The Town

1

“Look!”

Tompall looked.

It was Jesus.

The picture was grainy and smudged, like a textbook photo of the shroud of Turin, the features of the face hinted at more by what was not clear than by what was. He picked up the sheet of paper, looked at the one beneath it.

Same thing.

Ditto for the one beneath that.

And the one beneath that and the one beneath that…

All of the copies made on the machine were imprinted with the countenance of Christ.

“This is a joke, right?” Tompall turned toward his assistant.

Johnny shook his head, his eyes wide.

“Well, what did you do?”

“Nothing!” Johnny’s voice was high and nervous. “I just copied these articles for Mrs. Kness. She wanted twenty copies of each, one for each student in her class, and I put them through, had them collated… and this is what came out.” He handed Tompall the originals, and Tompall sorted through the articles.

Nothing out of the ordinary here.

He opened the copier, checked the camera, checked the glass, even checked the ink and toner, though that could not possibly have a bearing on what had happened.

Finally, he made a copy himself.

Instead of a reproduced article on sea turtles, the photocopy showed the picture of Jesus.

He replaced the paper in both trays, made several copies, varied the reproduction size, but the result was always the same.

“Jesus,” he breathed, and the exhalation was not one of identification or recognition.

“What should we do?” Johnny asked.

“Try doing these on the other machine. And get me something else to copy. We’ll see if it’s the articles or the machine.”

It was both.

No matter who copied what, or which machine they used, the result was always the same.

Tompall was sweating, not only afraid but frustrated. He didn’t know if this was a miracle or a haunting. He didn’t really care. He just wished it had happened to someone else. He had orders to complete here. The town hall’s new budget book by Friday. Ab Reese’s pharmacy calendars by Monday. Not to mention all the piddly-ass little photocopies that they were given each day—wills and tax forms, letters and checks.

“You think Christ’s trying to tell us something?” Johnny asked.

Tompall looked at him. “Just shut the fuck up.” He unplungged both machines, plugged them in again, used Windex to wipe the glass, then, as an experiment, took one of the first Jesus pictures and tried to make a copy of it.

This time, the result was a little bit different.

He and Johnny stared at the legal-sized paper. In this one, Jesus was smiling, and there was a little cartoon speech bubble, like the ones in comic books, coming out from his mouth.

“The Molokans killed me!” Jesus was saying.

Johnny read the words. “You think that’s true?” he asked, his voice hushed.

Tompall shook his head slowly, wiped the sweat from his forehead with a paper towel. “Who knows anymore?” he said, staring at the image. “Who the hell knows?”

“You think we should tell someone?”

“Not yet,” he said, and he took the picture with the cartoon bubble, placed it on the glass, and hit the Copy button on the machine.

2

“Adam?”

Babunya’s voice sounded tired, and he looked up from his comic book to see her standing in his doorway.

“Yeah?”

“What are you doing?”

“Reading.”

“You are very quiet.” She walked into his room, looking around at the mess. It was the first time she’d come in here since they’d moved into the house, and he wondered what the reason was for her visit now.

“How are you?”

He looked at his grandmother and realized that he’d been avoiding her. He’d always been close to her, and they’d talked a lot when they’d first moved here, but in the weeks and months since, he’d made an effort to stay away from her, although it was not something he had even recognized until now.

The banya.

It was the banya that had come between them. He hadn’t liked lying about going there, and it had been easier just staying away from her. Even after he had stopped sneaking over to the bathhouse, he’d found himself avoiding his grandmother.

Why? he wondered.

He could not really say.

She had obviously noticed, and he assumed that she was now attempting to cross that breach, to break down that wall. He wanted to be able to meet her halfway, to be as close to her as he had been before, but he felt himself stiffen as she approached. Part of him wanted her out of his room, wanted to guard the secrecy he’d been cultivating.

Why? he wondered again.

Once more he did not know.

“I’m fine,” he said rather formally, in answer to her question.

She walked over, smiling, intending to sit down next to him, but she stopped just before reaching the bed, focusing on something to the left of him, on the floor. Frowning, she reached down, picked up Sasha’s panties from the space beneath the box springs where he’d shoved them.

She looked at him evenly, and he wanted to protest that he didn’t know what they were, didn’t know how they’d gotten here, but he found himself turning away under her strong gaze, and though he opened his mouth to speak, no words came out.

She slipped the panties in the pocket of her housecoat and sat down next to him.

“Is not your fault,” Babunya said softly, putting an arm around his shoulder. “You good boy. I know that. You always good boy. You were born with happy face. The first time I saw you, in the hospital, I saw you had happy face. Sasha and Teo, they don’t have happy face like you. I know this not your fault.”

He was crying, though he didn’t want to and could not remember the last time he had done so, and he hugged Babunya, filled with guilt and a deep, humiliating shame. At the same time, he felt liberated, as if he’d been keeping a secret for a long, long time that he had finally been allowed to tell. He thought of the banya, thought of the spot above the highway where they’d been arrested. He wiped his eyes. “What’s happening?” he asked.

“Evil,” she said, and the word, spoken so plainly and straightforwardly, made the hair on his arms bristle.

He licked his lips. “The banya?” he whispered.

She sighed. “Evil always come back. The Devil work in many ways. Even good people influenced by evil. That what happen to you. That is why you throw rocks at cars and…” She glanced down at her housecoat pocket, looked quickly away.

“I didn’t mean to,” he said. “I don’t even know why I did it.”

“I know.” She squeezed his shoulder, looking at nothing, thinking to herself. “I know,” she repeated absently.

“I thought you said we had guardian angels, that they would protect us.”

She looked at him, nodded solemnly. “That true. We all have them. But they only protect from earthly thing, not protect from evil spirit.”

That word again: evil.

“Our house is haunted, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps.”

“People were murdered here before, you know. My friend Scott said that the dad murdered his whole family. Maybe it’s their ghosts that are…” He trailed off. That are what? He did not know how to complete the sentence. Everything that scared him, everything that had happened, was vague, unspecific, feelings and impressions more than concrete events.

Except for the stuff occurring around town. The murders. The deaths. The cactus baby. The animal attack on Teo’s school.

Those things couldn’t have been caused by something in their house, could they?

“Is not ghosts from house,” Babunya said. “Not just ghosts,” she amended. “There are many spirits in town. We pray at church and try to get rid of them, but too many here.” Her voice lowered. “Devil send them.”

Goose bumps pimpled his skin.

Babunya stared at the wall, at nothing, and when she spoke again it sounded almost as though she was talking to herself rather than to him. “Spirits here but they are… uninvited.” Her voice sounded uncertain, as if that was something she did not entirely believe.

Adam felt cold. Uninvited. He’d heard that before, and he looked at her. He took a deep breath. “The Indians think the same thing. My friend Dan says that they call them uninvited guests. They have some Indian word for it.”

“Uninvited guests.” She repeated the words as if trying them out. “Uninvited guests.” She nodded slowly. “Dan’s people very wise.”

“Maybe we should talk to them. Maybe they know what to do.”

“We know too. Molokans know better.”

“But—”

“Evil happen here long time ago and evil attracted here now.”

“That’s what he said! He said it was the mine—”

“Is not mine.” She closed her eyes, breathed deeply. “Sometimes evil want to come back but cannot because everything protected. But sometimes it find a way. A crack to sneak through.” She was silent for a moment, and when she spoke again, her voice was barely above a whisper. “This time I make that crack.”

