Weston had questions - he needed answers, and he couldn't find Hickory...so he widened his search, driving to another town that had a fountain to see with his own eyes what exactly was going on.

What exactly...

The difference was immediate, the fountain here was in the middle of a parking lot. There was a nail salon, a bakery, an insurance agency. The town, Tabors Rest, wasn't as nice as Red Hills, perhaps a bit worn - they didn't have his family's patronage, their pride.

What they did have was a fountain. It was beautiful, breathtaking even. The structure that shaded it, instead of boring gray stone was intricately carved white marble, a bright and swooping design that reminded him of an abstract wing in flight.

Beneath, a fountain waited, the flowing water that poured from the top was nearly pearlescent. The ornate carvings that contained it and protected it - from the structure to the fountain itself looked like feathers. Thousands of feathers carved into the marble to where he almost expected it to flutter in the soft breeze -

Every fountain was unique - but there were similarities. The white fountains had a feather theme it was reported -

Weston approached and there were people milling around, pointing or taking pictures looking at their cameras in frustration. There had been police tape, barricades, but it'd been torn down or moved aside. He knew there were already court cases over the properties where they'd appeared, issues - liabilities, and that politicians and police wanted nothing to do with it - he didn't blame them.

Religious people are crazy...

Was he one of them now? He'd drank - even if he was skeptical. He'd been concerned over May, that she had become a religious drone, worried that it was the water itself at first, but no - she'd been rational, after they spoke it was almost like she'd woken up from a nap, blinking -

Realizing -

She'd been overwhelmed, he could tell - that he sensed something different about her, it wasn't fervor. Not incapable of reason like some of the others -

His family had made the best point, though, one that was obvious - Does it matter? What mattered more was what it did, how it impacted them. That none of them were equipped to probe for answers, that if the greatest scientists were dumbfounded? That staunch atheists were suddenly quiet, some even running out to get baptized, that even brilliant, critical thinkers would pay a farmer to cut crop circles?

That the Ancient Pyramids were being re-examined pictogram by pictogram - every religious book ran through the most sophisticated decryption systems searching for hidden knowledge, old conspiracy theories being dusted off and you could see people wearing tin foil hats and not instantly thinking they were crazy?

Weston was grateful their town still held onto normalcy - grateful that Hickory wasn't absurd, that Gage and the others - seemed unchanged from what he understood. Weston was using them as a barometer as to what to expect, to predict Hickory - where was he?

That when they'd gone by to find Hickory, his mother had said he was out fishing, Weston's suggestion to look for Hickory had been met with shock, almost disgust by the others - like Weston had asked them to put on a dress and dance for him.

Cultural Differences...it was like walking through land mines.

A woman approached Weston as he walked closer - she was smiling, middle aged and missing a tooth, her voice too friendly, her hair brushed back, heavy make-up, "Welcome! Welcome! Do you have time to hear about the wonders of the Font?"

Weston cleared his throat, "I just wanted to see the fountain -"

"The Font." The woman said, correcting him but not too rudely, her voice was breathy and excited, "It's a miracle, for our town to be chosen, and to be able to share our spiritual journey with others. The Font changed my life, lifted me up and all you have to do is drink for a better..."

Weston followed, trying to ignore the conversion speech - he approached it and saw the fine details carved into the stone went as far as his eye was able to detect, like he could study each inch and not find a repeating pattern anywhere. It would take a lifetime to carve this, if it was even possible...

The woman led him to where a crowd had gathered, a lady was speaking - she was reading from the Bible in one hand, a group gathered around her - "Thy word is a lamp unto thy feet and a light unto thy path. That is why the water glows - from this Font, lives will be illuminated, blessed - and..."

And Weston ignored her. Everybody claimed to have answers, cherry picking certain quotations, certain scriptures and in his mind, recklessly applying them - he was confident nobody knew much of anything, it was their desire to make sense of it.

As he walked beneath the 'Font' it became quiet, peaceful. There was one other man watching the trickling water, contemplating it. Sound seemed to be dampened as well - for Red Hills it was the same, there was a sense of heaviness in the open chamber.

He breathed and the air smelled rich, sweet like honeysuckle - and something deeper, something...more, it reminded him almost of musk, a dark undertone similar to ambergris, and in a way he was almost jealous of this town, that they had such a nice fountain and Red Hills was so plain, is that what Hickory meant by failure -

But why was it different?

"You awaken the spirit by focusing on the feeling. By channeling it, you must focus on pure thoughts and clear your mind, you must understand your essence - focus on how the Font makes you feel, you must find the goodness within and believe in yourself..."

The biblical lecture suddenly slipped through the silence, the words catching his ear - but Weston shook it off and instead picked up one of the feathers resting on the basin. It was incredibly light - he rested it on his palm, a pebble would be heavier.

