Текст книги "The Last Oracle (2008)"

Автор книги: James Rollins

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Three seconds? Kowalski said. Lot of good that'll do you.

It does plenty, Masterson replied.

Gray frowned at Kowalski and turned back to the professor. But what do you mean by scientifically proven?

Are you familiar with the CIA's Stargate project?

Gray shared a glance with Elizabeth. The project Dr. Polk worked on for a while.

Another researcher on the project, Dr. Dean Radin, performed a series of experiments on volunteers. He wired them up with lie detectors, measuring skin conductivity, and began showing them a series of images on a screen. A random mix of horrible and soothing photos. The violent and explicit images would trigger a strong response on the lie detector, an electronic wince. After a few minutes, the subjects began to wince before a horrible image would appear on the screen, reacting up to three seconds in advance. It happened time and again.

Other scientists, including Nobel Prize winners, repeated these tests at both

Edinburgh and Cornell universities. With the same statistical results.

Elizabeth shook her head with disbelief. How could that be?

Masterson shrugged. I have no idea. But the experiment was extended to gamblers, too. They were monitored while playing cards. They began showing the same pattern, reacting seconds before a card would turn over. A positive response when the turn was favorable, and negative when it wasn't. This so intrigued a Nobel-winning physicist from Cambridge University that he performed a more elaborate study, hooking such test subjects to MRI scanners in order to study their brain activity. He found that the source of this premonition seemed to lie in the brain. This Nobel Prize winner and keep in mind, not some bloody quack concluded that ordinary people can see for short spans into the future.

That's amazing, Elizabeth said.

Masterson fixed her with a steady stare. It's what drove your father, he said gently. To determine how and why this could be. If ordinary people could see for three seconds into the future, why not longer? Hours, days, weeks, years.

For physicists, such a concept is not beyond comprehension. Even Albert Einstein once said that the difference between the past and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. Time is just another dimension, like distance. We have no trouble looking forward or backward along a path. So why not along time, too?

Gray pictured the strange girl. Her charcoal sketch of the Taj Mahal. If man could look through time, as Dr. Masterson reported, then why not across great distances? He remembered Director Crowe's statement about the successes the CIA project had with remote viewing.

All it would take, Masterson said, would be to find those rare individuals who could see farther than the ordinary. To study them.

Or exploit them, Gray thought, still thinking of the girl.

Elizabeth passed the last page from the printer to the stack. She handed it to

Masterson. My father he was looking for these rare individuals.

No, my dear, he wasn't looking for them.

Elizabeth's eyes pinched in confusion.

Masterson patted her hand. Your father found them.

Gray perked up. What?

A knock on the door interrupted the professor before he could explain. Kowalski shifted, checked who it was, and opened the door.

Rosauro poked in her head and passed to Gray a heavy set of rental keys. All done in here?

No, Gray answered.

Masterson bowled past him with an armload of papers under his arm. Yes, we are.

Gray rolled his eyes and waved to the others. C'mon.

He followed, mentally strangling the irascible professor.

Kowalski kept to Gray's side. He's just getting even, the large man said and nodded to the walking stick under Masterson's other arm. For what you did to his cane.

They exited the Internet cafT and found Luca Hearn leaning on the hood of a pewter-colored Mercedes-Benz G55 SUV. It looked like a tank.

Rosauro circled around to the front. She already had a hand raised against his objections. Okay, it's not inconspicuous. I know. But I didn't know where we were going or how fast we might need to get there.

Kowalski grinned much too widely. Or how many Hondas we might need to run over.

It's got four-wheel drive, almost five hundred horses and and She shrugged.

I liked it.

Kowalski passed her to inspect the car. Oh, yeah, from now on, Rosauro picks out all our transportation!

Gray sighed and stepped toward Dr. Masterson. Where to now?

The professor was studying the stack of papers and waved his cane toward the north, plainly irritated. Gray waited for more details, but got none.

Elizabeth's warning echoed in his head. Don't press him

Giving up, Gray pointed to the SUV. He had no time to argue. They'd been in one place too long already. He wanted to keep moving, even if he didn't know exactly where. If anyone had put a tracer on the University of Mumbai's Web site, they could be zeroing in on them right now.

Load up, Gray ordered.

Kowalski cupped his hands for the keys.

Gray tossed them to Rosauro instead.

Kowalski glowered at him. You are just plain evil.