She looked at the wall again, but Adam knew she was seeing something else. He was frightened, had no idea what she was talking about, had a million questions, but he sensed that this was a time to keep quiet, and so he said nothing. She would explain, he knew, in her own time.

She sighed. “It because of who I forget to invite that other… spirits invite themselves.”

Adam thought of Rumpelstiltskin.

“Jedushka Di Muvedushka?”

She nodded. “Jedushka Di Muvedushka. I don’t realize it until now. A month ago, I went with church to see prophet. Molokan prophet. Very wise man. Holy man. He lives in cave in desert. We ask him what’s wrong and he said town in danger. He told me it is my fault.” She pointed to her head. “Told me here, not with words. I don’t want to believe him, but I think it might be true. I think about Jedushka Di Muvedushka, but I still don’t see how it is possible. Now God let me see. We move to house where evil things happen, have no protection, no Jedushka Di Muvedushka, and that allow evil to grow, get stronger. Once stronger, it spreads. Others come.”

“Uninvited guests.”

“Yes,” she said, nodding.

Jedushka Di Muvedushka.

The idea of a little invisible man, a supernatural being living with them in their house, had frightened him at first, and though he had not exactly believed it, he had been glad they’d forgotten to invite the creature to come with them from California. He didn’t like the thought of some… spirit watching them, monitoring them, keeping tabs on them in the privacy of their own house. If there was such a thing, he was glad they’d left it behind.

Now, though, he had changed his tune. The idea of an Owner of the House, an invisible being watching over them and watching out for them, no longer seemed so far-fetched. It was the same basic premise as a guardian angel. So maybe there was something to it. All legends were supposed to start with a grain of truth. And other cultures had stories of little men as well. Like the leprechauns in Ireland, the trolls and elves in other countries’ fairy tales. Perhaps there was some basis in fact to this. Perhaps there were little people with magical powers and different countries called them different things.

And at this point, the thought of a little guy staying awake at night while they were asleep, battling evil, unseen enemies, was a comforting one.

But had everything in town, all of the deaths and hauntings and craziness, started because his family had forgotten to invite Jedushka Di Muvedushka to come with them from California and move into their new house? Had everything begun at this home? It was hard to believe… but it was not impossible. Scott had told him that the entire town was haunted, and perhaps it was, but everything had apparently remained dormant until they’d arrived, a fact that quite a few people had noticed.

He didn’t want to blame Babunya, but he did. She obviously blamed herself as well, and part of him thought, Good.

But his parents had known about this custom as well, and he would have known about it had his mom and dad not tried so hard to keep them all away from Russian things, from their own culture. They were all at fault, they were all responsible, and maybe they were all being punished for it.

Maybe they deserved to die.

He had a sudden clear image of the banya, of bringing his family into it, like an executioner leading condemned prisoners into a gas chamber.

Was it his brain coming up with this? Or was he being influenced by something else? Was this what Babunya had been talking about?

He didn’t want to think about it. His head hurt, and he pushed the thought away, forcing himself to see it for what it was.

Evil.

He looked at Babunya. “Did you tell Mom and Dad?”

“No,” she said carefully.

“Why?”

“Because your father, I think…” She shook her head, looking concerned, and Adam felt scared. She was talking to him seriously, he sensed, like an adult instead of like a child, and while that was frightening enough, her hesitancy and confusion invested it with a dread that went even deeper. He thought of the banya again, and he knew that he had to confess.

“I went back to the banya,” he blurted out. “I haven’t been there in a while, but I went back a whole bunch of times after you told me not to, and I even took my friends there, and they’re the same friends who were throwing rocks at cars with me.” He was on the verge of crying again, and he stopped, looked at her, tried to gather his composure. “Maybe it… affected me,” he said. “Us. Maybe we’re all, like, contaminated or something.”

He wished he spoke Russian or wished she spoke better English. This was something that it seemed important to communicate clearly, and he was not sure he could make his grandmother understand what he wanted her to understand.

She seemed to, though, and she nodded solemnly and touched his shoulder. “Yes,” she said. “The banya is bad place. But you stop going there, no?”

“A while ago. I got scared. But my friend Scott went back and tried to take pictures and the pictures had ghosts on them.”

“He stop too?”

“We all did. We all got scared.”

“Good.” She nodded. “That good. If you can stop, it is all right.”

His head was still pounding. It was as if his brain was being squeezed, as if he was connected to some remote control and someone was cranking up the pain volume every time he tried to talk.

“I saw a Russian spoon up there,” he said. “Where we were throwing rocks. On that little ledge. It was… spooky. And there was, like, this little… cave. And it reminded me of the banya—”

“Spooky,” Babunya repeated, still nodding, thinking.

“I want to tell Mom and Dad. I think we should tell them.”

“No.”

“Why not? Maybe they can—”

“No,” she repeated. “Wait.”

“Why? Wait for what? Things to get worse?”

“Remember what happen to other family in this house? Father kill his children…”

She looked at him, and he was suddenly filled with a knowledge he did not want to have. He knew what she was saying, and he could see the image in his mind, but he shook his head vehemently. “No. That couldn’t happen.”

Even good people influenced by evil.

Evil always come back.

She nodded slowly, as if agreeing with him, but he knew she didn’t agree at all, and he wondered what she was thinking, what she knew. Maybe she was like a witch, he thought. Maybe she was psychic. Maybe she could see the future.

The idea should have made him more afraid of his grandmother, but for some reason it didn’t. It made him feel safer, more secure.

Except when he thought about his father.

A look passed between them.

“Okay,” he said. “I won’t say anything.”

Babunya smiled absently, patted his head. “You good boy. That why you have happy face.”

She was obviously distracted, obviously thinking about something she did not plan to share with him, and for that he was grateful. She had shared too much already. He didn’t like this adult talk, didn’t like being trusted with knowledge he should not have to know, secrets he should not have to keep. He’d been eager to grow up, but he was eager no longer. He wanted to be able to be just a kid again, not to have to think about any problem other than his own, to let adults do all the worrying and thinking.

She stood, holding her back and letting out a small “Oy.” She looked down at him. “Stay here,” she said. “Be nice to your father, but be careful. Make sure Teo be careful too. Try to obey everything he says.”

Adam felt something close to panic. “Why? Where are you going? Aren’t you going to be here?”

“Church. I will be back soon. Before dark.”

“Babunya—” The urge to cry had returned.

“I will be back soon.” She said some sort of prayer in Russian, smiled at him, and his headache seemed to fade away.

“Be good,” she told him and kissed his forehead before she turned to leave.

He had been forbidden to contact Scott or Dan since the arrest, had seen them only in school, and even there paranoia had severely inhibited their conversations. It had been a tough two weeks. He could not leave the house on his own, could not go anywhere except school, could not stay after school for any reason, and he’d had a difficult time adjusting. He knew he’d been in the wrong, though, and he’d obeyed his parents’ orders, spending his time reading, watching TV, doing his homework, writing letters to Roberto, even playing games with Teo.

But this was too big, too important. He had to break the prohibition. When he knew everyone else was occupied—Sasha gone, Teo outside playing, his parents busy, Babunya back at church—he sneaked surreptitiously out to the phone in his parents’ bedroom and gave Dan a quick call.

Dan’s mother answered. “Hello?”

“May I speak to Dan?”

He was whispering, he didn’t want to get caught, and Dan’s mother was immediately suspicious. “Who is this?”