He watched as the man across from him drank, using the feather like a cup - scooping the water and taking a sip. Why don't we have cups? Do they come later?

Weston stuck his finger in the water wondering if it felt the same - and the woman reading the Bible screeched, it was terrible - shrill, panicked. Weston swung to look at her as she charged forward - she pushed Weston back from the fountain, her other hand pushing the stranger.

She didn't look like she could move Weston - but he wasn't expecting it and it felt like a linebacker had shoved him, he stumbled back, staring, she looked over the fountain, at the two of them with a worried face, around the room and then Weston watched as she raised her left hand, palm up and seemed to flip through pages -

It was her. She was the one...

She closed the 'book' and opened it again, flipping and - the other people in the crowd approached her hesitantly, "Sister Erica? Is everything alright?"

Her voice was shaken, "I guess so, I - I felt something." She whispered it, the crowd nodded, listening - "I must have been wrong, but it was horrible..."

Weston kept his face blank - but, he had felt something, too. It was hard to describe and he'd barely touched it before the yell, but the water had almost seemed to boil around his finger, like it was carbonated.

It hadn't hurt and yet -

He looked up and saw the other man staring at him, a cautious stare. Had he seen? What did he -

'Demon.' The man mumbled the word, not even audible - was he serious? But he could almost watch the man's thoughts come together, the confusion was fading and something else rising just beneath the surface, a confidence - it reminded him of somebody working themselves up to fight -

Confidence -

It wasn't like Hickory, it wasn't the look of a controlled fight, a fair fight, chosen. It was dangerous - not because of skill or even size but intent, that this man looked at him like he was evil?

Religious people are crazy...

He'd been on the fence - but suddenly he had the feather in his hand again, he caught a splash of water and drank - that it tasted sweet. Sweeter than anything, and it was like a wind rushed over his body, like he was riding a gust higher and higher, that he was above it all. And that something just beneath it?

It coursed through him, filled him with a tingling, a euphoria and it felt so right. It felt like him in a way he couldn't describe - Weston ahh'ed, had forgotten the man completely, but opening his eyes he saw the other looked surprised, then abashed - had an embarrassed expression as he looked away, back at the water.

Once more Weston put his finger into the liquid but this time there was no boiling sensation, no resistance.

Why had it happened? What had happened?

He was lost in his thoughts on the way to his next stop, there had been no additional buildings to explore in the town, and the woman, 'Sister Erica' had gone quiet after her eruption, had retreated...

Weston was contemplating the difference between the two Fonts. It was clearer now - with the marbles in his pocket he could compare them, he wished they'd had a scrap yard but he was confident if they did, it would be a white marble that emerged, not clear, and would have the same feeling as the white water, would have that sense of value -

Because the marbles in his pocket felt different now, felt unflavored - as plain as regular water compared to what he had just sipped.

Not less - Just as water didn't fill your mouth any less then wine, or juice, or milk - why wasn't there a flavor at the Red Hills font?

Weston had sworn he'd been imagining the change in him - the way his pride had felt, but - drinking this white water had caused another noticeable change. That pride wasn't as obvious now, a loose memory, something else was far stronger, a feeling in his chest.

What? Was he just going crazy? No, he had the marble -

Holding the marble he could compare the natures of the two. It didn't boil or resist like the fountain did but felt foreign. Like holding a British pound, or a ruble - it was still money...but not his money? Did it matter?

He'd changed Fonts? It had to be, and wasn't it better, didn't it feel better? He contemplated the difference even as he drove again to verify, another town -

The next fountain he drove to was blue and the housing of it was a seafoam coral arrangement, the fountain itself a twisting, trickling conch shell. For all the last fountain had been a crafted, sculpted wonder, this was no less and it was obviously grown, natural - impossible -

Weston repeated his test, plunging his hand in when alone and -

The water had boiled again, nobody screamed but there had been a phone call, somebody had ran into the room right after, of course Weston's hand was out by then, he was sipping from a large clam shell, he heard them say nothing was amiss, that they looked at him as Weston took another sip.

They followed him, were suspicious...

Somehow the book holder knew - if you drank from a different fountain and touched it, the water boiled, and -

The blue water had changed him again, one he didn't like as much, it was still good, but it had been salty, it made him think of standing naked in a thunderstorm, of breathing ozone - it wasn't that swift movement of before, swift air, this was pressure - barometric and resentful -

He had many more questions, many more theories - but more importantly, he had a way of finding Hickory - but he had to drink first. Back to the white fountain - that was him, wasn't it? That it felt right?

What does it mean? Why does the water boil? Why does it taste different, why does he feel different...