lair.

A frisson shimmied down John's spine as he crossed Aurora.
Chapter 22: The Gig

Two earthy and earnest ladies from the Arts Coop sat behind a table in a side room, displaying pamphlets for pottery and dance classes, bottled water and baked goods. This scene was a far cry from the smoke-filled gigs Hollis used to get them at strip clubs, second-tier casinos and pachinko parlors. This place reminded her more of a fifth grade recital.

With three crumpled dollars, Aerie bought herself a Poland Spring and a marble brownie and wandered back through the crowd. People of all ages and stations filled the room, as if someone had hacked a cross-section though Ithaca from Cayuga Heights to Cass Park—blue collar, white collar, fops, hippies, grungers. Vida had a strong local following, but the sum of overheard murmurs told her that most here had come to see Kolektiv. How or why that was, seemed a mystery.

As she flitted among them, listening to snatches of anecdote, the reasons became clearer. Between the small talk she caught juicy bits about Aaron's public outbursts, his misdemeanors and altercations in traffic, bars, jam sessions. He was quite notorious, it seemed, a reputation at odds with Aerie's impression of him as a salty but kindly older uncle.

Mal caught her eye from across the room and nodded toward a clock on the wall. Seven-thirty was approaching.

She made her way to the jumble of instruments in their corner, giving the bell jar, front and center, a wide berth. She pivoted her bass up off the floor on its end pin, tilting it forward to let gravity press the ebony fingerboard against her fingertips. As Ron and Eleni found their places, a buzz filled the room, as if a hive had been disturbed.

Mal knelt on the floor, assembling his motley collection of reeds – clarinet, bassoon, bamboo saxophone. He looked up as Eleni brushed past him. "Anyone see Sari?"

"She was making out with some guy in the utility room, last I knew," said Eleni, fingering her mandolin, strumming only air.

"With who?" said Mal.

"I don't know. Some... guy," said Eleni.

Ron swaggered up, wielding his guitar low on its strap, like an AK-47. "Screw 'er. Let's just start." He was cranking on a new string to replace the one he had broken warming up, tuning it by ear in a series of ascending glissando twangs.

"This is Sari's gig," said Eleni, climbing onto a chair and perusing the crowd. "She might want to introduce us."

"Screw the introductions," said Ron. "I'm ready to play. Come on, let's make that birdie sang. She'll come running when she hears us."

His face was red, eyes popping. He looked all coked up, though Aerie had never seen him partake of anything stronger than a Pepsi.

Mal struggled to set the double reeds of his ancient bassoon. "Give me a sec. I almost got it."

Aerie balanced the bass against her hip as she holstered a freshly rosined bow. People turned to face them. More emerged from the backrooms and stairwell, filling the gaps in the already substantial crowd.

"What's the occupancy limit in this place?" said Eleni.

"Who the fuck cares?" said Ron. "I say the more the merrier. Pack 'em in like anchovies." His jacket began to ring. He yanked out his phone.

"Hullo?" His face went blank. "Hey. Yeah, I'm fine. In some bar. No shit? Uh, yeah. I suppose we could. What time do you say you'd be there? Oh, really? Take it easy on those roads, um, no need to rush. Go ahead and grab a bite. We don't mind playing late. No big deal." He hung up.

"Was that Aaron?" said Aerie.

"He's skipping dinner, driving straight through. He'll be here in two hours, tops. We're talking nine, nine-thirty."

"Shit!" said Mal.

"Let's get cracking," said Ron, yanking the cover off the bell jar, its glass as dusty and opaque as ever. He nodded impatiently at Mal. "What are you waiting for? Go on! Do your thing!"

Mal droned a low note on his bassoon and held it. It was the same tone that Aaron always used to initiate a session with his fiddle—a tone well below 440 cycles per second, but not an A flat. Aerie detuned her A string and stroked with her bow, pleased to find the rosin gripping like deck shoes on teak. Ron and Eleni stayed silent at first, letting them develop the drone. Their moans and rumbles oscillated, waves cycling, sometimes in synch sometimes beating against each other like ripples at the confluence of a river. The crowd looked on in a uniform trance.

***

John joined a line that backed up on the sidewalk, halfway back to Aurora. A table was set up just outside the door. They were collecting a cover charge.

"Twenty dollars?" said John, reading a sign scrawled in Sharpie. He had been expecting a token entrance fee. Like five bucks, maybe. This was the Arts Coop after all. "Gee, I guess I don't get out much," he said, fishing for his wallet.

"Yeah, it is a bit steep for Ithaca," said a burly guy in a black sweater.

It stung to hand over the twenty dollar bill. He felt guilty enough about splurging on dinner at Madeline's. Though, Cindy did tell him not to worry about the money, to treat Dale and not skimp. "Networking's important," she had said. "Consider it an investment." Though, this kind of networking probably wasn't what she had in mind.

He got his hand stamped, with a pentagram no less, and started up the stairs. A frantic strumming started up. It made him think of a straggling bird, flapping frantically to catch up with its flock. He pushed through a group of people keeping close to the door.

From across the room, the players didn't look nearly as ominous or dangerous as Cindy and the Reverend made them out to be, but then again he already knew that. They were just a rabble of frumpy and underfed kids—not anyone he would cringe from in a dark alley, except for maybe that guitarist. They were missing their singer, and their leader, Mr. Levine. Perhaps that was confirmation that he had left town.

Aerie stood with her back to the door. John couldn't make out her face behind a curtain of dark hair hanging from her bowed head. He eased himself closer through the throng.

"What is this crap?" said a thin guy in skin tight jeans. "There's no rhythm. They're not even in tune."

Someone giggled. "Oh my God, this is like watching a train wreck."

As the music droned on, attention flagged, heads turned, conversations resumed. Some people turned and left. John heard someone say: "Let's come back later, for Vida."

John knew what they were in for, those who stayed and chatted over all the drones and jangly strumming. Unbeknownst to Cindy, on many nights he had sat on the patio listening raptly to the same sounds evolving here. As the music evolved, they would be like frogs in a pot of water being slowly brought to a boil. He knew what was coming, and yet he stayed.

He slipped ever closer through knots of people, keeping one layer back to screen him from view. He didn't want his presence known to the players.

His eyes lingered on Aerie's lithe form, the way she wrapped herself around her bass. For such a slight thing, she pulled such a big sound out of her instrument. Her eyes gazed into nothingness as if she her in a trance, face set into a sneer, as if she were angry at the crowd.

The guitarist kept blocking his view of Aerie, flinging his crack-faced Martin from side to side, scowling at his shoes. He stuffed a hand in his pocket, emerging with a fistful of picks. John maneuvered closer to the corner, closer to Aerie. She glanced up at him as he sidled along the wall. Their eyes met and locked. She glanced away, her face tensing. She did not look back at him.

A young woman in a flowing turquoise wrap came skipping into the corner. She found a place beside a shrouded, R2D2-shaped object on the floor and stood, eyes closed, swaying, arms stretched, fingers spread.

A mangled chord slashed through the sonic backdrop like a machete, startling those whose attentions had flagged, interrupting conversations. The guitarist flailed at his Martin with flashy windmill strums. He gripped the neck of his instrument tight and quivered, milking it for every last iota of sustain.

The scraggly kid on the bassoon put it down and grabbed four mallets, swinging behind a bulky xylophone-like apparatus of bent bamboo. He played rhythmic chords, jerking the beat through patterns odd and even, providing every possible pulse as if searching for one that the music could congeal around.

The guitarist cycled staccato riffs, exploring variations, no two phrases alike, playing an aggressive counterpoint to the other girl's mandolin. Their instruments seemed to argue, clashing, shifting tact, seeking some particular and elusive dissonance. John could trace no connection between the patterns and harmonies to any human musical tradition.

Aerie sawed away with her bow, maintaining the central drone, spicing it with harmonics and pizzicato double stops. The girl in the turquoise silk began to moan, a low quavering that built into a meandering wail. Her voice lashed on the other instruments and pulled them tighter, and the rhythm began to chug with a unified purpose.

John felt a wave of unexpected wooziness sweep over him. John felt a thrill growing in him. He could sense something building, like the shadings of an elusive orgasm. It disturbed him that music so alien could, at times, feel so natural, as if appealing to some base instinct buried deep. It felt like sin.

"I gotta leave," said a hyperventilating young woman to her friend. "I'll catch you later."

"What's wrong?" said her friend.

"I don't know. I just gotta get out of here." She stumbled towards the stairs.

***

Aerie looked up and saw a familiar face. She couldn't place him immediately, but then she realized, it was Aaron's neighbor. What was he doing here? Spying?

She tried not to look at him. She focused on the music, counting down the minutes on the clock on the opposite wall, forcing herself to endure until they could finish and clear out of this place.

For what it was worth, the music was easier to bear without Aaron's uncanny fiddle tearing down anything that resembled a melody, steering them into uncharted seas far from sight of land.

"What I strive for in this music is a property I call emergence," he had told her, during one of their rehearsals. "I know when it comes together because it's alive. But it's a fragile thing. Its lifespan, it's fleeting. It belongs only to the moment. Any one of us falters and it dies."

Ron stooped over the bell jar and laid his palm on the glass dome. He swerved close to Aerie. "It's not happening," he said. "Not a twitch. What the fuck? Hope we didn't break it."

"It's this room," said Aerie. "No resonance whatsoever. Our sound just gets lost in here."

Ron's eyebrows bunched. "We need a fiddle, is what we need." He lunged over to Eleni and made her put down her mandolin, and swap it for one of the ugliest violins Aerie had ever seen—encrusted with patches of thick, blackened varnish and singed along the edges as if it had once been set aflame.

Ron swung over to Mal as well, head-butting him to get his attention, snapping him out of a trance. Mal put away his bassoon, and picked up a bamboo saxophone.

Between the fiddle and the sax, and with Ron's furious strumming taking up the slack in lieu of Eleni's mandolin, things began to happen. Their playing grew louder and intensified, and Aerie responded in kind, putting away her bow, pulling a meaty pizzicato line that slid and warbled and thundered through the maple flooring.

Mal's sax captured and mingled with Sari's vocal line until the two became indistinguishable, like the harmonies of twin sisters. Eleni's fiddle line, more precise and nimble than Aaron's meanderings, weaved through and around them, strengthening their bonds.

The birdie began to rumble, and when it did it all conversation halted. Newcomers hovered near the door, afraid to enter. A few people headed for the stairwell, and then a few more, and then a swarm as if the place had caught fire. Aerie saw panic on teary faces, while others stood rigid and enthralled. A few attempted to dance, somehow finding steps among their elusive and shattered rhythms.

The sub-sonic humming slowly increased in pitch like a feedback loop. The soundman came striding to his board to cut off mikes that were already off. Aerie wanted to stop, but the competing urge to make the birdie sing louder won out. The band adjusted their playing subtly now, like tweaking a fine tuning knob.

In the opposite corner, Sari's lead guitarist jogged over to his amp and plugged his angular guitar into an electronic tuner. Aerie looked at the time. It was seven-fifty-four. What on earth did he think he was doing up there? It wasn't nearly time yet for Vida to play.

The guitarist plugged into his amp and turned it on, slamming a chord that approximated the key that the others were playing. He detuned a bit, turned up the volume and joined in the jam, playing a screaming line that entwined perfectly with Sari's vocal and Mal's horn.

At seven fifty-five, the birdie howled like a jet plane coming in for a landing, drowning out every bit of music, rattling the building from floor to rafters. People cowered and covered their ears.

At seven fifty-six, the fog in the bell jar cleared.
Chapter 23: Implosion.

Like gasoline sprayed on a brushfire in a windstorm, the over-amplified electric guitar fed the birdie's already surging wail, ramping it up an ever steepening arc of sound and energy.

Vida's sound man scrambled to his board. The guitarist unplugged his amp to no avail. The howl persisted, driving spikes through Aerie's eardrums. She tucked her bass under her elbows and slapped her hands over her ears.

The glass jar turned clear as a tarn, revealing a swirling gray blur within. This was no mere smoke. It moved with purpose, rippling an invisible musculature, forming lobes that lapped and tugged at the interior of the jar.

Aghast, Aerie laid down her bass and stumbled out of the corner, colliding with Sari behind a logjam of stunned people. She latched onto her shoulder to keep from falling. Sari pulled free, her eyes naked with fear. She pulled free and elbowed her way into the stunned crowd.

Eleni and Mal pressed against the wall, clutching their instruments to their chests. Ron alone, remained in the corner, strumming his guitar and grinning, as if this were all part of the show.

Someone cut the power. Lights blinked out, and with the darkness came a silence as abrupt as a guillotine. The dim emergency lighting flickered on. A klaxon sounded.

The bell jar imploded with a hollow crunch. Billows of dust mushroomed to the rafters, unveiling an expanding blur that absorbed the glass shards into its swirl, grinding the pieces to bits that formed a glittering column, ejecting them from the top of the vortex in every direction, peppering the retreating crowd with grit the consistency of beach sand. Screams rocked the room. A trickle meandered down Aerie's forehead and into her eye. A swipe of her hand came back bloody.

The audience scrambled for the stairs and fire escape, tripping and tumbling over the fallen, fighting to evacuate the loft. A group of the bold and the curious huddled in the center of the room, faces flecked with blood, entranced, Aaron's neighbor among them.

Where the bell jar had stood, the blur pulsed and swirled, refusing to dissipate. A cranium-like dome bulged at its top, wisps dangling, peeling off and stretching outward, curling at the tips like tentacles. A vortex continued to spin at its core.

Someone gasped. "It's alive!"

Mal dashed forward and poked at the spinning thing with his bamboo sax. It lashed out and knocked the instrument out of his grip. It spiraled across the hardwood, avoiding Ron, who brandished his guitar at it like a club, before darting out of the corner, making straight for the crowd of gawkers.

Eleni skipped out to intercept it, waving her fiddle and bow. "Shoo! Shoo!"

The thing surged and enveloped her arms, ripping the fiddle from her grip, snapping the bow, curling the horse hair. A shower of wood chips spewed out of the vortex. Eleni pulled away and collapsed onto the floor, the sleeves of her blouse shredded.

Aerie ran to her aide as the thing circled back, spiraling in place, etching curlicues in the varnish, leaving a trail of black soot in its wake. Mal and Ron followed it warily back into the corner.

"Don't go near it, guys! It bites!" said Eleni. She held her hands palms up, as if pleading. Tiny drops of blood beaded and wept down her abraded forearms.

Aerie skidded to Eleni's side on her knees. "Oh my God. What did it do to you?"

"I'm okay," said Eleni. "Just stings. Like a bad rug burn."

"I don't know what kind of rugs you got or what you do on them," said Ron. "That looks like road rash to me."

Aerie removed a string of silk scarves from Eleni's waist and unknotted them. "How about we wrap your arms in these? Stanch the bleeding?"

Eleni ignored her, her attention drawn to the thing as it hopped onto a window ledge, sucking up the dust accumulated on the sills, sliding against the windows, splattering them with fine grit. It sounded like a sleet storm.

"We gotta get that thing confined," said Mal. He grabbed Aerie's nylon bass case and stalked after it.

"Idiot. You think a zipper's gonna hold it?" said Ron.

"You got a better idea?" said Mal, un-dissuaded. He followed the swirl along the wall with the unzipped case.

Ron replacing his guitar for an electric bass from one of Vida's stands. "I'll knock it off the wall and smash the fucker."

"Guys. I really think you should leave that thing alone," said Eleni.

As they approached, the thing, bloated with dust, floated off the window ledge like an aerial jellyfish. Mal waited until it had touched down and then pounced, tossing the nylon case over it. It struggled like a cat in a sack as Mal slid the zipper home. Black smoke sifted through the seams. The fabric turned to soot and crumbled.

Mal dropped the case and backed away. The creature poured through a gap and regathered itself into a spinning spindle, darkened by specks of disintegrated nylon. It glided across the floor, dodging frantic people, arcing towards the exit.

Ron ran after it, electric bass hefted over his shoulder.

Let it go, Ron!" said Eleni. "Don't touch it!"

Aerie followed after him, pounding down the stairs, Mal on her heels.
Chapter 24: Nexus

Donnie glowered at his baked potato, the only thing on the menu that sounded the least bit appetizing. He couldn't bring himself to look at the family-style platter heaped with ribs, steaks and chicken, along with some sautéed greens and a bowl of onion rings to grease the sluices.

The odors wafting from it made his stomach knot. He scraped the sour cream off his potato with the side of his fork, picking off the chives with the tines. He never should have agreed to go out with them. He would have been better off lying around the hotel room for another day.

Jerry had driven him and the interns out to a steak house in Watkins Glen. Mac, alone at the house with Mrs. Swain, first recommended it, then insisted that they go here, and then that they go now, that he and Mrs. Swain had things under control at the house.

Under control. There was no reason they all couldn't have stayed. There were plenty of leftovers in the fridge. Mac knew that Donnie's stomach couldn't handle anything as heavy as a steak just yet. And Rand kept throwing broad hints about his hankering for pizza. But here they were, at some glorified diner, and he was trying his best to abide through dinner, though he had no interest in anything other than his Pepsi.

The others had started up a conversation with some folks the next table over who had come up from Virginia for some sort of vintage racing event at the nearby speedway. They had themselves some nice southerner to southerner bonding of the sort that happens so often when compatriots meet in the icy north. But after the initial pleasantries, Donnie let the others carry the conversation and retreated inside his head, trying to make sense of his disquiet.

Usually Donnie could feel the presence of the occult. Admittedly, much of his business hinged on simple psychological disturbances, for which divine intervention was less critical than emotional support. But when the occult was involved, he could tell. It settled over everything like a pall, tingeing the personas affected with a distinctive warp. Donnie could just tell when he was dealing with the touch of the Fallen.

But this case gave him no such impression, just a vague feeling that the tables had turned, that they were working against the Lord. Never before had an infernal entity so thoroughly penetrated his cordon of protections. This could be a demon of a different order, a being with the power to subvert his senses, instill confusion.

The nature of this more potent foe remained unclear. Donnie's prayers for guidance had thus far gone unanswered. He couldn't help but wonder if Mac's unsavory dealings had weakened his cause in the eyes of the Lord, sending him into battle naked, with God looking on indifferent or with disdain. He felt so forsaken, that he had lost the will to go on.

Mrs. Swain was plenty giddy about the silencing of the hell house. Donnie knew better, but he was willing to let her hang onto her misperception. He just wanted out.

"How're them ribs, Rand?" said Jerry, reaching for a rack.

"Uh, okay. A little tough."

"Woulda helped if they actually cooked them," said Tammie.

"What's the deal with the kale?" said Rand. "Who eats kale with barbecue anyhow? Collard greens, I can see."

"Maybe collards don't grow up here," said Jerry. "Not sure how Mac could recommend this place."

"To get us out of the damned house," said Donnie. "That's how."

"Huh?"

The waitress came over with a pitcher of water, looking concerned. "And how is everything?"

"Oh, just great!" said Tammie.

"Wonderful," said Jerry. She smiled nervously, refilled their glasses.

The woman from the next table leaned over and whispered. "If y'all come back to this town, I recommend you try Savard's. The wait staff's a bit weird, but the food's much better."

"Oh yeah," said of her companions. "The prime rib, especially."

"Much obliged," said Don. "But I don't think we'll be coming back anytime soon."

"Why not?" said Jerry. "It's a shorter drive than Ithaca."

"Because we're going back to Georgia," said Donnie. "After the consecration tomorrow, I say we call it a job. Tammie and I will fly back tomorrow night. You and Rand can drive back the next morning."

"But Donnie, we just got here," said Jerry, his face flushing.

"Well, yes... but why stick around when we're essentially done? We did our due diligence."

"Due diligence? You shitting me? Due diligence? What have we done? Light a few candles, mutter a few prayers? How can you say we're done? We've done squat. The battle's just getting started."

"Been quiet, hasn't it?"

"Yeah, but... you know as well as I do, they could just be lying low, hoping we go away." Jerry squinted his eyes at him. "That tummy bug mess with your head or something? I never heard you talk like this."

"Listen, I think it's pretty clear that Mac brought us up here to impress his lady friend. Whatever past due obligations we had with him, I believe are paid in full."

Jerry looked mortified. "This ain't just some dog-and-pony show, Donnie. There's major shit going on here. If you'd've gone out in the woods with us you would've seen. We found some serious spoor."

"I don't doubt you, Jerry. But whatever's happening out in those woods is exogenous to what's going on in the house. You know my policy about exogenous threats."

"But it's the goings-on at the house that are drawing them in," said Jerry.

"You can't know that for sure," said Donnie. "So there're creepy-crawlies out in those woods. So what? There isn't a forest on earth that hasn't got issues with spirits. Since time immemorial—"

Jerry's gaze bore in on him. "You're afraid, aren't you? This thing kicked your butt and now you want to run back to Georgia with your tail between your legs."

"Not at all," said Donnie. "I just realize my limits. And this stuff with Mac... what's he's doing... it's not right. I want nothing more to do with it."

A calm swept over Jerry's face. He clasped a meaty hand over Donnie's shoulder. "Donnie, Donnie, Donnie. Stuff like this... this is why we got into this business in the first place. Not 'cause of thirteen-year olds whose parents think they got the devil because they won't unload the dishwasher. We got a freaking pack of praf diavols out there. This is the big-time."

Donnie took a long and deep breath. "Tell you what. Tammie and I are flying back tomorrow, that's a given. That okay with you Tam?"

She nodded vigorously. "Oh yeah."

"But you and Rand can stick around... a couple more days if you want. I'll leave you the manuals. Get Mac to help you with the rites if you need a hand. I just gotta get out of here, Jer. Heal up. Get my bearings back. It's just the way it is."

Jerry tipped his brow. "Deal. I wish you were sticking around, but... I understand. I've never known you to run from—"

"Run? I'm not running."

"Donnie. I didn't mean it that way. Me and Rand'll man the fort. You just need to be prepared to send up the heavy artillery if need be. That's all I ask."

"You mean... the fire?"

"If necessary."

"You'd have to make a good case for it."

Jerry scrunched his mouth to one side. "Don't you worry. I got a feeling this place... this Connecticut Hill... might be a nexus."

Donnie crinkled his eyes. "Oh, I wouldn't go that far."

"I've been doing my research Donnie and the data is sure startin' to point that way."

"What data? Sprites?"

"Not just sprites. Wolves. I found stories of packs mauling people long after they went extinct everywhere else in the state. And you know what else? That little town we passed on the way here. Alpine Junction? It's on the "America's Most Haunted" list. People see orbs, mists, shadows. Folks even come here looking for Bigfoot."

"Oh, Jerry," Donnie scoffed. "That's such a hodge-podge. I mean, I'm surprised you didn't mention vampires. There's no rhyme or reason. It's all... random."

"It ain't the individual things that're important. It's the accumulation. Don't you see Donnie? Weird stuff happens; one person'll blame it on a ghost; someone else will call it a chupacabra. But it's all from the same source. The place is a nexus. Like that warehouse district in Athens, only... more so."

Donnie stared at the stack of rib and chicken bones accumulating on the platter. Something about their arrangement struck him as obscene.

"This is gonna sound dumb," said Rand. "But I looked on a map and we ain't anywhere near Connecticut. Why do they call that place Connecticut Hill?"

"It's just an Indian name, Rand," said Tammie. "Probably means land between the rivers, or something. Like all those Indian names."

"No Indians up here named it, that's for sure," said Jerry. "Connecticut's a Mohegan name, but we're in Iroquois country. What happened was this place used to be part of Connecticut. After the Revolutionary War, Connecticut got a hold of some of this territory and made land grants to veterans as a way of keeping a toehold on the frontier. You gotta remember, this was all frontier back then."

"Those veterans kind of got the short end of a stick, didn't they?" said Rand.

"You got that right. It would have been a hard life in any hill country so cold, so rocky, never mind... a nexus."

That stack of bones was really starting to get to Don. He had dealt with an osteomancer once, a blind woman from West Georgia accused of spreading cancer curses through her divination. Something about the inadvertence of the osteomancy taking shape before him made it seem all the more dangerous.

He knocked over the pile with his fist and pushed his chair back from the table. He shot up to his feet, pulse whooshing in his ears, his stomach all quivery again.

"What'd you do that for?" said Jerry. "You feel alright, Donnie? Where you going?"

"I need some air."

"But we're not ready to leave just yet. I was planning to order dessert."

"Eat," said Donnie. "I'm going outside. I told you. I need some air."

He made his way to the door, fearful that he wouldn't make it outside before he keeled over. The door swung open, and he took in a lungful of crystalline wind, redolent with forest. This was a dryer air mass than what had swept into the open window on the ride over, less of a strain to breathe, almost therapeutic in its astringency. He rounded around the corner of the restaurant into the back lot. A blast of wind met him, spattering his face with sand and leaves before swirling away.

"Lord, help me." He couldn't haul his ass back to Georgia soon enough.
Chapter 25: Aftermath

Aerie found Ron crouched on the sidewalk, staring down at what looked like a strip of inlaid marble cutting across the sidewalk. The track circled around a light post and out across the pavement, angling up the hill towards the Ithaca Reservoir.

Mal came up behind them. "This is shit, man. What are we gonna tell Aaron?"

Aerie knelt and ran her finger through a smudge in the asphalt. It felt greasy and flaky, with bits of grit embedded. "That thing... that was no machine, Mal."

"I realize that." Mal turned his gaze up the steep hill behind them. "You know, up at Cornell, they've got a shop that sells glassware and reagents. I've got friends still in grad school up there. Maybe, we can chip in and buy another bell jar."

"I don't think it's the jar he cares about," said Aerie. "It's... that thing."

"I ain't chipping in for nothing," said Ron. "Why don't we just snag one? You still have access to those labs?"

A police car came barreling down Aurora and pulled up askew in front of Mayer's. A cop bolted out and stormed up the stairs. More sirens approached, heralding an ambulance and a fire truck, and then another cop car to join the growing collection of emergency vehicles. Ron stood up, hands riffling through his pockets. He pulled out the keys to the van and tossed them to Aerie.

"What's this for?" said Aerie.

"In case something happens," said Ron.

"Why? What's gonna happen?"

"Who knows," he said. "I got a bad feeling about Julius... about the door money we ain't gonna get no more... and... those cops."

"Why wouldn't we get paid?" said Aerie. "I mean, you guys didn't know this was gonna happen. Did you?"

"What was that guy thinking?" said Ron. "Stomping all over our jam with his fucking Strat."

"It was Sari's idea," said Mal. "She wanted this smooth segue where she could just strut across the floor and start in with Vida."

"Well he blew his wad way too early, didn't he? We weren't close to done playing."

"Brilliant idea," said Aerie. "Bringing the birdie here."

"You should have piped up when we were hauling the gear," said Ron.

"I did," said Aerie.

"Crap, she's looking at us," said Mal.

"Who?" said Ron.

"That boss lady from the Arts Council," said Mal. "The one who saw us bring the birdie up the stairs."

The woman, one of the pair who had tended the water and cookie table, ducked back inside abruptly when she saw them looking.

Mal crouched down and ran his finger down the greasy line that the creature had etched into the pavement. He picked up a piece of transparent grit and rolled it between his fingers.

"Jesus," he said. "Is this what I think it is?" He scraped it across the face of a parking meter, carving a diagonal gouge into the glass. "Holy shit. This is a diamond."

Ron squinted at it. "No way. It's not even shiny."

"It's uncut, you idiot."

"Let me see that." Ron snatched the pebble from Mal's fingers.

The boss woman re-emerged, accompanied by two policemen. She pointed directly at Mal.

"Ah crap, here we go," said Mal.

"Go on, Aerie, get out of here," said Ron. "Pretend you don't know us."

***

Aerie dragged the kithara across the floor a little bit at a time. It was even heavier than it looked. There was no way she could get it down the stairs and into the van on her own.

The landlord showed up and blustered about. He was an elderly, olive-skinned man of indeterminate ethnicity and a vaguely Caribbean accent. He pushed a broom, sweeping up the grains of glass, stopping now then to snap pictures of the curlicues in the floor with his cell phone. He was nicely dressed, with shiny shoes and pressed wool slacks. Aerie, the sole musician left in the room, gave him a focus for his wrath.

"Hey you! You wit' the band? You gonna pay for dis. I gotta refinish the whole damn floor. What the hell did you do to it?"

"Sorry," said Aerie, wincing. "We didn't mean to."

"Someone's gotta pay. Lookit it. The floor's damaged."

"What about... don't you have insurance?" said Aerie.

"Course I got it. But I don't know if they cover such tings. I gotta check it. If dis was vandalism—"

"I had nothing to do with it," said Aerie. "I'm just—"

"Who's your manager?"

"What makes you think we got one?"

"All band's got a manager, no? The cops talkin' to your friends right now. How come they didn't take you in, too?"

"I'm just... the bass player."

He held up his cell phone and snapped her picture. Aerie bared her teeth in a mock snarl as the flash went off. "You're dat Walker girl, huh? Da International Recording Artist?" He held up a poster.

"Fuck off," Aerie muttered, under her breath.

"What was that?"

A fireman came by to consult with him. Aerie left the kithara at the top of the stairs and went back to deal with the other instruments. She packed everything up she could into their cases. She would be able to stick the small stuff into the van but there was no way she would be able to get the larger things down the stairs.

Aerie had half a mind to grab her bass and roll it home so she could curl up in bed and forget about the whole disaster.

She could load the smaller stuff into the van and forget about it. It would be safe enough, locked up.

But what about Aaron? When he got home, he'd think his house was broken into, which happened to be true. The police would get another call and Ron and Mal would be in even more trouble, not to mention her as well—as an accessory. Breaking and entering. Burglary. To go along with the reckless endangerment and property damage.

That's what the fire department decided had happened, though it didn't explain the markings on the floor or the eyewitness accounts of the swirly, grey beast. From what Aerie could overhear, they had been worried at first about a bomb, but all signs pointed otherwise: the low velocity scatter of the glass particles, the mildness of the injuries, and the absence of any singeing or smoke.

The decided that the culprit was some concoction of dry ice and/or liquid nitrogen, some kind of homemade rock and roll fog machine that had gone awry and imploded. Hence, Eleni's frost burns. Twenty minutes of investigations and interviews and they started letting folks back in the room.

By then, Eleni had been taken to the hospital, Ron and Mal in for questioning. Sari had vanished with Vida and her entourage leaving Aerie alone to deal with instruments and explain everything to Aaron.

As Aerie fumbled with the balky snaps of Ron's raggedy guitar case, some guy in pleated khakis hovered up behind her. Aerie tried to ignore him, but when she turned to fetch her bass, he swooped in. It was Aaron's neighbor. The one who had helped her when her car broke down. She drew a blank. What was his name again?

"Need a hand? Looks like your band's... deserted you."

"Um... sure." She zipped her rosin into a pouch.

"N-name's John."

"Yeah. I knew that."

He crouched down and started gathering up some of Mal's horns.

"Actually... it would be great if we could load up the big stuff, first." She waved towards the kithara. "The van's parked in the lot behind Mayer's."

"No problem." He followed Aerie to the stairwell. "You know... I overheard those firemen. That was no liquid nitrogen."

"I know."

Her eyes flitted to the landlord watching them from the head of the stairs. They each grabbed a side of the kithara and hefted it, maneuvering around him as he looked on with disdain.

"So... what was that thing... in the jar?" John whispered, when they were halfway down the stairs.

"Who knows?" said Aerie.

They backed out the propped open door onto the sidewalk. "These things, or things like them. We have them. In the woods near my house."

"You mean like... in the wild?" said Aerie. "No way."

"It's true. I've seen them, and their tracks."

"Any idea... what they might be?"

"I was hoping you would know."

"Why are you here?"

"Um. Guess I just wanted to know more... what you all were about. Don't think it helped. I'm even more confused now."

They set down the kithara in the lot. Aerie opened up the van. "I take it the deliverance is not going so great?"

"On the contrary. Cindy's ecstatic. Things have been quiet up at the house. But we both know why, don't we?"

"Yeah," said Aerie, sighing. "What was your name, again?"

***

It was pushing nine when they had finally emptied got the corner of the loft of instruments. Aerie slid the side of the van closed.

"Thanks," she said. "Guess I'll be... heading out your way now."

"Yeah. Me too. I mean... duh... I live there."

"We can convoy," said Aerie. He looked so awkward standing there shifting his feet, his jaw all tensed, his hands fidgety.

"You know... I'd love to help you unload at the other end, but... I can't. I hope you understand."

"No big deal," said Aerie. "Aaron should be there to help out. Um... good luck with your... deliverance." She smirked. "You don't think I'm a devil worshipper, do you?"

"Oh no. Nuh-uh. Not at all."

Aerie took his hand and gave it a squeeze. His fingers were cold and damp. "Well, thanks again. See you... around."

"Drive careful. I-I'll be right behind you... on the road."

"I'll be fine," said Aerie, climbing into the seat and starting the van. "At least I don't have that damned bell jar to worry about."

She pulled out of the lot, crossing the curvy line that the birdie had traced on the road.
Chapter 26: Outburst

John prayed for the insanity gripping him to dissipate. He walked down the sidewalk to his car, forcing himself not to look back towards the lot. He listened for the van to pull out, watched every car that passed.

He noticed the change in the wind: the bite of it in his nostrils, a moth struggling in a patch of light, candy wrappers and oak leaves slapping against the cuffs of his trousers.

He got to his car, started it up, waited until he saw the white van flash past, and swung out behind it. Never had a woman affected him this way. He marveled and quailed at the power of the forces controlling his heart. It was if a creature had crawled behind his rib cage to possess him. How could he succumb so easily, without a fight?

The van breezed through a yellow light. John braked, not thinking, and got himself stuck behind a red, watching the space accumulate and cars intervene between him and the object of his infatuation.

He panicked. When the light turned green, he goosed the accelerator and darted across the intersection like a jackrabbit. He ran the next red, accelerated to cut off a UPS truck trying to make a right turn, and blasted through the fringes of town pushing sixty.

It happened to her van? His pulse throbbed in his temples, but why? She had probably only stopped for gas or something. Maybe he should just go home and not worry about her.

A car signaled and turned, revealing the white van just past Buttermilk Falls State Park. His heart leapt. He caught up, keeping a length or two behind her bumper, letting no other vehicle come between them.

Now that he found her, he should have felt relieved, but the disquiet that engulfed him refused to unclamp its jaws. He breathed like a fever victim, squirmed in his seat, unable to get comfortable. When the light of an oncoming truck silhouetted her, his heart bounded. Somehow, he didn't want to go home any more. He wanted to go wherever she went. Nothing else mattered.

He rolled down his windows, and let the crosswinds blast through his hair, the chill a tonic to his confusion. The radio blared some scratchy, ghostly McCoy Tyner from some underpowered college radio station.

There was no sane reason for him to feel this way about Aerie. For one thing, John had Cindy, one of the prettiest creatures to be found in the Finger Lakes. He was a lucky man, that John, people would say.

This Aerie, she was homely by comparison, not beautiful by any standard. She had an odd flare to her nostrils. Her features were narrow and mousy. Her chest was flat. Her hair—flat and brown. Her eyes, just brown.

Despite her ungainly proportions—sturdy at the base, wiry at the top—she carried herself with a grace suggestive of some sleek denizen of the savannahs. She gave one a sense of a creature perfectly adapted to their world, melding with nature in ways that could be sensed in every aspect of her being, from the jaunty way she walked to the way her fingers arced and flexed, even how gravity settled the folds of her clothes.

John knew he was everything she was not. No movement came natural to him. Never mind dancing, he walked and stood and sat like a man with his joints misaligned and in the wrong places. No matter what he did to his hair it pressed flat and parted naturally on the side. Mirrors constantly ambushed with the news that he was just a younger version of his dork of a father.

He couldn't imagine how poor an impression he made on her. His wit came slow, the words he chose as inappropriate as cudgels for brain surgery. No wonder she hadn't looked at him twice, could not even remember his name. Yet he wanted to be wherever she was, go wherever she went.

He had thought that attending her gig might satisfy his niggling curiosity and quench his desires and he could go on with life. That seeing her would remind him of how homely she looked, or would unveil some irreparable ugliness in her persona.

But being close to her again had only stoked his fires. He knew, that to feel that way about another woman was a betrayal and a sin. Though, he had no inclination to repair it, not just yet. It bothered him that she was associated with that unearthly entity in that jar, and by extension whatever it was that carving tracks in the moss of Connecticut Woods.

But she seemed just as troubled as him by that thing's emergence from the jar. He couldn't believe she had been a willing participant in these proceedings. He supposed her a pawn in whatever nefarious scheme his neighbor was undertaking.

They turned up into Connecticut Hill, zooming through tunnels of overhanging branches, fallen leaves scurrying like rodents under the glare of their headlights. John flicked his high beams at her as they approached the turn to the cul-de-sac. If Jerry or the interns were watching, they would wonder about his gesture, but he had to reach out to her in some way, communicate some token of support, even if was a mere flash of photons.

Last Hope's pickup was absent from the driveway. Mac's Audi was there, pulled up tight alongside Cindy's Camry. John parked behind Cindy, got out and stood for moment, gazing through the trees at the hell house. He gave a quick rap on the screen door before entering.

"I'm home."

Mac popped up from the sofa the instant John walked in. He looked all wired and fidgety.

"Hey, Mac. Where is everybody?"

"They went to Watkins Glen," said Cindy, appearing at the entry of the kitchen, hands stuffed in the pockets of her bathrobe. "Donnie and Jerry treated the interns to a dinner out. Remember that steakhouse we went to once? What was it...?"

"Ponderosa?"

"No, not Ponderosa."

"Didn't want to leave Cindy here all alone, considering all that's been going on," said Mac. "Thought I'd stick around and, you know, man the fort."

"Thanks Mac. That's mighty gentlemanly of you. It's been quiet, I presume?"

"Oh yeah. It's been nice. Not a peep."

Cindy came into the room. Mac moved away, maintaining a space between them, as if magnetically repelled from her. John found this behavior odd.

"How's Dale?" said Cindy. She came up to him, eyes fierce, chin firm, and pecked his cheek.

"He's... good. Busy."

"Any leads?"

"Not really." He tossed a glance towards Mac, who stood stiffly behind the coffee table, shifting his weight from side to side. He went over and twiddled with Jerry's monitoring equipment he noticed John looking his way.

"Mac's bringing a bunch of folks from church over noonish tomorrow for the consecration. We should have some refreshments ready."

"I take it Don's feeling better?"

"Well, he's out eating steak, isn't he?" said Cindy.

The three of them stood, facing each other awkwardly.

"I guess I should be going," said Mac.

"I'll... uh... walk you out," said John.

Cindy, her lips pursed, gave Mac a quick, little wave and ran upstairs. The wind seized the screen door and ripped it from John's grasp.

"Man, it's like a hurricane out here," said Mac. He forced a chuckle. He took John's hand firmly and shook it, eyes down, aimed at John's chest. "Good night, and God Bless."

The Audi's security system warbled. Mac swung in, slammed the door, and rumbled out of the driveway.

John lingered on the stoop, gazing up at the hell house, letting the wind have its way with him. A light flicked on in another room. A shadow moved across the window. He wondered whether Aerie thought of him as much as he did her. He wondered if she thought of him at all.

***

Aerie unloaded the van by herself, and used a hand truck she found in a broom closet to get every instrument into the house and back to their places in the music room, their prior locations outlined clearly on the dusty floor. Sweaty and panting, she stopped to admire her handiwork, but was struck by how vacant the room seemed without the bell jar at its heart.

She went into the kitchen to get a drink of water. As she searched the cupboards for a glass, she noted the signs of a bachelor. They held pop tarts and cheap spaghetti and jarred pasta sauce. Salt and pepper were his only spices. He certainly was no foodie.

A pantry with its door ajar caught her eye. She opened it up to reveal a wall full of cubbies and drawers like a Chinese herbalist cabinet. They were crowded with jars and specimen cups filled with fine grey powders labeled guano, greensand, diatomaceous earth, lime and sulfur. Some had cryptic place names that sounded vaguely familiar, names like Bamako and Danakil and Atacama. Several containers were encased in lead as if they held something radioactive.

Green and white mottled composition books were stacked on a shelf below. Aerie flipped through a few, seeing that they read like diaries, describing places he had visited and containing sketches and numbers relating to the powders he kept in the cubbies.

The word 'sonant' kept popping up, as well as the number '432.' One book was full of musical diagrams. Another described the properties of dozens of exotic tone woods in great detail.

Aerie selected one from among the batch of what looked like the oldest. It mentioned Concord, MA and the year 1995. She figured that among the books, he'd be least likely to miss the older ones. She tucked it under her jacket.

She left the kitchen and switched off the light. When she turned off the hall light, the darkness settled like a funeral shroud. The wind sounded like a mob of voices in the treetops. A chill ran up her back. She couldn't wait to get the heck out of here and get back to Ithaca. She wasn't about to stand around in the dark waiting for him. What was the point?

She would, however, write him a brief note explaining basically what had happened and stick it under the door. He had Ron's number. If he wanted the whole story, let him call Ron. Taking the bell jar was his idea anyhow.

She fumbled in her purse for some paper. She found a CVS receipt, fished around some more until her fingers wrapped around a pen, extracting it from a tangle of ear phone cords.

A light appeared down the road, a rare event on this road. What were the odds that it was not Aaron?

Her spirits sank. Now she had to stick around. She pulled the notebook from her jacket and slipped it under the front seat of the van.

Aaron's Saab pulled into the driveway. A young woman rode with him. His daughter? The engine clicked off. The ping of cooling metal punctuated the sudden silence. Footlights flicked on, all the way down the driveway. A floodlight over the porch made Aaron squint as he climbed out, beaming. "Aerie! I didn't recognize the van." He squinted at the logo. "Carpet cleaners, huh?"

"It's... Ron's. He... borrowed it from some uncle."

"Is he here? Where is he?"

"Um... no. There's been... something happened... in Ithaca."

The young woman stepped out of the car, arced her back and stretched, hands clasped above her yet. Lithe and muscular, she was built like a ballerina.

"Aerie, this is Noelle."

"Hi," said the girl, as if the word had a question mark. She held out her long, limp fingers for Aerie to clasp. She looked in great shape for someone who had just been through a car wreck.

"You're the one who was hurt?"

"Um, Noelle's my friend," said Aaron, looking embarrassed. "You're thinking of Marta—my daughter—the one who was injured."

"Oops," said Aerie, sucking air through her teeth.

"No worries," said Noelle. "I'm... flattered."

"So Ron's not with you, but this is his van?" Aaron crinkled his brow. "So how's he getting here? Or more importantly, when?"

"He's... not."

"Huh? You told everyone we're doing a Production, right? Quadruple pay?"

Aerie nodded.

Aaron sorted through his keys as he strode towards the door. He tried the handle. It turned. "Weird. It's unlocked." He crinkled his brow. "Have you been inside?"

"Um...."

"Someone must have told you tell you about the spare key." He flung the door open, reached in and flipped on the hall light. "Listen, I know it's dark and creepy out here all alone, but in the future, I'd prefer that you not go into when I'm not home. I mean, unless I specifically ask you. Understand?"

"Sure."

Aaron brushed past her. Noelle trotted right behind him, straight down the hall to the bathroom, her heels clicking on the hardwood. Aerie glanced back at the van. She wanted badly to leave.

"Come on in," said Aaron. "Set up your bass."

"Aaron. The jam... the Production... it's not gonna happen. Not tonight."

Aaron came back to the door. "Why not?" His eyelids fluttered.

"Ron and Mal... they were taken in by the police."

Aaron sighed. "What now?" He tossed his keys onto an end table. "Oh, don't tell me he stole that van."

"Oh no. It was borrowed. But... it's about the birdie."

"The birdie? What about the birdie?" Aaron's eyes peeled open wide. He swiveled on his heels and pounded down the hall and into the music room. He screamed as if he had been disemboweled.

Noelle scrambled out of the bathroom, hands dripping. "Aaron, are you alright?"

He stormed back out into the hall, his eyes wild and dangerous. "Where is it? Where'd they take it?"

"It's gone, Aaron."

"Gone? What do you mean, gone? It can't be gone." He stalked up to Aerie, knocking over an umbrella stand, his cheeks and temples tinged with purple, oozing menace. "What do you mean it's gone?"

"Call Ron," said Aerie. "He'll explain. I-I'd... better go." She backed away down the driveway.

"Hold on. You're not going anywhere." He stepped towards her.

Aerie scuttled to the door of the van.

"Oh no you don't! Not until you tell me what happened to my sonant."

Aerie scrambled into the driver's seat. Aaron rushed over and grabbed the edge of the door before she could slam it, ripping from her grip.

"Get out of the car!"

"Aaron, how about we talk when you're a bit calmer. I'll call you. Explain everything."

He grabbed her wrist and yanked her out of the van. She landed hard on the driveway and rolled face-first into a spiky bush.

Noelle shrieked. "Aaron! Don't hurt her. Be nice!"

Aaron held out his hand to help Aerie up. He was out of breath, his face flushed. Aerie accepted his hand and he hauled her up roughly, tweaking her shoulder.

"Sorry," he said, barely audible. His fists tensed and relaxed, tensed and relaxed. "Okay. Tell me. What happened?"

"You have to understand. It wasn't my idea. They brought the birdie to a... a gig... downtown. It... got loose."

Aaron's mouth hung open. His cheeks quivered. "You. Let. It. Out?"

"The jar... shattered. It—"

"Bullshit," said Aaron. "A bell jar wouldn't shatter on its own. It had to have... help."

"Well... no one touched it. I mean, it just shattered. We were playing... and it started going off... singing, I guess you'd call it, and then this electric guitar joined in, and then...."

"Electric guitar? Who?" Aaron took a deep breath. He slumped like a ruptured hot air balloon, slowly deflating. "Where is it? Where did it go?"

"I'm not sure. It just crossed the road and went off into the dark."

"Downtown? You let the thing loose in downtown Ithaca? What the fuck?"

Aerie shrugged. "It wasn't my idea... to do this."

"But you let it happen anyway. Didn't you?" Aaron struggled to find words. His nostrils flared. His face reddened. "Jesus!" Noelle touched his arm gently, her eyes wide and worried.

"You take your shit and get the fuck out of here. The contracts are voided. I don't ever want to see you... any of you... come here ever again. Pass the word. Understand? Never."
Chapter 27: Searching

Blue lights strobed against a chaos of wind-bent goldenrod. Aerie had pulled the van up onto the un-mown shoulder and was searching frantically for the registration. She yanked a fistful of glossy brochures from the glove box. She popped open the center console, pulled down the visors, ran her hands under the seat and into the side compartments of each door. Nothing.

A lanky, backlit figure filled her side mirror. She rolled down the window. The wind scattered the loose brochures.

"Know why I stopped you?" said the trooper.

For helping unleash an unholy terror on the town of Ithaca, she was tempted to ask.

"No."

"You were going 87 in a 45."

She sucked air through her teeth and winced. "That's bad, isn't it?"

"Registration?"

"I couldn't find it. This isn't my car. I was running an errand for my friend."

He shined a Mag light in her eyes. It stung like a slap in the face.

"You had any alcohol tonight young lady?"

"I don't drink, sir. Ever."

"Turn the engine off. Put on your parking brake," said the officer. "Let me have your license. I'll be right back."

Aerie sat mesmerized by the flashing, staring at the lights of Ithaca glittering in the valley below. Minutes passed. The trooper came back. She noticed an extra urgency to his gait.

His voice had turned gruff. "Out of the car. Hands on the roof."

She tried to comply. "I can't reach that high."

"Put 'em up as high as you can," he said, losing patience.

He patted her down as another patrol car came storming up the road, lights flashing. It did an abrupt U-turn and slanted in front of the van, blocking it.

"Hands behind your back," he said.

"For speeding?"

"Not quite. This truck has been reported stolen."

"No way! This is Ron's uncle's. He said he borrowed it."

"You have a right to remain silent. You have the right to an appointed attorney if you are unable to afford counsel. Anything you say can and will be used against you."

"You're arresting me? Wait! Call Ron first. I can give you his number. He can explain everything."

"I'm taking you in. You can explain it all to the nice detective."

***

Aerie spent the night on a vinyl-covered foam pad. They gave her an opportunity to call a lawyer, or call her mom, but chose to do neither. She felt like shriveling into a speck and slipping through the cracks in the floor. She didn't want to deal any of this.

She had hoped to bump into Ron and Mal at the station, but they bypassed downtown and the police station she knew, taking her to some Sheriff's office up on the hill. They took Ron's contact info but were in no rush to call him. That her alibi was based on the word of someone taken in for questioning by the Ithaca Police did not particularly impress them.

She slept little. The moaning from the next cell over didn't help and neither did the constant chatter of the men manning the duty. She lay and stared at a fist-size sky light in the ceiling. It framed a single star. She watched it slant across the window and fade with the coming of dawn.

She had to work that day. Morning prep. She wondered if the cops would let have her call now so she could call in sick to Reggie. She tried calling them over. They ignored her.

At eight, they brought her breakfast—a stale bagel and cream cheese sealed in cellophane and a plastic cup of orange juice. As she sat on her bench and nibbled on the bagel, someone came in and spoke with those at the front desk.

