And then, last spring, Mark Hall had come home.

Ever since then, Nathaniel had been different.

He'd become odder, and seemed to disappear deeper into his private world every day.

He'd stopped speaking to Ben, preferring to spend his time alone in his room beneath the barn, lying on his cot, his eyes wide open but blank, staring at something Ben could never see.

His voice, never expressive, had taken on an atonality that sometimes frightened Ben, and when he looked at Ben now, it always seemed to be with anger.

And when he'd spoken, he'd said strange things.

"I know what happened," he told Ben once. "I can see it now, and I know what happened."

That was all he'd said, but in his words, and in his eyes, Ben had sensed danger.

Then, last night, Nathaniel had disappeared from the barn.

And Amos Hall had died.

It wasn't until dusk that Findley went back to the barn. He carried Nathaniel's dinner with him, not because he expected Nathaniel to be there to eat it, but because he had taken Nathaniel's dinner to the barn every night for so many years that when he'd fixed his own meal that evening, he'd automatically cooked for them both. He opened the barn door, slipped inside, and pulled the door closed behind him.

And then he felt it.

Nathaniel was there.

Nathaniel's presence was in the atmosphere of the barn, just as his absence had been palpable the night before.

Findley paused, then spoke softly into the gloom of the building. "Nathaniel?"

There was no answer. Ben started toward the tack room, but had taken only a few paces when suddenly he felt something behind him. He turned slowly, and stared at the glistening tines of a pitchfork hovering a few inches from his chest. Beyond the cold, glittering metal, his hands grasping the fork's handle, Nathaniel's eyes blazed at him, penetrating the deep shadows of the barn. The tray clattered to the floor. "Nathaniel-"

The finely honed points of the fork inched closer to his chest. "Where are they?" Nathaniel demanded.

Ben frowned. "What? Where are what, Nathaniel?"

"The children. The children in the field. Where are they?"

"Nathaniel-"

A single tine of the fork touched the skin of Ben Findley's throat, pierced it. A drop of blood began to form, then slowly ran down the inside of Ben's shirt.

"Tell me where they are. I have to find them."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Nathaniel," Ben said softly. "Now put down the fork, and tell me what you mean."

But it was too late. The look was in Nathaniel's eyes, the look Ben Findley had seen before, and he could almost imagine he heard the voices himself, the voices Nathaniel was listening to.

He's going to kill me, Findley thought. He killed Amos, and he killed Charles, and now he's going to kill me. Then another thought came to him: Why shouldn't he kill us? One way or another, all of us killed him.

He felt the tines of the fork pressing against his throat again, and began backing away. Behind him, he suddenly felt the wall of the barn, and there was nowhere else to go. He stopped, his eyes fixing on Nathaniel's.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, even as he knew it was too late. "I'm sorry I took your life away from you."

Nathaniel nodded, then hurled his weight against the pitchfork.

Ben opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out, as two of the tines plunged through his flesh, then on into the soft pine planks of the barn wall.

A stream of blood welled up from his torn throat, then overflowed and began pouring down the front of his shirt.

A few seconds later, his eyes rolled backward and his body went slack.

Nathaniel stared for a moment at the man who had raised him, and killed him, then went out into the gathering night.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Janet awoke with a start, her heart pounding. The dream had come again, the nightmare in which she stood helplessly by and watched as flames consumed the house she'd grown up in. Only this time, the dream was different. This time, as she cowered in the night, transfixed by the smoke and flames, it wasn't her brother who was calling to her.

This time, the voice she heard was Michael's, and the face she saw at the upstairs window was Mark's.

And in the background, barely audible, was another voice, a voice she recognized as that of her unborn child.

This time it wasn't her parents and her brother who were dying. This time it was her children and her husband.

She shook off the remnants of the dream and lay in the gloom, listening to the throbbing pulse of her heart, staring at the ceiling where strange shadows were cast by the soft glow of her nightlight. Inside her, she could feel the baby stirring-that was good, for as long as the baby moved it still lived, and for a while during the past twenty-four hours, she was sure she had lost it. Then, as her pulse slowly returned to normal, she shifted her attention, listening to the sounds of the house. Voices drifted up from downstairs. Though she couldn't make out the words, the murmuring itself was comforting to Janet.

She knew who was downstairs: her mother-in-law, her son. and Ione Simpson.

Earlier in the day, when she'd first mentioned that Ione had volunteered to stay with them and look after them, she had expected Anna to object. But she'd been wrong. Anna, without Amos and without her chair, had literally changed overnight.

"She has a level head," Anna had said of Ione. "And I don't feel like talking tonight. With Laura, I'd have to talk. But with lone, I can just sit and think. I need to think, Janet," she'd added in a tone that had almost frightened the younger woman. "I need to think about a lot of things." And then, sounding more like her usual self, she'd glanced pointedly at Janet's belly. "Aren't you supposed to be staying in bed?"

Janet nodded. "But I feel so useless up there. And the baby's all right. The doctor said-"

Anna's eyes flashed with sudden anger. "Doctors are fools! Never believe what they say. Never! I believed Charles Potter once."

The force of Anna's words struck Janet almost physically. She sank back against the cushions of the sofa. "Anna, what are you saying? He was your doctor for years-"

"Amos's. He was Amos's doctor, Janet. To me, he was-" Suddenly she fell silent, but Janet had the distinct feeling there was something the older woman wanted to talk about.

"He was what, Anna?"

Anna's eyes suddenly shifted away from Janet, and she appeared to be trying to come to a decision. Finally, her empty eyes met Janet's. "I don't know what he was," she said at last. "I don't know what's the truth, anymore, and I don't know who lied to me all my life. I don't know anything anymore, Janet. For twenty years, I sat in a wheelchair, but at least I thought I knew why I was there. I thought it was Amos's fault. I thought he'd done something to me when my last baby was born, thought somehow he or Charles Potter had hurt me when they killed my baby."

"Anna," Janet pleaded, "don't say that."

"Wait," Anna said quietly. "I'm not saying what I believe, Janet. I'm only telling you what I thought." Suddenly she seemed to straighten up. She took a deep breath. Then she said: "Ben Findley was the father of my last child."

Janet stared at her mother-in-law, unable to make any reply at all.

"It's true. Ben was different then. Not like he is now. In some ways he was very like Amos-like all that family- except there was nothing of Amos's cruelty about him. Amos was cruel. He beat the children, and he beat me. And he was absolutely convinced that some awful curse had been placed on his family. It all went back to Abby Randolph, and Nathaniel, and the child that survived."