Strained by lack of breath, anyways, as they made the final, steep scramble to the top of ridge.

As she hauled herself up the last hundred yards of the steep ravine, Sharon allowed her senses to fully open to the rugged, ancient hill, a formidable mountain at one time, eons before the western mountains had been shoved up to form the Rockies. She thought about this low ridge, a hard steep climb going straight up as they had chosen to do, but probably not even close to 1500 feet above sea level. Not technically part of the mountains, but on the Appalachian plateau.   For now.    She pondered how many billions of tons of rock and soil and leaf mold, trillions or more tons, really, from this ancient place had washed down the watersheds of the New/Kanawha, the Ohio, the Mississippi, to the Gulf.    How low had this land been when it had been sea? Deep sea. Deep enough for trilobites.   How high had this land been when the pressures beneath the crust had belched and farted the sea floor up toward the sky? How deep would one have to dig into the sea floor, or the Mississippi delta, to touch the leavings of this ancient, ancient mountain, now only a rugged hill among rugged hills.

Too old, too ancient for any person to comprehend. Must have scared the hell out of the fey folk who somehow, and most likely unintentionally, encountered and found themselves channeling some of that magic.   



The grave yard stood about 200 feet ahead of them, at the very top of the low ridge.

Sharon wrapped an arm around Louie's shoulder. " Let's just be right now. The mess can wait."

Abiram had been waiting for them under the lilac. He sat up and began preening, pretending that Third was not there at all.