Around nine or so a public defender was due to drop by and she was going to go in for a round of questioning with a detective. It was early, but could that be him?

One of the guards came to her cell, all cheery. "Good news, darlin'. The owner's not pressing charges."

"I can go?" A surge of joy flooded through her. Ron must have come through.

"Yup. You still get two citations and a court appearance, for speeding, driving an unregistered vehicle, but you can go home."

He turned and went back towards the office.

"Aren't you gonna let me out?"

"Hang on, darlin'. We still got some paperwork to do."

It was another hour till she was out of her cell, grungy and wrinkly and in bad need of a shower. The guard led her in her socks to a glassed-in counter outside the cell block. A woman shoved a form in front of her.

"Sign here."

She did and in return was handed a clear plastic bag containing her jacket, purse, cell phone and shoes.

"That's it? What about my other stuff?"

"Oh?"

"That van," said Aerie. "It had my bass in it. My upright bass."

"That vehicle's not here, hon. The Staties probably had it towed and impounded at their yard. You'll have to check with them."

"Are they within walking distance, I hope?"

The woman scrunched her nose. "Not quite. Their barracks is in Freeville; halfway to Dryden. Here, I'll give you a number for a cab company." She scribbled on a pad and tore off a sheet. "Call them. They know us well."

Aerie took it and stuffed it in her purse. She stepped outside. It was frosty. Her breath conjured puffs of mist, her jacket too light to ward off the chill.

She had been distracted and disoriented when they brought her in the night before, but she could see where they had taken her. She was nowhere near downtown. This was the county jail, up on the hill by the airport.

She was already an hour late for work. It would take at least another hour to get a cab and fetch her bass. She called Moosewood and asked for Reggie.

"Aerie? I was worried about you. I heard about your band and that bomb and everything."

"Bomb? Listen Reg, I'm still coming in, but I'm gonna need another hour or so to get there, is that okay?"

"Is everything okay?"

"I'm fine. I just got pulled over for speeding and driving a car they thought was stolen and... well, it's a long story."

"Oh my," said Reggie.

"But if I can get a cab to drop me home. I just need a quick shower and I can come straight in. I can stay late to make up for it." She would worry about fetching her bass later.

"Where are you now?"

"Um. The County Jail. They just released me."

"Oh my."

"It's okay," said Aerie. "They've dropped the charges. Well, the really bad ones, anyhow."

"Listen, Aerie. Why don't you just stay home today, get yourself together. I'll call you later."

"You sure? I don't mind... I'm ready—"

"Just... take of yourself. We'll talk later."

***

The squeal of door hinges welcomed her home. Aerie peeled off her jacket and collapsed onto the sofa, too weary to shower, too wired to sleep, too numb to think.

If she had her bass with her she would have played a little bit. Like a balm, making music soothed her, calmed her, no matter what the situation. It acted as a conduit to release whatever bad vapors had built up in her soul.

But now she had only an empty stand to look at. She couldn't even fondle her 'bag o'bones'—the remnants of the Prescott she had left with Aaron. Forget the nap her body was begging for, she needed to go looking for that Juzek.

She called the State Police in Freeville. They acknowledged that the van had been towed to a lot near the barracks and that before the charges had been dropped, some of the extraneous property within had been processed and secured separately as evidence. She could recover her belongings in person with two forms of ID. She got up off the sofa and went upstairs to get cleaned up.

After a long and luxurious shower, she felt a strong urge to commiserate with her fellow band members. It didn't matter who. Too many weird things had happened. She needed to talk it out.

She had Ron and Sari's cell numbers, at least. She tried Sari first. Her phone rang five times and transferred to voice mail. Trying Ron, she got a message that his number was no longer in service, which made no sense. He was taking calls on that number less than a day before.

She threw together a quick sandwich—paper thin prosciutto and heirloom tomato on crusty bread. It made a fine antidote to her bland breakfast. She ate it on the run, approaching her car with trepidation, hoping it was drivable.

It started right up, much to her surprise and pleasure. No engine light. Nothing untoward.

She zoomed up out of the valley, past Cornell, its peripheral parking lots and orchards, The State Police barracks was easy to find. She pulled into their fenced lot and strode with purpose and a tingle of anticipation over being re-united with her Juzek. Swinging through the glass door, she approached the desk with her purest, most nonchalant smile.

"Hi there. Some belongings of mine were in a van that got impounded last night. I came to pick them up."

"Name?" said a woman with a bristle of short-cropped honey-colored hair.

"Walker. Aerie Walker." She slapped her passport and a driver's license onto the counter.

Her fingers did a quick, little tap dance on her keyboard. "Just a moment." She went into a back room. She was gone for a good ten minutes before returning with a quart-sized plastic bag bearing Aaron's composition notebook.

"Here you go. Just sign here."

"Wait a minute. What about my bass?" A tingle of alarm prickled Aerie's skin.

"I'm sorry?"

"There was a bass, as well, a large, acoustic upright bass in the back of that van."

"I'm sorry ma'am. This was the only personal item in the vehicle. The rest was just carpet cleaning equipment."

"No way. That big, black thing in back? That was my bass."

The woman pursed her lips. "Let me take your information. I can ask around."

"Take me back there. I'll show you. There're papers in it with my name, I'm sure. I think there's even a checkbook zipped into one of the side pockets."

"I'm sorry ma'am, but the van's not here. The owner picked it up earlier this morning."

"What?" Aerie's stomach dropped. "You just let him drive off with my $6,000 bass?"

"I think someone would have noticed if there was a bass in the back."

"It was there! I loaded it into the van, myself."

The woman's eyelids fluttered. "The officer who handled this is off-duty. I can look into this and give you a call. Alright? It's the best I can do."

***

Something like a fever possessed Aerie as she drove downtown, quivering her stomach, making her breaths shallow and quick. That bass had better not be stolen.

When her Prescott had been destroyed, she had search for months at luthier and pawn shops from Ohio to Maine for one that felt the way the Prescott under her hand, and had a sound that could both cut through horns and fill a room. She had failed, the Prescott was one of a kind, but the growl of the Juzek had charmed her nonetheless.

The engine light came back on to haunt her. The car still ran just fine, so she ignored it. She circled around the Commons, and pulled into a patch of cracked and weedy parking lot off Green Street. She rushed around the back of the abandoned print shop.

The green hulk of a shiny, new dumpster lurked around the corner, and in it was the remains of Ron's little shanty. The space behind the building had been stripped to bare concrete.

Aerie hovered, stunned, scuffing her feet on the pebbles. She tried dialing Ron again, but got nowhere. She turned and walked slowly back to the car.

She called the hospital next, to see if Eleni might have been admitted. The receptionist wouldn't tell her much, other than that no one named Eleni Tark was currently listed among their patients. Come to think of it, her wounds, while extensive, had been fairly superficial. She had probably been treated and released.

Aerie sat in the car watching the traffic zoom by in pulses released by the light cycles. She tried one more thing—dialing 411 to get a number for Mason's Carpet Cleaning. It turned out they were based in Cortland, one county over to the east. She felt a tingle as the number connected, only to listen to a recording, announcing their bankruptcy and thanking their loyal customers. It was just as Ron had said.

What now? Call the insurance company? She would need a police report first. That would mean calling the Ithaca Police and reporting her bass stolen from a van that had been reported stolen and that she herself had been suspected of stealing. She had had enough of the police for one day and just didn't have the energy to nuance an explanation. She deferred the task for another day when her head felt clearer.

She went home, defeated. The engine light flickered off and on. Steam curled out of the seams of her hood by the time she pulled into her space. She grabbed the notebook, still in its plastic bag, and huffed her way back into the apartment, picking the day's Ithaca Journal off the driveway.

She collapsed onto the sofa and peeled the sleeve off the paper and unfolded it, startled to find Eleni's face peering back at her from a photo in the corner under the headline: 'Twelve injured after performance art stunt goes awry.'

She proceeded to read the most superficial, inaccurate and insulting story. It described their music as 'a wall of noise.' The implosion was attributed to a 'liquid nitrogen bomb' and the thing that came out of it was described as 'a sputtering ball of mist.' Both Ron and Mal had been charged with reckless endangerment, but released on bail.

The phone rang. She didn't even bother to check the caller ID.

"Hullo?"

"Aerie, this is Reggie. Are you sitting down?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Listen. The partners had a meeting this afternoon. And... we were under pressure to make some cutbacks in staff anyhow. You've kinda, sorta been put on furlow."

"Furlow? What's a furlow?"

"It means that you won't have to worry about coming back to work right away. But we'll be keeping your name on a short list. I'll stay in touch. As the season progresses. Who knows? We can think about hiring you back."

Tears popped into the wells of Aerie's eyes. They spilled before she could blot them with her sleeve. "I'm fired?" She failed to control the warble in her voice.

"Not permanently. It's just that you picked a bad day for all this... stuff... to happen."

"I... picked a bad day?"

"We've been under pressure to cut costs. Traffic's been light. We were going to have to reduce staff anyhow."

"So you picked me. I guess I made it easy for you."

"Aerie, you know that we love you as a person. Everybody is concerned about you. It was really a difficult decision. I understand if you want to look for another job. Feel free to use me as a reference. You're a good worker. You really are. It's just... a little more consistency would be nice."

"Thanks, Reg." She hung up. That old feeling, the one that used to plague her before she had pills to keep her elevated, started to settle in, weighing down her limbs, pinning her to the sofa like a butterfly in a museum display. She couldn't remember when she had last taken her medicines or where she had left them. She didn't particularly care.
Chapter 28: Flight

The Delta flight ascended from Dulles and banked over the Potomac. Donnie tilted his head against the window to watch the dying sun glint off the river. As shadows consumed Northern Virginia, rows of street lights flickered on like pixelated lightning.

Tammie leaned over his armrest and stared out the window.

"Did you want the window seat, Tam? I'm sorry, I should have asked."

"Nah, I just wanted a peek. My old hometown's down there somewhere."

"You lived in Arlington?"

"Alexandria."

"Miss it?"

"Not really. I was six when we left. I'm just curious what it looks like."

Rank after rank of suburban developments shuttled beneath, crammed together in sinuous lines like cancer cells in a biopsy.

"Look at them houses," she said. "Maxed-out square footage on those tiny lots. How can people live cheek to jowl like that? Do they never go outside?"

"Garage mahals," said Donnie. "That's what my ex-wife called them. Though, I'm one to talk. I suppose my latest place qualifies."

"You've got a yard, at least," said Tammie.

"Yeah. Though, not quite like the Swain's, huh? With that Connecticut Hill place out back."

"That's no yard. That's a dang pocket wilderness."

Donnie felt like such a coward for leaving Jerry and Rand behind with all that unfinished business. Was he actually running from a fight? It sure looked that way.

America's premier demon slayer, as PrayerFolk, that glossy Christian clone of People Magazine had hyped him. He, the Reverend Donald Beasley, was tucking tail back to Georgia.

Thanks to his haste, the consecration service that afternoon had been slapdash and superficial. Half of Mac's parish had shown up. John had put together trays heaping with tasty little cucumber and chicken salad sandwiches. A little singing, some prayers and he and Tam were dashing for the airport.

He had worried how Mac would react to his flight, but his ex-friend, for the most part, seemed satisfied with the services Donnie had rendered. He had ribbed Donnie a bit about his leaving so soon, but seemed satisfied with having Jerry follow-up the intervention. He gave no indication that they had left any obligations unsettled.

It helped that his paramour seemed perfectly fine with his leaving, feeling blessed to have a deliverance Minister of such eminence take the time to visit her in person. Cindy seemed convinced that the problem with the hell house was solved, and that her abode has been purified and sanctified, so much so, that she had even brought her little boys back to stay for good.

Throughout the service, Donnie had watched the tykes being trundled about by their grandparents, a pair of the nicest South Carolinian transplants one could hope to meet in the Great White North. He had struggled to find a way to get the Swains to exert a little more vigilance, but couldn't phrase it in a manner that wouldn't destroy his rationale for leaving. Cindy seemed to assume that he was displaying an overabundance of caution in leaving Jerry and Rand behind to keep a watch on things.

And then at the airport, he almost took a spill as he walked by a news rack. There on the front page of the Ithaca Journal, a picture of a young woman being led down some stairs, arms held out, a pained expression on her face—one of the girls from the hell house gang. There had been an incident downtown, some sort of weird vandalism involving music. Twelve had been injured by a swirly thing that had burst from a glass vessel.

Donnie knew he was leaving Ithaca with the threat by no means contained. They had tamped it down in one place only to have it pop up in another. Now that he was gone, what was to prevent it from returning to the hell house, not to mention whatever lay in wait for them in those woods.

He said a quick prayer for Jerry and Rand and laid his head back against the seat. The plane lifted into a patch of wispy clouds. The landscape below lost all definition and transformed into a grid of darkness and light.

Jerry would be fine. He was a warrior. He might not enjoy the same level of relationship that Donnie shared with God, but he could scrap with any demon. Besides, he had the Holy Fire and his arsenal of silver, not just the bird shot, but heat-hardened stilettos and chains and Lord knows what else in that tool case in the back of his F150.

The Holy Fire they had brought was not the most potent in their collection, but it was the purest. It was the sort that would do as it was demanded, and only as demanded via prayer, and not bite back its wielder the way some of the fiercer ordinance in their armory behaved. The more Donnie thought about the situations that Jerry had been through over the years and come out on top, the better he felt about the whole decision.

The worst by far had been the Dominican case involving that hell hound. An evangelical ministry had called them in to handle a case of animal possession, a monster dog that came out only at night to maul the urchins and elderly of San Cristobal. An elusive beast, the local constables had been unable to dispatch it with their handguns. Either they were bad shots or, as they insisted, the beast bore unearthly protections that rendered it bulletproof.

For three nights, Jerry had stalked the thing, and had been bitten himself when he had cornered it in a junkyard, tearing into his thigh above the calf-high boots he had worn for protection. Rabies, said the authorities, but from what Jerry was able to capture on video, this was no mere sick dog. It was too strong, too wily, and had the oddest tendency to rear up on its hind legs, as if it had once been a man.

Jerry had ended up fooling the thing on the abandoned street where it prowled, dressing up in the smelly, louse-infested rags of a homeless person the thing had murdered one night. He had let the damned thing stalk him as if he were meat, and as it pounced, had taken the thing down with a wrestling move, slipping his silver dagger under its ribcage as he delivered his prayer for deliverance.

Jerry was proudest of those scars, and although his story did grow a bit wearisome on a long ride, it made for some wonderful marketing copy.

No, Donnie didn't have to worry about Jerry. He and Rand would be just fine. He took a deep breath. His lungs seemed to fill more easily than they had in days, as if free of the strictures that had limited their expansion.

"I feel lighter, Tam. Do you feel lighter? Do you feel blessed?"

"I feel thirsty," she said.

"But we're going home, Tam. Getting away from all that wickedness."

"It ain't like there's no shortage of wicked things in Athens or Atlanta. I'm just glad to get away from that chill. Did you see that frost covering everything this morning? We're hardly into October."

"But there was a heaviness enveloping everything up there that seems to be gone. Do you not feel that? It's like the good Lord pulled back the blanket of wickedness that had been smothering us."

"I'm sorry, Donnie, but I'm not really feeling that. But, then again, I didn't get the tummy bug that you got."

"Tummy bug? That was not just some tummy bug."

"You really think—?"

"You betcha. I've had possessions attempted before, but never as close to succeeding as this."

Tammie's eyes seemed to pop open a little wider, as the implications seemed to sink in. "Maybe they went after you, because they saw you were the biggest danger to them. Even with Jerry and all his silver bullets, you were the biggest threat."

"I kind of feel bad, leaving Jerry and Rand up there all on their own."

"Oh, don't feel bad, Rand's having fun. And this is Jerry we're talking about. He's in his glory." Tammie chuckled. "For one thing, he's got an excuse to go hunting on the company dime. Did you see that place? It's crawling with deer and turkey and quail."

"No," said Donnie. "I think he's after bigger prey." A thick deck of clouds had conspired with the night to turn the view opaque. Donnie saw his own image staring back at him in the reflection. "I just hope... they don't turn out to be predators."
Chapter 29: Fading

Sun lapped the thick, silk pile of Aerie's favorite rug—a royal blue clash of abstract flowers and diamonds. She had spent half the day curled up in the sun, following it around the corners of the carpet like a human sundial, pivoting around her Hello Kitty lunchbox, repository of her dearest treasures.

Empty pints of Purity ice cream lined the coffee table, chocolate bittersweet, peach, coconut—a dirty spoon in each. Ice cream was about all she could stomach over the last few days. She didn't even enjoy the way she should have. Eating had become just a mechanical shoving of nutriment into her mouth.

Her supply was running out and she could not fathom she would ever drag herself off the carpet to go out and buy some more. The smothering force she knew so well from the time before the pills had moved back into her life like a ten ton quilt.

Like a skeleton propped in the corner, her empty bass stand kept snagging her gaze and clutching at her heart. Two days of haggling with police, carpet cleaners, tow men and insurance adjustors had yielded nothing.

None of the parties involved would acknowledge that the thing had ever existed, never mind take responsibility for its loss. It was as if five feet and thirty pounds of spruce, maple, ebony and steel had simply vaporized. Neither the Staties nor the locals could be convinced to prepare a theft report for her, and without it she had no chance of procuring a replacement. She no longer had strength or will to tangle with these idiots.

Whatever vortex had consumed her bass had also apparently made off with her new friends. There seemed no trace of them in Ithaca. Ron, with his debts, was perhaps laying low from Julius. Sari could be off somewhere in Toronto with Vida. Their MySpace page told of a new string of gigs across Ontario. Eleni? Mal? Who knew?

Before the funk had consumed her, she looked up Hollis on the web. From what she could discern, his jazz career seemed in full and promiscuous resurgence. She found new listings in the Village Voice entertainment calendar and even a new review in some Harlem weekly. He seemed in high demand as a sideman again, playing free jazz as well as bebop.

Her urge to go see him, so strong only days ago, had since faded, like all those other needs that seemed to matter less of late. Besides, it would only be awkward, showing up at one of his gigs out of the blue and without a bass. He would have probably snarfed a reed up his nose.

As her patch of sun dwindled, she reached deep to try to summon the energy she needed to drag herself onto the sofa, but it was nowhere to be found. She just laid there, cheek against wool.

The phone rang. She let it ring without answering, as she had with every other call for the last day or so. No more rushing to the phone, hoping it would be Ron or even Sari, calling to commiserate and reflect on what had happened the other night at the Arts Coop.

Every call turned out to be someone she had no desire to speak with: her landlord, a telemarketer, her Aunt Sadie. It was if her little band of misfits had vaporized.

She had gone to great lengths to find them, taking long walks to every corner of town, ducking into bars, book shops, Salvation Army stores, staying out all day, all night, hoping to bump into someone, anyone.

The skaters kept mum about Ron, to the point of pretending not to know him, through they knew she knew better. She could tell from their eyes that they knew something they weren't telling.

And then yesterday, something inside her crumbled. Her will had become disconnected from her body, and started to fritter away. She didn't care anymore about finding anyone. She didn't care much about anything. Eating. Washing. Changing her clothes. Other than one nocturnal excursion to Purity Ice Cream, getting up to fetch a glass of water or use the bathroom was about all she could muster.

But at the same time, an odd little kernel giddiness grew, infesting her heart like a parasite. It hadn't yet manifested into anything tangible or specific, but she could feel it nudging her towards some semblance of a path where there had only been a wall.

She recognized the feeling from that dark time in Tokyo after Hollis left and everything started to fall apart. Then, she had spent her waking hours huddled in a little nomiya micro pub buried deep among the back alleys of Shinjuku. She had wasted entire days there, subsisting on soba and sake, waiting for something or someone to give her a reason to continue, returning to her room smashed and alone night after night.

Twelve, she counted, before the ringing stopped. This had been someone who really, really wanted to speak with her. Most callers gave up after five. And then it started ringing again. This time she picked up. Who was she to deny a wish so fervent?

"Hullo?"

"Aerie?"

"Mommie?"

A pause. "You haven't called me mommie since you were in fifth grade."

"I must be regressing."

"Your voice. It sounds slurred. Have you been drinking?"

"Just... sleepy."

"It's almost one o'clock in the afternoon."

"Nappie time."

"I thought you worked lunches on Tuesdays."

"Why'd you even call if you thought I was at work?"

"Because I haven't been able to reach you any other time. I thought I'd give it a shot. Why didn't you show up at Sadie's? What gives?"

"Sadie?"

"She had invited you for dinner last night."

"Must have forgotten. I've been... busy. Been having car trouble."

"You could have called her to let her know—"

"Coulda, woulda, shoulda."

"Are you taking your medications?"

"Why wouldn't I? I mean, I might miss a pill or two, but—"

"My biopsy was negative."

Silence. "What biopsy?"

"I told you, I was having something checked. That's why I haven't been able to travel. But now that it's negative—"

"Biopsy for what?"

"Oh, it was just a lump that showed up on a mammogram. But it was negative. So it's nothing to worry about. So I'm coming up there. To Ithaca."

"When?"

"Thursday. Can you pick me up? It's Piedmont Airlines. I get in about eleven."

***

Aerie kept the phone pressed to her cheek long after her mother had said goodbye. Her mom had ended the conversation in tears, sensing from the shift in Aerie's tone that something was terribly wrong with her daughter. She threatened to send Aunt Sadie there, now, not realizing that only made things worse.

As Aerie surveyed the sty she had let her apartment become, a riptide of despair overtook her. Between the ice cream drips, week-old dishes in the sink, soiled laundry and dust bunnies everywhere, it would take a week to get the place in order enough to pass muster with her mom and conceal the disorder cluttering her brain.

She rose slowly onto her knees, gripping the coffee table to pull herself up, laboring like an oxygen-deprived mountaineer trudging up Kilimanjaro. She went into the kitchen, and paused before the drawer where she kept the sponges and dust cloths, but couldn't bring herself to open it. Instead she went to the freezer and retrieved the last pint of ice cream that was left. Pumpkin.

She went back to the sofa, plopped down and worked her way down the pint, spoon by spoon. As she did so, the tiny kernel of glee she had been cultivating reasserted itself. She grasped and nurtured it, seduced by its promise of relief. She was going to get it done, how she did not yet know, but today it would get done, by hook or crook.

She descended to the carpet and snapped open her stamped metal Hello Kitty lunchbox, scratched and dented from a hundred travels. She inverted it over the coffee table and out spilled the characters of her fantasy worlds from kindergarten to junior high, who had kept her company across the voids of long vacations and friendless weekends.

She took muster of her old friends: PlaySkool farmers and mechanics, PlayMobil princesses and peasants, Lego dragons and unicorns. She lined them up along a precipice of walnut veneer.

Twice rescued from the trash, occupying a disproportionate slice of her heart and suitcase wherever she had traveled, this morning they meant nothing to her. They stared blankly, dead and inert, inspiring none of the sentiment that had preserved them into her adulthood.

She raised her hand to swipe them onto the floor, but caught herself. Instead she went to the door, glancing back at the figures, noting one little plastic arm raised in goodbye.

***

It must have been eighty degrees out, a lovely Indian Summer day. Aerie walked barefoot down the front walk, clad in plaid pajama bottoms and a rising sun T-shirt. She didn't bother to lock the apartment behind her.

She walked through neighborhood after neighborhood, stopping at the bridge over Fall Creek staring up at Ithaca Falls as it plunged from one of the gorges that cut through Cornell's campus. It tempted her, but she heeded instead the call of Cayuga Lake.

She passed the high school she would have attended had her family remained intact. A band practiced 'Satin Doll' in the auditorium. A gym class played field hockey on fake grass.

She crossed Route 13, not bothering to look both ways, feeling a bit surprised and unlucky that she had made it across unharmed. She strolled through Stewart Park, past the swing sets and slides, heading for a graveled, weed cluttered cove, passing a little boy with a toy dump truck full of grit. She stepped straight into the water across the slimy stones. The boy stood and watched her, gaping until he plugged his mouth with a thumb.

His mother came scurrying over and took his hand.

"Mommie. That lady's swimming in her clothes." His mother shushed him and led him back to the playground.

Aerie strode out until she was chest deep. She pushed off and swam for the center of Cayuga, a mile wide down here at the tip, and forty miles long, a hundred meters deep at its deepest. A skin of sun-warmed water clung to surface. Aerie swam at the interface, the chill of Cayuga's depths lapping at her limbs as she dug with each stroke.

She kicked and stroked like an automaton, not thinking about what would happen, focusing just on getting farther out into the deepest, widest parts of the lake. She was never the strongest swimmer, but she did alright. When she tired, she rested by rolling onto her back, and letting the acid burn in her muscles dissipate. Eventually, she would fail and nature would take its course.

Drowning seemed like one of the more gentle ways to go. She expected some initial panic and discomfort, perhaps, but it wouldn't last long. Maybe all of this exertion would rob her cells of oxygen and help her blank out more quickly. How bad could it be compared to drinking cyanide or being hit by a truck?

A nugget of regret took hold as the weeping willows of Stewart Park grew small behind her. Her line of travel drifted west, closer to shore. She kicked back towards the center, but found herself drifting left again. As the sting in her muscles grew and her stroke degenerated into the rudest dog paddle, something inside of her took over and sent her clawing towards a row of boulders and a dock.

She came dripping out of the lake, feeling even more a failure. She passed a perfect little cottage of periwinkle blue surrounded by tidy little gardens, wondering what sort of creature lived in such a place. She made her way up their long, graveled drive, past a flowery, hand-painted mailbox, out to Route 79.

She looked back towards Ithaca, and the hills and clefts backing it. She considered going home, but the thought of being back in her filthy apartment, with the specter of Aunt Sadie possibly waiting for her on the porch, filled her with dread.

She remembered Taughannock Park, its gorge and spectacular waterfall just up the road. How many miles was it? Five? Six? She didn't care. She turned right and began walking along the shoulder.

Déjà vous crept over her. Memories of her suicide attempt in Shinjuku came seeping back, as if a secret chamber in her brain had been unlocked. She recalled the thrill and relief of slipping that loop of cable from a bicycle lock around her neck: like starting off on a new adventure, like the promise of much needed rest.

Route 89 had a speed limit of 55 for much of its length. Even at that speed, Aerie captured snapshot glimpses of passing faces, some oblivious, some surprised, some displaying flashes of concern.

One car even slowed abruptly, as if the driver thought of stopping to help her, but reconsidered. Why would anyone stop, with her looking like a crazy person in her muddy pajamas and bedraggled hair?

Mile after mile she walked, past summer cottages, a children's camp all buttoned up for the season. For a time, the road slanted up the hillside, diverging from the lake, visible only on occasion in glimpses through the trees.

She noticed so many things she never noticed traveling by car: a sign for the town of Ulysses, a yard filled with bizarre objet d'art—twisted mushroom shapes, cast in resin or concrete and garishly painted. The restaurant perched on a height near one of the few overlooks told her when she had reached the halfway point. The nature center and its open fields brought her ever closer.

Her feet held up well on the pavement and gravel. She had always prided herself on the toughness of her soles, though frankly they were feeling quite numb at the moment, though frankly, if she had trod on the brown and green shards of beer bottles she regularly had to avoid, they may have been too numb to notice.

She became so caught up in the trance and rhythms of her journey that the State Park startled when she finally reached it. She passed the gorge road, and the parking lot leading to the trails, heading for the low bridge over Taughannock Creek itself.

She gazed up into the gorge, its mysteries concealed around a bend. The creek was but a shallow trickle after a nearly rainless summer, but an angry, grey bank of clouds angling in over the hills promised a remedy.

She turned and looked at the lake. It was much wider here. The wind had conjured a million toothy wavelets that caught the sun like so many twinkling mirrors. A grim line of shadow slanted across the lake, advancing and snuffing the light that brought them life.

A sailboat raced past Taughannock's little delta. Aerie had never ridden on such a craft. It struck her that those who possessed them were some distinctly different race of human and Aerie was a mere visitor to their planet.

She sighed and doubled back, turning into the parking lot, heading for the trail leading into the gorge. Her pajamas had dried and were caked and crusted with bits of mud and pickerel weed. Her hair, moussed with algae, flew every which way in the swirling gusts.

Thunder rumbled. A young mother with two squealing pre-schoolers and a muddy golden retriever dashed for their car, giggling. The woman did a double take when she saw Aerie, but kept at her task, strapping her children into their car seats, toweling off the dog. Aerie walked right by them, half-hoping the woman would say something, ask if she was okay, if she needed any help, although Aerie knew that nothing the woman could have said would have stopped her.

She passed through a thick stand of hemlocks, branches entwined, choking the light. The confinement made her anxious so she veered off the trail, seeking open sky overhead. She climbed down to the stream bed, a broad avenue of slate, stepping up layer by layer between the sinuous walls of the gorge. Lazy cascades dropped over each step.

A small piece of Aerie resisted, but resistance was futile. She didn't buy the argument that this was some chemical imbalance in her brain, some fixable distortion in her thought pattern. The truth was, she was not fit for this world.

She felt like a deep-sea fish stranded on a beach with the atmosphere of Jupiter pressing down on her. She knew the feeling well. It had been much the same in high school, and in Tokyo after Hollis left. The pills had helped conceal it for a while, but the feeling had never gone away. It had always been there, lurking somewhere deep behind her ribs.

The recent bad turn of events had helped it bull its way to the fore, but it would have found its way out eventually anyway. The truth always did prevail. No single factor had set it off—not the arrest, the firings, the aborted music, her missing friends. She couldn't even blame it on the accumulated insults. Restoring any or all of those things wouldn't make a speck of difference now. It was too late for that. The monster was out of its cage.

But maybe it was a good thing. The fates had rewarded her with yet another glimpse of the fiasco behind the curtain, at the big lie that made up most people's lives and got them through their days. All of these people struggling all of their lives, only to have everything fritter away in the end. Life was like a lottery that nobody ever wins. A scarce few receive a consolation prize or two to show for their efforts.

The gorge opened into the massive bowl harboring Taughannock Falls. The waterfall was but a pathetic dribble compared to the thundering column she had remembered.

The dark ledge of the storm front muscled in overhead. Both trails, at creek level and along the rim, were vacant. Thunderstorm or not, it was odd to find the gorge devoid of hikers on such a fine October day. She would have expected someone to be here, leas peepers, retirees. Someone. She wasn't sure whether to feel glad or disappointed about the lack of witnesses.

She picked her way up the first of a number of layered ledges as shreds of wind-swept rain raked the gorge wall. Flakes of shale crumbled under toe. Handholds broke away under her grip. Her heart pounded, less out of fear for her own safety than for the realization that a fall here, ten feet up, would only break limbs, rendering her immobile and at the mercy of paramedics, doctors and nurses, not to mention her mom.

She worked her way over to a chute where the stone looked more solid, and that cut through the undercuts and overhangs impeding her ascent. The higher she climbed, the calmer she became, choosing holds with confidence and grace, as the chances of surviving a slip diminished.

Normally afraid of heights, she marveled at her newfound courage. She thrilled at the feeling of all that space dropping beneath her. The synapses in charge of self-preservation were on strike, leaving her with an exhilarating sense of freedom. She felt invincible.

Rain came down in spits and bursts. Grey threads reached to the now steely lake and scuffed its surface. Aerie climbed around to the notch that brought the creek to the lip of the precipice and sat down, dangling her feet over the ledge, surprised to have made it this far intact. Her body parted the feeble stream, making twin jets.

Her stomach grumbled, informing her of its craving for pepperoni pizza, which was ludicrous and pathetic because it knew as well as she did that there was to be no more pizza, no more eating, ever. She had transcended such needs. Her decision had finally quieted the turmoil in her head and lifted the shroud of lead that had oppressed her.

Sure, mysteries remained, but even those who live to be a hundred left loose ends undone, places never seen, relationships never resolved. She was so close now. She couldn't turn her back on this opportunity. She had worked hard to get here. Relief, in the form of a hundred foot drop, lay just over the brink.

Gobbets of rain pelted her. Swarms of mist swirled around the bowl of the gorge. She released her finger hold on the slick, slate capstone, and let the water nudge her back. A giddy thrill arose with the realization that her torments would cease.

Lightning split the sky overhead, thundering a split second after each flash. The heart of the storm was at hand. The rain fell in cold, hard strings. Rivulets poured off the ledges and the creek began to rise. The force against her back increased.

Her bottom gave way and began to slide. Exhilaration turned to panic. She clawed at the slick slab, seeking the crack she had clung to before, finding only seamless stone. Calves, knees, thighs projected over the edge. Heart thumping, she twisted around and lunged for an overhanging shrub, rooted tenuously in the wall of shale. It arrested her slide momentarily, but she could already feel it giving way as the water shoved her back towards the precipice.

The torrent grew, shoving at her chest, splashing up and over her head. Her fingers found a root and clenched. She wedged her fist into a gap. Reaching upstream for another notch, she pulled herself flush against the side of the channel and against the flow until her feet met stone. She lifted herself and climbed a crumbly ladder of stone millions of years in the making, out of the grasp of the suddenly turbulent creek. She crawled through brambles atop the ledge and collapsed, panting, letting the storm have its way and pelt her with hail as her heart bashed her ribcage.

When the darkness had passed to the other side of the lake and the rain gave way to a chill wind, she bushwhacked to a hiking trail and made her way along the rim of the gorge and down through hemlocks to the parking area below. In the gathering dusk she picked wine berries, filling the lifted hem of her T-shirt, and began the long walk home, feeling neither defeated nor victorious.

Simply alive.
Chapter 30: Traps

John burst from the unemployment office, stinging with humiliation from a session with a counselor who understood diddly-squat about his profession. She had badgered him into arranging an interview with a paving company that specialized in parking lots. What part of electrical engineer could they not understand?

The front that had borne yesterday's thunder had stalled and left Ithaca buried under a bank of clouds that hovered low like a fog. The soupy air made it hard to breathe.

October thunderstorms in Ithaca usually heralded frostier weather. Strange, how this anomalous, fetid air mass refused to yield, as if something were amiss in Heaven's machinery.

John clomped down the sidewalk, gaze focused on his parked car. He had felt antsy and desperate ever since leaving home that morning. He couldn't stop thinking about Aerie.

In the waiting room at the unemployment office he had scoured copies of the Grapevine Weekly and the Ithaca Times hoping to find a listing for the next performance of her band, but there was no mention of them, or even of the other band, Vida.

In the daily newspaper, stories covering the incident at the Arts Coop had dwindled to nothing after two days of front page attention. Though many questions remained unresolved, the affair had been shunted under a rug, the incident too weird, perhaps, for local journalists to digest.

It was ten-thirty, not even close to lunchtime. Yet, he had a burning urge to go to that veggie place, the restaurant where she had said that she worked.

This was insanity. Chores waited at home. Laundry was piling up. The rugs needed vacuuming. He had left the kids with Jerry and Rand, overgrown boys themselves, hardly the most dependable babysitters, obsessed and distracted by every flutter in the hedges, every smudge of green pixels on their EMF monitors.

He reached his car, fished out his keys and stood by the door jangling them. Beads of sweat rolled down his ribs beneath his loose shirt. He shoved the keys back into his pocket and pulled out a quarter, adding thirty minutes to the meter.

As he doubled back towards the restaurant the floodgates of guilt broke loose. But what else could he do? He couldn't rid the images of her from his mind—her piercing eyes, her face agitated and aflame as he helped her load up the van, her silhouette framed in the oncoming headlights.

Maybe he didn't have to order a meal. Maybe he could just pop his head into the kitchen for a brief word with her, see how she was coping. Maybe that would suffice to calm his heart.

He walked as fast as he could without breaking into a run, darting across the street against a red light, trotted down the stairs and into DeWitt Mall, heading straight for the entrance of Moosewood.

He paused before entering to gather his breath. This was going to be awkward.

The restaurant was nearly empty. It took a good minute for the greeter to even notice him, and come rushing over.

"Table for one?" She gave him a round, open smile.

"Um. Actually, I was wondering if I might be able to see Aerie... Aerie Walker... for a moment? I could wait, if she's got a break coming up."

She blinked at him. "Are you... a relative?"

"Not quite. I mean... no."

"Hang on." She ducked into the kitchen. Another woman emerged. She was somewhat older, thirty-something with kindly, almost sad brown eyes. Her hair was twisted and woven in thin strands into an intricate braid.

"I'm Regina. How can I help you?"

"Yeah, um, I'm a friend of Aerie's and I was wondering if she was around. I just wanted to have a brief word."

The woman dipped her chin and gave him a probing look. He slipped his hand in his pocket to hide his wedding band.

"Aerie doesn't work here anymore." She rocked on the balls of her feet. "How is it... that you know her?"

"I'm just a friend. I just hadn't seen her around in a while. I wanted to touch base, see if she was okay."

"Haven't you tried calling her?"

"Um...." The woman looked deeply into his eyes. John felt hot blood seeping to the surface of his face.

"I... I was passing by. Thought I should check on her. I was... worried."

The woman frowned. "You don't have her number, do you?"

He shook his head.

"Aerie doesn't work here anymore." Her eyes flickered. "She could probably use a visit from a friend, but I'm afraid I can't give you any contact info. I mean, you seem nice enough and all, but it's against policy. I hope you understand."

"Privacy. Sure, I get it. Not a problem."

"Her number's not listed. But if you ask around... music circles in particular."

"I'll do that," said John. "Thanks." As he turned to leave, the woman touched his shoulder. He wheeled around to be pinned by her penetrating gaze.

"Hey," she said. "Good luck."

***

He drove home, not even listening to what seemed on the surface to be an intense political discussion on NPR. He barely noticed that he had made the turn into the cul-de-sac until he had pulled into the driveway and the act was complete.

The sound of his Hoover upright carried out through the open windows. He entered the foyer to find Jerry vacuuming in his cammie-patterned bib overalls, a feather duster jammed into his back pocket. Rand sat on the floor of the kitchen playing blocks with Nigel, while Jason bounced in his bouncer.

"Did some chores while you were out," said Jerry. "Washed the dishes. Did a load of colors."

"Well, gee. Thanks Jer."

"This way, you can come out with me to them woods. Rand'll watch the kids."

"Um, I'd rather not, thanks. There's a lot more to do and—"

"Listen." Jerry took him by the elbow and led him out of the room. "Rand's a good kid and all," he whispered. "But he's got no woods sense whatsoever. Tripping on every twig. Chattering non-stop. I'd appreciate it if you could come out with me."

"Uh, I don't know, Jer." He sucked in his breath through clenched teeth.

Jerry twisted the corner of his mouth and hoisted up a pack dangling with ropes and gear.

"C'mon. You're coming along."

John sighed and grabbed his jacket off a coat stand.

***

They stood on the mossy ledge overlooking the hell house. Fallen leaves obscured some of the tracks. There were no fresh traces. Jerry had strapped a pair of camouflaged plastic boxes to trees on each side of the moss patch.

"What the heck are those?"

"Bushnell scouting cameras with motion sensors and a flash. If anything goes by, we get a picture, automatic, day or night.

John struggled over how or if to tell Jerry about what he had witnessed at the Arts Coop. All Jerry knew about the incident was what he had read in the newspaper. As far as Cindy knew, he had been at Madeline's having dinner with Dale. But it didn't seem fair to leave him in the cold.

"I was in Ithaca today, Jer, talking to some people, and at that band show the other night. Where the supposed bomb went off? There was one of these things there, and it etched a groove in the pavement—like acid, just like we see here through the moss."

"Don't surprise me one bit. That was a fucking fra diavol."

"You know of these things?"

"Oh yeah."

"You've seen them? Up close?"

"Not quite. But I aim to. We ran into one in the Ozarks, once. A little town, deep in the hills. The thing came out whenever it wanted, sun or no sun. Spooked the whole damn community, carving up lawns, ruining paint jobs on cars."

"Donnie sent a team out, but they couldn't do crap. So then he sent me, and I had no better luck. The thing just went on its way when it was good and ready. Of course, Donnie gave me credit for a deliverance."

"Fra diavol, what does that mean?"

"Mean's devil's little brother. Problem is, any spin of wind can kick up dust. Makes for a lot of background noise to sift through and find these fuckers. Every place on earth's got stories of whirlwinds, dust devils and shit. Most of the time, they're just some little spin of the wind that peters. But some keep on spinning and spinning like they got turbines up their ass."

"Those ones, are they dangerous?"

"Don't know. That's what Donnie and me are trying to figure out. Still." He taped a clear plastic sheet around a tree and sprayed it with some aerosol. "This is Tanglefoot. It's a kind of stickum orchardists to trap peach borers. I use it to pick up traces of fur and stuff when things rub against it. Gives us more clues about what we might dealing with."

"Fur?"

"Whatever." Jerry shrugged. "They gotta be made of something. Maybe we can get 'em to leave a piece of themselves behind." He wrapped and sprayed a second tree. "There. Now let's go hunting."

He strode off into the forest. John took one longing glimpse of the subdivision below, before trotting after him.

***

They zigged and zagged across knobs and ridges, through forest and clear cuts leveled by game managers seeking to maintain some artificial meadows diversify the habitat. Much of it, John recognized from their prior excursion. Some of it was a whole new world, like the stands of spiky, needle-fallen tamarack standing sentinel over the banks of bogs ringed with crimson-leafed blueberry bushes.

A ravine with a wall of collapsed ledges forming caves drew an inordinate amount of attention from Jerry. When he got down on his belly and started to crawl into one, John had had enough.

"Don't expect me to follow you in there."

"Oh, I ain't going in," said Jerry, shining the beam of his little metallic blue flashlight into the lair. "Too cramped. Dusty."

"Watch out. It might be a den for some kind of animal."

"Might be? It is a den."

"For what?"

"Not exactly sure," said Jerry. "Ain't a vegetarian, I'll tell you that." He crawled out, got up and moseyed along the line of tumbled stone. "Now I kinda wish we'd a waited and set one of those scout cameras here. This is a place that gets some action."

John tried to find the sun, lost behind ridge and cloud. "You know where we are?"

"I know exactly where we are." He patted his GPS, but did a double-take and frowned. "Or I will, soon as we get out of this wrinkle and catch another satellite."

Above the ravine, they hit a plateau. Jerry clipped a supplementary GPS antenna to his slouch cap. His face relaxed. "This way." He strode off confidently down a corridor of oaks, their boles thick and straight.

Jerry checked it frequently to guide them down the staggered transects they cut across hill and hollow. As far as John could tell, he wasn't finding much of interest. The tracks he stopped to study were all made by ordinary hoof and paw, nothing remotely demonic.

They paused at the traces of an old abandoned dirt road, evident only from the strip of younger trees that filled its curves. John glanced up towards the sun again, still concealed behind a thick screen of cloud. He made a quick sign of the cross.

Normally, John saw nature as a place for one to get closer to God. But these woods were different. From the first time Cindy showed him the house she wanted, when it was just an open frame of timbers, the chaotic rumple of this landscape, the claustrophobia of its canopy had made him uneasy. Now that he had seen one of its entities up close, his unease had only grown.

Without even thinking, he started reciting the Lord's Prayer out loud. It wouldn't hurt to let the Lord know he was thinking of Him. John hoped that the feeling was mutual.

Jerry looked askance at him and smirked—such an odd reaction from a fellow Christian. Most folks in Cindy and John's circle would have joined in the praying, or at least provide a hearty Amen. It struck John that when Mac or Donnie started up a prayer at the house, Jerry always seemed to be absorbed in some other activity.

"How come I never see you pray, Jerry?"

Jerry kept his eyes to the ground, scuffing at the newly fallen leaves, checking every fractured twig and scrape in the dirt. "Is it that obvious?"

"I'm not the most observant person, but... yeah."

Jerry sighed. "I try to be a good sport about it. I try to duck my head and mumble and all when I see folks praying. Don't mean to embarrass Donnie in front of the clientele."

"You're a... an atheist?"

"Hell no, I'm not no atheist. I just don't claim to know what's what and who's who in the universe and all. I mean, it wasn't always that way. I see things in this job that make me question things. Donnie seems to find some way to connect it all up and fit it next to Jesus, but I can't do that. I just can't."

"How is it you work for a Christian deliverance ministry?"

Jerry shrugged. "Donnie's a pragmatist. He appreciates my skills. He figures, at least I don't work for the other side."

"Is he sure?"

Jerry's initial glare evolved into a guffaw. "Stop with the Jesus crap already. You think I don't get enough already from Donnie? He's tried to convert me a hundred times. Think I finally wore him out. I hope."

"Have to admit," said John. "I was a lapsed Catholic before I met Cindy. Only went to church on Christmas and Easter."

"So, do you believe, or is it just pretend?"

"I believe. Sure I do."

Jerry picked his way over a trickle of a stream, lined with flakes of black shale, all perfect skipping stones, if only they had a lake for skipping.

"The way I see it, this universe is too big for any bunch of humans to claim they got it all figured out. I seen too many weird things to believe we're even close to knowing what's going on."

"But you have to believe in something, don't you?" said John. "How else do you make sense of who you are, why you're here?"

"Who cares? It's sheer arrogance to think there's some Supreme Being who gives a fuck about what we all do. I'm not denying that there's a Supreme Thingamabob of some sort up there, but do you think it makes a difference whether some bacteria knows whose colon its infesting?"

"Gosh Jerry, that's... just wrong." John winced at the analogy. "We're all created... in His own image."

"Yeah, right. Like God's a fucking space monkey. That makes a whole lot of sense."

"Space... monkey?"

"Think about that, next time you look in a mirror. Might just be my knack for seeing through facades, but I sure don't see a whole lot of difference between us and a bonobo. I mean, ninety-nine percent of our DNA is exactly the same. Do bonobos believe in a God that looks like them?"

"What the heck's a bonobo?"

"They're chimps, John. Fucking chimpanzees."

"Oh. But that extra one percent, it's pretty special, isn't it?"

"Special? So we got bigger noses. We walk upright. Got a bigger brain. Big deal. It's not like we do much with 'em." Jerry grabbed onto a sapling and sighed. "Now you got me going. Listen, don't mention any of this to Donnie. I'm not supposed to have existential discussions with the clientele." His fingers traced a set of healed-over scratches in the thin bark. "Though, you're not like most of the folks who hire us. You don't have that glaze some get. You've actually got something going on behind those eyes."

"Well, thanks. I guess." A red-tailed hawk glided past, high above the treetops. "What I don't get about you being in the deliverance business is... if you don't believe in God... how can you believe in the devil?"

"Good. Evil. Now you're just talking about labels," said Jerry. "It's all arbitrary. No denying, there are dangerous things out and about in this world. Folks have no clue what's scrambling around out there in their back yards while they're sleeping. Are they bad? Is a fox evil for being hungry and chomping on somebody's pet? Whether things are evil or not, who they belong to, that's irrelevant. Someone needs to keep an eye on all those other entities most folks don't know about. And that's my job. All that deliverance stuff that Donnie does, that's just fluff... to make people feel better."

"So you think these deliverance rites... are just for show?"

"Yeah. Pretty much."

"Don't tell Cindy that."

Jerry stopped at the base of a huge beech with a fluted trunk and poked at a spoor with a stick. John came over and peered down at a dark, greasy turd studded with bits of bone and fur. "Whatcha got there?"

"Looks like bobcat poo," said Jerry. "It's got crunched-up squirrel bones, or maybe it's rabbit."

"I never realized we had wildcats in our backyard."

Jerry straightened up and gazed up at the knob overlooking their position. "That ain't the half of it. You got fishers, weasels, foxes, maybe even lynx, from time to time. But I expect the coyotes are your biggest threat."

"Threat? Those scrawny things? They wouldn't dare go near a man, would they?"

"No, but they'll take a child," said Jerry. "Don't you ever leave your boys in the yard alone. One clamp of those jaws can crush a little skull."

John cringed. "Oh come on. No need to talk like that."

"I'm just sayin.' These northern coyote's are hybrids. Ten, fifteen percent wolf blood. Bigger and meaner than the ones we got down south."

"Well, I've been here a year and haven't seen or heard a single coyote."

"No, but I bet they been looking at you. If it was me, living out here with those little boys, I'd get myself a big dog. Get some early warning at least. Some deterrence."

"Yeah, just what I need. A dog to take care of, along with everyone else."

"I'm just sayin.'"

John looked up, struggling to locate the sun, behind the thick wall of cloud. "We should probably start heading back, don't you think?"

"We are back," said Jerry. "The house is just over this hill."

"Really?" A wave of relief loosened some of the anxiety that had been constricting him. He pushed ahead of Jerry and climbed. When he passed over the crown, there below them, just as Jerry said, sprawled the clearing of the would-be second subdivision. A slash through the treetops marked the lay of Connecticut Hill Road.

A movement in the laurels caught his eye. Whatever was there, he couldn't focus on it, as if it had no mass to reflect light.

"S-something's down there!"

Jerry un-slung his shotgun and pushed past John. He stopped dead a few strides down the slope. One of the cameras flashed. Something crunched. A blurry mass slid through the moss and over a ledge.

