They followed her into the desert.
They stayed several yards behind---just in case. May unerringly took the route left by the other Walkers, maneuvering closely around bushes and cacti with the precision of an amusement park ride on a track.
After leaving the shoreline, Isabella had headed between two low hills and then through a narrow eroded canyon. Though the way was easy at first, it became increasingly harder to walk as the sand became deeper and looser, more dune like
It was also hot. The sky was still dark, but the absence Of sun had no bearing on the heat, seemed to make things more humid and oppressive, in fact. Garden shifted the canteens on his shoulders, taking off his sweat- soaked shirt and tucking it into his waistband. Hal followed suit. Miles would have liked to do the same, but May was moving much too quickly, and he would not have had time to stop, put down the jar, and take off his shirt. He would have lost her. Next to him Claire, still clutching the lamp, used a handkerchief to wipe her brow.
They tromped deeper into the wilderness.
This was a perfect opportunity for them to talk things out, discuss what was happening, settle on a unified approach. But they did none of that.
The noiseless ness of May in front of them and the unnatural quiet of the desert all around made speech seem sacrilegious, intimidated them all into silence, and the only sound accompanying their steps was the heavy breathing of out-of-shape exertion.
Twenty minutes in, Hal passed back a can of warm Dr. Pepper, which Miles and Claire shared gratefully. She finished the last little bit of soft drink, hded Miles the empty can, and he dropped it on the sand to his left. He had no idea where they were or in which direction they were headed, but he had the feeling it might be difficult to find their way back, and he thought they might need a HansclandGretel trail to follow for the return trip.
If there was a return trip.
They passed through what looked like a saguaro forest, an especially dense stand of the tall cacti, and then through a narrow valley so thick with ocotillo that they were forced to walk directly behind May in order to keep her in sight. Around them the land was rising up, gently sloping hills giving way to harsher, higher cliffs.
Miles' legs were hurting, and he could tell that Claire was tiring as well. The Walkers were dead--they would never tire outmand he hoped that they were not planning to march indefinitely, because there was no way the rest of them could keep up.
He had no plan, no idea of what he would do when and if they finally caught up with Isabella. He hadn't even taken along Rossiter's gun, had only some half-assed witchcraft items that May had picked out for protection. Assuming those things worked, what then? Should he jump Isabella? Wrestle her to the ground?
He was suddenly conscious of the necklace against his skin, the coldness of the teeth, and he wondered whose teeth they were, what the purpose of the necklace was, why his father had saved it. And where his father had gotten it in the first place. Had he made the necklace himself?. Had he taken the teeth from corpses or from people that he'd killed?
Despite everything that had happened, he still could not reconcile the father he knew with this underground horror show society, with spells and potions and curses and murders. He saw his father more as a victim than a participant, and though Bob had obviously been in possession of witch . craft paraphernalia and had taken pains to hide this aspect of his life from the rest of the world, it was also clear that he was not particularly familiar with his heritage.
Hell, his dad had had to go to the library to find out the meaning of his recurrent dream. Which made Miles question May's story. She claimed to have known his father, said that the two of them, along with Garden's grandfather, had been born in Wolf Canyon and had known about Isabella and her curse. Maybe so. But there were details that didn't add up.
It happened without warning.
They were following behind, once again at a discreet distance, since the terrain had become more hospitable and the vegetation sparser, when the dead woman stopped walking in the flat sandy bottom of a dry wash.
Abruptly, she flopped onto her stomach, arms suddenly straight at her sides, legs and feet together. Without a second's pause she began burrowing head first into the ground.
Miles, stunned, could not believe what he was seeing. May's mouth was open, and it appeared as though she was eating the sand, using her jaws like a shovel to dig into the soft earth. It was inhuman and should not have been physically possible, but in a matter of seconds, May's face and head disappeared into the ground, followed by her neck, her shoulders, her upper torso, her midsection.
And then she stopped.
He looked over at Hal and Garden, saw expressions of fear and disbelief on their faces that no doubt mirrored his own. Claire's fingers found his free hand, and he squeezed back a reassurance he did not feel.
They waited, watching, holding their breath, but there was no sound, no movement, no indication that May would ever move again. It was as if whatever force had been animating her form had suddenly withdrawn, leaving behind only a dead, discarded body as lifeless as a normal corpse.
Miles approached cautiously, prepared for a sudden resumption of activity, the type of explosive furious movement that always occurred at this point in horror movies. But this was not a movie and nothing happened. He reached May without incident. Her legs were sticking straight up in the air, and he touched one of her rough dirty feet, feeling cold skin, spongy dead flesh. Her filthy skirt had fallen over her legs, and when he looked down he could see her overly hairy crotch.
He looked up at the sky, looked all around. Was this something May had done on her own, some sort of rebellion to kill herself completely, once and for all, to terminate Isabella's hold over her? Or had Isabella compelled May to dig into the sand for a reason, only to have the old woman's body give out at the last minute? He didn't know, but either way May's unmoving form reminded him of nothing so much as a broken piece of farm equipment left to rot in the ground where it had stopped.
Maybe the spell had simply worn off. Or maybe magic had geographical parameters. Maybe Isabella had pulled so far ahead that May was now beyond the reach of her influence.
Maybe.
The tightness in his chest was gone, but the tingling in his midsection was back, and Miles found himself wondering if these were actual physiological responses to the sort of power to which he'd been exposed. He turned to Garden. 'Do you feel anything? In your body, I mean. Any unusual physical sensalaons.
Hal butted in. 'Aside from the fact that my balls have shrunk to the size of grapes and retracted into my abdomen with fear?'
''l'hank you for that,' Claire said dryly.
'Sorry.'
Garden shook his head. 'I don't know what you mean.'
'Is there, like, a tingling in your gut? Or a tightening in your chest?'
'Tightening of the chest?' He heard the worry in Claire's voice.
'That's the sign of a heart attack.'
'I'm not having a heart attack.'
'There's no way we could get you to a hospital in time---'
'I'm not having a heart attack!'
'I'm concerned! Is that all right with you?'
They were glaring at each other, but beneath the anger in her expression he could see her concern, and he moved forward to give Claire a quick kiss. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I'm sorry.'
'I'm just worried about you.'
'I know.'
'I'm not feeling anything weird,' Garden said.
Miles nodded. He accepted that no one else was experiencing the same responses he was, but he still could not shake the feeling that these symptoms meant something. For the first time he wondered if--since witch blood apparently flowed through his veins--he himself possessed some sort of extrasensory abilities. It would explain his newly acquired sensitivity, would account for the recent veracity of his gut reactions.
They did not linger in the sandy wash, and there was no discussion about stopping, quitting, turning back.
