Clare waved away another battalion of mosquitos and stood to leave. She’d pushed her luck far enough and she had evidence now, even if it was thin. She’d convince Hughes and Adam. They’d get Shanna’s son back and everything would be okay. But only if she left now.
“Children of the Almighty!” Steven Parson’s voice boomed through the clearing, stopping her cold. “Sons and daughters of trial and tribulation, I am honored to be with you tonight.” The group murmured in response. Parson stood close to the leaping flames. He shifted as he spoke, an energy in his movements, and Clare could imagine him preaching from the dais of his church long since shuttered. “We are beyond fortunate to see these days past, and those to come. To be instruments in the great unfolding truth. The world was created from darkness, and to darkness it will eventually return. But not before the prophecy is fulfilled.” Parson began pacing past the others, who had formed a tighter ring around the fire. “We have seen proof with our own eyes. Felt the presence and watched events foretold come to fruition. It is not in vain that we follow in footsteps created before us. The path we tread is true and right and we will not be swayed or led astray.” He paused and Clare felt the air tighten in the clearing as if something immense had passed overhead. “We see when others do not.”
“We see.”
“We see when others turn away.”
“We see.”
“We see the glory and the everlasting.”
“We see.”
Her knees gave way and she put her hand out to brace herself. The ground met her unkindly, but it was real, something tangible and at odds with what she was hearing. Still her father’s words rang in her ears, an echo across two decades.
The group bowed their heads while their leader turned his face to the darkened sky. Parson’s arms stretched out in supplication, and he began to sing. The group sang with him.
He is the only, the everlasting one
Forever guiding, laid low his only son
No darkness encroaches, his will is the light
Eons unbroken, unto paths beyond night
One of her father’s hymns.
Clare’s vision doubled and she felt a familiar wavering.
Felt the ground giving way. She was falling, and it was cold. So cold she couldn’t feel the tips of her fingers or—
—Shanna’s hand in her own. The snow had stopped in early evening and the sky cleared off, sending the temperatures tumbling way below zero. They stand huddled in a group as the wind knifes its way through the clearing, through their clothes, cutting against their skin. Clare squeezes her sister’s hand but it is like gripping ice. She shivers violently but keeps singing as their father’s eyes fall upon them. It’s sometime in the early hours just before dawn, the coldest it will be all day. The stars are shattered arctic ice above. The tips of her ears are on fire and yet their father motions to keep singing. He grins like a wolf, waving his arms in time with the words he wrote.
It will be over soon, she tells herself. They’ve been outside for a long time and even the adults behind Father are shifting and stamping their feet to stay warm. When Father gives the sign, they can go back inside out of the cold and get warm. Crawl back under the covers they were pulled out from and—
Shanna’s hand pulls away from hers. Clare stops singing and looks at her sister, who is swaying in place. She isn’t singing anymore either. There is frost on her delicate eyelashes and her cheeks are gray.
“Shanna?” Clare asks. The other children have fallen off-key and a few have quieted, watching with widened eyes.
“What’s wrong? Keep singing,” their father says. But Clare doesn’t look at him. Fear has leapt up and grabbed hold of her heart. Shanna turns her head and tries to say something, but tips forward instead. Clare catches her before she can fall and the younger girl’s weight leans completely against her.
Clare sags but manages to stay upright. She wraps an arm around her sister and begins moving toward their house. She’s got to get her inside and warm. The other children move aside as they pass, Shanna’s legs barely holding her.
A hand grasps Clare’s arm, hard enough to hurt, and she looks up into the face of their father. Except it is not their father. Simon Kinsey is no longer there. Now whatever madness lies within him has taken over completely and wears him like a suit of clothes. His eyes burn with horrid inner light and his mouth is a rictus of gritted teeth. “Get back in line and sing,” he hisses.
Clare lurches away, breaking his hold, and hurries faster toward their house. She has to get Shanna inside. She’ll die if she doesn’t. They’re almost to the door when Father grabs her again, but this time she can’t escape. To her surprise he doesn’t haul her backward to where they were singing into the night, but forward, through the front door. Clare loses her grip on Shanna and her sister slips to the floor, but at least it’s across the threshold, the little woodstove in the corner throwing heat that rolls across her skin in stinging, blessed waves. Shanna says her name weakly but Father is thrusting her onward through the house, not in the direction of her bedroom, but past the kitchen toward—
As soon as she sees where he’s taking her she begins to fight.
She sets her feet, wrenches her arm, begins to yell, but it does no good. His hold is frigid iron on her arm as he drags her toward the closed door, the door to the basement, which seems to open on its own like a mouth awaiting a meal.
Clare rested with her face pressed against the rough earth. She blinked, eyelashes raking dust into her eye and she coughed, the buzz of mosquitos intermingling with the final refrain of the hymn.
They were singing her father’s hymn.
There was a disjointed second where she couldn’t tell when she was. Her thirteen-year-old self blended with her current mind and she was both and neither as the world sawed on its axis. All at once time snapped back into place and she could hear Parson speaking again, his voice a drone like that of a much larger insect than the ones hovering about her head.
Clare pushed herself upright and managed to get her feet beneath her. She had to get out of here, had to get away from these people. They were definitely in league with Rainier, and why the hell had she ever come here alone? As she tentatively stood a branch from the nearest tree caught on the camera strap and she grasped the device, trying to untangle it. Her finger hit a lever on the camera’s top and there was a quiet click, then she went blind.
Everything was white. An incandescent blizzard.
Her synapses fired, computing what happened even as she stumbled backward, feet tangling. I hit the flash. I hit the fucking flash! The hope that the group hadn’t noticed the flare of light was dashed a half second later even as she was regaining her balance.
“What was that? In the woods!”
“Someone’s over there!”
The yellow dog added its voice to the chorus of shouts, the sound of many feet coming in her direction. Through the white veil her vision had become she saw points of brightness flicking on. Flashlights.
She ran.
Brush and tree limbs slashed at her, raking her face, her arms.
Something snagged the camera strap again, almost dragging her off her feet. The strap suddenly gave and the camera was yanked out of her hands. She fumbled blindly trying to find its shape in the dark, but her fingers closed on nothing but sticks and leaves. Voices called out, closer than before, much closer. She swept the ground one last time in desperation before turning to run, leaving the camera behind.