Caleb and his three companions had the springs to themselves. Styx and Charon were out in the darkness waiting patiently for Blade. Occasionally Caleb saw a gleaming canine eye hovering at the entrance.
“Dogs won't come in here,” Blade explained.
“Why not?” Caleb asked.
“Don't know. Just won't.”
It was as good an answer as any, Caleb thought. He didn't blame the rottweilers for staying out of the cavern. He had a few doubts about being inside, too, considering the company in which he found himself.
The hike to the caverns had been a cold one lit by a bright, white moon. The path led straight past Serenity's cottage and up into the woods behind it. Once inside the caves, each man had taken a seat leaning against one of the stones around the largest of the pools. Quinton produced a carton of his home-brewed beer and handed the bottles around.
“Here's to Ambrose.” Quinton took a swallow from the bottle in his hand. “Good luck to him on his journey into the Big Darkroom.”
“Hope he finally went someplace where they appreciate good photographers with unpleasant personalities.” Montrose hoisted his bottle in a farewell salute.
“Ambrose,” Blade muttered as he downed a swallow. “Knew a guy like him once. He was okay.”
Caleb dutifully raised his bottle. He considered and then rejected a comment on the irony of drinking a beer toast to a man who'd died because of a serious drinking problem. He searched for something more appropriate.
“To Ambrose,” he finally said. “May he find himself someplace where the light from the National Endowment for the Arts never shines.”
Silence descended again.
Blade stared into the depths of the pool. “Supposed to be able to see visions here, you know.”
“Yeah?” The beer wasn't bad, Caleb decided, somewhat surprised. He glanced at the label on the bottle in his hand. Old Hogwash.
“That's what they say,” Quinton murmured. “Folks here in Witt's End call these springs vision pools. It's an old legend.”
“How old?” Caleb asked.
“Dates back to the earliest days of Witt's End,” Quinton said.
“No shit.” Caleb studied the green rocks beneath the surface of the pool. “That would be all the way back to what? Nineteen sixty-eight or 'sixty-nine?”
“Maybe earlier.” Blade's brow furrowed as he gazed intently into the water. “Way I heard it was, you got to spend a long time in here meditatin' and purifyin' your brain first. Then, sometimes, if everything is just right, you get a vision.”
“You said this legend dates from the late sixties?” Caleb contemplated the spring. “From what I've heard, visions were fairly common in those ancient golden days of yore, and they weren't usually induced by meditation and purified brains. I think whether or not you had a good vision had more to do with what you'd been smoking.”
“One should not scoff at what one does not comprehend,” Quinton said. “We cannot perceive all the mathematical planes with the five ordinary senses.”
Caleb shrugged. “Maybe you're right.”
Silence again.
“I had a vision here once,” Montrose said very softly. “Years ago.”
“Yeah?” Blade gave him a curious glance. “What was it like?”
“Hard to explain. I remember I'd been giving Serenity violin lessons that afternoon. For some reason I came up here that evening just to think. I used to do that a lot in those days.”
“I remember,” Quinton said.
“The vision was kind of like a dream except that I knew I was awake and that it wasn't a dream.” Montrose rolled his beer bottle between his palms. “It was weird, if you want to know the truth. A real personal thing. I never told anyone about it until now.”
“Could you tell if it was a vision of a verifiable mathematical reality?” Quinton asked curiously. “Was there any symbolic logic to it?”
Montrose shook his head. “It was just a vision.”
Caleb stretched out his legs and took another swallow of Old Hogwash. “So? What did you see?”
Montrose gazed into the pool. “My old man. He was listening to me practice the piano, telling me how good I was. Same way I'd been telling Serenity how good she was earlier that day. I was just a little kid in the vision. Nine, maybe ten years old, I guess. I remember how great it felt to know that my old man was proud of me. Somehow it made me calmer inside.”
The beer tasted warm in Caleb's mouth. “That sounds like a memory, not a real vision.”
