"You are though, aren't you?"
"Am I movin my lips?" Testa said.
11 9
'Yep.
"I never could-d-" She stopped: talking, and in her tracks. She grabbed Phoebe's arm.
"What?" Phoebe said. "Listen."
Anyone for carpentry lessons? Raul remarked. Somebody higher up the Mountainside was hammering. The sound was muted by the mist, so it was difficult to know how far off the handyman was, but the din laid to rest what little hope Testa had entertained of finding the door unguarded.
She reached into her jacket and took out Lourdes. "We're going to go very slowly," she whispered to Phoebe. "And keep your eyes peeled."
She led the way now, up the fissured slope, the hammering of her heart competing with that of the handyman. There were other sounds she heard, just audible between the blows. somebody sobbing. Somebody else singing, the words incomprehensible.
"What the hell is going on up there?" Testa murmured. There were lopped branches strewn on the ground, and a litter of twigs stripped from other branches, presumably those judged useful by the hammerer. was he building a little house up there, or an altar, perhaps?
The mist ahead of them shifted, and for a moment Testa caught a glimpse of somebody moving across her field of vision. it was too brief for her to quite grasp what she was seeing, but it seemed to be a child, its head too unwieldy for its emaciated body. It left a trail of laughter where it ran (at least she thought it was laughter; she couldn't even be certain of that), and the sound seemed to draw patterns in the mist, like ripples left by darting fish. It was a strange phenomenon, but in its way rather beguiling.
She looked round at Phoebe, who was wearing a tiny smile.
"There are children up here," she murmured.
"It looks that way."
She'd no sooner spoken that the child reappeared, capering and laughing as before. It was a girl, Testa saw. Despite her almost infantile body, she had budding breasts, which were ruddier than the rest of her pale body, and a yard-long ponytail that sprouted from the middle of her otherwise shaved skull.
Nimble though she was, her foot caught in one of the cracks as she ran by, and she fell forward, her laughter ceasing.
Phoebe let out a little gasp of concern. Despite the hammerings and the sobs, the child heard her. She looked round, and her eyes, which were black and shiny, like polished stones, were briefly laid upon the two women. Then the child was on her feet and away, racing off up the slope.
"So much for secrecy," Testa remarked. She could hear the child's shrill voice, raising the alarm. "Let's get out of their way," she said, catching hold of Phoebe's arm and hauling her off across the slope. The traumatized ground made speed virtually impossible, but they covered fifty stumbling yards before halting and listening again.
The hammering had stopped, and so had the singing. Only the sobbing went on.
That's not grief, Raul said.
"No?"
It's pain. It's somebody in terrible pain.
Testa shuddered, and looked straight at Phoebe. "Listen to me-" she whispered.
"You want to go back."
"Don't you?"
Phoebe's face was pale and wet. "Yes," she breathed. "Part of me does." She looked over her shoulder, though there was nothing to see but mist. "But not as much... " she hesitated, full of little tremors,
"not as much as I want to be with Joe."
"If you keep saying that," Testa said, "I'm going to start believing it."
A burst of nervous laughter escaped Phoebe, but turned into tears the next moment. "If we get out of this alive," she said, doing her best to stifle her sobs, "I'll owe you so much."
"You'll owe me an invitation to the wedding is all you'll owe me," Testa said. Phoebe put her arms around Testa, and hugged her.
"We're not there yet," Tesia said.
"I know, I know," Phoebe replied. She stood back from Tesla, sniffed hard, and wiped the tears from under her eyes with the heel of her hand.
"I'm ready."
"Good." Tesia looked back towards the spot where they'd been seen. There was neither sound nor sign of motion. It was not much comfort, given how hard it was to judge distance under these circumstances, but at least there was no horde of Lix or children bearing down upon them.
"Let's climb," she said, and led the way up the slope again. It was impossible to judge their precise direction, of course, but as long as the ground continued to rise ahead of them, they knew they were still on their way to the summit.
After a few paces they had further evidence that they were headed in the right direction. The moaning sound was becoming louder with every yard they covered, and it was soon joined by the voice of the singer. She faltered at first, as though trying to pick up the threads of whatever piece she'd left off singing. Then she apparently despaired of doing so, and began another song: this more melancholy than the first. A lament, perhaps; or a lullaby for a dying child. Whatever it was, it made Tesia feel positively queasy, and she found herself wishing a nest of Lix would appear from the cracked ground, so she'd have something upon which to pin her trepidation. Anything rather than the sobs, and the song, and the image of the skipping child with its lifeless eyes.
And then, as the song came round for another dirging verse, the mist unveiled a horror even her most troubled imaginings had not conjured.
There, twenty yards up the slope, was the hammerer's handiwork. He hadn't built a house. He hadn't built an altar. He'd felled three trees, and stripped them, and dragged them up the slope to fashion crosses, ten, twelve feet high. Then somebody-perhaps the hammerer, perhaps his mastershad crucified three people upon them.
Tesia could not see much of the victims. She and Phoebe were approaching the site from behind the crosses. But she could see the hammerer. He was a small, broad fellow, his head wide and flat, with eyes like the laughing child's eyes, and he was gathering up his tools in the shadow of the crosses with the casual manner of someone who had just fixed a table leg. A little way beyond him, lounging in a chair, was the singer. She had her gaze turned up towards the crucified, her lament still maundering on.
Neither individual had seen Tesla and Phoebe. As the women watched, appalled, the hammerer finished collecting up his tools and went on his jaunty way, disappearing into the mist beyond the crosses without so much as a backwards glance. The singer threw back her head, almost languorously, and hafted her song to draw on a thin cigarette.
"Why would anybody do something like this?" Phoebe said, her voice trembling
"I don't give a shit," Tesla replied, pulling her gun from herjacket.
"We're going to do something about it."
Like what? said Raul.
"Like getting those poor fuckers down,,, Tesla said aloud.
"Us?" said Phoebe.
"Yes, us."
Tesla, listen to me, Raul said. This is horrible, I know.
But it's too late to help them "What's he saying?" Phoebe asked.
"He hasn't finished."
It was a damn fool thing to do in the first place, coming up here. But we've got thisfar.
"So what? Turn a blind eye?"
Yes! Absolutely! "Christ...
I know, Raul said. This is a terrible thing and I wish we weren't here to see it. But let's find the door and get Phoebe through it. Then we can both get the fuck out of here.
"You know what?" Phoebe said, nodding towards the singer. "She might know where the door is. I think we should ask her." She pointed to Tesia's gun. "With that."
"Good deal."
Just don't look at the crosses, okay? Raul said, as they started up the slope.
The singer had finally given up her lament and was simply slumped in her chair, eyes still closed, smoking her dope. The only sound was the sobbing of one of the crucified, and even that had dwindled as they advanced, until it was barely audible.