It surprised me then not at all to discover, in the course of preparing this volume, rumors of diabolical deeds performed within the precincts of Everville's comely community.

The sad story of the death of Rebecca Jenkins is well known. She was a daughter of that fair city, much prized and adored, who was murdered in her eighth year, her body deposited in the reservoir. Her murderer was a man out of Sublimity who later died in prison while serving a life sentence. But the mystery surrounding the tragedy of poor Rebecca does not end there.

While gathering stories about the stranger incidents associated with Everville, the quizzical demise of one Richard Dolan was whispered to me. He had owned a candy store, I was told, and little Rebecca Jenkins had been a regular customer of his, so he had taken the death of the child particularly hard. The.capture and subsequent incarceration of her unrepentant murderer had done nothing to subjugate his great uneasiness. He had become more and more melancholy, and on the night of September

19, 1975, he had told his wife he was hearing voices from Harmon's Heights. Somebody was calling to him, he said. When she asked him who, he refused to say, but took himself off into the night. He did not return, and the next day a party ascended the Heights to look for him.

After two days of searching they found the delirious Richie Dolan, wedged in a crevice of rock on the northeast slope of the mountain. He was very horribly banned by his fall, but he was not dead. Such was the state of his face and torso that his wife fell into a swoon at the sight of him and was never of sound mind again.

He died in Silverton Hospital three days later, but he did not die silent. In that seventy-two hours he raved like a bediamite, unsubdued by the tranquilizers his doctors gave him.

What did he speak of in his final, agonizing hours? I could find no firsthand testament on this, but there is sufficient consensus among the rumors to suppose them broadly true. He raved, I was told, about dead men calling to him from Harmon's Heights. Over and over, even at the very end, when the doctors stood astonished at how he was clinging to life, he was begging forgiveness The account maundered on for a couple more paragraphs, but Erwin merely skimmed them. He had what he needed here: Evidence, albeit rudimentary, that there was some truth in what McPherson had written. And if one part was truthful, then why not the rest?

Content that his pursuit of verification was not a folly, he left off the search for the night, and called Phoebe Cobb. Would she come over and lock up? he asked. She would, of course. If he would just be kind enough to close the windows, she'd pop over in a while to secure the front door.

Her voice sounded a little slurred, he thought, but maybe it was his imagination. The day had been long, and he was weary. Time to get home, and try and put the McPherson confession out of his head until he resumed his inquiries tomorrow.

He knew where he'd begin those inquiries: down by the creek. Though it was three decades since the events McPherson had described, if the house he claimed the trio had burned down had in truth existed, then there would be some sign of it remaining. And if there was, then that would be another part of the confession verified, and he would be tempted to bring the whole story into the open air, where the whole state could smell how much it stank.

Phoebe had opened the brandy bottle around a quarter to eight, telling herself she wanted to toast her coming liberation, but in truth to dull the unease she was feeling. On the few occasions Morton went out to get some dinner for himself, he was usually back within the hour, ready to deposit himself in front of the television. Where had he gone to tonight? And more: Why did she care?

She drowned her confusion in a brandy; then in another.

That did the trick just fine, especially on an almost empty stomach. By the time the attorney called, she was feeling very mellow; too mellow to drive. No matter. She'd walk to the Old Schoolhouse she decided.

The night was balmy, the air fragrant with pine, and the walk proved more pleasant than she'd expected. At any other time of the year, even at the height of summer, the streets would have been pretty quiet in the middle of the evening, but tonight the lights were still burning in many of the stores along Main Street, their owners working on Festival window displays or stocking the shelves for the profitable days ahead. There were even a few visitors around, come early to enjoy the quiet of the valley.

At the corner of Main and Watson she waited for a moment or two. A

right turn took her up towards the schoolhouse, a left led down past the market and the park to Donovan Street, and a little way along Donovan Street was the apartment house where Joe lived. It would be just a slip of the foot to turn left rather than right. But she fought the urge. Better to let all that they'd felt and said this afternoon settle for a few hours, rather than get hot and flustered again. Besides, brandy always made her a little tearful, and her face got puffy when she cried. She'd see him tomorrow, and dream about him in the meantime.

Turning right, she headed on up the gentle gradient of Watson, past the new supermarket, which was still open and doing brisk business, to the schoolhouse. It took her five minutes to check all the windows, pull down the blinds, and lock up. Then she began the return journey.

About fifty yards from Main Street, somebody on the opposite sidewalk stepped out into the road, looking up at the night sky. She knew him vaguely. He was the youngest of the Lundy clan, Sam or Steve or "Seth."

Though she'd only murmured the syllable he heard her. Without moving from the middle of the street he looked round at her, his eyes glittering, and she remembered how she'd first encountered him. His mother had brought him in to see Dr. Powell, five or six years ago, and the child had stood in the waiting room with a look of such remoteness on his pinched little face, Phoebe had assumed he was mentally retarded. There was no remoteness now. He was fiercely focused.

"Do you hear it?" he said to her.

He didn't approach, but something about him intimidated her. Rather than get any closer, she halted, glancing back up the street towards the lights of the supermarket. There'd been plenty of cars in the lot when she'd passed, one of them would be bound to emerge soon, and she would use its passing as cover to continue on her way.

"You don't, do you?" he said, his voice singsong.

"Don't what?"

"You don't hear the hammering."

"Hammering?" She listened a moment. "No I don't."

"Hmm." He returned his gaze to the starry heavens. "You used to work at the doctor's," he said. "I still do."

"Not for long," he replied.

She felt a shiver pass down her body from scalp to sole.

"How do you know?"

He smiled at the sky. "It's so loud," he said. "Are you sure you can't hear it?"

"I told you-" she began,

"It's okay," he said softly. "Only sometimes at night, other people hear it too. It never happens in the day. In the day it's only me-"

"I'm sorry-2'

"Don't be sorry," he said; and then his smile went to her instead of the stars. "I'm used to it."

She suddenly felt absurd for fearing him. He was a lonely, bewildered kid. A little crazy in the head maybe, but harmless enough.

"What did you mean about me not working at the doctor's for long?" she asked him.

He shrugged. "Don't know," he said. "Mese things come out sometimes, without me really knowing what they mean." He paused for a moment.

"Probably nothing," he said, and returned his gaze to the sky.

She didn't wait for a car to emerge from the lot, but conover the whereabouts of the photograph that had inspired it, continued on her way to Main Street. "Enjoy yourself," she said and acted to spare herself, Joe, and Morton more grief than as she passed him by. any of them expected or deserved. "Yeah," he murmured, "I do."