He thought quick. “Robert. From Dan’s English class. I have laryngitis and I’m calling to ask about homework.”

“Oh,” she said. “Just a minute.”

He heard her call for Dan, and a minute later his friend came on the phone. “Robert?” He sounded suspicious too. There was no Robert in their English class.

“It’s me. Adam. Is your mom still there?”

“No.”

“I’ll talk fast.”

He explained about the meeting with his grandmother, gave a quick thumbnail sketch of Jedushka Di Muvedushka, told him his grandmother and the other Molokans thought that was the source of everything that was happening around town. “Even us,” he said. “Remember that Russian spoon? That’s why we were up there—”

“That’s not why we were up there,” Dan said.

“Well, maybe not. But you know what I’m saying. And get this. She says these spirits or whatever they are are uninvited. That’s the word she used. ‘Uninvited.’ ”

“Na-ta-whay,” Dan breathed.

“That’s exactly what I told her, and she went off to her church right away. I guess they’re going to try something. But I thought you should know, too.” He thought once more about how long Dan’s people had been here, how old they were. A shiver passed through him. “I thought you guys might know what to do. I thought you might have some kind of ritual or something that might work better.”

“I’ll talk to my father,” Dan said. “He’s not too thrilled with me right now, but I think he’ll listen.” There was a pause. “This is serious, isn’t it?”

“I think so. My grandma seems to think so.”

“We should’ve said something earlier. We shouldn’t have waited so long.”

Adam heard a noise in the hallway, and he quickly hung up, ducking into his parents’ bathroom and flushing the toilet, then walking out, pretending to buckle his pants. His father walked into the bedroom, and there was something weird about him, something strange.

Adam was grateful that the toilet was still running. He tried to think of some reason why he’d come in here instead of going to the other bathroom, but his father did not seem to be interested or care. He walked past Adam and lay down on the bed, closing his eyes and laying a hand over his forehead as though he had a headache.

It was weird, weird and spooky, and he thought of what Babunya had said—

Remember what happen to other family in this house?

—and hurried out of his parents’ bedroom back to his own.

He hadn’t even had time to say good-bye to Dan, he thought.

Somehow that bothered him.

3

It had come to Agafia in Adam’s bedroom, when she’d seen his sister’s underwear wadded up beneath his bed. She had tried to remain calm for his sake, but inside she was in turmoil, filled with the sudden realization that the evil forces in this town were not just growing stronger and randomly killing people but were proceeding along other, quieter, more subtle lines as well. And when he told her he’d gone back to the banya, told her of the spoon on the ledge, she understood the extent of the influence. They were all at risk. Every one of them. Her family. Her friends. The Molokans. Everyone in town. Not just from without but from within.

Suddenly, it had all become clear, and she understood what the prophet had tried to tell her. It was the fact that they had not invited the Owner of the House that had led to this, that was the source of these murders and manifestations. That one breach had allowed spirits to gain a foothold here in town, had taken the lid off the pressure cooker. As Adam said, this was a bad house to begin with, home to evil of its own, and evil was like a magnet for other evil.

Evil always comes back.

Now spirits were overrunning McGuane, growing ever more powerful.

And their house was at the center of it.

She had blessed the home. Many times. Every time she walked into it, in fact. But that sort of mild defense did not make up for the lack of strong permanent protection, and she had allowed her reliance on habit to blind her to what was really going on. She had assumed that their house was safe because she was blessing it, while the truth was that it was being invaded under her watch.

It explained why none of the Cleansings had taken, why none of the rituals had worked. Their focus had been misdirected. They had concentrated their prayers and energies on the church because that was where Jim had been killed, but they should have been focused on this house.

Perhaps they could have stopped it earlier.

No matter. They would stop it now. She phoned Vera, told her to call the others immediately and gather them together. She didn’t say why, didn’t say what the hurry was, but she told Vera she would meet them at the church, and she made it clear that it was important. She did not want to speak in this house, did not want to reveal too much in case something was watching, listening. She knew the church was clean, and she thought it best to discuss things there. On the other end of the line, Vera seemed strange, distant, but she agreed to call the others and meet.

Agafia changed into a Russian dress, put on her white sneakers, and went into the dining room for her Bible. Gregory and Julia were both at home, and she could have asked one of them to take her downtown in the van, but she was wary of involving them. She had spoken to Adam, and she would talk to Teo, but Sasha and her parents were out. They were too old. There was a possibility of corruption, and while it was not their fault, she knew she could no longer trust them. Not until this was over.

Agafia thought of the prophet’s bony arm, wiping out the small town on the sandy floor of the cave.

She could not allow herself to think about that. She had to concentrate on what needed to be done now, and she quickly called Vera back, but the line was busy, so she dialed Semyon’s number. No one answered.

She made several phone calls, calling everyone in the church for whom she had a number, dialing Vera’s number in between each, but she could not get hold of anyone, and she made the decision to walk. It was foolish, perhaps, but it felt right, and, putting on her jacket, clutching her Bible, she sneaked out of the house and hurried up the drive, praying she would not hear Gregory’s or Julia’s voice behind her.

She headed for the church.

It was a long walk. She tired easily these days, and ordinarily she would have had to sit down and rest every so often, but the brisk air and pumping adrenaline gave her the sort of strength she had not had in years, and while she did not speed down to the church, she was able to make good time.

She remembered when she was younger and walked to the church all the time, when she and John and Gregory would get dressed up and all walk, and she found herself thinking that the years sped by far too fast, that life was too short.

It took only fifteen minutes for her to reach the street on which the church was located, and her step, which had been flagging, picked up as she hurried along the side of the road.

She did not see the building until she was nearly upon it—the bulk of the variety store blocked it from view—but as soon as she reached the vacant lot next to the church, she stopped dead in her tracks, her heart lurching painfully in her chest and causing her to gasp.

The church was covered with hair.

Not all of the other Molokans had arrived yet, but several of them had, and they were standing in the dirt parking lot, staring at the building. She hurried past the vacant lot, over to them.

Thick black hair had grown out from every inch of wood wall and stone step and shake roof, straight and shiny and several feet long. The church resembled nothing so much as some sort of fantastic beast from a children’s fairy tale, but there was no sense of the benign magic so common to children’s stories. This was wrong, this was evil, and it had been created not to amuse or inspire awe but to terrify.

Agafia had never seen such a thing before, and it was the absurd incongruity of the sight that made it so frightening. There was a cool, dry breeze blowing through the canyon, and the light wind caused the hair to waft left on unseen currents, waving slightly and giving the church beneath it the appearance of movement.

When had it happened? Last night? This morning? Had it occurred as these things usually did, under the cover of darkness, when no one was looking? Or had someone seen it? She imagined the transformation: the hair appearing, coming in, the church building suddenly growing darker, as though a shadow was passing over it, until the hair grew long enough to see and it became clear to anyone viewing the sight what it was.

Did this have any meaning? she wondered. And what was the significance of hair? She didn’t know, but she walked onto the church property feeling cowed and intimidated, certain that this bizarre desecration had somehow been meant as a warning to her.

Vera turned in her direction as she walked over. “It is you,” she said quietly. “You are the one who has brought this upon us.”

“What?”

“It is your fault. This. Everything.”

She understood now Vera’s diffidence over the phone, and she shook her head. “No.”

“Last night I dreamed of the prophet. He told me.”

