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Show WORTHING FARM/8 path, but she found her way easily and ignored the branches that tore at their faces. Finally the forest broke open and they stood at the edge of Worthing Farm. They walked along the edge of the farm to the southwest corner, and there she pointed to a stone in the briars. It had been cut into, deeply, though neither Grannam nor Elijah understood the writing. But there Grannam dug her hands into Elijah's shoulders and forced him to his knees, and then said, "This is the living stone that Jason left! It speaks to us. It says, never leave Worthing Farm or you will die the deep death. This dirt is your heart. If you leave it you will die." She said it over and over until Elijah was sobbing violently, and repeated it more, until Elijah was quiet and looked steadily into her eyes and repeated it with her. Then finally she fell silent, and he was also silent, and with their blue eyes locked she said, "Your eyes, Elijah, make you Jason's heir. Not Big Peter, not your father, not your mother. You, just like me, Elijah, you have the gift." "What gift?" Elijah had quietly asked. "It's never the same." Elijah had wondered after that what Grannam's gift had been, but she had taken sick and died soon after, and he never knew. He wondered if it had to do with the way she unerringly found her way through the forest that night. Or perhaps it was the way she could hear the stone speaking and Elijah never could. But she died, and ten years later both his parents. He had only left Worthing Farm once in all that time, when he walked to the nearest farm and took |