"Earth to Esther," Harry said, tapping her lightly on the shoulder.

She spun around. "Huh? Oh. I was just thinking how odd that it doesn't stink in here."
Chris still had his nose covered. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, man," Harry said. "It just smells like dust."

Chris backed out of the kitchen. "I need some air." He rushed outside and onto the porch.
Harry followed him. "You okay?"

Chris bent forward to clasp his hands on his thick knees and breathed deeply. Sweat darkened the red hair at the back of his neck to a bloody color, and his pudgy sides heaved like a bellows. "I'm okay. I couldn't breathe in there."

Harry overturned a bucket from the box of cleaning stuff and sat, gesturing for Chris to do the same. Esther joined them, settling herself on the weather-polished boards that covered the porch.

Chris covered his face with his hands. "I used to love this place when I was a kid, but now it... it creeps me out."

"Because Grampa's dead?" Harry asked.

Chris dropped his hands to stare at him. "No, idiot. Because of the blood on the walls and the dead animals in the kitchen. In case you hadn't noticed, that's not normal."

"Maybe Grampa isn't dead," Esther said.

Both men looked at her as if she'd just sprouted a third eye.

She shrugged. "He disappeared two years ago and that's not the same as being dead."
Chris said, "The man was seventy-two years old and recovering from a stroke."

"A mild stroke," Harry put in.

"Whatever," Chris said. "He was acting crazy when he left, remember? He even shoved Gramma out of his way when she tried to stop him, and she broke her hip in two places when she fell. Gramma never saw him again after that. None of us did. And good riddance."

"How can you say that, Chris?" Esther asked. "You loved Grampa."

"Before he lost his mind, yeah. But not at the end. Not when he went into those weird trances and babbled that nonsense, like the stuff written on the walls in there." Chris waved a hand at the open door hanging crooked on one hinge.

Harry scowled. "I'll go air out the cabin."

Esther and Chris sat silently watching the hummingbirds, or humbenthalos, as Grampa liked to call them. Their wings blurred with the speed of furious flapping, the resulting hum so loud it grated on Ether's nerves.

"I just remembered something else." Chris plucked a twig from the floor and snapped it in half. "I remember what Gramma told us he said just before he pushed her. He said, 'I have to go back and feed it.'"

Esther remembered, too, and hearing the words again chilled her insides to ice.
Chris gazed at the busy hummingbirds. "What do you think 'it' was, Esther? And how was Grampa planning to feed it?"

"I have no idea." But she wondered if the dead animals in the kitchen might have something to do with it.

She stood and wandered to the end of the porch that faced the forest. A dense wall of coniferous trees blocked her view of the meadow a quarter-mile beyond. She knew the clearing surrounded an enormous monolith of black stone with crude but beautiful carvings. She'd only seen it once, when she was twelve and had snuck out of the cabin one night to follow her grandfather. He'd always waited until the children were asleep before going out on his evening strolls, and Esther thought it was because he wanted solitude while gazing at the moon. But he'd done more than that. When she caught up to him in the clearing, she had found him kneeling beside the towering black sculpture. Grampa had chanted in a strange language, saying words that were a lot like the ones painted on the cabin walls. The clouds boiled overhead, changing colors and melting into each other, a swirling dance that had made Esther dizzy just before a sudden burst of green light shot out from the top of the monolith.

The next thing Esther remembered was waking up in her cot at the cabin with Grampa wiping a cool, wet cloth across her forehead. She'd seen his eyes before he realized she was awake, and they had looked flat and empty, his mouth curved down at the corners and slightly open, the upper lip curled in a snarl that showed his teeth. It had frightened her because he'd no longer looked like himself.

Now Grampa was gone. Maybe dead, maybe not. Today the cabin belonged to Esther and her brother, and to her cousin Chris. They'd only come this weekend to spiff it up with a little paint and polish before selling it, despite Chris's insistence that whoever bought the property would raze the cabin. But now that she was here, Esther had second thoughts about selling. There was something special about this place, about the monolith, about the bizarre language on the cabin walls.

"We better get started." Chris stood and yawned. "I want to leave first thing tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" Esther asked. "You're kidding. No way can we finish cleaning the cabin by then."

"That's when I'm leaving, even if I have to walk back to town. If we're not finished by then, tough shit. You and Harry can do whatever's left."

###

continued . . .