“What did he tell you?”

“He told me you had been influenced. He said you must be cast out.” Vera looked at her evenly. “He said this is your fault. It is all your fault.”

She wanted to explain that it was her fault, that she had forgotten to invite the Owner of the House and that it was from that that everything else had sprung, but she knew that at this point Vera would not listen to her. The other woman was fixated on her dream, she believed it utterly, and nothing anyone could say would dissuade her.

“Pray for me,” Agafia challenged her.

“It is too late for that.” Vera turned away. “Leave. This is no longer your church.”

Pacifism or no pacifism, she heard hatred in Vera’s voice, hatred and fear, and she could sense the threat of violence just below the surface.

Agafia turned away, feeling frustrated and frightened, not knowing what to do. Other people were stopping, drivers on the street braking to a halt so they could look at the transformed building. A crowd was gathering.

She looked again at the church, and this time she saw it in a different light. She’d been thinking of this as a religious occurrence, an act of defiance against God, but now she saw it as vandalism. That was why the hair made no sense, she realized. Like everyone else, she had been thinking in biblical terms, trying to equate what was happening to the words and prophecies in the Bible, but this had nothing to do with that.

This was not sacred, it was secular.

A hand touched her shoulder, and she whirled around. It was Semyon. He’d obviously been standing nearby, listening to her and Vera, and he was offering his support. “I do not believe it,” he said. He smiled. “I know you, Agafia.”

She smiled back, took his hand, gave it a small squeeze of gratitude, but the expressions on the faces of the others were hard and harsh, judgmental and unyielding.

She pulled him aside, walked with him out toward the street. “Listen,” she said, quietly but earnestly. “We need Vasili. Someone needs to get him and bring him here. Our Cleansings are nothing, a squirt of water on a pile of dirt. There are… many entities. They are invading McGuane and there are more all the time. Nikolai knows nothing about this, and even Vera is in over her head. Maybe the prophet has some idea of what we can do to stop it.”

“He wasn’t much help last time.”

“Prophets only know what God wants them to know, and only when God wants them to know it. Vasili has no control over what is revealed to him. And perhaps he has had some revelations since that will let us know what to do.” She paused. “Besides, God may have nothing to do with this.”

She saw the look on his face, and she stopped him before he could start. “We don’t have time,” she said. “But this has nothing to do with prayers or God or Jesus Christ. It has to do with Jedushka Di Muvedushka…”

He frowned. “That’s just a… a tradition. A superstition.”

“It is not!” she said fiercely. “My father saw him, and I’m sure you know plenty of other people who have, too. And you and your family have always invited him when you moved, haven’t you?”

Semyon nodded a reluctant acknowledgment.

“So you believe. Don’t tell me you don’t.”

He was interested now.

She took a deep breath. “I forgot to invite him when we moved here. I cannot go into the details now, but as I’m sure you know, that left our house unprotected. And you know which house that is. You know what happened there.”

He swallowed, nodded. “The Megan house.”

“That is where it started. It grew from that.” She took his right hand in hers, looked into his eyes. “You see what I mean? This may have nothing to do with church.”

“The way it started might have nothing to do with the church, but the spirits that have come in, the evil that has come in since your house was unprotected…”

“That’s why I hope the church can help stop it. I don’t have any other ideas. So get the prophet. Tell him. Maybe he will know what to do.”

“I will,” Semyon promised.

“Vera will not listen to me, and that means Nikolai will not listen to me, but you talk to them, you make them know what is behind all this, what started it. And make sure someone brings the prophet here.”

“He may not come.”

“At least talk to him, tell him what is happening, see if he knows what to do.”

The others were staring at them, and Agafia released him, used her left hand to help hold up the Bible sagging in her right. “Go,” she said “Talk to them. Tell them.”

He nodded, backed away. “I believe you,” he said.

She smiled her thanks.

It was getting near dusk, and the air was growing even colder. The others obviously had something planned, and she hoped they’d at least called in someone else for whatever ritual it was. She doubted it would work, but there needed to be ten of them. Just in case.

They were staring at her, waiting for her to leave, and so, clutching her Bible, Agafia turned and walked through the long shadows of downtown back toward home.

Only she didn’t get that far. She was in front of the hardware store, standing on the corner, looking both ways, when to her right she saw a small, dark figure crossing the road, a little man with a beard, and her heart jumped.

Jedushka Di Muvedushka.

She had never seen him before, but she recognized him instantly. There was about the small man an air of the unearthly. Something about him bespoke an unnatural origin, and though he appeared calm and benign, she was seized with fear at the sight of him.

When Father had seen the Owner of the House back in Mexico, it had been accidental, pure luck, and it, too, had been right around sundown. Father had never been sure whether it was the special qualities of the light which had given him that glimpse of the little man, the fact that it was the time halfway between day and night, or whether the Owner of the House had allowed him a glimpse, but he had never doubted what he’d seen and neither had anyone else in the family.

Agafia understood why. There was something so there about the man, something so substantial about his presence that he seemed in a way more real than his surroundings.

It was that observation which made her think he wanted her to see him.

But whose Owner was he? she wondered. Where had he come from? And why was he trying to communicate with her?

He turned, smiled, beckoned.

She followed him to Russiantown.

She remained far behind, ready to run at any moment, though she doubted she could actually escape him. He did not appear to be after her, made no effort to chase her, and though she was cold and tired and winded, she followed him through empty alleys and empty streets, along a route that seemed specifically designed to avoid contact with anyone else, until they were halfway up the canyon and in the ruins of Russiantown.

She could not recall the last time she’d been here, but she remembered the layout perfectly, and she knew, even before they reached their destination, where he was leading her and what he wanted her to see.

The small man passed through a yard of overgrown dead weeds higher than his head, then climbed up the rickety remnants of wooden steps to a doorway.

The doorway of their old home.

She stood before the ruins of the house, the memories of that last day and night flooding over her. She’d vowed never to return, had promised herself she would not come back to this spot, but here she was, and she faced the past boldly, unflinchingly, something which would not have been possible even a week ago but was absolutely necessary now.

She remembered what happened, remembered what they’d done.

It had been during the Copper Days celebration. Back then, the event had not drawn tourists and people from outside. It had been a local celebration, a miners’ holiday. Only there weren’t many miners anymore. The mine was closed. It had been closed since before the first Molokan had moved here, but that did not stop some of the more belligerent unemployed mineworkers from using them as scapegoats. They didn’t blame Molokans for the fact that the pit had run dry, or the fact that the mining company found it cheaper to move on rather than attempt to extract copper from the remaining low-grade ore—they blamed Molokans for the fact that they were no longer working. The Molokan farm was doing well, and that helped to focus their anger, provided them with a contrast between the Russian community’s growing success and their own falling fortunes.

Some of that hatred was directed at the Mormons as well, who were also surviving, if not thriving, during those tough economic times and who had stores of extra food in their homes and in the church. But it was the Molokans who bore the brunt of the resentment. They were foreigners. They talked funny, they dressed funny, and they didn’t even believe in war. They wanted to live in this country, but they didn’t want to fight for it, and that enraged many of the townspeople.

The seeds for what happened Saturday night had been sown Friday evening, during the first day of the celebration, when one of the bars had offered free drinks to all ex-miners. The First World War had just ended the year before, and the bar owner got up on his soapbox and started lecturing about what he’d seen in Europe and how important it was that every man be willing to fight when his country called him. The combination of alcohol, miners, and the subject of war had of course led to long, drunken diatribes against the Molokans and their anti-American way of life.