Jerry charged down the slope like an assault commando, shotgun at his hip. A swirly thing much larger than the one that had come out of the bell jar burst out of a patch of mountain laurel and into the trees, careening around to the back side of the hill. He stopped on the mossy shelf and wriggled out of his pack.

John hung back until a rustling behind him raised a chill and got him moving. He scurried off down to Jerry's side. Jerry was kneeling next to his pack, removing a zip-lock bag and a pair of forceps from a kit. He picked through bits of shredded moss.

"Fuckers didn't waste any time, did it?" Jerry nodded towards one of the scout cameras. Its plastic housing lay crumbled and blackened in the moss.

"My God. Is it burnt?"

"It's not melted," said Jerry, holding up a black shard with his forceps. "It just looks... converted."

"Into what?"

"It's all flaky and greasy. It's that graphite stuff again. The damned thing shits pure carbon. If it can do this to plastic, imagine what it can do to flesh."

John thought back to the girl in Aerie's band and the scaly, red patches on her singed arms. He wanted to tell Jerry about it, but he couldn't. It would blow his cover with Cindy.

"I don't think your silver birdshot is gonna do any good with this thing."

"You're probably right," said Jerry. "Might have to reconsider my ordnance." He went over to the other camera and opened the case, popping out an SD card, replacing it with another from the breast pocket of his vest.

John went over one the trees that had been wrapped with plastic and sprayed with stickum. Large hunks were eaten away down to bark. The bits that remained were curled up at the edges and flaky, like ash. Where the plastic remained, much of the stickum seemed to have been scraped off. The traces that remained were studded with bits of dust and grit.

Jerry came up behind him with his tweezers and pulled off some of the remnants. "Well, this sure will keep me and Rand busy a while."

"Jerry, I have to tell you something. That other night, when all that stuff went down in Ithaca, I saw one of these things close up. I was there. I went—"

Music began to throb from the hell house. It seemed different, more mellifluous and melodic than anything John had heard before. Electric sounds blended with the fiddle strains.

"Oh Lord," said Jerry. "Satan's spawn are at it again."

"You don't really believe that, do you?"

"Believe what? That those punks are the spawn of the devil?" He snickered and winked. "Come on. I need a beer."

He turned down the hill, keeping time with the skittery beat.
Chapter 31: Samantha

Aerie rushed through the glass doors of the terminal to the first arrivals screen she could find. Piedmont Flight 462 had already landed. Passengers streamed into the baggage claim area. She caught her breath, smoothed her hair, and picked the lint off her sweater.

She had just survived a twenty-four hour cleaning jag, fueled by French Roast and raisin bread. Band-aids and bacitracin swaddled her feet. Every joint and muscle ached. Every step felt like walking on a bed of nails.

It wouldn't have been such an ordeal had she owned a single mop or vacuum cleaner. She had made do with an old broom worn to nubs and a pizza box for a dust pan, dusting every surface with a rag of an old Vegas T-shirt, corralling by hand whatever dust bunnies had escaped her broom.

Whatever she couldn't sweep away, she scrubbed, getting down on her knees with sheet after sheet of paper toweling, attacking every inch of tile, linoleum, hardwood and porcelain until the soiled and crumpled wads filled an entire trash bag. For the carpet she used strips of duct tape pressed against the pile until they came up completely coated in hair and crumbs and not a square millimeter left tacky.

As usual, her mom was one of the last people off the plane. That was Samantha Walker for you, never wanting to get in other folks' way, or to be impeded by them. She despised the tussle of mobs, ever waiting for a clear path so she could pull her things together in her 'own sweet time,' as she put it.

Just when Aerie had begun to wonder whether her mom had made the flight, a pair of automatic glass doors slid open and there she stood. The sight of her raised a flutter like a startled moth beneath Aerie's ribs.

Mom wore jeans and zip-up Patagonia fleece. She walked with a bit of hesitation between each step, studying her surroundings as warily as a gazelle checking a water hole for crocodiles.

Their eyes met. Aerie caught a glimpse of her mother's fear before it melted. She surged forward to take Aerie in her arms. There was something luxurious about her mother's hugs, no matter if she was five or twenty-five, like swimming in a sea of cashmere, smothering under a goose down quilt.

She pecked her mom on the cheek and pulled away, finding in Samantha's grey eyes the sum record and distillation of every argument and spiteful word they ever shared since Aerie's puberty.

"Well, well, you're looking much sharper than I expected," said her mom. "Did you get your hair cut?"

"I did."

"Your eyes, they look so clear again. That's good to see. I was worried you might be getting over-medicated. Is that a scratch on your cheek?" She reached with her finger.

Aerie pulled away and raised her own hand to the line of scabs above her jaw line. "Oh, that? That's nothing. It's just... from a branch. I went hiking the other day."

"You're limping, too."

"Just sore from all that hiking, mom. Must be out of shape."

"Well I think it's great that you're getting some fresh air, some exercise. It can only do you good."

"Come on mom, let's go have lunch. My treat."

***

They were driving down from the heights, where Route 13 swept around a curve overlooking the eastern shore of Cayuga Lake, when Aerie's mother gasped.

"Aerie. You pull over! Right now!"

She took her foot off the gas and braked. "What's wrong?"

"Your engine light just came on."

"Oh that? Pfft. It does that all the time. No biggie. It's just a light." Aerie goosed the accelerator back up to speed. "It does that all the time."

"You'll destroy the engine! It could seize up... or burn... or something."

"It's fine, mom. It just overheats if I drive too long. We're just going to the bottom of the hill."

"You really need to get that checked."

"I've been intending to, just haven't had... time."

Aerie drove her mom to Raconteur, a pretentious neo-French fusion restaurant set in an old renovated Victorian on the fringes of Ithaca proper.

Her mother looked alarmed as Aerie pulled into the lot.

"This isn't Moosewood. I assumed you would take me to Moosewood."

"Why would you think that? I've always wanted to try this place. It gets great reviews."

"I wanted to eat at Moosewood. I even bought their cookbook."

Aerie forced herself to take long, even breaths. "I wanted to take you someplace special, some place not so... vegetarian. Frankly, I'm sick of Moosewood."

Her mother pursed her lips. "Alright. Fine." She pushed open the door.

They were seated at a window with a view up the steep ridge abutting the rear of the property. The appetizers were simple but tasty—summer squash and roasted peppers sprinkled with pepper and drizzled with lemon, topped with paper-thin flakes of ham.

Mom ranted about her travails as administrator for a charity that must have been the most unethical and incompetent management on earth, if everything she said was to be believed at face value. Samantha Walker was no stranger to hyperbole.

She went on to gossip about Aunt Sadie and her kids—an odd contrast of achievement and delinquency. The younger girl had won a viola scholarship to Oberlin. The older cousin had never graduated high school and was not only bulimic, but pregnant.

Aerie devoted her full energies into being an attentive listener and facilitating the conversation down these paths. The more they talked about others, the less time mom would have to probe into her life. Aerie wondered what sort of gossip they shared about her in her absence.

When the entrees came, her mother fussed with her rack of lamb. She complained that it was undercooked and the sauce annoyed her because it was spiced with something she couldn't identify. Aerie enjoyed her order just fine—a take-off on lobster thermidor with an intriguing hint of wasabi.

"This place is lovely, don't get me wrong," said her mother when the desserts arrived. "But the point of my coming here was to see some of my daughter's new life. I don't suppose you take lunch here regularly."

"Just wanted to treat you to something nice, mom. There's really not much to see downtown. It's just a typical college town. Bunch of bars and book shops."

Her mom sighed. "Ithaca's not as quaint here as I remember. That ugly commercial strip has gotten only worse. Cornell, up there on the hill, looks just ghastly. Whatever have they done to that campus? From a distance, it looks like they've plunked a steel mill into the quads."

"It's not that bad, mom. It's still got some pretty parts."

"Well, of course, how can it not, with such a location? Ithaca is blessed with good geography, if not good weather. I remember how stunned I was when your father first brought me here. That such a place could exist in New York State, of all places. I had no idea."

"It still feels like the Ithaca I knew when I was little. It still has the bones of the place we knew."

"Are you still seeing that doctor? What's his name?"

"Dr. Bowen. I didn't like him. I kind of... stopped going."

Her mother leaned over the table and dipped her brow. "Then... who's writing your prescriptions?"

"I still have some refills. I think. But to tell you the truth, I'm not taking those pills anymore."

"Oh Aerie. Is this wise? Considering all you've been through?"

"I'm doing fine... for now."

"For now?"

"Mom, I'm fine. If I find I need the pills I'll go back to them."

"I was speaking with Dr. Simon at my last appointment. He tells me there's a new antidepressant out there. It's called Paxiplac, or something like that. He says it's a wonder drug compared to what's out there. Most are no better than placebos. He says some brains are just not wired to respond to some drugs, but this new stuff... has a wider spectrum of activity."

"That's nice."

"Aerie, you need to take your condition more seriously. You have an illness, and it's treatable. So why not treat it?"

"Mom. I know what I'm doing. Trust me."

"It'd be nice for you to have some medications around. For emergencies, if nothing else."

"That's not how they work. You can't just pop pills when you're sad and expect them to make you happy."

"Don't patronize me. I know how they work." Her fork hung suspended over her plate. A chunk of triple chocolate cake with a wedge of candied mango dangled precariously. "A young man called for you last night."

"Was it... Hollis?"

"I said a young man. Found it interesting that he had an Ithaca area code. I gave him your number. I hope you don't mind."

"What? You gave my number to a complete stranger? Who was this guy?"

"He sounded very nice. Very polite."

"I can't believe you did that."

"Oh come on. It wouldn't hurt for you to have some human contact. Have you made any friends since you've been here?"

"Plenty."

"I mean friends, not just... musicians."

"Same difference, mom. Music's my... hobby. Of course I'm going to meet musicians."

"Are you playing again?"

"Not at the moment. My bass, it got stolen."

"Your ten thousand dollar instrument? My Lord!"

"It's insured—for six thou—but I'm still hoping to get it back. It's just a hassle getting through all the red tape."

"Who would steal such a thing?"

"I don't know. Maybe it wasn't actually stolen just... misplaced."

"That makes absolutely no sense. Why didn't you...? I wish you would have told me about this."

"Why? What could you have done?"

"I'm your mother. And it would have explained why you sounded so distraught when I spoke to you the other day."

"I was just having a bad day."

"Another reason to have those pills on hand."

"Pills can't fix bad days... never mind bad lives."

"Oh, now there you go. When I hear you speaking like that I want to take you straight to the doctor's."

"Mom, I'm fine. I'm just saying."

"And I don't care what you say, you can't ignore that light. You don't want to get stranded on some back road." She placed her napkin on the table and called for the check. "I'm paying."

"But I said I would treat."

"Save your money. You might need it, now that you're no longer employed."

"How did you... who told you?"

"You are going to let me see your apartment, aren't you?"

"Of course. I've even made up the spare bed. I was using the room for storage but I cleared it out and got it all cleaned up."

"Oh, there's no need for that. Sadie's coming to pick me up this evening. I'll be spending the night in Skaneateles." She slipped on her reading glasses as the bill arrived in its folio.

"Really? You didn't tell me that."

"I know you need your space. Being around me too long only seems to upset you, for whatever reason. I figure two birds with one stone. We have a nice afternoon together, and then I'll go visit with my sister a while. I'll come see you before I fly back to Maryland. How's that sound?"

"Fine. I guess."

She dipped her head and peered over her glasses. "You're not too, too disappointed?"

***

Aerie gave a quick tour of the apartment, noting her mother's every grimace—at the mildewed grout in the bathroom, cracked tiles, dings in the wall.

"Told you it was kind of a beater. That's how student rental units are. It's a good value for Ithaca, though. It's really helped me stretch my savings."

"The rooms are a nice size, and they catch the sun well. I'll give you that. Furnishing's a bit sparse, don't you think? Maybe you can pick up some nice pieces at a yard sale. An armchair would be nice. And that kitchen table with those rickety chairs. You can do better than that."

"It's functional. For me. It's not like I really entertain."

"And why not?"

"I don't know. Busy, I guess."

Something in a corner betwixt wall and ceiling had caught her mother's gaze. Aerie came up behind her shoulder and followed her line of sight. "What exactly are you looking at?"

"Webs. You missed some. Here, let me get them for you." She dragged a chair over, climbed up and daubed at a few diaphanous wisps with her handkerchief.

"How do you even notice those?"

Her mother hopped down from the chair, a smirk creasing one corner of her mouth. "You're blind like your father. He never seemed to notice any spiders or their leavings." She went to the sink and rinsed her hands. "Overall, I'm impressed. The place is remarkably tidy for a girl who once grew mold monsters on her night stand."

"You're still obsessing about that?"

"Who knew such a thing could thrive in a glass of cola? I swear it had grown tentacles and was fixing to climb out of that glass. But enough with that, I must praise you on your housekeeping. I don't suppose it was quite as neat when I called to tell you I was coming up?"

"Is that really a question?"

Her mother snickered. "I suppose I would do the same if my mother were coming to visit me. Sadie's probably cleaning house as we speak. Not that she needs to." She sighed. "It's a good sign, I suppose, that you cared enough to lift a finger, considering the places your psyche has been."

Aerie stared at her mother, watching her faint smile erode as the void of silence lengthened. She took a breath. "Want some tea?" she said. "I'll put on a kettle."

"Oh, I'd love some."

***

They sat together at the little kitchen table with the cracked veneer. Aerie sipped Darjeeling straight, her mom, Lipton with lemon.

"So how did you know I wasn't working at Moosewood anymore?"

"A little birdie told me."

An impatient rush of breath escaped Aerie. Her eyes bore down on her mother's.

"It was that young man who called."

Both Ron and Mal knew where she lived. They had no reason to call her mother. "Who was this guy? What was his name?"

A lost expression crossed her mom's face. "My mind these days." She wagged her head. "I think it begins with a 'J.'"

"John?"

"Yes, I think that was it. You know him?"

"Barely."

"He seemed quite pleasant and personable."

"He's married, mom."

"Oh? Well, that's not a deal killer in and of itself."

"He's married, and he's a stalker. Calling my mom out of state to get my phone number. How pathetic is that? How did he ever know where to find you?"

"Resourceful, apparently."

"I can't believe you gave out my number to a stranger. Don't ever do that again without my permission. Do you understand?"

"Is this my own daughter scolding me?"

"You deserve it. What if he's a rapist, or a murderer?"

Her mother rolled her eyes. "So tell me, what happened at Moosewood?"

Aerie blinked and stared. "Nothing."

"What do you mean, 'nothing?'"

"Nothing. Things were slow. They had to lay off some folks."

"Are you keeping up with rent?"

"I'm okay for now. I still have some savings."

"My friend Martha works for an NGO back in Baltimore, and she says they're hiring interns... for pay."

"Mom. I'm not moving back to Baltimore. I like Ithaca."

"But what's here for you? Another menial restaurant job?"

"I'm thinking... a bakery. I found that I really like making pastries. It's like a type of alchemy. Taking dough and transforming it into all these different textures—flaky, spongy."

"And this is the girl I had to bribe to make the Christmas cookies?"

"Things change mom. I'm in a much different place now, in my head."

"We have are plenty of bakeries in Baltimore."

"You wouldn't want me living with you. We'd only squabble."

"It's that boy, isn't it?"

"What?"

"That's why you want to stay here. You have unfinished business."

"John's not a boy, mom. He's married, with kids. And I have no interest in him. I told you, he's just some stalker."

"He sounded plenty young over the phone. But no, you'd rather pine away for men old enough to be your father."

"I don't pine for Hollis. There was nothing romantic about us. It was more complicated. It was a professional, artistic thing. He was my mentor."

The door bell rang.

Samantha rose. "It's Sadie, come to fetch me. Lordie, how the time flies."

***

Aerie watched and waved from the porch as Aunt Sadie whisked her mom away. As Sadie's SUV departed from view, Aerie felt the loosening of a hundred straps that had been cinched tight around her brain.

She plopped down on the sofa, depleted. She flicked on the TV, rotating through the channels on basic cable, past the talking heads and kiddie shows, hoping to land on something that could snag her attention, but demanded little. Twice through the cycle, she gave up and clicked it off.

Her mood hovered in a limbo that was neither up nor down. But she felt the presence of that thousand pound piano dangling over her head, up there, swinging like a pendulum, its re-jiggered tether fraying, ready to come smashing down to squish her heart all over again. No pill could make it go away, forever.

Aaron's journal sat neatly aligned atop the stack of other books on the coffee table. She felt a twinge of regret now for having taken it. Once her car was fixed she could swing by his place and stick it in his mailbox, or send it back by post in an unmarked envelope.

She picked it up and flipped through the pages, finding lots of little sketches and notes about things that looked garlic presses and pepper grinders. Had Aaron been a designer of kitchen implements?

The back half of the book, however, turned into a daily diary, with full page and half-page entries recounting the daily trauma of his divorce proceedings, an arrest for assault and battery and a subsequent restraining order.

She felt like a voyeur now, but she kept flipping through, stopping at a crude pencil sketch of a little girl on a swing set.

27 July 1995

My birthday. Woohoo. I'm Fifty-two. Celebrated in the pump house with a 5.99 bottle of wine. When I got buzzed enough, I crossed the river. Even from behind the knotweed I could hear the creak of the swing and Nina singing. This was my birthday present.

When I reached the edge of the yard, she was playing in the garden, picking cherry tomatoes in a little basket, all by herself. The plants look all floppy. Nobody's staked them since June. I watched from under the raspberries for the good part of an hour. It was close to sunset before Sheila called her in.

Wish I could get word to her to be more careful. If only she knew what roamed these woods. I'm not thrilled with the idea of Nina out there alone with these things roaming the woods. At least Nina had me to watch over her.

Aerie shuffled the pages back to an earlier entry.

28 June 1995

I've taken to sleeping in an old, abandoned pump house across the river, part of the EPA clean-up of the old W.R. Grace chemical factory. A bit dusty, but it keeps me dry when it rains. I swept it, made a space for a pad and sleeping bag. Gives me a base to keep an eye on the house without me attracting attention walking those train tracks every day.

Tonight, I went right up to the wall of the laundry room, under the dryer vent. I could hear Nina in the family room, playing with her dolls, watch Dora the Explorer. I could hear Marta's little coos too, and it melted my heart.

Later, Sheila read them bedtime stories. It's almost like I'm right there with them in the house. It's like I'm a ghost.

Afterwards, I heard Sheila on the phone with her mom, ridiculing the way I acted in court the other day. I could barely contain myself. I wanted to burst in through the door, give her a piece of my mind, but I stayed hunkered down in the weeds.

When the lights go out in the girls' room, I headed back across the yard, and into the woods. I flicked on my LED deep in the trees, almost to the river so I won't be seen. Went back to the pump house and changed out of my wet clothes. Played my fiddle for a good hour in the dark.

Aerie almost didn't want to read on, but she kept at it.

17 July 1995

There's some kind of animal prowling near the pump house. Thought at first it might be a raccoon I displaced from its den. It scratched at the clapboards a bit and left. It's no raccoon, that's all I can say. Way bigger, taller. Freaked me out enough to send me back to the motel. I picked up an old Sig .22 on Craigslist. Makes me feel a bit bolder. I'll try back tomorrow. I hate being away from the little ones.

21 July 1995

It's back. That thing. I was playing my fiddle in the pump house again and it came, almost as if it's attracted. Or annoyed. I was playing that dissonant stuff I was writing when Sheila and I were starting to go off-kilter. Reflected the state of my brain at the time, and even now.

The thing came. I heard it groan like an old man with rheumatism. It spattered the side of the wall with dirt, like a dog digging with its hind legs. When it left, I waited a good hour, before I went out with the light. There were no holes, no signs of digging. Weird.

I get the feeling that the little ones are more playful than dangerous. That large, shy one that lurks around gives me pause, however. There is a malevolence to its stalking that unnerves me.

3 August 1995

The strangest thing happened at the pump house today. I was playing my fiddle again, really getting lost in that trance-like thing that happens when it's going well, when a little puff of dust seeped out of crack from the rafters. It whirled around and kept whirling, almost like it was dancing, refusing to die.

It looked so delicate and soft—little spinning puffs of mist and dust. I shined my light on it and it diffracted, as if there was a prism inside it somewhere. It went away when I stopped playing. But I could coax it back pretty easy, so long as I played the atonal stuff that drove Sheila nuts.

I reached up to touch it and I swear, the thing shrieked and stung me. The patch of skin that touched it came back all hard and brittle like balsa wood. Little drops of blood beaded through regularly spaced pores.

Outside, something grumbled in the woods like a muffled foghorn. Trees rustled. The drone rumbled closer. That big thing came and peppered the side of the pump house, like a blast of desert wind. The inside filled with dust. The little sprite skedaddled back into a crack. That gun I bought felt pretty useless at that point. I might have been better off with a squirt gun. I kept perfectly still for an hour. I didn't dare leave till the morning came.

23 August 1995

Are these things sentient? I can't actually say. They seem social, gathering in little groups, but so do ants and bees but they're not particularly intelligent. They respond to sound the way snakes and lizard orient to sunlight, almost basking in it. But not just any sound. They seem to prefer dissonance. Not just sheer noise, either, but particular shades and tunings.

1 September 1995

I've found a way of playing my fiddle never fails to lure the sprites out of their crevices and get them dancing. The places where they spin are worn smooth and shiny as an old axe handle.

Sharp, little grains drop from their vortices as they dance. I find a layer of them embedded in the grease of the pump housing. Thought at first they might be salt crystals, but they don't dissolve in water. They're very hard. I suspect they might be quartz. Maybe even diamonds!

Aerie closed the journal and set it down in her lap. As fascinating as she found it all, it was too much, too weird for her to absorb in one sitting. The entries confirmed too many fears and raised too many questions. No way could she just drop the thing Aaron's his mailbox and drive away. She knew too much now.

Sometimes, ignorance was a blessing. She closed her eyes and thought of waterfalls.
Chapter 32: Return

Donnie always savored his first day home from a road trip, even though he usually went in to the office. Lounging in his comfy, mesh-back chair, with a personal climate console, double monitors, and a drawer full of take-out menus from his favorite Chinese and Indian and Thai restaurants, he was back in a zone of comfort and control.

His office-bound staff doted on like him was a conquering hero, plying him for stories of his latest tussle with the netherworld. Not that he had much to boast about after this latest excursion. He told them about the demonic music and the candle rite that silenced it. He didn't mention the part about the intestinal upset that knocked him out of action.

When they plied him for more, he told them how they had driven out the Beast and its disciples from the hell house, displacing them to the hippie haven of Ithaca, a vacuum of faith where not much could be done. Though the truth might have been stretched, and some awkward elements omitted, little of what he told them could be disputed.

He spent the morning going through the online registry of cases opened, cases ongoing and cases closed since his travels. He had honed his Ministry's work flow till it ran like a factory production line. He had farmed out all of the routine stuff to the junior members of his team—the violent toddlers, the fourteen-year-old girls locked in bathrooms.

Lots of cases could be handled right over the phone. The power of a personal prayer and a positive message on Jesus' behalf never ceased to amaze if not surprise. Only for the less tractable and more lucrative cases would they dispatch a tag team of deliverance specialists, personally trained by him and Jerry.

For the most part, there was not much need for executive input, just a few requests for discounts and need-based grants that needed to reviews, and a case or two that required a little extra intervention.

He pressed the intercom button. "Beryl, what's this about a horse in California?"

"The Sonoma case? No biggie. I think the team is just asking for a little advice."

"Bring me the folder. Everything you got on it."

Donnie liked keeping a clear desk. His twenty square feet of polished mahogany bore only a blotter, a pen and a phone. He worked one case at a time, no more. The practice kept his mind focused, and kept the clutter relegated to the desks of others.

Beryl trotted in and laid a thin manila folder down on his blotter. She smiled and tipped her head, before hustling back out to the reception area.

The case involved a horse in Sonoma, in the heart of the Northern California wine country. The problem seemed simple enough. This horse despised gospel singing, particularly when sung by female-dominated choirs and accompanied by organ.

According to the vet, it had passed every blood test indicating for encephalitis and any other disease that might addle its brain. Rock-and-roll apparently didn't faze the beast. It had grazed placidly through an outdoor wedding reception out back behind the rectory, as evidenced by photos in the portfolio.

Crank up a service with a full choir and the beast went berserk, terrorizing the other horses in the paddock, crashing through the rail fence, up the church steps and down the aisle, smashing its hooves against the pews before it could be calmed down and led back out.

Normally, he avoided taking on animal cases, but these folks seemed wealthy. They could charge a full contract plus expenses.

As miserable as the last excursion had been, Donald could see himself heading out to California for a couple of days. October was the nicest time of the year in those parts. Plenty of sun. Before the rains started. It might make a nice tonic for the New York fiasco.

One of his outside lines lighted up, the Caller ID showing: 706-666-6567. Jerry's cell number.

He called out to Beryl. "I'm taking this one direct." He snatched up the receiver. "Jerry! Good to hear from you. How goes it up there?"

"Hi Donnie. Boy, are you sounding a heck of a lot more chipper. How are you feeling?"

"Great. Back to hundred percent. So what's the story? You ready to come home? We got a case here or two I could really use a hand with. One's in California."

"Um. Not quite yet, Donnie. I'm afraid things are getting a little too interesting for us to haul out just yet. Those things in the woods? They been—"

"Jerry. I keep telling you, forget the wild stuff. What happens in the wilderness is not our concern. It's too vast a—"

"Hold on, Donnie, it's more than that. You know those musicians from the hell house? Well, they're back. Miss Cindy here is freaking out all over again. So far, Mac's been able to keep her calm, but she's on pins and needles. It helps a bit that this time around, the music's not quite as... disturbing."

"Dang, I thought we had this all handled." He sighed. "All the more reason for you to pull out of there while you can. How soon can you get packed up?"

"Oh no, Donnie. I'm sticking around, even if has to be my own dime. I'll go on leave if I have to. You can have Rand back, if you want. Other than babysitting, that kid's just about useless to me. I wish you had left me Tammie."

"I don't like this, Jer. If Mac gets the idea there's unfinished business, he's gonna stir things up again. You'd best be getting out while the getting's good."

"No can do, Donnie. I'm finally getting a handle on these fra diavol. I'm close to figuring out what makes them tick."

"Jerry, no. I don't—"

"Carbon, Donnie. They eat and shit carbon. Hydrocarbons, especially. Maybe even carbon dioxide. And they flock to bad music like flies to shit. Me and Rand are gettin' together the makings of a trap."

"Never should have let you stay behind. Jerry, I'm begging you. Stand down!"

"This ain't something I can just turn my back on. This is the mother lode. I've been looking for a nexus like this my whole career."

"We can't afford to get Mac all riled up again. He's bad news, Jerry. He could really muck up our operation if he got the opportunity."

"Screw Mac. This is bigger than Mac."

"Is he pressuring you... to stay?"

"Not at all. He seems satisfied, grateful even, with what we done. Listen, Donnie, I'm getting close to figuring out how these things work. We even got samples. If we keep at it just a little while longer, we'll have it. Think about all those other difficult cases we can solve if we get this one licked. This is gonna be good for business."

But a door in Don's head had already slammed shut and was locked and bolted even before Jerry had placed his call. There were times to make stands and times to triage, cut and run. Donnie saw only one clear path ahead.

"I want you packed up and on the road Jerry. Soon as you can. Before Mac changes his mind. Got it?"
Chapter 33: Continuity

The phone rang as Aerie stood at her kitchen counter, wrist-deep in kneading dough for the cinnamon buns she was attempting from scratch. She took her time answering, rinsing and toweling, reaching for the receiver fully expecting it would be her mother checking in on her from Sadie's.

"Hi Mom," she said.

"Aerie?" It was a man, speaking in almost a whisper. "This is John. How are you doing?"

She was tempted to hang up. "What the fuck? What's the deal with asking my mother for my number?"

"I didn't know how else to reach you."

"How did you even find her?"

"Internet. She did an interview for her local paper. It mentioned you."

"I'm sorry. That's just creepy. Married man like you. Not only that, but I hear you've been stalking me at Moosewood. What's up with that?"

"I was worried. I noticed you hadn't been showing up at Aaron's lately. After that... thing we saw... I didn't know what to think."

Aerie picked at the traces of dough stuck to her fingernails. "Well, I'm fine. Just unemployed. Is that all you wanted to know?"

"Why'd you quit playing with those guys? Was it because of that thing... those things?"

"I didn't quit. Though, maybe I should have."

"He fired you? Why you, and not the others?"

"What are you talking about? He got rid of everybody. He dismantled the whole shebang."

"No he didn't. I can hear them even as we speak. It's been two days in a row now since they started up."

"The Kolektiv? Really? They're all there right now? Playing without me?" Aerie felt a jab deep beneath her sternum.

"Yeah. But it doesn't sound the same... with that other bass player."

"Other bass player? What the heck? I wasn't the one who... It wasn't my idea, taking that jar. It was Ron's."

"I thought for sure you had quit," said John. "I wouldn't have blamed you if you did. But you sound disappointed."

"It's just not fair. He gets rid of me, when it's not even my fault that—"

"Those things... doesn't it bother you? Knowing?"

"I'm not as scared as I was. Should I be?"

"You saw what it did to that girl in your band. And there's more of them out here in these woods. The Ministry guys snapped a picture of one. It's blurry, but you can see, it's huge."

"Maybe they're natural. Part of nature that no one ever notices." Aerie felt the tips of her fingers, and the calluses starting to peel. "Maybe Aaron didn't like my playing."

"That can't be. You're amazing. They don't sound nearly as together without you."

"If I send you my autograph will you leave me alone?"

"Aerie. I was just concerned... something might have happened to you."

"Don't you have a wife and kids to worry about?"

"Cindy... she's having an affair... with our pastor."

"Sorry to hear, but—"

"It's been going on a while. I've been looking the other way, hoping it was just one of these passing flings. These days, though, she spends more time with him than us."

"Why put up with it? Just leave her. They're not even your kids."

Silence. And then a sigh. "They're... good boys. They call me dad."

"So? Their mother is cheating on you."

"I don't know. The boys, they need me. Cindy isn't home much. And... I don't even have a job. I've got... nothing better."

"So you call up the mother of some girl you meet, trying to get a fling of your own going on the side? Where's the logic in that?"

"Aerie. That's not why I called your mom. I was... worried about you. I... care."

"You don't even know me."

"I thought... we clicked. No? Am I imagining things?"

"Oh my God. I don't need this right now. My life is weird enough, John, without throwing more weirdness into the equation."

"Weirdness?"

"Stop stalking me!"

"I... I'm not... hitting on you. Honest. I just want to be... friends. I like being around you. I was actually calling to see if you wanted to jam."

"Say what?"

"I've been practicing with my clarinets. I even got my alto sax out of the garage. The valves need work but it's in decent enough shape. I know a guy who plays jazz guitar. I can invite him, so we have... so we have something chordal. We can play at my church... some week night. None of that weird stuff. Just straight ahead jazz."

"You've gotta be joking."

"No. I mean it. I've been practicing up. Even pulled out my Real Book. I... we'd be honored to have you play bass with us. I mean... you have time, don't you? Since you're not working, and you're not playing with these guys."

Aerie doubted that the proposed jam, chaperone or not, had anything to do with John wanting to make music. At least she had a convenient excuse to turn him down.

"I don't have a bass anymore. That night I drove that van to Aaron's – it got stolen."

"Really? That's horrible."

"So that's that."

"We have an electric at the church. Some kind of Fender copy."

"Um. I don't think so. Listen, thanks for the information and the concern and all. But I've got to get back to my baking. The dough's really starting to puff."

"Want to just give it a shot? You on electric. Me on clarinet. And my friend Bill on guitar? No?"

"I don't think so. Thanks for the offer. Good luck with the deliverance and all."

"Aerie. Think about it. Give me a call if—"

"Take it easy, John." She hung up and went to the mass of dough bulging out of its bowl and punched it down.
Chapter 34: Visitation

It was apple-picking weather, bright and crisp and pungent with the aroma of senescing leaves, cool enough for fleece, warm enough for lemonade and juice boxes. Jason bashed the keys of his toy xylophone in mad little flurries, stopping to grin after each barrage. Nigel played with the plunger of his Hohner chromatic harmonica. He turned it around and tried blowing into the wrong side, producing only slobber and wind.

"Almost got it, guys," said John as he assembled his old Bb clarinet, finding the joints swollen and tight. "Be right with ya."

They were outside on the patio, where the noise wouldn't disturb Cindy. She was inside huddled in her office nook with paperwork for a closing in Ovid. Jerry and Rand were in the garage, fussing with a tangle of wires and hardware they had picked up from Home Depot and Radio Shack. A trap, they said. It looked part vacuum cleaner, part boom box.

The reeds of John's old Selmer were stiff and cracked from years of disuse. His squawks drew giggles from Nigel, and then belly laughs when Jason tried to imitate them.

"Okay guys, we're playing 'Summertime.' Ready? A one. Two. One, two, three...."

He started into the melody, and the boys joined in, Jason banging maniacally on a xylophone, Nigel sucking and blowing the same two chords over and over on his harmonica. John stayed focused on the changes, round after round, resisting the urge to wander off into the sonic wilderness where the boys dwelt.

He wondered where he could find more Gospel-y sheet music that would keep him in Cindy's graces. He knew she wasn't going to tolerate these music lessons if he didn't keep them Christian. Then, maybe once in a while he could sneak in one of the tunes he had scribbled on his notepad straight from Aerie's Tokyo recording with the Hollis Brooks Quintet, having scoured the track listing from some back corner of iTunes.

He reflected on his last conversation with Aerie, sifting through his recollections for crumbs of hope. Behind the wall of tempered hostility, he found meager pickings. A fleeting kindness here. A speck of pity there. A touch of wonder that this married fool could find cause to be infatuated with her.

Her words and tone almost didn't matter. The remembered resonance of her voice was fuel enough for his heart.

Maybe Aerie's snub was for the good. Feelings were unfolding much too fast. He was still married for God's sake! And he still loved Cindy, no matter her infidelity.

He blamed himself for her wanderings, for not being the man she expected. He had tried to pour himself into the mold of what he presumed Cindy considered the ideal husband, but had produced nothing more than a good roommate with nanny skills.

Jason pounded on a toy piano, alternating between it and a xylophone with bursts of surprisingly stable rhythm. Nigel squealed away on a chromatic harmonica that his grandparents had brought back from a bus tour of Germany.

John noodled away on the clarinet, trying to weave something coherent between the boys' chaotic excursions. He surprised himself with how good a tone he could pull out of his old horn. It felt good making that wood vibrate, feeling the control come back. He had been pretty good in high school, and he still had the knack.

The tykes were remarkably rapt in their noise making. Nigel alternated between piano and harmonica, making chromatic runs up and down the scales. Jason clenched drumsticks and xylophone hammers in frenzied little fists, whacking at anything that would make a sound.

Cindy stepped onto the patio, a bulging portfolio clutched to her bosom. "Easy, Jason! Nanny brought that all the way from Switzerland. Nigel, take those sticks away."

"Oh, he's fine, Cind," said John, lowering the clarinet from his parched lips. "They build these things sturdy."

She tipped her brow, eyes stern. "A piano is not a drum." She held up a coffee filter. "When you get a chance, can you please—" Her eyes bugged. She screamed and dropped her papers.

"Get in! Quick! Th-there's... one of those things!"

"Huh?" John tucked his clarinet and swiveled. Cindy swooped forward, snatched Jason's arm and yanked him away from the xylophone.

A patch of haze hovered over a rose bush, swirling like smoke over a fire but contained by some invisible barrier. Dust tendrils stretched twined and peeled like a nest of snakes sketched in charcoal. It slunk through the thorns, homing in on the patio.

"Oh my God!" He dashed the clarinet down onto the white plastic table and hauled Nigel up by the waist, tucking him under one arm like a squirmy football. He backed away from the thing, knocking over the toy piano with a rattle and clang.

The dust cloud paused to hover over the fading dissonance of the toy piano. The leg of a white plastic lawn chair browned and then blackened where the spinning cloud touched it. The leg crumbled away and the chair toppled into the thing.

The thing hovered too close to the patio door for comfort. Cindy disappeared around the corner of the house with Jason. John rushed after her, Nigel kicking and bawling with terror.

A second clot of ropy dust was coming up the drip line under the eaves. As it passed over the garden hose, thin jets of water sprayed up, before the hose just opened up and gushed like a split artery.

Cindy detoured wide onto the lawn, sidestepping, hyperventilating, Jason giggling at the commotion.

Jerry emerged around the front corner of the house like an apparition, startling Cindy and producing yet another scream. He stood beside the gutter spout and leveled his shotgun.

"Front door. Now! Rand's got it covered."

Cindy stumbled, nearly tumbling into a holly bush. John grabbed her arm and steadied her.

"What are these creatures?" said Cindy, her voice trembling. "Why are they after my babies?"

"Keep moving," said Jerry. "Get in the damn house."

They sprinted for the front door, held open by Rand, all wide-eyed and gaping, one hand on his shoulder holster.

The dull roar of Jerry's shotgun echoed across the hills.

***

John's forearms and brow sported dotted lines of rose pricks from crawling through the bushes in search of the beast. Rand had bumped his head on a tree limb, and the impact site was already knotting up and turning blue.

"You two go in, take care of yourselves," said Jerry, his beard studded with bits of twig and leaf complementing his cammie coveralls. "I'm gonna stay out here a while longer."

The house was deathly silent. No TVs, video games. No voices.

"Cindy?"

The family and living rooms were empty. He trotted up the stairs.

"Cindy? Are you guys home?"

He hustled down the hall, checking the master bedroom, both kids' rooms, lunging into the shared bath and yanking back the shower curtain. Nothing. Not a sign of his family.

Panicking, he surged back into the hall and caught a high-pitched keening coming from the master bedroom. He ducked inside.

"Cindy? That you?"

He found them cowered on the floor on the far side of the bed, one boy tucked under each arm, heads clasped to her bosom. Nigel stared blankly, trembling. Jason sang nonsense syllables and played with the fringe of the bedspread.

"Jason, shush!" said Cindy. "Stop that singing right now."

"Cindy, why didn't you answer me? I've been calling you."

She just glared up at him, lips sealed.

"It's okay. Jerry says it's gone. The shotgun scared it off."

"Right."

"No really, Hon. We ransacked the hedges. Jerry even tried to go after it, followed it way deep into the woods. He said there's no trace."

"He didn't kill it. Means it's still out there."

"Kill it? How—?"

"Donnie assured me they had moved on. That we had nothing to worry about." She stayed huddled in the corner, rocking the boys in her arms. Tears dribbled down both cheeks. "I'm calling Mac."

"Mac? What's he gonna do?"

"He promised his friends could make them go away. They failed. Obviously."

"Maybe... it's not possible. I mean, Jerry said he doesn't even know—"

"Donnie needs to come back and finish the job," said Cindy. "I can't abide having these things prowling around out there, terrorizing my children. I can't live like this. Scared of every cricket that hops. Every squirrel rustling in the hedges."

"Maybe we should consider moving," said John. "If we lived in Syracuse, near your mom, it'd be easier for me to find a job. We'd get... child care. And you'd still be close to your territory."

"Move?" Cindy scrambled up onto her knees. "You know how much I have invested in this project?"

"Yeah. A lot. I know," said John.

"Everything," said Cindy. "You know what this place means to me. This is my future. Once the rest of the subdivisions get built we'll have a community hall. A playground."

"I know Cind, but given the circumstances, not to mention the economy."

"You're saying we should quit."

"No, it wouldn't be—"

"Cindy Swain does not quit, ever. Cindy Swain is not a quitter."

"It's not quitting, it's... adjusting."

Cindy pouted at the night stand. "We're not giving in. Mac promised he could get this place pure. I'll have him call Donnie. Get him back here to finish the job. Mac can get him to come. They're good friends. They go way back."

"Frankly, hon. I don't know what the Reverend is going to be able to do. These things... I'm not so sure they have anything to do with any devil. What if... they're God's creatures?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"I'm just saying. They might be natural."

"How about we let the Lord sort it out? Get Last Hope back here with some prayer. Have you even seen Mr. Jerry pray? He doesn't even wait for grace before dinner."

"I pray. You pray all the time. Hasn't seemed to have made a difference."

"Well, Duh-uh. There's prayer and there's prayer. Deliverance is an art. These Ministries have access to rites that summon and unleash the full power of the Lord. Have you not read the brochures? Last Hope folks hasn't done diddly squat for us yet. Mac will get Donnie back here to finish the job. He just needs to be a little more... thorough... this time."

"These things, Cind. I'm just saying... I'm not sure praying's enough."

Cindy gave him a stink-eye. "Did you not read the brochures? They use more than just prayers. I mean, look at what Jerry does."

She loosened her grip on the boys. Nigel escaped onto the bed, slipped under the covers and clicked on Cartoon Network. Jason kept singing his weird little ditty over and over.

"Jason, stop that! Listen to him! How does something as bizarre as that get stuck in his little head?"

"It's just music, Cind."

"It's not human... what he's singing. Jason, please! It hurts mommy's ears." Cindy clasped her hand over his mouth. She fished around in her purse with her free hand. "Here, have a sucker."

Nigel grunted and squirmed. "Me too!" Cindy tossed him one. "Here. Have a grape one."

John shrugged. "Weird sounds like that, they're natural. They're inside everybody. Kids are born weird. Most get it drilled out of them by time they're eight."

Cindy shook her head and glowered. "Calling my babies weird."

"Weird isn't necessarily bad. They're just unformed. They just need some good influences. I mean, music can be a good thing. A Godly thing. We sing in church, don't we?"

"I can't believe you chose this time to haul that clarinet of yours after all these years. What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking... Gospel. Counteract the bad."

"I bet it attracted that thing. From now on, I want silence in this house. No iPods. No CD players. No horns or noisy toys. Jason, stop that humming!" She kept her palm pressed over the little boy's lips.

"That's a bit extreme. No?"

"Extreme? Until we know what attracts it... it's only prudent. They obviously have a thing for sound."

"So that means I can't practice my clarinet?"

Cindy rolled her eyes. "Honestly, John, I'm beginning to wonder. Maybe those things have gotten to you."

"What? You think I'm... possessed? Goll-ee, Cind."

"No more singing or playing or noise-making with my boys. I'm taking all those dang music toys and chucking them out. I don't care where Nanny got them. They're going straight into the... wha-at?" Her eyes grew wide. "W-what's that sound?" She dove into bed next to Nigel, hauling Jason up after her. "It's them!" she hissed.

"What? I don't hear—"

A low drone woven with fiddle wafted through the open window through the thin cordon of trees separating their sanctuary from the hell house.

"Oh. The band. Yeah, they've been back a couple days now."

"And how come no one thought to tell me? I live here too, you know."

"Gee Cind. I thought you knew."

Hyperventilating, she snatched the phone off the night stand.
Chapter 35: Night Walk

Beneath her quilt, Aerie kept her limbs still as death, ignoring every itch and ache, fighting the urge to roll over. She kept her lids clamped shut, acutely aware of the street light glaring through the rip in her shade. She modulated every breath, hoping to lure her hurtling heart into winding to a pace that made sleep possible.

Those new pills, most likely, were messing with her head. She had followed Mom's advice and had gone back to see Dr. Bowen. Fear drove her. She could sense the edges of her psyche eroding, crumbling like cliffs before an ocean's onslaught. Life without guard rails was much too scary. She had left Dr. Bowen's with a blister pack sample of the new drug and a prescription good for a month's supply.

Despite the insomnia, these pills seemed slicker than other antidepressants she had used. They cut the fog and calmed the storms without running a road grader through her brain; a far cry from the glorified sugar pills and the little pink monsters from Japan that had looked so cute but had blasted through her soul like neutron bombs, obliterating all curiosity, motivation and verve.

Still, the sleeplessness was annoying. 'May induce drowsiness,' said the warning label. Right. She had never felt more fit to operate heavy machinery.

Two hours, she had lain beneath her quilt, eyes forced shut, pushing daydreams of baking, of all things, running her mind through the steps of mixing and shaping little twisty breads and filled pastries. Her nerves jangled with a fine tremor.

To sleep was futile. She stopped pretending and hauled herself out of bed, her arms and legs coated with a sweaty sheen, as if a fever had broken.

Wind whistled through the screen of her slightly open window, the draft bracing not raw. An urge possessed her to go out in the night. Better that, than succumbing to the couch and a parade of unwatchable late night TV.

Why not, while the weather allowed it? Impromptu nocturnal jaunts would be out of the question once Winter set its teeth. She wondered if and how she could last an entire Ithaca winter, without a job, without a band.

She shoved the thought out of her head before it could fully form. How pathetic. The first snow yet to fall and already longing for Spring.

She pulled on some clothes and slipped out the door. The wind ruled the night. Leaves and bits of trash scurried underfoot like fleeing rodents. Breezes blew up the cuffs of her jeans and billowed up her jacket, seeking flesh. She pulled on a knit cap to protect her ears from its nip.

She had no particular destination; she just wanted to be outside. She let her mind and legs roam free, like careening celestial bodies, reacting only to obstacles: red crossing lights, unthinkable thoughts.

She passed an old lady in raincoat and nightie, walking a hacking dachshund. She crossed a small park, her eyes cast heavenward at the few stars visible through the light pollution that blurred the skies of downtown Ithaca. Venus was nowhere to be seen, but she found a planet she was pretty sure was Jupiter. To think of all those exotic moons winging around it, completely unseen and unappreciated.

Her phone buzzed. She glanced to find a message from Verizon. Her monthly charges had been posted. She noticed an earlier, unchecked message from John. How did he get her number? She went to delete it, but her thumb hovered. She clicked on it.

"Yr gang played w Aaron agn this pm. Birdies atkd me n kids."

So Aaron and the collective had ditched her. She already knew that. Why did John have to rub it in? Attacked by birdies? What did that mean? She looked askance at some shrubs, half-expecting something to burst out after her.

He was a curiosity, that John. How weird that she, in so few encounters, could spark the infatuation of this married man, a born-again Christian no less. She couldn't help derive some pleasure and pride out if it. Who would have thought a geeky girl like her could inspire such a thing?

The more she thought, the more she festered at the Aaron's injustice, and the more determined she was to confront him. The idea of Ron and Mal and Sari and Eleni back without her was almost enough to make her implode like that bell jar. She wasn't even sure she wanted to play with them anymore. It was the principle of the thing.

The streets were vacant but for occasional distant, shadowy shapes that moved on or went indoors before Aerie could reach them. There was a time that some of the darker neighborhoods near the canal might have made her quail and hasten along. Not tonight. Tonight she felt invincible, her wiry arms hanging loose, ready to show off her three lessons of Okinawan Kobudo. All she needed was a good stick, or if need be, the Krav Maga she remembered from a high school demo.

It was all rather silly. This was Ithaca, after all, not the meaner streets of Baltimore, where such bravado might have gotten her into trouble.

She noticed after a time that she had spiraled ever closer to the downtown area, as if the commercial cluster exerted its own gravity.

She turned right when she came to the corner where Moosewood and the Guitar Works hunkered dark in their basement lairs.

When mother had come back through Ithaca, Aerie had surprised her and Sadie by taking them there for lunch. Reggie and the wait staff were just as startled, falling over themselves with embarrassment. She found their discomfit quite amusing.

The window display at the Guitar Works held a fretless blonde Precision bass that Aerie had gone and played with her Mom and Sadie in tow. She had made it growl and whine through a little amp, and she had considered buying it, but its tone lacked character, like cheap wine or Chinese food from a mall. It might have sufficed as a device to keep her fingers limber, but this was no serious instrument.

She missed her Juzek. She could feel the calluses wearing away from the tips of her fingers, the muscle tone easing back. The police finally issued a report, inconclusive, but sufficient for a claim with the insurance company. The adjustor issued a check for six thousand, much less than the Juzek was worth on today's market, but more than enough to find an acceptable replacement.

She kept the check pinned against the refrigerator with a magnet for now. Ithaca was no place to shop for a bass. She needed to get herself down to David Gage's shop in Manhattan, or Barry Kolstein's in Long Island. There, she could find a worthy instrument.

She avoided the Commons. Only weirdos and winos ventured through those wastes at this time of the night. She turned down State passed the Chanticleer and the old movie theatre where she had seen Toy Story and Pocahontas when she was ten. It was a music venue now, bringing the usual second-tier stuff that the local market could support. Occasionally, some big shot performers used Ithaca as an oasis in a wasteland of dairy and forest between gigs in Toronto and Manhattan. Some could lure enough butts in seats to justify a stopover.

She perused the names, and found nothing special: second tier comedians, jam bands, 80s rock acts who might be better off playing senior centers. On a post flanking the marquee she found the rain-faded remnants of a Wayne Shorter poster. Now that was a show she would have turned out for, though she had still been in the midst of her doldrums in Tokyo when he passed through Ithaca. She wondered how many people her age even knew who Wayne Shorter was, or cared.

She stepped away, to encounter another poster, its corners crisp, announcing an 'exclusive engagement' by the Isaac Davis Quartet featuring... she couldn't believe it... her heart careened off its cage... Hollis Brooks.

