Cold on the Mountain Read online

  “I’m not sure, sweetie. Do you girls—” she started, then hesitated. She smiled at them while considering her options.

  Just talk to them, she thought. They deserve to know.

  “Do you girls understand why we’ve been stuck here? Why we haven’t been able to leave?”

  They nodded in unison. Cammie sipped from her glass of milk, savoring it. She knew. The poor girl knew that they were in a tough spot, and Wendy’s heart broke a little at the realization of it. It wasn’t right for kids to have to worry about their parents—about whether there would be enough to eat.

  “My friend Erin said we can’t leave. Not until we pay the witch our money and we win a ticket to go home,” Carrie said.

  “Who is Erin, sweetie?”

  “Just a friend at school. She’s my age, but she’s already doing algebra. Can you believe that? Algebra!”

  Wendy nodded. “It sounds like she’s probably been here for a while. Look, girls, I can’t really explain to you what’s happening. We just—we just took a wrong turn. But the reason that your father is working late—the reason we’re not eating as much…well, we want to be able to pay the witch for a chance to go home. I don’t want you girls to worry. Whether we get the chance to leave here or not this year, it’s all going to be okay in the end. I promise you that. We’ll make the best of it, even if we have to stay here, and this little bit of sacrifice that we’re going through right now will be behind us. Deal?”

  The twins looked at each other. They turned to their mother.

  “Just a bite, mommy? Please?” Cammie pleaded. She slid her plate across the table. “You won’t be able to work if you don’t have any energy.”

  Wendy felt the tears on her cheeks before she realized that she was crying. “Okay, honey. Just a bite.”

  She had a dainty nibble, the tang of the eggs and the sourdough bread rushing immediately through her. It was divine! She swallowed and pushed the rest of the sandwich back to her daughter, who smiled and reached across the table to take her mother’s hand. Carrie followed suit.

  “Don’t cry, mom,” Carrie said. “We’ll get out of here. Please don’t cry.”

  Wendy swiped the tears away. “Okay. Okay, I won’t. Thank you for sharing, Cammie. It means a lot to me. Now let’s get finished up, girls. We still have homework to take care of.”

  ~0~

  The Dowager took her meal in the great room—a solitary beauty at the end of a majestic table. There were great platters of food, more than a dozen hungry men could finish, spread across its surface. There was roasted pheasant and lobster risotto and a warm basket of fresh croissants. There was glistening prime rib and caramelized root vegetables and a silver urn brimming with hearty tomato bisque. None of it appealed to the woman in white.

  She stared into her empty plate. There, in the reflection of the carefully buffed china, she saw herself.

  Her true self.

  Her pale eyes had become murky with the onslaught of cataracts. Her nose was a misshapen hook, twisted by age and centuries of avarice. Burgundy blotches specked her wrinkled skin, and when she parted her cracked lips, a dry, toothless cave housed a lumpy, spotted tongue.

  She exhaled in disgust and glanced up to the mirror on the far side of the room. In its reflection, she was an image of unbridled beauty. Eyes like emeralds and skin like ivory. Her features in perfect, classical symmetry.

  The woman no man could resist.

  But men had resisted, and that was the problem. It was not for a want of trying. She had paid clandestine visits to Adrienne’s elite—to those that might advance her status in addition to furthering her vitality.

  But the suitors were wary, and she could only hope for some gullible soul to arrive in Adrienne soon. Her minions were ever watchful for just that person, of course, but she was growing impatient; most of a year had passed since the last harvest. If she didn’t have something to eat soon—something fresh—then she would lose her hold on the portal. Someone else would collect her tribute.

  Someone else would rule Adrienne.

  She summoned her servant. Moloch appeared in the doorway, hands crossed before him. He offered a slight bow of the head.

  “Remind me again why we took that man out near the Mill Pond, would you, Moloch?”

  “He was trying to leave Adrienne without paying tribute,” the demon replied. His form rippled, the calf’s head giving way to a human form—a reptilian man with thick, dark hair and eyes like black diamonds. He grinned. “Why, my lady? Has there been another attempt to flee?”