5:06 P. M.

Elizabeth could wait no longer. Going against her own advice, she turned to Dr.

Masterson. Hayden, enough of your games. What did you mean when you said my father found those people?

Just what I said, my dear.

The professor sat in the center of the SUV's middle row, flanked by Elizabeth and Gray. Pen in hand, Hayden had been sifting through the printouts for the past ten minutes. Rosauro glanced back at them from the driver's seat. Kowalski sulked in the passenger seat with his arms stubbornly crossed.

Luca stirred behind them and leaned forward to listen.

Hayden explained, Your father spent the past decade collecting and comparing

DNA samples from the most promising yogis and mystics of India. He traveled far and wide, from north to south. He collated reams of data, cross-referenced genetic code. He ran a statistical model analyzing mental ability versus genetic variance.

He tested Luca's people, too, Elizabeth said.

The Gypsy made a noise of agreement.

Because they rose from the Punjab region, Hayden said.

Why is that important? Gray asked.

Let me show you. The professor searched the stack for half a minute, then pulled out one sheet. Your father, Elizabeth, was a true genius, vastly underappreciated by his peers. He was able to pinpoint three genes that seemed to be common to those who showed the strongest traits. Like many scientific breakthroughs, such a discovery was equal parts brilliance and luck. He came upon these genes when he noted that many of the most talented individuals seemed to show signs of autism in varying degrees.

Autism? Elizabeth asked. Why autism?

Because the debilitating mental condition, while compromising social functioning, can often produce some astounding savant abilities. Hayden patted her knee. Did you know that many of the key figures in history displayed autistic tendencies?

Elizabeth shook her head.

He ticked names off, using his fingers. In the arts, that included

Michelangelo, Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson, along with Beethoven and Mozart. In science, you have Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, and Isaac Newton. In politics,

Thomas Jefferson. Even Nostradamus was believed to be autistic to some degree.

Nostradamus? Gray asked. The French astrologer?

Hayden nodded. Such individuals have changed history, improved mankind, moved us forward. There's a line Archibald loved to quote. From Dr. Temple Grandin, a bestselling writer with autism. 'If by some magic, autism had been eradicated from the face of the earth, then men would still be socializing in front of a wood fire at the entrance to a cave.' And I believe she was right.

And my father?

Most definitely. Your father came to believe that there was a direct connection between autism and his own studies into intuition and presentiment.

And he found this connection? Gray said.

The professor sighed. While we don't know the exact cause for autism, most scientists agree that there are ten different genes that potentially contribute to the appearance of the condition. So Archibald ran these ten genes through his statistical model and discovered three of these genes were common among all those with high talent. It was the breakthrough he had been looking for. With these three genetic markers, he began to trace geographically the frequency of these markers in the general population. He came up with a map.

The professor passed Elizabeth the sheet of paper on his lap. It was a map of

India. Across the breadth of it were hundreds of small dots.

Elizabeth studied it, then handed it to Gray.

Hayden explained, Each dot represents an individual bearing the genetic marker.

But if you look closely, you'll see how many dots appear around major cities, like Delhi and Mumbai. Which only makes sense, since there are many people living in those cities.

But what about up here? Gray asked and pointed toward the north.

Elizabeth knew what Gray was asking about. A large number of dots more than anywhere else clustered to the north, where no major city was marked.

Exactly. Archibald wondered the same. Hayden took the map back and tapped the cluster to the north. He concentrated the last three years of his life in that area. He sought to discover why this dense cluster appears up there.

What's there? she asked.

The Punjab. The answer came from behind Elizabeth. From Luca Hearn. The original homeland of the Romani.

Indeed. It is why Archibald contacted the Gypsy clans in Europe and the United

States. He found it rather coincidental that such a rich history of prophecy and fortune-telling would arise from the same spot and spread to Europe and beyond.

He sought to see if his genetic marker could be found among the Gypsies.

Was it? Elizabeth posed the question to both Hayden and Luca.

Hayden answered, Yes, but not in the concentrations he was suspecting. It disappointed your father.

Luca made a noncommittal noise.

She turned to him. What?

There was a reason, Luca said.

Gray twisted around. What do you mean?

It was why we hired Dr. Polk.

Elizabeth remembered that the Gypsy clan leader had never fully elaborated on the matter. He'd started to explain on the airplane, but they had been interrupted.

