Read At Fear's Altar for Free Online

understanding.”
    He stood and exited the kitchen, unwilling, or perhaps unable, to look upon the fallout his words had wrought.
    Outside, the day was perishing in a slow burn that primed the entire hamlet in gloaming. Colin settled into his porch chair and tried to draw comfort from the façades and landmarks that had seemed, prior to today, immune to change. The yews and the sycamores stood in charcoal relief against the twilight. A slow-moving wind harassed their boughs to nod. They resembled shaggy behemoths all huddled together, all agreeing on some silent pact.
    Unbidden, the image of the chapel at night surfaced in Colin’s imagination. He pictured it swathed in shadows of the deepest blue, the pitch of its roof and the summit of its steeple knitting with the earthward darkness of the boughs. Cadres of fireflies transformed the lolling reeds into votives. The fetid air was bubbling with the sound of toads and crickets chorusing a chthonic hymn.
    Colin was perversely curious to see just how far down his mind would drag him. How deep into the tangled jungle of his id would his thoughts bore before the safeguarding gates came slamming down to spare him? Were the defamers, whoever they may be, moving up those rotting steps in procession this very moment? Would their animal hide vestments be shed at the nave? What would creatures like that deem to be the greatest sacraments?
    The September night felt unseasonably chilly. Colin’s shiver was enough to purge the vision. He wanted so much to tell Paula about the chapel, about what he had seen there. During dinner, when the tensions were nearing the breaking point, he had actually toyed with the idea of taking his daughter there, of showing her the true reason he had been so upset. Had he gotten lost this morning? Yes. But there was something in those woods, something .   .   . incorrect. Something that offended him. Perhaps, only perhaps, some primal faculty in Colin had perceived the incorrectness as soon as he’d stepped onto the paths, and it was this primal unease that had caused him to lose his bearings in woods that he’d lived near for the better part of six decades.
    As consoling as this theory was, it did nothing to detract from a profoundly upsetting fact: that somehow the woods had managed to hide a perverse structure from Colin, and presumably everyone else in the village, for who knows how many years. There had never been a chapel in those low-lying marshlands. Never.
    Though the moon had barely begun its ascent, Colin decided that it was best to turn in. Upon passing the closed door of the small bedroom his granddaughters shared during their visit, Colin overheard an exchange between the girls and their mother. Though muffled by wood, their words were still audible.
    “.   .   . then after I tried, like, to see if there was anyone else hiking who might help us, he made me stop and told me to stand there. Then he walked into the swamp, until the water was, like, up to his waist, and just stood there for, like, five minutes.” It was Toni’s voice, Colin was sure. He could even hear the wad of gum that she never seemed to be without smacking as she lied through her teeth. “Then he just ran off into the trees and we had to go after him.”
    “Did he say anything when he was standing in the water?” Paula this time.
    “He just kinda breathed loud, like when you feel surprised.” That Sara had joined the cabal was a fact that weighed heaviest of all on Colin’s heart. He shuffled to his room and undressed for bed in the dark.

    ***

    Autumn crept into the village overnight. The morning was bright and the breeze carried the first crisp portents of the coming season.
    Paula and the girls were still sleeping when Colin began scrambling the eggs for their breakfast. He waited until the first of his guests, Sara, emerged from her room before he poured the orange juice and called everyone to the table. Their meal was a pleasant counterpoint to last