They decided to leave that night. It was a long drive, and the idea of waiting simply to get a couple of hours of bad sleep didn't wash.

Grady had trained Mary on the stick-shift over the past two weeks, but decided to get behind the wheel first. They stopped at an all-night fast food joint and got on the road around two. The interstate was deserted, so Grady floored the Toyota until the needle reached ninety. She talked and talked. Mary interjected something now and again, but she loved listening.

After more than an hour, the conversation dwindled, and Mary's eyes felt heavy. She nodded off.

The sky is close to the land. The sand shines and burns. In the engorged sky beasts swim amidst the clouds on wings gilded by bone, their red eyes painted into their heads.

The car stopped and Mary stirred.

"You okay?" asked Grady.

"Hunh?"

"You were talking in your sleep."

Mary pressed a lever; she and her seat returned to their upright positions. She looked around. "Where are we?"

"South Carolina."

The rest stop was lit by street lights, most of which were dim or out. Soda and junk food dispensers rested behind gates wide enough for a hand. Padlocks lined the gates. A single building was at the end of the sidewalk. Next to the restrooms, half a dozen semis sat dark and silent. Theirs was the only car.

Grady opened her door. "Gotta pee," she said, jogging away.

Mary was still a moment, then got out to stretch her legs. She pa.s.sed the humming vending machines, glancing instinctively at their shadows, and strolled to the end of the sidewalk. The moon bathed a series of stone picnic tables. On the nearest, an abandoned gossamer stretched from the pebbled seat to the chalky top; a breeze worried it, but failed to sail it. Past the tall gra.s.s, black woods curled over its secrets. Cricket song and a hysterical owl rose from the center of the darkness.

Mary jumped back, seeing a flash of movement at the farthest picnic table. It was a man. He hunched over, took his feet. She backed up as he faced her; his hand moved. She prepared to run for it, but the man only stroked his beard. He wore a long T-shirt, and the likeness of a bearded man in sungla.s.ses was half-covered by his own beard. His paint-smeared blue jeans pooled at his boots; but for a few strings of denim, a hole nearly showed his left knee.

"Mary!"

Mary took a last look at him.

"Come on!"

She backed up.

The man waved.

A few miles down the road, Mary asked, "You didn't see that guy?"

"What guy?"

"The guy next to the picnic table."

"I was only looking for you. That doesn't mean there wasn't a guy, just that I didn't see him."

"He was creepy," said Mary, staring at the white-lined rushing road.

"b.u.ms are."

"Yeah," she replied. "I had the weirdest feeling, though, looking at him."

Chapter Seventeen: Baptism.

1.

They had come for her.

Shortly after sun-up there was a banging on the door, a pause, then another round of hammering, and this time it was accompanied by a voice, unmistakably Durham's, telling them to bring out the girl.

Montague hadn't yet slept-he'd sat next to her for what had seemed on one hand an eternity and on the other no longer than a single stretched out moment, stroking her hair, telling her all would be set right, and when she'd occasionally snuck her hand inside his, he'd been almost unable to remain seated for his excitement. He'd left her room not more than an hour ago.

Now, he crept from his bed and jarred the door, stared out the opening. His parents burst out of theirs, and his father flung open the girl's door. She screamed-the first sound Montague had heard her make-and it was all he could do to stay put. He wanted to confront Father, stand before him with clenched fists. He wanted to free the girl. But Father spoke to her in a soft voice, and soon he appeared in her doorway, and she was cradled in his arms. Montague flushed. Her arms were around his father's neck, her face buried in her chest, and he thought, I could carry her.

2.

Joseph Greer kicked open the door and stepped outside, the girl in his arms. Several men, all of whom he'd known for years, stood before him, dressed in the familiar all-white baptismal robes. All but one wore glum, almost blank expressions. All but the preacher.

"If you're going to go through with this, I'm taking her."

The preacher's eyes danced in the morning light.

The twelve men in white formed a gauntlet between the girl and river.

Joseph set her feet into the dirt, kept his hand on her a moment, then backed up. She stood unsteadily, eyeing the men before her. "It's alright, honey," he told her. "I'll be right here if you need me." She turned, and her eyes seemed larger than they had yesterday. They were filled with questions, but he had no answers, so he did all he could and pointed toward the men. She took a deep breath, and for a second he thought she was about to speak. Instead, she stepped forward. The line wavered. No doubt they'd heard about yesterday's strange events. He wasn't sure he could believe it all, but many of downtown's buildings had been damaged, at least that much was true.

