At Fear's Altar Read Free

fingers running down to my wrists and pulling my arms wide. I said Ken’s name, and when he replied I realized he was nowhere near me. What caressed me was the network of nerves, nerves that had elongated and twisted to reveal dried faces with mouths.
    Mouths that gaped.
    And sang.
    My arms reached, and with that, the gate swung silently open. I felt my hand pressing down onto the final candle. Its flame mashed into extinction, my own nerves, glutted on one hundred fears, began to sing like manipulated lyre strings.
    They sang; bristling, vibratory songs of dread.
    They sang.
    I sang.
    These are our songs .   .   .

Chapel in the Reeds

    “The gods have become our diseases.”
    —Carl Gustav Jung

    P ick them up, and then all day long you’ll have good luck.”
    When neither granddaughter heeded his advice, Colin Best took the task of collecting upon himself; jabbing the footpath with the three-pronged end of his cane until he found what he hoped was a stable patch. Once bolstered, he hunched over to rescue the pair of coins that had a moment ago caught an August sunbeam in a rare way; casting off a glimmer bright enough to tempt his eye.
    “One for each you,” he mused, grunting as he righted himself. At first Colin had thought the pieces were quarters, but once he’d plucked them from the tangle of quack grass at the trail’s edge he noted that the coins’ size and heft were nearer to that of silver dollars. He thumbed the dirt off one, hoping to reveal some of the image that had been cast on its face, but he could discern no hint of Her Majesty in profile, nor any pounded text, nor numbers. The faces of both coins were as smooth and as generic as beach stones.
    Colin extended his treasure-laden palm toward the fallen log, where his two granddaughters were stationed, each with their arms crossed.
    “I don’t want to carry mine,” Toni said.
    “Haven’t you got pockets?” he asked her. The girl shook her head. Colin shook his as well, though only to express his dismay at the younger generation’s lack of forethought. He tugged at the pocket zipper on his puffer vest and secreted the coins inside.
    “Aren’t you hot with that thing on, grandpa?” asked Sara, her impish face twisted against the sunlight.
    “I’m not young and spry like you and your sister,” Colin explained with a wink. “We geezers have to give our circulation a helping hand sometimes.”
    “That’s weird,” Sara returned. “I’m hungry.”
    “But it’s not even noon. Why don’t we hike a little ways more? That way your mother will have lunch ready when we get back to the cottage.”
    The sisters huffed and lugged themselves off the toppled tree.
    “Sara, are you still our acting navigator?”
    “Yep!”
    “Well, lead on, young lady!”
    The younger sister brought her hand to her chin and emitted a dramatic “Hmmm” before suggesting they continue along the main path.
    Colin was not able to negotiate the sloping lane as nimbly as his granddaughters. More than once he had to call ahead for them to wait up while he hobbled along, praying that his cane would not twitch out from under him, that he would not get tripped up on the carpet of half-buried rocks.
    The deeper they went, the more the oaks and ash trees mangled the midday sun into a faint stippling of light. Though the boughs managed to deflect the brightness, they were unable to block the swelter. As Colin trudged along, he felt his collar dampening with perspiration. Perhaps wearing his puffer vest had unwise after all. He opened it and the two topmost buttons of his shirt. The girls were not straying far enough ahead to cause him alarm; just enough to daunt him. He caught up to them at the crossroads where, mercifully, they had stopped.
    “We want you to pick the next way!” Sara declared. Colin scanned the forked paths that bled off the main trail; one westbound, the other east.
    He lifted his cane. “That one should wind back around to the entrance; let’s