Marie watched Barnett go. The shroud of darkness followed, along with a cluster of shades. When he'd disappeared, she still waited, until she counted two minutes.

"We have to go, Inky," Tim whispered, but kept a hand on the shotgun.

"I know," she glanced back where Jacob had slipped away. "I'm sure Diana will send people after us. Rutger…isn't going to help us."

"We need to tell Carol that Eleanor is unsafe."

"I'm sure the Van Lear people will kill whomever they can catch."

"We'll have to take the money," he forced a smile, though his eyes grew bleak, "and we'll have to run. No one will hurt you, Inky, I promise."

Marie listened to the thunder roll over the hills, mountains, and hillocks. "I've done some work in Europe," she squeezed his hand, "and I still have my passport."

"The Van Lear lobby politicians, so maybe, if we leave the country, there might be a chance."

"Maybe," she looked at the shadows and shades, "we'll be together." The unsettled dead muttered in lost, confused tones. "Let them fight over the corpse of Hemlock Hurst."

The words drifted out into the bog. Oily shadows shivered, low curse fell upon the land. Ashless Hollow quivered. A cold wind swept over the fens and hummocks, and the shades recalled the horrors of life. Water already began to flood the land, as it recalled the malicious past of Hemlock Hurst. Wet rot held the sulfuric, rotten egg stench from inside. Within the crash of thunder hollowness lived. It covered the men, who fought in the muck, each caused them to pause.

A groan drifted up from where the dark water once held the dead. Fetid air from deep in the earth bubbled up through the mud. Two large eyes opened of a pearlescent-white. Marie recoiled from their glow. The Uroboros rose out, where Jacob had been claimed. She closed her eyes, willed away the vision, but the great serpent breathed out white mist that turned to darkness. Inescapable was its wrath, broken cycle endless. Forced to turn, it became a prison with no bars or walls, but a place of holding. The Uroboros was a prisoner that turned the machine, and it could only twist.

Marie shot from cover. Tim looked back, but failed to see the source of her terror. They rushed into the swamp.

"What do you want?" she asked the darkness.

Upon the Hallowed Dream she was bound, between spirit and flesh. The answer to the question was simple, balance. Through the past, present, and future here was a constant cycle. It could only turn. No man, god, or devil could stop this indifferent machine, for it was already sent forward. The Uroboros was intrinsic to this circle of life, which had been corrupted. It was its natured to tend the circle. As the past had never departed, so the misery had been carried forward. The future was uncertain, because Ashless Hollow could no longer suffer the despair. Destruction, Marie realized, only through desolation could this place be renewed. Like an infected wound, the putrid flesh must be cut off. Pin pricks of thistle purple were scintillating in the large eyes. The great serpent, the Shades, and even Bethany could find no rest so long as the defilement remained.

Down from Lear Mountain, rain water flowed into the hollow. Though rain had been seldom, the lowland was quick to flood. Marie and Tim knew it would grow treacherous in the mire. The descendants of the Feds and Van Lear men found the earth had grown very soft. The deep resonate thunder still boomed over the woods. Shafts of light flashed, faded, and left tracers like slashes across the vision. People of the town had said that Ashless Hollow was cursed, and the bog had an ill will that obscured the mind. They had trespassed, told themselves it was only a swamp, but all felt a disquiet. The children of the Federals were losing to the better funded Confederates. Waters rose over the dead, as their Shades rose to battle. None escaped from the blood feud.

Low tremors made the water shiver. Men slipped into the earth, some to the waist, but still they fought. The malicious heart of man had fermented the darkness in Ashless Hollow. Even the land can seek vengeance, and it had no compassion or discernment. There would be balance, no matter the death. One was no better to it, for both sides had paid forward misery. Man or land, they had been devoured by the past and left crippled. A reckoning needs to be final, and judgment passed with a judicial prudence.

The mud, which bit so greedily at the intruders, let Marie pass, yet indifferent to Tim. She fled the Uroboros, which thrashed about the forest. It parted its maw to bellow up at the chaos above Lear Mountain. He gazed about at the shadows. Between the tumult of the storm and gunfire, Tim's mind filled the silence with every devil in hell. Across the treacherous mire they struggled in the night.

Marie pushed forward, as Tim followed. Shadows curled about trees to shift the play of light. Each flash of lightning made them shift as if they stalked the darkness. They loomed over them, hands outstretched to snatch at them. Capricious branches snatched at muddy clothes. Water already soaked them, and the muck sapped at their strength. Playful gusts puckish and mercurial breathed on the flesh. Bloated droplets struck, congealed in the canopy above. Each seemed as thick as the capricious earth. Men screamed in rage or pain to echo about in a mad whisper. She tasted sour spit, exertion tore at sore muscles.

The Hallow Dream grew no deeper or did it relent. Cursed blood had given her a sight, which revealed the world in its vile splendor. It was indifferent to the lies that comforted, and gave one the unabashed truth. Such verisimilitude was beyond the ordinary; however, the extraordinary was beautiful madness.