“Why are we . . . oh.” Yes, the letter.

He cleared his throat and looked both ways before he pulled out towards the interstate and into the merging traffic. “I didn’t have any better ideas, and you seemed pretty sure there was something important in Highlands Hammock. I thought it might be worth a chance to see. Actually, I thought I’d head for St. Augustine first. There’s a whole library full of reference materials at the church. Perhaps we can find a good starting point there. It’s not that far out of the way, anyway. Just a few hours.”

“Oh.”

I couldn’t complain. His plan was as good as anything I could have come up with, maybe better. I didn’t tell him about the man in the dark room, for fear he’d assume it was a dream or my imagination. Instead, I rode beside him in silence for a time, trying to get my thoughts to line up in a row. It half worked. I had a half plan hatching, and a half idea of what might be going on farther down south than I’d ever been before.

Never before? Could that be right? No.

Even as I turned the thought over I sensed it couldn’t be. I was born and bred in the Tennessee mountains, on the banks of the river that runs through the rocks, but I knew somehow about green-gray mud and stubby cypress knees. I knew the rotting stench of an alligator’s hole and the way the dull, curly moss hung down from the tree limbs to trail lazily in the water. I knew . . . I knew many things I shouldn’t have. Things I didn’t learn from the Discovery Channel or from Hollywood.

And strangest of all, I thought I knew who was waiting for me.

I just didn’t know what he wanted.

9
Unbearable Lightness

We arrived at St. Augustine around midnight, and the city was completely quiet.

I was tired of being asleep, and I was happy that we’d soon be out of the car. I don’t like long trips unless I’m driving, and I wasn’t feeling well enough to demand that Harry hand over the keys. My stomach lurched with every bump we took, and my eyeballs rocked about in my skull, settling on strange, small things, but refusing to focus on the road in front of us. It was better to let him act the chauffeur, especially considering that he knew where we were going and I didn’t. And then I could continue to sleep off and on, with the seat leaned as far back as I could get it, and my head lolling every time I nodded off. It’s a terrible way to doze, and it left me cranky and restless, itching to get free of the vehicle.

By the time we hit the city limits, I was desperate to stretch my legs, but Harry refused to pull over, even for a bathroom break. We were almost there, he insisted, but the church was down farther towards the old part of town near the fort. It was not terrifically far from the lion’s bridge.