Tall and lean his muscular body appeared almost ghost like in the early morning darkness. His presence seemed to singe the air with the bitter odor of sulfur. Ann felt the shudders of undefined fear move through her body as she imagined the deep-set, piercing green eyes that hid the struggle to control insanity that raged inside of him. Her breath nearly stopped, she gathered herself and reached deep inside for the control to calm herself and silently asked the Gods to protect them from the evil she experienced when he was near.

They waited, their silence nearly thundering inside of them, waiting for the air clear. They felt the porch shudder, his footsteps pounded the steps as if they were something to shred and kill. Their sighs were as audible as the hiss of the screen door closing behind him.

With a deep breath Ann said emphatically, "I do think it's time," then added, "if you two will look in on the kitchen, I'll get the letter packs and taped messages ready. Turning to Chris she asked, "Will you call down to me when Charlie's ready to serve?"

Nodding absently Chris replied, "Yes, but I'm sure it won't be long, thirty minutes perhaps." She turned away from the blackness huddled over the cans Lester had just filled. The blunt awareness of the ever present danger that faced the village intruded into her thoughts. Gathering herself she added, "Is that enough time for you?".

"Yeah, I think so," Ann replied. Lowering her voice she added, "I want to listen to Andy's tape one more time and make sure it's clear what we're asking. His answer may be what we need if we want to avoid spending the whole winter on edge. It seems to me that secrecy, arguments, and accidents follow on the heels of suspicion. We can't afford to have that energy in the valley even for a short time, let alone the entire winter."

Nodding her head toward Lester Marie whispered, "I'm uncomfortable with him staying here, but I'm more uncomfortable thinking of him stalking the travelers," A tiny quiver could be heard in her voice as she absently brushed dark tendrils of hair from her forehead. "My gut tells me something is wrong, darkly wrong. I just can't put my finger on it." Highly intuitive and gut sensitive to negativity and conspiracy, Marie had not hidden her concern about Lester since the day of his rescue. He had remained suspect in Marie’s eyes since he had been found by the ground team and picked from the depths of the old Red Line Mine dehydrated and delirious.

"You know, Marie," Chris said softly as her body shuddered at the fear Marie’s words sent through her, "it scares me when you react like that to someone. I remember when you reacted the same way years ago to someone else. It was the only time I ever heard you use the word ‘evil’ to describe someone, and you had that dark feeling then about Dan, and you were so right. In hind-sight I wish we would have listened more closely to you." An audible sigh escaped her, as if she had been holding her breath, and she continued, "I must say, for everyone's safety, I hope you're wrong this time."

After nearly fifty years of friendship, sistership really, Chris and Marie’s emotional and psychic bond created an aura of a strange oneness. When seen together, the strange psychic thread that connected them was eerily evident. Their relationship had been remarked upon by close friends and acquaintances for years. They were psychically enmeshed, pulsing with the same rhythm, emotionally bonded to each other and yet as different as night and day.

In childhood, Chris had known she was different. She saw things that she should not, but never shared her visions with anyone except her grandmother, who shared the same strange ability. She had managed to keep her secret, even after her grandmother’s death. Until she met Marie. After the loss of her grandmother she had become Chris’ confidant. Later, an incident would occur in the early days of her marriage that was so unnerving she had no choice but to share it with her husband, Richard. She never accepting her ability as a gift but thought of it more as a curse for the greater majority of her life. She came to believe that something was terribly wrong with her. She had learned it was best not to touch, not to look, not to know.

Marie, too, had been aware of her ability since childhood, sensing from her feeling world, knowing what she could not know. She too, had kept her secret to herself. The moment they met, though only 10 and 11 years old they had become instant friends. As teenagers they teased about deja vu and having been friends in another lifetime. They had always known it was not a new friendship but a rekindling of an eons-old, relationship. A relationship shared in the reaches of time and space where the conscious mind was not allow to travel, lifetime after lifetime.

Together they had begun a spiritual journey, a journey of encouraging each other, supporting each other and sharing. Their religious backgrounds, though both had been raised as Christian, had been vastly different in content and ritual but that didn't seem to matter. They had the ability to see the same thing in different ways yet bringing it to fruition with similar results. Throughout their relationship they remained somewhat different in their beliefs and had learned along the way how to honor and celebrate those differences in each other.

Slapping her palms against the railing, Ann ended the discussion, "Come on, we can discuss this later, we have a lot to do before the sun rises."

"You're right, Chris answered. She pushed herself away from the post, turning toward the door. "The kids will be anxious to go, and there's no need to worry them, we can handle it later. Can you bring the candles up with you?" For a moment, Chris was aware of that odor again, that peculiar odor. Where had she smelled it before? It was gone, she let it go and moved to the back door of the house, glancing timidly over her shoulder, looking for what she did not know.

Before the door slid shut, the aroma of an old-fashioned farm kitchen filled with chatter and joy greeted them. Ann, with her keen olfactory awareness, uttered a delicious sounding, "Yum," under her breath as she headed to the office. Marie and Chris, taking a deep breath, entered the kitchen, which at that moment more closely resembled a giant anthill filled with activity than a kitchen with breakfast being prepared.