Her head all woozy, she gasped and crumpled to the sidewalk, blinking tears away, folding her legs with some grace beneath her, cradling her face in her hands.

She had no idea no who this Isaac Davis was, but... Hollis? In Ithaca?

Sure, she was ready to go Hollis hunting in Manhattan, but to have him delivered to her doorstep. She didn't know how to feel. She wasn't ready to deal with it.

She got up and stumbled away, but doubled back to a telephone pole where another flyer had been scotch-taped. She peeled it off and crumpled it into her coat pocket.

Suddenly, she had lost all desire to roam, but she was hungry. There was an all night diner a block and a half down the street. A quick bite and she could retreat home, hop back into bed and salvage what was left of the night.

Hollis. In Ithaca! Did he know she lived here now? How could he? They had rarely discussed her past when they toured together. What past? Compared to Hollis, she was just a blip. As far as he knew she was some kid from Baltimore.

She wondered if he would let her sit in, if she showed up at the gig, though she knew better than to question. Of course he would. Hollis was notorious for his open stage policy. In Osaka, he had once let some middle school kid with a trumpet sit in on a formal concert. Life was one big open jam to him.

The prospect of playing with him again chilled her, though it had been ages since she played any real jazz. Her chops had gone to shit. And she had nothing had to practice with. That blonde Fender in the window was looking better and better.

Her head was still swirling when she stepped into the State Street Diner. A sleepy-looking couple glanced up from their coffee. A tiny girl in footie pajamas dozed in the booth, draped over her mother's lap.

No one else was in the establishment. A wizened waitress came over immediately to take her order—fries and gravy with a chocolate shake.

"If we were married, we could come along with you. The government would even pay our way."

Aerie didn't intend to eavesdrop, but the place was so quiet, even with the radio playing classic rock in the background.

"To Texas, LouAnne? Texas? You and Crissy want to live in Texas? Meanwhile, I'd be in Kandahar."

"What's wrong with Texas? It'd be better than—"

"Let's not talk about this right now. Okay?"

"Then when? We've got two hours before you have to get on that bus."

Aerie had worried the fries would come lukewarm and limp from under a heat lamp, but the cook made a plate up fresh and dribbled it with steaming gravy. She nibbled at the edges of the heap.

Follow him, Aerie wanted to tell the girl. Don't let him get away. You might never get him back.

She stared at the remaining fries and wondered why she ordered them. The shake was so thick it clogged the straw. She drank it in tiny sips, playing with packets of sugar and Sweet'N Low.

So what was Hollis to her? An idol? A mentor? Yes and yes, but what else?

He was never her lover, nor could he be called a father substitute. The feelings she held towards him seemed layered and paradoxical. This was no garden variety crush, that was for sure. The relationship was complicated by taboos of all sorts: age, race, business.

And what was she to him? That was a whole 'nother question for sure.

Some cops came in for a cup of coffee. Like a fugitive from the law, Aerie screened her face with a menu. It was silly, but she had had enough of men with badges.

Her reflection in the window startled and troubled her. She had let her hair grow into a nest of snakes, obliterating the cute little layer cut she had sported in Tokyo. She had to stop wearing flannel shirts, like some prissy lumberjack. Somehow, she had reverted to her high school grunge. She couldn't let Hollis see her this way.

The radio played a string of resurrected rockabilly. The tunes were stripped down and laced with punk, not her kind of thing at all, but they nevertheless stirred an intense urge in Aerie's fingers to walk through changes. It made her rise from the booth and plop down some bills to cover the food and tip. She had to get out of this place and get home before she went insane. Some wine, a couple Benadryls and maybe then she could crash.

Heart pounding, she stepped out of the fluorescent glare and back into the world of shadows and shifty winds. She followed State down to the cross street that cut over to her block in the dimmer, residential fringes of downtown Ithaca. Her head throbbed. She had to get home and sleep off what remained of this bugger of a night.

Half a block from the diner, she heard something soft and scratchy coming from behind a wall of concrete block, topped with razor wire. It was music, so to speak, disconcerting because it sounded so familiar. She diverted course past a triple decker and circled the wall until she came to a chained gate with a gap wide enough to let a person squeeze by.

The sound came from a loft over a garage, the flail of a familiar guitar. Yet another spike of current jolted her heart, and boosted her already zooming adrenalin buzz. Only one person she knew could make a pre-war Martin D-18 sound like a grizzly bear mauling a wire mesh fence.

She slipped through the gate, wary for dogs and picked her way through a boneyard of old BMW and Volkswagen hulks and husks.

A dim light flickered in a dirty window. She squinted up at the hunched silhouette within.

"Yo, Ron!"
Chapter 36: Avenging Angel

Faint traces of half-burnt kerosene wafted through the already stuffy departure lounge of Peachtree Charters. Tammie kept smothering her purse with her arms and then a magazine in an attempt to hide the fumes. She looked flustered.

"Keep your purse open, Tam. It needs oxygen to bur—I mean catalyze."

"You were gonna say burn, weren't you?"

"Nah. I told you Tam, it's not a flame. It's a catalytic process. There's a platinum coating, I believe, that keeps it crackling without actually burning."

"Then what happens to the Holy Fire, if there's no flame?"

"It's the essence that matters: the excitement of electrons. As long as we pass that on without interruption, the Holy Fire is sustained."

"They ain't gonna let us on with these," said Tammie. "I don't care how much you paid for this charter."

"Tammie... you just read your magazine. Let me sweat the details."

Donnie thumbed through the Moody Deliverance Manual. This time he was determined not to get caught flat-footed. This time he did his homework, searching the manual for extreme instruments, rites with powers that went beyond the ordinary, with caveats of risk for the wielder, but with that extra bite necessary for the most special of Satan's spawn. He wanted rites worthy of the special brand of Holy Fire he and Tammie were bearing north.

The speed of his rebound surprised him, and that it came mainly from his own heart. Mac had been firm but unthreatening in his demands for Donnie to come and complete the deliverance. Donnie had been thinking about returning to Connecticut Hill ever since his spat with Jerry. He had redemption on his mind. When Mac called, it had only reinforced his conviction.

He had never run from a job before, but he had never had his body invaded like that, either. He intended to return the favor to whatever entity lurked at that hell house. He hoped to restore his own pride in his craft, besides saving some face with his staff.

This time, at least, he'd be ready for assaults on his inner constitution. He had started a daily prophylaxis of doxycycline with an emergency scrip for Ciprofloxacin, Cipro for short, to vanquish any stomach bugs that got through the first line of defenses.

He wouldn't be taking any chances with tainted food either. His luggage was loaded with a week's worth of MREs, prepackaged and sterile meals with a ten year shelf life. If these entities wanted a piece of him, they would have to go after him face to face, no more commando raids via their microbial minions.

"You know, I'm not feeling very good, Donnie."

"It's just nerves, Tam. Don't worry, I'm sure you'll do fine. You've already faced them once, and you held up great."

"No Donnie, I think it's these fumes. They're giving me a headache."

"It's the lounge. It's too small and stuffy. Why don't you go back out into the terminal and get yourself some fresh air? Once we board, we can just turn up the vents and we should be fine."

Two pilots walked through the lounge and into an office. One had a baby face and slender, effeminate frame, Donnie was not quite sure of his or her gender. His colleague, all rumpled and paunchy, wore a raggedy beard with long strands that strayed like tentacles.

"Jesus," Donnie muttered. "These two sure don't inspire confidence. What kind of charter did we contract?"

"I'm sure they'll be fine," said Tammie. "My daddy's used Peachtree before."

A woman in pants suit and heels hustled out of the office. She wielded a scratched and dented metal-detecting wand like a tennis racket. "Alright, you all. We seem to be ready to board."

Donnie stared at the wand. "Eh, what's that for? Isn't this is a charter flight, ma'am?"

"Just a quick check to satisfy FAA regs." Her face puckered. She squinted and sniffed. She blinked and reeled back. "Excuse me sir, but is there something burning on your person?"

"Burning? Oh no. It's a catalytic process. It's not technically a flame."

She swept the wand across Donnie's torso. Lights flashed, and the wand wailed. She reached out and tapped the hard lump in his coat pocket. "Pardon me, but I'm going to have to ask you to empty your pockets."

"This? This is nothing," said Donnie, reaching in and pulling out a red cloth sack. A dome of chromed steel peeked out. "It's just a Zippo hand warmer."

"I'm sorry sir, but..." She chuckled nervously. "We can't allow incendiary devices on this plane."

"Incendiary? What? It's just a hand warmer. What's going on here? I thought this was my charter. I mean I paid for the whole damned plane."

The older, scruffier pilot wandered over. "Problem, Charlene?"

"This man wants to bring an open flame on board."

"Flame? I told you there's no—"

"Smell that?" said the woman, looking up at the pilot.

"That's him? I thought it was JP4 from the tarmac."

"It's just lighter fluid," said Donnie. "No big deal. Hunters, campers use these all the time."

The woman forced a trembly smile and gave Donnie a deep and earnest stare-down with her over-mascaraed eyes. "Sir. I guarantee you all won't be needing any hand warmers on this flight. We provide blankets on request. And if you ask nice, I'm sure the guys will be happy to turn up the heat. So can you please extinguish that device?"

"This has nothing to do with keeping warm." Donnie pulled out his wallet and handed over a pair of business cards. "See there, I'm a deliverance Minister. What we've got here is a bit of what we call Holy Fire, a very special Holy Fire. Comes from a mosque in Jacksonville that was struck by lightning the day after 9-11. Our team collected it, and kept it burning ever since. It's been useful for some of our more difficult cases. In our hands, it's no risk so whatsoever. You see, the whole reason I chartered this plane was because we needed to get it north in a hurry. Normally we use ground transportation, but seeing that this is a charter flight, I didn't think there would be a problem."

The pilot's cheeks bloomed red. "Mister... um... I mean Reverend... I understand your whole deal... and I appreciate your service to your country and your faith, but as pilot of this craft, I'm just not comfortable with the concept of a metal canister of kerosene under a hot manifold on board the passenger cabin of my turboprop. And if I'm not comfortable, we don't fly. It's just the way it is."

Donnie shuffled his feet. Sweat blistered on his brow. "But it's not a safety risk. I know how to handle these things. We do it all the time." He took a deep breath and tried to relax.

"Does this mean we get to go home?" said Tammie, her face buoyant with the prospect of their excursion being scuttled. She pulled her hand warmer out of her purse and dangled it from her fingers by its golden drawstring.

"Oh Lordie." The pilot rolled his eyes. "She's got one, too."

An ash tray caught Donnie's eye in the charter company's office.

"What about smoking?"

"Excuse me?" said the woman.

"Cigarettes. Do you allow them?"

"Well, we prefer not to," said the pilot. "It's hard to get the smell out of the cabin, and it bothers some of our clients. But I mean, we have... on certain occasions."

"There's a surcharge," said the woman.

"We'll pay it," said Donnie. He fished a fifty dollar bill from his wallet and shoved it into Tammie's palm. "You go back to that little duty free shop in the terminal and pick up a couple cartons of Marlboros."

"But neither of us smoke, Donnie."

"We do now." He grabbed her arm as she started to walk away, and whispered: "We don't have to inhale. Just take a puff once in a while to keep the damned things lit."

***

The turboprop banked steeply over Seneca Lake as it began its descent into Ithaca. Donnie leaned over in his leather seat and pressed his forehead against the window. The thick triangle of rumpled forest that was Connecticut Hill sprawled right below them.

Tendrils of smoke snaked through the cabin. Tammie coughed. "Man is my throat sore, but I can see why people get into this. It is sort of calming."

"I told you, you didn't have to inhale, Tam." A long tail of ash curled up at the tip of his Marlboro.

"Couldn't help it. I was bored."

"Last thing I want is to get you hooked on tobacco. What're our parents going to think about me?"

"I'm a big girl now. I get to pick my own bad habits."

"Believe me, this is not one you want. I'd rather you smoked crack."

"It's not like I'm a nicotine addict. It's only been like, what? Three cigarettes?"

"The Swains. Do they have a fireplace? Do you remember?"

"Oh, they got a fireplace alright," said Tammie. "A great big one."

"When we get out to Connecticut Hill, I'm starting a big roaring fire, and the rest of these cartons are going straight into it."

Tammie shrugged. "Fine with me."

"We'll get that thing stoked. A great big angry fire. It's more potent when it's angry. It kind of remembers its roots that way."

"And then we light the candles?"

"A hundred, solid beeswax, two each borne by true believers. Hopefully Mac's been able to mobilize his parish."

Tammie sat up straighter in her seat. "Well, then. I'm kind of looking forward to this. I gotta admit I was kind of skittish about coming back up here, but now I'm looking forward to it."

"Ah, that's just the nicotine talking."

"Nuh-uh. This is gonna be exciting. Kinda like... going to war."

"Not too exciting, I hope," said Donnie, as the plane swooped down over Cayuga like an avenging angel. "I just want to get 'er done."
Chapter 37: Lairs

Aerie maneuvered through a junkyard crammed with many wrecked examples of fine Bavarian engineering. Chrome strips and mangled metal jutted everywhere, threatening to gouge an eye or snag her clothing.

"Ron!" she shouted.

The array of tangled chords aborted mid-progression as a hand clamped down and muted the strings. The silhouette scurried back from the window. Aerie heard the woody clunk of a vintage guitar colliding with a wall.

"Ron, it's just me. Aerie."

The silhouette returned. The window swung open.

"Holy crap. How did you know I was here?"

"How do you think? I could hear you from the street."

"Shit. Am I that loud?" He looked out over the lot.

"Loud enough."

A sweeper truck crept past on State Street, its soft hum rising and falling in a slow motion Doppler effect.

"Are you just gonna gawk at me out that window, or can we talk?"

"Um... yeah," he said, uncertainly. "Why don't you come on in through the garage. There's a ladder up to the loft. You're alone, right?"

"Of course I'm alone."

Aerie squeezed through the double doors of the single bay garage. It looked like it had once been a barebones, working class carriage house, or maybe even a small barn with a hay loft. Its frame was twisted; its roof sagged. It looked like Ron's kind of place, maybe even an upgrade over his last shanty, despite its lack of heat.

Aerie maneuvered around the remains of a wrecked and burned out Porsche, and started up the creaky ladder.

Ron hovered atop the hatch. The glare of an LED lamp etched his face in stark shadows.

"Well, well. Aerie Walker. International recording—"

"Cut the crap, Ron," she said, hauling herself into the dusty loft. "I don't have the patience tonight."

She cringed at the conditions in his abode. Reams of spider webs draped the walls. Bottles and trash cluttered the corners. Ron's mattress was covered in a heap of dirty laundry. Gap-riddled floorboards were covered in threadbare, faux Persian rugs. His battered Martin leaned against the window sill.

"So what brings you here?" said Ron, his eyes jittery and spacey. He reached over and shut the window.

Aerie feigned a scowl. "I'm selling Girl Scout cookies."

"Coconut and caramel," he said with a smirk.

"Yeah? You like those? I go for the mints myself."

"No way. Samoas rule, with that chocolate fudge on the bottom. Put me down for a box. Dang, I'm getting hungry." His eyes wandered everywhere but her gaze. "So how've you been?"

"I've been worse," she said. "How's Aaron and the gang?"

"Huh?"

"Sounds like you were practicing. Got a production gig coming up?"

"Huh? What the fuck you talking about?"

"You know... the collective. Who's playing bass for you now?"

Ron looked at her like she was speaking Swahili. "You were there that night. Aaron completely disowned us."

"But John says you guys got back together. Without me."

"Who the fuck is John?"

"Aaron's neighbor. That guy who came to our gig."

"Listen. I ain't played with nobody since that night. I ain't touched my guitar for over a week. I only just started to play again."

"But you're playing... production stuff."

"What can I say? It's catchy. It sticks with you."

"So who's Aaron playing with? Is it Mal and the others?"

"Not Mal, that's for damn sure. Mal's gone wild. Turned nature boy. Living out in the woods."

"What? How did that happen?"

"He's trying to catch that thing that got away. That birdie."

"How does he intend to do that?"

"No clue. He went a little nutso ever since that night. Wants to make good with Aaron."

Aerie rubbed her chin. "John says there's more of those things roaming around Connecticut Hill. They attacked his kids."

"No shit?"

"Weird, huh?" Aerie brushed some dust off her pants, only to notice that she was sitting in a pile of sweepings. She sighed. "What about Sari or Eleni? You heard from either?"

"You're asking the wrong person. I don't get out much," said Ron. "I've been laying low."

"You're still on the run?"

He shrugged "What can I say? I still owe Julius, but I don't exactly have an income stream anymore. Grams gives me twenty once a week. I do odd jobs around here for food. I got a disability check waiting, but I don't dare go pick it up."

"You're disabled? I never would have known."

"It's no biggie. I only do it because I can qualify with the state. I'm not... really. I mean my feet... I was born..." He blushed. "It ain't bad. I get around just fine. If they want to give me a check, who am I to turn it down?"

Aerie just smiled back. It was clear he wanted to change the subject.

"So what've you been up to? Still working at the restaurant?"

"Nah. Got fired."

"Dang," said Ron. "I guess I won't be hitting you up for cash."

Aerie looked up sharply, remembering Ron's arrangement with that van. "I got something to ask you Ron. Remember that night, when I drove out to Aaron's?"

"I try not to."

"I got pulled over coming back into town. Cops said I was driving a stolen vehicle."

"It wasn't—"

"I know. That part got straightened out okay. Problem was, I had my Juzek in that van. Any idea what might have happened to it?"

"What the fuck's a Juzek?"

"My bass. It was in your uncle's van when I got stopped."

"My uncle Ray don't talk to me. I mean... I can ask my cousins. You let me borrow your phone tomorrow, I'll see what I can do."

"Any chance this Julius got a hold of it?"

Ron's face tightened. "You're saying I fenced it through Julius?"

"I didn't say that. It's just that if he knew that was your uncle's van and he found stuff... valuable stuff in it... he might—"

"No way. Julius doesn't pull shit like that. He and his brothers run a straight sports book. They like to be paid on time, but they don't pull any funny shit."

Aerie sighed. "I miss that bass."

"So you got nothin' to play on?"

She nodded.

"Oh Aerie, that's a crime. We gotta get you an instrument."

His expression softened. He gave her an odd, lingering look. Aerie reached up and wiped her chin, thinking she had left a smudge of gravy.

Ron sidled closer. He reached out and touched her hand, his eyes wide and probing.

"Ron? What the heck are you doing?"

His hand retracted. His gaze flickered down at the floor.

"Are you coming on to me?"

"Nah, I just... it was...."

Aerie chuckled. "You were putting the make on me, weren't you?"

"I don't know... I just... I mean, you came here."

"That's just pathetic, Ron. A female shows up in your loft for once and you automatically assume she wants you to jump her bones?"

"Alright. Let's drop the subject." He was blushing.

"Listen. I'm tired. I'm glad I found you, but I think I'd better get home, get some sleep. It's been a weird night."

"You'll come by again sometime, will you? I mean, we should keep in touch."

"You know where I live." Aerie lowered her legs into the hatch. "Drop by for tea sometime. And when I say tea, I mean tea."

"Gotcha."

"You're not gonna go disappear again, are you?"

Ron frowned. "I might have to, if Julius tracks me down, or if it gets any colder." A spark lit Ron's eyes. "That car of yours still run?"

"Um, yeah. I can't do long trips, but... why?"

"How'd you like to go see Mal?"

"You know where to find him?"

"Come by around noon. Don't beep or anything. I'll keep an eye out for your car. And don't tell anybody you saw me. Okay?"

"Don't worry."

Ron looked a little sheepish.

"Can I ask you a favor?"

"Shoot."

"Would you mind bringing some groceries? For Mal. Nothing fancy. Just some bread. Peanut butter, maybe."

"You hungry?"

He shrugged.

"Here, take these." She handed him the doggie bag with the leftover gravy fries.

***

The sun was already high when Aerie awoke fully clothed, pillows askew and tangled in her quilt. She remembered her appointment with Ron with a start, and threw off her bedding, rushing to get ready. She slowed down when she saw the clock. Ten-thirty. Plenty of time for a long, luxurious shower.

She brushed her hair in the mirror and imagined how she wanted it cut. No more cutting it herself; this time she would splurge and get rid of this rat's nest.

Another pair of holey jeans beckoned from a drawer, but instead she grabbed her seldom-worn khakis and a nice, low-cut sweater blouse. Time to start dressing like a big girl again.

She fried two eggs and ate them with salsa on toast. She took her pills, though they seemed redundant atop the natural effervescence fueling her this morning.

Out the door she burst, finding a Fall sky at its best: the clouds all billowy, not the threatening anvils of summer, nor the sheets of hammered steel that socked in Ithaca's sky from November to March, just pure and gilded puffs of Heaven.

When she reached the supermarket, for once she felt in cahoots with the stay-at-home moms and pre-schoolers that ruled these spaces. She was a mom herself now, with two hungry boys to feed.

She went up and down the aisles tossing into the cart anything that looked nutritious but not too perishable: peanut butter, fruit leather, mesh bags of bite-sized wax-covered cheese, tuna, bagels and bread.

When she got to the checkout, she realized that she had gotten a bit carried away. She jettisoned the pudding cups, olives and Vienna sausages. On second thought, she snatched a couple bars of Cadbury chocolate for her overgrown tykes.

She put it all on her card. Mom had promised to help with food until she got a job.

Back in the car, driving to Ron's lair, she sang along to the radio, not the words but the bass line to some old Tom Petty song. It helped that her cheap speakers rendered the lower registers inaudible. She was free to improvise any line she wanted to any genre of music.

Aerie pulled up to the fence surrounding the junk lot, which looked even more decrepit in the daylight. She wasn't stopped two seconds before Ron burst out of the gates and climbed into her front seat. He had a Yankees cap pulled down over his face with a billowy hood pulled up over it. He un-slung his guitar and stuck it in the back seat with the groceries.

"All that's... for me... I mean us?"

"Yup."

"Holy cow. You went all out, girl." He ransacked the bags and pulled out a loaf of bread.

"So which way do we go?" Aerie asked.

"Make like you're going to Treman Park, except you turn left at the junction."

"Left? I don't remember there being a left turn there."

"Trust me, there's a left," he said, munching on a slice of twelve grain Pepperidge Farm.

"You're eating plain bread?"

"What can I say? I'm hungry."

"It's just that there's some muffins in one of those waxy bags. Blueberry. Cherry almond."

"No shit?" Ron leaned back over the seat and searched through the bags until he found the muffins. "Want one?"

"No thanks. I already had my breakfast."

"Jeez Aerie, you really went over the top."

"Not a problem. I'm happy to feed my boys."

Ron devoured his Blueberry muffin as if it were his last meal. They passed down Ithaca's miracle mile, past Buttermilk Falls State Park. When they reached Enfield Road, the turn-off to Treman Park, Aerie pulled onto the shoulder and stopped.

"What are you doing?"

"Um... there's no road."

"Yeah there is, look over there."

"That little dirt path? You want me to go that way?"

"Don't worry. It's in decent shape. Your car can take it. We'll stop at the creek and walk from there."

Aerie sighed and waited for some traffic to clear before surging across the main road to a one lane track fringing the parking lot of a farm stand. It was bumpy and rutted, but passable.

The road came to a streambed. It continued for a ways on the other side, but Aerie didn't chance getting stuck. She pulled into a clearing studded with stumps and parked. The ground was all torn up by dirt bikes and ATVs.

Ron pointed to a dimple in the pines, a shadowy crease where a narrow ravine sliced through the side of the ridge.

"See that? That's where we gotta go."

"Whatever is this place?" said Aerie.

"Some no-name gorge. I think it's private land. But no one ever goes there."

"How'd you ever find such a place?"

"Wasn't our doing. This is where we tracked the birdie. Two nights, we slept under the stars, looking for the thing. I couldn't stand the bugs, so I went back to town."

"But he stayed?"

"Unless he's dead," said Ron. "He hasn't been back into town."

"Don't say that!"

"My guess is, he's still camping out. Washes in the creek. Hikes out to raid dumpsters."

"It's getting colder. He's not gonna be able to do that much longer."

"He said he's staying as long as it takes. He ain't coming down till he gets that birdie."

"That's just insane," said Aerie. "How does he expect to catch such a thing?"

"Traps... made of glass," said Ron. "Don't ask me how, but Mal says they can't do nothing against glass. That's why Aaron kept it in a jar."

"I'm not so sure about that," said Aerie. "Seemed like that one had no problem busting out."

"Yeah, but it had help," said Ron.

She redistributed the groceries into two small sacks. Ron took a sack in one hand, his guitar in the other. They walked across a rutted waste to the edge of the main creek.

"How do we get across?"

"Just wade," said Ron, marching right in and sloshing across the gravelly bed in his sneakers. Aerie popped off her shoes and followed after him.

They followed a small tributary brook to a dark glen where cascades trickled over a jumble of tilted slabs. Hemlocks huddled in the shadows like gangs of miscreants. Ron started climbing a bed of exposed shale that heaved up along the left shoulder of the ravine. Blue jays squabbled among the willows. As they pressed upward through cordons of pines, a warble bubbled down from the heights, warm and woody, trills spinning out from a central drone.

"That's Mal," said Aerie, her voice rising with excitement.

"No shit," said Ron.

The bamboo sax sounded distant, but how far away was difficult to judge. It almost seemed to drop out of the sky.

They climbed along the flanks of a tight little gorge, its walls fluted, its floor stepped in tier after tier of cascades.

"Don't get too close to that edge," said Ron. "It's pretty crumbly." The instant he spoke, he slipped and smacked his guitar against a tree.

"Ooh, that didn't sound good."

"Ah, it's fine. Dings add character."

They trudged up the hillside, fighting through tangles of branches. A can of soup slipped out of Aerie's sack and rolled down the hill. She trapped another with her foot and stuck it back in the bag.

After a time, the brutal slope began to ease. Trees increased in girth. The sky opened up under hardwoods whose leaves had mostly fallen. Exposed rock disappeared beneath soil and duff.

Mal's horn droned louder as came over the top of the ridge. They homed in on a clearing with a saggy blue nylon tent. Wisps of smoke rose from embers in a circle of flat stones. Mat sat cross-legged on the ground like a snake charmer, beside a ten gallon aquarium piled with flagstone and rocks. Broad sheets of bark and heaps of leaf litter disguised the glass.

Mal nearly swallowed his horn when he saw them approach. He laid the horn down and ran over to greet them, slapping Ron's back, taking Aerie in his arms and wheeling her around in a wild polka.

"Aerie! Oh my God! It's so great to see you!"

Mal's hair frizzed and clumped like vertical dreadlocks out the top of a bandanna headband. His patchy facial hair had filled out, forming a gauzy mass that blended with the soot on his cheeks. His clothes were filthy—a flannel shirt torn at the elbows, jeans frayed at the cuffs.

"I came to feed you. Ron says you guys have been raiding dumpsters."

"Not just any dumpsters," said Mal. "Wegman's trashes their day-old bread and perfectly fine produce. Papa Gino's sometimes chucks out whole pizzas, still in their boxes."

"Well, I guess you won't be needing all this, then."

Mal peeked into one of the bags. "Bagels? Cream cheese? Aerie, I love you." He grabbed her and kissed her between the eyes.

"You stink, Mal. Shoulda brought you some wipes or something."

He broke a bagel open and used a chunk to scoop some cream cheese out of a plastic container.

"Look at him," said Ron. "One week in the woods and he acts like he was raised by wolves."

"Where the hell did you go, Ron? You said you were gonna come right back."

"Kinda... got stuck." Ron stared at his feet.

"How?"

Ron shrugged. "I doubled down on the Jets-Dolphins game. Jets were giving three under the spread. They didn't cover."

"Fucking hell, Ron. I thought you were done with that crap," said Mal. "I don't get why Julius is even taking bets from you."

"This wasn't Julius. It was some guy in Public Works."

"You need help," said Aerie. "Gambling's a disease, Ron. It's a real addiction."

"So now he's got two bookies after him," said Mal. "Real swift."

"If the Jets had come through like they were supposed to, I would have been in the clear."

Mal's eyes flitted to Aerie. He reached into a bag. "Here, have a bagel. You shoulda stuck around out here. There's no gambling to tempt you. And no one would ever find you."

"Speaking of which," said Aerie. "Thanks a lot for leaving me in the lurch, guys. I had no idea what happened to you all. It's like you just... vanished."

"Things got nuts real quick after that night," said Mal. "I'm sorry."

"Mal's the one who went nuts," said Ron. "He's obsessed with the damned birdie."

"For good reason. You have no idea what—"

"Aerie thought we were still playing with Aaron... without her."

"What? That makes no sense."

"John said you guys were playing again. I just assumed."

"Maybe Sari's back," said Ron. "I never could see him letting her go. She always was his fucking pet."

"Anyone heard from Eleni?" said Mal. "She was gonna come out and help us, but never did."

"Not a clue," said Ron. "I've stashed in the attic ever since I left the woods. Julius' got the skaters out looking for me. Word is he's worried I skipped town. I'm hoping he skips town himself."

"You know what?" said Aerie. "I really missed you guys. I don't why... I mean because I hardly know you both... but I really missed you."

"Isn't it obvious?" said Ron. "Given our unique combination of charm, looks and talent?"

"One out of three ain't bad," said Mal.

Ron chipped Mal on the shoulder. "Tell you what, buddy. You take a bath, I'll make a deal with you. I'll spend another couple nights up here, help you find that birdie."

Mal grinned. "What if I told you I already found it?"

"Say what?"

Mal's eyes flared bright. "I caught the damn thing! I caught the fucking birdie."
Chapter 38: Captive

Ash and soot smudged Mal's brow and cheekbones. Bits of duff clung to his scruffy beard and a glob of cream cheese dangled from the tip of his nose. Aerie could be forgiven for thinking him delusional.

"I toldya you were crazy, coming up here in the first place," said Ron. "This proves it."

"You don't believe me?" said Mal, with a lopsided grin. "Come on over. I'll show you." He led them over to the rotten log and the aquarium hidden under sheets of bark. "Now you've got to move real slow. It's real skittish about sudden movements. And it doesn't like the sunlight one bit."

Ron crouched down and pulled away a piece of bark. "Where? I don't see anything. Just a bunch of dirt."

"Sccrrrreeeeeeekkkkkk!" The loud scraping startled Ron and he fell back onto his rump. Aerie hung back, cold sweat wicking under her armpits.

"I told you, not so fast. It's a little jumpy."

"But where the fuck is it? I didn't see anything, I just heard—"

"There!" said Aerie, spotting a gray swirl dart from a broken flower pot in one corner to a torn-up cardboard cereal box with snowy, white crystals growing out of it.

"That?" said Ron. "It's too tiny. That's not the thing we saw."

"Of course it is," said Mal. "How many could there be?"

Aerie shuffled closer, peeking through a gap in the bark covering. The creature seemed to tremble in the box. It almost seemed fuzzy, except its fur was mutable and always shifting. Appendages seemed to grow wherever it needed them to brace itself against the box.

"Poor thing. It's probably scared."

"Why's it so small?" said Ron "What the fuck happened to it?"

"I think maybe they shrink... and fade... when they don't feed," said Mal. "Seems to like ashes. I already figured out it doesn't like water. And you can't leave any air holes. It can stretch itself thin when it wants. Like a leech."

"How'd you manage to catch it?"

"Luck, mostly. I had tried to trap it. I saw how it liked the nooks and overhangs down in the gorge, particularly the drier ones. And I remembered how Aaron used to keep it under glass. So, I... uh... borrowed... a cold frame and this terrarium thing from the farm stand down below. I rigged the lid of the cold frame with a rope slung over a branch that I could raise and lower. I tried to lure it out with my horn. It seemed interested in my playing and all, but I couldn't get it to come out of its cave."

"So then I was up here one morning when it was all dewy out. The aquarium was over there tipped on its side. I picked up my horn like I always do and just started to play. It was just few minutes really, when the thing came up out of the gorge and started circling around me."

"I didn't dare stop playing, I just kept at it, playing deeper and weirder variations and it kept moving closer and closer."

"The ground was all damp. Those things don't like damp. So it kinda gravitated towards the aquarium and scuttled in and stayed there. I kept playing. It got all slow and settled in like it was sleeping. I just worked my way closer and pounced with the glass lid. Piled rocks on top. And that was that. I had to replace the lid with that flagstone because I cracked it. But that's where we stand. It's only been a couple days that it's been captive."

"Do you think it remembered you from Aaron's?"

"It's possible."

Ron tapped on the glass.

"Leave it alone, Ron," said Aerie.

He tapped again.

"Ron! Quit teasing it!" said Mal.

"Just trying to get it to move."

"Play something weird," said Mal. "And you watch. It'll respond."

Ron swung his guitar around and played a frantic little run of double stops, bending the notes sitar-like.

The creature perked up, slipping an appendage out of the box.

"Yeah, that's the ticket. Keep that up, Ron." Mal fetched his horn and joined in.

The creature came out into the open, revealing its spinning core, and its hundred-odd writhing appendages.

"This little guy's not scary. Why was I so scared?"

"He does bite," said Mal. He held up his hand. Several perfectly elliptical sores wept from his wrist and fingers.

"What the fuck did you try to do, pet it?" said Ron.

"I was just... picking diamonds."

"Say what?"

"I put in ashes from the fire pit. It spat out diamonds."

"Whoa! I gotta try me some of that." Ron laid down his guitar and rushed over to the campfire.

Aerie stared at beast. It alternately widened and narrowed in a steady pulse, almost as if breathing.

"What the heck is thing, Mal? It's obviously alive. Do you think is intelligent?"

"Smarter than Ron. Yeah, I think it thinks. You know what I think?" He hushed his voice. "I think it might be a fairy."

"What? Those little people with wings?"

"Don't think so anthropomorphically," said Mal. "Not everything's gotta be in our image. Maybe these are the real thing, not some made-up Tinker Bells."

Ron came back passing ashes from hand to hand like a hot potato. "Dang, this shit is painful to hold."

"Ron, this is not a good time. Why don't we do that later?"

"Let me just chuck these in and we'll see what happens."

"Not now Ron. It's all worked up. I don't want to chance having it escape."

Ron dropped the ashes and rubbed his hands on some leaves to clean them. "We're gonna split the shares right? When we sell the diamonds? I mean we're all in this together."

"Hold your horses, Ron. This isn't about cashing out."

"Was for Aaron, apparently. Must be how he got so rich."

"Let's worry about keeping the damn thing alive, first."

"Alive? You think it's—"

"Of course it's alive," said Aerie. "Just look at it. Just because it doesn't have flesh and blood...."

The creature stretched a smoky limb to test a crevice beneath the flagstone lid.

"Okay. So maybe you got a point," said Ron.

"I wish I knew what it needed," said Mal. "The music doesn't seem to be enough."

"Aaron's journal mentioned dust," said Aerie. "He's got jar after jar of it in his pantry."

Mal's eyebrows arched. "His... journal?"

"I borrowed one," said Aerie. "The night I brought the kithara back."

"Well, the dust thing makes sense," said Mal. "I mean, dust is its only physical manifestation. Explains why it went after those ashes. But maybe ashes aren't enough. Maybe it needs a more balanced diet." He scratched his neck. "So... what kind of dust did he have on his shelf?"

Aerie shrugged. "All kinds. Guano and greensand, silica gel, something called pitchblende."

"Oh, Christ. Did you say pitchblende?"

"Yeah. Why? What's pitchblende?"

"Uranium ore. It's radioactive... and toxic."

"Yikes!"

"I wish there was something we could feed it that would make it shit gold," said Ron. "Gold's easier to fence. Any pawn shop'll take it. There's even places you can mail it off and they send you cash."

Mal rolled his eyes. "One small problem, Ron. Gold isn't made of carbon." Mal picked up his sax. "Go on, get your guitar. While you're here, you're gonna play for the beastie. Aerie, why don't you try singing? Maybe you can that thing Sari does with the rising intervals?"

"You want me... to sing? Are you nuts?"

"Just try," said Mal. "Don't push it, start off easy till you get the feel."

Aerie sighed. A touch of stage fright dampened her palms.

Ron began strumming a frenetic, off-kilter rhythm that made Aerie think of three-legged beetles racing. Mal played the drone that Aaron used to begin their sessions with on fiddle.

Aerie cleared her throat. She sang tentatively at first, probing for a note she could fix on. Her voice quavered and cracked. "I'm sorry guys, I can't do this."

"Keep at it!" said Ron. "You're doing great."

Mal, still droning away, encouraged her with a wink and a nod.

She took another breath and let the air pressure in her throat build gradually until she found a pure tone. She let it grow into a wail, hanging on that one note then sliding it down a glissando slope.

She sounded sad, like some fish wife mourning the drowning of her husband. But it was pure and it was true.

As her confidence grew, so did her voice, rising in volume to match Mal's horn, which had moved on from the drone into melodic exploration, while Ron held it all together with his skittering chords. She didn't dare attempt Sari's leaping interval for fears of blowing out her vocal cords. Instead, she pursued a simple melody that wandered like a leaf down a stream, swirling in eddies, rushing down riffles.

The creature responded. As the music gained in complexity and volume, it emerged in full view, pulsing, alternately gathering its tendrils into a smooth dome and unfurling them. As it expanded, it grew more transparent as the mass of dust became diluted.

They played until Aerie began to cough uncontrollably, her throat gone dry and raw.

Mal put down his horn. "That was awesome! Thanks guys."

"How'd the little guy like it?" said Aerie, craning around Mal's shoulder for a peek.

"Hard to say," said Mal. "What do you think? Maybe the core's a little bit thicker? Is it spinning faster?"

"Not by much," said Aerie. "It did look bigger, though, while we were playing."

"I don't see a damn bit of difference," said Ron. "It's the same little fuzz ball. At least it didn't shrink."

The creature retracted and retreated under the flower pot. Mal replaced the slabs of bark over the tank.

"I don't get why these things need our music," said Aerie. "How do they survive without people?"

"Not just any people, or any music," said Mal. "Who else plays the stuff we play?"

"Nobody," said Ron. "That's what I like it about it."

"But, in the woods...." said Aerie. "There's nothing comparable to those sounds."

"Oh no?" said Mal. "Or is it that you're not listening closely enough? What if you put it all together? The creek gurgling, the whistle of the wind, the rustle of leaves and branches? What would you get?"

"Nightmares," said Ron. "That's partly why I ditched and went back to town. Those two nights here really creeped me out."

"But there's nothing woodsy at all about the stuff we play," said Aerie.

"Are you sure?" said Mal. "I mean, have you ever really listened to what's out there... above all the cars and trucks and planes and lawn mowers? Not to mention all the TV and radio and those iPods in our ears all the time. Maybe the stuff we play is out there under all that extraneous noise. It's just drowned out."

"Not to mention, things have changed nature-wise. I remember when I was a little kid growing up, there was all these leopard frogs in the tall grass in back of our yard. Last time I was home, they weren't there anymore. They've vanished. Same thing with the bugs that used to come to the porch lights. There's not nearly as many now or as many different kinds. Summer nights just doesn't sound the way they used to."

"And that's a bad thing?" said Ron. "I'm with Aerie. I mean... nature? Give me a break. There's nothing natural about our sound. I mean, I like it. I even prefer it. But it sounds downright alien."

"It's not that our music isn't natural," said Mal. "It's just not human."

"No. It's human alright," said Aerie. "I mean it touches me, and I'm pretty sure I'm a human. I think it's just that people lock away parts of their perception. They filter and just let in the familiar."

"The thing is," said Mal. "To these... birdies... our music is like a food supplement. They can feed on other sounds, but what we play is more nutritious."

"Hand me that bag. I'm grabbing another bagel," said Ron.

Mal sighed and relayed a sack from Aerie to Ron. "I'd like to think that they'd do just fine without us. But there's so many people... everywhere... we just get in their way. Interfere with their way of life."

"Before nature boy here gets too philosophical, let me just say that my hunch is that they're all extraterrestrials."

Mal raised an eyebrow. "Based on...?"

"That they're so damn weird," said Ron, struggling to speak through a mouthful of bagel. "They got no body, for one." He gestured towards the tank. "Can I... put the ashes in now?"

"I guess," said Mal. Ron scooped up whatever he could recover from the leaf litter. Mal pulled the slate back from the corner of the aquarium. Ron stuffed the bits of charcoal and ash into the tank.

"That's good," said Mal. "It'll hover and take in what it needs."

Ron pressed his nose up against the glass. Mal grabbed his head and pulled him back. "Give it some space, Ron! Don't stare. Come on. Let's stoke that fire. Anybody feel like some coffee?"

***

Aerie shooed Mal away from the fire, insisting on playing mom again with her boys. She added water to a grimy little pot and propping atop some rocks dropped strategically among the embers. It was sure to taste smoky from all the ash dropping in, but that was fine.

The creature in the aquarium seemed quite emboldened by their little concert, and made quite a ruckus, scraping against the aquarium walls, prying at the seams in the lid. Aerie catalogued in her head all the different kinds of dust she would fetch for it: from terra cotta mix to baking soda to boric acid. Might as well try everything and let the poor creature decide what it needed.

Her phone chimed as she poured hot water into their mugs, letting the guys choose how dark they wanted their coffee while she laid a bag of Lipton in the water remaining in the pot.

She recognized the Caller ID scrolling across the cover of her Nokia. It was Aaron. The blood blanched from her face. She looked over at Mal and Ron.

"What's wrong?" said Mal.

"It's Aaron." Her eyelids flitted; her heart fluttered. "Should I tell him?"

"Hell yeah!" said Ron.

"No! Not yet," said Mal.

"Why not?" Ron gave Mal the stink-eye.

"Let's wait. Information is power."

Aerie turned away and marched off into the trees to answer the call.

"Hello?"

"Aerie? So nice to hear your voice. How've you been?"

"F-f-fine."

Silence.

"O-kay," said Aaron. "You're real talkative today."

"Why are you calling? I mean... all of a sudden... out of the blue, like this?"

"I thought you'd be happy to hear from me."

"It's just kinda... weird... kinda awkward hearing from you after all this time."

"Let me cut to the chase. I need a bass. I want you to play with us again."

"Us?"

"Yeah, you know... our collective."

"All of us? You mean Ron, Mal, Sari—"

"I just need a bass. That's it. The others know where I stand. I realize I wasn't fair, holding you accountable for what happened. You were still new. You had no prior knowledge of what was involved. But I was pissed. I'm still pissed. That was a major blow, what those rat fucks did to me. I'm sorry you had to get all caught up in it."

"So who are you playing with now, if not...?"

"Some good folks," said Aaron. "Amazing musicians, actually. But they need some... guideposts and guard rails, so to speak. Hence, your bass. I don't want to say too much over the phone, but I guarantee there'll be some folks coming that you would find very, very interesting."

"When do you want to do this?"

"Let's do tomorrow evening. Say about six? Don't want to trouble the neighbors, as usual."

"One small problem. I don't have a bass."

"What do you mean? What happened to your Juzek?"

"Stolen."

"What the...? How does one steal an upright bass? A fiddle, I can see."

"It's complicated, Aaron."

"No problem. I'll get you an instrument. A good one. Just be here at six. Can you make it that early? I know that you work."

"I'm not working anymore."

"Oh no? Really?" He paused. "Well don't worry about money. This new crew I got is kinda expensive and I'll make sure you get the same rate... whatever it turns out to be, I mean whatever we negotiate. So can you do it?"

"Hold on." She muffled the phone against her chest. "He wants me to play."

"Just you?" said Ron.

Aerie nodded weakly. "Should I?"

"Go for it," whispered Mal. "Find out what he's up to."

"What about the birdie?"

"Don't say anything to him yet," hissed Mal. "Find out first if he's got another."

She stuck the phone back on her ear. "You'll get me a bass?"

"The best," said Aaron.

"I'll be there," she sputtered, and thumbed off the connection.
Chapter 39: Bullet

Jason and Nigel sprawled in a sunny patch on the thick silk pile of the rug that had once adorned their grandparents' den, surrounded by a sea of Duplos, Legos and action figures. Apple juice in sippy cups and baby carrots with ranch dip waited to assuage their hunger pangs.

Netbook propped on his knees, John sat in a wooden chair in the one corner of the study that had not been consumed by Cindy's tsunami of house listings, neighborhood demographics and inspection reports. Even the fancy, ergonomic mesh-back chair that Cindy had co-opted from him was piled with presentation folders and open house flyers.

When they first bought the house, this study was to be his personal domain, with Cindy happily relegated to a desk in a guest bedroom. Unemployment changed everything. Cindy took on extra clients. With the extra work came clutter and Cindy expanded her territory out of the bedroom, into the laundry room, the kitchen and now, John's study.

John harbored no ill feelings over Cindy's encroachment. How much space did he need to manage a job search, particularly when pickings were so slim? He was happy to forfeit his space to the one productive member of their household. The end of a table and a drawer in the credenza were all he needed.

He kept the boys close at hand because of the ruckus that had erupted in the house since Donnie and Tammie's return. There were all sorts of strangers about and Cindy was always out running errands. John wasn't sure who all these people were or why they were here. The deliverance ceremony wasn't going to be till tomorrow night at the earliest.

He had assembled a platter of sliced fruit with smoked Gouda and cracked pepper thins, nodding and smiling at every unfamiliar face. Odd, that he had never seen any of these folks in church.

After going through the motions of basic hospitality, he had retreated to the study with boys, their toys and a mug of tea. A blank notepad and a pen made him feel like he was ready to do work, but mostly he surfed the web. Only after he had exhausted his legion of favorite political blogs, hobby forums and browser games did John even dare peek at his Gmail.

As expected, it was just as devoid of prospects as it had been all week. There was a note from his mom, some jokes from his cousin and spam from a penis enlargement company. Facebook and LinkedIn proved no better, just the usual narcissists flaunting their lives.

The final step in his routine was to check the job-search sites. He actually hit some pay dirt at Monster.com. A search focused on Ithaca pulled up three electrical engineering jobs. Two positions were almost local—from firms in Oswego and Syracuse—but both were entry level, one actually specifying a preference for a recent graduate.

The third position, designing "sustainable solutions to infrastructure and facility challenges" was genuinely intriguing. It sounded right up his alley, but it was based in Delaware, a place he had never considered moving, with Cindy or alone.

He looked up from his laptop to find Nigel curled with his Legos, working on a multi-colored monstrosity that looked like a cross between an asteroid and a potato. He was all alone.

"Nigel? Where's Jason?"

Nigel's head swiveled. "He's right... he was just here, pwaying. I don't know where he goed."

John burst from his chair.

"Stay in the room!"

He rushed into the den, startled by the size of the snapping, roaring conflagration in the fireplace. Flames lapped out into the room, threatening the knick-knacks and picture frames on the mantle. The room sweltered and swirled with smoke.

"Jesus, who built this fire so big?" He went over and opened the windows.

Donnie entered the room, carrying a pair of cardboard boxes. "I assure you, it wasn't Jesus."

"But it's all pine wood. It's burning way too hot."

"The hotter the better, for our purposes." Donnie set the boxes down on the coffee table. "Right now it's all pine and hemlock, but we've ordered a cord of apple wood to be delivered. It's got to be kept burning day and night, until the deliverance is complete." He called into the next room. "Tammie!" He waited, but there was no response. "Now where did that girl run off to?"

"I think she's helping out Jerry and Rand. You didn't happen to see Jason, did you?"

"Oh sure. He's in the kitchen." Donnie ripped a box open. "Ah, these are beautiful. Hand-dipped. Pure beeswax. Just how we like them."

A log popped and hissed and spat fire like a dragon. A flake of glowing ash escaped the flue and drifted into the living room. John squashed it between his palms like a fly.

"Listen, Donnie. I'm a little nervous about our boys being around this fire. Any way we can tone it down a little?"

"This fire's got to be kept angry or else it's no use to us. But don't worry, your children won't be here for long. Their grandparents are coming to get them, as we speak."

"Oh? That's news to me. I thought Gram and Gramps were going to Florida."

"Flight's cancelled. They're delaying their trip. It's all just been arranged. Cindy can tell you all about it."

"Where is she?"

"I think she's out front with Mac."

As John veered towards the dining room, Little Jason came trotting in, hand to his mouth.

"There you are, you little bugger!" John swooped in to intercept him, lift him off his feet and plant him on his hip. "Jay-jay! What's the deal with you running out on us like that? You were supposed to be playing blocks with Nigel."

Jason sucked on something brassy and glittering. Slobber ran down his chin.

"What have you got there?" John tugged on his little arm. Jason had a hollow point cartridge in his fist, 9mm in caliber, jacketed in a layer of hard metal.

"Jeezus!" He pried the bullet from Jason's hand, and the little boy began to scream. "Where'd you get this? Huh? Where'd you get this?"

"Da fwor."

John stomped into the dining room. A sheet of greasy canvas covered their cherry wood table. Handguns and machine pistols were arrayed across the canvas in various states of disassembly, amidst a clutter of wire brushes, cloth wads and oil canisters. Four men, all burly and bristly, looked up at him. He was certain he had never seen these faces in church.

"What the heck is going on here? Don't you realize there are children in this house?"