“Whatever it was, it wasn't a memory,” Montrose said. “My old man ran off before I was born. I never even met him.”
No one said anything for a moment. They all sat gazing into the crystal pool.
“Maybe you were lucky.” Blade gripped his beer bottle fiercely. “I could have done just fine without ever knowing my old man. He liked to hit me and Mom with his belt. Sometimes he used his fists. I wanted to leave home a million times, but I stayed because I figured that as long as he was knockin' me around, he wasn't beatin' up on my mom.”
Caleb looked at Blade. “You defended your mother?”
“She wasn't much of a mother, I guess. Kind of weak and pathetic. Never had the guts to leave my dad. Let him kick us around. But she was my mom. Felt like I had to do something, y'know?”
Caleb remembered the confrontation with Roland at the paddock. Don't call her a bitch. “Yeah. I know.” He watched the water shimmer in the pool. “You ever hit your dad?”
“The day Mom died. Came home from the funeral and told him I was leavin' for good and I wasn't ever comin' back. He took a swing at me. I slammed him into a wall. Knocked him cold. I walked out the door, joined the Marines, and I never saw him again. Heard he died five years ago. Didn't go to the funeral.”
Silence descended on the small group once more.
Caleb leaned back against a steam-warmed rock. “This is all very interesting. But did you guys bring me up here just for a little male bonding or was there something more specific that you wanted to say to me?”
“We brought you up here because we wanted to talk to you about Serenity,” Quinton said.
“Jessie and Ariadne figure there are some things that need saying,” Montrose added. “They decided we're the ones to say them.”
Caleb rested his head against the rock. “Talk. I'm listening.”
“Don't know if you exactly understand how it is with Serenity and a lot of us here in Witt's End,” Blade said. “We're her family. The only one she's got.”
“She told me that,” Caleb said.
“This town raised her,” Quinton explained slowly. “I was here the day her mother arrived, pregnant and all alone in the world. Said her name was Emily Smith and that Serenity's father had been killed in an accident. She didn't have anywhere else to go. No family. No one.”
“She wound up here with the rest of us who didn't have anywhere else to go,” Montrose said. “Quinton, Ariadne, Julius, Jessie, Blade, and myself were all here then.”
“We were here when Serenity was born, too.” Quinton rubbed his jaw. “Jesus. I'll never forget the blood. Scared us. We were all so damn young. Didn't know what to do.”
Caleb frowned. “Serenity's mother gave birth here? No one took her to a hospital?”
“She went into labor without any warning.” Quinton's mouth tightened. “Ariadne said something was wrong. We called the paramedics but it was the middle of winter. The roads were sheets of ice. Took forever for the aid car from Bullington to get here. We didn't dare try to drive her down the mountain ourselves because the bleeding was so bad. Any movement made it worse.”
“The medics got here in time, though,” Montrose said slowly. “Or so we thought. They got the bleeding stopped and Serenity was safely delivered. Everyone, even the medics, thought Emily was going to make it.”
“She was lying on a stretcher,” Quinton said. “The medics were getting ready to transport her. She asked to hold her baby for a few minutes and one of th
e medics put the infant in her arms. Emily kissed her and said she was naming her Serenity. Then she gave the baby to Julius. Probably because he happened to be standing closest to the stretcher.”
“She took off her necklace and gave that to Ariadne.” Montrose took another sip of beer and stared into the depths of the pool. “Said it had come from Serenity's father and she wanted to be sure it went to Serenity.”
“Emily looked at those of us gathered around the stretcher,” Blade said. “Begged us to take care of her baby. We thought she meant while she was recovering in the hospital. We said yes. Told her not to worry.”
“She died on the way down the mountain,” Montrose concluded. “The medics said she went into shock. But we think she just gave up and slipped away. She told us she loved Serenity's father a lot. We all knew how much she missed him.”
“It was like she sort of lost the will to live after she did what she had to do.” Blade rested his hands on his knees. “Knew a guy like that once. Got shot up on a mission. Realized he'd never make it out alive. But he hung on until he finished the job. Then he let himself die.”
