A/N - Jake became Jack because of weird author reasons. Sorry about that. These are the crazy things that happen with Nano, and that's why I'm so happy you're sticking with me through this wild 30-day journey.

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As if guided by muscle memory, the Audi rolled in near silence along the blacktop until I reached row P. A set of tire tracks, exactly matching mine led the way. The sun shone bright in a sky so perfectly clear blue it looked almost like ocean water or clear glass, its light sparkled dazzlingly on the crusty snow. It was hard to believe such a sky could be real.

I stepped out and examined the ground, though it didn't take a tracker of any skill to make out the marks of a large gathering. Dozens, maybe hundreds of footprints compressed the snow. Someone had dropped a mitten near a faded sandstone marker so old the words on it were no longer legible.

Gently, so as not to disturb the dead, I suppose, I closed the car door. The strange door in the hillside that captured my imagination lay to the right of the road and I forced my legs to carry me in that direction. Faster and faster the bizarre scenes of my wild dream came back to me as I walked, wildly vivid and richly detailed.

My fingers trailed over a cold, rough monument. It felt real, but so had everything else. How could a person ever be sure they were moving through the waking world and not just existing inside a dream?

When I reached the door, I found a heavy iron padlock hanging from a chain that snaked through a thick loop, securing the crypt against intruders. It didn't stymie me. I knew where the key was hidden.

A few times, I slipped trying to climb the frozen slope, but I made it to the black urn engraved with the Eye of Horus and I reached in all the way to my elbow and felt around until my fingers made contact with a slim metal object. The key was long and slim and old-fashioned. I'd been fascinated by it as a little girl when my mother would fish it out of the urn and let me play with it.

Dad never came with us when we came to this place. It was Mom and Jack and me and she would hold our hands and walk among the gravestones and tell of the stories of the men and women whose names had been carved upon those monuments. "They lived wonderful lives, but in death they merge with the earth and sink down and down to the center of it where they spend eternity feasting on the souls of their enemies."

"Do we have enemies?" Jack asked once.

"You are special, little one. Special, powerful, chosen people always have great enemies. You must be ever vigilant against those who would steal away your heritage."

My father's hard, cruel hand fell on me one day a few weeks later. "Humble yourself, prideful child. You are no more or less than anyone else you meet in this life and putting yourself on a pedestal will only cause you to fall that much further."

I wanted to shout at him. I am special! I am different! Jack and me, both! But I said nothing. I curled on myself with my hand pressed to my aching jawbone and wished him dead. I wished him into the center of the earth where I could feast upon his soul.

My steps grew more confident, as if I were gliding above the earth. Fear drained away. Exhaustion melted like the snow under the warm spring sun. Strength and certainty pulsed in me blasting away physical and emotional pain. I grinned at the smooth blue ceiling high above my head.

In the net we'd laid out for just that purpose, a dove struggled. Its little heart beat with such ferocity we could see it fluttering in it's feathered breast. Mom instructed Jack and me to kneel on the other side of the altar while she extracted the bird. As if it had accepted its fate, the creature grew still and calm in the grasp of her left hand. With a quick, practiced motion, she drew the tip of her athame down the length of the bird's body. Latin words, whispered too quickly for me to catch their meaning poured from her lips in much the same way the blood poured from her sacrifice.

That night, in bed, she held me curled against the warmth of her body. "Someday a much greater sacrifice will be made. You'll be baptized in that blood and made ready to take your place."

I buried my nose in her neck and inhaled her lilac perfume and drifted off to sleep with no fear, for once, of my father coming in to rose me and punish me for some infraction real or imagined. In my mother's arms, I was safe.

Standing in the kitchen, Jack wrapped his arms around me and squeezed. It was like being attacked by a bear. I returned his hug and held on tight. "I'm proud of you, and I hate you just a little bit."

"I've felt that way my whole life," he confessed.

"Tell me what the key opens," I pleaded from my seat on the base of a huge gravestone. My favorite doll lay near my feet wearing a crown I'd woven for her from wildflowers I'd picked that morning.

"When it's time for you to use it, you'll know what it opens," my mother said with a smile. "On that day, you'll enter my sanctuary."

The key slipped into the lock. Turning it took a bit of strength. The mechanisms were old and heavy, but it clicked open for me and I pulled the chain away from the door and let myself into the sanctuary where my mother had worshipped.

I switched on the light and greeted my ancestors who slept in the niches along the walls. My boots thudded softly against the stone as I crossed the all-seeing eye and approached the throne on the right. It took a moment of searching, but I found the drawer beneath the seat and the mechanism to open it.

Extracting the book first, I allowed myself a moment to luxuriate in running my fingers over the soft leather cover. No matter the temperatures were below freezing, the book felt as warm as a living thing in my hands. On the other hand, the knife was so cold that touching it burned my skin. I held it anyway, delighted to have these items my mother had so cherished in my possession.

A low voice, resonant and musical, spoke from the doorway. "When you didn't get in touch, I thought maybe everything had fallen apart, but I see now that it worked out just like it was supposed to. No matter who intervened, you ended up exactly where you were meant to be."

I turned around and found Aiden standing on the stone steps with a broad smile on his handsome face.

"Hey, Jess. It's good to see you."