  The Dowager sighed. “I believe that there has, Moloch. There was an assembly last evening, and some talk of open revolt. But I don’t want to bring trouble to our town, and I am extremely wary of acting rashly. If I am unjust in my stewardship, there could be great repercussions.”

  Moloch strode across the room. He selected a croissant, broke it in two and chewed thoughtfully. “I understand your trepidation, my lady. Always so just. Always so fair. Shall I summon the rovers? Perhaps have them fetch you a prize?”

  The Dowager (it had been so long she’d been called anything else) thrummed her fingers on the table, deliberating carefully. Trouble had come to Adrienne the last time she had taken one of their number. There had been accusations and fear—among those trapped there and the dark ones alike.

  But she had to eat. And, even if they hadn’t been planning a revolt, the infernal buggers had to have been planning something. Why else meet like that in the middle of the night?

  Scheming, ungrateful wretches…

  “Yes, but only one. Only one for now, Moloch. Put Belphegor on it, and tell him to use every ounce of his discretion. He was there, after all. He best understands who most deserves punishment.”

  “Yes, my lady,” Moloch said, taking his leave.

  The Dowager stood. She went to the mirror, stroking the long, blonde braid that flowed down her shoulder.

  As she approached, her image flickered—flickered. In tiny flashes, she saw herself as she truly was.

  “Soon enough,” she said, croaking the words in a voice that was old when the Sierra Nevada were nothing more than a collection of hills.

  ~0~

  After kissing the girls goodnight, Phil stripped out of his clothes. He brushed his teeth and folded himself slowly into bed, joints cracking as he settled beneath the covers.

  He had put in fourteen hours at the factory, and Jasper had finally shown him how to reconcile his personal ledger. Fourteen hours! Criminy, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d worked so hard. It probably had been back when he was busting trail for the Forest Service—some twenty years ago.

  His body was a painful symphony. His shoulders and neck throbbed. His knees and calf muscles screamed. His stomach chipped in with the ever-present refrain of absolute hunger.

  He rubbed his belly; for about the fiftieth time that day, he considered whether or not he dared hazard a trip to the grocery store.

  It was going to be damned close, but that figure was actually out there on the horizon. With Wendy’s earnings, he thought that they had a real chance at paying the assessment and drawing lots. And if either of them managed to hit it big...

  Well, best not to get one’s hopes up. They just needed a few more days.

  A few more brutal, starving days.

  He kissed Wendy’s cheek and she rolled over and squeezed his hand.

  “Love you,” she mumbled, “you work so hard, honey.”

  “Love you too,” he whispered, pulling her close. “I love you too, honey.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  Miriam looked positively spent. Her hair, which Bo remembered as having at least a few sluices of sandy brown in it, was now totally silver. A subtle tremor was evident in her hands as she sipped her tea.

  They were having lunch at the Silverdust Café, an angry bunch of clouds threatening snow yet again in the mountains.

  “You said they were on spring break?” Miriam said incredulously as heavily bundled pe
destrians passed their window. “Good grief! It can’t be spring already in Oregon, can it?”

  Kelli shrugged. “Some places actually call it mid-winter break. It’s pretty common scheduling for the schools, actually. Ours was during the same week—of course, we’re down there in sunny Malibu.

  “But it was the only time the kids had off from school. Phil and Wendy didn’t know that the mountains would still be socked in, so they’d just loaded up the family minivan and struck out for Arizona. Best laid plans, right?”

  “I suppose,” Miriam sighed. “And I don’t mean anything by it. I’m just tired, is all. I still haven’t quite…recovered.”

  Kelli squeezed the woman’s hand, coaxing a weary smile from the medium.

  Bo craned his neck to study the distant vista. “So how long does the weather stay like this up here?”

