Shadow's head came up, and he watched them as they approached. Then, as he recognized them, he bounded over, his tail wagging, a happy bark ringing out over the prairie. Michael threw himself on the dog, scratching him and petting him, but Janet stood still and silent. Finally, when Michael had begun to calm down, she spoke.

"Where are they?" she asked. "Where are they buried?"

Shadow's ears suddenly dropped flat against his head, and his joyful barking faded into a wary growl.

"It's all right," Michael soothed. "It's all right, boy. We're gonna help you." Then, slowly, Michael began moving through the field with Shadow at his side.

"Here," Michael said.

Janet moved the stone at Michael's feet aside, and plunged the shovel into the earth. She worked silently, not heeding the stress she was putting on her body, caring more about proving to Michael that there was nothing in the field than about any danger to her unborn child.

And then, a moment later, the bone fragments appeared.

Janet stared at them, then reached down to pick one of them up. She studied it a moment, then handed it to Michael. "Look at it," she said. "It's old and crumbling,, and it could be anything. It might be human, and it might not. But whatever it is, it's far too old for your grandfather to have buried it here."

Michael's temples were pounding now, and he glowered at his mother with barely contained fury. "There's more," he whispered. "All over the field, there's more."

"Where?" Janet demanded. "Show me where. You keep telling me Aunt Laura's babies are buried out here, Michael. But where are they? If they're here, show them to me."

Trembling, Michael glared at her, then silently hurried away. He moved across the field, then finally stopped.

"Here," he said once more. "If you want to see it, it's right here." Wordlessly, Janet began digging once more.

Nathaniel watched for a few moments, then turned away and moved slowly through the barn, looking at it all for the last time. The little room beneath the trapdoor where he'd spent so many years; the tack room, from which he'd watched the burials on those strange nights when the children had been born and then died.

His children, the children he could reach through the powers of his mind. There hadn't been many of them, but he still thought of them as his.

There had been his brother. On the night Nathaniel was born, he had called out to his brother, and his brother had answered him. But then he'd gone to sleep, and when he woke up, his brother was gone. For a long time after that, Nathaniel had called out to his brother, called to him for help, but his brother had never come to him.

There had been two others since then, two others that he had felt, but in the end, they had brought them to the field, and buried them.

And then, a few months ago, his brother had come back. Nathaniel remembered it so well-he'd awakened one morning and sensed that he was no longer alone, that at last his brother had returned to help him avenge all the wrongs that had been done. For a long time, he and his brother had talked, and his brother had promised to come for him, to take him outside, to help him destroy their enemies.

But then his brother had died. He'd tried to warn Mark, but he couldn't. Mark was older than he and had ignored his warnings. And the old man had killed him.

And then, a few days later, Michael had come. He'd called out to Michael, too, and Michael had answered him.

And with Michael's help, he had destroyed his enemies.

And now, Michael and his mother were in the field, and would find the children, and know the truth.

Now, at last, Nathaniel could go home.

He left the barn and in the gathering darkness crossed the yard. He ignored the house-the house that had been part of his prison through all the years of his life, but that had, in these last days, been his secret refuge. Instead, he concentrated his mind on his goal: the house where he'd been born.

He moved quickly, slipping easily through the barbed wire, and in a few seconds, he was there…

Janet's shovel struck something, something that stopped the blade's penetration of the earth, but was too soft to be a rock. As Michael stood by, with Shadow quivering at his side, Janet lowered herself to her knees, and began digging with her hands.

A moment later she felt the soft folds of a blanket.

Her heart began to beat faster as she worked, and then she pulled the object she had uncovered free from the earth that had hidden it.

She stared at it for a long time, afraid to open it, afraid it might actually be what she thought it was.

But she had come too far to turn back now. With a shaking hand, she folded back one corner of the blanket.

She could only stand to look at it for a second. Already, the flesh had begun to rot away, and the skin was entirely gone from the skull. Her stomach lurched, and involuntarily, Janet dropped the tiny corpse back into its grave. Her face pale, her whole body trembling now, Janet turned to gaze at her son.

"How did you know?" she breathed. "How did you know?"

"Nathaniel," Michael said, his voice steady. "Nathaniel told me."

"Where is he?"

Michael fell silent for a moment, then his eyes filled with tears.

"He's gone home," he said. "He's gone home to die."

Michael stopped, his eyes fixed on the window of his room. Janet, too, stopped. Following Michael's gaze, she looked up. The house was dark except for a single, oddly flickering light that glowed from Michael's window. Shadow bounded ahead to scratch eagerly at the back door.

"What is it, Michael?" Janet asked.

"Nathaniel. He's here. He's in my room."

"No," Janet whispered. "There's no one here, Michael. There's no Nathaniel." But even as she said the words, Janet knew she no longer believed them. Whatever Nathaniel was, whether he was someone real, or a ghost, or no more than a creature of Michael's imagination, he was real. He was as real to her now as he was to Michael, and to Anna.

Slowly, Janet moved toward the back door of the house. Michael followed her, his face suddenly gone blank, as if he was listening to some being that Janet couldn't see.

She pulled the door open, and reached for the light switch. Nothing happened. Shadow slipped inside, immediately disappearing through the kitchen and up the stairs.

Janet could sense the presence in the house now, and her instinct was to flee, to abandon the house to whatever had invaded it, to take Michael and run out into the darkening night.

Instead, she went into the living room and picked up the poker that hung from the mantelpiece. Then she turned, and as if in a trance, moved toward the foot of the stairs, and started up.

Michael followed. Once again, his head was pounding, and once again, his nostrils seemed filled with smoke. And once again, Nathaniel's voice was whispering in his head.

"This is my house, and I have come home."

Michael moved on, his vision starting to cloud.

"This is my house, and I will never leave it. Never again."

They reached the landing. The presence of Nathaniel was almost palpable. Shadow, too, was there, his great body stretched on the floor in front of Michael's door, a strangled whimpering coming from his throat.

"This was my mother's house, and this is my house. I will not leave my house again."

Michael stopped, staring at the closed door, listening to Nathaniel's voice, knowing what Nathaniel was going to ask him to do.

Janet, too, stopped, but then she moved forward again, and put her hand on the knob of the door to Michael's room.

She turned it, then gently pushed the door, letting it swing open.

In the center of the room, his empty blue eyes fixed on her, his ashen face expressionless, Nathaniel stood, illuminated by the soft light of an oil lamp.