As I told you before, Dr. Polk sought to collect blood samples from our most gifted chovihanis. Not fakers, but real seers. But there were few among us who still met this criteria.

Why?

Because the heart of our people was stolen from us.

Slowly and in a grim voice, Luca continued, telling a tale of a deep secret among his clans, one that went back centuries. The secret concerned one clan among all the others, one that was most cherished. It was forbidden even to speak of them to gadje, to outsiders. The clan was kept separate, hidden, protected by the other clans. It was the true source of the Gypsies' heritage of prophecy. On rare occasions, some of these chovihanis would move and live among the other clans, sharing their talents, taking husbands or wives. But mostly they remained insular and apart. Then nearly fifty years ago, the clan was discovered. Every man and woman was slaughtered, butchered, and buried in a shallow, frozen grave.

Luca's words grew especially bitter. Only in that mass grave, there were no bones of any children.

Elizabeth understood the impact. Someone took them.

We never discovered who but we never stopped looking. We had hoped that Dr.

Polk with his new way of tracking by DNA might find a trail that had long gone cold.

Was he successful? Elizabeth asked.

Luca shook his head. Not that he ever revealed. He did send one odd query a few months ago. He wanted to know more about our status as untouchables, the casteless of India.

Elizabeth didn't know what that meant. She glanced to Hayden, but the professor shrugged. Still, she noted something in his expression, a narrowing of his eyes.

He knew something.

But instead of explaining, he marked a small x on the map with his pen.

What's that? Elizabeth asked, noting how it lay in the middle of the cluster of dots in the Punjab region.

It's where we must go next if we want answers.

And where's that? Gray pressed.

To the place where Archibald vanished.

11

September 6, 5:38 P. M.

Pripyat, Ukraine

Nicolas crossed through the ghost town's amusement park.

Old yellow bumper cars sat in pools of stagnant green water, amid waist-high weeds. The roof of the ride had long since collapsed, leaving a frame of red corrosion arched over it. Ahead, the park's giant Ferris wheel the Big

Dipper rose into the late-afternoon sky, limned against the low sun. Its yellow umbrella chairs hung idle from the rusted skeleton. A symbol and monument to the ruin left behind in the wake of Chernobyl.

Nicolas continued on.

The park had been built in anticipation of the celebrations of May Day back in

1986. Instead, a week prior to the celebration, the city of Pripyat, home to forty-eight thousand workers and their families, was killed, smothered under a veil of radiation. The city, built in the 1970s, had been a shining example of

Soviet architecture and urban living: the Energetic Theater, the palatial

Polissia Hotel, a state-of-the-art hospital, scores of schools.

The theater lay now in ruins. The hotel had birch trees growing out of its roof.

The schools had become crumbled shells, piled with moldy textbooks, old dolls, and wooden toy blocks. In one room, Nicolas had seen piles of discarded gas masks, lying in limp heaps like the scalped faces of the dead. The once vibrant city had been reduced to broken windows, collapsed walls, old bed frames, and peeling paint. Weeds and trees grew wild everywhere, cracking apart what man had built. Now only tours came here, four hundred dollars a head to explore the haunted place.

And the cause of it all

Nicolas shaded his eyes and stared. He could just make out on the horizon a hazy bump, two miles off.

The Chernobyl power plant.

The explosion of reactor number four had cast a plume that wrapped the world.

Yet here, the evacuation order was delayed for thirty hours. The forest around the city turned red with radioactive dust. Townspeople swept their porches and balconies to keep them clean while plutonium fires burned two miles away.

Nicolas shook his head, mostly because he knew a news crew followed him, rolling

B-roll footage for the evening news. Nicolas strode through the amusement park.

He had been warned to stay on the fresh asphalt strip that crossed the ruins of the abandoned town. The radiation levels spiked higher if you tread out into the mossy stretches of the urban wasteland. The worst zones were marked off with triangular yellow signs. The new asphalt path had been laid to accommodate the flood of dignitaries, officials, and newspeople that were descending on

Chernobyl in anticipation of the installation of the new steel Sarcophagus over its decaying concrete shell.

By this evening, the showplace Polissia Hotel would return to a tarnished bit of its former glory. The hotel's ballroom had been hastily renovated, cleared, and cleaned to host a formal black-tie party tonight. Even the birch trees growing out of the roof had been cut down for the event.