She didn't look in either direction as she processed between them, and the men didn't look at her. They're spooked, thought Joseph. Then he caught sight of the preacher, who was knee deep in the water and beckoning, and he circled, creeping under a cypress that reached over a river, making his way along the bank until he found a vantage point. He wasn't sure he liked this girl-and was d.a.m.n sure he didn't like where she was staying-but, whatever her nature, no child deserved to be caught in the sights of a demon like Nathaniel Durham.

The preacher called to her once she'd reached the end of the line, and she gasped as if she hadn't seen him until now. She stepped back, but the line closed into a semi-circle. Durham smiled, called her again. Greer stood on the tips of his toes. If they pushed her . . . . But then she was past them, within the preacher's reach. He grabbed her by the arm; she didn't struggle. He turned her around so she faced the deacons. He laid one hand on her back, the other firmly on her arm, and began to speak about John the Baptist, telling the same old story about locusts, the wilderness, heads on serving platters, and doves voiced by the Almighty.

The whole thing bored Joseph. Church was a fact of life, and he supposed it did no harm-considering yesterday, he supposed he might need to reconsider this idea-but he would rather be hunched over a set of numbers than listening to Durham explain the mathematics of salvation. He followed The Golden Rule, lived by The Ten Commandments, but didn't understand the pageantry of meeting. A practical and a.n.a.lytical man was Joseph Greer.

Nathaniel Durham droned on and on. At last, he finished with a rhetorical flourish, something about seeing through a gla.s.s darkly, then he paused, as if awaiting applause or adulation, or both. When neither happened he frowned, turned to the little girl, took her by the hand, and led her deeper into the river. The water shuddered around them, bands of shock coursing away to the sh.o.r.e. Suddenly the sand below their feet dropped off and the girl's head dunked under. The preacher lifted her and began the second stage of the ceremony, asking the men if they would sponsor her new life of sacrifice and obedience to G.o.d's will, to which they all answered they would. He asked a few more questions, then trained his eyes on the girl, announced that the water would wash away all her sins and place her right with G.o.d, then he put a hand on her head and forced her under.

Greer didn't think she'd had a chance to breathe before her submersion, and he stepped forward. The preacher must have seen him-he yelled for the deacons. The oldest, Barry Windsor, owner of the town's confection store, said, "Stay calm. He needs to keep her under a little longer than normal. Make sure she's washed clean of the demon."

Joseph gawked at Barry, pointed toward the river. "She had no warning!" he yelled. "She could drown!" Greer looked over, saw the bubbles popping on the surface of the lake.

Durham smiled, said, "A chance we must take."

"A chance we- Durham, she lost everything yesterday! Everything!"

"And why do you believe we spared her?"

Joseph said nothing.

Durham shrugged and fought to keep her under.

Just then the cypress began to shake, its long arm bobbing up and down. Joseph spun around in time to see a twig snap off, untouched, and drop into the black water. Then another. A rumbling followed, and at first Greer thought this was coming from the sky, perhaps an approaching storm, but the bellowing seemed to be beneath them, and as he made this realization the earth moved. There was a crack like thunder, but from below, and he saw no lightning. He screamed for Durham to stop, to release her, to which the preacher replied with only a leer as the cypress crackled with movement and its bark split, falling to the ground like bits of dead skin. It leaned over further, its arm dipping into the lake. The roots ripped, tearing free of the earth.

Joseph had seen enough. As he reached the lake the deacons yelled after him. But not one of them followed him in. Durham's face screwed into a rictus of hate, and the preacher told him to stop if he loved his wife. Not thinking at all now, Joseph Greer struck Durham full in the mouth. The preacher's head lolled back on the hinge of his neck, and he splashed back, submerged a moment. Then his face resurfaced, his eyes closed.

The girl burst through, gasped a breath, opened her eyes to the sky, and let loose a horrible, grief-stricken scream. Gasping, she stared back at Joseph, and for reasons he couldn't account for she was smiling.

Behind her the preacher rose up, yelled for the men on sh.o.r.e to arrest Greer. When they didn't move he shrieked, a powerless whistle of sound, then slammed his fist into the water.

Joseph put his hand on the girl's shoulder, then reached around her neck and lifted her out of the cold water, starting for sh.o.r.e. The deacons parted, re-formed the gauntlet, and Joseph carried her through them.

Chapter Eighteen: Rough Life.

1.