The horde of miners had slept it off Saturday morning, for the most part, and roused themselves for the fair in the afternoon, but by Saturday night they were at it again, paying for their own drinks this time, and angry about that as well.

This crowd was bigger. Not the whole town by any means, but a significant minority, and they added to their numbers as they barnstormed through the area, trying to drum up enough people to take some action, adopting a you’re-either-with-us-or-against-us tack that intimidated a lot of fence-sitters into joining them.

Agafia remembered the first smell of smoke, remembered seeing the orange glow from the top of the plateau as the Molokan fields were set on fire. She remembered, after that, how the drunken miners and their supporters had come after their homes.

And she remembered what they’d done in retaliation. It was something they had never spoken of since, something she never thought about and had almost convinced herself hadn’t happened.

But it had.

Russiantown had been destroyed that night. There’d been no real plot or plan, there was nothing organized or thought out. Roving gangs of angry, intoxicated citizens, true believers and the sheep who succumbed to mobthink, drove, walked, stormed through Russiantown, wanting to lash out, wanting to cause harm. And doing so. There had been beatings and assaults as well as property damage. Three women had been raped, two of them in front of their husbands. Her own uncle had been hanged by the miners, tied up and dragged downtown by the mob at the height of the frenzy, strung up on the cottonwood tree in the park, and it was after his murder, after seeing the suddenly lifeless body of a man who’d been alive only seconds before, that the riot or whatever it was ended, that the crowd, now cowed and silent, dispersed and went home, leaving rubble and broken lives in their wake.

They had watched the hanging from out in the street, her entire family, and though she had wanted to look away, she had not.

Nor had her mother made her.

The faces of the men who performed the act, who committed the murder, were seared into her memory. She knew they would never be caught or tried or prosecuted—not in this town—but she committed their faces to memory anyway.

Russiantown had burned to the ground, and the few buildings that were not burned had been looted and torn apart. Her family and John’s and Semyon’s and Vera’s and Alexander’s had been the hardest hit, and someone, she could not remember who, had told them that night, as they were nursing their wounds and surveying the damage and mourning the dead, as the fire wagons attempted to put out the fires so they would not spread to the rest of McGuane, that there was a way to get back at those who had perpetrated this wrong, that there was a way to exact revenge.

If it had been an hour earlier or an hour later, perhaps they would not have followed through, would not have allowed themselves to be led in this direction. But passions were high, and word spread quickly among the battered and displaced populace of Russiantown that they had recourse, that there was something that could be done to get back at the people who had destroyed their homes and lives.

They’d gathered together with a man she did not know, crouching in front of a fire next to a banya. The mood had been somber and secretive, and they had called forth a spirit from the forbidden texts of a prophet whose very name had been expunged from Molokan records and history. The prophet’s words had been saved, passed down haphazardly, here and there, by outsiders and malcontents, Molokans who weren’t really part of the church or the community, and though the existence of the words was known, it was not tacitly acknowledged.

Someone had found them, though, someone knew them, and after all these miles and all these years, the worst of them were spoken.

Jim had already been assisting Pavil Dalgov, their minister at the time, and it was Jim and the minister alone who had argued against revenge, who had told them in no uncertain terms that they were treading on the province of God. “Vengeance is mine, said the Lord,” the minister kept repeating, and he ran down a litany of the ills that had befallen those who had gone outside the words of the Bible for comfort or satisfaction, who had trusted not in the Lord but in their own basest instincts. They would pay dearly for this sacrilege, he told them.

The warnings were ignored, however, the forbidden words were spoken, and it had come out of the fire, a blackened thing of charcoal and ash, a creature of death that bowed before them and waited for their orders, willing to do their bidding.

Names had been shouted: the names of those who had inflicted the damage, the names of those who had accompanied the murderers and egged them on. The creature disappeared into the shadows.

And those men had died.

And their wives had died.

And their children had died.

Horribly.

It had been a betrayal of their Molokan beliefs and their covenant with God, this… summoning, this intervention from the spirit world. They knew that almost immediately, knew that the minister was right, that they had done wrong. There’d been no satisfaction in the deaths of their tormentors, no sense of rightness or justice, only grief and despair and the guilt of the wicked, but afterward they’d told themselves that something good had come out of it because it had reinforced their faith, had brought them back spiritually to where they were supposed to be. They had sinned, they all knew it, and they had rededicated themselves to God and the Molokan life.

The demon had died after performing its assigned duty. It had been created out of hate and magic for one thing and one thing only, and when that was done, it had dissolved into nothingness, its life extinguished with the death of its purpose.

Perhaps that had been the true start of it, Agafia thought now. Perhaps that was why she and the Molokans were being targeted. They were being punished for what they had done in the past. Judgment had finally found them. Her unprotected opening had allowed the natural workings of supernatural events to resume, had allowed impulses and forces that had been blocked and dammed for all these years finally to take their course.

Did that mean there was nothing they could do to stop it?

No. She did not believe that. God would not let such a thing happen. And God would not allow the innocent to suffer. The children, like Sasha and Adam and Teo, the people who had moved into town since those days, none of them had had anything to do with the events of that time, and God would not turn His back on them.

But were any of them really innocent?

She recalled the look in her future husband’s eyes when he had helped to call forth the death spirit that night, and she remembered that there was something in the fierceness and determination of his expression that had appealed to her, that had drawn her to him. While she had not exactly been waffling in her commitment to him, it was that as much as anything else that had cemented her resolve to be his wife.

The sins of the father were visited upon the sons, she thought.

Evil always comes back.

No, she thought. God would not allow it. He would not stand by while the innocent were taken.

Jim had been innocent, though. He had fought against the summoning of the spirit. He had not taken part in any of it.

And he had been killed.

Evil did not play by God’s rules.

And evil always came back.

In the doorway of what was left of her old house, Jedushka Di Muvedushka turned, looked at her. His face was middle-aged, but his eyes were ancient.

He smiled, beckoned, but she refused to follow him any farther and would not walk into the house.

Whose Owner was he? she wondered again. Someone’s who had been left behind when Russiantown had been abandoned? She remembered father inviting Jedushka Di Muvedushka to come with them when they moved, and she remembered, even on that terrible morning, the kids laughingly making room for him on the buggy, though they could not see anything there.

No, this one was not theirs.

Still smiling at her, the little man walked into the open entrance of her old house and promptly disappeared into the shadows.

She dreamed that night of the pra roak.

She was back in the cave, and she was alone with him. He looked up from his fire at her and grinned, and she turned away, wanting to leave, but the bones had blocked the path and she was barefoot.

He cackled, and she saw that he no longer had his unnaturally white teeth. His teeth were rotted, blackened stumps.

He reached out an arm and wiped out the town he had rebuilt in the sand.

“It’s here,” he said in English, and his voice was Gregory’s voice. “It’s time.”

4

Gregory met Odd at the bar. Paul had severed ties with the handyman as well as himself, and the two of them had spent the past several days commiserating about it, feeling sorry for themselves, drinking away their troubles. It was clear to Gregory that the bartender didn’t like him, that the man was one of those ignorant yokels who bought into that bullshit rumor that he and his family had brought bad luck or evil or whatever it was to McGuane, but as usual beliefs took a backseat to bucks, and since he and Odd were the bar’s most loyal customers, the man put his personal feelings aside and served them.

