“Okay,” said Henry.

“So,” said Grant, “if no one needs to take a bathroom break, I think we can let Mr. Henry here continue.” He looked at Henry and nodded. “I believe that Ronnie was about to meet Lucy again, right?”

Henry looked down at his hands, flexed his fingers, and released a slow breath. “Well, yes and no.”

“Oh?” asked the Reverend. “A slight detour in the narrative?”

“You might say.”

“What kind of a detour?” asked Jackson.

“I need to jump ahead a little bit, if that’s okay.”

Grant offered a glass of ice water. “It’s your story, Henry. We’re just listening.”

Jackson rubbed his eyes. “And I evidently haven’t been listening as well as I thought. You said that Ronnie and Lucy, they met a total of three times?”

“Yes.”

“But only one of them recognized the other?”

“Right.”

The Reverend sighed. “Yes, Theodore—look at that expression. He hates it when I call him by his Christian name. All right, all right—Ted. Before you ask another question of the ‘duh’ variety, I think we’re all in agreement that it was—or rather, will be—Ronnie who did—does—the recognizing.” He looked at Henry. “Am I correct?”

“You are.”

“See? Some of us know how to give our undivided attention to a tale and he who tells it.”

“Bite my bag,” said Jackson.

“I knew you’d return to that old standby eventually.”

Henry grinned; it wasn’t quite a smile, but the guy was getting closer with each try. “I really appreciate this, you guys. I really do. Having someone listen and not…well, you know.” He took three deep drinks of the cold water, set down the glass, and said, “Lucy Thompson…”

2

The sun shone mercilessly upon the mountain of gold, its brilliance hypnotizing him as he moved farther upward in slow, agonizing degrees. The mountain was everything to him now—mother, sister, wife, lover, torturer, redeemer, the schoolyard bully who used to pick on him in grade school, the muscle-bound beachcomber who took sadistic glee when kicking sand into the ninety-pound-weakling’s face—and he continued on both for and in spite of all the mountain was to him now.

I know you’re up there…somewhere...

He could feel the blisters on his feet and heels swell, then burst in searing liquid pain.

The sun beat down upon his back, scorching the flesh underneath his shirt.

He would not stop.

He didn’t care if he had to climb until he died, at least he would die doing something, making the effort, striving to free himself of all the doubt and nightmares that had haunted him all of his life.

I’ll find you. God help me, I’ll find you.

I know you’re there.

I know you’re real.

You have to be.

Taking hold of a firm root in the mountainside, he pulled in a deep breath, counted three, then released it as he pulled himself up another nine inches.

Part Two:

The Mount of The Moon

“Violence shall synchronize your movements like a

tune,

And Terror like a frost shall halt the flood of thinking.”