Nothing but the best for their international guests. There would be representatives from almost every nation, even a handful of stars from

Hollywood. Pripyat would shine for this one night, a bright gala in the center of a radiological ruin.

Both the Russian president and prime minister would be in attendance, along with many members from the upper and lower house of Federal Assembly. Many were already here, making halfhearted assertions of change and reform, attempting to churn political currency from this momentous event.

But no one had been more vocal and vehement for a true change than Senator

Nicolas Solokov. And after this morning's assassination attempt, he had the spotlight shining him full in the face.

As the cameras taped him, Nicolas stepped off the asphalt walkway and crossed to a neighboring wall. Upon its surface had been painted a stark black shadow of a pair of children playing with a toy truck. It was said a mad Frenchman had spent months in Pripyat. His shadow art could be found throughout the city, haunting and disturbing, representing the ghosts of the lost children.

His own personal shadow, Elena, remained upon the asphalt walk. She had already chosen this particular piece of art to be the most poignant. Earlier she had scouted the zone with a dosimeter to make sure the radiation levels were safe.

It was all about showmanship this evening.

Nicolas leaned a hand on the wall. He traced the children's form with a finger.

He pressed the back of his wrist to one eye. Elena had already dabbed the sleeve of his suit jacket with drops of ammonia. The sting drew the required tears.

He turned to the cameras, his fingers still on the cheek of the shadow child.

This is why we must change, he said and waved his hand to encompass the city.

How can anyone look across this blasted landscape and not know that our great country must move into a new era? We must put all this behind us yet never forget.

He wiped his cheek and hardened his countenance a few tears were fine, but he did not want to appear weak. His voice growled toward the microphones. Look at this city! What man has ruined, nature consumes. Some have called this place

Chernobyl's Garden of Eden. Is it not a handsome forest that has taken over the city? Birds sing. Deer roam in great abundance. But know that the wolves have also returned.

He stared toward the darkening horizon. Do not be fooled by the beauty here. It still remains a radioactive garden. We all crossed through the two military checkpoints to enter the thirty-kilometer-wide Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. We all passed the two thousand vehicles used to put out Chernobyl's radioactive blaze.

Firetrucks, aircraft, ambulances, still too hot to get near. We all wear our dosimeter badges. So do not be deceived. Nature has returned, but it will suffer for generations. What appears healthy and vital is not. This is not rebirth.

Only false hope. For a true rebirth, we must look in new directions, toward new goals, toward a new Renaissance.

He turned again to the shadowy children. He shook his head.

How could we not? he finished sadly.

Someone along the roadway clapped.

Faced away from the camera, Nicolas smiled. As camera flashes captured his thoughtful and resolute pose, his own shadow consumed the children's shapes.

After a long moment, he turned away and went back to the asphalt walkway.

He marched back toward the hotel. Elena trailed him. Rounding a turn, he saw a commotion at the front of the Polissia Hotel. A stretch black limousine pulled to the entrance of the hotel, surrounded by a sleek fleet of bulletproof sedans.

Men in dark suits piled out, forming a thick cordon. The arriving dignitary climbed from the limousine, an arm raised in greeting.

Camera and video lights spotlighted the figure, outlining the newcomer's profile.

There was no mistaking that silhouette.

The president of the United States.

Here to support a vital nuclear pact between Russia and the United States.

The major reason Pripyat had been cleaned up and sanitized was so it could host such dignitaries.

Not wanting to be upstaged, Nicolas waited for the entire party to vanish into the hotel's lobby. Once the way was clear, he headed out again.

Everything was in place.

He glanced to the Chernobyl plant as the sun sank toward twilight.

By this time tomorrow, a new world would be born.

5:49 P. M.

Southern Ural Mountains

Monk stood on a ridge and stared out across the low mountains. With the sun sinking, the valley below lay in deep shadows.

We have to cross that? he asked. There's no other way around?

Konstantin folded the map. Not without going hundreds of miles to circle it, which would take many days. The mine we must reach on the far side of Lake

Karachay lies only twelve miles away if we cross here.

Monk stared down at the swampy valley. The river they'd floated down dumped over this last ridge and fed into the wide valley below. Many other creeks and streams did the same. In the slanted sunlight, waterfalls and cataracts shone like flows of quicksilver. But shadowed by the low mountains, the valley floor was all drowned forests and wide stretches of open black marshes rimmed by reeds and grasses. It would be difficult to cross, and once it got dark, it would be easy to get lost.