He didn’t participate in the conversations, though. And he kept a wary, careful distance.

He was listening, however. He kept his ears open, and he kept track of what was said and who said it, in case he needed the information in the future.

That ticked Gregory off.

It was one of many things that ticked him off. There was nothing he could do about any of it now, but he, like the bartender, was keeping track, keeping score, and one of these days he was going to tally everything up and the bill was going to come due.

Gregory finished his beer, motioned for another. The headaches had been really bad the past few days, much worse than usual, and he’d considered going to a doctor. Aspirin and Tylenol did no good, and it occurred to him that perhaps he had something serious, like a brain tumor.

Drinking took away the pain, though, and for the moment that was his medicine of choice.

The bartender brought him a beer, and Gregory nodded his thanks, smiling unctiously. The bartender ignored him and went back to the other end of the bar where he was pretending to dry shot glasses.

Gregory raised the mug to his lips, took a long, cool drink, then stared down at the dark wood countertop. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. He and Julia had made up, or had pretended to make up, but for some reason he’d been avoiding her ever since. It was as if her capitulation had somehow tainted her in his eyes, and if he had found himself too often angry with her before, now he was simply disgusted. He had no respect for her whatsoever; in fact, it was hard to remember what had once convinced him to marry her.

He didn’t want to go home tonight, and he realized that he was drunk when he found himself trying to concentrate nonexistent psychic powers on Odd in an effort to get his friend to invite him over to his place. He kept repeating the same phrase over and over again in his mind, concentrating so hard that he gave himself a headache: Invite me to sleep at your house. Invite me to sleep at your house.

Finally he gave it up and just came right out and asked.

“Julia kicked me out,” he lied. “Do you know someplace I could stay the night, until things cool off?”

Odd squinted at him. “What’re you talking about? A separation?”

“No, no. Just for tonight. Just this one time.”

“Hell,” Odd said, “Lurlene and I’d love to have you over.”

That was what he’d been fishing for. “Thanks,” Gregory told him. “You’re a real pal.”

The old man grinned. “At least you got one left.” Gregory nodded. He wasn’t sure why he did not want to go home. And he didn’t know why he wouldn’t just go to a hotel if his goal was merely to stay away. But this was what felt right, and he was glad that Odd had invited him over.

Or else he would have had to kill him.

Where had that thought come from? Gregory didn’t know, but it frightened him, and he pushed the mug away, declining to finish the last half of his beer. “I’m ready to go,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

They were both too drunk to drive, and so they walked through town, ignoring the hostile stares of the passersby. Odd had said before that things had turned nasty, and he was right. There was a feeling of tension in town, tension combined with a wild unpredictability that reminded Gregory of the mood in Los Angeles just before the riots.

He thought of his father, wondered what his father would think of this.

Odd lived in a run-down one-story wood-frame home just behind the business district. He hadn’t kept up maintenance on the house—ironic for a handyman—but the yard was carefully landscaped and, rare for this town, sported two tall citrus trees and a full lawn.

The old man pointed proudly at his grass. “Lurlene refused to live in a house without a lawn. Water bills cost me an arm and a leg, but it looks good, if I do say so my damnself.”

Gregory nodded his agreement, and the two of them walked up the porch steps into the house. “Hon?” Odd called.

There was no answer.

“Probably in the kitchen.” Odd led the way through the rather shabby living room, opening the swinging door that led to the kitchen.

Odd’s face lit up. “Gregory?” he said, turning around proudly. “This here’s my wife.”

In the center of the kitchen was a cow.

A heifer.

Gregory stared in horror at the animal, which stood in the middle of the room placidly chewing its cud. There was a bale of hay on the floor next to the refrigerator, and dirty hoof marks marred the yellowed linoleum.

Odd kissed the cow on the mouth, and Gregory could see, through the gap between their ill-fitting lips, his tongue caressing hers.

Through the fog of alcohol, through the headache that still lay somewhere beneath that, a rational part of his brain was telling him that this was not right, that there was something wrong here, that whatever had led his friend to do this was dangerous and he should get the hell away from here as quickly as possible. But amazingly, incredibly, he was already rationalizing it, and whatever protests had been forming in his mind were quickly squelched.

Love was blind, Gregory told himself. And if he could marry an outsider like Andrea, well, Odd could marry a cow. Who was he to pass judgment on someone else’s private life?

Again, there was a nagging hint of disagreement from somewhere deep within his brain, but that faded into nothingness.

Gregory walked over to the opposite side of the kitchen, slumped down in the breakfast nook, and smiled at his friend. “What’s for dinner?” he asked.

5

Julia was frightened, Gregory had not come home last night, and his mother had been upset and agitated, ranting in Russian about evil spirits and Jedushka Di Muvedushka. Promise or no promise, this was the last straw. She was going to pull up stakes and throw their stuff in the van and drive back to California as quickly as her lead foot would take her. She had not slept at all, wondering whether Gregory was dead, murdered, lying in a ditch, or whether he had… what? Run away?

She didn’t know, but she was scared. She’d called Paul in the middle of the night, but he said he hadn’t seen Gregory in days. She’d called Odd, but no one had answered the phone at his house.

Maybe he was at Odd’s, she told herself hopefully. Maybe they’d gotten to talking and lost track of time and he’d had a little too much to drink and he’d decided to spend the night there.

But why hadn’t he called?

Because something had happened to him.

It was an idea she could not get away from.

His mother was even more worried than she was, if that was possible, and the two of them had talked about evil spirits and the Owner of the House, and the skepticism Julia had always feigned before had been completely stripped away.

Her mother-in-law’s worry was of a different sort. Agafia seemed to believe with unshakable certainty that nothing injurious had happened to her son, that he had not been hurt or killed, but she was worried about… something else. She was wary with Julia, but though it did not disappear completely, that suspicion did break down a little as the night stretched on, and Julia learned that it was the house that made her mother-in-law so guarded, the fear that she, Julia, had somehow been corrupted or influenced that kept Agafia from trusting her fully.

The house.

It was terrifying to have her worst fears confirmed, but it was also strangely reassuring. Gregory’s mother told her it was because Jedushka Di Muvedushka had not moved with them to this house that other spirits had been allowed in. Julia remembered the flippant and condescending reaction she’d had that first day when Agafia had been so worried about not inviting the Owner of the House, and she was ashamed of her attitude. If she’d had more respect, if she’d been a little less arrogant and a little more open-minded, perhaps she would have caught on to this earlier. They might not have been able to stop what was happening, but they might have been able to get away from it.

The house seemed even darker than usual to her, though it was morning and the brightest part of the day.

What was here? she wondered. What existed in this place with them? The ghosts of Bill Megan and his murdered family? A demon from hell? Some nebulous, shapeless, evil entity?

As ridiculous as those concepts would have sounded to her before, they all seemed perfectly plausible now, and Julia understood why Agafia was so wary. She thought of Sasha’s behavioral reversal since they’d moved here, Adam’s arrest, Teo’s secrecy, her and Gregory’s personal problems. They’d all been influenced in one way or another. She’d noticed it before, and she’d always attributed it to natural causes, but the pattern now seemed too clear to ascribe to such innocent origins.

She’d let the kids go to school earlier without telling them that their father was missing, without letting them know her fears, and she was glad now that she’d done so. It would make it easier to do what she knew she had to do.