  “Uh, you mean winter?” Miriam said, chuckling. “We’re cold on the mountain until May…sometimes June. I usually have a few warm days on the farm in April. That’s when we do our spring break around here. Anyway, I’ll allow myself to get my hopes up, and then a big ol’ blizzard comes barreling down off of the summit and we’ll pile up six inches in a few hours. It’s just the way it is here. We have spring bre—” she stopped abruptly. Her eyes went to the table as she puzzled through something.

  “Miriam? Are you okay?” Kelli said.

  A wide smile brightened the woman’s face in an expression that made Bo laugh out loud. It was joy—pure joy and sudden comprehension—and he wished he could bottle it up and trot it out on the set with him when he went back to shooting.

  “Have you ever had the answer just sitting there, right smack dab in front of your face? I mean, right there,” she clapped her hands to accentuate the point, “and you just couldn’t quite get to it?”

  Kelli nodded. “Only every other hour,” she laughed. “I teach at an elementary school, remember? Figuring out how to communicate with those kids is a mystery in itself.”

  Miriam laughed. “Sheez! It’s been right there in front of me, all these years! You remember the auto writing? Of course you do! Not a lot of that going on in Malibu, I should think. Anyway, it finally dawned on me. Spring break. Four days after the winter moon. We’re talking about a convergence here, folks. About a...a series of alignments that trigger the lottery that will spill a whole mess of dark energy right back into our world. Dark energy—and some good, too—of course. We can’t forget that.” She shook her head. “All these years, and the answer was right there.”

  “What is it, Miriam?” Bo said.

  “Ostara,” she said. “In our world, the word means a new beginning. The spring equinox spells the end of winter. The light is equal to the darkness—at least here, in the northern hemisphere.

  “Anyway, many cultures in Europe and North America celebrate their own forms of ‘spring break’ right around that time. The pagans called it Ostara. Christians adapted aspects of the European celebrations throughout the years. For those of us on this side of the gate, it’s a time of fertility and renewal. But for Adrienne, and the dark ones it shelters? Well, it’s the time of the purge. They leave the darkness of the mountain, and come back down into the light.”

  “So you’re saying the spring equinox is the night of the lottery?” Kelli said, digging in her purse for her phone. She ran a quick search and then slid the phone across the table to Miriam. There was a calendar on the screen. “Is that…is that right?”

  Miriam grinned. “We don’t have much time, do we? I’ll need to gather my strength. Are you two still on board with crashing their little party?”

  Bo felt a rush of adrenaline. “Of course we are. Whatever it takes. How soon?”

  “Five days,” Kelli said, stowing the phone in her purse.

  As if on cue, snowflakes peppered the window. They clung there, forming tiny constellations on the glass.

  “Five days until the end of winter,” Miriam said, “and the beginning of a whole new cycle.”

  THIRTY

  Adrienne was thrumming.

  The weather warmed during the day, and rumors of a carnival forming on the outskirts of town circulated among the normals. There was a buzz in the air.

  Phil had just punched in when Jacob Davis summoned him once again to his office. There, Jasper and about a dozen others working the seams line were gathered. When the rest of the crew showed up, Jacob delivered their orders.

  “Your group is to assist in the construction of the banquet pavilion, Jasper. Given this year’s…unique menu, we trust that you’ll do an exemplary job with the project. You have two days. Penalties for delay will be severe, and I know that many of you,” he looked at Phil, before turning his gaze on a few other uneasy laborers, “are walking a narrow line to begin with. This project requires…”

  Phil tuned him out, concentrating instead on his hunger. It had been most of a week since he’d had anything other than instant coffee and a few packs of saltine crackers that somebody—probably Jasper—had left in his locker. The girls were shedding weight, and Wendy was absolutely miserable. It was a special kind of agony to be hungry while working around so much rich food at the bakery. But Lancaster must have sensed the desperation in her sacrifice, because she was sticking to her employees through their entire shifts.

  For Phil, every day had become a lesson in temptation. Strauss sent his company concessions man up and down the lines at least three times a day. The bastard pushed a cart, fully loaded with soups and sandwiches and urns of steaming coffee and buttery pastries.