Robert called in a subst.i.tute teacher. The pain in his hip was excruciating. He could see only patches of light and colors. He phoned Matt, who had no idea, only telling him to give it a day, it might pa.s.s. Matt was lying. Give it a day, and he might pa.s.s.

Next, he called Jenn's school to tell them she wouldn't be in, that she was under the weather. Jenn giggled as he hung up. "What?" he asked.

"Daddy, I'm not sick!"

"Honey," said Robert, winced, tried to get up, but slumped back on the couch. "We need to talk."

"Yup," said Jenn, hopping up next to him. Her tiny hand patted his leg. "What's wrong?"

"I'm sick."

"I know. Are you going to die? Amanda Louise's mommy died last year. She had a heart attack."

"I know," said Robert. Amanda Louise's mother had been nearly four hundred pounds. "I don't know what's going to happen to me," he said, scanning his daughter's face.

"I'll take care of you, Daddy. Okay?"

He grimaced. "Okay," he said.

"Are you hungry?"

"Sure." In fact, he was nauseous.

"Pancakes!" Jenn leapt from the couch, her feet slapping into the kitchen.

Jenn prepared two meals that day. To his surprise, the pancakes turned out perfectly: browned on top, cooked in the middle, moist and fluffy. For lunch, ham and cheese sandwiches, but with a nice twist: she toasted slices of bread in a skillet sizzling with b.u.t.ter. To his additional shock, he ate and kept it all down.

All afternoon and evening they sat on the couch together, Jenn watching television and Robert drinking in his daughter's reactions to each program.

After Jenn went to bed he labored upstairs, still in considerable pain. Finding his room too quiet, he lifted the latch on his French doors and stepped out on the porch overlooking the neighborhood. Cicada's rang out, failing brake pads signaled a distant car, Ted Damion's weekly bonfire filled the air. Although disappointed by Veronica-and horrified by her silence toward Jennifer, which confirmed a narcissism he had only suspected-he didn't miss her but for the customary sounds of her presence. He knew now why bachelors and widows found televisions such necessary company. He shut his useless eyes, breathed deeply of the bonfire. He'd been thinking about calling his father, who had moved to Puerto Rico with Juanita ten years ago. They rarely spoke, though not out of a dislike or because of a falling out. He didn't really know why. They simply didn't. Tomorrow, he thought. I'll call him tomorrow.

He stood on the veranda for a while, listening, smelling, thinking about whatever remained of his life, but then the thought rammed into him: What did your mother think about as she died? He opened his blurry eyes, thought of the last volume of her diary. He hadn't read that one often. As her condition had worsened her writing became fevered. Because of the nature of her tumor she'd suffered endless migraines and hallucinations, and they had only increased as the end had neared. But she hadn't stopped writing. He stared out at the fuzzy mirage of his neighborhood, feeling faint, his hip pulsing with pain. The throbbing in his eyes increased. He suddenly longed to read that last volume, and he smashed his fist on the ledge. "I can't see it," he whispered. Jennifer, though, could read it to him. He turned from the railing, set on waking his up.

A tremendous pain seared into his eyes.

Stifling a scream, he cupped his hands over them, but the agony worsened. Collapsing to his knees, he curled into the fetal position, writhed on the floor, kicked his feet against the bed, bruised his shin on the dresser. His mouth snapped open and shut. Then, as abruptly as it had begun, the torment subsided. He lay on the floor for he didn't know how long, breathing in gasps. He took his hands away from his eyes. The room snapped into focus. Not only was his sight back, but it was perfect, better than it had been in years. (Years from now Robert would reflect on this day as a rebirth. The day he had shed his coc.o.o.n. The day he'd been made to see.) Looking down, he opened his hands. "Oh my G.o.d," he said. In each of his palms was what appeared to be a scale. The cataracts had the feel of a snake's shed skin. He carefully dropped one into his right palm, felt along the ridge of it, shook his head in disbelief. They were rigid, taut, and in the shape of his eyes.

2.

When Mary and Grady arrived in Simola Straight, her parents weren't home. They'd propped a note up on the kitchen table. It read, I'll be back for dinner. Mom.

Grady was behind her, a garbage bag in each hand. "Which way's your room?"

"The one with two beds," said Mary, smiling ruefully. Freddie would have gone out, bought another bed. She hated to appear less than cla.s.sy.

They unloaded the Toyota. Mary disposed of Grady's trash bags after they unpacked, but by the time they finished, the McDylan's hadn't shown. It was after six.