He sighed heavily. They had no choice but to cross the swamplands. He turned to where Kiska and Pyotr sat on a log. The kids still looked like a pair of half-drowned kittens. They had ridden the river for a quarter mile until the chill drove them to shore. Monk had them exit on the opposite side of the river from the hunting cats. The water should break their trail, and the river only grew wider the farther down the mountains it flowed. The tigers would have to brave a stiff river crossing to pick up their scent.

And for the past two hours, Pyotr had remained silent, plainly worried about

Marta. But at least the boy showed no panic, no sign he sensed the tigers nearby.

Once out of the water, Monk had everyone remove their clothes, twist them as dry as possible, and redress. The two-hour hike during the warmest part of the day had helped dry most of their clothes. But now they would get wet again, and the sun was setting. It would be a cold night.

But Konstantin was right. They had to keep moving for now. It was not safe to remain on solid ground with two tigers stalking these highland forests. The swamp would at least offer some shelter.

Monk picked a path down the steep ridge. He helped Pyotr, while Konstantin held his sister's hand. The two youngest children were fading fast. As a group, they sank out of the warmer sunlight and into the chillier shadows.

Trees grew heavier here, mostly pines and birches. But along the maze of creeks that flowed into the bog, willows draped with sullen shoulders, the tips of their branches sweeping the waters.

Monk headed out, forcing a path. The underbrush was a tangled mix of juniper bushes and berries. But the way grew clearer as the ground grew muddier. Soon they were stepping from moss clump to moss clump, which was not difficult, considering how well the mosses flourished here. The fuzzy green carpet covered rocky outcroppings and climbed up the white trunks of birches, as if trying to drag them beneath the earth.

Their pace began to slow, literally bogged down as the patches of stagnant water rose around them.

A piercing call drew Monk's eyes up. An eagle swept past with wings as wide as

Monk's outstretched arms.

Hunting.

It reminded Monk of the dangers behind them.

He increased their pace. For once, the small children seemed better suited for the terrain. Their lighter bodies floated over the sucking mud, whereas Monk had to watch each step or lose a boot.

For the next hour, they moved sluggishly, traversing less than a mile by Monk's calculation. He spotted snakes that slithered from their path and caught a flashing glimpse of a fox as it hopped from hillock to hillock and vanished.

Monk's ears strained for every noise. He heard things lumbering through the swamps. A heavy set of antlers marked the passage of a massive elk.

Before they knew it, they were ankle-deep in water, moving in a zigzagging pattern from island to island. The cold air smelled dank with algae and mold.

Insects buzzed with a continual white noise. The passage grew darker as the sun continued to fall behind the mountains.

Monk's steps slipped to a plodding pace.

Konstantin moved alongside Monk's flank. He still held Kiska's hand. The girl was nearly asleep on her feet.

Pyotr stuck close to Monk's hip. Monk had to hike the boy onto his shoulders whenever they crossed through deeper water.

Pyotr suddenly grabbed Monk's hand, clamping hard.

Something crashed through the trees, coming right at them.

Oh, no

Monk yelled, knowing what was coming. Go! Run!

Monk snatched up the boy, who struggled and cried out. Konstantin splashed away, his knees high, dragging his sister behind him. Monk's left foot sank to his calf. He tugged, but he could not free his limb. It was as if it had sunk into cement.

The rip and snap of branches aimed for them.

Monk tossed Pyotr ahead of him and twisted around to face the charge. He heard the boy splash into the water. But instead of running away, Pyotr scrabbled back to Monk.

No! Pyotr, go!

The boy continued past him as a large shadow leaped out of the trees and landed heavily into the water with a splash. Boy and shadow fell upon each other in a warm greeting.

Marta.

Monk fought the hammering in his heart. Pyotr, next time some warning. He wormed his foot slowly out of the muck.

The chimpanzee hugged the boy and lifted him bodily out of the shallow water.

Konstantin and Kiska splashed back to them. Marta let Pyotr go and gave each child a tight squeeze. She came next to Monk, arms up and wide. He bent down and accepted a hug from her, too. Her body was hot, her breath huffing in his ear.

He felt the tremble of exhaustion in her old body. He returned the hug, knowing how hard she must have fought to rejoin them.