  They were things Phil couldn’t even consider purchasing—not at the prices Strauss had set. He and Wendy had crunched the numbers, and there was just no getting around it—they were stuck in serious bondage.

  If they ate, they might not be able to draw lots. It was that simple. If they went without—then they could probably pay their freight. They could take a chance at the lottery.

  But the girls.

  They’d finished the last of the groceries that morning. It had been days since either of the twins had enjoyed as much as a 1,000 calories.

  “…and you will be pleased to note that we will be providing you with a full day’s rations, without debit. We expect quality work, gentlemen, and we trust that you will do just that. Failure will be costly. That is all. You are dismissed.”

  As they made their way back out onto the floor, Phil sidled up to Jasper.

  “Did he just say…?”

  Jasper grinned. “Yeah, Phil—he did. Let’s get over to the job site. See if there’s a spread there.”

  Phil exhaled with relief. “Criminy, Jasper. I think I might have fainted if I didn’t get some food in me soon.”

  “I know it. And trust me, you’re doing a good thing for your family here. Just keep it up. A few days to go and I think you can make it, buddy. Just hang in there a few more days.”

  A pair of vans idled outside. The men piled in and they headed north through Adrienne, out toward a handsome mansion sitting alone on a little bluff. There, in a large, fenced pasture, the lottery grounds were taking shape.

  It mirrored the display from Herman’s Department Store—right down to the grand wooden stage being built on the periphery of the space.

  “How many can it hold?” Phil asked the man next to him.

  “How many? Well, shoot—all of us, of course. All of Adrienne.”

  Phil nodded.

  They were building a midway, complete with concessions and games. Phil saw a man in a blood-smattered smock sawing away at a piece of livestock. Fires burned here and there, the air redolent of smoked meat.

  The vans pulled to a stop near an antiquated tractor trailer. Men scurried about, unloading poles and bolts of heavy canvas and laying them out in rows on the grass.

  Jasper gathered his men. “This isn’t the easiest thing that gets done every year at the lottery, and it’s not the hardest, either. It does, however, take time and careful attention. If we work efficiently, we won’t have to worry about
any issues.”

  He split the men into teams and they began sorting through the poles, building the frame that would stretch the enormous banquet tent.

  The sun poked through and warmed the mountain; by mid-morning, the men had stripped out of their winter clothing and were working in shirt sleeves only. Phil took a pair of water breaks, and they worked hard right on into the afternoon, when a whistle finally sounded and the men meandered toward a trailer in the center of the midway.

  They chatted amiably, thankful for the free lunch. Phil fell into line next to Jasper, and the foreman ducked his head when he spoke.

  “Come on and eat with me in the far corner, Phil,” he said. “I just might be able to help you out some.”

  Phil nodded, now keenly aware of the rovers stalking up and down the rows of picnic tables.

  “Take your meal over by the outhouse on the edge there, okay?”

  The rover with the cowboy get-up turned and grinned at Phil. He touched the brim of his cap and kept circling, hands on hips.

  “Ham or turkey?” the woman said when it was Phil’s turn in line.

  What would the girls like?

  “Don’t suppose you could sneak me one of each, could you?” he replied, offering a sheepish smile. There was no harm in asking…

  The woman pressed her lips into a grim little line, her eyes admonishing him. Come on, now. You’re going to get us all in trouble, pal!

  “Ham, please. Thanks very much.”

  The woman placed a wrapped sandwich into a boxed lunch and slid it to Phil before offering Jasper the same choice.

  They took the food over to the corner, avoiding eye contact with the rovers. “Here’s the deal,” Jasper said when they sat down, their view partially obstructed by a bright blue garbage bin, “these clowns will toss your lunch out if they suspect any funny business. I knew what you were thinking the minute Jacob told you they were feeding us, and I think I can help. You’re going to have to do something for me though, Phil, and I can’t take no for an answer.”