The men looked at him blankly and kept on cleaning their guns. There was an odd uniformity to their grooming—close-cropped hair, dress pants, sports jackets—as if they were all conforming to the same institutional dress code.

"I found this!" He slapped the bullet on the table. "In my child's mouth!"

"Sorry about that," said a sandy-haired man, pronouncing 'about' like 'a boot.' "Musta dropped one."

"Who are you people?"

They looked at each other and then focused on the one who had spoken. "Friends of Mac," he said. "Just here helping out with security." He did that 'oot' thing again.

"Is Mac here? Where is he?" One guy nodded towards the driveway.

John kicked open the door and burst outside, still carrying Jason on his hip. Mac was leaned back against an old Camaro. He seemed to drive a different car every day. Cindy, slouched across from Mac against her car, straightened up abruptly as John approached.

Something about the scene reminded John of high school, in a bad way. Did they think he didn't know about their affair? He was at the point now where he was almost done struggling with the question of whether he cared. He was not so sure he did. He knew it wouldn't last. Cindy would come back to the fold. They would switch churches, and then Cindy would stray off again. That had been her pattern. It was how Nigel and Jason happened to have two different fathers. It was how she and John met.

"Someone needs to tell me what's going on here," said John.

"What... what do you mean?" said Cindy, stretching her lips into the smile she usually saved for prospective clients.

"All these people running around our house... who the heck are they?"

Mac stepped forward. "Oh, they're just some colleagues of mine from Toronto, come down to help. I hope you don't mind." Mac displayed the toothy grin that he seemed to think was charming, but the one dead, gray tooth ruined the effect. "Folks from the congregation won't be coming over till tomorrow. We're holding Friday mass right here."

"That's nice, but what's with all the guns? Isn't deliverance supposed to be all about candles and prayers?"

"Well, yeah," said Mac. "But... the guns are here just... for safety. It's alright, okayed it with Donnie. You never know with these deliverances. Spirits are one thing, but there are some whacked-out people out there who might resort to violence."

"Safety, huh? I just fucking plucked a Luger bullet from Jason's mouth."

"Language!" said Cindy fiercely, prying Jason from his arms.

"I'm sorry. I'm just a little discombobulated. Have you seen our dining room table? It's like a gun show in there."

She smirked. "Oh, it's okay, hon. It's just our own little security umbrella. Mac was kind enough to invite his buddies down to help us."

"I'm just not comfortable with the kids being around all these guns. Did you hear what I said about Jason and the—?"

She fluttered her lids and shook her head. "Not an issue. Mom and Dad are coming down this evening. They postponed their flight. I'm trying to talk them into taking the kids down to Disney World. Wouldn't that be nice? The boys would just eat that up. If they agree, maybe next week one of us could meet them in Orlando and fly back."

"Another couple days, this will all be done and we'll all be out of your hair," said Mac. "Donnie's promised that he bringing the big artillery to bear."

"Cindy. Nigel's in there all by himself and there's guns on the table and a fire about to spread from the fireplace and burn down the house."

"Oh, for Heaven's sake, give me Jay-Jay. I'll go sit with Nigel. They're just guns, John. And Mac's friends are trained security specialists."

Cindy put Jason down and led him by his hand back to the house. He was still sobbing about the bullet John had taken away. Mac stayed leaning on the hood of his car, arms folded in front of his leather jacket, his steely eyes regarding John with an expression that seemed bored as much as amused.

"Good gal, that Cindy of yours," said Mac. "She's just awesome."

"Oh yeah? In what sense?"

"What? You're her husband! I mean, you should know. Her... energy. The way she puts her whole heart into everything she does. It's a shame you all have to put up with all this trouble. I mean, who would have thought you'd run into demonic possession way out here? What are the odds?"

"To tell you the truth, I'm more worried about the bullets."

"What? Oh no... don't you worry. My guys... like Cindy says, they're professionals. They're licensed to carry in two countries."

"Why the heck does a church pastor need his own militia?"

"Militia?" Mac's lips peeled back and his smile grew even toothier. "Nah, this ain't no militia. It's just... security. That's all. "It's for... other business interests of mine. A side business."

"I'd appreciate it if they kept those things holstered while they're in the house. If they really need to clean their weapons, have 'em do it in the garage."

"You think we've got a thing going, me and Cindy. Don't you?"

The question startled John. "What? Listen, Mac. Now's not the time to talk about this."

"I can tell... from your attitude... your body language. There's something missing. You don't have that respect for me as a pastor. I know. I got a talent for sussing people out. But let me tell you, that Cindy is a virtuous woman. Our relationship is strictly professional and spiritual, nothing more."

"I don't know why you're bringing this up now. I mean. I don't really care what... what you—"

A small, white Sentra turned onto the main road. Blue smoke poured from the tailpipe. Silver duct tape adorned the right, rear fender. It was Aerie.

Mac turned to look. "Hoho! Looks like the hell house is fixing to rock. Those little devils better enjoy their raves while they can. Once Donnie sets up and does his thing, they're gonna. He's pulling out the heavy artillery this time. And we got twenty-five parishioners coming over tomorrow for the intervention."

"Twenty-five?" John sighed. "I guess I can roast some chickens and potatoes, buffet style." He thought about some of the rougher characters who attended their church—the tea party activists. They would be the first to show up at something like this. "No alcohol. And there'll be no more guns, I hope."

"That's up to them," said Mac. "Between our survival courses and end-of-days planning. I like to think our folks are pretty good at taking care of themselves."

"Golly Mac. I wish you'd just tell these people to leave their guns at home. I thought deliverance was supposed to be about prayer. The more weapons people that show up, the more likely someone is to use one."

"Nobody's pulling a gun unless there's due cause. We ain't a bunch of yahoos."

"It'd be better if they didn't have them. It'd remove the temptation."

"This is holy warfare, John. There's no telling what we'll run into. We've got to be prepared for anything. What we do all depends on that band of demonics across the way. If they behave, then so do we. We certainly won't use any weapons on them for anything but defense. But you gotta admit, defense can be defined pretty broadly in a situation like this. One could argue that this music, if you wanna call it that, is a form of assault in itself."

"I don't like the way you're talking... not at all," said John. "What are you saying? You're gonna go after them, even if they're just playing music?"

"I said no such thing. This is Donnie's show. But me and my friends and the good folks from the church will be there to provide backup if he needs it. That's all."

Jerry and the interns appeared at the end of the cul-de-sac between the foundation holes of two houses that never got framed, Jerry's camouflage contrasting starkly against a bright yellow front-end loader. He and Rand dragged bulky, wheeled contraptions behind them that, from a distance, looked like roly-poly robots. Tammie walked hunched under the weight of a bulky pack frame.

"Excuse me," said John. "I'm going down to see if they need help."

"That Jerry, what a freak show!" said Mac. "I wonder why Donnie puts up with him."

John hustled down to the end of the driveway, keeping his eyes fixed through the veil of trees that screened the hell house.

A lithe figure stepped out of the Sentra, a bounce to her step, as if she had arches made of springs.

Aerie. She was alone and without her bass.

John was mightily attempted to thrust up his hand and shoot her a quick little wave, but feared Mac might be watching. He suppressed the urge. He strolled down the lane, past headless mailbox posts and sprinkler systems sprung out of the ground like mangled veins from flesh.

The thought of all those guns put him on edge. He couldn't bear the burden of knowing, while Aerie and her friends remained unaware of what was to come.

Jerry raised his hand as John approached. He looked all slumped and sluggish. He and Rand had been out in the woods all day, having just called Tammie to come out and help them carry.

As he got closer, John could see that the robots were just modified shop-vacs. Motion detectors were mounted in place of the toggle switches, and the hoses were connected to funnels hot-glued to cheap, battery-powered CD players. These were supposed to be demon traps.

"Any luck?" said John.

Jerry looked at Rand and grinned, wearily. "You tell him."

"We almost got a turkey," said Rand.

"A what?"

"A wild turkey must have come up and pecked at the boom box," said Jerry. "It got away, but seems it lost a couple tail feathers in the process."

"No demons, huh?"

Jerry shrugged. "If nothing else, we figured out what kind of music repels them."

"Oh?"

"The weirdest, most cockeyed music I could find. Beefheart. Zappa. Pascoal. Apparently, it's not weird enough."

"The turkey seemed to like it," said Rand.

"I don't know. Wasn't like it was trying to mate with it. That dang bird was out for blood."

"Let me help," said John. He took a pair of motorcycle batteries from Tammie.

"Thanks," she said. "When Jerry called me to come out and help, he neglected to mention he wanted a pack mule. Get some fresh air, he says."

"If I'd've told you, you wouldn't've come out."

"Prolly not," said Tammie. "You're right."

"It's back to the drawing board, then," said Jerry. "Recharge these batteries. Figure out what's drawing all the juice. The suction's supposed to stay off until something comes near and we only had 'em out half a day. Must be a short."

"I'm... or at least I used to be... an electrical engineer. I could have a look."

"Sure. I'd appreciate any suggestions. I'm thinking the batteries don't push enough amps, or maybe some deal with the AC/DC converter."

"These batteries do seem a little wimpy for these big motors," said John. "You know, I used to mess around with solar panels. We could try hooking one up."

"Solar! Now that's the ticket," said Jerry. "We wouldn't have to haul these damn batteries back and forth."

"Don't you need some sun for solar?" said Rand, glancing up at the overcast.

"We stick to south slopes, we'd get plenty, huh John? All we need is a couple hours a day."

"Yeah, minimum. Though, we could still generate under clouds as thin as these."

It had been a year since he'd even looked all the gear he kept in his garage. He had once hoped to work up something worth patenting. He had messed around with thin films in college, and had stumbled onto some materials with some startling efficiencies. That had all gone by the wayside with his job.

"You know, some friends of Mac's showed up while you guys were out. They brought guns. Lots of them."

"Yeah, well. I don't think guns are gonna be much use against these things."

"Not for the demons," said Tammie. "It's to protect against those people from the hell house."

"Hell house. Pfft! I don't know why Donnie's so fixated on that place. These woods are where he should be focusing. This is where the action is, not with them hippie punks or whatever they are. They probably don't even know what they're music does to these beasties, or that these things even exist."

"Oh, I don't know about that," said John.

"Oh?" Jerry gave him an inquisitive look.

"No reason we can't do both," said Tammie. "Cover all the bases."

"Yeah, well. No offense, Tammie, but I kinda wish you and Donnie would've stayed put in Athens. All this commotion here kinda cramps my style."

"Well excuse me, but we're here to do a deliverance."

"I'm just sayin,' I'm not sure these things are addressable by Donnie's methods. That's all."

The driveway was empty when they reached the house. Mac had gone inside. Tammie pulled off the pack frame and laid it down on the pavement.

"There's crackers and cheese in the family room if you guys feel like a snack," said John. "Dinner won't be till seven-ish. I think we're ordering out Chinese tonight."

"I could really use something to drink," said Tammie.

"There's Diet Coke and ginger ale in the fridge," said John.

"What do you say, Jerry?" said Rand. "Can we take a break?"

"Sure. Go ahead. I'll join you in minute. Just let me just stash this stuff in the garage and set these batteries up on a charger."

Rumbles and screeches emanated from the hell house. They were getting ready to commence one of their jams.

"After, I can show you my gear," said John. "I'll be right in. Just got a few errands to do in the yard."

He fetched a rake went down to the long bed of red mulch bordering the road. He pretended to tidy it up, watching through the corner of his eye until he saw Jerry go in the front door. He waited a few seconds after the door closed to make sure Jerry stayed inside, and dashed across the road, into the woods.
Chapter 40: Scotty's Ax

Aerie paused in Aaron's driveway beside her balky Sentra. The scent of burnt oil hung in the air. Her poor car, lurching and sputtering, had barely made it up the hill this time. It was no longer just a radiator problem anymore. This car had major issues. She had hoped ignoring them would make them go away, but things were only getting worse.

The wind rattled the trees on the hillside and whipped her hair across her face. It felt weird showing up here without a bass, without her band mates. She gathered her courage, sidled past an unfamiliar minivan, and knocked on the door. Tingles scurried down her fingers. A splash of heat surfaced on her cheeks.

The door squealed open. Aaron, masticating, peered at her over a cereal bowl, his eyes sleepy and red. The sight of her perked him up. "Hey! Long time no see. Come on in. Want some Grape Nuts? Yogurt?"

"No thanks."

A wild and complicated conga beat reverberated through the house. Aaron rolled his eyes. "Sheesh! Mr. Bongo over there can't seem to go five seconds without whacking at something."

"Mr. who?"

"Our percussionist." Aaron called into the music room. "Yo Paolo! Come meet Aerie."

The drumming ceased and a slender, bronze-skinned man came bustling around the corner. He had shoulder-length black hair salted with gray. Aerie was impressed by the whiteness of his teeth. He could have been a toothpaste model. He stuck out his hand. "Paolo Ribeiro."

Aerie shook Paolo's uncallused hand. "So nice to meet you."

"Paolo has played with Hermeto Pascoal. You know his work, don't you?"

"Of course," she said, although the name was only vaguely familiar.

"Fellow travelers, eh?"

Aerie could only shrug and nod and smile.

Aaron flicked his chin towards the music room. "Come on, I've got something to show you."

Aerie followed him in, her eyes drawn immediately to the little table in the center. A new bell jar sat atop it, only this one was empty and perfectly transparent. Not a smudge marred the glass, inside or out.

"There's no birdie."

"Of course not." Aaron narrowed his eyes. "Weren't you there when—?"

"Well, yeah. Just seems strange seeing it all uncovered and empty like that."

"I'm an optimist. It's not like these are not singular or solitary creatures, and I know where they prowl. One of these days, I'll pick up another. We need to be ready for Production when the time comes." He came close and touched her elbow. "Paolo here has no clue what we're talking about," he whispered. "Let's keep it that way."

Aerie blinked back at him.

"That's for you... over there, on the floor." He pointed to a well-padded Mooradian case, much fancier than the raggedy nylon gig bag she had used to protect her Juzek.

She knelt beside the bass and tugged at the zipper, revealing maple ribs with a subtle rippled figure, nothing gaudy, just enough eye candy to make the owner know they possessed the magic of wood. An oil finish brought out auburn tones in the grain.

She unzipped a bit more, revealing edges and linings sculpted from wear and scalloped with dings in all the usual places along the bouts. She tapped the front. It rang as only a solid spruce top could ring. At least this was not some cheap plywood tank of a student rental.

More quality revealed itself as she peeled the padded nylon from the bouts: Busetto corners, simple and elegant purfling and bindings, a persimmon fingerboard.

When she saw the f-holes, she gasped. Each ends was separated from the sinuous main slot by an isthmus of wood. She had only seen such a feature in a Prescott.

"What kind of bass is this?"

"Abraham Prescott, 1825. Concord, New Hampshire."

"I knew it!"

"Before you get too excited, this is a loaner, not a gift. We need to take very good care of it. It used to belong to some guy named Scott LaFaro."

A wave of awe ravaged her innards. Could it be? An equally intense surge of disbelief quelled it.

"You're pulling my leg."

"No. It's true."

"But Scotty's bass was destroyed in the wreck that killed him."

"Well yeah, but all the king's horses and all the king's men—actually a guy named Barry Kolstein—managed to patch it all together. Too bad they couldn't do the same for Scotty. Wasn't he like twenty-two when he died?"

"Twenty-five," said Aerie. "Same age as me."

"You're twenty-five? Funny, you seem older... I mean, in a good way. Maturity-wise. Anyhow, Barry happens to be the guy who's working on your old bass."

"My... bag of bones?"

"He's warned me though that it's gonna take a while. It's a big job."

"I don't know what to say," said Aerie. "I can't believe he would swap Scotty's axe for a sack of wood scraps."

"He didn't," said Aaron. "Not exactly. This bass was on exhibit at the Geneva Historical Society. They're closed for renovation, so I managed to have it loaned out for a weekend... with Barry's permission, of course."

"I'm afraid to touch it, never mind play it."

"Aw, go on," said Aaron. "Instruments like that are meant to be played. It's a crime just having it collect dust in some museum."

Aerie gingerly lifted it out of its case. Now she could the places where Kolstein had spliced new wood to replace what had been destroyed. It was done so neatly, it seemed as if the wood had grown back and healed. Only a slight disjunction in the width of the grain betrayed presence of the grafts.

Someone rapped on the door. "Yay!" said Aaron. "I was getting worried those other guys wouldn't show."

He went out to the foyer. The door creaked open. "Oh, hey! Howdy neighbor. What's up?"

Aerie stood abruptly and peeked around the corner. John stood there, all fidgety.

"Can I come in? I don't want anyone to see me standing out here."

"Um, yeah, sure," said Aaron, pulling the door open wider to let him through. "What's going on?"

Aerie stepped out into the hall.

John's eyes widened at the sight of her. "I came to warn you. You all need to lie low the next couple days. The deliverance folks are planning another intervention for tomorrow and—"

"Oh, I don't care about that shit," said Aaron. "I mean... as long as they don't trespass."

"The thing is... there are people at my house with guns."

"O-kay."

"I'm talking automatic weapons. Uzis. Machine pistols. They say it's for our protection, but—"

"From what? We're no threat to anybody."

"I mean, they didn't come right out and say they would attack you, but I'm worried. I've seen what happens to these people when they get a little too much of the Holy Spirit in them. Something could go wrong. Terribly wrong."

"Jeez. All because of a little noise?"

"Not just because of the noise," said John. "Cindy saw one of those things. It came charging at us across the lawn. The Reverend's back and he's convinced they're demons."

"Wait a minute. What things?"

"You know. The things you call birdies," said John.

"It came back? On its own?" said Aaron. "All the way from Ithaca?"

"It's not the same one," said Aerie. "Can't be."

"How would you know?" said Aaron.

"Because Mal has it... the one that got away."

"What's this?" said Aaron, his voice cracking.

"Mal caught the birdie... your birdie... just outside of Ithaca proper."

Aaron's chest heaved. A flush of anger rose behind the grey stubble frosting his cheeks. He turned to John. "What exactly did you see? Tell me about it."

"It was just like the one at the Co-op, only bigger."

"And you saw it here? At Connecticut Hill?"

"Right in my backyard. And there's more in the woods as well. If you go up into the hills you can see their tracks in the moss. They seem attracted to your house."

"How long have you known this?" said Aaron.

"You mean, you didn't know?" said John.

"I never would have taken this place for a haunt," said Aaron. "I usually find them in disturbed areas: Superfund sites gone wild, no-man's-lands between strip mines. This place is too pure. Not completely undisturbed, but still...."

"You make it sound like they're common," said John.

"No," said Aaron. "Not common. But more common than you might think. Most folks don't notice them, take them for dust devils and heat ripples."

"Are they dangerous?"

"Only when cornered," said Aaron. "Sort of like snakes."

"Listen, I really have to go," said John. "You all take heed of what I said, and keep a low profile tomorrow. There's some loopy folks hanging out at my house these days."

"Thanks for coming by," said Aerie, attempting to latch on to one of John's shifty glances with her gaze. "It was awful brave of you."

***

Aaron had retreated to the kitchen to place a series of frantic calls, his tone impatient and aggressive with the unfortunate parties at the other end. Aerie sat cross legged on the floor of the music room staring at that icon of a bass that she had listened to so many times on Sunday at the Village Vanguard, the album that had first lured her into jazz.

Paolo hammered softly on the marimba, playing a Jobim tune loose and unhinged to time. Aerie knew the words and melody, but the name escaped her. She didn't dare accompany him on bass. Instead, she sang along softly under breath.

"In... my loneliness... when you're gone and I'm all by myself... and I need your caress. I... just think of you. And the thought of you holding me near... makes my loneliness soon...."

Aaron marched into the room. "Question for you."

"...disappear."

"How can I get a hold of Mal?"

"Call him."

"I tried. I keep getting shunted directly to voice mail."

"Leave him a message."

"Where's he staying? Sounds like you spoke to him recently?"

"I... promised not to tell."

"What the fuck? Why? What does he plan to do with that thing?"

"I don't know."

"It's the diamonds, isn't it? He's found out about the diamonds."

"I can't say," said Aerie.

"It's not going to do him any good if he can't keep the damned thing alive. Listen, next time you see him. Have him contact me."

"Okay."

Aaron sat down on a stool. His hair was mussed, his face all twitchy and agitated. "Yo Paolo. Enough with the bossa nova, okay?"

Paolo killed the vibrations with his forearm and laid the hammers down.

"Did you see it?" The sonant?"

"The what?"

"I call them sonants. Birdie's just a name the kids made up. Did you see it?"

"Um... well, yeah."

"How was it looking? Bigger? Smaller? More transparent?"

"It was quite a bit smaller," said Aerie. "About half the size it was when it got loose."

"Not surprising," said Aaron. "Exposed to the open air and all."

"Ron and Mal played for it."

"Yeah, well... that's not gonna be enough sustenance."

"Aaron, if we're not going to play. Maybe I should get going?"

"No. Let's play." He plucked his fiddle off a rack.

"You, both Ron and Mal feel bad about what happened. They would both jump at the chance to—"

"Fuck 'em. Let's play," said Aaron. "Paolo, give us something sounds like raindrops. Think of like... the first drops before a thunderstorm. Aerie, don't just sit there, pick up that bass."

She lowered the end pin, and pivoted the bass up off the floor, her palms were lubricated with the dew of anticipation. She felt unworthy to handle such an instrument. She almost expected Scotty's ghost to appear and put a stop to this travesty.

Paolo played something random and sprightly on the marimba. Aaron droned on an inharmonious double stop that, if Aerie didn't know better, she would have said was out of tune. She dug in and plucked an open string. The top responded instantly, sending vibrations out to every corner of the bass and into floor.

"Whoa!" said Aerie. "Not as loud as I expected, but it sure is lively."

"You ain't heard nothing yet," said Aaron. "Wait till you break some bonds and loosen up those fibers. It's probably been a year since this bass was properly played."

Aerie got a shuffling, herky-jerky figure going, battling against Paolo's more conventional rhythm. He responded by going syncopated himself, fighting fire with fire.

Aaron grinned over his wailing double stops. "Do I sense some chemistry here?"

Out of nowhere, came a sing-song, chiming piano. Aaron put down his fiddle and dug deep in his pocket, squirming as if a squirrel had run up his trousers.

"Shush! I've got a call." He fished a black slab of a phone out of his pants pocket and glanced at the face. "It's him. Maybe he's lost." He flipped it open.

"Hollis?" said Paolo.

Aerie's head turned so fast she almost gave herself whiplash.

"Did you say Hollis? Hollis Brooks?"

"Yeah," said Paolo. "He plays sax. Aaron got him and Isaac a gig in the town here."

Aaron's side of the conversation was peppered with little other than expressions of disappointment like: 'oh, really?' and 'that's a shame' and 'that's too bad.' The creases in his brow solidified. He looked at Aerie, and his eyes went cold with calculation.

"Hey Hollis, this was supposed to be a surprise, but I want you to know that I've got someone here you might know. Pretty well, actually. A friend of yours... from Japan. Let me put you on speaker."

Aerie waggled her palms at Aaron. "No, that's okay," she whispered. "I don't need to talk to him."

Hollis' tinny voice spread across the room. "Son of a gun! Koichi? Is that you?"

Aaron looked at Aerie, eyes narrowed in puzzlement. "It's Aerie," he said. "Aerie Walker."

Paolo, oblivious to the proceedings, played air marimba, arresting his hammer strokes an inch above the bars.

"Now, that's... just... sick," said Hollis. "Why would you say such a thing?"

"Huh? What are you talking about?" said Aaron.

"Aerie Walker's dead. She committed suicide a year ago in Tokyo."

Aerie hadn't intended to speak, but she couldn't believe what she was hearing. The words just bubbled up. "Attempted," she said. "Not committed. I fucked it all up."

"Holy fuck! Don't do this to me. That sounded just like—"

"It's me, Hollis. I'm alive... no thanks to you."

The connection hummed like a distant and faint swarm of honeybees.

"Oh my Lord. I had no idea. I sent flowers... for your funeral."

"What? How could you not know I was alive?"

"Koichi said you committed suicide."

Aerie inhaled deeply. "You never could understand his English."

"You know... you know I'm playing Ithaca... next week? I think it's next week."

"Yeah, I heard."

"Oh, it would be wonderful if you could come to our show. Tell all your friends. Tickets are reasonable, I hear. I mean, it'd be really great if we could fill that hall. That's what I worry about, coming out to play in the boonies. That people don't show and the place is all empty. It just makes you look bad... feel bad."

Again, Aerie couldn't believe what she was hearing. "It's always about you, isn't it?"

"What's that?"

"I said, fuck you, Hollis."

"What? What'd I say?"

"Hang up, Aaron. I don't want to talk to him anymore."

"Just a sec. We've got a bit of business to—"

"Hang up the fucking phone!" Aerie shouted.

The line clicked off, from Hollis' end.

Aaron looked at her, his face all blank and wide. "So sorry about this. I really thought this would be nice for you. I didn't realize you guys had... issues."

"Issues? He thought I was dead for Chrissakes. And then when he found out I was alive, it didn't even faze him. I mean, what the fuck?"

"Really, I'm sorry. I thought it would be a fun surprise."

"Fun." Aerie hung her chin and laid Scotty's bass gently back onto its case. Aaron put his fiddle back onto its rack. He rolled his head back and scanned the ceiling.

"Mind if I play something?" said Paolo.

"Go right ahead. Knock yourself out," said Aaron.

Paolo laid into an eerie, spacey blues. Aaron knitted his fingers and rested his chin on his fists. He cocked his head at Aerie. "Got a proposition for you."

"Shoot," said Aerie.

"Are you in touch... with Sari and those guys?"

"Not with Sari or Eleni, but I can be."

"Listen, I'm ready to swallow my pride. That sonant... birdie... that Mal caught, if he brings it by tomorrow afternoon, and if the whole band comes, I'll give full back pay. Triple bonus for Production. As if nothing ever happened."
Chapter 41: Stranded

The Sentra coughed and sputtered when Aerie turned the key. It threatened to stall as she backed out of Aaron's driveway. Once she slipped it into gear and built some speed, the engine smoothed and she resumed breathing.

The evening at Aaron's had messed with her head. Raising her Prescott from the dead seemed a miracle, something she never dreamed possible, yet there was the mythical bass of Scott LaFaro, risen from the ashes of his 1961 car wreck, to prove it could be done.

What she couldn't believe was that Aaron had the gall to invite Hollis without telling her. Who knows what would have happened had he shown up at the door? It was so typical of him to fail to make good on a promise. She had forgotten how infuriating he could be. How could he possibly think she had died?

And then there was John, so earnest, yet so unconvincing with his warnings. Why would a bunch of religious types come after them with guns? It was only music. It wasn't as if this was an abortion clinic.

Certainly, these birdies were odd creatures. She could see how they might be taken as ungodly. How could these holy rollers know they were as natural and innocuous and perhaps as common as white-tailed deer?

John was getting so obvious about his crush on her. There was something cute but pathetic about the way he snuck those little glances and smiles. It felt special being wanted, regardless of the source, especially when no one else in the world seemed to want her. If only she could feel the same way about him.

Cryptic lights flickered on and off her dashboard. Nothing happened at first when she pressed the accelerator, but then it sprung back to life with a kick and surge.

She patted the center console. "Hang on baby. We're almost at the highway. And then it's all downhill to Ithaca."

The lights of Route 13 beckoned like a landing strip as she roared down the dark tunnels of overhanging trees into the valley.

***

Aerie's car limped all the way back to the farm stand, engine lights flickering, stalling and restarting, coasting most of the way down the big hill just past Newfield. She rolled into the cinder parking lot, aiming for its one feeble street lamp. The car entered the pool of light and expired. A turn of the key drew only clicks.

She looked down the dirt road and up at the wall of blackness where the boys were encamped. She wasn't thrilled about going up there to find them. She tried calling Mal first, but got switched directly to voice mail. She tried Ron's old phone number as well, but it was futile. His minutes had long run out and the number was no longer in service. If she wanted to see them she would have to hike up there alone in the dark.

The night air was getting nippy. She pulled on a sweatshirt she found in her back seat, and over that a fleece. She fumbled around in her glove compartment and found a little flashlight with a piezoelectric hand crank.

She left the security of the car and stood in the pool of light staring up at the ridge, summoning her courage. She knew there was nothing to be afraid of. But the dark was an entity to be feared in and of itself.

Crashing through the woods at night probably wasn't the wisest course of action, but she pictured Ron and Mal up on the ridge top sitting around that campfire toasting marshmallows. Knowing that they were only a short hike away galvanized her. They needed to be told.

She rehashed her understanding with Aaron. If she could get the entire band plus the birdie over to his place by five tomorrow, all order would be restored: Ron would get the money he needed to pay off Julius, Mal could move back into town, and the birdie would once again sing and grow. This was to be her mission.

As she started off down the dirt road, her heart rebounded off her sternum as her heart rate ramped up like a sprinters. It was chilly enough without those drips of perspiration trickling down her side.

It was sheer silliness, this fear of the dark. What was there to be afraid of? It wasn't as if this neglected dirt track was some prime location for muggers and rapists. How ridiculous.

The only wildlife she'd be likely to encounter would be some foraging possum or skunk. If she made enough noise, the critters should have enough sense to scurry out of her way.

As for the sonants, that little puff of dust in the fish tank worried her less than the fact that she had not known such things existed before she met Aaron. If they inhabited this world, what else might prowl the night without her knowing? There might be other things less benign. Not knowing what she didn't know was the scariest part of pressing into the darkness.

At least, the landscape was not as devoid of light as it could be. A thick slice of quarter moon reflected off the pale dirt and glinted off the riffles of the creek. When she reached the ford, she splashed straight across, not bothering to take off her shoes or roll up her pants.

She paused on the other side and listened intently to the forest, hoping to hear Mal's horn or Ron's guitar cut through the night like an audio beacon.

She started up the slope. She veered left whenever she had the option, staying well away from the edge of the gorge this time, not only for safety, but because the sight of that lightless black maw freaked her out. Her flashlight began to fade. She frantically cranked it back to life.

Unseen branches clawed and poked at her face. A trickle of blood ran down her chin. She pressed on upward till she finally reached the place where the slope leveled off. She had totally lost her bearings now.

No campfire glowed. She heard none of the friendly banter she hoped would lead her to her friends. No strumming. No bamboo horn. Just the slow chirp of cold crickets.

"Mal!" she called. "Ron!" There was no response.

She stumbled back and forth along the shelf of land that topped the steepest slope. This had to be the contour where their camp had been, right at the inflection of slope and shelf. She walked right up to the place where the rocks broke through the soil and the gorge split open and stared down into the black and seemingly bottomless pit.

Something trilled down below. She pointed her flashlight down into the void. A pair of glowing eyes shined back at her. She gasped and jumped back, though it was only a raccoon.

She stepped away from the gorge, turned and collided with something dangling from a tree from a crinkly sack with something weighty and metallic inside. It was one of the poly sacks she and Ron had brought earlier that day. Mal must have hung it from a tree to prevent scavengers from getting at the food.

So there she was, in the middle of their abandoned encampment. The beam of her flashlight crossed the tank harboring the sonant. She was curious how it was doing, but the sight of that sooty glass brought a shudder. She couldn't bring herself to go near it.

She stooped over the remains of the fire and laid the back of her hand against embers that were barely warm. It had probably had been hours since anyone had kept it burning.

She expelled an exasperated sigh. "Oh, great."

What now? She stared down through the trees at the sparse lights of Route 13 as they transitioned to the glow of Ithaca's main strip. The boys had probably gone off scavenging. Why, she had no clue. There was no need, given all those groceries she had brought. They should be up here making 'Smores by the fire, listening to her regale them with tales of her visit with Aaron.

No way was she going to climb all the way back down. The boys would be back, soon she hoped. Too bad no live embers remained in the fire pit or she could have stoked it back up. She had no matches, no lighter of her own. A quick rummage about the camp revealed nothing with which to make a flame.

She made her way to the tent, careful not to trip over the guide lines, unzipped it and climbed inside. It was full of musty clothes, a wool blanket and a sleeping bag. It all smelled a little bit musty, but not too bad, considering the level of Mal's hygiene. She nestled into the bag, which was padded and insulated beneath by layers of corrugated cardboard. Cozy.

She lay back and stared up at the silvery shadows cast by the moon, her flashlight clutched to her breast. She let her thoughts search their way to a calmer place as she listened to her heart wind down.

***

Screams of utter terror awakened her. She scrambled and flicked on her flashlight. The flap of the tent was open. Ron peered at her from behind a tree. Mal lay on the ground having tripped over one of the guidelines. A crunched metal can hissed and sprayed a thin stream of beer.

"Jeez guys! It's just me."

"Jesus Christ," said Mal. "You gave us a heart attack."

"Where'd you guys run off to?" said Aerie.

"Beer run." Ron belched. "Want one?"

"Not this very second," said Aerie. "I just woke up."

"How'd it go with Aaron?" said Ron. "That new band of his any good?"

"Nobody showed. Just this... bongo player."

"Bongos?"

"Latin percussion. Bongos, congas, whatever. Listen. He wants us back. All of us, plus the birdie."

"Cool!" said Ron.

"Wait a minute," said Mal. "We sure that's what we want?"

"Hell yeah," said Ron. "Best gig I ever had."

"It was your only gig, Ron," said Mal.

"Fuck off!"

"You know what I was thinking?" said Mal. "Maybe we could work with the birdie ourselves. I mean, why do we need Aaron?"

"These things need special attention," said Aerie. "It's hard to keep them going. Aaron says they fade if—"

"But we know what to play," said Mal. "We know what it likes. We just need more instruments. Maybe some better acoustics."

"It's not just the music," said Aerie. "They need the right dusts. And he says it helps to keep them in a vacuum."

"We can do all that. We just need the right gear."

"How's it doing? Have you checked on it lately?"

"I'm sure it's fine," said Mal. He went over to the fish tank and flicked on a little keychain light. He pressed his face close and squinted. "What the...? Where the fuck is it?"

Ron hustled over. "Don't tell me it escaped!"

"No, it's here," said Mal, quietly. "It's just... small... really small."

"Maybe it curls up when it's sleeping?" said Ron.

"Aaron says once they start to fade, it's hard to stop them from... blinking out."

"Should I get my guitar?" said Ron.

"We need to get it back to Aaron's," said Aerie. "And soon. Any idea how to reach Sari and Eleni?"

"Sari might not even be in town," said Ron. "Vida's touring all over these days."

"One of us can sing," said Mal.

"Don't look at me," said Aerie.

"I don't know," said Ron. "I like your voice. The birdie seemed to like it, too."

"It needs us," said Aerie. "All of us. There was a reason why Aaron was so fussy about who played for him."

Mal sighed. "Sari's a night owl." He pulled out a thin black slab from his inside pocket—an iPhone."

The sight of it annoyed Aerie. "It might be nice if you turned that on once in a while."

"No way to charge it up here," said Mal. "I need it for emergencies. I mean, what happens if I break my leg in the gorge?"

"Don't worry about the battery," said Aerie. "I'll bring it home and charge it. I'll even buy you a spare."

Mal pressed the on button. The glow of his iPhone spread across their faces.

Ron staggered off into the dark.

"Don't pee on the tent!" scolded Mal as he placed the call. He held the phone to his ear. His expression remained blank. "She's not answering."

"Leave a message," said Aerie.

"It's not worth it," said Mal. "Sari never checks her voice mail."

He shuttled between apps. "She tweeted a few hours ago. Vida's recording in Binghamton. That's commuting distance. Could mean she's staying in Ithaca."

"Send her an invite for tomorrow at Aaron's," said Aerie.

"What do I say?"

"Tell her Aaron forgives us. Production tomorrow at five. Full back pay. Triple bonus."

Mal's fingers flashed. "Done."

"What about Eleni?"

Mal and Ron looked at each other.

"Eleni's kind of a Luddite," said Mal. "She practically lives off the grid on some hippie farm, between the lakes."

"Well, that sure narrows it down," said Ron.

"You mean, like a commune? Do those places still exist?"

"You don't know Ithaca very well, do you?"

"Do a search. Maybe they have a directory."

"Woo-hoo! Sari just responded on Facebook: 'Lovely to hear from you. Hope you are doing well. Afraid my schedule does not allow. TTFN."

"We need to talk to her," said Aerie. "Tell her we'll calling and she should pick up this time."

Mal composed the message and they waited.

"Anything?" said Aerie, after a minute or so.

"She's ignoring us."

"Maybe she went to bed?" said Ron.

"Call her!"

Ron wandered back and fished another beer out of the twelve pack. He held up a can. "Anybody else want one?" Aerie ignored him.

"Voice mail, again," said Mal.

"Jeez! What the heck's her problem?" said Aerie.

She looked out over the valley at a lonely set tail lights heading up into the hills. She wondered if that was Connecticut Hill she was looking at, or if it lay further beyond.

"Post another message on her wall. Ask where we can send Aaron's check."

"Checks?" said Ron. "We have checks?"

"Pretend... we have a check for her," said Aerie.

"Brilliant," said Mal, as he typed.

"Think any of your skater friends know how to get in touch with Eleni?"

"Doubt it," said Ron. "They know her through me. That's not her crowd at all."

"Hey-hey! It worked!" said Mal. "She we can drop it off at 54 Sunset Drive."

"Where the hell's that?" said Ron.

"Cayuga Heights," said Mal. "As ritzy an address there is in Ithaca. We're talking monster houses, lake views. Mowed a lot of lawns there my first summer in Ithaca. And I mean lawns with a capital L."

"She must have a new boyfriend," said Ron.

"We need to see her," said Aerie. "Face to face."

"Now?"

"She's still up, isn't she?"

"Let's at least wait for the sun to come up. Come on. Let's have a beer."

***

When the beer was gone, Mal retreated to the tent, and his wheezing snore soon competed with Ron's persistent prying about Aerie's lost career. He circled the fire and paced the clearing, growing ever more alert and antsy as the night wore on. His behavior made Aerie wonder if he had imbibed in something besides all that cheap beer.

She lay curled on the ground, facing the fire, resting her head on an empty carton stuffed with leaves. Her front was toasty, but the chill lapping at her spine made her shiver, regardless.

"Man, it must have been cool playing in a house band," he said. "Playing every night. You must have gotten hit on a lot."

"Not as much as you might think. We played strip clubs. Upscale. Gentlemen's clubs, they call them. You know it's a fancy one when they have live jazz five nights a week. No way could I compete with those girls who worked there. I mean, can you imagine me with no makeup, baggy black shirts. Some guys would ask if I was lesbian."

"Well, are you?"

Aerie sighed dismissively. "Does it matter?"

"Maybe... to some of us."

"Tokyo, now that was different. It wasn't just background music. People actually listened to us. Guys paid more attention to me, but it was more of a fan boy thing. They'd even ask me for my autograph. Can you imagine?"

She rolled onto her back and noticed that the stars had gotten sparser. The sky was beginning to lighten.

"How'd you like some breakfast?"

"I think I finished the bread," said Ron.

"No, I mean like we go into town and get some omelets and shit? My treat."

"State Diner?"

"We could, though there's better places."

"Like where?"

"Waffle Frolic, for one."

"That yuppie place?" Ron cringed, but then seemed to reconsider. "I gotta admit, it smells pretty good whenever I walk by." He went over and batted the wall of the tent with his palms. "Mal! Wake up. Aerie's buying us breakfast."

Mal groaned. Nylon rustled against nylon.

"I'll have to stay in the car," said Ron. "But you guys can sneak me out a doggie bag."

"Because of Julius? Don't worry about him. You've got us with you."

"You think that helps? You don't know Julius' history. This guy busts noses. I'm way too pretty to risk that."

The tent zipper whined open, and Mal emerged with hair looking like some kind of extreme ikebana.

"No one else came in for a nap? There was plenty of room. Would've been cozy, but we probably could've even fit three."

"You need to shower, Mal," said Aerie.

He sniffed his armpit. "Oh, it's not that bad. I use deodorant."

"Let's go," said Ron. "I got omelets on the brain."

"Someone, kill the fire." Mal stumbled over to the aquarium. "We're taking Junior with us, right?"

"Junior?" said Aerie.

Ron kicked dirt on the glowing embers.

"I was thinking we could stash him lower down so we don't have to climb back up to get him later." He peered inside the glass. "Oh shit! He's not looking so good."

Aerie came over and flicked on her light. The dust cloud pulsed slowly inside the broken flower pot like an ebbing heart. "Crap!"

Ron grabbed his guitar from the tree from which it dangled. "Let's play."

"I'm not so sure the three of us are enough," said Aerie. "We need to get this little guy to Aaron's."

Mal pulled off some the rocks weighing the cover down and lifted the tank. "Someone grab my horn. Spot me if I slip. Don't want to smash this thing to smithereens."

"Get his sax, Aer." Ron tossed his guitar strap over his shoulder.

"Where is it?" She patted the ground beside the tent. Something crunched beneath her knee. "Aw shit. Mal, I think you need a new reed." She glanced up, finding nothing but trees, and beyond a sky gone pale. "Mal?"

She grabbed the horn and scurried off to catch up with the boys.

***

They stashed the aquarium in a thick bed of ferns near the conjunction of the creeks, and struck out for the parking lot of the farm stand. Ron strode in front. Aerie brought up the rear. Workers from the farm stand stared as they approached the lot. She could only imagine what they thought of such a bedraggled trio stumbling out of the woods at this hour. They looked like refugees from some invasion, or some down on their luck migrant workers.

The little white Sentra sat alone at the edge of the cinder lot. Aerie was relieved to see no orange tickets protruding from the wiper blades. She unlocked it and they loaded their instruments. Ron sat in front. Mal was already sacking out on the back seat.

The car started all rough and reluctant, with its usual flicker of engine warning lights, some of which stayed on, but at least it ran. She put the car into gear and tried to back up. It stuttered and died. She restarted it, only to stall again.

"Pop the hood." Ron hustled out. He plucked a leaf from a catalpa tree to wipe the dip stick. He ducked around the hood, face contorted.

"Aerie, what's the deal? No oil. No coolant."

"I don't know. I just drive the thing."

"It's a machine, Aerie. You have to take care of it."

"Can't you get it to go?"

"It's gonna take more than water this time," said Ron.

"So... what do we do?"

"There's a Mobil station just down the way. Aerie, you get in and steer. Me and Mal will push."
Chapter 42: Excursion

Sunlight filtered through the sparse leaves of a birch bough rubbing on the bedroom window. John awoke to soft refractions and dappled shadows dancing on the wall.

He reached over to Cindy's side of the bed to touch her hand, as he did every morning to take measure of her mood. How she responded—whether her fingers entwined his, stayed limp or jerked away—revealed scads more than words could ever provide about the outcome of their spats and the state of their marriage.

His hand met only rumpled sheets. Cindy was already up and gone.

Voices reverberated downstairs. Clunks and scrapes resounded from the dining room as if furniture was being moved. A gush of panic made him throw off the covers and fly out of bed.

Out of habit he went first down the hall to check on the boys, finding Nigel's bed and Jason's crib both empty. He blinked away mental cobwebs, remembering that Cindy's parents had come to fetch them the night before. How could he forget them being bundled out the door in their pajamas, screaming and squirming like sacks of kittens?

Cindy's folks seemed resentful of yet another imposition on their pensioned lifestyle. Cindy had cajoled her folks to take the kids to Orlando with them, but the matter was still under negotiation. She wanted John to be the one to go down fetch them from Disney World if they ended up going. He hadn't agreed or disagreed. He simply couldn't think that far ahead.

He lurched back to the bedroom to dress. Other than a fresh pair of socks, he put on the same clothes he had worn the day before. He could shower and change after his errands.

He had so much to do. They were feeding an army tonight. Chickens needed to be bought and hacked and marinated. Potatoes needed to be peeled and boiled and mashed, salads prepped and tossed.

Downstairs, he found Rand camped out on the sofa in front of the fireplace, a stack of wood piled on the carpet. The fire burned quite vigorously, but at least the flames confined themselves to the hearth this time. He shook his head at the bits of bark and smudges of dried mud soiling the carpet. He needed to dust the furniture and run a vacuum through the rooms on top of everything else he had to do.

He found Jerry in the breakfast nook off the kitchen, standing by the toaster with a box of pop tarts. He gave John an odd look, his eyes all narrow and serious.

"Ew! Jerry, why are you eating those? There's some nice apple-ginger scones in the breadbox."

"These'll do me fine, thanks."

"I could fry you up some eggs. Some sausage?"

"I'm fine, John. Really."

John pulled on a jacket and grabbed a banana out of the fruit bowl, stuffing it into his pocket. He snatched his keys off the hook on the refrigerator.

"I'm heading out to the store. You need anything?"

"Actually, it'd be nice to have some snacks for the woods. Maybe some pepperoni? Some cheese and crackers?"

"No problem."

"Appreciate it. I'll pay you back."

"Oh, don't worry about it. It's only food. I'll be back in an hour or so in case anyone's wondering."

Jerry's looked troubled by something. He touched John's sleeve. "John... hang on a sec."

"Yeah?"

He lowered his voice. "Last night, when I was putting away the gear I happened to notice... well... that you, or someone looked like you had kind of... uh... gone up by that house... the hell house."

The insides of John's stomach rippled. "Yeah. What about it?"

"So that was you? What exactly were you doing up there?"

John glanced out towards the dining room where some folks were glad handing with Mac. Cindy's voice seemed absent from the mix.

"Just... poking around. You know... s-surveillance."

"Spying?"

"Yeah."

"So what'd you see?"

"Um... not much. There wasn't much going on. I mean, they played some music... but it was kind of laid back compared to what they usually do."

Jerry looked at him with a grave, but fatherly concern. "Listen... and I'm just saying... you gotta be careful around this bunch. If Donnie or the others see you doing stuff like that, they might think you're consorting with the enemy and that you're possessed or something. They're gonna want to do an intervention on you. I'm not kidding. That's how Donnie thinks. And a personal intervention... a forced deliverance... I guarantee you is no picnic. Been there. Done that. Let me tell you."

"Well thanks," said John. "Thanks for the warning. But there's really no need... I just took a walk to see what's going on. That was about all I did."

"I understand. I'm just saying, John. Watch your back."

***

As John approached the outskirts of Ithaca, the queasiness triggered by his little chat with Jerry lingered. He wondered how Jerry had managed to spot him. He had been discrete, returning from Aaron's via a circuitous route all the way around the end of the cul-de-sac. It had been completely dark out. Jerry must have used that dang infrared camera or those light-amplifying goggles.

What's done was done. Fretting about things wouldn't make them any better. He was just going to have to be more careful.

He went over the menu and a list of groceries in his head. He would need at least ten medium-sized chickens for broiling. Their oven wasn't large enough to cook them all at once, so they would have to go in staggered, which would be fine because dinner would be buffet style, as people would be arriving at various times.

Some kind of polenta would be nice, instead of mashed potatoes, though he wondered if this crowd could handle it. It was basically grits ground finer, but maybe some kind of rice dish would be a safer bet. Maybe a pilaf with golden raisins and nuts, though on second thought, he remembered some allergies in this crowd. Maybe a touch of saffron would add the pizzazz he was seeking.

Just past the farm stand at the turn to Treman State Park, he came upon two young men pushing a dingy white Sentra along the shoulder. The duct tape on the fender made him slam on the brakes. He decelerated abruptly, and pulled alongside, nearly but not quite overshooting them. He put on his flashers.

Aerie sat in the driver's seat with her window open. She looked startled to see him. Her hair was disarrayed and she had smudges on her cheeks. The two guys pushing looked even more disheveled and dirty.

"What happened? Is everything okay?" said John.

"Oh, it's nothing," she said. "My car went kablooie again." She gave him a weird and warped little smile. "We're pushing it to the gas station."

"You really should have that towed," said John. "It's not safe pushing it along the road like that. People come blasting through this stretch. I mean, I've seen trucks go ninety down that hill."

"Yeah. You're absolutely right," said Aerie. "But... we're almost there. I can see the sign up ahead."

"At least put on your flashers," said John. He peeked into his rear view mirror. Traffic was light this early in the day.

His instincts told him to move on, but he couldn't help himself. This was Aerie after all, in the flesh. "Do you guys... n-need help?"

"Um... sure," said Aerie.

The frizzy-haired kid stopped pushing and stood up straight. He scrolled away on his smart phone. "Hey guys. I just got a lead on Eleni. A friend of mine says he thinks she works at GreenStar."

"Let's go!" said Aerie. "Maybe John here can give us a ride."

"But... what about your car?" said John.

"I don't give a crap anymore," said Aerie. "That thing's given me nothing but trouble."

"Sari's got a car," said the kid with the phone.

"A decent one, as I recall," said Aerie.

"Decent? It's a freakin' Saab," said the guy with the shorter hair.

"We should leave a note for the troopers," said the guy with the phone.

"Oh, who cares?" said Aerie. "They want it, they can have it. Come on, let's go to GreenStar."

"What about the waffles you promised?" said the short-haired kid.

"First things first," said Aerie. "Finding Eleni's more important."

Aerie scrambled into the front seat.