As Monk straightened, he wondered how Marta had found them. He did understand how she had overtaken them. While they had slogged through mud and water, she had swept through the bog's trees, closing the distance. But still, how had she tracked them?

Monk stared back into the dark fen.

If she could follow them

Let's keep moving, he said and waved toward the heart of the swamps.

Together again, they traversed the swamplands. The reappearance of Marta invigorated the children, but the weight of the bog soon had them all heaving and struggling again. Konstantin drifted farther ahead. Pyotr hovered next to

Monk, while Marta kept mostly to the trees, swinging low, her toes skimming the waters.

Slowly, the sun vanished behind the mountains, leaving them in dark twilight.

Monk could barely make out Konstantin. Off to the left, an owl hooted in a long hollow note as full night threatened.

Konstantin called softly back to them out of a denser copse of willows, sounding urgent. An izba!

Monk didn't know what he meant, but it didn't sound good. Hauling after the boy,

Monk found the water growing less deep.

He pushed through a drape of willow branches and saw that one of the ubiquitous tiny islands rose ahead. But it wasn't empty. Atop the low hillock squatted a tiny cabin on short pylons. It was constructed of rough-hewn logs and topped by a moss-covered roof. The single window was dark. There was no sign of life. No smoke from the chimney.

Konstantin waited at the edge of the island among some tall reeds.

Monk joined him.

The tall boy pointed. A hunter's berth. Cabins like this are all over the mountains.

I'll check it out, Monk said. Stay here.

He climbed up onto the island and circled the cabin. It was small, with a chimney of stacked stone. Grasses grew as high as his waist. It didn't look as if anyone had been here in ages. There was a single window, shuttered closed from the inside. Monk spotted a short pier, empty of any boats. But a flat-bottomed punt a raft with a pointed prow had been pulled into some neighboring reeds. Moss covered half the raft, but hopefully it was still serviceable.

Monk returned to the front of the cabin. He tried the door. It was unlocked, but the boards had warped, and it took some effort to tug it open with a creaking pop from its rusted hinges. The interior was dark and smelled musty. But at least it was dry. The log cabin had only one room. The floor was pine with a scatter of hay over most of it. The only furniture was a small table with four chairs. Crude cabinets lined one whole wall, but there was no kitchen. It appeared that all the cooking was done at the fireplace, where some cast-iron pans and pots were stacked. Monk noted a stack of dry wood.

Good enough.

Monk stepped to the door and waved for the kids to come inside.

He hated to stop, but they all needed to rest for a bit. With the window shuttered, Monk could risk a small fire. It would be good to dry out their clothes and boots, have a warm place for the coldest part of the night. Once rested and dry, they could set out before dawn, hopefully using that raft.

Konstantin helped him get a fire started while the two children sat on the floor, leaning on Marta. The older boy found matches in a waxen box, and the old dry wood took to flame with just a touch of kindling. A fire stoked quickly, snapping and popping. Smoke vanished up the chimney's flue.

As Monk added another log, Konstantin searched the cabinets. He discovered fishing tackle, a rusted lantern with a little sloshing kerosene, a single heavy bowie-style knife, and a half-empty box of shotgun shells. But no gun. In a closet, he found a few curled, yellow magazines sporting naked women, which Monk confiscated and found a good use for as kindling. But on the top shelf, four heavy faded quilts had been folded and stacked.

As Konstantin handed out the quilts, he pointed to Monk's discarded pack. Monk glanced over. The boy indicated his radiation monitor. No longer white, it now had a pink hue to it.

Radiation, Monk mumbled.

Konstantin nodded. The processing plant that poisoned Lake Karachay. He waved toward the northeast. It also slowly leaked down into the ground.

Contaminating the groundwater, Monk realized. And where did all the runoff from the local mountains end up? Monk stared toward the shuttered window, picturing the bog outside.

He shook his head.

And he thought all he had to worry about was man-eating tigers.

7:04 P. M.

Pyotr sat naked, huddled in a thick quilt before the fire. Their shoes were lined up on the hearth, and their clothes hung out to dry on fishing line. The line was so thin it was as if his pants and shirt were floating in the air.

He enjoyed the flickering flames as they danced and crackled, but he didn't like the smoke. It swirled up into the chimney as if it were something alive, born out of the fire.

He shivered and shifted on his backside closer to the bright flames.