Two Hours Ago

Isaac jogged back toward the cabin, keeping his eyes peeled for a fork in the path, and the right way down Mount Agnes.

The generous man will be prosperous, And he who waters will himself be watered.

Proverbs 11:25—Levi's favorite. It was one of the few verses Isaac remembered after five years of religious neglect. He'd stopped going to church when his parents divorced. He'd quit caring long before that.

Isaac's pot-smoking, unkempt older brother kept nuggets of biblical wisdom in his back pocket for when he was feeling philosophical. Levi was a walking contradiction, one reason Isaac loved him so unequivocally.

Even with Levi's sage and often stoned advice, helpfulness eluded Isaac in his teens. He hadn't been helpful all those years when his parents were fighting, too obsessed with music and parties and the girl down the street. His consequence was their divorce.

The bad luck that followed his team around Deadswitch—maybe it was all because he hadn't really been helping. He spent too many hours in his sketchbook, a distraction as he decided if he even wanted to be a scientist. He'd thought he knew at twelve, when Levi took him to the waterfall behind their house. Isaac couldn't fathom the creation of such a beautiful place.

He loved land—loved sketching it, loved the sheer expanse of it. How and why it formed. How many millions and millions of years it took. Maybe his obsession stemmed from the need to rebel against his creationist parents, to find God in an ancient world long before Christians believed the world existed.

And he couldn't find anything else careerworthy that he cared enough about. Being a poor artist wasn't an option. So after a BS in geology from the University of Tennessee, he applied to CalTech's grad program and got in. His mother called it a miracle. Isaac hated that she was probably right.

And finding the trail that led off the mountain would be another miracle, because nothing surrounding him looked familiar.

Isaac slowed and spun around. How long had he been jogging—ten minutes? The trees differed from the ones near the cabin, the sky darker and the air thicker. It smelled like home. Like Memphis in the fall.

The others—Emmett and Siena and Cam—kept trying to use capital-R Reason to explain the scenery shifts. But Isaac's body wasn't void of all spiritual bones. Deadswitch was haunted. Something had been given free rein to roam and manipulate this place, just like the devil over Earth.

The devil didn't care for logic. And here, he could manifest. Isaac had seen it. He'd drawn it.

Cam had gotten angry with him when he said God wasn't here, but that was exactly how he felt. This place—this mountain—was unprotected, which meant they were unprotected. Just like the victims in all those exorcism movies he'd inhaled as a teenager.

In front of him, the path ended in a mess of weeds and shrubs. His eyes drifted to a scraggly opening that looked less like a trail for people and more for animals, and he followed the path down a damp embankment. Water gushed in the distance, and Isaac batted branches from his eyes until the trees cleared. A waterfall spilled over a ledge across from him.

He scuffed his boot at the edge of the water. The pool before him was deep, but so clear, he could see the fuzzy green rocks all the way at the bottom. It was like the one Levi had shown him all those years ago, miles behind their house, on a bad day between Mom and Dad. This pool wasn't a replica, but it had the same ingredients. The mist that clung to the air. The waterfall. Everything so green that even the air was green. Isaac breathed in green, exhaled green, and extended his hand in front of him. He half expected to find moss sprouting between his fingers, but only mist beaded around his nails and rolled down his hands.

He dropped his hand, squinting at the water. He wasn't alone.

He'd expected this. It was only a matter of time before The Shadow appeared, coiled at the bottom of the pool as it had been in the melted glacier. Yes, he'd seen it there. He'd seen it just like Cam, though Cam pretended she hadn't.

Familiar rebellion flared up in him again.

If you are the devil, I'm going to find out what you want.

This was how he could finally be helpful. And as long as he was helpful—really helpful—everything would work itself out. Just like Levi used to tell him. He missed Levi. He wished he were here.

Isaac's ear rang as he waded into the water. The Shadow unraveled and opened. He knew deep in his warm bones that it had something very important to say. It just needed someone to listen.

Isaac pushed his hiking boots off the silky green rocks and swam closer.