She faced Gregory’s mother across the kitchen table and told her that they were going to leave. “After I find Gregory, we’re getting out of here,” she said. “We’re going back to California before anything else happens. Just pack enough for a week or so, and we’ll get the rest later, when we sell the house.”

“No,” Agafia said in Russian. “I cannot leave. I am responsible for allowing this evil in, and I must remain to fight it. Only our church can put an end to this—”

“But your family comes first,” Julia said, also speaking Russian. “Your first loyalty is to us. We need to get out of this town before one of us is killed and ends up like Jim Ivanovitch or my friend Deanna.”

“I cannot leave. There is evil here.”

“I know there is,” Julia told her. “That’s why we need to get out. That’s why I have to get the kids out especially.”

The old woman seemed to understand. “Take the children back. Keep them away from here.”

“You too.”

“No,” Agafia said firmly.

Julia knew it was useless to argue, and so she gave in, nodding her acquiescence. She did not know what the old woman had planned, did not know what she intended to do, but she imagined Agafia standing in the church, praying, attempting some sort of exorcism, and she figured that if her mother-in-law was going to stay, that would probably be the safest place for her. Besides, Agafia seemed to know what she was talking about. She’d been right about all of this from the beginning. Perhaps she did know how to put a stop to it, though to Julia the most logical tack would be for all of them to leave. If it really was the fact that the Owner of the House was not here to protect them and keep out other supernatural entities, then shouldn’t that breach be closed with their departure?

“Go to Montebello,” Agafia said. “Stay in my house, Helen, across the street, has the key. I left it with her and asked her to water my plants.”

Julia had almost forgotten that her mother-in-law had refused to sell her home, and now she was ready to weep with gratitude for that bit of stubbornness. They would not have to put themselves up at some hotel or stay with friends or relatives. They had a place to go, a house where they could live until they got resettled.

“Thank you,” Julia said. She stood. “I’m going to try and find Gregory. Then we’re getting the kids and getting out.”

“No,” Agafia said.

Julia blinked. “What?”

“No!” The old woman slammed her hand down on the table. “Get the children and go! But leave Gregory here! I will take care of him!”

“I don’t want Gregory to stay here. I want him safe, and with us.”

“He is my responsibility. I will take care of him.”

Julia looked at her mother-in-law. She had never been overprotective of her son, had never seemed to be one of those overly Oedipal mothers who resented wives and girlfriends and any other female intrusion into their boys’ lives, but that was the way she was acting now, and Julia wondered if the same forces that she was so worried about affecting everyone else had gotten to her first.

She had no intention of leaving Gregory in this town if she could help it. If he wanted to stay, that was different, but Julia was determined to give him a choice and a chance and ask him to come with them back to California. He seemed to have been the most affected by living here, the most influenced, and if his mother was right, he should be okay if he got away from this town.

If he was still alive.

No, Julia agreed with Agafia there. She did not think Gregory was dead. Injured, perhaps, out of commission temporarily, but alive.

Could he be with another woman?

The possibility threw her. She had not thought of that before, and she was surprised at herself for not even considering such an obvious explanation for his absence. Their sex life certainly hadn’t been lighting up the skies lately, and it was entirely possible that another woman could be at the root of his disinterest.

She pushed that thought away before pictures started forming in her mind. There was too much to think about right now, too many other things going on. She would get her family out of McGuane and back to California, and then she’d try to sort everything out.

“I’m still going to try to find him,” Julia said, heading toward the stairs.

“He stay here!” Agafia called after her in agitated English.

Thank God Gregory had not taken the van yesterday. Julia found the keys on the top of their dresser in the bedroom, slipped on some tennis shoes, and went outside.

Where to begin?

She didn’t know, but the café seemed as good a place as any. She started the van, executed a three-point turn, and headed up the dirt drive, turning toward downtown.

She was glad the kids were at school. It would give her time to pack, give her time to prepare without having to answer a thousand questions and explain everything she was doing. She would find Gregory, they’d get everything together, pick up the kids at school, and take off. The kids could ask questions on the trip.

The café appeared to be closed, and she had no problem finding a parking place in the front. The door was unlocked, though, and she pushed it open, walking inside.

It hit her all at once. She had not really had time to grieve, had not allowed herself the luxury of experiencing the feelings she needed to experience, but entering the closed café, seeing the fallen lights and the destroyed stage, the mess that had not been cleaned up, it was as if an emotional tidal wave slammed into her, crushing her. Her family’s dissolution, Deanna’s death, Gregory’s growing distance. The cumulative weight of all that baggage came crashing down on her head, and the walls she’d set up to deal with it, the barriers she’d erected to keep the feelings at bay and allow her to think and act clearly until she had time to sort through the emotional wreckage, came tumbling down. She was very close to tears, very close to complete paralysis, when she heard Paul’s voice from somewhere across the darkened room. “Deanna?”

She squinted, her eyes adjusting. “Paul?” she said gratefully.

He walked over, across the floor toward her. “He didn’t come home last night, did he?”

Julia shook her head, wiping away the tears that were threatening to spill onto her cheek.

“He was at a bar most of the evening—and most of the day—with Odd, both of them just sitting there and getting plastered. And then he went home with Odd, spent the night at his place.”

“He was at Odd’s?”

Paul nodded.

“I called there and no one answered.”

“Maybe they were passed out. Or maybe they just didn’t want to pick up the phone.”

The fear and uncertainty were replaced swiftly with anger. She felt her strength coming back. “He could have called. He could have let us know he was all right.”

“He should have.”

At least it wasn’t another woman, she thought. At least he was alive.

But, damn it, how could he be so inconsiderate? Paul was almost up to her, but he kept coming closer, showed no sign of stopping. She felt nervous all of a sudden, and then he reached her and put his arms around her shoulders, hugging her.

They had never touched before, and she felt uncomfortable with this close contact. This was no doubt a friendly hug, a chaste and harmless gesture of support, but she wasn’t one of those touchy-feely people who went around hugging everybody in sight, who squandered personal contact on virtual strangers, and this sudden intimacy not only surprised her but made her decidedly ill at ease.

The hug continued a beat or two longer than it should have, and she tried to casually pull back, to move out of his grip in a way that seemed natural and inoffensive, but though he shifted position, let his left arm fall away, his right arm remained around her shoulder.

“Maybe he’s still there,” Julia said. “I should see.” Paul stroked her hair. “He doesn’t treat you the way he should.”

She wanted to back away, wanted to tell him to stop… but she didn’t. She felt dizzy, almost light-headed, and she didn’t know why she was letting him do this, but she said nothing as his hand roamed from her hair to her shoulders, rubbing over her breasts.

What was going on here? She was not at all attracted to Paul, and he had never indicated that he was remotely interested in her. Perhaps, she rationalized, it was Deanna’s death that was the impetus behind this inappropriate behavior.

What was behind her acquiescence? She knew that what he was doing was wrong, and she told herself she wanted it to stop, but she made no real effort to end it or to move away from him. It felt good to be touched again, felt good to have a man’s hands on her in this way. And Paul was right. Gregory had been a jerk lately and he hadn’t treated her the way he should. She deserved better.

Paul proceeded slowly, and she let him unbutton her pants, let him slide his hand down her panties. His fingers felt strong and sure, and she gasped as he cupped her, as his middle finger slipped easily and gently inside her.

And then Gregory walked into the café.