"Wait a minute," said John. "Where is this place you want to go?"

"It's that food co-op on West Buffalo," said Aerie. "You just go straight like you're heading into town and stop before you get to State. We can walk from the corner."

"I wasn't planning on going all the way into town," said John. "Actually, I was just going to Wegman's." Aerie looked back at him with those sad, almond eyes. He looked away, as if he feared being turned to stone. "Does... does GreenStar have a meat department?"

"Yeah, actually they do," said Aerie.

"What the heck," said John. "Maybe I can pick up my chickens there."

"Oh, they'd be free range, for sure," said Aerie. "Much nicer than that Perdue, factory-raised crap."

The guys piled into the back seat.

"John, let me introduce my friends. The guy with the dreadlocky fro is Malachi, and that there is Ron. You might recognize them from the band."

"Of course." Heart thumping, disparate thoughts churning, he pressed his foot on the accelerator and pulled forward.

"Whoa! Hang on!" Ron burst out the door as the car started to roll. "I forgot my guitar!"

***

John rolled up to the register with a cart loaded with twelve, lovely broilers, a sack of jasmine rice, five pounds of purple Yomitan sweet potatoes and various odds and ends including some kind of vegetarian sausage for Jerry. He wasn't so sure Jerry was going to like the stuff, but it was the closest thing he could find to pepperoni in a place like this.

His new friends were out front, huddled around a bagger wearing a moss green apron. Aerie glanced back at him, chewing on her chapped lips. John nodded and smiled as he loaded the fresh chickens onto the checkout counter. She split off from the group and came walking over, her eyes maintaining contact with his. A shiver rippled down his back.

"Hey John. I need to ask you a favor. Turns out our friend Eleni doesn't work here anymore. She used to, but now she works at this other place."

"Oh? Where's that?"

"Ludgate Farms."

"I never heard of it."

"It's just up the hill. Mal knows the way. Right Mal?"

A pressure built deep in John's stomach. "Um... yeah, you know I'd love to help but... I kind of have to get these chickies home and get them all prepped and marinated. We got that big dinner, tonight, you know."

"Oh, I promise it won't take long," said Aerie. "Just a quick stop to see our friend, and then you can be on your way. How about it?"

There went those eyes again. It was rare for her to give so much sustained eye contact. He had previously considered himself lucky to sneak a squint from her. Yet there were those eyes, lounging in his gaze. A stirring disquieted his loins.

"Um... okay," he said.
Chapter 43: Preparations

Donnie was surprised to find the kitchen so bustling at such an early hour. Folks had arrived bearing sacks of donuts and bushels of apples and gallon of cider. One couple treated him like a celebrity, too shy to speak, but not too meek to gawk. He excused himself and cruised through the dining room seeking a quiet place to meditate on the task at hand.

Tammie and Rand had Fox News blasting in the den. They sat together on the rug, making small talk about some reality TV show, tossing occasional chunks of apple wood into the blaze. They barely noticed Donnie as he hurried past them to the door of the study.

He rapped lightly on the door. "Knock-knock?"

No one answered. He pushed the door open to find a room awash in sunlight. Corner windows looked out into the backyard. The warm, wood paneling made him feel like he had entered his own office back home, apart from the bins of toys in the corner.

He removed a stack of papers from a nifty mesh-back swivel chair and wheeled it to a cherry table, the only clear spot in a study cluttered with the flotsam and jetsam of a busy real estate practice.

He emptied his briefcase of the notes and source documents relating to the Swain's case, intending to tweak the text of his rites and hone the overall plan of attack for tonight's ceremony. The scarred, bound ledger in which he kept his notes reflected the agony this case had wrought. Its dog-eared pages swarmed with coffee stains, cross-outs, Post-it notes and print-outs of internet discussions of cyclonic phenomena around the world: everything from waterspouts to microbursts. He longed for the day he could file this ledger beside the others on his office bookshelf, yet another souvenir of his growing legacy.

He sorted through his stack of references, placing his old standby, the Moody Deliverance Manual, front and center on the table. Alongside it he arrayed the photocopied and annotated pages of every relevant passage of the Old and New Testament and the Apocrypha in several translations, that he had three-hole-punched, cross-indexed and organized into binders.

His research had left no Judeo-Christian tradition untapped. With a case as unusual as the Swain's, with its external as well as internal threats, he could not afford to ignore any sources of wisdom. He had with him copies of Catholic documents, both ancient and contemporary, from some 17th century Latin tracts he could barely understand, to some recent writings of the famed British demon killer, Father Jeremy Davies of Oxford.

Donnie had been privileged to meet Father Davies at an annual gathering of the International Congress of Exorcists in Czestochowa, Poland. There, he had even managed a glimpse of the grand wizard of all exorcists, the Reverend Gabriele Amorth.

The old man had been escorted by a band of svelte young priests with murderous glares who carried themselves with a decidedly non-clerical cockiness. He wondered if they might belong to the near mythical Adjurist Brotherhood—the anti-nigromantic ninjas of the Vatican—whose existence was emphatically denied by Bishops and Cardinals alike.

Donnie's briefcase also contained excerpts from the Zohar, the Hebrew text that formed the core of the mystical traditions of Kabbalah. He didn't know what to make of the oddly altruistic Jewish approach to exorcism, so opposed to the Christian method of expelling and banishing demons. Kabbalists sought to heal the souls of not only the victims of possession but also the invading spirits or 'dybbuks' themselves. This struck Donnie as radical and risky. If you didn't actually expel the dybbuk, what was to stop them from rising up some day like some cancerous tumor coming out of remission?

Still, the Jewish material compelled him enough to include some Kabbalistic rites in the pre-ceremony. An inner circle of ten souls would gather to chant Psalm 91 three times for protection. He recited the pith of the protective prayer under his breath:

'He will save you from the fowler's snare and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his feathers and under his wings you will find refuge.'He skipped down to the part that inspired him the most:

'He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. You will tread on the lion and the cobra.'

Donnie sifted through his notes, spotting a quote from an interview with a Jewish Exorcist from New Mexico who had impressed him—a rabbi named Gershon Winkler.

'We blow the ram's horn in a certain way, with certain notes, in effect to shatter the body, so to speak. So that the soul who is possessing will be shaken loose. After it has been shaken loose, we can begin to communicate with it and ask it what it is here for. We can pray for it and do a ceremony for it to enable it to feel safe and finished so that it can leave the person's body.'

This idea appealed to him, of fighting music with music. If only he could get a hold of a ram's horn to blow. He wondered if Mac knew any rabbis who might lend him a spare shofar.

A clanking arose in the den. "Donnie? You here?"

"I'm in the study, Jer. What's up?"

Jerry pushed through the door bearing a cluster of silvery metal cans with handles.

"I got these paint cans that make good wind screens for those candles. Might have to vent them a bit. What do you think?"

"How windy is it gonna be tonight?"

"Not too bad. The weather service says it's gonna calm down as the day goes on. High pressure's settling in over the top of us. Zero chance of rain. Tonight the winds'll be light and variable, they're talking two, three knots. Enough to blow out a candle though, without a wind screen."

Donnie scratched his chin. "I was thinking, maybe we can start the rites indoors with bare candles, seven of them, pure beeswax just like in the scriptures, and then...." He held up a jar. "You remember this? This is the holy oil we brought back from Poland. It's intended to be used for demon protection via anointing in baptisms and such, but it's also flammable. Mac's gonna bring us some tiki torches, so I was thinking of spiking the lamp oil with some of this stuff. I don't want anyone going near that house without a flame to protect them. Between these torches and your wind screens, I think we'll be all set."

"I can drive a sharp screw up through the bottom of these cans," said Jerry. "Give us a little spike to set the candles. These candles are kind of long, though. We might have to cut 'em down."

"Whatever, Jer," said Donnie, throwing up his hands. "We can let them burn down or... whatever you figure out, I'm sure will be fine. Now, if you'll pardon me, I kind of have to get back to this here—"

Cindy popped her head into the study.

"Oh, here's where you are! We were wondering where you guys ran off to. You know there're some folks out in the kitchen who would really love to meet you."

Donnie smiled and nodded his head. "I'll be shortly. I'm just finishing up some notes. I'm not in your way here, am I? I had to move some of your papers."

"Oh, not a problem. Please do make yourself at home. I'm taking the day off. I'm not even gonna go near any of my real estate stuff till Monday."

"I'll be out of your hair soon, ma'am. I promise. I just needed a quiet place to... meditate."

"Oh, by all means Donnie... er... I hope you don't mind that we've all been calling you Donnie? Or do you prefer Reverend?"

"People have called me Donnie all my life. I'm not going to make them stop now."

"Before I go, would anybody like some coffee or tea? I'm about to brew up another batch. John's got an Italian espresso thingie as well, but I'm not sure exactly how to use it, and seeing as he's not here...."

"A cup of American, black, is fine with me," said Jerry.

"Cream and sugar for me, please," said Donnie.

"Speaking of my husband..." said Cindy. "Did he happen to mention to you gentlemen where he was headed or when he might be coming back?"

"He went off to get groceries," said Jerry. "Though, that was hours ago. I was hoping he'd be back and could help me with some wiring issues with my traps. We were gonna do it last night, but never did get around to it."

"Well, I... apologize," said Cindy. "It's not like John to skip out like this when there are things to be done. Not like him at all. I'm going to have to give him a call."
Chapter 44: Ludgate

Riding shotgun, Aerie slumped against the door, hands clasped in her lap, listening to John's oddly soothing Christian rock. Its catchiness disturbed her. She wasn't supposed to like this stuff, yet there she was, practically stepping on her toe to keep it from tapping. Perhaps this was an epiphany she was smothering? If so, it was not the first.

John glanced over, his gaze earnest and painfully alert. "This CD is Steve Urbel's latest. I'm sure you've heard of him?"

"Not really," said Aerie, drowsily.

"He used to go to our church. Now, he's like the number one draw in contemporary Christian music. Cindy and I got free tickets last year when he played Oneonta."

"That's nice," said Aerie, closing her eyes. "He has a... nice... voice."

"Oh but... that's not him singing," said John.

"Huh?"

"That's a girl. Steve sings, but not on this tune. He's just playing guitar on this one."

The velour seat covers were so thick and cozy, like snuggling in bed. John's car smelled so clean, and it wasn't just the air freshener. His windshield probably didn't leak and spawn mildew the way hers did.

A minefield of potholes shook Aerie like a rag doll and jarred her back fully alert. She wiggled taller in the seat. The suburbs had given way to a landscape of fallow pastures and corn stubble.

The transition seemed to unsettle John. He slowed abruptly and glanced back the way the way they had come. "Guys... I think we just left Ithaca city limits. Are you sure we didn't pass it?"

"We're almost there," said Ron. "It's another couple miles on the left."

"Another... couple miles?"

"Calm down, big fella," said Ron. "We're just gonna grab our friend and go. It won't take but a minute."

"They've got great produce there," said Aerie, in the tone of a mom attempting to calm an impatient child. "You can pick up something to cook for your dinner?"

John exhaled, exasperated. "Thanks, but... I think I've shopped enough."

He pressed onward. Another couple bends in the road and the sign for Ludgate Farms finally appeared.

"Oh! God Bless," said John. He puffed his cheeks and exhaled as he turned into a lot busy with shoppers. He lucked into a space near the entrance.

"Comin' with?" said Aerie, as she slipped out. He was being so nice, going out of his way like this.

"I think I'll stay with the car," said John, arms folded, fingers kneading the sleeves of his jacket. "Please make it quick. I've got to get home."

"Ooh John! Look, they've got Swiss chard on sale!"

"Ron, please!" said Aerie as she slammed the door. "Don't mock him. He's doing us a big, big favor."

They maneuvered through stacks of pumpkins scanning the aisles for Eleni.

"Do we know if she's even working today?" said Aerie.

"It's morning," said Mal. "She's a morning person."

"Is that all you have to go on? We dragged poor John all the way up here with only—?

"There she is!" said Ron.

Eleni emerged from a store room with a cart stacked with bundles of carrots. Her eyes went wide when she spotted her friends. She rushed over and pounced on them, hugging each in turn.

"Oh my God! I thought you guys were kidnapped by space aliens or something. I mean, it's like you all just disappeared from Ithaca."

"Tell me about it," said Aerie.

"We're back in business, El girl!" said Ron. "Aaron forgives us and wants us to play for pay again."

"Really? When do we play again?"

"Now," said Mal.

She scrunched her brow. "Huh?"

"When do you finish your shift?" said Aerie.

"Hell with that," said Mal. "She's coming with us now. Junior's not gonna last the day the rate he's fading."

"Who's—?"

"I'll explain later," said Aerie. "Can you come with us? Is it possible?"

Eleni's eyes wandered as if searching the motes of dust dancing in the sun beam washing the front of the market. They seized like a dart. "I'll tell them... it's a family emergency."

She bustled over to the service desk and demanded the attention of an elderly man in a white shirt and bow tie. After a lot of nodding and pats on the back, she pulled off her apron and came sprinting back, barely suppressing her grin.

"Let's go!"

***

John maneuvered past hedges, down access lanes and onto back roads no wider than driveways. This would be the last stop, Aerie had promised, just a quick drive-by to pick up their lead singer.

The only problem was: no one seemed to know where Sari lived. They had a street address, but the houses were not always consecutively numbered and some were hidden away down long driveways guarded by big dogs and dowagers.

John kept up what he thought was a calm and cheery front, but he could feel his reserve of calm dwindle. All he could think about was those chickens festering in the trunk. His pulse pounded strong and quick in his ears.

His innate docility was doing him no favors. It was time to put his foot down. He was just going to have to face up to Aerie and tell her that enough was enough.

"Turn right," said Mal, squinting at Google Maps on his iPhone.

John complied, only to immediately recognize a white gazebo under oaks on a grassy slope. They had passed this spot twice before.

"Aw shit, here we go again," said Ron. "Who the fuck taught you how to read a map?"

"Give her a call," said Aerie. "Maybe she could meet us somewhere."

Mal shook his head. "No can do. We do that, we lose the element of surprise," said Mal.

"That's it. I'm heading home," said John. "I'll drop you off downtown."

"No, wait," said Aerie. "Let's try that other road; the one you said was too small."

A tic sprang up in the corner of John's mouth and wouldn't stop quivering. His hands grew slick on the steering wheel, as an ever widening spiral of anxiety pulled him deeper.

"I promise you this will be absolutely the last go," said Aerie, patting his knee.

"It has to be," said John. "I really need to get home."

"Left! Go left," said Mal. "This is it. For real."

"Yup," said Ron. "Look at that mailbox. Number 54!"

An Italianate mansion with salmon-tinted stucco revealed itself from behind a palisade of slender fir trees.

"Holy! Would you look at that?" said Eleni. "Where does she find these rich boyfriends?"

John pulled up beside an arbor strangled with vines dangling shriveled grapes. A walk led past a granite bird bath so massive it could have drowned a crow.

"Does she even know we're coming?" said Aerie.

"Nope," said Mal. "She thinks we're mailing this imaginary check of ours. It's better this way. We have the element of surprise. Let's go to the door together. All of us face to face, how can she say no?"

"Guys. Make it quick. Please?" said John.

"Sari has a car," said Aerie. "If she says yes, we can send you on your way."

"Hold on. I don't see her Saab," said Ron.

"Fuck," said Mal. "Is she not home?" He trotted up the front steps and rang the bell.

John popped the trunk and went around and checked the groceries. The chickens on top were feeling a bit lukewarm to the touch. He stacked the bags to minimize the surface area and keep everything cool. They would be fine, if he could head straight home after this.

He would have to work quickly; scrub them in the sink, mash some garlic, grate some ginger, dismember them and combine everything in a plastic tub and into the fridge. He need two hours minimum to allow for a proper marinade.

His phone chimed. He shuddered at the caller id. It was Cindy. With reluctance, he answered. "H-hi, hon."

"John? Where the heck have you been?"

"Um... shopping. Fetching groceries for dinner tonight."

"Jerry says you left three hours ago."

"No... I don't think so... not quite... it was more like two. I... uh... I didn't care for the poultry at Wegman's so I had to... I went to... uh... GreenStar."

"That hippie place?"

"No, it's not hippie per se, it's... natural foods. I got some good stuff there. Wait'll you see these chickens. So fresh. They've got such a great, great color to them."

"Where are you? You on your way back?"

"Um... yeah. I made a stop at Ludgate Farms, but... I'm... I'm on my way."

"Are you nuts? That's halfway to Dryden. What's wrong with our local farm stand?"

"Well... Ludgate had some good specials... like... Swiss Chard... though I... I ended up not getting any. I thought may... our guests... might like something more familiar."

"Chard? Really, John? This foodie thing is getting to be a bit of an obsession. Listen. We're all here having coffee and tea and there's no creamer... not even skim milk. I'm having our guests squirt whipped cream into their cups. That's... not acceptable."

"Oh! It's okay, hon. I picked up a carton of half-and-half. I'll be home soon. I'm... on my way."

"What about lunch? I assume you're on top of that?"

"Um... I wasn't counting on lunch. Isn't this gonna be an evening thing?"

"People are already here, John. All I have to offer them is some donuts and bagels."

"Oh, no problem. I picked up some nice, crusty good bread, some sliced provolone and cold cuts. I can make an apple pie for dessert."

"I wish you had thought of doing all this yesterday, instead of waiting till the last minute like always."

"Well, last night... I intended to go... I just got tied up with the kids and all."

"Kids? What are you talking about? I was the one watching them till my folks got there! You were... you were... I don't know what you were doing." John heard whispering on the other end of the line. "Just... hurry home. Jerry said you'd promised to help him with something or another."

"Will do. I'm... I'm on my way. I'm driving."

An unearthly scream ululated from the porch. The singer from the band out on the porch in blue silk pajamas, slapping at Ron and writhing in his grasp.

"John? What on earth was that noise? Did you run over a cat?"

"Cind. I gotta go! Talk to you later, bye."

***

"Get your hands off me! Get away! This house is alarmed. I can have the police here in... two minutes."

"Sari, calm the fuck down!" said Aerie. "Ron was only joking. He wasn't really going to kidnap you."

Ron's eyebrows popped. "I wasn't?"

"I told you. I am finished with Aaron. It was a lovely and very interesting time playing with you all, and for good pay, but I have moved on and now I have become a very busy person. We are recording in Binghamton starting tomorrow, and I have much to prepare."

"Sari, we need you," said Aerie. "I've never heard anyone with a voice that comes close to what you can do with yours can do."

"So you think the way to persuade me is to attack me while I am wearing my pajamas having my tea at breakfast?"

"We just wanted a chance to talk," said Mal. "Ron's just being Ron."

Sari's breathing equalized. The fire in her eyes dissipated.

"So how have you all been? I must say, you look terrible. You've lost some weight, Mal. And your clothes look so dirty."

"I've been busy," said Mal. "Catching birdies."

Sari gaped. "You did not!"

"I did."

"Aaron is quite pleased, I presume?"

"He needs us," said Aerie. "And we need you."

"I'm sorry, dear, but I told you—"

"If you don't come they're going to make me sing."

"You?" Sari cocked her head like a pigeon. "Well, I can certainly give you some tips. I can tell you what the birdies like to hear."

"Um... no... I wasn't actually planning to sing. I mean, that's ridiculous."

Sari shuffled her feet, impatiently. "Well, goodbye and thank you all for coming. It was nice to see you again, although I could do without the pranks next time. I do wish you all would come and see Vida when we play Ithaca next."

"Aw, for Christ's sake, Sari, come on!" said Ron. "Didn't you hear about the triple pay?"

"She can even have my share," said Mal.

"It is not about the money," said Sari. "It is my time that is precious."

Eleni stepped in front of Sari. "Guys, it's okay. I know this other girl with this amazing voice. Her name's Lucy and—"

"Lucy Renaldo?" said Sari, eyebrows sharpening. "The Brazilian?"

"You know her?"

"I've heard... of her."

"Lucy would do it," said Eleni. "She loves any chance to sing, and her voice is incredible. You have to hear it. She's so powerful."

"What you mean is, she is loud," said Sari.

"Not just that. She has range and control."

"I know what you are doing," said Sari. "You are just... tweaking me."

Eleni turned slightly and looked at Aerie. There was something sly behind her flat expression.

"Did you know she's even sung opera at Cornell? And she's not even a student there."

"I'm game. Why don't... why don't we give her a call?"

Sari squinted and hugged herself against the chill. "Hold on! When is it you are playing with Aaron?"

"As soon as we can get there," said Mal.

"So once we're there... one, two hours at most?"

Mal shrugged and nodded. "You know the deal. It's a production."

"And after, someone can take me straight back to Ithaca?"

"What happened to your car?" said Ron.

Sari's expression soured. "That old Saab wasn't mine," she said. "It belonged to my ex."

"Oops," said Ron.

"I'd be happy to bring you back, if we can get my car running," said Aerie.

"Maybe it's just a fuel filter," said Ron. "That'd be a quick fix."

A sly smile congealed on Sari's lips and her eyes glittered. "Let me go get dressed."

***

John couldn't believe it when he was finally back on Route 13 and pointed homeward. Now he could drop them all off discretely by Aerie's car and leave them to their own devices.

He worried that folks from the church passing by might see them. He could claim he was being a Good Samaritan to some strangers whose car had broken down. It wasn't far from the truth.

The only problem was, Aerie's car was gone from where they had left it on the shoulder.

"Shit," said Aerie.

"I don't see it at the Mobil," said Mal, looking out the back window.

"Well, we know no one stole it," said Ron. "Not if they couldn't start it. Question is, where the heck did they tow that piece of shit?"

"If it's the same people who towed your uncle's van, it's up at the State Police barracks."

"And... where's that?" said John.

"Just past... Ludgate Farms."

"What?"

"Calm down," said Aerie. "You don't need to bring us. I'll deal with it... some other day."

"So what should I do? Just drop you off here?"

"Um... actually, maybe you could just take us out to your place. I mean, that's where we're headed anyway."

His eyebrows angled up like a drawbridge. A blush colored his cheeks. John pulled over onto the sandy shoulder. "Listen, I've shuttled you guys around all morning. It's time for me to get on with my day."

"But you're going out that way anyhow."

"No. You don't understand. You can't go there! Not today. You're better off in town."

"We kind of have to be there, John. We promised Aaron."

"I told you what was happening, Aerie. I told you about... the guns."

"Well... maybe if we go early enough we can get it over with and be done by the time the ceremony starts. Didn't you say it was going to start at night?"

"What ceremony?" said Eleni. "Is someone getting married?"

"Oh, apparently there's going to be some big exorcism shindig tonight," said Aerie.

"Cool!" said Ron.

"Wait a minute," said Mal. "I thought we'd already been Delivered."

"Apparently not," said Aerie.

"Who? Wait. What's all this?" said Sari. "Nobody thinks to mention this before I get in the car?"

"Yes," said John "It's scheduled for after sunset, but—"

"The quicker you get us out there, the sooner we can leave," said Aerie. "Aaron can give us a ride back to town. We can be long gone by the time your little party gets going."

"You shouldn't be going there at all today," said John. "You shouldn't be going anywhere near that place."

"John. I've told you, we've got no choice. We have to go. If it's not you who takes us, we'll take a cab... or something."

John sighed. "I can't. If someone sees me with all of you in my car...."

"We'll hunker down low," said Ron.

"Oh no you will not," said Sari. "There will be no hunkering with four of us in the back seat," said Sari.

"You can drop us off up the road and we can walk," said Mal. "No biggie. You just get us most of the way there, and you can pretend you never saw us."

John squirmed under his seat belt. "I shouldn't be doing this, for your sake as much as mine."

Aerie touched his hand. "Please?"

His breath left him. A buzzing spread from his core to his extremities. "Oh Jeez. Oh, what the heck."

She squeezed his fingers. "Thanks so much! Only... there's one more thing. We need to make a teensy-weensy detour before we head out."

John groaned.

"No, it's okay. It'll just take a second. We just need to go behind that farm stand and pick something up. Quick, quick."

"But we just came from Ludgate's!"

"Quick, quick," said Aerie. "Mal's just got to pick something up."

John gritted his teeth and surged back onto the road. He pulled into the lot of the farm stand much too fast.

"Behind. Down that dirt road."

"What?"

"Just a short ways around the bend. It'll be quick, quick."

"I can't believe I'm doing this."

"You've been a great help, John. I'm so grateful."

The bumpy, rutted road angled sharply down to a creek.

"Where the heck are we going?"

"Stop here. Here's good," said Mal. The back door burst open and he dashed out into a patch of ferns, emerging with a ten gallon fish tank, its glass smudged and smoky, concealing hunks of broken terra cotta and something else bulky and skulking amidst the debris.

"Oh Lord," said John. "Is that what I think it is? Please tell me that's his pet lizard."

"It's his pet lizard," said Aerie. "Pop the trunk."
Chapter 45: Inner Circle

Not even noon yet and the driveway was full of cars. John parked on the street and went around to the trunk, glancing but trying not to stare up at the main road through the screen of trees. He could hear Aerie's band mates joking as they tramped to Aaron's house from the blackberry patch where he had dropped them off.

John had taken the back road up from Newfield, cutting through a corner of the reserve. He had intended to drop them off further up the road and around the bend where they would have no chance of being seen, but they had persuaded him to bring them closer. They had things to carry, after all.

He had felt eyes upon them as he pulled into the crude track slashing through the center of the clear cut. They had exited his car and removed the beast they now called 'junior,' spinning in its ten gallon tank. Aerie had thanked him with a peck on his cheek. He wouldn't be surprised to find the moment captured on one of Jerry's spy cameras.

John caught a glimpse of the band strolling up Aaron's drive. He hauled out two sacks of chickens and cut across the lawn, dribbling juice on the grass, up the steps and across the hardwood of the foyer. Folks he vaguely knew from church greeted him as he slipped into the kitchen and dropped the chickens into the sink.

He peeked into the dining room where Hal Cheney, a retired engineer, sat between two ladies in pastel track suits. The table was cluttered with empty coffee cups and donut bags.

"Hey John. Cindy and them deliverance folks been looking for you."

"Yeah, I bet they have. I'll be right back. Got more groceries out in the trunk."

"Need help?"

"Thanks, I can handle it. It's just one more load."

Donnie appeared at the entry to the den. "I thought I had heard your voice. Come on in, we need you. We're about to hold a prayer ritual for the inner circle."

"Sorry Rev, but I'm kind of busy right now. Can't we do this later? I've got to get these chickens marinated."

"This won't take long," said Donnie. "Come on, this is important. You're part of our inner circle. The chickens can wait."

Heels clicked on hardwood, like little bird steps. "John's back?" Cindy peered over Donnie's shoulder. "Gosh John, where the heck have you been?"

"Had some... car trouble," he said. "I had to stop."

"Come on," said Donnie, extending his hand. "This will only take a few minutes."

"But I left the trunk open. There's chickens...."

"Never mind those chickens. We need your participation. We're doing a prayer of protection for the inner circle and you're a critical link. We can't let the circle be broken, now, can we?"

"Um, okay," said John, tossing a glance out towards the road and his open trunk. "This will be quick, won't it?"

"No worries. It's just a few prayers and meditations. Come along."

He followed Donnie and Cindy into the den, where the fire still blazed.

Jerry sat on the floor with Tammie and Rand. Mac huddled with three 'elders' from the church, including Rob McElroy, a stubble-headed twenty-two year old.

Cindy took one hand. Donnie took the other. Together they descended to their knees on the carpet.

"Alrighty now," said Donnie. "Everybody come down with us and get cozy. We got a ring here of seven candles. They all got to stay lighted. If any one of them goes out, we gotta repeat the whole process. Got it?"

John watched a candle with a bent wick gutter and threaten to blink out. He rolled his eyes back and sighed.

"Now you each of you have in front of you a copy of Psalm 91. You might notice that it's an unusual translation... not quite King James. I find certain ways of reciting scripture more potent than others, and this is a particularly potent version. So what we're gonna do is we're going to take each other's hands and repeat the Psalm three times in unison. Got it?" Folks nodded or grunted. "Okay, on a count of three. One and two and three...."

John's struggled to read the faint and streaky words, printed on cheap copy paper on an inkjet with a fading cartridge. As he spoke aloud with the others, his mind wandered back to those chickens in his trunk.

With a jolt, he realized that he had forgotten to pick up the brown sugar he needed for the marinade. He couldn't remember if they had any left in the cupboard. He wondered if white sugar with a touch of molasses might substitute, or whether its sulfurous overtones would overpower. Maybe he had to have to switch to Plan B and try something completely different. He had some lemon grass in the crisper. Maybe he could do something Thai-themed.

The third time through the psalm, he finally paid attention to the words he was reading: "... on lion and asp though treadest, thou trampest young lion and dragon. Because in me he hath delighted, I also deliver him—I set him on high, because he hath known my name. He doth call me, and I answer him, I am with him in distress, I deliver him, and honor him. With length of days I satisfy him, and I cause him to look on my salvation. Amen."

John looked up, but everyone else still had their eyes diverted downward. He sighed.

"Your palms... yuck... why are they so sweaty?" said Cindy.

John looked at her and shrugged.

"What have you been up to?"

"Buying chickens."

He stared back at her, his gaze flat and loveless, until she had to look away.

"Honey, I wasn't implying anything. I was just worried... you being gone all morning. It's not like you."

John studied his wife's face, a face he knew too well, but had never seen from the perspective he held now, a viewpoint so detached and adrift and devoid of sentiment. It had been some time since he had looked at her so directly when she was awake.

He could confirm that she was a very attractive woman, this Cindy. Her eyes were a mite small without makeup, but the rest of her features were so nicely sculpted, balanced and symmetrical. Even her imperfections, the light peach fuzz above her lip, the little v-shaped scar on her forehead, only accented. No wonder she had led his heart astray.

"Stop looking at me like that!" she hissed. "Are you mad at me or something? What did I say? I mean, you were the one who—"

Donnie clapped his hands. "Okay. That's a wrap, everyone. We'll assemble at four for the blessing of the candles before we advance on the site."

"Four?" said John. "But I thought we weren't getting started until after dinner."

"Well, we originally expected people to be showing up after work," said Donnie. "But looks we've already assembled quite a crowd. Wouldn't you say we have a quorum, Jer?"

"Oh, most definitely."

"We might as well get started on it sooner. Personally I feel better about getting the proceedings going when there's some daylight."

"Okay. So how long is the actual deliverance going to take? Do you think we'd be done in time for dinner?"

Donnie face flashed blank, and he burst out laughing. "I'm sorry," he said. "But you have no idea, do you?"

"Why? What did I say?"

"It's just that... we can't schedule these things. How long it takes depends entirely upon the nature of our adversary. Could be minutes. Could take all night. Might even be days before we get this resolved."

"So... when do you all want to eat, then?"

"Honestly, John?" said Cindy, her cheeks reddening in blotches. We're talking spiritual warfare here, and all can think about is food?"

A batch of aborted words clogged John's throat. "People gotta eat sometime don't they?" he managed to blurt. "Things don't cook themselves, you know. Who's gonna do the cooking, you?"

"Fine!" said Cindy. "How about a late lunch, early dinner thing? Say about three-ish?"

"Oh Jeez," John, surging up off the floor. "I'd better get cracking."

***

The chickens were dismembered and awash and chilling in a tub with coriander, brown sugar, garlic, ginger, lemon grass and coconut milk. The jasmine rice was all measured out and waiting by the rice cooker. His plans had evolved towards a little more Thai than he had anticipated. He wondered if he should hold back the hot chilies. Bland might be a safer common denominator for this crowd.

As for veggies, would anyone even touch eggplants or okra? There was always corn on the cob, as dissonant to the palate it seemed against the entrée.

To have things ready by three, he basically had a couple of hours to let the chicken soak, not nearly enough for the flavors to sink. But what else could he do?

He dumped the trimming into the trash and washed his hands, glancing out the window up at the hell house. He cranked open a window and listened for signs of the band. The quicker they got started, the quicker they'd be gone. At least there were no signs of Mac's security crew.

Jerry came into the kitchen. He had been hovering at the door from time to time, watching John work.

"I know you're busy, John, but when you get a chance, I could use your advice out in the garage."

"Heck, I'm at a good stopping point here," said John. "What's up?"

"The deal is... I'm draining my batteries too fast. I got extra batteries now lined up serial. Question is, are they gonna be enough?"

"Well, okay. Let's go out and look at the specs."

He followed Jerry outside. Fits and bursts of drumming started up at Aaron's. Somehow, he felt relieved to hear it.

They entered the garage through a side door and flipped on the lights. There were unfamiliar boxes stacked in one of the bays. Jerry brought him to the workbench, which was covered with bits of wire and scrap metal from his tinkering.

He picked up a boxy oblong device with aluminum cooling fins.

"So that's your inverter?" said John. "It looks like one of those cheapo, square wave deals. You'd be better off with something that gives pure sine wave output."

"Okay," said Jerry. "How do I make me one of those?"

"Make? You're better off buying one. The good ones are kind of expensive, but they're worth. The juice they put out is just like what you get off the grid." He opened up the shop vac and looked at the specifications stamped onto its casing. "You know... this is a big motor here. This thing's pulls about six horsepower. It's gonna choke on the limited amperage. I think you might have no choice but to go with AC."

"Yeah, right. I'm gonna need a mile of extension cord."

"What are you going to do with these dang things if you manage to catch one?"

"Study 'em."

"Is that all? Donnie's not going to want to vanquish it, or send it screaming back to Satan, or whatever?"

"If we manage to catch one, Donnie won't go near the dang thing. I guarantee you that. He doesn't venture beyond the spiritual realm. The physical stuff is my job."

"What are you gonna do with 'em?"

"Study their habits. Document 'em. For me, it's about getting to know the unknown. Learning what these things are all about."

"That sounds more like a naturalist than an exorcist."

"Listen, we got two separate things going on here. Donnie's the theologian. My training's in wildlife biology. Our skills complement each either. He patches people's souls. I get down and dirty with the demons."

"You don't actually believe these things are demons, do you?"

"Nah," said Jerry. "I told Donnie how I feel about. For whatever reason, he's taking this one personal. His getting sick didn't help, not to mention the whole thing with Mac."

"What's this about Mac?"

"Nothing, it's just... they got a bit of history going back."

John ran his thumb around the rim of a plastic funnel that formed the business end of one of Jerry's demon traps. From the implosion he had witnessed at the Arts Coop, he couldn't imagine this contraption confining one of these entities for long. He had seen what they could do to urethane and asphalt, not to mention human skin. He couldn't share these concerns with Jerry without spawning a slew of questions.

"So this deliverance stuff is just for show?"

"I never said that," said Jerry.

"Oh? I gather you don't think Donnie should have come back."

Jerry looked troubled. "It can't hurt for Donnie to go and do his thing, regardless. He's helped a ton of people over the years. Some folks, maybe their problems might have been psychological, but still, what Donnie does helps. And when things get weird, prayer's about the only recourse we got. I'm not saying this particular case is the best use of Donnie's time, but—"

"I hear you," said John. "These folks you're going after. I don't get the feeling at all that there's any possession involved here. I mean devil worship? Really? They don't do any of that."

"Oh?" Jerry jacked up an eyebrow. "You know them that well?"

A touch of panic brushed John. He was talking himself into a corner. "Well, anyone can see... they're just... kids... messing around, playing music, trying to be unique, you know? Avant garde."

Jerry scuffed his heel through a pile of sawdust. "Well, I gotta level with you John. I'm out of my comfort level in this job. I have no clue what we're dealing with. I mean I've dealt with everything from ghosts to—"

"Ghosts? You've actually seen a ghost?"

"Well, sure," said Jerry. "They're a big part of our work. They're not as common as some people think and they don't always have any relation to anything human... as far as I can tell."

"Not human?" said John. "What are they, then, if not souls?"

"Don't know, exactly," said Jerry. "Misunderstood. That's for sure. Just like these twirly things. And that's why I'm here. That's why I do what I do. To learn."

Something chirped overhead. The automatic garage door rose, dry hinges squeaking, revealing first: taupe combat boots, and then black-trousered legs, the muzzles of Uzis and MAC-10s pointed at the ground, photographer's vests, mustachioed faces, backwards ball caps.

The men flinched at the sight of John and Jerry and raised their weapons.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" spat Jerry, livid. "Get those dang guns out of our faces!"

"Oh crap, it's just you guys," said Mac, lowering his weapon. "You almost gave me a heart attack."

A banshee fiddle cry pealed down from the hell house. The men's eyes fixed; they froze in place like rabbits gone still in the presence of a fox.
Chapter 46: Reunion

They straggled down from the berry patch where John had dropped them, out of sight of any traffic coming up the main road. Ron walked point, his guitar slung low like a rifle. Mal stumbled after him, cradling the aquarium in his arms, his chin clamping down on the slate lid. The women, arm in arm, brought up the rear.

"Need help with that, Mal?" said Aerie.

"S'okay. I got it," he mumbled, through gritted teeth.

As they rounded the bend, the sharp peaks of Aaron's house came into view. A thick braid of smoke writhed from John's chimney beyond.

Aerie found her senses unusually attuned and amplified. Everything caught her attention, from the bobbing ferns to the seeps trickling down the road cuts. Between the sharper edges, the brighter colors, she hardly recognized this vivid new world.

The smoke drew her eye to the clouds. Even they seemed special today, all puffy layers of cotton and silver and charcoal. She couldn't wait to see how pretty they would look at sunset.

The leaf fall had opened sight lines deep into a forest that had seemed so choked and forbidding in September. Only a few oaks and beeches stubbornly clung to their leaves. The wind kicked up swirls she mistook for squirrels.

It startled her to realize how content she felt. The ennui that had marked her days had somehow been scoured away. She hadn't felt like this since her first days in Tokyo, exploring parks and soba shops by day, neon canyons by night.

Why not be happy? She had good friends by her side, an admirer at her beck and call, LaFaro's bass waiting to be played at Aaron's and her own precious Prescott resurrecting from scrap in the shop of New York's best luthier. Life was good, for a change.

Moments such as these, when she recognized them, made her slip outside her skull, and take things in a meta sense, etching them into memory, filing them into her scrapbook of good times. Who knew when they could come again?

"That John, dude. He's something else," said Mal. "Do you think he believes all that holy roller shit?"

"Probably," said Aerie.

"At least he's low-key about it," said Eleni. "I appreciate that."

"You're all going to hell," said Ron.

Aerie sighed. "I'm looking forward to it."

"Devil worshippers!" said Eleni. "As if...."

"Is that really what they think of us?" said Sari.

"If they only knew, we worship ourselves," said Mal.

"Not me," said Ron. "I worship at the altar of the goddess Sari."

"Oh go blow it out your bazooka," said Sari.

With a jolt, Aerie realized that she hadn't taken her pills. No wonder she felt so weird. She hadn't seen the inside of her apartment in over a day. At least she didn't have that jittery feeling she sometimes got when her antidepressants were overdue. She had a solid foundation and friends to buttress her.

She was just as overdue for a change of underwear. Thankfully, she had at least another week to go before her period.

They turned up Aaron's driveway. Ron, first to the door, did the knocking.

The door flew open.

"What the...?" Aaron looked bemused. "Aren't you guys a bit early?"

"We had no choice. Junior's in bad shape," said Mal, setting the aquarium down.

"So the birdie has a name now," said Aaron, stooping over the tank. "Jesus, what did you guys do to the poor thing?"

"It was already shrunk when I caught it," said Mal.

"Come on. Help me get it into the bell jar. While there's still something left of it."

They dragged the aquarium in and Aaron pulled on a heat of heat resistant fiberglass gloves.

"Put the tank on its side but keep it covered." He handed Ron and Aerie each an oblong hunk of window glass.

"What are these?" said Ron.

"Corrals. I'm going to tip that bell jar over. When I slide the top off that tank, you give that sonant no place to go except into that jar. Got it? Oh, wait. Let me get the powder ready."

He opened a drawer and removed a small jar of grayish-greenish dust. He unscrewed the top and placed several teaspoons into a glass petri dish.

"Okay. Let's do it."

The sonant tried to cling to the back corner of the aquarium, but as it tipped, had no choice but to come to rest on the glass wall. Aaron pulled the slate back a few inches, then a few inches more. It darted out, pressing into a gap between the tank and Ron's plate of glass. Aaron plugged the breach with his gloved hand and batted the sonant towards the bell jar with his other hand.

"Mal! Raise the jar!"

The little dust ball ricocheted off the glass walls, rolling like a blob of quicksilver into a circle etched into another thick glass plate and coated with white silicon grease. The heavy glass of the bell jar settled with a clunk, and the sonant was confined. Aaron pulled off his gloves and after making sure the jar was seated in a greased groove, attached a vacuum pump to a valve at the top. The sonant spun over the dish of dust, splattering against the glass, collecting in smears of grease. Gradually, its vortex grew more opaque. Aaron hunched down and studied the thing, a vinyl bird cage cover tucked under his arm.

"Hmm. This one's spunkier than most. Who knows? Maybe we can stabilize it. Okay everybody, let's get set up. Eleni, where's your mandolin?"

"Didn't bring it. These guys snatched me straight from work."

Aaron slipped the vinyl cover over the bell jar. He pursed his lips. "Tell you what, El. Why don't you handle the kithara? There's someone else coming today, a percussionist. Aerie's met him. He can spell Mal off the mallets so he can stick to his horn. Maybe that's good. Gives us a bit more continuity, without all that switching we usually do." He patted the jar gently and turned away.

Aerie went over to the bass, approaching it with no less thrill and reverence than she had felt the day before. She still couldn't believe that this was Scott LaFaro's bass, the instrument on which he had composed 'Gloria's Step', her all-time favorite jazz composition.

She lifted it carefully out of its case and ran her thumb across the strings. It had kept its tuning well, not that tuning meant anything to Aaron. But old habits die hard.

Aaron sniffed the air. "My, you folks are aromatic."

"Don't look at me," said Sari. "It's them you smell."

"Not me! I showered this morning," said Eleni.

Aaron shook his head. "I hope y'all don't mind me cracking a window." He went over and cranked open one of his oddly triangular custom apertures. "Anyone need a drink? I have a feeling this is gonna be a long session."

"I'll take a beer... or two," said Ron.

"Same here," said Mal.

"Some tea with lemon would be lovely," said Sari.

"I'm fine," said Eleni, patting her purse. "I've got my water bottle."

"How about you, Aerie?"

"Um... Do you have any... wine? Some Riesling, maybe?"

"Oh sure. I got some great local stuff. Heron Hill. Be back in a sec. Why don't you guys warm up? Get the kinks out."

Ron looked around the room and grinned. "Just like old times. Like we never left."

Mal stood behind the kithara, his attention seized by something outside the window.

"Holy cow. That's quite the party our friend John is having. There's at least a dozen cars down there."

"Party?" said Sari.

"More like a lynch mob," said Eleni.

"Oh, old John-John wouldn't let them hurt us," said Ron. "It's nice to have friends in high places."

"Look at this way," said Aerie. "We have ourselves an audience."

Aaron came out a cup of tea on a saucer and a pair of beer bottles seized by their necks.

"Be right back with our wine, Aer."

"Must be nice," said Ron. "To believe in something." He struggled to open his beer bottle. "Ow!" He shook his fingers.

"It's not a twist off, you goof," said Mal, tossing him an opener.

"Oh yeah. I'm not used to drinking the fancy stuff."

"Faith," said Sari. "It's just a drug for the masses."

"Huh?" said Ron.

"I'm with Sari," said Eleni. "Faith is evil. It justifies wars. Keeps poor people docile. Faith is worse than any demon."

"So says the alleged demon worshipper," said Mal.

"It's not the fault of faith per se," said Aerie. "I'm one to talk, but if people actually listened what Jesus said, and lived their lives the way—"

"Demons?" said Aaron, emerging from the hall with two glasses of Riesling. "Who's worshipping demons? I'll have you know there'll be no worshipping of demons in this house!"

"That's not what your neighbors think," said Mal. "They're coming to bless us tonight."

"Oh that," said Aaron, frowning dismissively. "Yeah. I heard." He grabbed a lump of rosin off a bookshelf and slid his bow along it.

"Is that what John was going on about?" said Sari. "I thought he meant a wedding ceremony or something like that."

"Nope," said Eleni. "It's an exorcism."

"Oh brother," said Ron, fishing in his pockets for the right pick. "Get a clue, Sari, will you?"

"Well, guys," said Aaron. "Let's give them something worth exorcising. I'll start with the drone, you all fall in when you're ready, just like a regular old production."

Aaron raised his fiddle to his chin and gave a long swipe, with some nuanced tremolo, and a subtle glissando, lingering on nodes that were not quite notes.

Sari took a deep breath. She sat up on her high stool, hands folded in her lap, eyes closed, posture erect.

A minivan swung up the road and pulled into the driveway.

Aaron lowered his bow. "Hang on, looks like Paolo's here."

"Who the fuck's Paolo?" said Ron.

"Drummer," said Aerie. "He plays a mean marimba, too."

"There's some other guy with him," said Eleni.

"Oh yeah?" said Aaron. "He must have brought a friend."

Aerie leaned into the bass and let her fingers touch the strings lightly. The wood had a faint smoky aroma. Was it from the cigarettes in all those clubs, or from the car fire that killed Scotty?

Aaron went out in the hall to greet Paolo and his friend. They bantered for a bit in the foyer before coming down the hall.

Paolo came into the music room, smiling at Aerie and nodding at the others. Behind him walked Hollis.

Hollis Brooks.

Aerie gasped. The endpin started to slide, pushing a small cotton throw rug. The bass slipped from her grasp. She tried to arrest its fall, but to no avail. It crashed and thundered against the floor.
Chapter 47: Marching as to War

The next day a harmful spirit from God rushed upon Saul, and he raved within his house while David was playing the lyre, as he did day by day. Saul had his spear in his hand....Samuel 18:10

The violin's wail rose like a siren and hung in the air, nasal overtones beating against the fundamental frequencies. Quavers and trills punctuated an otherwise steady drone.

"Jesus!" said one of Mac's security guys. "It's like a fucking hyena." The men sidled into the garage. Rounds clicked into chambers.

John knew the sound all too well. Countless times, its coming had presaged hours-long marathons of noise at the hell house. It had the power to deconstruct Cindy into a quivering mass of panic and rage. Hearing it never failed to set Nigel bawling while Jason celebrated with a giggle. Sometimes, every coyote for miles around would howl in obeisance.

John waited for the other instruments to join in, to add disharmony, or to spin off meandering anti-melodic counterpoint. But then it stopped, re-exposing the ambient sounds it had obscured: the soft chitter of chickadees, the dull roar of a distant lawnmower. This was a false alarm.

Mac's security detail milled about, confused. They looked to Mac for guidance.

"Praise the Lord," Mac said, clenching his eyes and shuddering. "Have you ever heard anything so nasty? Lordie! Made my teeth hurt."

"Can we help you gentlemen?" said Jerry.

Mac chuckled and gawked at the hardware on the work bench. "What the heck you got there, Jer? You playing ghost busters?"

Jerry stood straight, arms folded, and glared.

Mac tried staring back, but had to look away, discomfited. He turned to John. "Um... you got some spare lawn chairs we can borrow? I want to post these guys around the yard, set up a perimeter."

"All the chairs we have are out on the patio," said John.

"What about... that one?" said Mac, pointing to a tall, nylon-slung studio chair by the bench.

"That one's mine," said Jerry. "Fuck off."

"My, my," said Mac. "You got a demon up your butt? Take a chill pill, buster." He flicked his chin at his security team and they followed him back outside.

Jerry waited until they were out of sight before speaking. "I'm so sorry you and your wife had to get all tangled up with that character. I mean... of all the preachers a nice, young couple like you—"

"Who, Mac?" An attack of embarrassment swept over John. He wondered how much Jerry knew about Mac and Cindy. He had no intention of finding out. "Well, I have to say, he's been a great preacher for us. His sermons are entertaining as heck, but...."

Jerry squinted. "You have no idea. Do you?"

"What do you mean? I—"

"I'm just... sorry... how it all worked out."

John forced a smile, trying to spin the conversation somewhere positive. "Well... you guys would have never come up if it wasn't for him. We would have been on our own, and I never would have gotten to meet you."

He sighed deeply. "Um... you're probably right. He did grease the skids. It's just... he's always been bad news. He and Donnie, they had a rough past. Donnie, at least, overcame his devils. Mac... sometimes I wonder if he's the one who needs to be Delivered."

Jerry strolled out to the head of the driveway, hands on hips, gazing up at the hills. He nodded to a couple coming up the walk with tongs and a large bowl of salad. "Nah. There'll be no trapping tonight. Too much dang commotion. It's probably spooked the whirlies."

***

After a thirty minute respite, the drone sounded again, snuffing all conversation among the church folk. The incorrigibly loquacious souls among them soon resumed their chit chat, only to have it interrupted again by cries from the yard, where the hellish music assaulted ears unfiltered by walls or windows.

A murmur of panic swept through the house. People dropped to their knees and prayed. John went from room to room, patting shoulders, squeezing hands, reassuring them that everything was okay.

"You poor dears," said one woman with gaping blue eyes. "You have to live next to this? With those little boys? I had no idea it was this horrible."