“Emily found the strength to survive long enough to get her daughter born and that was the end,” Quinton said. “She had nothing left afterward.”
“And Witt's End wound up with a baby to raise.” Caleb shook his head in amazement. “I'm surprised the social service agencies let you keep her.”
Quinton, Blade, and Montrose exchanged significant looks.
“Well, we sort of made it easy for them to let us keep her,” Blade said cautiously. “Ariadne and Jessie said they'd probably try to take her away from us if we didn't do something. Said Serenity would land in a foster home, just like her mother and father had. We figured Emily wouldn't have wanted that.”
“Ariadne grew up in foster homes, too,” Quinton explained. “She knew the system inside and out. Knew how to handle the bureaucracy and the paperwork. She told us what we had to do to avoid a hassle.”
“What did you do?” Caleb asked.
“We lied on the forms at the hospital,” Montrose explained. “The men in the group went out into the parking lot. Drew straws. The winner's name went down on Serenity's birth certificate. The hospital didn't have any qualms about sending Serenity home with her father.”
“We had to fake Serenity's birth certificate to make sure there wouldn't be any problem keeping Serenity out of their hands,” Blade said.
Caleb gazed into the shimmering waters of the pool. “Julius Makepeace was the winner, I take it?”
“Yes.” Quinton shrugged. “But it didn't really matter. Everyone in Witt's End became a relative of Serenity's that day.”
“I see.” Caleb studied the label on his bottle of Old Hogwash and wondered why he was suddenly feeling a little light-headed. “Yes, folks, incredible, but true. A fairy princess raised by feral hippies.”
“Damn it, this isn't a joke, Ventress.” Quinton glowered at him. “And we aren't hippies. Hell, there aren't any hippies left. The last one died years ago.”
“I'm not so sure about that,” Caleb said. “I think there've always been hippies of one kind or another. They just go under different names with each new generation. Bohemians, beatniks, dropouts, free spirits, freaks, whatever.”
“I'm no freak.” Blade's expression turned ominous.
“Of course not,” Caleb said blandly. “You're obviously as normal as everyone else in this town.”
“Damn right,” Blade muttered, mollified.
“We took Serenity and raised her as best we could,” Montrose said. “We all took turns teaching her stuff. I taught her music and how to change the oil in her car. Jessie taught her art.”
“I taught her philosophy and mathematics,” Quinton said. “Ariadne taught her how to cook and how to run a small business.”
“Julius taught her literature and poetry,” Blade said.
Caleb stared at him. “He did?”
“Yeah. Julius likes to read,” Blade said. “He also taught her how to drive.”
Quinton looked at Caleb. “We all had a hand in her education. We all had something to teach her. But the truth is, she gave us more than we ever gave her.”
Caleb smiled faintly. “A sense of purpose? Of meaning in your lives? Something important to do? A feeling of commitment and responsibility?”
Montrose nodded. “Yeah, something like that.”
Quinton's mouth curved but he said nothing.
Blade scowled at Caleb. “How'd you know all that?'
“Just a lucky guess.” Caleb looked around the circle. “I'm still waiting to hear what you brought me up here to tell me.”
“It's simple, Ventress.” Montrose took another slug of his beer. “We're all part of Serenity's family so we figure we've got a right to ask some questions.”
“About me?”
“Yeah. About you,” Blade said. “Seems to us you been payin' a lot of attention to Serenity lately.”
Quinton cleared his throat. “It has become clear to us that her relationship with you is far more significant and measurably more intense than the one she had with that idiot of a sociologist six months ago.”
“Maybe even more serious than what she had with that guy who came here after he lost his family in a plane crash,” Montrose added.
Quinton looked at Caleb. “We therefore feel it is incumbent upon us to make a few inquiries.”