Time stopped. She was suddenly aware of everything: the ticking of the clock across the room, the sound of a pickup passing by on the street outside, the far-off cry of a hawk, her own pounding heart, and the silence as she held her breath. Her senses were heightened, and she felt with extraordinary sensitivity Paul’s hand pulling out from her underwear, saw too clearly the blank expression on Gregory’s red face, heard her own huge exhalation as though it were the sound of a monsoon.

What happened next seemed surreal and not quite believable. There was no argument, no fight, no histrionics. Paul simply turned and walked back across the café to his office and Gregory held his arm out silently. She buttoned up her pants and took his hand. She still felt light-headed, and she wanted to apologize, wanted to explain, but her thoughts were foggy and couldn’t seem to make the trip out of her brain and down to her mouth.

Gregory held out his hand for the keys, she gave them to him, and, still not speaking, they walked out of the café to the van.

He didn’t hit her until they got home.

The house was empty. Gregory’s mother was gone, the kids still in school, and the two of them walked silently inside. They had not spoken once during the entire trip home.

She looked around the empty house. They never kept track of anything anymore, she thought. They used to know where everyone in the family was at all times, but like the rest of the supposedly stable building blocks that had been the foundation of their relationship, that had broken down here, too, and now they’d reverted to a more primitive monitoring system, noticing only whether someone was present or absent, not knowing or caring about anything in between. Even after Adam’s arrest, they had not kept the close tabs on him that they’d promised him and themselves.

They walked into the living room, Gregory carefully closing the door behind them.

He slapped her.

It was a hard slap, straight across the face, and Julia was almost knocked off her feet by the force of it. Blood started pouring out of her nose, and she held a hand up to it to stem the flow, tilting her head back.

Gregory punched her in the stomach.

She went down.

She had never really been in a fight before—even as a child, she had avoided physical altercations—and though she’d seen plenty of them in movies and on television, she did not really know how to defend herself and did not seem to be able to think fast enough to keep up with the action. Gregory kicked her in the breast, and by the time she thought to roll away, out of his reach, he was grabbing her arm, yanking her back up, kneeing her in the crotch.

The pain was unbearable. She felt like vomiting, could not catch her breath. The sharp flashes of agony that accompanied each of his blows spiked deep into her body. It felt as though bones were breaking, organs were rupturing, and as he continued to pummel her, she wondered if he was going to kill her, if she was going to die.

And then he stopped.

He’d said nothing the entire time, and he was still silent now as he let go of her arms and allowed her to fall back onto the floor. Her first instinct, a purely animal reaction, was to curl up and protect herself, but he had stopped attacking, at least for now, and she tried to stand, couldn’t. He stood above her, arms folded, staring blankly, and though the pain was tremendous and each slight movement brought fresh tears to her eyes, she managed to crawl to the stairs and start the slow, arduous trip up, one hand on the posts of the banister, the other supporting her weight on the steps.

He followed her, stood directly behind her. She kept waiting for another kick, kept waiting for him to throw her back down the stairs, but he did nothing, just stared.

After what seemed like an hour, she reached the top and managed to crawl into the bedroom. She was barely able to close and lock the door. Crying from the pain and the effort and the emotional toll, she pulled herself onto the bed and lay there, grateful for the soft blankets and mattress.

He was smart, she thought. Aside from that first slap, he hadn’t hit her in the face, hadn’t hit her where it would show. It was what she’d heard about chronic wife beaters, the way they hid their violence from friends and family, and it was this bit of circumspection that most frightened her. It meant that this might go on for a while. It meant that he intended to do this again without letting anyone know.

It meant that he intended to stay.

He intended to stay.

That lay at the heart of her fear. For it was as if this entire situation had been specifically arranged in order to keep her here: the scene with Paul, Gregory’s discovery of them, the beating. She remembered the fogginess in her mind at the café, the blank expression on his face as he attacked her, and she wondered if that was not exactly what had happened. It was too convenient, she thought. Gregory had been played like a puppet, used by whatever lived in this house to make sure that she and the kids did not leave town.

There was a loud smack against the door, and Julia jumped, her ribs hurting. “You stay in there!” he ordered. “You come out and you’re going to get the beating of your life, you fucking slut! And I hear you say one word of this to Mother or the kids, and you won’t be the only one punished!”

Julia held her breath, did not reply, terrified that he would break down the door and come after her again, but he did not. Soon she heard him walk away, heard his footsteps head down the hall.

There was an unfamiliar series of loud noises after that—clatterings and slammings—then she heard him upstairs, in the attic, rummaging around.

She listened to the noises until she fell asleep.

Sometime later, the kids came home from school. He was back downstairs again, and though the sounds were muffled, she could just make out their voices. She heard him lie, heard him tell the kids that she was sick and needed her rest and couldn’t be disturbed, but one of them, Teo probably, tried the knob anyway a little while later, and she was grateful for that stubborn spirit of disbelief. She said nothing, however, gave no indication that she was awake, believing Gregory fully, knowing that he would make good on his threats. She didn’t want anything to happen to the kids.

You won’t be the only one punished!

His mother came home soon after, and he fed her the same line, but Julia could tell that Agafia didn’t believe it. Their conversation was polite, but there was a stiltedness to it, an undercurrent of formality, an obvious discomfort on both their parts. Gregory’s mother seemed afraid of him, and Julia thought that the old woman was her last best hope. Agafia could obviously sense that something was wrong, that there was something amiss here, and she said nothing to her son about Julia’s plan to take the kids and get out of town.

Agafia would figure something out, she knew. The old woman would find some way to help her, to get them all out of this.

She fell asleep thinking of plans for escape.

In the morning there was a knock at the bedroom door, and then he walked in. “I need clothes,” he said shortly.

She’d locked the door. She knew she had. But Gregory had somehow opened it anyway, striding in, ignoring her and taking a pair of jeans from the closet and an old Yes T-shirt from the dresser. He threw off his dirty clothes, tossing them in the direction of the hamper, and put on the clean ones.

He looked at her disgustedly. “Get your lazy ass out of bed,” he said. “Your children need breakfast. Do something useful for once in your miserable life.”

It was an order, not an observation, and he stared at her as if he meant to be obeyed. Julia rose painfully. She had not changed out of yesterday’s clothes, and now she left her jeans on—it hurt too much to try to take them off—but she removed the blood-spattered blouse and replaced it with a loose-fitting red shirt.

“Wash your face off,” he said. “Then get downstairs.”

He left the room, and she shuffled slowly across the carpeted floor into the bathroom. Her face was indeed a mess, smeared with dried blood, but it looked worse than it was and after two minutes with the washcloth she looked almost normal.

This was her chance. If Agafia was downstairs and Gregory left them alone for even a minute, they could talk, figure something out, formulate some sort of plan.

The stairs were difficult, and Julia held tightly to the banister, walking down one step at a time, stopping on each, like someone handicapped. Once on the first floor, she hobbled to the door of the kitchen that opened onto the hallway, and her heart sank as she saw the kids seated in the breakfast nook, Gregory pouring himself a cup of coffee at the counter next to the sink—and no sign of her mother-in-law.

The Gregory from upstairs was gone, and in his place was a falsely cheerful Stepford husband. “Mother already left for church,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. He smiled brightly at her. “Feeling better, dear?”

Adam and Teo both looked worried, and she wondered how much they knew, how much they suspected.

Julia looked from their drawn faces to Gregory’s beaming visage, and she forced herself to nod. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m feeling better.”