"You get used to it," said John. "Don't worry. This is as bad as it gets."

"This is worse, John" said Cindy, sobbing. She hunched in an armchair, being consoled by the couple who had brought the salad. "Worse than ever."

He shrugged and threw up his hands. "What can I say?"

He noticed only crumbs left in the tray of cheese and crackers he had put out earlier. He retreated to the kitchen to slice a baguette and set up some bowls of thyme-infused olive oil for people to snack on. Maybe a rise in blood sugar would alleviate some of the hysteria. Cindy walked in as he was shredding basil and slicing tomatoes. Her eyes were red and smeary.

"What are you upset about?" he said.

"Upset? What do you think I'm upset about?"

"We've been through this before. You know the music won't hurt you. No, you have to play the victim, milk your friends for sympathy."

Cindy looked shocked. "John! Why are you talking like this? What's happened to you?"

"I'm tired," he said, as he sawed through the last of the baguette. "This whole thing is an over-reaction."

Cindy's jaw hung slack. "You saw it! That thing. You can't deny you didn't see it. It was coming after my children."

Folks peered around the corner to see what was going on. No one dared enter.

John sighed. "Yeah. I did. But I don't think it was such a big deal. We should have just let Jerry do his thing. We would have been fine."

"You're not yourself," said Cindy. "Something's happened. You're not acting normal."

"I told you... I'm tired."

"It's those spirits. They're infecting you."

"I'm not infected. That's ridiculous. I'm just tired."

"Put the knife down, John."

"What?"

"The bread knife. Put it down."

"Jesus Cindy! I'm not gonna stab anybody. I'm just slicing bread."

Cindy kept her distance, studying him as if she had found a stranger in the kitchen.

John sighed and reached into the cupboard for a stack of little custard bowls to use for the olive oil.

"You're making dinner. That's good. That's a good sign."

"Dinner? It's not even two. I'm just throwing together a snack."

"John, I told you. We're eating early. Remember? People are starving. Some have been here all day without lunch."

"That's why I'm making them a snack. I'll put this out along with some sharp provolone. That should tide people over." He stacked the breads on a clean tray.

Cindy's mouth hung open, too exasperated to speak.

"What?" said John. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"These people went way out of their way to help us. We need to feed them a decent meal. Some of them skipped work today... for us... to help us. Alfred, with his heart condition, shouldn't even have come out here. The least... the Christian thing to do... is to give them all a decent meal. This deliverance, once it starts, Donnie says it could go on all night."

"I fully intend to feed them. Why do you think I bought all that chicken? But... you said we'd eat at four."

"Three. I'm sure I said three." She ransacked the counters. "So where is this chicken you keep ranting about?" She touched the stove. "You haven't even turned on the oven! How do you expect—?"

"Calm down. It's in the fridge, marinating. Takes time for ginger and garlic to work its magic."

"Magic? Listen, you've got to cracking on dinner. We're waiting on a couple more carloads of folks, but as soon as they get here, Donnie says we need to begin the deliverance."

"Fine. I'll start dinner. I can have something edible by... maybe three-thirtyish. Okay? Don't blame me if it doesn't come out great."

Cindy's face went blank. "Don't you hear that abominable noise out there? Don't you hear it?"

"Yeah. I hear it, alright," John said, morosely. He stuck a wedge of provolone on the tray and shoved it at Cindy. She took the tray and left the room, scowling.

John set the oven to preheat. He threw open a window. The jam was in full swing, its rhythms more intricate and driving than usual, and there was a wild new horn weaving in and out, occasionally lapsing into snatches of jazz. John could have sworn he heard parts of Au Privave and Oleo.

At this distance, Aerie's bass lines carried a disproportionate presence in the mix, seeping into the walls, as well as his bones, as he seared the chicken parts one batch at a time in a hot skillet and arranged them into oiled roasting pans. Feeling these emanations and knowing they were triggered by her fingers somehow warmed him. She might as well have been whispering into his ear.

The oven beeped when it hit roasting temperature. He managed to cram four pans of chicken onto the racks, plus a bunch of sweet potatoes on the side.

After he washed up, his first instinct was to seek refuge from the madhouse downstairs. Donnie had taken over the study for a prayer meeting with his elders, so John slinked away into a store room off the den, still filled with moving boxes that had never been unpacked, and furniture from his old apartment that Cindy had rejected.

He curled up on an old love seat with a National Geographic and lost himself in an article about Madagascar and lemurs. One extinct species had been as large as gorillas. Who knew? There was a picture of an aye-aye probing a rotten tree with its creepily elongated middle finger, like a withered witch's. Villagers believed them a harbinger of death, a property that did no favors for their conservation as Malagasies tended to kill them on sight.

His eyes closed and he drifted off, lulled into slumber by the faintest emanations of Aerie's bass reaching even here in the farthest corner of the house. The creak of the oven door snapped him awake. Glass pans clinked against granite.

"What the...?" He checked his watch. It was almost three. There was no way that chicken was ready to come out. It needed at least another twenty minutes before it was even close to being done.

He burst up out of the seat and wove through the mass of people crowding the rooms. He slipped into the kitchen to find Cindy stooped over a pan with a heart-shaped oven mitt and a pair of metal tongs.

"What are you doing, taking it out?"

"It looks done."

"It can't be done. It just went in."

"Well... people want to eat and Donnie wants to get rolling on the deliverance. Let me just put a few of the more done pieces on this platter here."

"None of them are done. They went in fifteen minutes ago. And I haven't even started the rice or veggies."

Cindy cut a piece off and nibbled on it. "Oh, it's okay. Just a little chewy, that's all."

"It's not supposed to be chewy. Chicken should be tender."

"It's fine," said Cindy. "Just a little rare."

"You don't eat chicken rare. It's not a dang porterhouse steak!"

"Calm down! Look, I'm putting the rest back in the oven."

John exhaled in exasperation, and reached for a sauce pot. "Let me throw together some quick saffron rice."

"No time for that. Donnie wants us to assemble on the back patio. How about I take some soft rolls out of the freezer? Between this and the dishes to pass, we'll have plenty."

John lacked the energy to argue. He stood aside and watched Cindy transfer a good two pounds of half-cooked chicken onto a platter.

Donnie popped his head into the kitchen. "Inner Circle? We need you now for the next round of prayer. He turned to the folks milling in the dining room. Everyone else, grab a candle and prepare to join us. Jerry made us a few wind screens, but I see we got nowhere near enough. There's a roll of aluminum foil on the patio. Maybe y'all can fashion your own."

Cindy carried the platter into the dining room and nudged aside some of the other dishes to clear a space for it.

"Man, that looks good! Don't mind if I do." Donnie snatched a chicken thigh. "Now, if you all will follow me."

Cindy smiled and trotted after Donnie. John tagged along reluctantly.

They found the rest of the inner circle waiting outside on the patio. A fire blazed in their little potbellied Weber grill. Those not among the inner circle, cleared off the patio and formed a semicircle out on the lawn. Mac's security team sat and watched from their commandeered lawn chairs in each corner of the yard.

"Everyone! Take your neighbor's hand. We'll start off with another Prayer of Protection. This time, number two on your list."

Mac held up his hand and strode to the center of the patio. "Hang on, Donnie. I'd like a chance to say a few words. To remind folks why we're all here today, if it isn't obvious from the hellacious sounds coming down off that hill."

Donnie stepped back. "By all means." He thrust his hands into his jacket pockets. His eyes darted nervously between Mac and Jerry.

Mac rippled his shoulders and shook his fingers like a sprinter readying for a hundred yard dash. His head tilted back and gazed up at clouds that looked particularly heavenly today—gold beneath and rosy-tinged on their flanks.

"Praise the Lord Jesus Christ!"

"Praise Jesus!" all responded.

"God bless you my flock for coming here today. Your bravery, your devotion to your neighbors will not go unnoticed in Heaven. We have come here to Cindy and John's abode to rid them of an abomination, a curse Hell-sent from the Fallen Angel himself whose name—"

"Satan!" shouted someone.

Mac blinked. He gathered his breath and continued. "Whose name, we do not speaketh. Ever." His scolding eyes panned around the circle. "My friends, we have monsters in our midst. They are subtle monsters. They have no fangs or horn or pointy claws. They don't look like murderous psychopaths. Some of them even look like us, but don't let that fool you. These are insidious monsters, ministering their evils through music."

John felt his bile curdling.

"Wait a minute," said John. "That's not what this is all about. This isn't why we're all here. It's not those people, it's—"

"John... hush! How dare you interrupt him?"

Mac coughed and gave John that was the essence of condensed bitterness. "Let me continue. As I was saying, some people... these people up there... the ones pouring this desecration of sound into our ears... they are insidious monsters. Now, we all know the power of music over ministry. It's no secret. We in the clergy wield it for the good. But these monsters in our midst—these subtle monsters—call them demons, call them devils, call them what you will. They know the power of music and they wield it against us, in the name of evil."

"Who knew such evil could pour from such innocuous things as fiddles and clarinets? I mean, we all know about death metal and its blatant hell-begotten paraphernalia, its black clothes, its morbid and infernal imagery, bands named Incubus and Necrophagia, the way they desecrate their God-given bodies with metal piercings, and the songs they sing of death and the dark one's kingdom. But who knew such darkness could be spawned with acoustic guitars and mandolins? Insidious, I tell you, and a danger to us all."

"And not only does it assault us directly, but it has summoned the minions of the dark one whose name shall not be spoken. Some of you have heard of the terrible things that have been spawned in these woods, which prowl these woods. And it's terrible but true. Some of us here today have witnessed them. Imagine now if these forces ever found their way from Connecticut Hill to your own communities and into the wider world and the populace at large, worming its way from iPods through ear phones like parasites into the brains of our children. Apocalypse I tell you. It would be an—"

Donnie coughed. "Um... Mac?" He reached over and touched Mac's shoulder. "We should probably get rolling."

Mac gathered himself. He was breathing hard, almost panting. "In sum. We're all here today, not only here to help our neighbors... our congregation. We're here to take one small step towards freeing our world of this hellishness, against the worshipers of evil and the things they spawn."

"Amen!" said Donnie, prompting a chorus in response. He stepped into the circle, patting Mac on the back and shaking his hand, murmuring some faint praise. "Okay. Now, once Tammie's done passing out the prayer sheets. I'm going the light the first candle. We'll say a blessing and a protection before we use it to light the torches. Okay? Everyone ready?"

People responded all around with nods and grunts and hallelujahs.

"Alrighty then, here we go." He clasped his hands together, clenched his eyes tight and ducked his head.

John realized that he was the only one with his head up, watching, and he quickly followed suit.

"Dear Jesus. We... pray... for healing from the works of the demons. We ask the angels to be stationed on our properties to guard us. We bind all demons until they can be cast out or leave of their own accord. We pray that you unleash godly spirits from the Lord to operate in our lives. We cleanse our beings, our hearts, possessions and homes of unclean objects, unclean thoughts."

"We use the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ and cover us with the Blood of the Lamb. We agree with the Covenant of the Blood. We use the Psalms as imprecations and pronouncements against the enemies of God, and call down the wrath of God upon spiritual foes. We will sing songs about the Blood of Jesus. We command that every knee to bow and tongue to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord."

Donnie opened his eyes and looked up, and surveyed the circle gravely.

"Amen."

He took a long beeswax candle and tipped it into the flames. He lit the tiki torches one by one and they were passed to everyone in the inner circle. When he was done, he handed the candle to a woman who shuttled it indoor to light all the other candles of the parishioners.

Donnie led the way around the corner. The security crew rose up to join them, keeping their distance along the flanks. John noticed that Jerry had his shotgun with him.

"Jer? Is that really necessary."

Jerry tossed a glance over his back to Mac's shady crew. "What do you think?" he said, his eyes intense. "Just in case things get out of hand."

Donnie clapped his hands. "Everyone. Sing as we march. Onward, Christian Soldiers."

Torches lighted against the deepening shadows of a sinking sun, they advanced on the hell house.
Chapter 48: Fire

As smoke is driven away, so drive them away;

As wax melts before the fire,

Let the wicked perish before God.

Psalm 68

Aerie dropped to the floor in a panic, fearing what damage the fall might have done to Scotty's Prescott. She ran her hand along the neck all the way to where the block met the bouts. To her relief, her fingers found only smooth sanded maple, no breaks, no splinters. The bridge remained intact, the strings taut and lined up as they should. She had lucked out.

Aaron rushed over. "What the heck happened?"

"I just lost my grip. It slid with the rug."

"Hehe," said Hollis. "I seem to have that effect on the women."

Aerie glared, half pissed, half flummoxed by the sight of Hollis in the same room with her, after all this time—this specter with his tattered black case. He wore a wary and diffident grin, and he seemed more than a little intoxicated. She took a breath and collected her bearing.

Aaron helped her lift the bass back up, making sure the rubber tipped end pin stayed on the hardwood this time. They spun it around to check for damage, finding a few spots where the finish had flaked off and a hairline crack through the back left bout.

"Oh God, Aaron, I'm so sorry. I'll pay for the damages."

Aaron sighed. "We'll tell Barry it was the change in the weather. It just popped a seam."

"Don't lie to him. Tell him exactly what happened. I told you I'll pay for the damages."

Aerie studied Hollis as he bantered with the rest of the band. He looked all spindly. He had lost a lot of weight and some more hair as well. It was teased out into a sparse, salt and pepper afro. He wore the same old rumpled suit he had favored in Tokyo. Style wise, he fit right in with Mal and Ron.

Hollis put his case down and came sidling over to Aerie with the caution of a feral cat approaching a spinster with a bowl of Friskies.

"Baby girl! It's so good to see you! You look... more grown up. You don't got that little girl look anymore."

"You're saying, I'm aging," said Aerie, fingering the new crack in Scotty LaFaro's precious bass.

"Oh don't worry about that little crack. Nothing a little hide glue wouldn't fix. That ain't even yours, is it? Looks like some old beater."

"Yeah. A beater."

"Glad you could make it down," said Aaron. "Wasn't exactly expecting you."

"Once I heard Aerie was here, I had to come. I couldn't live with myself."

He lunged over and hugged her, colliding with the bass and nearly knocking it again from her grip. Aaron hopped over in time to brace her.

Hollis smelled like a wino, with overtones of mothball and aftershave. His woolen sweater scratched her cheek.

"Why didn't you tell us you were going to Amsterdam, instead of just ditching us?"

"This opportunity came up all of a sudden like. I didn't ditch you. I left you guys sitting pretty with that hotel gig in Tokyo."

"They fired us the instant you left."

Hollis shook his head. "That ain't right. They promised they'd keep you."

Ron butted in. "Hey Aerie. So this is that guy?"

"Yup. The one who thought I was dead."

"No way!"

"Who's the quiet guy?" said Mal, whispering.

"Paolo, everyone, everyone Paolo," said Aaron. "He's our new percussionist."

"Aerie, you gotta forgive me," said Hollis. "You know how muddleheaded I can be."

"You thought I was dead, Hollis. And you didn't even bother to come to my funeral."

"What funeral? I—"

"Exactly." She extracted herself from his grip. "You reek. You drinking again?"

"Again? When did I stop? I just gave up the blow."

Aerie looked at him, eyebrows rising. "Are you?"

Hollis rolled up his sleeve. His arm was peppered with little dark scars, but no fresh needle marks. "Since Amsterdam, I've been clean. You won't believe what a difference it's made in my trade. I'm back in demand again in New York. Word's getting out that the old Hollis Brooks is back."

"I'm glad for you," said Aerie. "But we had things good in Tokyo. And you said you'd take us with you."

"That was before the Amsterdam thing. I honestly thought I'd be gone a month or two then hook back up with you all. I left you all in a good situation. I had no idea things would crumble for you all that fast."

"No? You really thought the Hollis Brooks Quartet minus Hollis Brooks was really doing to fly?"

"I didn't think you'd miss me. You had great people sitting in every night. You had you, Koichi and Frank. Man, you were a crack rhythm section, the best I ever had. You would've made one fine trio."

"Yeah, well. The management didn't think so. They put us out on our butts. Frank had to take a teaching job in Osaka. Koichi found us a fill-in but he wasn't a jazzer. We got lounge gigs. General business crap. Weddings. Anniversaries."

"GB, huh?" Hollis shuddered in horror.

"It was soul-numbing. I missed what we had so much. It was special, Hollis."

Tears spilled down Aerie's cheeks despite her attempt to be stoic.

Aaron clapped his hands. "Guys, it's nice to give you a chance to rehash old times, but we really should get playing."

Hollis held up his hand. "One sec. I gotta explain. Amsterdam was something I just had to do. I always wanted to play Europe. So many of the big guns went there. Coltrane. Bird. I thought you guys would be okay without me. I really did. You could have replaced Frank with someone better. I mean are some great Japanese cats on keys. You know that. Sounds like you just got stuck with a dud. That's no reason to... no reason to... kill yourself. I mean... really Aerie? It's just music. It's only music."

Aerie's chest heaved. The tears stopped flowing and her eyes set firm.

"Wrong Hollis. It's not just music. It's something more."

"Okay guys, we gotta get cracking," said Aaron, clapping his hands again. "Hollis, Paolo? Need a drink?"

"Water is good," said Paolo.

"Whiskey, neat," said Hollis. "Coffee too, if you got it. I been going two days straight. My eyes feel like they got red hot pokers poking into them. I could really use a nap."

"When we're done, you can crash, no problem," said Aaron. "But right now we've got some music to attend to.

***

Aerie played cycles of triads, pulling as hard as she could on the strings, grateful that the crack hadn't induced any buzzes or rattles. If anything, the bass sounded a tad louder than before. Probably the impact had loosened up some patches and allowed the top to vibrate more freely.

"Holy cow," said Hollis. "This place is a sound man's nightmare. Too damned boomy."

"Yeah, well. It's not meant for recording," said Aaron. He tucked the fiddle under his chin. "Everybody ready?" He initiated the index drone.

Hollis grimaced. "Your intonation is off there, bud."

"No, it's fine," said Aaron. "This is what I want you to tune to."

"You can't be serious. What key is that?"

"It's one of Partch's 43, from his eleven limit Genesis scale."

"Huh?"

"Just use your ear and your gut. I've heard you play free. I know you're capable. That's why you're here."

"Well, you gotta give me a clue man. Tell me what key that is."

Mal walked over and handed Hollis his battered bamboo sax.

"If you insist. I'm playing something between a C# and a D."

Hollis regarded Mal's horn with distaste. "What the fuck is this?"

"It's a saxophone," said Mal. "Give it a try."

Hollis put the reed to his lips. A harsh squawk emanated from the instrument, not unlike a grass whistle with a tattered blade.

"Back off a bit," said Mal. "You're overblowing."

Hollis' eyes bugged as he shoved the horn back at Mal.

"What crap kind of toy is this?" He grabbed his own tenor out of its case.

Mal wiped the horn on his sleeve. He shrugged. "The birdie seems to like it."

"Birdie," said Hollis, shaking his head. "This is gonna be interesting."

"Hollis, what I'm playing right now is the foundation," said Aaron. "It's like the seed of a crystal. You build off of it. Don't stray too far at first. Keep it simple."

"Whatever you say, boss." He gave a random honk, adjusted his mouthpiece and leaned back in his chair.

Eleni plucked a double stop on the kithara that clashed against the fiddle in a way that seemed to ripple through the air. Aerie found a single note to work a pedal point with a skittering rhythm. Paolo leaped in with a talking drum, messing around Aerie's beat, lagging behind, jumping ahead. After a time, Sari began singing soft and low, as she always did at the start of a Production, saving her voice for the end stages.

Only Ron kept silent. He paced fitfully, his head down, gazing at his shoes.

"Hey! Guitar boy. What's wrong?" said Aerie.

"Nothing. I'm just... I'm having trouble finding my head today."

"Tell me about it," said Hollis. He honked a few more times on his tenor, adjusting the mouthpiece until he found a tone that sort of matched the key the others played. He blew again, this time finding a pure, warm tone. He kept at it, repeating the note, playing with the articulation, varying the attack and the decay. And then he reached for another note like a rock climber reaching for a finger hold.

"There you go," said Aaron. "You got it." He turned to Ron. "Any time Ronald. We're waiting on you."

Ron exploded in a flurry of tics and grimaces. "Give me space, man. I gotta find it in my head. It's not like flicking a switch for me."

Aaron looked at Aerie. "Just keep it going. Simple and steady."

Aerie found it felt natural to her now, these atonal tones, these arrhythmic rhythms. Her fingers did all the work. Her mind could venture anywhere it wanted. She wondered how this all sounded down at John's. She wondered if he could hear her play, and how it made him feel. Was he in tune with music of sonants, or did he find it demonic like the exorcists?

"This being your first time Hollis, the thing to do is keep it evolving. Don't get stuck in a rut. Pretend you're on a hike and the landscape keeps mutating. Keep striving for that new vista over the next horizon."

"Nope."

"Good thing."

Aerie found a slow, oscillating groove like reggae stuck in molasses, a wandering beat with gobs of space between clusters of notes. Something about it seemed to soothe here like some twisted lullaby.

It felt so strange playing with Hollis again. She tracked him out of the corner of her eye. His eyes were looking so heavy and dark-pitted these days. He may be off the harder drugs, but age and alcohol had done him no favors.

Hollis let out a flurry of notes that would have been great as a solo break in Oleo but had no place in the music of the sonants.

"Whoa, Hollis," she said. "Lay off those blues riffs. Use your ear and listen to us."

Hollis trailed off, and gave Aerie and odd look. For once she held the upper hand in a musical situation. In jazz, she had always been the one to be a step or three behind. The tables were turned. Mentor had become mentee.

Once he got going, he fit right in, for the most part. He would lose his way, but always clawed his way back. He had always had a great ear, a natural feel for other people's styles and an ability to mesh.

Aaron put down his fiddle. "You all keep it going. I'm just going to check on... Junior."

"Keep it going?" said Hollis. "We been going at it nearly half an hour. How long does this tune go on?"

"As long as it takes," said Ron, who had finally found his way into the jam, alternating furious bursts of strumming with little noodlings and embellishments. "It's all up to the birdie."

"Birdie." Hollis put down his sax to take a swig of his Irish coffee.

"How's he doing?" said Mal.

"Same," said Aaron. "Hmm. Maybe a bit more heft. At least it hasn't faded."

He returned to his fiddle, moving beyond the drone now, jittering and scratching and wailing. Paolo was a natural. He drummed a beat that was like acorns dropping from oak trees. Sari let loose on a warbling howl that startled Hollis and made him quack his horn.

Aerie had to take a breath. Sari's voice, when it got going, was not of this earth. She had the power to wriggle behind molecules into other dimensions.

Outside, a murmur grew. It took Aerie a few moments to realize that they were voices. Something glowed beyond the windows.

"What in bloody hell is going on out there?" said Aaron. He put down his fiddle. "No matter what happens. You all keep playing. Don't stop."

***

John stuck his tiki torch in a geranium on the porch and ran into the kitchen to turn off the oven and take out the remaining chicken and fixings. They would be cold and soggy by the time they got back from the deliverance. What a waste.

"John! Get out here. We're leaving." Cindy called from the front porch.

"Just a sec, hon!" He fumbled with a roll of aluminum foil to cover the pans.

When he ducked back out, swarms of people were already heading down the driveway. Cindy waited by the mailbox till she saw him coming, and then turned to catch up with Donnie and Mac. John took a breath and retrieved his torch, a rattan and bamboo thing better suited for beach parties than demon slaying. Some had to be wrapped in duct tape to cover the graven images of Polynesian gods.

Donnie led the congregation down to the corner and up the main road. They occupied both lanes, the inner circle wielding torches in the vanguard and several dozen supporters bearing candles behind them. Cindy walked with Donnie and Mac. The security team kept well to the flanks and rear of the party. They acted more concerned with the woods than the hell house. Perhaps, the sight of Jerry's demon catchers made them think twice.

John walked alone on the trailing fringe of the so-called inner circle. He was embarrassed to be among these people. He wished he had a knit cap or sunglasses or something to pull down over his face. He could only hope that Aerie didn't see him like this.

At least this time Donnie didn't make them wear those silly white robes. It was bad enough they had to carry torches like peasants off to wreak vengeance on Frankenstein's monster. What was wrong with using flashlights?

The breeze, though gentle, kept blowing out people's candles despite all their foil shrouds and wind shields. Folks ran up to John to relight them off his torch. It gave him a useful excuse for hanging back from the inner circle.

The music continued apace in Aaron's house. They were still a good hundred yards away but John could hear the fear building in people's murmurs and whispers, the trepidation blanching their faces. Some of the more timid souls began to balk, spooked by all that churning, chugging and wailing in pitches that assailed ears conditioned to pentatonic major scales.

Donnie had to pause to rally them, standing on the center line of the road, raising his torch high, gathering everyone around him.

"Do not be afraid. The Lord is with you. Jesus walks among us. You have the Holy Fire and the Prayers of Protection to defend you. Keep moving. We'll surround the house with a cordon when we get there."

Jerry paused on the shoulder, nudging aside some hemlock branches to peer up towards the mossy terrace where they had spotted the tracks. He took his shotgun off his shoulder and cradled it in the crook of his elbow.

John paused beside him. "Something wrong Jer? You see something?"

"Not sure." His eyes traced the slope, his face calm yet wary. "Thought so. Nothing there now."

Candle-wielders passed them, flowing like a stream around boulders.

"You two! Stop dawdling," called Donnie. "Come up and join the circle."

Jerry sighed and tucked the shotgun back up on his shoulder. They rejoined the other torches at the head of Aaron's driveway. Donnie stood before a baby blue minivan. John's eyes kept drifting to its Rainbow Party bumper sticker as Donnie addressed his congregation, shouting to be heard above the music.

"Okay, people, this is it. I have to warn you, these here prayers I'm about to say, they're quite potent. No telling how our adversaries will respond. So hang on to your torches. Keep those candles lit. And if I falter, make sure you get this book to Pastor Mac, and if he falters, someone else had got to be ready to carry on. This prayer needs to be told in its entirety. Understand?"

"You got it, Rev," someone shouted.

"We got your back!"

"Hallelujah!"

Donnie paused and surveyed the crowd arrayed behind him. He glanced up into the darkening forest, looked over his shoulder at the house and took and took a deep breath and clenched his eyes tight. John caught a glance of Cindy squeezing Mac's hand, ever so discreetly, and letting go.

"Praise Jesus!"

"Praise the Lord Jesus Christ!" the crowd responded in a ragged unison.

He took a deep breath, reared back and roared. "Father! In Jesus' name, I break us free from all witchcraft and curses and evil and demons sent to this abode. I am your war club. I shatter to bits all walls of protection these satanists and witches erect and I return the evil and demons back to their place. In Jesus' name I send the judgment of God to these satanists and witches. I heap coals from the altar of God upon their foreheads. I cover us with the Blood of Jesus and ask for warring angels to be placed around us for protection. I shatter and free us from the psychic powers attempting to bind us, from words spoken in hurt, anger, sorrow or bitterness. I break and unleash us from the power of incense and candles being burned against us."

"Amen!"

People spread into the yard, forming pincers around both side of Aaron's house. The noise tested their will and their faith, the strain evident on many faces. Some folks stuffed bits of Kleenex in their ears to cope. One of Mac's elders vomited on his torch.

It was too much to bear for one older couple. They retreated back to the house, candles extinguished, chins drooping. Those that remained kept their jaws set, their brows furrowed. Tears flowed freely as they prayed along with Donnie.

John prayed too, but he prayed for the music to stop, for Aerie and her friends inside to exercise prudence and quit playing. This was a mob scene now, and folks were getting agitated and more wound up in the Holy Spirit with every passing minute. A little silence right about now would have done wonders to break the mood.

But the music played on, rising and falling, wavering as instruments shifted in and out, but continuing without interruption as it evolved towards something even more terrible.

Donnie advanced down the driveway, his face contorted into a masque of theatrical rage. He expelled his prayers at the front door like a spitting cobra. He paused for breath and shuffled through the papers clenched in his fist before continuing on with his deliverance.

"We wield the Power and Authority of God over Satan and his army! We send angels with boxes to separately seal each demon in, chain and gag the demons, read scripture to the demons day and night, and fill the boxes with the Glory of God. We loosen the angels to spin the demons minds round and round, to chase and harass, to bruise, crush and flatten the heads of the serpentine spirits, and to snip off the tails of the scorpion spirits."

John made his way discreetly around the flank of the crowd, along the outside wall of the music room. There were some windows on that side. Maybe he could get their attention, let them know what was going on outside their walls and they would see the wisdom of putting away their instruments until things cooled down.

"We order the princes and rulers to be bound with chains and thrown down before the other spirits, and their foreheads to be written in red letters that Jesus Christ is my Lord. We command the lesser spirits to attack the traitors in the camp and throw them out. We unchain the spirit who attacked the Midianites in Gideon's day."

John edged closer to the walls, trying to peek inside one of the odd, triangular windows, but the glass was dusty and the interior was dim. The sun was setting and no one had yet turned on any lights. The music chugged on, the players undeterred and perhaps unaware of the scene outside the house.

"We command the demon's answers to stand up in the Judgment. We send the warrior angels with swords to chain the rulers and throw the fire of God on them. We ask that the demons be cut into pieces and scattered over the deserts."

Donnie, steps away now from the front door, amped up his rant, speeding through the words like an auctioneer.

"We command the ruling spirits to cast out their underlings! We command the demons to go to Tartarus with the fallen angels, or wherever Jesus sends them. We ask the angels to assist in the work of this deliverance as directed by God. We break evil curses, vexes, hexes, jinxes, psychic powers, bewitchments, potions, charms, incantations, spells, witchcraft and sorcery. We break all cords, snares, controls and bondages."

"We come against unholy spirits, imps, fallen angels, demons, devils, empires of evil, and the entire Kingdom of Satan in humans and animals. We come against all manner of wicked councils, principalities, kingdoms, dominions and powers. We come against—"

The door of the hell house flew open, and Aaron stepped out, his figure aglow in the fading rays of the setting sun. The crowd gasped. Some dropped their candles, flames blinking out before they even struck the ground.

***

Aerie dragged the bass to a spot where she could peek down the hall as Aaron swung the door open. A ruddy-faced man in a rumpled suit stood on his walk, holding up a silver cross and chanting like human machine gun. Behind the man stood a gaggle a people bearing torches and candles, their faces tilted up to the sky, when they weren't sneaking glances at Aaron. John's wife, Cindy stood front and center, glaring like a tigress. She was relieved yet disappointed to see no sign of John out there.

"A little early for Christmas Carols, don't you think?" said Aaron.

"We command that you confess that Jesus Christ is your Lord."

"Please. Can you get your people off my lawn? If you want to protest, fine. Just do it from the road."

"I proclaim this house to be the house of Jesus!" said the man.

"Oh yeah? I pay the taxes here, not Jesus. Listen, I want you out of my driveway, now."

The Lord Jesus rebukes you! I beseech all unclean spirits to leave this abode."

"What's going on out there?" said Eleni, peering around the kithara.

"I think they're talking about Mal," said Aerie, snidely.

"Me? What?"

"Never mind. Just a lame joke."

Hollis put down his sax and came alongside Aerie.

"Hoo boy! Now what's all this about?"

"Fans," said Aerie.

The look in the bible thumper's eyes startled Aerie. This was no brain-dead preacher. He lacked the vacant stare of true conviction. Though his voice remained strident, this expression betrayed uncertainty. He gave the impression of an amateur actor overplaying a role. What was that all about?

His cryptic diffidence did not diminish his energy one bit. He sustained his high volume rant, advancing on Aaron, coming within an arm's length. His face flushed. Sweat dribbled down his brow. He held a sheath of papers tucked into a Bible high over his head with both hands.

"Satanists! Witches! In the name of Jesus, I bind you. In the name of Jesus, I command you to go, under the feet of Jesus I expel you. In the name of Jesus I command you never to return!"

Aaron's face hardened. "Okay. I've had enough. Get off my property!"

The preacher continued to work himself into a frenzy, his words accelerating almost beyond comprehension.

"By-the-blood-of-Jesus-I-bind-you-demons-inhabiting-this-house-with-cords-that-can't-be-broken. The-Lord-shall-cast-you-into-the-prison-for-demons-deep-beneath-the-earth."

"Bloody hell," said Aaron. "I said, get away from me, and get the fuck away from my house." Aaron shoved him. "Get away from my door!"

The man chanted on, rapid fire. "Foul-serpents-you-squirm-and-grovel-under-my-feet. If-you-bite-my-heel-by-the-grace-of-God-I-shall-trample-your-head."

"Not if I trample your fucking head first. Now, out of my yard before I call the cops."

A woman lurched forward and thrust her candle at Aaron, rattling off another rapid-fire prayer at him.

"Oh-Saint-Michael-the-Archangel-defend-us-in-the-hour-of-battle-be-our-safeguard-against- the-wickedness-and-snares-of-the-devil-may-God-restrain-him-we-humbly-pray-and-do-thou-oh-Prince-of-the-Heavenly-Host-by-the-power-of-God-cast-into-hell-satan-and-all-the-evil- spirits-that-roam-through-the-world-seeking-the-ruin-of...."

Aaron slapped away the woman's candle. Those behind her rushed forward, slipping another candle into her palm, wielding their candles like sabers to nudge Aaron back.

A man wearing a bulging photographer's vest pushed his way through the crowd. Something long and dark dangled loosely in his grip.

"Aaron, watch out! There's a guy coming with a gun."

"A gun?" said Eleni.

Sari stopped singing. Ron stopped strumming. Mal put down his horn. But through all the commotion, Paolo kept up a ferocious beat on Aaron's collection of drums.

"Did someone say gun?" said Sari.

Aaron retreated into the house and slammed the door.

"Jesus, this is getting out of hand," he said.

People pressed against the windows. Their chanting permeated the music room.

"Shola baratoli molan. Atara bahoon etia. Tanash abiha. Mera tera neran. Taribantaia aba halam burem."

"What the fuck kinda language is that?" said Ron.

"I know that shit," said Hollis. "That's tongue speak. They speaking in tongues. They must be Pentecostals."

"Christ, next they're gonna haul out the snakes," said Mal.

"Charismatics," said Aaron, nodding. "Fucking lunatics, all of them."

"Can't blame 'em," said Hollis. "You gotta admit. This shit sound like jazz from hell. They're just good Christians, doing what they think is best. Folks who find Jesus, they do what they can to make this world pure."

"Who are you kidding Hollis?" said Aerie. "Since when do you go to church?"

"Since I started playing this ungodly music is when," he said, disassembling his sax. "I'm out of here. Come Sunday, I'm finding myself a pew. I don't care whose. Unitarian. Catholic. I'll go Mormon if they'll take me."

"Hollis, get back on that horn. Come on everybody. Play. We're not gonna let these assholes tell us what to do." Aaron picked up his fiddle. "Come on, Hollis. Just give us ten more minutes. We got this far, we can't have far to go. Come you guys, step it up. Let's get that birdie singing."

Aerie's fingertips throbbed, on the verge of blistering. A week away from a bass had eroded her calluses and turned her muscles to mush. But she dug in and locked into a bucking groove that alternately clashed and linked with Paolo's rhythms.

The interruption and altercation seemed to catalyze their collective process of creation. The level of verve and daring in the room surged noticeably. Ron approached full flail on guitar. Sari arched her back and emptied her lungs.

Hollis looked lost. He kept glancing towards the door. He sighed, put down his case and picked up one of Aaron's clarinets. His eyes drifted up to the loft. "Oh man, I wish I never took this gig." He licked the reed, took a breath and noodled his way back into middle of the jam.

"Yeah, buddy. That's the ticket!" said Aaron. Like a spider enhancing a web, he spun manic flourishes from his central drone.

No longer was their music a loose assemblage of whims. Disparate threads twined with startling serendipity, embroidering a tapestry of sound.

The bell jar began to hum.

"Oh yeah!" said Aaron. "Now, we're getting somewhere."

***

John circled back around the house to see what was going on at the front door. He brushed past one of Mac's guys. The two made eye contact and the man smiled and nodded. John glared back. The man responded with a grimace of his own.

Before he could reach the driveway, the front door slammed, dashing his hopes for a safe and amicable safe resolution to this encounter. The music started up again and rose in intensity and volume, reaching heights of bedlam surpassing all that came before. The ground seemed to tremble from the clash and mingle of strange harmonics.

This was clearly no ordinary music. Why did it terrify the others, but not him? Was he immune? Conditioned from prior exposure? Or had his soul been overtaken by the forces they were fighting?

Funny. John didn't feel possessed. He wasn't even sure he believed in demons or the devil. Not anymore.

Many of the others, the believers, backed away, out of the yard, onto the road. Donnie remained planted in the driveway like a statue, keeping a wide stance, his palms opened upward and his head thrown back to the evening's first stars.

A few brave souls kept several paces behind him, Cindy and Mac among them, holding hands now unabashed, torches raised high as the twilight plunged into nightfall. John wanted to feel jealous or aggrieved, but he felt nothing of the sort. His heart held only worry for Aerie.

Tammie caught John's eye. She walked over with Rand in tow. Jerry stayed put, watching Donnie's back, leaning on his shotgun.

"Look at him go," said Tammie. "Isn't he awesome?"

"These deliverances, are they all this intense?"

"Not at all," said Tammie, her torch sputtering from a faulty wick. "They're usually just prayer meetings, counseling sessions, that sort of thing."

"Boring," said Rand. "This one's an actual, freaking war! Spiritual warfare. Now, this is what I'm talking about. This is why I took this internship."

Donnie spoke entirely in tongues now, channeling every ounce of Holy Spirit he could muster. He trembled and jerked like an epileptic.

John sidled over to Jerry. "Is Donnie okay? Should we do something?"

"What do you want to do?"

"I don't know. Break him out of his trance?"

"Nah. He's fine," said Jerry. "He's just doing his thing. I mean, this is what he does."

"How long is he going to take?"

"As long as it takes. Something tells me, he's just getting started."

John stared at the house, transfixed by the sight of the shadows dancing in time with the music, the way Donnie's chanting seemed to mesh with the overall composition, as if Donnie were in cahoots with the alleged Satan lovers inside.

"Pardon me, if this sounds stupid," said John. "But... how will we know when the deliverance is... Delivered?"

"Oh, there'll be signs," said Jerry. "Might not be obvious to us, but Donnie will know 'em when he sees 'em." He reached up and scratched his beard. "One good sign would be getting this dang music to stop. And another...." He turned towards the hillside behind them. "Another might be coming down out of those woods. There's been quite a lot of action up there, and I'm pretty damn sure it's not raccoons or deer. I got a feeling them whirligig things are getting riled. Just like I thought, it's this music that's attracting them."

"Oh man, that's all we need," said John. "As if these folks aren't spooked enough."

"Yeah, well, that ain't all. I've been keeping an eye on Mac's idiot goon squad here. If you ask me, these men are acting a little too jittery to be handling those kinds of weapons. They're way out of their element."

"Oh, don't say that."

"I'm just saying. Things might get hairy."

"You're not implying—" John exhaled deeply. "Anything we can do about it?"

"Watch your ass... and hope that music stops real soon."

John knew things would get worse before they got better. He knew where this music led, and how it would not end until it reached a climax guaranteed to blow these people's minds. He had only heard it happen twice before and both times it came after unbound and rollicking sessions like the one they were presently witnessing. He felt like a man watching a bomb about to go off and powerless to tell anyone.

Already, people moaned and sobbed. This was obviously much more than people expected, much more than they could handle. More folks peeled off and skulked away.

The music began to mess with his vision. The house seemed to ripple like a heat mirage. He grew dizzy, and his visual field closed in at the fringes. His knees began to wobble.

Mac passed in front, making his way among his congregation, trying to rally those who had departed and gird the will of those who remained. Cindy remained with the hard-core throng behind Donnie as he sustained his assault from the driveway. Tammie ran up and handed him a bottle of water, and wiped his brow with a hankie.

"Hold strong, people," said Mac. "We are winning this battle. We are winning. Keep it up. Hold strong. Send all your strength, all your prayers to Donnie. God bless him, he's doing heroic work. He's our hero."

Mac's confident visage eroded a bit when he came around to where Jerry and John stood. He bumped his fist against Jerry's shoulder. His eyes fluttered when he tried to look at John.

The scream first manifested as a ripple in the reservoir of John's torch. It blasted out of the house like a jet engine, delivering a screech like a thousand cats boiling in oil, a million fingernails scraping against blackboards. It was as primal a shriek as ever generated by a beast in any eon. John could imagine the lungs of dinosaurs making such sounds, if earthly creatures had ever made such sounds. He had heard this before, but never so brain curdling, never so sustained.

"Make it stop!" someone shouted, their face teary and dripping. One man fainted. Others dropped to their knees and begged to Jesus to make it stop. Donnie wobbled in the driveway, stunned speechless. He staggered back.

The crowd broke. One man fainted and had to be pulled along the road, heels dragging. Another clutched his shoulder and stumbled and collapsed into some bushes. Candles blinked out. Few bothered to relight them.

The scream echoed against the hills. Before the echoes could fade completely, the music finally stopped.

Something gurgled and scraped in the forest behind them. It moved along the hillside. Those who had taken shelter among the trees scampered onto the road like roaches flushed from a kitchen cabinet.

John looked around for Cindy, but it was getting very dark and fewer torches remained alight, hers not among them.

Mac cowered on the pavement by John's feet, having hit the deck with the first onslaught of screaming. He scrambled to his feet, panting with fear, his face stricken with panic. He retrieved his still burning torch from the blacktop and advanced on the house in a crouch. He approached with caution, as it were a sleeping dragon that might wake up and devour him. He swept his torch against the mulch beneath a patch of holly.

John, appalled, rushed forward. "Mac! What the heck are you doing? There are people inside."

"They can't be people," said Mac. "These are demons." He ran around the back of the house, swiping his torch against anything that would burn.

Frantic, John looked for help among the watching throng. People looked on, stunned, but no one made a move to interfere with Mac.

"Donnie! Jerry!"

Jerry had slipped away into the darkness. Donnie sat slumped on a boulder at the end of the driveway, transfixed by the flames spreading across the dry mulch, as disinterested and unresponsive as the stone on which he sat.

John ran over to the holly and tried stamping out the flames but they had spread too quickly through the clumps of dried leaves that had collected in the flower bed. Fire lapped at the lowermost shingles.

He rushed to the front door and pounded on it with his fist as Mac rounded the other side of the house with two of his security goons in tow, his face still manic and distorted with rage. He pulled a machine pistol from the pocket of his jacket.

"Get away from that door or I'll take you down!" he shouted. "Let the Holy Fire sort the good from the bad. Right Donnie?"

John backed away, his arms outstretched, beseeching Donnie to intervene, but the Reverend just sat there like a tired dog and blinked.

***

Donnie felt that thing in his stomach again, roiling his insides. It was just like last time. He could feel the demons poking, probing, encircling his viscera with their coils, stabbing him with their claws.

The scream had knocked him for a loop, in that moment of weakness, they had pounced and he could feel their possession taking hold. He didn't care anymore about continuing any prayers. His deliverance had failed. He, again, had failed.

Jerry came up behind him.

"You alright, boss?"

"No."

"What's wrong?"

"Get everybody out of here, Jerry. They're too strong. They're just too strong. All hope is lost."

"Calm down, Donnie. It's okay. The music stopped. Maybe what you did, worked."

"Wasn't me. I had no control. It just happened. It was their volition."

"The thing is, Donnie, up in those woods—"

"You don't feel them?"

"Feel what?"

"Inside. Your inner core. Are they not coming after you, too?"

"I don't know what you're talking about Donnie. Nothing's coming after me. But—"

"Of course! They've targeted me. I'm the object of their defense."

"Boss. I'm trying to tell you. There's something scrambling around in those woods behind us."

Donnie nearly slid off the boulder in despair.

"We're... surrounded. They've got us inside and out."

Jerry stared up into the blackness of the forest. "Hear that scraping? That's them. They're coming on down."

Donnie tried to rise, but a pain like a javelin point seized his middle and doubled him over. Several of Mac's parishioners came over to console him.

"There, there, Reverend," said a young woman. "You did it. You made them stop."

"I did nothing."

"Such a godly man. So humble!" said her older companion.

Jerry looked up, a new glow glistening off the plane of his forehead. "Oh my God! Pastor Mac. He's burning down the house."

"Maybe... maybe it's for the best," said Donnie.

***

"Ooh Rah!" said Ron. "Listen to that birdie sang!"

"Gotta admit," said Mal. "That was a good one. For being all acoustic."

Sari slouched on her stool, breathless and panting. "Yeah. It was good for me, too."

Aaron, grinning broadly rushed over to the bell jar and ripped the cover off. The birdie had expanded several times in size to nearly fill the jar.

"Gol dang!" said Hollis, lurching back, holding the clarinet like a baseball bat. "What the heck is that thing?"

"Don't worry about it, Hollis. You did your part. You get paid."

A fist pounded against the front door.

"Someone's knocking," said Aerie, laying the bass down gently. "Should we answer?" Something acrid bit her nostrils. "Do you guys... smell smoke?" She rushed to a window. The chanting outside had stopped and the crowd had mostly dispersed. Those who remained looked on in silent awe as flames lapped against the cedar shingles from the border of hemlock mulch encircling the house. Several onlookers put out their candles as if embarrassed by what they had wrought.

"Holy shit! The house! It's on fire!"

"No way," said Ron.

"Those bastards!" said Aaron.

"Do you have an extinguisher?" said Aerie.

A blank look came over Aaron and he bolted into the hall, Aerie close on his heels. He ripped open the overstuffed pantry and fumbled through a pile of pasta boxes and cans of tomato sauce. "I can't find it." He ran over to the basement door and kicked a laundry basket down the steps. "It's... not here."

"Someone call 911!" said Aerie.

"No!" said Aaron. "Let me handle this. I don't want any firemen here. This house isn't built to code."

Paolo already had taken out his phone. "Yes, ma'am. I would like very much to report a fire please at 839 Summerton Hill Road."

"Paolo, no!"

An orange glow flickered through the kitchen window.

"Oh my God! It's in the back, too."

Aerie grabbed a large pot and filled it with water from the kitchen sink.

Mal rushed in. "What the heck are you doing? Making pasta?"

"Get out of my way!" She yanked open the window, lifted the pot, and heaved its sloshing contents down the side of the house. Some of the flames quenched, sending up puffs of pale smoke. She pushed out the screen and stuck her head out. Small fires burned every few feet, spreading through patches of unraked, wind-gathered leaves. In places, the cedar shakes were catching.

"Someone get the hose! We're surrounded by little fires."

Aerie refilled the pot.

"Here, try this," said Mal. He pulled out the extensible faucet out the window.

"That's no good," said Aerie, pushing it aside. "It's not long enough. We need the garden hose."

Aaron was on his knees rummaging through a hall closet, still searching for his extinguisher. "I got hoses front and back."

Ron, who had been hovering at the threshold of the kitchen, tore off down the hall. Aerie dashed after him.

Paolo paced by with the phone. "Oh yes," he said. "It is very urgent. Very, very urgent. What is that you say? You are asking why am I so calm? Oh, that is just how I am. Please do send the fire trucks ma'am, and as soon as possible. I assure you, when they come they will find it burning."

Ron threw open the front door, prompting a barrage of automatic gunfire. Bullets ripped through the door frame. He jerked his body back and dove twisting to the hardwood. "Ah shit! They got me."

"Shooting?" Sari clutched her chest. "There is shooting? Why are they are shooting at us?"

Aerie dragged Ron away from the door. Eleni rushed over to help.

"Ron, are you okay?"

He winced in pain. A dark stain spread down his jeans. "They fucking shot me in the ass."

"I can't believe this," said Sari.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" said Hollis, hiding behind a post. "Why did I ever agree to come to this bullshit jam?"

"Is there another way to go out?" asked Paolo, calmly.

Aaron looked up from the hall floor, all flustered and frazzled. "The patio doors out back. That way, through the den."

"Sayonara y'all." Hollis waddled out of the room, hugging his sax case. Sari and Paolo scampered close behind him. They slid open the glass and escaped out into the night.

Aaron scrambled over to the bathroom and turned on the shower, sticking a plastic bucket in the tub. "There's another in the kitchen. We gotta wet everything down."

"Aaron, are you crazy?" said Aerie. "We need to get out of here."

"First I gotta save the sonant, and... bloody hell! That bass! A crack, I can explain."

"I think the fires gotten into the second floor," said Mal, peering up into the loft. I see smoke up there. He supported Ron as Eleni used one of Aaron's ties as a tourniquet on his thigh. "Eleni, what the fuck are you doing? It's my butt that got hit. My leg is fine." Eleni popped up and supported Ron's other shoulder. Ron tried taking a step and cried out. "Oh man, it's my hip, too."

"Hollis and the others went out the back," said Aerie. "Looks clear that way."

"Gotcha,"said Mal as he and Eleni eased Ron into the den.

The tempered glass of the patio doors shattered under a burst of gunfire. They dove behind a sofa, Ron howling in pain as they landed hard on the carpet. landing with a groan.