“I'll be damned.” Caleb settled himself more comfortably against the rock at his back. “Beneath all the picturesque individualism, you guys are as old-fashioned and conservative as a bunch of small-town farmers, aren't you? You brought me up here to ask me what my intentions are.”
“Cut the crap,” Blade ordered. “Just tell us straight out if you're foolin' around with Serenity or if you're serious about her.”
“If I tell you that I'm merely toying with her affections, and have absolutely no serious intentions whatsoever, are you going to tie me hand and foot, weight me down with a chunk of cement, and drop me into one of these pools?”
Blade lifted one heavy shoulder. “Sounds good to me.”
“She's one of us,” Quinton said quietly. “The first kid ever actually born right here in Witt's End. We don't want her hurt.”
“I don't intend to hurt her.” Caleb's hand tightened around the beer bottle. “Christ almighty, don't you understand? That's the last thing I want.”
The other three contemplated him in silence. Blade and Montrose finished their beer and put the bottles back in the carton.
“What do you want?” Quinton finally asked.
Caleb looked deeply into the pool. “I want her.”
It felt good to say the words aloud. For some reason the verbal declaration made him feel more centered, a little more connected to the world.
“Wanting her isn't good enough,” Quinton said softly.
Caleb spread the fingers of his left hand on his thigh. “I'll take care of her. I give you my word on it.”
No one said anything for a long while after that. Caleb was vaguely aware of the passing of time, but he felt no sense of urgency to leave the warm cavern. He drank his beer slowly and watched the vapor form and dissolve above the hot spring pool.
“Gettin' late,” Blade said eventually. “Reckon I'll be on my way. Got to make my rounds.” He rose and unbuckled a small flashlight from the array of equipment that decorated his belt. He handed it to Caleb. “Here. You might need this to find your way back down the path.”
“Thanks.” Caleb thrust the flashlight into the pocket of his jacket.
Quinton and Montrose waited until the hollow echo of Blade's heavy boots on the stone floor faded. Then they, too, got up without a word and walked out of the cave. From the corner of his eye Caleb watched them leave. He stayed where he was. For some reason he didn't feel like joining them.
He could find his way back down the path to Witt's End, he thought. It wouldn't be difficult. He wanted to be by himself for a while.
&nbs
p; He closed his eyes and wondered what his relatives would say if they could see him now, sitting alone in a cave warmed by mysterious hot springs.
Time passed. It could have been minutes or hours. Caleb had no way of knowing. He opened his eyes and started to look at his watch. But his attention was captured by the whirling mists above the hot pool.
The vapor appeared denser now than it had earlier. There was more volume to it, a sense of depth and darkness. Caleb studied it with an odd detachment, the way he might have studied a painting. Something about the steam drew his eye down to the water.
The crystal clear waters of the pool slowly began to flow around a central point, becoming a vortex that sank deeper and deeper into the spring.
A hallway took shape within the whirlpool. It had no beginning and no end. There were doors in the walls. Caleb knew that one of them offered escape from the endless hallway. All he had to do was find the right door.
As he gazed, fascinated, into the endless, whirling corridor, he saw the figure of a man running swiftly through it. As the figure moved through the hall, he paused long enough to open each door that he passed. Time after time he found himself looking through a doorway into a featureless gray room. Each time he closed the door and ran on to the next.
Caleb could not see the man's face, but was certain he knew him. He could feel what the figure in the tunnel was feeling. He knew his thoughts, sensed the urgency that drove him. There was a shattering awareness that time was running out. His pulse was pounding and sweat had dampened his clothes.
He was the man running through the endless hallway.
He wanted to stop but he could not. The darkness at the end of the corridor was waiting to claim him. He had to keep moving; he had to keep opening doors, hoping each time that he would find the right one before it was too late.
He had to find her. She held his future in her hands.
Caleb's fingers closed around another doorknob. It was icy cold beneath his fingers. This was the last door.
He opened it.
The room behind the door was not gray like the others. It was bright and white and filled with sunshine.
And she was there.