Clara sat in the front seat of her prius her hands still glued to the wheel. She had been siting long enough that the little engine had cooled to the temperature of the chill January air. The church wasn't visible from the trail head where she parked, though she had intended to drive directly to it her courage had failed her at the last moment. Finding an alternate approach was a convenient excuse to delay the moment of truth for a few more minutes. It was crazy to be doing this. Literally insane. She glanced down at the phone for a final time making sure it was really there and it wasn't some sort of hallucination. The text still showed on the screen, silent and accusing.

"Ok," she breathed and, with some difficultly, pried first her left hand and then her right from the wheel. It grew easier to move now that she had taken a symbolic step. Pulling her coat around her body she opened the door and climbed out, snow crunching under her winter boots. The trees were hung with the remnants of old snow that gave them a poxed and leprous look, though she knew that to be her mind flavoring the scene rather than any real omen or menace. Reaching into her hand bag she brushed her hand across the rubberized grip of the tazer she had carried when she was in New York. It had taken her an hour to dig out of her storage before she came her, she never imagined she would need it in a quiet place like Araminta. So much for that assumption.

Clara's breath steamed in front of her as she pushed through the last of the pines to reach the church. It was clear she wasn't the first to arrive, a fact that relieved her considerable. It had been just possible that she had been the only one to receive the message, that it was part of some elaborate ruse designed to lure her here. That theory, though seductively dramatic, lacked the practical driver of logic. She was nobody in the grand scheme of things, an over qualified lecturer at a small regional university, there was no reason to lure her here. Except, clearly, somebody saw a reason. Somebody considered her to be a ghost, and she wanted to find out why. Why had she lived when the moths had swarmed and carried off the others. Why was she receiving mysterious text messages. Her whole life had been spent rationalizing the strange and arcane. In her secret heart she had wished that just one ritual or occult secret would prove to be more than allegory. This was her chance. Steeling her nerves she stepped through the door and into the church.

Amanda and another man, Archie the mechanic she thought, stood inside. The cop seemed tense and Clara hastily drew her hand from her bag so both were in clear view. Clara didn't like police, it was a profession that seemed to attract the worst people and bring out the worst in the good ones. Admittedly Amanda was easy on the eyes. She had a momentary fear that this was some sort of elaborate police sting, but that didn't make sense. What was she guilty of? Receiving strange text messages.

"H..hello," she said, somewhat diffidently, "I received a text..."