"All clear, huh?" said Mal.

***

As flames climbed the shingles, John backed away across the lawn, Mac's gun trained on his chest, when the front door suddenly opened. Mac swiveled and let loose a burst of rounds.

"Mac, what the heck? Don't shoot them!"

Mac swung the muzzle back around. "Shut up and get back to the road." He kept the rifle pointed until John had done what he said.

Jerry came over, shotgun slung casually over his shoulder, approaching Mac like a lion tamer trying to calm a rogue beast. "Hey Mac. That's not necessary. Put that gun away."

"We can't let them out the house," said Mac. "You heard them. They're a menace."

Cindy rushed to Mac's side. They argued quietly, as Cindy clung to his arm. The wild look in Mac's eyes dissipated somewhat.

More gunfire sounded from the back of the house.

"Who the fuck is shooting now?" said John.

Jerry's eyes went steely. "Come on!"

They tore around the side of the house, keeping to the shadows. They found one of Mac's goons crouched beside a wheel barrow, plugging away at the side of the house. The patio doors and corner windows were shattered and his bullets had torn a leather sofa to shreds. Smoke began to billow out of a window in the second floor. Figures could be seen through the kitchen window.

"Jesus! Don't they know enough to turn off the lights?" said Jerry as they picked their way through the rhododendrons. Someone squealed, causing Jerry to leap back.

"Don't shoot. Do not shoot us, please! We are only musicians."

It was Sari, huddled with two men John couldn't recognize in the feeble light.

"It's okay," said John. "We're here to help."

"Get behind some cover," snapped Jerry. "There's a rock wall over there. Get over there, now. All of you! Me and my shotgun are going to try to reason with this fellow."

Sari and the men obliged, but John stayed by Jerry's side. Jerry didn't seem to mind. "There's some duct tape in my pack. Fish it out. Come running with it when I call you."

"Duct tape?"

"Yeah. Fish it out." Jerry went down on one knee.

John found the roll of tape in the main pocket amidst a heap of shotgun shells and AAA batteries.

Jerry strode off into yard, directly behind the goon, who was still taking potshots at the shadowy figures moving behind the building smoke.

He tiptoed up behind the man and stuck the barrel of his shotgun square between his shoulder blades.

"Drop it!"

Startled, the man complied and Jerry kicked his weapon aside. He called back to John.

"Now!"

John came running with the duct tape.

"Get his wrists and ankles, and when you're done, take his gun."

"What? I can't shoot. I never—"

"Take it!" said Jerry. "It's a deterrent if nothing else. I'm going into the house. Whoever's in there might be afraid to come out, thinking somebody's gonna shoot 'em. Keep me covered."

John wrapped layer after layer of tape around the guy's extremities until he was certain he wasn't going anywhere.

He ripped off one last piece for the guy's mouth. The guy kept wriggling away.

"Stay still!"

"Come on. I got a cold, man. I need to breathe."

"I'm sorry. I gotta cover your mouth."

"I won't yap," said the man. "I promise."

John slapped the tape over his mustache and reached for the gun. It was heavier than he expected. It felt awkward in his hands.

He got behind the wheel barrow and watched Jerry step through the jagged glass fringing the frame of the patio door. Three figures appeared, two of them limping badly. They were Aerie's friends—Ron, Mal and Eleni. There was no sign of Aerie.

Jerry stepped out, lifting Eleni into his arms. Ron staggered out after them, draped over Mal's shoulder.

"Got two hurt!" said Jerry. "You stay right here. Don't go in. The smoke's getting really bad. I'll be right back, as soon as I get these guys somewhere safe."

"Did you see Aerie?" said John. "Did she make it out?"

Mal shook his head. "They went back for the bass... and the birdie."

"Jesus! What the hell for?"

Flames began to roar out of a second floor window. John spotted a garden hose coiled along the side of the patio. He rushed over and turned the valve on full and sprayed it into the house and onto the walls.

"Aerie!" he called. "Are you in there?"

***

Aerie crawled into the music room after Aaron. The heat and smoke had made it impossible to stand.

Aaron crawled under the table with the bell jar, and disconnected the Tygon tubing that connected it to a vacuum pump. He grabbed a table leg and started to drag it towards the hall. Wood scraped against wood.

"Oh, fuck. The kithara!" said Aaron. "I can't leave that, either! That thing's one of a kind. It's a museum piece."

"One or the other," said Aerie. "We can't save it all." Reaching the bass, she turned it on its back onto the soft nylon case and pulled it alongside her. Flames crackled in the loft, filling the cathedral ceiling with smoke. It billowed down into the room, hot and acrid, stinging her nostrils and throat. "Aaron, we gotta go. The smoke's getting bad."

Aaron shoved the table into the hall. He rose into a crouch, coughing through the smoke. "I'm going to get the kithara."

"Leave it, Aaron! It's too dangerous."

He tried standing upright and dropped immediately to the floor, gasping and hacking.

"The air... it's fucking burning."

"Aaron, come on! We need to leave the house, now!"

Several more bursts of gunshots sounded outside, followed by a shotgun blast.

Aerie's heart pitter-pattered. "Oh my God! What's going on? They're slaughtering us!"

***

As sirens sounded deep down in the valley, John un-reeled the garden hose as far as it would go and let loose a heavy stream in through the broken windows and over the outside walls where flames had climbed the cedar shakes and were eating their way under the eaves on the second story.

Mac emerged from the shadows at the corner of the patio, accompanied by one of his goons. "Oh, look at the Good Samaritan," he chortled. "Come on John, put down that hose. This is a holy fire. We're letting it burn."

"You're insane! There's still people inside."

"I said put it down!" Mac raised his gun.

"But this is murder, Mac. You can't do this."

"The Lord Jesus has spoken to me and the Lord says He wants this house to burn!"

"No way," said John. "That ain't Jesus who told you that. You've been talking to the devil."

"I said put that hose down and get away from the house!"

Folks bearing candles came around behind Mac, Cindy among them. When she saw John, she came forward, wielding her candle like a can of pepper spray, her face all smeary, hair disheveled.

"Look at his eyes!" said Cindy. "I think he's possessed. The demons got him, too."

"Oh for Christ's sake, Cindy. I'm not possessed. I'm just doing the right thing."

"The right thing is to back away from that house and let that holy fire burn," said Mac.

"I can't do that! There's still folks inside."

"What the heck is going on here?"

Mac swung his gun reflexively, lowering it when he saw Jerry striding out of the rhododendrons.

"Jerry believes in the Holy Fire, don't you, Jerry? You were the one who harvested this particular variety. Ain't that so?"

"Just a job. Not proud of it."

"Point is, we're going to have to shoot you down John, if you don't put down that damned hose, right now."

"Put it down, John!" said Cindy. "Please, put it down. We can't get you help. Donnie, he can help you."

"I don't need any damned help! You guys are the ones who need help. You guys are the only demons here."

John clung to the hose. Not for a second would he consider abandoning Aerie.

"I said, put it down!" Mac hollered. "In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, I command you to put down that hose. We're gonna let that Holy Fire do its work, sort the good from bad."

Jerry cocked his shotgun. "You leave John be. All he's doing is trying to fix your mess. Now get out of here before I perforate your ass."

"You can't threaten me! I'm doing the Lord's work."

"I don't know who you're working for, but it's no Lord of mine. Now get out of here. John and I got some rescuing to do."

"Look at him!" said Cindy. "The demons got him too!"

"Straight to Hell, the both of you!" Mac swiveled his gun towards Jerry. John hit him with a burst of water knocking the weapon from his grip and extinguishing Cindy's candle.

Mac's goon let loose with his Uzi, bullets tearing clods of turf as Jerry dived onto the grass and rolled. He settled to a stop long enough to get off a blast. It missed the goon, who dodged, but the edge of the pattern peppered Mac's side as he scrambled to retrieve his own weapon.

John tossed the hose aside and took hold of the weapon he had liberated from the other man. The goon tried again to take down Jerry as he scrambled away on his knees. John fired a short burst that caught him square in the chest. The man staggered and fell.

Something exploded beneath John's sternum, tearing through his back ribs. A pain more brilliant that a thousand suns roared through him. He collapsed into the wet grass, vaguely aware of a second shotgun blast knocking Mac stumbling into the patio furniture, his weapon clattering against the tiles, a spray of blood spattering the house, and then Cindy, vacillating before rushing to Mac's side.

Jerry crawled over to John, his bearded face peering close into John's eyes. His hand reached under his jacket. Fingers probed his flesh.

"You okay, guy?" said Jerry.

"No," John groaned. "But please... help... Aerie." He stared at the burning house, powerless to move, trapped in a maelstrom of pain.

Screams erupted from the front of the house. People came dashing into the side yard to get away from something. A deep and ragged bellow like a shredded foghorn sounded in the forest, loud enough to drown out the approaching sirens.

***

Once the guns went silent, Aerie resumed dragging the bass into the living room. The carpet had somehow become soggy and there were puddles on the coffee table. This heartened Aerie. Might Aaron have a sprinkler system?

"Mal? You guys still here?"

No one answered. She could only hope they had escaped to safety, despite all those guns, but she feared the worst when she heard urgent voices on the patio, sobbing, moans of pain. She didn't dare call out again, in case the shooters were still around.

At least the gunfire had stopped, and she could hear sirens approaching and something else that was unfamiliar, something low and croaky and deeply resonant, like the mother of all basses.

"Aerie! I need your help. This is too heavy for me. It's getting hard to breathe in here."

"Leave it, Aaron. Forget it. We have to go! Follow my voice."

Glass shattered upstairs. There was a rumble and a roar. The upper story had flashed over.

She heard table legs scraping against the hardwood. "It's catching on a rug. I need help getting it through the hall. Help me."

Aerie filled her lungs with the clearer air, low to the floor, close to the musk of the damp carpet, and crawled towards Aaron. She was barely past the kitchen when the ceiling of the music room began to collapse. Strings twanged and snapped. Cymbals sizzled on the floor. A cloud of smoke boiled into the hall like a pyroclastic flow.

Aaron screamed and fell as a pile of flaming debris collapsed onto him. Outside came more screams, more fear than pain. She held her hands up protectively over her head, clenching her eyes closed, preparing for the hurt.

Another crash sounded, of a different sort, accompanied by a strange crunching, tinkling sound. She opened her eyes to find the smoke being sucked out of the kitchen into a large, clear space with a dusty vortex at its center. A sonant about the size of a human being spun into the hall, through the shattered door frame. It took in burning embers and smoke and flung out tiny white crystalline flakes, like a dry and brittle snow.

"No! Get away! He's mine," yelled Aaron. "This one's mine! It's... it's..." His voice trailed off.

Aerie spotted him unconscious and limp, lying trapped under a beam at the entry of the mostly collapsed music room, before the smoke poured back into the void to obscure him.

The sonant settled over the table holding the bell jar. The little sonant in the jar pushed against the glass with dusty pseudopods and tentacles. The rug beneath the larger sonant shriveled and cracked and sublimated away. The table legs crumbled, spilling the bell jar to the floor. The jar up-ended. It bounced off the floor without breaking and rolled on its side into the hall. The little sonant slipped free, looping and spiraling around the music room, carving wormholes of clarity through the smoke.

Aerie crawled over to where Aaron lay and grabbed his arm. She tugged, but he wouldn't budge. His leg was wedged firmly under a charred beam. The larger sonant began to move towards the front door, taking with it a pocket of cool, clear air. The small sonant began to follow, but reversed and circled back over to Aaron.

The big sonant lingered, keeping the smoke and flames at bay as the char on the beam turned white, then clear, and then broke away in squarish bits like tempered glass. The solid wood then crumbled into dust. Aerie, coughing and gagging, pulled Aaron free.

The big sonant grumbled. The little one curled back towards the door. Aerie followed, dragging Aaron into foyer, following the bubbles of clarity left in the sonants' wake.

She broke out into the night, rising into the crisp, fresh air that the stinging in her throat and lungs could hardly let her enjoy.

The crowd had mostly vanished. A few stragglers were visible far down the road. A lone man with a gun appeared on the road, firing into the sonants. The bullets pass straight through, tearing into the wall next to Aerie. The big sonant veered straight to the man, its outer vortex expanding to swipe at the weapon, smashing the carbon steel into little pieces of shrapnel that tinkled against the blacktop.

The man cried out, threw down what was left of his gun and ran off into the shadows. A fire truck led by a police cruiser careened up the main road, flooding the yard with their lights. Firemen leaped out of a pumper and started to haul hoses across the yard. They stopped dead when they spotted the sonants spinning in place at the edge of the road.

"Jesus Christ," said one of them. "What are they?"

"Smoke devils," said another, older man.

"Holy crap. I never thought they were real."

The big sonant roared and tilted out of the lights, melting into the darkness and the forest beyond, the little one spiraling close behind.

A wary policeman rushed forward to help Aerie pull the limp and unconscious Aaron across the lawn and out to the street.

And there came John, around the side of the house his arms draped around a large man in cammie overalls and a younger man with short-cropped hair. He was barely able to put one foot before the other. The front of his shirt and one whole leg were sopping with blood. They laid him down gently in the grass. Aerie rushed to his side, still coughing and dizzy from all the smoke.

An ambulance and another fire truck arrived on the scene. The larger man gave Aerie an odd look before stalking off to get the attention of the paramedics.

Aerie fingered a hole in John's shirt, small like a cigarette burn. It didn't seem to be bleeding all that fast.

"John. You're gonna be okay. It doesn't look that bad."

John's skin looked pale. His eyes were open much too wide. His heart beat like a frightened bird.

"John? Can you talk?"

"I'm... scared."

"The medics are here. You're gonna be okay." She looked up. Where'd they go?"

"They're tending to that other guy," said the young man who had helped him walk.

A man in a rumpled suit, still clenching a Bible and a mass of papers came bustling over. He dropped to his knees. "Oh, my Lord! John? What happened to you?"

"Donnie?" he said, his voice weak and hoarse.

"Yeah, John?"

"Mac. He shot me."

"Holy Jesus. What a disaster." The preacher slumped and sighed. Tears sprung into the creases beside his nose. "Jerry was right. It was a mistake coming here. Tammie and I should never have come back."

"You're that guy," said Aerie. "You're the exorcist. You incited all of this."

"I didn't plan this," said the preacher. "Not at all. This is not at all how I expected things to go."

Paolo came walking over with two policemen. "That is him. He is the one."

"Sir, mind if we have a word with you?"

"I'm busy," said the preacher, avoiding their gaze.

One of the policeman sighed. "Sir, we need to talk to you right now."

The other cop reached down and clapped a handcuff on the preacher's wrist. "What's this about? It wasn't me. I didn't do anything wrong here."

"Come on," said the other. "Let's have our little chat in the cruiser" They pulled his arms behind his back and led him away.

John exhaled abruptly and moaned. "Oh. It hurts. It hurts so much. I'm not gonna make it."

"It might not be that bad, John," said Aerie. "It's just a little hole."

"Oh, I think it's bad. Felt like... my insides exploded. I never hurt... so much." He rolled over onto his side, groaning. The back of his shirt was shredded and soaked in blood. The flesh behind his kidney was torn. Blood pooled and smeared on the grass.

Aerie recoiled in horror. "Oh my God, John! I take it back. It's bad. Very bad. Someone get those ambulance guys over here. He needs help right away."

"I'm praying for you John. Your soul will be taken care of. I know you meant well."

"I'm cold. It's getting harder to breathe. I think... I'm gonna die."

"No, you're not. The ambulance guys are coming over. They're gonna stop the bleeding and patch you up. Just hand on."

"Aerie you have to tell me... was there ever a chance? For you and me?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean us. That we could have been... you know... lovers?"

The question startled her. She knew he had a crush on her, but never considered it something that would ever amount to anything or be reciprocated. It flattered her, but that truth was her feelings about it were still in flux. She didn't know her own heart, what she felt for him, what was possible, what was not. None of that had been sorted in her head. She had had bigger things to worry about.

But what does one tell a dying man? What would a dying man want to hear? Should he be told the truth and left in limbo, to die without ever knowing? Or would it comfort him more saying no and let him pass without regrets for having missed out on a potential love affair? That sounded preposterous. Of course he wanted to hear that she loved him, whether it was true or not. That's what would make him happiest, if happiness was even possible in his current state. But then again, would any semblance of hope give him something to miss and only sharpen the pain of dying?

Aerie looked up at the commotion around, agitated that the paramedics had yet to make it to John's side. People had mostly retreated back towards John's house, but she spotted Cindy standing with a small throng, still praying by the light of an ambulance.

"John, I see your wife. I'll go get her."

"No! Don't leave me." His hand sprang out and seized hers. "Please. Stay. I can't see. Everything's turning white."

He squeezed her hand.

"Tell Cindy...."

"Yes?"

"I forgot to make the salad. There's... chicory... and arugula... in the crisper."

"What the fuck, John? For Chrissakes, don't worry about salads."

He squeezed her hand harder.

"Tell me. Did we have a chance? Did we ever have a chance?"

"Yes, John," said Aerie. "We did. We had a very good chance. A very good one."

And she cried, because she believed it, because it was probably true.

John's eyes opened and Aerie gazed into them. She couldn't tell if he was happy, if that deep and wide focus told of bliss or despair.

Another ambulance pulled up. Two paramedics burst out the back and ran over with a stretcher.

"John! They're here. You're gonna be okay now. They'll take care of you."

He didn't answer. His eyes had gone blank.

"John? John!" She patted his face. "Talk."

"Aerie. Will you... pray for me?" he said, weakly. "For my soul?"

"Oh, sure," said Aerie. "Sure, I'll pray. I promise. I will."
Chapter 49: Dust

Teflon bandages covered the minor burns on Aerie's arms and face. Her breaths came out a little wheezy, but otherwise she felt fine, a little hyped up from all that had happened, but ready to reconnect with the world.

She sat up on the treatment table and peeked through a gap in the curtain at an emergency room in full crisis mode. They apparently weren't accustomed to arson-tainted gun battles on Tuesday nights. Residents in floral scrubs hurried by pushing instruments on carts. Policemen hovered in the hall, kept at bay by an aggressive ER nurse. From snippets of chatter overheard, she surmised that someone she knew was being treated several cubicles down. But who?

She leaned over the table and tried to see what they had done with her shoes. She was anxious for the go-ahead to leave.

A doctor came into her cubicle, pushing a wheelchair.

"Have a seat. We're going upstairs. You're being admitted overnight for observation."

"What for? These burns are nothing."

"Smoke inhalation," he said. "We can't just send you home. Sometimes the symptoms are delayed. You could have some serious damage in those lungs that doesn't show up right away. Here, let me help you down."

"This is ridiculous." She coughed. "I'm breathing just fine. I don't need to—" Her words degenerated into an attack of brittle coughing.

"See?" said the doctor.

Aerie cleared her throat and scowled.

A young man in plain green scrubs came walking in. "Jeff here will get you situated upstairs."

"Wait. Can't I check on my friends first?"

"Your friends are busy. The other docs are working hard on them."

"But how are they doing?"

"Some fine. Some not so fine."

"You're a big help. Can you please check for me?"

"Listen. Things are really hectic right now. When everything settles down I promise I'll have someone drop by your room and fill you in. How's that sound?"

"I wish you would just let me go home."

"No can do. Not with that crackle in your lungs."

"Oh brother," she said and coughed some more.

***

Upstairs in the ward, Aerie found herself sponge bathed, stuck into a hospital bed and hooked up to monitors. A nurse clipped an oxygen line to her nose and put her on an IV for no good reason. She had no problems drinking fluids and keeping them down.

These non-consensual insults reminded her of how much she hated hospitals, their sounds, their smells and the horrible clothing that they made one wear. This room might as well have been her own private circle of hell.

She didn't sleep much, distracted by every little noise on the ward, her head wound up with worry. None of the nurses could tell her what had happened to Aaron or John or any of her friends. She was sorely tempted to disconnect her leads and go searching.

But the night nurse seemed too vigilant for her to get away with such shenanigans. Aerie behaved like a good little patient.

Dawn had already begun to pinken the sky when she finally managed to conk out. The sun had barely risen when she awoke to Mal's familiar but transformed smile. He was clean-shaven, wore fresh jeans and flannel shirt, and he smelled like soap. A crisp bandanna restrained his curly, wet locks.

"I'm not supposed to be here," he whispered and winked. "It's not quite visiting hours, yet. I had to sneak past the desk."

"They let you go home?"

"Well, yeah. I was lucky. I got out of there without a scratch."

"What about John? Aaron?"

"They didn't tell you?" Mal's smile flat-lined. "Aaron was DOA."

"Oh! That's horrible."

"He got burned up pretty bad. He still had a pulse when they fished him out but... he went into arrest on the drive here. They said it was the smoke that got him. So weird, knowing he's just... gone. He was like a big brother to us."

"What about John and the others?"

"Ron's okay, but the bullet messed up his hip. They're gonna have to do some more surgery. I just saw him down the hall. He's all snockered on pain killers. Eleni tore up her knee when we went diving behind that furniture. She's fine, otherwise. They sent her home last night, wearing a brace. Paolo hung out for a while to see if everybody was okay. Sari and that sax guy, I don't think they even came to the hospital."

"And John?"

"Um... I'm not sure about him."

"Can you check? Please? Find out where he is, and if he's okay."

"Um... sure," said Mal, looking a little sheepish. "You know... he didn't look good at all when they loaded him into that ambulance."

"I know that! That's why I want you to check."

"Okay. I'll... um... I'll try." He left the room.

Aerie stared out the window, into the vast depression in the hills that held Cayuga Lake. The slope and trees obscured her view of the lake itself, but she could sense its presence below the dimpled ridges.

Mal was gone quite some time. Every footstep in the hall, every whirr of a machine was like a burr in her brain. He popped into the room without warning.

"Hey! Good news," he said.

"Oh?"

"He's stable."

"He's alive?" She sat up from her pillows. Hope revived where it had nearly perished, like a frantic, little bird beneath her ribs.

"They upgraded his condition to serious. Took five units of blood and a bunch of plasma, but he's come out of shock. They're still worried about internal bleeding and... something about his spine."

"Is he paralyzed?"

"Didn't get that impression. It was something about a cracked vertebra or something. This is all from bits and pieces of eavesdropping."

"So that's good news. I guess?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, you saw him last night."

"We should have listened to him. We should have never—"

"Stop. We didn't know. How could we have known how bad it would—"

"He told us, Mal. He told us, there might be guns."

Mal sat down on the corner of her bed. "Don't think about it. It's done." He patted her leg. "What's with all these wires and tubes?"

"Oxygen," said Aerie. "I feel like I smoked a whole carton of Marlboros. Otherwise, I'm fine. I have a couple burns on my arms and face, but nothing bad. I've gotten worse toasting marshmallows."

"Have the cops been up to interview you?" said Mal.

She shook her head.

"I kind of freaked when they showed up at my door. I thought they were going to arrest me."

"For what?"

"I don't know. Inciting a riot?"

"But we did nothing wrong. We're the victims."

"Everything's cool. We're just witnesses. Some of the holy rollers are up on murder and arson charges."

Aerie settled back against her pillows.

"You look beat."

She nodded. "I didn't sleep much."

"Go ahead and nap. I can go see how Ron's doing."

"Thanks for coming. I was going kind of nuts, not knowing anything."

Aerie closed her eyes, finding the edges of her anxiety worn a bit smoother, reducing the threshold for slumber.

***

She dreamt of puppies dog-paddling in kiddie pools, of all things. Odd. She had never owned a dog. When she awoke, Mal was gone and a doctor stood by her bed, writing on a clipboard.

"Good morning, Miss Walker. Sorry to wake you."

"That's okay."

"Well, it looks like you'll be discharged today. Your vital signs are good. Your blood oxygen is well above 90%. How's your chest feel?"

"Mmm, my throat's a little sore."

"That's to be expected. You give us a call if you have any trouble breathing in the next few days, got it? If any fever pops up. Sometimes there's a secondary pneumonia that can develop, even after mild smoke inhalation."

"Sure thing," said Aerie. "Does this mean I can go?" She pulled off her blankets.

"Give us a minute to get the paperwork done."

The doctor left the room. Aerie pulled the curtain closed. She found her clothes in a plastic bag in the corner. They reeked of smoke, but she was glad to shed the johnnie.

A resident came in and had her sign a release, and gave her a prescription for some sort of inhaler. His instructions went right over her head.

She found Ron's room down the hall, but it was empty. They told him he was off being prepped for surgery. Nothing that serious, they were just going in to extricate some bullet fragments from his hip.

The intensive care unit was on another floor in another wing. On the way over, she stopped at the gift shop to peruse their teddy bears, balloons and get-well cards. She picked up a tidy, little bouquet of bi-colored tulips, took the elevator up and headed straight for the nursing station.

"Hi! I'm here to see John Paciorek."

The young nurse looked troubled. "Are you family?"

"Um... no. Just a friend."

The nurse called over an older nurse practitioner who had been huddled over a monitor. They whispered back and forth until the NP came over, forcing a smile. "I'm so sorry."

"Excuse me?"

"Mr. Paciorek passed a few hours ago. I'm very, very sorry."

"But... my friend said he was doing fine. That was just a couple hours ago."

"He had come out of shock and was conscious for some time, but he suffered a complication... a pulmonary embolism. Not unusual with that kind of trauma. Some clots must have broken loose. Unfortunately, it must have been pretty massive, because...."

Aerie felt something crumple inside. She sank to the floor, back sliding against the nurse's station, tears flooding anew. The nurses just let her sit there, cross-legged on the linoleum, the flowers in her lap. They must be used to such reactions in the ICU.

After a while, a mobility technician in green scrubs trundled up with a creaky wheelchair.

"Oh, is that for me? Oh no, I can walk just fine." Aerie rose to her feet, brushing off her jeans. "I just got a little discombobulated. That's all."

"Are you sure? You're not feeling dizzy, are you?"

"Oh no. I'm fine." She backed away down the hall.

"Let someone know if you need help."

Her face was sopping. She daubed a filthy sleeve against her cheek. She wouldn't dare look into a mirror until she got home and got washed up. She felt an urge get out of the hospital into the open air and just take off running.

As she waited for an elevator, Cindy came walking down the hall from some other ward. She wore a pink blouse with a lime green pants suit and white heels. She looked ready for an Easter Parade.

Without a word, Aerie handed her the flowers and stepped into the elevator. Cindy looked startled, but before she could say anything, the elevator door closed.

***

Aerie was toweling her hair dry when a knock came at her apartment door. It was the worst possible timing, with her half-dressed and dripping, burns stinging from the soap, bandages dangling loose. She threw on a tank top and shorts and ran downstairs.

She found a guy in a grey suit standing on her porch.

"Yeah? Can I help you?"

"Hi there, I'm Detective Tom Woodhead, with the Ithaca Police Department. I've already spoken to some of your friends. Mind if I ask you a few questions."

"Um... sure. Come on in."

He winced at the sight of her dripping bandages. "Sorry. Is this a bad time?"

"Let's get this over with," said Aerie. "I'll take care of these later."

She offered him a seat at the kitchen table.

"Coffee?"

"No thanks. I'm all set."

She sat across from him, shivering as the latent heat of her warm shower left her skin.

"This won't take long. I'm just wondering what you knew about those protesters."

"Protesters? Is that what you're calling them?"

"Why? Who do you think they were?"

"Exorcists. They were supposedly trying to rid us of our demons. Thought we were Satan worshippers."

"You're not?"

Aerie expelled a puff of breath derisively. "Even if we were, who cares? I mean, is that against the law?"

"What do you think made them feel you might be devil worshippers?"

Aerie shrugged. "I don't know. Our music, maybe?"

"Oh? Do your songs have satanic themes? Would you have samples of... lyrics and such?"

"There are no lyrics. It was just music."

"But you did have a singer. That Pakistani girl."

"Sari's Indian. But she sang no words, just notes... purely music."

The detective scribbled in his book. "One of the guys who was shot. John Paciorek. Did you know him?"

"We met."

"May I ask, how?"

"He stopped to help me once when my car broke down."

"That's it? No other encounters?"

"Well... he came to our show in Ithaca."

"Well, that's odd, don't you think? What was that all about? I thought they didn't like your music."

"I have no idea."

"Interesting. Any other encounters?"

"He helped me again when my car broke down in Ithaca, just the other day. He was passing by and stopped. He was trying to warn us. He knew something was up, but didn't want to get in trouble with his church. John was... John was a good guy."

"Was there anything... romantic... between you?"

"He was married."

"I realize that, but—"

"If you're wondering whether I was his mistress, the answer is no. I barely got to know him before...."

He looked up and twirled his pen. "So why do you suppose he got shot?"

"Why do you think?"

"I'm asking you."

"Probably because he was trying to help us, and his holy roller friends didn't like that."

"Because they thought you were Wiccans or devil worshippers or something like that?"

"Don't ask me to guess what goes on in their brains. All I know, is that I'm no devil worshipper. I barely believe in God, never mind some scary guy with horns."

"Did you witness any of the shootings?"

Aerie shook her head. "I was inside, dealing with the fire. Trying to rescue... those instruments. I did hear gunshots, but John was already hurt by the time I got outside."

"So you didn't observe any of the gun shots?"

"Nuh-uh."

The detective licked his lips and turned a page in his notebook. He shifted in his seat and crinkled his forehead.

"What about these smoke devil things? Did you happen see any of those?"

"Smoke devils?"

"Yeah. Other witnesses said they were like some kind of whirlwind that put out part of the fire, turned the cinders white. There's actually some evidence of that at the scene."

Aerie kept her face stiff. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Saying any more would only complicate things.

***

They held John's funeral in his hometown of Syracuse. Aerie had paid a fortune for a cabbie to drive her up and shuttle her around for half a day. She had him park at the Catholic church and they waited in the lot. She couldn't bring herself to go inside for the ceremony.

Once they brought the coffin out to the hearse, she had him tail the convoy all the way to the cemetery, tagging onto the end of the procession. Even once they parked, she kept to the fringes of the mourners, out of earshot of the final rites.

John's two little boys scampered among the tombstones as if it were a playground, their grandparents watching over them. Cindy kept her face buried in the shoulder of some tall guy in a trench coat.

Aerie attempted no contact with the families, offered no sympathies, received no consolations except from Bernard, the cab driver. Only when it was over and people had dispersed, did she dare to walk up to the grave to deliver yet another bouquet of bi-colored tulips.

Aaron's funeral took place in Boston. Neither she nor any of the others even tried to attend; they just sent a sympathy card to Aaron's daughter. While that seemed appropriate and sufficient, with John, for some reason, things felt left undone.

Aerie kept to herself over the next few days, healing up outside and within. But Saturday came and Hollis was playing the State Theater gig that Aaron had arranged. She stayed glued to her couch as the sun went down, skipped dinner and watched a crappy movie on pay-per-view, unable to summon the will to leave the house. Somehow, twenty minutes before show time, her muscles clicked into gear, and she swung her legs onto the floor. This was her last chance to see Hollis play, maybe forever, given how poorly the pair of them took care of their bodies and psyches.

She didn't bother with any makeup. She just washed her face and ran her fingers through her hair to smooth out the knots. Mal said that he and Eleni would be there, but she had no desire to be with people that night. She supposed she would go and lurk somewhere in the back, incognito under the hood of her fleece.

The night was crisp and starry, but a bank of clouds encroached from the south, devouring the sky. The weather man insisted that an unseasonable warm front was on the way—hard to believe, because the air smelled like snow. For some odd reason, it conjured a memory of the December day her pet cockatiel had flown out an open door, over the tops of some hundred foot oaks, never to be seen again.

She walked on autopilot, vaguely aware of her surroundings, her mind abuzz about Aaron and John and the fire, and how it all could have been prevented, if they had just stayed in Ithaca, if they had only listened to John.

She didn't find much a queue on the sidewalk outside the theater. Plenty of tickets remained available at the door and when she entered, the place was probably one third full.

So it was for a dead art like jazz in the provinces. Who, outside of Manhattan had ever heard of the Isaac Davis Quartet? Hollis' name might ring a few bells among hardcore aficionados, but he was no headliner.

The sparse crowd made it hard to stay incognito, but Aerie managed to find a poorly lit corner in the back, and settled onto a chair, knees drawn up, arms folded in front. She spotted someone who looked like Mal way up front, but made a point not to stare lest she attract his attention. Nothing against Mal, or Eleni, if she was here. She just needed space to brood in peace.

The audience was mostly yuppies and older hippies, with a smattering of high school kids and undergrads from IC and Cornell. Aerie winced when she saw the fretted electric 5-string Alembic bass perched on a stand. Maybe she was stodgy, but to her jazz wasn't jazz unless the bass came from a box of maple and spruce with f-holes.

The quartet came on stage without Hollis, maybe by design, to give him a grand entrance, but it was just as likely that he was late for the gig. It wouldn't be the first time.

They started with a couple non-descript originals, more fusion than be-bop, and then Hollis barged in mid-song, looking as rumpled and distracted as usual. Though undoubtedly improvised, Hollis's playing fit perfectly, as if his parts had been meticulously arranged. He had always been a musical chameleon.

On 'Footprints,' a Wayne Shorter tune, Hollis' sax wove a tight and clinging harmony with the trumpet. He was in top form. He showed no signs of smoke inhalation. He had plenty of wind. But Aerie could not enjoy it with that twangy Alembic polluting the sound.

As the set went on, she sank into that creaky old chair feeling heavier and heavier. The listener's envy that always plagued her when sat in an audience watching other people play, finally kicked in. The blues settled into her bones. She got up and left, giving Hollis, in the middle of a solo, one last glance as she went out the double doors.

***

Tattered gingko leaves danced at the base of a street lamp. The wind had shifted to the southeast and the sidewalk was damp from a passing shower. Turned out, the weather man was right. He had warned of a late season hurricane brushing the coast of New Jersey. Perhaps its outer fringe, a feeder band, had arrived.

Aerie turned the corner, passing the Commons, passing Moosewood, passing the turn that would take her home. She headed for Cascadilla Park, closed after dark, intending to hike the gorge path up to Collegetown.

The inside of her head was a mess. She was a kite in a windstorm, whipping with every gust, destined for a crash. She felt ashamed for avoiding Mal, for having no desire to say goodbye to Hollis. She had a sense of things left undone.

John's passing still haunted her. She remembered promising John that she would pray and had thus far not delivered.

But pray for what? His health? It was too late for that. Perhaps he meant his soul, but even that seemed awkward as she didn't quite believe souls existed. Come to think of it, she would never have believed in sonants had she not seen and heard them with her own senses.

What kind of prayer would John have wanted? It had been years since she had experienced anything faintly religious. She couldn't even remember the words to Hail Mary or even the Lord's Prayer anymore.

She felt her way over a foot bridge and onto the gorge path, shadows obscuring the wet stone. It was crazy dark, and she would probably tumble into the creek if she kept going, but she kept going, her feet probing for each step cut into the rock, her hands pawing the air for hand rails placed strategically in the more exposed sections. At least the roar of the creek helped tell her where not to step.

"Our Father, who art in Heaven." The words just popped into her head. "Hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done. On Earth as it is in Heaven." It was coming back, but somehow it didn't seem appropriate. This wasn't what John had in mind when he had asked her to pray for him.

Clouds shuttled over the strip of sky visible over the gorge walls, sweeping past in bands that converged and split, revealing shreds of starlight, and a sliver of a moon. She climbed yet more steps carved into the shale, each cascade adding its unique timbre to the night music. Sounds carried down from unseen Cornell frat houses above the rim, some muffled hip hop and alt rock. The gorge walls rose and enveloped her, stealing more of the unsettled sky, until the hulking mass of the College Avenue bridge loomed over her and beyond it the lights of Collegetown and the gates of Cornell.

That bridge had staged the last leaps of many a desperate Cornellian for whom the prospect of another sunrise became too much to bear. Aerie could relate, and under different circumstances she might have been tempted to join them, but something had shifted inside her, and that recourse no longer seemed open to her, despite all the un-medicated turmoil in her brain.

She felt plenty depressed, but this time she lacked that helpless sensation of a bottomless pit opening up to swallow her. There was a tangible floor to her mood, an expiry date instead of some indeterminate vastness of time. For a change, suicide seemed pointless and uninspiring.

There were things to be done, obligations to fulfill, ones she had no right to abandon. It was a sensibility more than a bucket list, a desire to persist. Was it all that recent death that ignited that spark? Whatever the cause, it was clearly unquenchable.

She ascended the winding stairs up to College Avenue and emerged onto the sidewalk. She crossed the bridge, lingering over the void, feeling it call to her. But she was inured and immune to its song. She tipped her brow in respect to those who had succumbed to its call and kept on walking onto the grounds of Cornell.

She found a grassy slope below the library and the chapel and went to a place equidistant between the walkways, and lay down on the dewy ground, watching the clouds battle the stars. Far below, the wind rippled Lake Cayuga's quicksilver fur.

After a time she sighed, rose up on her knees and clasped her hands together. "Here goes." She took a deep breath.

"Dear God. I promised John I'd pray for him, so here I am. I'm not even sure you're there, listening. But just in case, I'm going to keep my promise." She took another breath, long and deep. "Please take care of John. He was a good guy. He cared about other people more than himself. He was too good for his own good that way. John, though, he never really had a chance to show his self. He got himself stuck in a back eddy and couldn't break free until it was too late. I was just getting to know him, warming up to his ways and he was warming up to mine. So please take care of him. What's left of him. His soul. If such a thing exists."

She made the sign of the cross, because that's what people did when they prayed.

"That's all for now. I guess I should have said, Amen."

***

It was as balmy as mid-November ever gets in upstate New York. Mal and Eleni sat on Aerie's porch sipping peach iced tea and munching almond macaroons.

"This reminds me of the tea parties I used to have when I was little," said Aerie. "All we need is some costumes and dolls."

"A shame Sari couldn't make it," said Eleni.

"Heh. I think we've seen the last of her," said Mal. "I wouldn't be surprised if she moved back to Mumbai to get away from us."

"Not Mumbai," said Eleni. "Pittsburgh."

"You're joking," said Aerie.

"Did you hear about Ron?" said Mal. "He wants to buy a Stratocaster with his first disability check."

"I can't imagine him playing electric," said Eleni.

"He and his skater buddies are starting a band. He wants to play old school punk. And get this: he's their lead singer."

"No way!" said Aerie.

"Is he coming over or what?" said Eleni.

"He said he was," said Mal.

"How's he getting here?" said Aerie. "I thought he was supposed to stay off his feet for a month."

"He'll find a way," said Mal. "Not like him to miss a tea party."

"Whatever happened with that whole affair with Julius?" said Aerie.

"Oh... he's all paid up."

"How? I mean, he's buying electric guitars."

Mal smiled coyly. "I was able to fence a few of my diamonds. I'm the one he's gotta worry about now."

A whirring came from behind the neighbor's hedge. Ron zipped around the corner and down the sidewalk in a motorized wheelchair. A pair of crutches were strapped to the back, along with his Martin, complete with a few extra more dings and singe marks.

"Speak of the devil," said Mal, grinning and walking to the porch rail as Ron rolled up the front walk. "Where'd you get that thing?"

"It's my grandma's," said Ron. "She won't miss it. She's on the couch watching soaps." He pulled out his crutches one at a time and tucked them under his arms. Ron climbed the steps, wincing with each step. He plopped himself down on a white plastic chair.

"Shouldn't you be in bed?" said Aerie.

"Fuck that," said Ron. "I mean, I'm glad to take their checks, but... I'm no invalid."

Aerie leaned back and let the sunlight bathe her face. "We should go to the beach."

"Isn't this crazy?" said Eleni. "I mean, Christ. Next week is Thanksgiving."

"When I was a kid, we'd be playing hockey at the pond by now," said Mal.

"You?" Eleni chortled. "Played hockey?"

A panel truck crept along Court Street, pulled ahead and stopped again. The driver seemed lost.

"Get used to it," said Mal. "Welcome to global warming."

"Global warming?" said Ron. "What a buncha hooey."

Mal smirked. "You pick a day like this to argue? Look around you. It's November. People are buying turkeys and I'm wearing a fucking T-shirt, no coat."

"Shit happens," said Ron. "Today's just some freak thing. Some bubble of hot air."

"It just ain't right," said Mal. "This is supposed to be the Great White North."

"You complaining?"

"I will once the sugar maples die off and dengue fever strikes Ithaca."

"Yeah, right."

"You know, I was thinking," said Mal. "These sonants. The way they make those diamonds. If we could breed them, they could sure lock up a lot of carbon."

"Breed them?" said Aerie. "Wouldn't you need like... millions... to make a dent?"

"Every little bit helps," said Mal.

"Yeah, as if people would tolerate having those freaky things in every patch of woods," said Ron.

"They might not mind so much, if they knew about the diamonds, said Mal."

Eleni sighed. "But then diamonds would be as common as sand."

"And about as worthless," said Aerie.

The panel truck turned the corner and pulled up right in front of Aerie's apartment. The driver hopped out and approached the porch.

"I'm looking for 502b West Court Street?"

"You found it," said Aerie, rising, her brow knitted with puzzlement.

"Aerie Walker?"

"That's me."

"I have a shipment from you." He slid open the back of the truck.

"From who?" Did Koichi finally send on some of her old furniture from Japan?

Like kids at Christmas, everyone filed off the porch and milled around the back of the truck.

From among the crates and boxes, the driver pulled out a shipping carton about the size and shape of a fat man's coffin.

"What the fuck?" said Ron. "Did Aaron will you his body?"

"Oh, my God!" said Aerie, staggering back, leaning against an old maple for support.

"What's wrong, Aerie?" said Eleni, touching her shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"It's... it's my Prescott."

"Sign here, please?" said the driver. Aerie scribbled her name on the form and tore into the cardboard. The box did indeed hold a bass, cushioned by sheets of Styrofoam and yards of bubble wrap.

"Oh, my God! Oh my God!" She tore off the sheathing like an impatient lover, and lifted out her bass. Its scars were visible, the restoration not nearly as pretty as Scott LaFaro's, but the bass was structurally sound and complete once more.

She cast a heap of white poly under-cladding onto the sidewalk and pulled the bass into her arms, the scent of resin and ancient spruce wafting into her nostrils. She tuned it by ear, picking harmonic fifths against open strings, nestled the upper bout against her bosom and plucked the E string, making it bellow like a water buffalo. She plucked the G string. It rang like bamboo bells sheathed in crackling katydids. A bittersweet bliss enveloped her.

***

Aerie sat in the back of the carpet cleaning van with Mal and Ron's motorized wheelchair, clinging to her bass so it wouldn't slide and knock around. Ron had insisted on driving, on the rationale that his right leg was fine. Eleni rode shotgun, picking on her mandolin.

The van veered left off Route 13 and up onto the ridge opposite Connecticut Hill.

"Where are we going?" said Aerie. "This isn't the turn."

"You want to play for the sonants, no?" said Mal.

"Yeah, but Connecticut Hill's that way."

"Ah, but the sonants no longer reside at Connecticut Hill."

"How do you know this?"

"Let's just say, I did a little scouting."

"You're not on the hunt again, are you?"

Mal just smirked.

Aerie peeked out the front window as the paved road turned to dirt, flanked by patches of alternating forest and meadow. "So what is this place we're going?"

"Arnot Forest," said Mal. "It's a preserve run by Cornell."

The trees opened up to a large expanse of sloping meadow. A view opened deep into the valley and across to the dark and rumpled ridges of Connecticut Hill across the gash in the landscape that had once drained a massive lake during the last glacial melt.

Eleni dashed out into the tall grass, arms spread as if she were flying, and flushed a flock of turkeys that took flight over the treetops of the bordering woodlot.

"Are those vultures?" said Ron, awed, leaning on a single crutch.

"They're turkeys, silly."

"No way," he said. "Turkeys don't fly."

Crickets, amped up by the balmy breeze, had their last go of the season before the cold fronts settled in for good. For months a grey sky would clamp down, bringing a chill that shrank the frames of houses and settled deep into bedrock and bone, not letting go till April. What sun could shine would be pale and feeble. Tongues of frozen wind would lap down all the way from Hudson's Bay, turning the moist air over Lake Ontario into lake effect snows that would dump on them for days.

Aerie hauled her bass out of the back and they hiked to the center of the meadow, the sun low over the horizon but still beaming valiantly, and keeping the north winds at bay.

Mal detuned his bamboo sax and honked out Aaron's infamous drone. Without hesitation, Ron tortured some chords. Eleni tinkled away at her mandolin. Aerie hesitated, gazing across the valley at the slash that must be Summerton Hill Road, and at the dimples in the forest, one of which had to have been John's sub-division. She bowed that bass until it moaned like a lost soul, filled her not quite healed lungs with the pine-infused air and sang the song of the sonants.
Epilogue

For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind

Hosea 8:7

Donnie followed Jerry down the steps of the legal office, heading for the parking garage across the street. All charges against Jerry had been dropped, and a plea bargain had reduced Donnie's to a short laundry list of misdemeanors like trespassing, disturbing the peace and unlawful assembly, that would likely lead to no jail time. In exchange, he would testify against Mac for murder and arson. He was back in business, if he wanted to be.

Mac was both lucky and not so lucky. He was alive, that was the lucky part, but he had one less kidney and several feet less colon than before. He was also facing likely murder and arson convictions once he healed.

But the incident had only galvanized his congregation. So in that way, he was lucky. How many potential martyrs survived to reap the fruits of their martyrdom?

Donnie paused on the sidewalk to admire the warm November afternoon that the Lord had seen fit to bless them with. "I wanted to tell you, Jerry. I've been having some long talks with God throughout this whole ordeal, and I've decided—"

"Did you tell him I said hi?"

Donnie frowned. "Please Jer, there's no reason to blaspheme."

"Just joking."

"Anyhow...." He re-gathered his thoughts. "I've been thinking of reorganizing the Ministry. I don't have the strength or the will anymore to handle these hard-core deliverance cases. It's time for the young guns to take over some of the nitty gritty. Folks like Rand, once he gets through Divinity School. So I've been thinking of splitting our operations into two distinct divisions separating spirit counseling from the actual exorcism of souls."

"Spirit counseling? Don't you mean spiritual?"

"No. I mean spirit. The idea being that we counsel the invading entity, as well as the host. It's the Jewish way. I've been researching the Kabbalah. It makes a lot of sense to me, and it's still in the Judeo-Christian tradition. The souls that invade are people, too. They need help as much as the victims. In some cases perhaps a less invasive, more nurturing approach would prove more fruitful that a brute force approach."

"Kabbalah, huh? I don't know Donnie. That sounds kind of weird."

"Weird? But don't you see how that would apply to some of our more intractable cases? We get spirits healed from both ends—victim and victimizer. That way we unleash synergies that lubricate both souls and allow them to let go of each other."

"Whatever you say, Donnie. I just wonder how these Ministers you deal with will reach once you tell them you're reading from the Kabbalah. I mean, what next, the Koran?"

"The Bible, Jer, is not a comprehensive document. I see it more as a beginner's guide to the universe. You can't expect to fit everything there is to know about souls in a single volume."

"That's fine, Donnie. But I think you're going to need more than two divisions."

Donnie smiled. "Ah! Of course. You're lobbying for your pet interest – cryptozoology. Something that better exploits your particular talent. Am I right? Do I know you or what?"

"Well, I don't know about the zoology part," said Jerry. "I mean, not all these things are animals."

"I cede your point. Maybe something like exo- or xeno-demonology would be more accurate."

"I'm not so sure we're even talking about demons, in some of these cases."

"If they're not demons or ghosts then I'm not interested," said Donnie. "Then it becomes animal control, not a matter for clergy."

"But Donnie how would you know the difference? Don't demons run free sometimes?"

"Hmm, I see what you mean. In certain cases the distinction might be hard to divine." Donnie rubbed his chin. "How about if we called them cryptic entities or simply cryptics?" Donnie slapped Jerry's shoulder. "How does VP, Last Hope Ministry Division of Cryptics sound to you, Jer? Wouldn't that look good on a business card?"

"You know, I do kind of like the sound of that," said Jerry.

"Ah, I can't wait to get back to Athens," said Donnie. "See what Beryl's got cooking for us on the backburner. Come on, I'll buy you lunch. We don't have to be at the airport till four. What are you in the mood for?"

"I don't know. I always go for barbecue, if there's any chance it might be good."

"Nuh-uh. No barbecue. No chicken. Nothing like that. Not till we get back home. This is Ithaca, New York we're talking about. When in Rome, do as the Romans." He looked across the street. "How does vegetarian sound to you, Jer? I've heard good things about this Moosewood place."

"Not exactly my style," said Jerry. "But I'll try anything once."

"Good. Because... I don't think there's a demon yet that's been able to possess a broccoli stalk."

"You might be surprised."

As Donnie stepped off the curb, Jerry barred him with his arm. He looked both ways, but could see no cars coming.

"What's wrong, Jer?"

And then he saw the dust devil come spinning down the street, persisting far too long for a simple twist and convection of wind. It scooped a potato chip bag and a Styrofoam cup off the street and whipped them into the sky.

*****

THE END

arrow.asp@gmail.com
