Chapter LXXXIX

Sabine Drew was dozing in her room at the inn. She wasn't hungry. Being in Gretton had relieved her of any appetite. The town was rife with badness. Whatever dwelt there had contaminated the land, air, and water, pumping its pollutants into the environment. She doubted if most of its residents were even aware of the contagion, they'd lived with it so long—they, and the generations that had preceded them, because whatever was responsible had been in these parts for centuries, and its presence was as much a part of their existences as death and taxes. They probably attributed its effects to some combination of the weather, the economy, and the disposition of the streets and buildings. It was the curse of living in Gretton.

Sabine, drifting…

Of course, if you had half an ounce of sense, and a little grit and ambition, you left a town like this. If you didn't have options, were tied by family history to the land, or were just too damn lethargic to move, you stayed. You told yourself that there were worse places to live—you only had to turn on the TV to see that. Like the man said, better the devil you know. But in winter, when the cold had the town in its grip, or even in summer, when the sun never seemed to shine quite as warmly or as long, as it did on other towns, you wondered at the aptness of that old saw, because whatever afflicted Gretton possessed neither face nor form. It was beyond reason. It simply was.

Sabine, going deeper, her eyelids flickering…

The Michauds, had they seen fit to contribute to the debate, might have offered a different interpretation. They were closer to it, and it to them. They had tried to give this presence a physical aspect, because to attribute a shape, a countenance, to the ineffable was the first step toward understanding the object of belief and one's relationship to it. For the Michauds, what dwelt on their land was not completely abstruse or transcendental. Line upon line of them had stared into the shadows, and as their eyes had grown accustomed to the murk, they had begun to perceive the lineaments of what gazed back at them. They had painted it, carved it. This she felt. This she knew.

Sabine, trembling, shaking on the mattress, the bedsprings singing a near coital song…

Then the Michauds had done what comes naturally to those who try to map the numinous.

In the darkness between worlds, what was left of Henry Clark stirred at the sound of footsteps in the dirt.

Sabine opened her eyes.

"Get out!" she screamed. "Get out!"

The Michauds had built a shrine.