“So, uh, what am I supposed to do?” Kellen said. He was still standing on the hill above Eric. “You need me to leave, or say some sort of ghost chant, or…”
“No,” Eric said, his voice barely loud enough to carry. “You don’t need to do anything. This isn’t the right spring.”
“You know that?” Kellen said.
No, he didn’t. He assumed the water in the right spring would taste the way the Bradford bottle had, though, with that faint trace of honey. And Kellen was right—Granger’s spring wouldn’t have been well known. Still, there was something about this place that had power. As if they had the wrong spring, but not the wrong spot.
This is where Shadrach died. You’re close.
“So we keep looking?” Kellen said.
Eric gave a distracted nod, staring into the pool. A river coming from rock. Carrying along underground for miles, then surfacing abruptly in a strange whirlpool, then vanishing again. The Lost River. It would show you what it wanted to, and nothing more. A tease, a torment. Here I am; here I am not. The rest is up to you. Got to dig, friend, got to look deeper, got to see the parts I’ve hidden away because they are all that really matter, and in that way I am damn near human, don’t you think?
“If we climb back up and go into the woods, maybe you’ll get an idea or something,” Kellen said. “I’ve never heard of another spring near here, but there are dry channels—places the Lost River fills only during flood seasons. Some of the springs are dependent on high groundwater, I know.”
“If we can find the site of the old cabin, maybe we can work back from that,” Eric said.
“Think you’ll recognize it?”
Eric nodded. He was trying to imagine the cabin as he’d seen it in his mind, to picture it coming into view from behind the wheel of an old roadster with large domed headlights, but his mind wouldn’t cooperate, wouldn’t let him get into the image. His headache was a constant cackling menace, and he was sitting with his hands pressed against his legs to still the shaking. His left eyelid was doing that damned twitch again, as if it were trying to blink out a grain of dust, and his mouth was dry and chalky.
The spring beneath him churned into life again, spitting more water out as if angry about it, and Eric lifted his head and looked out to the deep portion of the pool, watched that gentle swirl and felt his eyes come unfocused. His hands began to shake violently then, and this time Kellen noticed.
“Hey, man, you all right?”
“Yeah.” Eric straightened abruptly, feeling a swift sense of dizziness overtake him and then pass. “Just getting a little… edgy.”
Kellen took a few steps farther down the hill, frowning. “Maybe we shouldn’t have you out in the woods right now. Anything happens—you have another one of those seizures or something—it’ll be a bad place for it.”
“I’m fine. Let’s find this thing before the storm hits.”
Back up the hill and away from the cliff, back in the direction from which they’d come. Just before they entered the trees again, Eric took one long look back at the gulf, blinked hard, and stared. He could’ve sworn the water was higher already.
51
TIME AND PLACE PLAYED tricks on Josiah’s mind, as they had a few times up at the timber camp. He’d been staring out at the incoming storm clouds for a long time before the light changed enough that he caught a glimpse of his own shadow in the window and saw that there was a figure behind him. He whirled and found himself facing old Anne McKinney. Of course that’s who it was. But for a moment there, he’d lost any memory of where he was or who he was with. For a moment there, he could’ve sworn he heard music, some sort of old-time strings number. He’d been sitting at a bar with a whiskey glass in his hand, laughing with some fat son of a bitch in a tuxedo, explaining that the economic shifts weren’t going to bring a thing to this country that couldn’t be solved with a bit of ambition…
A dream. But he’d been on his feet. He’d fallen asleep on his damn feet? What in the hell was going on? He was here to wait for Eric Shaw. Shaw would be coming for the water eventually, and when he did, Josiah would have him, and then the woman, and then he’d have answers. That’s what he needed to focus on. He was here to get answers. Why was that so hard to remember?
He shook his head, blinked, then mustered a glare and held it on Anne McKinney for a few seconds, enough to show her that he was still in control. It wouldn’t do to let his mind drift like that again, not with so many decisions to be made.